In-class reflection analyze
The theme that I want to analyze is VIOLENT.
Even before reading the book, while I was researching for Haitian history, I knew violence had always been part of Haitians' lives. However, as I read more and more about the book, I get to know more and more about how it was actually done. In the first story of the book, Children of The Sea, two characters had been violently treated, Madam Roger and Celiane. Madam Roger's son was killed. And the soldiers only gave Madam Roger back her son's head. I can't even imagine how sad and hopeless would she, or any mom be when she sees her son dead. She can't even hug him anymore because all that's left is his head. The soldiers come to her and ask her if her son was part of the youth federation. She tried to hold herself back but it was just too hard. True. No one can stay calm when people who possibly killed your loved ones show up at your house and start to insult the dead. She rages and they beat her down. "They start to pound ar her. You can hear it. You can hear the guns coming down on her head. It sounds like they are cracking all the bones in her body. ... You can hear Madan roger screaming. They are beating her, pounding on her until you don't hear anything else." These sentence clearly provides specific details of how the female narrator heard and felt when she was hiding while the soldiers were hurting Madan Roger. Her son being part of the youth federation was enough to get her killed. Or even if there are rules, none of those brutal soldiers will follow these rules at all. There is no respect, no humanity, no justice in Haiti now. People had been waiting for it. They still have a long way to go.
The second story that highlighted the theme of violence is the second story, Nineteen Thirty-Seven. In this story, the narrator herself doesn't experience any physical violence. However, her grandmother and her mother were both violently treated by the soldiers. Her grandmother was killed during the Massacre. She mentioned this when she was trying to recall the time that her mom escaped from the Dominican side, "My mother had escaped EI Generalissimo's soldiers, leaving her own mother behind. From the Haitian side of the river, she could still see the soldiers chopping up her mother's body and throwing it into the river along with many others." These sentences describe an image I can never make in my mind. It would be more brutal than ANY image, ANY movie, ANY pictures I have ever seen. The fact that not only the narrator's grandmother was killed this way, but also "along with many others" leaves me wordless.
Even before reading the book, while I was researching for Haitian history, I knew violence had always been part of Haitians' lives. However, as I read more and more about the book, I get to know more and more about how it was actually done. In the first story of the book, Children of The Sea, two characters had been violently treated, Madam Roger and Celiane. Madam Roger's son was killed. And the soldiers only gave Madam Roger back her son's head. I can't even imagine how sad and hopeless would she, or any mom be when she sees her son dead. She can't even hug him anymore because all that's left is his head. The soldiers come to her and ask her if her son was part of the youth federation. She tried to hold herself back but it was just too hard. True. No one can stay calm when people who possibly killed your loved ones show up at your house and start to insult the dead. She rages and they beat her down. "They start to pound ar her. You can hear it. You can hear the guns coming down on her head. It sounds like they are cracking all the bones in her body. ... You can hear Madan roger screaming. They are beating her, pounding on her until you don't hear anything else." These sentence clearly provides specific details of how the female narrator heard and felt when she was hiding while the soldiers were hurting Madan Roger. Her son being part of the youth federation was enough to get her killed. Or even if there are rules, none of those brutal soldiers will follow these rules at all. There is no respect, no humanity, no justice in Haiti now. People had been waiting for it. They still have a long way to go.
The second story that highlighted the theme of violence is the second story, Nineteen Thirty-Seven. In this story, the narrator herself doesn't experience any physical violence. However, her grandmother and her mother were both violently treated by the soldiers. Her grandmother was killed during the Massacre. She mentioned this when she was trying to recall the time that her mom escaped from the Dominican side, "My mother had escaped EI Generalissimo's soldiers, leaving her own mother behind. From the Haitian side of the river, she could still see the soldiers chopping up her mother's body and throwing it into the river along with many others." These sentences describe an image I can never make in my mind. It would be more brutal than ANY image, ANY movie, ANY pictures I have ever seen. The fact that not only the narrator's grandmother was killed this way, but also "along with many others" leaves me wordless.
Comments
Post a Comment