EngL1401W - Spring 2007: Introduction to "Third World" Literature

You can read more about the film on its website www.lifeanddebt.org or by reading an interview with Stephanie Black on BuzzFlash or by looking through a section about the film on PBS.Org.

• What "argument" is Stephanie Black making in Life and Debt? What, if anything, is she trying to persuade you of?
• How does she go about building her argument? What are her most successful tools? Her least successful tools?
• What do you feel you learned from the movie, if anything?
• Did this movie affect your attitude toward tourism? More or less than A Small Place? Did it affect your attitude toward agricultural policies, the IMF, the World Bank?
• Why does Stephanie Black show us a Jamaican watching news footage instead of just showing the news footage? What effect does that create?
• Why does she choose to spend so much time showing the riots?
• What was the role of music in the film? What about the Rastafarians?
• That's enough from me; your questions and comments?

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How might you approach a literary-analysis paper about La Petite Vendeuse, or comparing it to another text? What about A Small Place?

Some questions that might lead in the direction of a paper:

• How is the second-person character, you, created in A Small Place? What is that character like? Why, and what are the effects on the "real" you, the reader?
  
• What do you make of the story of the hare in The Little Girl Who Sold the Sun? Why that the "youngest is the cleverest"? What place does this story-telling have in the arc of the film?

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PAGES 1-23

• What is your reaction to Kincaid's voice in the first section? Why do you think you reacted that way?
  

• Why does Kincaid use such long sentences and paragraphs (and parenthetical expressions)? What is their effect?

• Why "can't she get beyond all that"?

• What do you make of the cover of the book?

• Does Kincaid seem to be saying that people should never leave their home countries? This has been described as an "antitravel" memoir. Is Kincaid against all travel, or a certain sort of tourism?
  

• What do you think of the "sackcloth and ashes"? How badly should the English feel about colonialism, about slavery? Should they make reparations? Should they wear hair shirts and beat their breasts? Should we? I am not quite serious about the hair shirts (nor do I think Kincaid was entirely serious about sackcloth), but I do mean this as a serious question.

• What do you think about Kincaid's comments on page 41? About Johnson's article? Were Antigua, African nations, Latin America, Asia "better off under colonialism"? Is "recolonization" the way to go?

• To what extent are Kincaid's comments about "the kids in Antigua today" what you could hear out of most anyone once they've reached a certain age? To what extent are they different?

• How do you think Kincaid would read Ngugi wa Thiong'o? What does she mean when she says, "For isn't it odd that the only language I have in which to speak of this crime is the language of the criminal who committed the crime" (31).

• What do you make of her condescending remarks about Antiguans on pp. 52-53? Is this a legitimate expression of her disappointment? Or is it caricature?

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Most of the questions on The Little Girl are cribbed from Newsreel.

• Some viewers find that The Little Girl Who Sold the Sun has an abrupt ending. Why do the vendors scatter as Sili Laam (the little girl) and Babou Seck (her helpful friend) approach and we only hear their footsteps? What is the meaning of Sili's final words in the film, "We continue"?

• Consider the opening scene. A woman is arrested in the marketplace. The market people surround her, watch her humiliation, but do nothing to assist her. Might there be a parallel between the market people as spectators, and us--movie viewers--as spectators?

• The woman protests that she is "not a thief." She says that the country is crazy and that she is a displaced princess. Senegal is her land by right and, yet, she has been rendered a beggar in it. Is she crazy or speaking a truth?

• Why has Mambety picked as the heroine of this film, a child, a female, a member of a despised social caste (Laam is often the name of those who handle animal skins - outcasts in many cultures) and a paraplegic?

• In La Petite Vendeuse de Soleil, the newspaper vendors cluster around a ferry dock marked "Goree." Goree Island was one of the most famous "slave castles" in West Africa from where enslaved peoples were deported to the Americas. What is its significance here?

• Why does Mambety create this film in an almost "fairy tale" style? What effects does it have on you as a viewer? How does reading the article change the effects of the film?

