The idea of religious objects being cursed in some way is not at all a new idea in literature. There are numerous stories that deal with the theme of anicent religious artifacts that will activate a curse if they are ever removed from their rightful place. This is basically what ended up happening to the money-lender Hasim in the short story The Prophet’s Hair by Salman Rushdie. Hasim takes a piece of the prophet Muhammad’s hair that he was supposed to return and instead he brings it back to his home. It is after he has removed this hair that his behaviour changes rapidly almost as if he were possessed by the hair. This is the curse, as a punishment for not returning the hair to where it belonged he will now be forced to obsess over it until it literally consumes and destroys his entire life. His obsession with the hair ends up causing him to murder his own childern Atta his son and Huma his daughter and will drive his wife into insanity. Ironically both of them try to return the hair to its rightful place but end up being unable to do so. What the author Salman Rushdie is saying is that the “old ways” and traditions are like a cursed object. They need to stay in the past where they belong. If we try to take them away and try to bring them into our present society then we will bring with it only destruction and a curse of our own making. These traditions will kill our relationships and will drive us crazy trying to follow them because they are no longer built for our world. We need to leave the “old way” traditions behind and accept the modern world and modern society if we hope to maintain our families and our relationships.
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In the short story “The Day They Burned The Books” by Jean Rhys, the author explores the idea of what it is that shapes our identity. Throughout the story the two characters struggle with the identity of their parents versus the identity of their surroundings. Both Eddie and the unnamed female narrator are of english dissent, however they are growing up in the Caribbean which is a british colony. We see through the book both characters trying to find a place in society that will accept their whole identity. Eddie is a perfect example of someone who does not really know his own identity because he has only ever been forced into one. His father forced an English identity onto him without any thought. Even though he is part caribbean his father is determined to wipe out any chance of Eddie being able to have a native identity. After the death of his father Eddie’s mother tried to do the same in reverse and wipe out any chance of Eddie having an English identity rather than a native one. What ended up happening is Eddie and the narrator both felt was stuck between two identities neither of which really felt that they belonged to. They did not feel like they could accept a native identity since all the native children had bullied them for being too English. Likewise, when they try to interact with the other English children they are excluded because they are seen as being too native. This is a story that can be related to by the author as she too came from parents who were both white while she grew up in The West Indies. Growing up she faced the same problem of identity that the narrator and Eddie faced of not feeling like they fit into either the identity of her parents nor the identity of her surroundings. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Jean-Rhys In Heart of Darkness, one major theme is evil deeds being hidden away so that no one can speak up about them. The Belgians and those they employ such as Marlow believe that they are the “civilized” people and that the native Congolese are untamed “savages” barely better than wild animals. They base much of this on the fact that they are white and the Africans are black. It is for this reason that they believe that the horrors that they inflict are justified. There are multiple attempts to keep Marlow from getting to the main station many people who would rather he simply turned around and left. This novella shows us the inhumanity that exists when there is no one around to see it. This is a reflection of what actually happened in the Belgian Congo. King Leopold, the Belgian king who ruled the Congo conducted was we would now refer to as a “propaganda war”. He tried to keep as many people out of the Congo to avoid them seeing the atrocities that his officers were committing. He did everything he could to control any and all news that came out of the Congo. Any writers who attempted to speak out about the atrocities would be attacked by the Belgian government and silenced. Many of them were American abolitionists who were fighting to expose slavery in other places where it was practiced following the American Civil War. At first many tried writing about what was happening, however, Leopold simply slandered them in the press saying that they were lying. It was easily believed by people because it was thought that since the Beligans were white they were civilized and that they would be helping the “savage” black people of the Congo. It is said that “ a picture is worth a thousand words” Leopold might have been able to deny the words but he could hardly say that the pictures of dead workers and mutilated children were lies. Because of these photos the white people of Europe were forced to see what was happening and could not ignore it forcing them to do something about it. Had this been happening in Europe to other Europeans the response would have been much swifter, but since much of the world still viewed Africans as less-then whites it was allowed to continue. https://mbtimetraveler.com/tag/e-v-sjoblom/- This is article about the photographs that were taken proving the horrors of the Congo Young boys who have had their hands cut off by Beligan officers. These are some of the original photographs that helped force the world's attention. During the early part of the twentieth century, there was a great deal of revolutions and advancements within society. Starting with women in many western countries gaining the right to vote during this time. This was also the start of what would become known as “The Roaring Twenties”. This was a time where there where massive changes particularly for women. Women stopped growing their hair out and instead many women cut their hair into a shoulder or ear length bob. Another change was that the dresses they wore had much higher hemlines something that by many more traditional people was seen as scandalous and overly sexual. During the previous Victorian era, women were always supposed to be pure and innocent. Sexuality of any kind, and especially women’s sexuality was never something that was supposed to be discussed at all. However, these were things that were beginning to happen in the nineteen- twenties, we see this in F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby with people having a more realistic view that extramarital affairs due happen with men and with women. Both the characters Tom and Daisy have extramarital affairs and neither seemed to show as much shame as most people would have in the Victorian era. In the story of Ulysses by James Joyce, sexuality is front and center. Molly who is already married to Leopold thinks about multiple male suitors and even about females as well. Molly seems to be very comfortable with men and also seems to enjoy the fact that she enjoys the attentions of multiple men despite the fact that she is already married. Molly seems to represent a part of the female dynamic in the nineteen twenties known as “flappers”. These were mostly upper-class young women who cut or wore their hair very short, wore short loose dresses, drank, smoked, and generally had “looser” morals then women from the previous era would have. Molly seems to fit this idea of a woman with “loose” morals as she happily enjoys the company of several different men. https://www.thoughtco.com/flappers-in-the-roaring-twenties-1779240 For the majority of the nineteenth century, the British Empire had been considered by most people to be one of the greatest empires in history. Their navy was virtually undefeated and the English people felt a great deal of pride in what was seen as “English might”. However, all of this pride was burst in the bloodbath that was the first world war. For the first time in a hundred years, the British people had a real reason to fear a possible invasion of their own land. The allies were slaughtered during the war, the British in particular saw almost an entire generation of young men slaughtered and or maimed. Suddenly, the great British empire no longer felt so indestructible.This started to cause people to question the empire and also question how it was that life happened. This is the world in which we find the characters in the novel Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Wolf. Wolf was a writer who was known to enjoy what is known as “stream of consciousness” writing. A style that can be seen in another one of Wolf’s works a short story/essay that she wrote entitled “A Room of One’s Own”, as well as in various other authors of the period such as T.S. Elliot and James Joyce. The authors wrote in a way that was fragmented and often showed that people were often unsure of things, that life was not just a single well-written narrative. This the leftover trauma from the brutal and bloody war that England had just suffered from. The first world war saw death of a scale that had never been seen before in human history. This violence often seemed rather pointless and random. So, this became reflected in English society. We see that characters are nostalgic, they want to go back to a time when things seemed easier. This was a common feeling. After the war, much of England was in ruins both literally and emotionally. Many people wanted to go back to before the war when life seemed more orderly and had more purpose. However, they like the characters are also going to eventually have to come back to the present and forge on into the future facing whatever may come. https://www.britannica.com/event/World-War-I/Killed-wounded-and-missing |