Monday, March 14, 2011

No Saco Nada De La Escuela

I believe Luis Valdez named this play “No Saco Nada De La Escuela” because the characters never really learn anything but how to be prejudice and racist. There are absolutely no history lessons or in any lessons. The students are passed based on whether they know the acronyms to the "ABC's". I felt like they were not there to learn scholastically but to learn that "whites are always on top". Meaning they are not obtaining anything useful from school they are learning how to be stepped on and how to stay in the role society has assigned to them.

Wednesday, March 9, 2011

Intellect and Strength In Ti-Jean and His Brothers

I believe the role of intellect and strength is to show that they cannot stand on its own. What I mean is that you have nothing if you are book smart and have no common sense and the same with strength. Intellect also represent the quality that the white man is known for, and Ti-Jean being killed by the Devil because he didn't pay attention to the things his book convinced him were rubbish shows that intellect alone is nothing. I also felt he thought he was too smart to talk to animals which prevented him from receiving the proper advice. Gros-Jean felt that he was much stronger and the animals were so insignificant that he also treated them disrespectfully, missing their valuable advice. Which proves that intellect and strength in the wrong hands and on their own is useless.

Tuesday, March 8, 2011

Ti_Jean and His Brothers

In Ti-Jean and his brothers we see the Devil in several forms we meet the devil himself, the planter, Bolom and the old man. The devil asks the brothers to almost overcome their imperfections. For example Gros-Jean is very cocky about his strength and gets angry rather quickly so the Devil disguised as the old man gives him the advice to be patient and he fails when he gets aggravated with all the work he is doing for the planter which is another of the devils disguises . I believe he feels he is smart because he asks them to perfect a quality about them he feels they will not be able to fix and Ti-Jean and Gros-Jean fail at the tasks. Ti-Jean the youngest of the brothers manages to get him “vexed” and ends up defeating him forcing the Devil to give Ti-Jean what he wanted. The Devil seems to be very arrogant because he thinks he can defeat the three brothers by knowing their weaknesses and using i9t against them.

Wednesday, March 2, 2011

The Qing Ding Pearl

The Qing Ding Pearl is very different from the other plays we have read thus far. This play is our first Chinese play and it is very short. The play is much older and a lot more traditional than the other plays. The author uses a lot of metaphoric language for example Li Chun states in the beginning of Scene 1 “I’ve fought fierce tigers on the southern mountains.” 573. This play is also much older than the other plays we have read. It goes back to the Sung dynasty. Also the white pearl is symbolic fo purity and is consider to be lucky and almost magical amongst some of the characters.

Thursday, February 24, 2011

Apartheid in Master Harold and the Boys

Apartheid is a clear way of segregating whites and colored people. In Master Harold and the Boys we see an example of Apartheid in the last part when Sam reminds Hally of the kite flying they did when he was younger. Sam made the kite for Hally and took him up on a bench on a hill to watch it fly he was not able to sit with Hally because the bench was "Whites only" meaning people of color where not allowed to sit in them. I also believe that Harold demanding Sam call him Master Harold is an example of apartheid because he was attempting to degrade him because he was black.

Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Master Harold and the Boyz

In Master Harold and the Boys I noticed that Master Harold, Sam and Willies relationship was almost lie a friendship even though Sam and Willie were employed by Harold's mom. They were sitting remembering the old "good" times. I also noticed that every time Harold was in a bad mood he would get aggravated and take it out on the boys. Harold decided he would do a homework assignment on a dance competition Sam and Willie participate in, but after receiving a phone call from his mother stating that his father who is a drunk and very sick would be returning home after he told her to do her best to keep him there he became extremely upset crumbling the paper and throwing it at Sam. I feel the way Harold treats the boys is not fair because it is not persistent. I feel if he is going to treat them as employees he should strictly do that. He should also realize that it is not there fault when bad things happen to him.

Thursday, February 17, 2011

Did Gertrude participate in the murder of the her husband?

I think Gertrude might have had something to do with the murder of her late husband because the Ghost revealed to Hamlet that his brother who is know king poisoned him, he asked Hamlet doesn't seek revenge against his mother because she will be haunted by her guilt and punished after death. This passage can be found in Act 1 Scene 5 page 163 line 32.