• What might the director, Mambety, mean when he refers to the "gravity of innocence"? What is the role of "innocence" in the film? For that matter, what is "innocence"?
  

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Download Sacco File #1
Download Sacco File #2

• Has his strategy changed at all from Palestine? Do you find any differences between the two works, in visual style or presentation of the text?
• Do you think this is a good (relevant, interesting, evocative) way to learn about current events? Why or why not?
• What are your thoughts, questions?

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• How would you describe Sacco's artistic style? What is its most striking feature? How does it differ from Satrapi's? In what ways is it similar to Satrapi's?
• Choose a page in the book and carefully examine Sacco's visual strategies on that page. How does he combine words and pictures in effective ways? Be specific.
• How does Sacco present himself? What might he be suggesting about the role of the journalist?
• How would you describe the tone of this book? Cite specific pages and/or panels as examples.
• If you could ask Joe Sacco any questions, what would they be?

These questions were more or less stolen/borrowed from the National Association of Comic Arts Educators You can see more questions on their website.

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• Why do you think that a figure such as Lord Cromer believed that the veil was "the fatal obstacle" standing in the way of Egyptian men's "attainment of that elevation of thought and character which should accompany the introduction of Western civilization"?

• Is this related or not related to figures like Britain's Jack Straw (leader of the House of Commons) not allowing veils in his office, requesting that they be removed in meetings? BBC Story What about Prime Minister Tony Blair's statement that veils are a "mark of separation" which make "people from outside the community feel uncomfortable."

• Apparently, in Britain, Straw's comments have led to an uptick in veil sales. Why do you think this is?

• Can you draw any connections between this article and Battle of Algiers?

• What does Leila Ahmed mean when she talks about the veil's "master narratives" and how the meaning of the veil has been defined in our time? Can you put this into your own words?

• Other questions, comments, thoughts...
  

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What suggestions do you have for Persepolis paper topics that could sustain a literary analysis paper? Do you have an idea you want others to comment on?

• What does it mean that Satrapi learns about communism from a comic book, and we learn her story from a comic book? What might this say about the simplification of her ideas, and what’s missing from Persepolis?

• How does Satrapi use "typing" in how she creates faces? Can you point to a particular frame where people are "typed" (or, in Luke's words, stereotyped)? To what end? What effect does this create?

• What are the blind spots of a child narrator? In what way is this an effective or ineffective tool in this story? Is it "too persuasive"?

• Your ideas below...
  

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• Why has Satrapi chosen to emphasize her childhood? How does it shape the narrative, that it's told by a young (Westernized, upper-middle-class) girl, to a Western audience?

• Why, when she's explicitly trying to get away from the conception of Iranians as "fundamentalists," does she begin with religion?

• How are class and class differences portrayed in Persepolis? Is Persepolis primarily a middle-class story, or do you think it captures something about the larger Iran? To what extent?

• Does Persepolis distinguish between "good revolutionaries" and "bad revolutionaries"? How?

• What do you make of the protests where Satrapi boils down everything to, "The Veil" or "Freedom"? Do you think this is a fair boiling-down of the debate? How are the women drawn on each side? What impression does it leave you with?

• What are your questions, reactions, feelings?
  

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PARTS I-IV
• Why so much history about Bono and Crook before we get to Douloti? The narrator says, "So many things came up as I tried to tell you how Ganori Nagesia became Crook Nagesia. These things must be said. In the world of Seora village, Bono is just as true as Ganori." Why must these things be said? Who is this narrator? What kind of person is telling us this story?

• What do you make of the more "technical" features of the text? Why does she run some dialogue together (and not use quotes)? Why does she use line breaks, like poetry, in some places, such as 49-50? Why so many short sentences? Do you have any advice for your peers about reading a story like this?

• Why does Spivak translate the word for upper-caste men as "god"? Some translators shy away from this. Why does Spivak embrace it? What effect does it have?

