Literary Context Flashcards
(9 cards)
Identify 5 quotes from “On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous” by Ocean Vuong for AO3 and explain it
1) ‘“Do i look like a real American” you said’- Little Dog’s mom asking him if she looks like a real american – assimilation
2”That morning,like all mornings,no one sat next to me”(on the school bus)- illustrates the isolation of immigrants
3)”But he only laughed, his hand over his mouth at first,then louder,booming.”– shop attendant laughing at his mother for acting out her food: shows the difficulties of a language barrier
4)”The Vietnamese i own is the one you gave me, the one whose diction and syntax reach only second-grade level.”- Shows intergenerational tension as little Dog is not as tired to his cultural origins
5).”I took off our language and wore my English,so that others would see my face, and therefore yours.” - shows how little Dog adopts English in order to accustom his family
Identify 8 quotes from “The Lonely Londoners” by Sam Selvon and explain them
1)He take out a white handkerchief and blow his nose. The handkerchief turn black - links to Small Island “even I get a shock: her white glove to black
2)”in that big station he had a feeling of homesickness that he never felt in the nine-ten years he in this country” - links to Gilbert who also misses home
3)”we can’t get no place to live and we only getting the worse jobs” - disillusionment of the immigrants coming to England and also links to Gilbert who became a driver
4)”to them you will be just another one of them black Jamaicans thinking the streets paved with gold” - links to when Gilbert told celia and hortense that “pavements with a blanket of gold”
5)”for this city powerfully lonely when you on your own.”
6)”the english people will say we are still uncivilised and don’t know how to behave properly”
7)”i want to go back to Trinidad and lay down in the sun and dig my toes”
8)”you will see mark in the top in red ink. J-A col. That mean you from Jamaica and you black. So that put the clerks in the know right away “…“cause a lot of trouble when fellars went saying that they come from the labour office and the people send them away saying it aint have no vacancy”
Identify 7 quotes from “Girl Woman Other” by Bernadine Evaristo
1)“They liked her lighter skin and looser hair. - Amma’s mixed-raced mother
2).” showing off her pretty (thank-god-they’re-not-too-thick) lips.”- Carole at uni
3). “She counted on one hand the number of brown-skinned people in her college, and none as dark as her”
4) “Carole amended herself to become not quite them, just a little more like them”
5)”she would return to her real culture and even eat with her hands again instead of side glancing at her mama for doing so, as if she was a savage”- Bummi hoped her daughter Carole would be the same after graduation
6)”her daughter would soon belong completely to them”
7)Amma recounts to her daughter Yazz the experience of muslims following 9/11 ‘They had begun to be viewed with blatant hostility’
Identify 4 quotes from “Lucy” by Jamaica Kincaid and explain them
1)”It was not the sort of bright-sun yellow…that i was used to, but a pale yellow sun…that was nice and made me miss my home less” - importance for weather for immigrants( she traveled from West Indies to live in US)
2)”A person would leave a not very nice situation and go somewhere…a lot better, and then long to go back where it was not very nice
3)”I wanted to be back where i came from”
4) “dreamt I was eating a bowl of pink mullet and green figs cooked in coconut milk”- caribbean sea food dish – shows the importance of food
Identify quotes from Sour Sweet by Timothy Mo?
1) ‘Chen felt at home and yet not at home. He had never been more comfortable rootless.’
2) Chen refers to England as a ‘land of promise’
Identify quotes from White Teeth by Zadie Smith
1)I have been corrupted by England’; ‘people call it assimilation when it is nothing but corruption. Corruption!’- character Samad
2)‘only the immigrants can speak the queen’s english these days’
Identify quotes from Behold the Dreamers by Imbolo Mbue
1)“proud towers of Manhattan.” (Jende is amazed by the “open space” in his office,)
2)Jende wears a “clip-on tie” and makes sure there’s no “fried plantain” in his teeth
Identify quotes from Home Fire
1)“do you consider yourself British?” -Isma is asked in the interrogation room
Namesake
1) Ashima brings a magazine and it feels like home to her
