Term
| Armless Bride stories: sig of incompleteness? sig of 2nd separation? |
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Definition
- Physical incompleteness=still a girl, incomplete
- moves to physical completeness=> becomes a woman
- A girl does not move to completion when she gets married and has a child, but only when she becomes a complete adult/human being |
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Term
| The Two Hammadis: role of mirroring (H1 and H2, snake and ordeal with brother's wife); theme; embedded image and sig |
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Definition
- Mirroring: H2 is a fantasy mirror of H1; they are identical twins, with the same name; H2 preps for his twin to make the same journey
- H2 and the snake are the same: takes on the positive power of the snake-> provides water for the people
- H2's struggle with the snake is a fantasy mirro of H1's real ordeal.struggle with his brother's wife (not wanting to sleep with her)
-theme: one must not interfere with the marriage covenant
- embedded image = shoe left behind by H2 when he kills the snake (IDENTITY) |
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Term
| Romance of the Fox: what is the puberty rite of passage of the boy? (Separation, Ordeal, Reincorporation) |
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Definition
| - Separation: leaves home - Ordeal: impossible taks, the fox's education of the boy - Reincorporation: the boy, now a man, emerges from the pit and destroys his elder brother (has severed ties with his childhood past) |
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Term
| Romance of the Fox: Good boy/ Bad boy frame |
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Definition
- contrast between the good and bad brothers
- the gay/party life vs the life of hard work |
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Term
| Romance of the Fox: Relationship between the boy and the fox |
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Definition
- fox = boy's developing wisdom
- the fox mirrors the boy's childhood/animal past
- at the end, the boy helps the fox: physical transformation (the fox's metamorphosis depends on that of the boy) |
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Term
| Romance of the Fox: role of the woman, Bird, and the horse |
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Definition
- these are the rewards of a life of hard work
- signify adulthood, that he has successfully become a man
- their reactions establish the identity of the true hero |
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Term
| Romance of the Fox: Swallowing |
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Definition
| - the pit that the elder brother throws the boy into |
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Term
| Lion-child and Cow-child: Main pattern and theme that develops from this |
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Definition
- LC and CC set things right: destroy Lion and the 8 Old Men, and depose God
- theme: Might is not right, just because you have power doesn't mean you can lord it over others |
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Term
| Lion-child and Cow-child: 2 embedded images |
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Definition
| entrails of Cow and Beer leaves |
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Term
| Lion-child and Cow-child: right of passage progression, when do LC and CC become severed from their childhood past |
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Definition
- move into humanity: animal state -> human state
- LC is severed from his childhood past when he brings CC back to life
- CC is severed from his childhood past when the dogs eat his mother's entrails (his umbilical cord) |
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Term
| Lion-child and Cow-child: sig of prologue? |
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Definition
- Lion tries to make friends with humans, to no avail
- establishes animal-human polarity |
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Term
| Mrile: what is the mythic element? |
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Definition
| Mrile's fantastic journey takes him into the heavens |
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Term
| Mrile: Role of Mrile's mother |
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Definition
- dualistic: both life-giver and death-dealer
- irony: the mother attempts to sustain Mrile, but destroys him by feeding him the bull's meat (forbidden meat) |
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Term
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Definition
- during the ordeal stage: meeting people who show him the way to GOd when he learns to do some type of work (life-sustaining chores of his people)
- he is learning the agricultural work of his people
-once he masters these tasks (puberty rite of passage), he will touch God |
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Term
| Mrile: what does the bull symbolize? |
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Definition
| Mrile's relationship with God, the solemn pact made between them |
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Term
| Mrile: Why are the birds sig? |
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Definition
- cannot understand human speech
- reveal that we are no longer in the golden age, we're well into the contemporary age |
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Term
| Mrile: promise of hope vs the realist and sadness |
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Definition
- Promise of hope: perfection, ideal, ritual seeks to duplicate that ideal
- Reality: dualistic mother, the human condition (the reality of death), flaw of the contemporary age (death is present) |
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Term
| Mrile: Frame of the story |
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Definition
- mother who is dualistic
- beginning: kills seed child
- end: gives Mrile the forbidden flesh of the bull |
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Term
| Umxakaza-wakogingqwayo: sig of her name? |
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Definition
| "xaka"=rattling of weapons, war sounds |
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Term
| Umxakaza-wakogingqwayo: mirroring |
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Definition
| Parts 2 and 3 mirror and comment on part 1 |