  PARTS V-VII

• Why does Mahasweta Devi construct the story so we continuously hope some man will come take care of Douloti? Did you believe that good things were on the horizon for Douloti? Until what point?

• "Douloti understood some and didn't understand some" (91). This happens throughout, that she understands only parts of conversations, only part of what is going on around her. Is our understanding (or lack thereof) supposed to imitate Douloti's?

• At the bottom of 81, Singhi (Douloti's then-john) calls Douloti "a good girl." "Whores do this work for the lust of money. You never lust after money." Then, nearly at the end, "Douloti smiled in a timid way like any other country woman" (92). Even when she's being condemned to death, she smiled politely and timidly. Is Devi telling us something here? What?

• Was there a way out for Douloti? Why didn't she take it? (What does it have to do with the internalized-gender-roles-confused-as-ethical-choice Spivak refers to in the introduction?)

• Why does it end with Douloti "all over India"? She is in the schoolyard of Mohan Srivastava, the one-time ally of her uncle Bono, but now returned to the school. (He's the one who beleives so deeply in police, government, education.) Why does she die on Srivastava's map? Why on the date of India's independence? (Independence here ironic?)

• Other things you notice, questions about what's going on, etc.?
  

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• Why is Spivak arguing against the demonization of the U.S.? What does that have to do with the idea that, "East is East and West is West"?

• Has Spivak changed her mind? Does she seem to be saying, now, that the subaltern can be heard? Under what circumstances?

• Very relevant to the story: What does Spivak mean when she says "internalized gender perceived as ethical choice is the hardest roadblock for women the world over"? Presumably this is the "choice" to be sweet, innocent, and virtuous that's noted on the previous page. If you're female, do you think this is a roadblock for you?

• Other questions, comments about her introduction?
  

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No need to completely shy away from "like" and "dislike," but don't make your post about that. Some possible questions:

• What role does laughter play in the film? The characters' laughter, the viewer's laughter, Tahimik's strange faces, etc. To what purpose or end does Tahimik employ humor?

• Why does the American speak so oddly?

• Why does Tahimik focus so much on individual sounds and images? What is the effect?

• What's the deal with the unsteadiness of the camera at certain points?

• What is the main social or political question of the film, if there is one? Why does he repeat "progress" so much? What does that word mean in the context of the film? What happens at the end?

• What is the relationship between Filipino and American that's being sketched out here? What is the significance of the chewing gum?

• Have questions about the film? Ask!
  

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Do you have a tentative thesis statement you might use in the second literary analysis paper? A question, area of inquiry? Post your own + comment on others.

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• Who is speaking here? What is happening? Who is acting? What new “character” has come on the scene?

• Barton’s question at the end of Foe, "who must dive into the wreck?" alludes to Adrienne Rich’s poem "Diving into the Wreck." What connections do you see between the last section of the book and Rich’s poem?

• What is the end telling us about Friday? Do we know any more about Friday now than we did previously?

• "This is a place where bodies are their own signs." What does this mean?

• One critic has said: “I read Friday and Lucy [from another of Coetzee’s books, Disgrace,] as rhetorical constructions that require the reader to develop what one could call, after William Wordsworth, a strong imagination.” Is Coetzee teaching us--the powerful--to listen?

• How does this relate to Coetzee’s “real life” position as a white, male South African author?
  

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• What do you make of the relationship between Susan and Friday? Are they allies? Are they both equally “oppressed,” or is there a difference? Why?
  • What do you make of Susan’s maybe-daughter, maybe-not-daughter, who seems to come from another of Defoe’s books, Roxana? What might it mean about who is controlling the story? At some point, does Susan Barton seem to lose her grip as the keeper of this story? Her grip on her sanity and/or her personhood?

  • What do you think of following: "In every story there is a silence" (141).

  • What happens between Susan Barton and the author, Foe? What do you make of their relationship?

  • Feel free to approach these or any other questions.
    

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