Choose either one of the following suggestions for analysis:
1. Write a close-reading textual analysis of the excerpt from "Silence" that starts in the middle of the second paragraph, "He would lie in bed, eyes opened" until the end of the first sentence of the last paragraph ("pulled frantically at the curtains and ran out of the room") - anthology pp. 17-18
2. Do you think the literary practice of Carlos Bulosan contrasts or agrees with what Mukherjee advocates in "Give us your Maximalists"? (anthology, pp. 8-11)
2.The literary practice of Carlos Bulosan, based on minimalism, definitely contrasts with Mukherjee’s maximalism.
ReplyDeleteOn the one hand, according to Mukherjee the immigrants are not passive victims, but resilient and determined active agents negotiating their place in a new world. She criticizes those who remain stuck in their own world and always feel nostalgic about the past; the author pushes to speak out loud against injustice and the goal of her writing is to reclaim the immigrant as an active agent in American History.
Writing here becomes a tool of empowerment.
On the other hand, Bulosan thinks that the migrant is invisible and shouted down by the system. His/her weak voice erases from a trauma.
Silence is used as a tool to underline marginalisation. The protagonist is an oppressed individual who struggles to speak. In this way, the author wants to denounce oppression.
-Laura Bettio
2) The literary practice of Carlos Bulosan contrasts with what Mukherjee advocates in "Give us your Maximalists".
ReplyDeleteAs a matter of fact, in “Silence” Bulosan uses silence to show oppression and invisibility experienced by immigrants, like the protagonist who has been living in a town but has never spoke to anyone except for his walls, to the point that he becomes almost obsessed with a female figure he desperately wants to reach from his window because he feels lonely and torn up by the silence that always surrounds him. However, it’s almost as if he had passively accepted his condition until that moment and never decided to take a step to change his situation.
On the other hand, Mukherjee’s “Give Us Your Maximalists” invites migrant writers to strongly show their position and be ambitious in American narrative, taking distance from a minimalism that serves no purpose to their already delicate cause and status, accepting their present condition and detaching from a past they keep preserving within themselves.
In conclusion, the two texts, despite using different techniques, both advocate for a revendication of the voice to fight social exclusion.
The text begins with a character in a dark room, describing his inability to sleep (insomnia) caused by anxiety and constant thoughts about his past life. Everything indicates that this is an action that repeats itself every day; then he would get up,’ so he always lives in the same day, without hope. The room is described as a claustrophobic and dark place, making it a symbol of distress. He is in a state of unconsciousness, lonely, which has led him to analyse everything from the same perspective unconsciously. However, this changes when his perspective of the room changes: he notices some green curtains. Suddenly, the scene is no longer gloomy but filled with light at the opportunity. He then approaches the window and notices a girl, and as always, he analyses her automatically. But at this moment, the appearance of this figure generates a change in his attitude, and he feels motivated. The mere act of pulling the curtains represents the need for change; the situation is already unsustainable. Therefore, silence does not accompany him but becomes the enemy that prevents him from living.
ReplyDeleteIn conclusion, it is a metaphor for how the perspective we attribute to our daily lives affects our decisions and mental health.
-Tania otero
Topic 1
ReplyDeleteIt is clear we are presented with a very disturbed individual whose porpuse in life is a fog between is own resemblance and his sense of belonging to a place. I instantly made a correlation between the last year's winner of "Festival da Canção", "Deslocado" by NAPA with a very simple sentence "O monte de betão não me provoca nada" because it is precisely how the main character feels about the rooms he lives in, the incapability of feeling at home, of identifying with the environment he lives in. There are a few aspects worth noting, first of all, the great depression that the subject feels about his situation, this is noticeable from the first paragraph but it becomes clear as we understand that the full purpose of his life becomes another one. This translates how, quite often, the immigrants feel about their stances in life, they cling to something beyond their control so they do not have the power to ruin it by a course of action, quite often this feeling of attachment to something distant is what keeps them moving, it becomes the center of their life, just has it became with the subject of this short story.
Another aspect worth of notice is the color language used by the author, where the absence of color in the room he lives in is perceived by the reader as neutral because the change happens when he starts to buy colorful curtains to match the sweater of the girl he felt attached to. The color changes the mood of a text, all of a sudden we are engulfed in a platonic love story which, read alone could not denounce the rest of the plot. We are let in to a stasis not of happiness but of purpose, we feel there is a guide line that is ruling this man’s life, even when he shuts his friend off his life for fear that “his secret” would be spoiled or stolen, we do not feel any different than we would have with Marianne from “Sense and sensibility” by Jane Austen. The color is not in itself the reason for the change in the narrative, but it gives the author authorization to disguise this character as a passionately man, a mask that falls once the girl is gone, the happiness fades, as the color of the curtains does to.
The last aspect and one that contrasts perfectly with the last one is the silence, if color permits love, silcence brings the doom. It is not as simple as the absence of sound, because sound is in itself the vibration of waves in the air, in this case silence seems to be the absence of thought, the bitter taste of having nothing to cling upon. When there is silence, there is a constant fight for the character to push it away, to be whole again. Silence is the element in this text with which we are left in the end, after the girl, responsible for the happiness of the character is permanently gone, all he has left is the surrounding sound of silence. It is unclear what will happen to this character although it can be presumed that he will put an end to his suffering, given the last image of him leaning outside the window to weep, perpetrating the inevitable truth that there is no hope for this man.