Dr. Farmer in his article address the subject of structural violence and suffering by utilizing personal narratives. Dr. Farmer travels Haiti, a place deemed by experts to be undergoing “extreme human suffering” (Farmer 262) and recants the narratives of two Haitians, Acephie Joseph and Chouchou Louis, who both suffer premature deaths due to the Haitian Army. Acephie contracts HIV from a Haitian Army Captain and Chouchou is beaten to death by soldiers. At the hands of the Army, Acephie deals with structural violence against women, while Chouchou deals with structural violence against political expression. Although, Acephie and Chouchou are victims of two different forms of structural violence, Dr. Farmer observes one commonality that unites
In order to fully understand the significance of the life of Henrietta Lacks, one must first understand the nature of the historical moment in which she lived, and died. Henrietta Lacks was a poor, African American woman born in 1920; Henrietta lived in Clover, Virginia, on a tobacco farm maintained by many generations of relatives. This historical moment can best be understood when evaluated using a structural analysis; a structural analysis is an examination of multiple components which form an organization; structural analyses often focus on the goals and purpose of the organization in question. Henrietta and her family were greatly affected by structural violence, a type of systematic violence exerted via legislation and discrimination. Often following systematic violence is a separate type of violence, known as symbolic violence; this occurs when structural violence is viewed as normal based on media representation or popular
No one knows what will happen in his or her life whether it is a trivial family dispute or a civil war. Ishmael Beah and Mariatu Kamara are both child victims of war with extremely different life stories. Both of them are authors who have written about their first-hand experience of the truth of the war in order to voice out to the world to be aware of what is happening. Beah wrote A Long Way Gone while Kamara wrote The Bite of the Mango. However, their autobiographies give different information to their readers because of different points of view. Since the overall story of Ishmael Beah includes many psychological and physical aspects of war, his book is more influential and informative to the world than Kamara’s book.
In this chapter, O’Brien contrasts the lost innocence of a young Vietnamese girl who dances in grief for her slaughtered family with that of scarred, traumatized soldiers, using unique rhetorical devices
To introduce the conflict of this story, Danticat recounts the public execution of two rebels, Numa and Drouin, by the Haitian government. In doing so,
Death is a striking image that sits heavily in the heart, however an image of tragedy in the daily live is a much heavier weight to carry. Children filling up bottles of water in a refugee camp are horrific but when the location is in Africa is anyone really surprised. Susan Sontag’s “double message” (263) from her essay on “Regarding the Pain of Others” is shown in the CNN.com article “U.N. declares famine in Somalia; makes urgent appeal to save lives” due to the known situation of poverty, corruption, and a weak government. In this essay, I will address first the image and its connection to Sontag via censorship, and the shock value of the photograph. I will then address how the article complicates the photograph. Finally, I will address how both the photograph and the article complicate Sontag’s “double message”
Artists portray gruesome events in many ways including poems and videos. Gruesome events are portrayed in similar ways and also different ways including what is put in and what is left out. Whether it be leaving out who started the war, telling the whole story, or emphasizing elements in different ways the artist clearly portrays the Civil War of Spain as a gruesome and horrifying event. Both mediums clearly show how life was before the war and how people have been hurt. Both artists give the reader a sense of how the war affected everyone in Spain and eventually give the rest of the world a reason to “come and see the blood in the streets”(1/5 voices).
Edwidge Danticat's novel, The Farming of Bones is an epic portrayal of the relationship between Haitians and Dominicans under the rule of Generalissimo Rafael Trujillo leading up to the Slaughter of 1937. The novel revolves around a few main concepts, these being birth, death, identity, and place and displacement. Each of the aspects is represented by an inanimate object. Water, dreams, twins, and masks make up these representations. Symbolism is consistent throughout the novel and gives the clearly stated and unsophisticated language a deeper more complex meaning. While on the surface the novel is an easy read, the symbolism which is prominent throughout the novel complicates the audience's interpretation. The reader is left to look beyond the language and uncover the underlying themes of the novel. Through symbolism Danticat is able to use inanimate objects to represent each of her character's more deeply rooted problems. In order to prove this theory true, I will thoroughly examine the aforementioned symbolic devices and provide a clear interpretation of their significance in the novel.
