"This is Not Just a Book it's literature, it's art"

Today in class we discussed the book Invisible Man and the many events within the book. We came to realize that “ the book is hard to follow and it is very challenging trying to decipher all the events and their symbols”. We discussed the many cultural reference in the book which are done in a dream like state. We spoke in great depth about Mr.Norton visiting Jim Trueblood’s house and the connotations behind the visit, along with the notion of this “animal experiment on blacks”. We see that Mr.Norton is this affluent white man who is in support of social justice and equality for all. It is implied that Jim Trueblood is only kept around because he is the only man in town who has done something like this to his daughter. Having discovered this, Mr.Norton also wants to question Mr.Trueblood and see what really happened. Because of all this questioning we see possibly there is this "experiment" going on with all the African Americans.

Continuing on from the cultural reference we analyzed the message and purpose behind the statue that is at Tuskegee University. While discussing the significance and purpose behind the statue the question we grappled with the most was “ What is the veil of ignorance?”.

While getting past the notion of the veil of ignorance, along with cultural references to African Americans we spoke much about the influence that the South Baptist Church has on this book. We highlighted page 113 in the book as major example of the Southern Baptist Church influence. While in class Mr.Neal showed us what a Baptist sermon might sound like through Nikki Giovanni’s interpretation of “The Creation”.

And the next scribe is..... Imo. :)

Symbolism and Elephants

Today’s class was mainly about symbols and persona. The class decided that the definition of persona was “The way the author wishes to be viewed for the purposes of the story”. In Shooting an Elephant, George Orwell’s persona was purposely negative. He is racist, low in power, and would do anything for attention. This is partly because he wants the reader to believe him. It takes a while for anyone to tell you about their flaws. The elephant that he shoots is a symbol. It could be of many things, power, fears, himself. The symbol that seems most likely is Imperialism. Saying that Imperialism is as ludicrous as shooting an elephant. The persona was an imperialist who was helping control a country, and it is a reoccurring theme that Imperialism was a flawed system.

And the next Scribe is Slaw.

Why Do I Shoot Elephants?

In class, we discussed our reading for homework: "Why I Shot an Elephant" by George Orwell. We talked about why exactly our feeling were from the text.

The (true) story, in a nut shell, describes how a man working for the British police in Burma is "forced"/pressured into killing an elephant that was loose in the village.

I quickly related it to last years reading of "The Lottery" and the idea behind mob mentality. There is this idea of peer pressure because the minute the towns people see him with a gun, they want to see if he will commit to murdering the defenseless animal. He is influenced by the group surrounding him and acts accordingly.

There are also points in which the author seems detached from the piece. He is looking from an above perspective. The author also seems to have a good moral conscious and could be using this text as a way to justify his actions.

A very interesting point was made in the class: In the beginning, the elephant was viewed as the "evil" or "bad" thing while the villagers were the "innocent" ones. By the end of the story, the roles are reversed since the elephant has calmed down while the villagers are now riled up, hoping to see the elephant shot. This shows a sense of irony in the end.

The most important thing we discussed in class was what persona the author was trying to portray. The author makes this "I" a very bigoted, weak character that has a parochial view on life that is done for a specific reason.The author himself is a very political writer: He wrote both "Animal Farm" and "1984". Why did he make such a dislike-able character? Why did he chose to show such a bad side of himself? We were not able to go into much dept in class--In fact, class was over. But it will be continued in tomorrows class.