Final Exam - Cumulative Flashcards
Girls at War
Setting: Nigeria’s civil war
General Plot: During a war, Reginald Nwankwo runs into a woman three times. The first time he gave her a ride. The second time he was searched by her. The third, she was given the name “beauty queen” and she was dressed fashionably and was wearing a wig and makeup. They slept together. During their time together there were multiple air raids, some false alarms. In the end, they are in a car together with an injured soldier boy. They are hit by an air raid and in her attempt to save the soldier boy, the woman dies.
Surface Textures
Setting:
Plot: A poor family struggles to get by. As the title explains, the entire story focuses on surface textures. The mother buys a plain and boring melon from the market, and knows that her family will be disappointed with it. The father later focuses on the surface texture of the pages of a book. The father loses his job and the wife is terrified, knowing they do not have enough money to support themselves and their children. For the first week, their neighbors fed them. There was also a focus on the wife’s silver “kum-kum” box. Eventually the wife moved herself and the children to her parent’s house, which she was ashamed of. The husband left and stayed under a tree for some time, spotted by children, then moved out to the wilderness. A tribe of some sort
Surface Textures
Setting:
Plot: A poor family struggles to get by. As the title explains, the entire story focuses on surface textures. The mother buys a plain and boring melon from the market, and knows that her family will be disappointed with it. The father later focuses on the surface texture of the pages of a book. The father loses his job and the wife is terrified, knowing they do not have enough money to support themselves and their children. For the first week, their neighbors fed them. There was also a focus on the wife’s silver “kum-kum” box. Eventually the wife moved herself and the children to her parent’s house, which she was ashamed of. The husband left and stayed under a tree for some time, spotted by children, then moved out to the wilderness. A tribe of some sort found him and worshipped his silence.
Surface Textures
Setting: India
Plot: A poor family struggles to get by. As the title explains, the entire story focuses on surface textures. The mother buys a plain and boring melon from the market, and knows that her family will be disappointed with it. The father later focuses on the surface texture of the pages of a book. The father loses his job and the wife is terrified, knowing they do not have enough money to support themselves and their children. For the first week, their neighbors fed them. There was also a focus on the wife’s silver “kum-kum” box. Eventually the wife moved herself and the children to her parent’s house, which she was ashamed of. The husband left and stayed under a tree for some time, spotted by children, then moved out to the wilderness. A tribe of some sort found him and worshipped his silence.
A Matter of Taste
Setting: South Africa
Plot: Three man share a meal along a train track in a remote area in South Africa. One is white and the other two colored. They chat about food and their impoverished lot. The bond of poverty is shown between these 3 people despite the racism found in their location. At the end of the story , the white character hops a freight train heading for Cape Town, from where he hopes to migrate to the US. The colored characters are aware that no such opportunity is available to them but they seem to wish him well.
The Collector of Treasures
Setting: Africa
Plot: The beginning of the story starts at a women’s prison, in which it is common for these women to have killed their husbands. The story then goes back to show how Dikeledi came to kill her husband. When his pay quadrupled, he left her and their 3 children to sleep with other women. Because of this, people were hesitant to be her friend, for fear of being called on by her. However, she supported herself and her family well. When neighbors moved in, she found good friends and good work in them. She helped them build heir mud huts. When those were built, she made clothing for the family. She was paid in household goods, as she refused to take currency. Dikeledi’s oldest son does very well in school and she doesn’t quite have enough money to send him to secondary school so she asks for assistance from her husband who abandoned her many years ago. He refuses, and is quite frankly an asshole about it, announcing that he’ll pay for his concubine’s children’s secondary education instead. He accuses her friend’s husband, Paul, of sleeping with her, which is not true. When he comes to be taken care of at Dikeledi’s home, she plays along. Once he falls asleep, she cuts off his genitals with a knife. She tells her son to call the police. Paul promises to take care of her children.
Letter from Brooklyn
This is a poem. An old woman’s recollection of the speaker’s deceased father moves him to tears but also rekindles his faith and strengthens him. The speaker first recalls the old lady from his past and then reads the letter that the old lady has sent him. She fondly recalls his father. He is “doing greater work” now.
Ruins of a Great House
Poem
Setting: Caribbean
Plot: The narrator speaks of a house, likely from a plantation, that has broken down but holds terrible memories. It is a poignant look at the colonial past of the Caribbean and the speaker’s feeling of rate at the injustice done to slaves in this period. A popular quote
“And when a wind shook in the limes I heard
What Kipling heard; the death of a great empire, the abuse
Of ignorance by Bible and by sword.”