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Term
| Umxakaza-wakogingqwayo: Two super patterns |
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Definition
1. Grotesqness-ugliness (Part 1: morally grotesque; Parts 2 & 3: physically grotesque)
2. Nature (in various forms) intervenes in her puberty rite of passage [1. the mountain beast 2. Thunder and Rain 3. U-W herself: once she gives of herself, self-less act] |
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Term
| Umxakaza-wakogingqwayo: what was the self-less act and sig? |
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Definition
- gives the prince's sister a gift
- becomes one with nature
- moves from being a girl who is wrapped up in herself to a woman who gives something of herself to someone else |
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Term
| Ma'aruf the Cobbler and his Wife: Major Patterns (6) |
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Definition
1. Fatimah complains that Ma'aruf has beaten her
2. Ma'aruf, a trickster, pretends to be a merchant, and borrows much money from the merchants and the king
3. The minister's suspicions and his jealousy of Ma'aruf
4. Truth: Ma'aruf tells Dunya the truth
5. Ring of Gold and the jinni and much wealth
6. Wives: Fatiman (negative) and Dunya (positive) |
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Term
| Ma'aruf the Cobbler and his Wife: Fantasy and Reality |
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Definition
| Ma'aruf tells a big lie, then the jinni (fantasy) makes the lie reality |
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Term
| Ma'aruf the Cobbler and his Wife: Sig of the pattern of the wives |
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Definition
- is the route taken by Ma'aruf
- Fatimah (negative) -> Dunya (positive) |
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Term
| Ma'aruf the Cobbler and his Wife: Rite of passage |
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Definition
- Separation: leaves home
- Ordeal: dealing with greed, uses trickery to survive
- Return: overcoming greed |
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Term
| Ma'aruf the Cobbler and his Wife: sig of the ring symbolism |
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Definition
| attests to Ma'aruf's honesty and goodness |
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Term
| Ma'aruf the Cobbler and his Wife: role of Fatimah (mirroring) |
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Definition
| Fatimah is a real life version of the king, minister, and merchants (villainous and greedy) |
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Term
| Thankane and Her Father: outline the 3 parts |
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Definition
Part 1: Father wishes to destroy his daughter for cutting into the milk tree [punishment does not fit the crime]
Part 2: Ogres destroy all girl children
Part 3: the hardened heart of Thankane's father devours all living beings |
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Term
| Thankane and Her Father: Mirroring |
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Definition
| Parts 2 and 3 mirror and are exaggerated fantasy comments on what the Father does in Part 1 |
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Term
| Thankane and Her Father: Two puberty rituals and what their sig is? |
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Definition
- Thankane and her daughter
- stand against the anti-social acts of Thankane's father |
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Term
| Yarima, Atafa, and the King: Theme |
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Definition
| When one has completed her puberty ritual, she must help someone else complete his: so the society is assured of continuity |
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Term
| Yarima, Atafa, and the King: What does Yarima's father represent? |
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Definition
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Term
| Yarima, Atafa, and the King: Yarima's role in Atafa's puberty ritual |
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Definition
| Atafa's transformation: back and forth: struggle as she moves into womanhood) |
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Term
| Yarima, Atafa, and the King: embedded images (2) |
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Definition
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Term
| The Two Brothers: Bata's transformations |
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Definition
- ox, Persea tree, man
- killed by his wife |
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Term
| The Two Brothers: Role of women |
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Definition
- Anpu's wife: (motif: rejected lover)
- Bata's wife: becomes his tormentor and the means to transformation; swallows Bata
- women who castrate men |
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Term
| The Two Brothers: Mythic elements (2) and sig |
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Definition
- Bata's wife is created by the gods
- when Bata becomes a man, he also becomes a pharaoh (god and man)
- emphasizes the heavenly origins of cultural tradition |
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Term
| The Pauper's Daughter: Good girl/ Bad girl pattern |
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Definition
Good Girl: defecates gold and silver
Bad girl: defecates the real thing |
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Term
| The Pauper's Daughter: puberty ritual |
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Definition
- leaving her childhood past behind
- transformation and identity |
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Term
| The Pauper's Daughter: Main initial pattern |
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Definition
everyday the pauper goes down to the ocean to fish: sells 1/2, eats other 1/2
*emphasizes his poverty |
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Term
| "The King's Twelve Sons...": Mirroring between girl and her brothers |
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Definition
- Girl's puberty rite of passage is mirrored by her brother's transformations ( boys -> doves -> men)
- fate of boys is attached to the girl |
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Term
| "The King;s Twelve Sons...": Role of the fairy (old woman) |
