Stable Meaning, the Perversion of Nature, and Discursive Communities in Alex La Guma's "The Lemon Orchard"
South African writer Alex La Guma was an active member of his country's non-white liberation movement. One of the 156 people accused in the Treason Trial of 1956, La Guma wrote his first book, A Walk in the Night and Other Stories, in 1962 (Wade 15). "The Lemon Orchard," a story which appeared in this debut work, is a gripping piece about the horror and cruelty of racism. In the story, La Guma describes in chilling detail how a black teacher (who had sought legal redress for being beaten up by his principal and church minister) is roused from his sleep and led to a lemon orchard by four white men for whipping. At the beginning
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Given that La Guma has painstakingly built up readers' expectations of the looming violence, why does he conclude his story without narrating the black teacher's beating? In addition, Nature is described as having made a paradoxical U-turn from its initial position condemning racism. Given his anti-racist stance, La Guma evidently does not support whites beating up blacks. With his depiction of Nature supporting racism, La Guma risks confusing readers and weakening the anti-racism message he is presumably trying to send, since people may actually misinterpret him and think that he sanctions racism. Why then does he choose to portray Nature as condoning, even anticipating the violence to be meted out?
Understanding the reason for the story's incompleteness and Nature's perversion will allow readers to better comprehend the story and decipher the message that La Guma is trying to send (namely, the fact that racism should be condemned). In this paper, I will argue that there is no need for La Guma to describe the beating (hence the story's incompleteness) since he has produced a stable story, and because he wants readers to imagine the approaching violence themselves. Subsequently, I will explore La Guma's depiction of Nature and show that his portrayal of Nature's perversion contributes to the story's stability by reinforcing his message that racism should be condemned.
Finally, I will look at Linda
Important has a different meaning to everyone, because everyone has different important things in their life. For some people, it is their family, or their friends, or something they love to do. For LaVaughn in Make Lemonade, by Virginia Euwer Wolff, the thing most important to her is her education. LaVaughn is a 14 year old girl who babysits for college money because her mom does not have any. Her main babysitting job in this book is for Jolly, a teen mom who is struggling to work and take care of her kids. LaVaughn goes through ups and downs with Jolly and tries to help her -- but one thing sticks with her the whole time: throughout Make Lemonade,
Living in the tall skyscrapers and smoggy air of Harlem is very different than living in a small town with barns and grassy fields. You will see how living in Harlem effects parenting, compared to the parenting in a normal neighborhood. In this essay on The Treasure of Lemon Brown by Walter Dean Myers, the differences in parenting style, discipline of grades, and activeness of fathers between Greg’s father and my father are made clear.
The version of the song “Strange Fruit,” by Cassandra Wilson is a piece of music that consists of 4 verses. I have broken these down into Verse A, Verse B. Verse A, and Verse A’. Cassandra’s voice is most certainly the melody of this version of Strange Fruit and is used in all 4 verses. The rhythm of this piece is a 4. The song opens in a high pitch “tinkling” piano, soft flute (that reminds me of the wind bowing) a soft distant sound of an electric guitar and the eerie background bass that has the feeling of darkness and fear. This drew an image of dark and chilling to me.
People often think of family as positive, loving, and with no flaws. However, there is almost a stereotype that all families love each other and there aren’t problems or challenges in a family. Sometimes families put people through challenges and some families aren’t “perfect”. In the book Make Lemonade by Virginia Euwer Wolff, Jolly has two kids and goes through challenges with her family. Most careful readers can see how Jolly has these challenges with her kids and how she is far off from the “perfect” family. She goes through many of these challenges in life and finds a way to overcome them. Jollys family shapes her identity because the challenges she faces ends up making her stronger. Jeremy and Jilly challenging her, LaVaughn helping her out, and her past family all shape her identity.
The speaker’s change in attitude and evolvement of emotions depict the enduring effects of prejudice and societal boundaries on the speaker. Unable to rise past the class system, the speaker remains on the outskirts of city limits, picking berries. Losing his enjoyment of picking berries, the speaker comes to a new realization about the cold side of reality, and consequently, when the speaker gives up his child-like view of the world and the sweetness of nature, he receives pain, the stinging thorns of
Angela McEwan-Alvarado was born in Los Angeles and has lived in many locations in the United States, as well as Mexico and Central America. She obtained her master’s degree at UC Irvine and since then has worked as an editor of educative materials and a translator. The story “Oranges” was the result of an exercise for a writer’s workshop in which the author managed to mix images and experiences accumulated throughout her life.
One of the foremost themes of the novel is the concept of belonging to a place, in particular the connection to a homeland. A disturbance in the main environment signifies as the stimulating factor for the disruption of the man’s sense of belonging. There exists an fragmented sense of existence in the old land, something that is established primarily by the ominous, malicious serpent like figures that
Gary Soto was born April 12, 1952, in Fresno, California to Mexican-American parents. His grandparents emigrated from Mexico during the Great Depression and found jobs as farm laborers. Soto grew up poor in the San Joaquin Valley and learned that hard work pays off through chores, such as moving lawns, picking grapes, painting houses, and washing cars.
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The short story “Greenleaf” by Flannery O’Connor tells of Mrs. May, an old, bitter, and selfish woman. She thinks badly of everyone around her, including her own two sons. It also compares her family to that of the Greenleaf family, who Mrs. May sees as inferior to her. O’Connor unveils the story of Mrs. May and her demise through the use of point of view, character, and symbolism. She uses the third person omniscient view to give the reader a sense of Mrs. May’s character, and the symbols of the bull, and the conflict between the bull and Mrs. May to show Mrs. May’s destruction as well as give the story a deeper meaning of God’s grace.
Therefore, most of the Stanza and the 10th line focus on introducing the reader into the problem and the perpetrators of the violence. The use of religion is not only symbolic to the inevitable suffering of the Latin Americans at the Poets country but also is ironical to the end times which marks massive violence acts against humanity. The aspect is brought to form by the last two lines which liken the treatment of the Indian bodies being killed as rotten fruits, thrown in a pile of garbage. The words rotten and garbage bring out the ugly scene of dead bodies surrounded by flies that feed on the decomposed material, an immense feeling of empathy towards the dead.
The film “Lemon Tree” directed by Israeli director Eran Riklis, based on prevent the Israel government from cutting lemon trees of Salma. In the film, Salma represent the voice of the oppressed Palestinian people. Eran Riklis demonstrate gender discrimination on individual level in two societies by showing us the struggle of Salma with Palestine traditions and Mira with her husband, and conflict between Israel and Palestine by symbolize lemon grove as a dispute of between two countries.
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