Hindus
Read!!!**
Turning Christian
Setting: Trinidad,
Plot: Changoo - the husband and father. Kayshee - the wife and mother. Raman - the son. An Indian family that is poor. Changoo’s brother lives in town and knows that by “turning christian”, the boy, Raman, will have a better life. He invites Raman to come and live with him, to take care of him, and to send him to the christian, missionary school. Gopaul is Changoo’s best friend, a strict Hindu, against Changoo sending his son to become a Christian. Their friendship is weakened due to Changoo’s decision.
Turning Christian
Setting: Trinidad,
Plot: Changoo - the husband and father. Kayshee - the wife and mother. Raman - the son. An Indian family that is poor. Changoo’s brother lives in town and knows that by “turning christian”, the boy, Raman, will have a better life. He invites Raman to come and live with him, to take care of him, and to send him to the christian, missionary school. Gopaul is Changoo’s best friend, a strict Hindu, against Changoo sending his son to become a Christian. Their friendship is weakened due to Changoo’s decision.
The story then changes to being narrated by Norbert, a police in the town that Changoo and Raman are traveling to. If locals spotted Indians looking out of place, they called Norbert. After growing up in slavery, he had a fear that if the new laborers became rebellious, he and his friends might be called upon to return to the fields. He had a romantic interest in Tanty, who gave him sweets. The men in the town played an illegal game, wapee, but Norbert let it slide. Norbert sees Changoo and Raman, makes a scene, but eventually lets them go, after they present their papers and then offer religion as an excuse, and the women he knows offer their thoughts publicly, as well.
A Habit of Waste
This story combines elements of science fiction and post-colonialism to produce a story that raises some important social and ethical issues about racial relationship. The black protagonist - Cynthia - changes to a different, white body. Her family is very upset for quite a while, but she is insistent upon leaving behind her heritage and her family’s culture. She worked at a place at which they distributed rations of food to the people. Mr. Morris often comes, but doesn’t like the food that is rationed to him. One day, Cynthia is asked to fill in for a lady at work who regularly checks on Mr. Morris. Though Cynthia is salty about it, she goes and brings Mr. Morris his rations. He invites and convinces her to stay for Thanksgiving dinner. She does, and he surprises her with a beautiful thanksgiving spread, created from things he’s taken from around town (like kale outside of the bank). After hearing more about his life, his struggles, losing his wife, Cynthia leaves with a different outlook on her own life. She is attacked while getting into her car, but Mr. Morris had been watching, and with his slingshot, he hit the man so Cynthia could get away. She left and surprised her family by eating the food prepared for her and speaking far more positively than before.
Charlie
Charlie, a Native American, finds himself in a boarding school, in which he is required to be due to the Canadian government’s law. In an attempt to assimilate the natives with “Canadian culture”, native americans are required to send their children to these schools where they are taught to speak, eat, and act like the white men. Charlie’s father feels guilty because he has seen what this does to the boys that return after their “education”. They are rendered useless in the community and a burden to their family. They do not grow up learning the necessary skills for survival and for providing for a family, so the father feels guilty. Charlie runs away one night with some of the other boys. It’s mid-winter and there is plenty of snow on the ground. They soon make it to one of the boy’s uncle’s house, and they stay for a while. When the older boys and the uncle leave to go hunting, Charlie must stay behind because he is younger and does not have a proper coat. He is homesick for his own family and his own home so he sets out to go and find them. He does not take into account, however, how far his home is. He ends up dying of frost bite.
The Coffee Cart Girl
Setting: South Africa
Plot: Pinkie is a young girl who runs a coffee cart. One day, on the chaotic streets, a man named China helps her out. He begins to meet her daily at her coffee cart and they form a relationship and are clearly romantically interested in one another, but too afraid to every make it go any further. One day, China takes Pinkie to a shop and lets her pick anything she wants. She gets things like a brooch, a hair pin, and a pair of bangles. He gets a knife on a decorative chain. Pinkie later gets to know the man at the store and he gives her a ring, making China angry. He barges into Pinkie’s cart and threatens to kill her. He chooses not to when she doesn’t fight back. He never sees her again at the cart, though he expects to.
Port Sudan
This is a poem.
This poem records the speaker’s return to what was once her home. Within the poem there is an obvious connection between language and identity/culture. Quote: “Someone cried: Kefhalek! My skirt spun in the wind and Arabic came into my mouth and rested alongside all my other languages.”
The narrator has been called back to her home by her dying father who doesn’t wish to die, but does wish to see his daughter.