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Definition
- represents the past, tradition, generational continuity
- orchestrates the girl's ordeal
- attaches the fate of the boys to the girl |
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Term
| "The King;s Twelve Sons...": Rite of passage for the kingdom as well as for the girl |
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Definition
| - girl becomes the leader of her people |
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Term
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Definition
| - good girl/ bad girl story: message is in the emotional contrast |
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Term
| What is the major movement of Things Apart Fall (Things...) |
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Definition
| Okonkwo's movement-from his early life when he develops his masculine/feminine categories until the time of his death by suicide |
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Term
| Major events in Part 1, 2, and 3 |
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Definition
Part 1: Ikemefuna's death which reveals Okonkwo's dualism
Part 2: Nwoye becomes Christian and Okonkwo disowns him; his skewed vision becomes crystalized
Part 3: The unmasking of the elders and Oknonkwo's suicide |
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Term
| Structure of the novel: part 1,2,3: cyclical or linear? |
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Definition
Part 1: Cyclical
Parts 2 and 3: Linear |
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Term
| Ambiguiity of Okonkwo: positive traits |
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Definition
- successful yam farmer
- famed wrestler
- respected father and husband
- religious leader
- has earned titles |
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Term
| Ambiguiity of Okonkwo: Negative traits |
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Definition
- calls other men "women" if they do not match his vision of masculinity
- Beats wife during Week of Peace
- shoots a gun at another wife
- kills Ikemefuna though the boy calls him father
- Pursues Chielo into the hills |
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Term
| In Part 3 Okonkwo commits 2 violent acts |
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Definition
1. kills an African messenger
2. commits suicide |
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Term
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Definition
| hubris: pride, ambition, frenzied desire to be anything but what his father was |
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Term
| 2 different killings by Okonkwo |
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Definition
Ikemefuna: masculine act
unnamed boy: a feminine act |
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Term
| 2 Interpretations of Things Fall Apart |
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Definition
1: Okonkwo stood for the rituals of the people, destroyed by the whites; his death symbolizes the death of the Igbo
2: his end is an entirely personal one; there is an unbridgeable gap between his view of reality and Umuofian reality; he stands in the path of change |
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Term
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Definition
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Term
| Europeans must maintain two myths |
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Definition
1) European cultural superiority
2) African cultural inferiority |
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Term
| Turning point of Houseboy |
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Definition
| When Susan DeCazy knows that Toundi knows that she is having an affair |
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Term
| Foreshadowing in Houseboy |
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Definition
| the beating of the Africans |
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Term
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Definition
1. Alienation: the present
2. Acceptance: the past
3. Synthesis: the future |
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Term
| Central presiding motif in Houseboy and how is it tied to colonialism |
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Definition
the eternal triangle: two people in love with the same person
- tied to colonialism because Toundi as an African is easily dispensable |
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Term
| The hints at the 2nd stage of negritude in Houseboy, but he never reaches it completely (2) |
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Definition
- Toundi's last words
- seeing that the Commandant is uncircumcised, and says he won't ever be afraid of him again |
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Term
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Definition
1st exercise book: Toundi's coming of age
2nd exercise book: Toundi's fate |
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Term
| Themes in part 1 of Houseboy (3) |
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Definition
1. Black-white relations
2. Intimate relations between blacks and whites: Sophie and Magnol, the comments of Africans, Toundi's regard for Susan DeCazy
3. Violence |
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Term
| Whites attitudes towards blacks |
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Definition
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Term
| Ma-aruf: how is the theme of generational continuity shown? |
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Definition
| Ma-aruf's son kills Fatimah the Dung |
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Term
| Lion Child and Cow child: two unpatterned events |
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Definition
1) When the dogs eat CC's mother's entrails
2) When CC is killed and LC brings him back to life |
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Term
| Sig of the Tortoise story if Okonkwo's death is a personal one |
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Definition
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Term
| Who is Salvain in Houseboy? |
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Definition
| headmaster of the school: he is a white who is considered a traitor because he considers African children equal to white children |
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