Achebe and his tactful talent for irony was last weeks theme. Achebe uses irony to express his feelings about colonialism and show its effect on the conlinized. In "Girls at war" Achebe tells the story of an african Gladys and Nwankwo an egotistical high goverment official. The irony of the story is in the death of Gladys, the oppressed and the survival of Nwankwo, the oppressor. This story illistrates an ever prevelent truth in countries around the world; the evil survives while the good quickly dies out. This is true of human nature espcially in todays world where evil is praised. On every primetime TV show there is always one extreme antogonist. this antogonist is quickly glorified for they are the person everyone loves to hate. On the current season of Celebrity Apprentic Nee Nee, from the "Real house Wives of Atalanta", is the oppresive bully trying to bring people down as she climbs her way to the top. Her disaterous behavoir keeps the audience on their toes and pulls in top ratings. This ever repating cycle causes an oppresive cycle because the bad behavior is rewared. The Mother Coutries reap the benifits and praise of their oppessive behavoir, thus crating the never ending cycle of colonism.
Achebe also comments on the colonial mindset of colonialism. The Madman illistrats the effect of how outside critisism can warp and reverse the mindset of a a completely acceptable person. the sane Nwibe is taunted by a madman, causing those who saw Nwibe to bleive he had gone mad. this public perception of himself caused Nwibe to go insane. Acheberelated this story to his belief that colonicalism is a mindset. If you tell soemone that he is crazy so many time, he will eventually become crazy. If the mother countries continaully tell and treat the african natives that they are inferrior and uncivil, the colonized countries will begin to believe it.
In America a "I must be skinny to be beautiful" train of thought is prevelant in the media, leading people to eating disorders such as aneraxia and balemia. Typically young girls starve or purge themselves of food so that they can be as beauiful and thin as Gisel Bunchen. They inflate their bodies with silicon and other plastics in order to get the perfect set of boobs, legs, butt and stomachs. They try to turn themselves into Malibu Barbie to what benefit to themselves? All because of a culture that promote a mindset of outside artificial beauty, instead of finding the beauty within. This is a colonized mindset that repeats the cycle every generation destroying lives and creating tension. Somethings gotta give!!!!
Ah, but what is that thing that's gotta give? Who will wake up? Once you have woken up, as perhaps you have, how do you wake other people up? Generally, when you wake people up, they are a little cranky about it. It will be interesting for you to pursue this idea as you discuss Nadine Gordimer's story "Amnesty."
ReplyDeleteIn your blogs you have great ideas, but the little proof-reading errors interfere with the effective communication. Many of these little errors can be fixed in Microsoft Word. Try this: compose your posting in Word, do spell check and grammar check, and then paste your posting into the message box of the blog. That should take care of a lot.