In the story Wild Flower, Nina Smart tells her story of staying in Africa, Sierra Leonean, with her biological father. It unravels to reveal a terrifying truth behind a secretive women's society called Bondo society. When a girl comes of age, parents pay the society to kidnap and initiate their child. Nina soon finds out that initiation means mutilation of her body. Luckily Nina is smart and forms a plan to escape. Once she escapes she becomes a voice for all of the victims who have suffered the fate she avoided. Through her campaign to stop mutilation of the vagin area, she meets a women who tells her story of the trauma she went through. In this mini research, it’ll be based on the long term impacts of the girls mental and physical trauma.
This text exhibits the events of the 1937 Parsley Massacre. Similar to Junot Diaz’s, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, this text refers back to Trujillo’s dictatorship in the Dominican Republic. Trujillo organized a genocide of Haitians who were in D.R. Danticat allows readers to experience this traumatic event through the perspective of Amabelle Desir, the main character.
Though, it is work of Monique as a midwife which makes this book predominantly useful for learning the cultural dynamics in Mali of sexuality, childbirth and reproductive health of women. The young midwife Monique Dembele working in Nampossela and to the east of Bamako, the Malian villages, is the center of this appealing narrative penned by Kris Holloway who was helping in the Peace Corps in Mali from 1989 to 1991. Kris as instructed by Monique assists in midwifery work in the small, ruined birthing house, which was built by the Chinese in an earlier initiative of
War does leave people with all kinds of trauma as illustrated in the Bao Ninh’s short story “A Marker on the Side of the Boat” and Nicola Zavaglia’s documentary film Barbed Wire and Mandolins. When comparing the effectiveness of conveying the trauma of war towards the audiences, however, the short story “A Marker on the Side of the Boat” is more effective due to its well-developed plot and the emotional responses from the readers arising from the story.
Carolle Charles, “Gender and politics in Contemporary Haiti: The Duvalier State, Transnationalism, and the Emergence of a New Feminism (1980-1990)” in Feminist Studies, Vol. 21, No. 1 (1995): 135-164
Violence plays a major part in Marie de France’s lais. Violence is used regularly in the lais by cuckholded, jealous husbands and controlling fathers to assert their dominance and power so that they are able to control their wives and daughters and prove their authority. Moreover, it is used as a punishment, a way of getting revenge and seeking ‘justice’ for adulterous behaviour and also often employed by potential suitors as a way of proving their strength and worth. We can see that the role of violence has a great importance in the Marie de France’s lais and often comes in-between love, sex and relationships. In this essay I will explore the ways in which Marie de France presents violence, it’s victims and the impact it has on the characters,
The war was worsened by the wealthy minerals in the ground and the influence of the mineral was strengthened by the fear and displacement the war caused. The intertwining of these two destructive forces is seen in the story Salima is told by a man who bought her. In this he tells of a man who stuffed”...the coltan into his mouth to keep the soldiers from stealing his hard work, and they split his belly open with a machete”(31). Not only does this story show the harsh conditions the men are exposed to in war, but also it further demonstrates the hold coltan has on the minds of those who live in the Congo. The want for coltan leads to the destruction of the community and individual identities of those involved as it perpetuates a cycle of war that damages men, induces violence against women, and ultimately creates a cycle of lost identity.
I can never picture myself in such a degrading, impoverished, and victimized position, which is probably why I decided to pursue this issue among many others. It was not until last Thursday on April 14, 2011 during Ashley Judd’s All That Is Bitter & Sweet book signing at Book Passage in Corte Madera, however, that I felt the need and calling to delve deeper into the topic. Judd shared her odyssey as an advocate for those suffering in neglected parts of the world. She discussed the poverty, sexual abuse, and violence people in those less ...