10th post

The myth that I chose is a famous myth from the bible my mom used to tell me. The myth is called the "Judgement of Solomon". The myth goes as follows, two women lived in the same house with each one of the women having their own child. One of the moms accidentally smothered her son. After she saw her son died, she try to switch between the two and pin it on the other mom that her son actually died. So each women claimed that the alive baby was theirs. So they went with the case to King Solomon. After many hours of deliberation, King Solomon called for his sword and said he was cutting the baby in half and giving a half of the baby to both mothers. The real mother cried out, "No, don't kill him. Give the baby to her." While the fake mother said,"Cut it in half." King Solomon was wise and knew that the real mother would be the one who would give up her baby, so it will live. He gave the baby to the real mother. This story is trying to explain to a person how to identify the truth and have good judgement. King Solomon was very wise to pull that move. I always loved hearing this story because it was so clever yet so simple.

The Woman Warrior and The Female Individual and the Empire

In The Woman Warrior, Maxine Hong Kingston describes her parent's memories from when they lived in China. From her paren't's description, her community has a primitive idea of the way women are treated. In the community she describes, women were treated as a useless, afterthought and can have a little impact on society. Although, in many more modern thinking societies, women have been able to have a huge impact on development and there are many important women figures throughout history. After experiencing many frustrations with the perception of how women are treated in China, Kingston decided to rewrite the tale of Mulan and give it a more feministic empowerment compared to the previous different versions of Mulan. We all know "Mulan" has become a successful Disney movie adaptation. In her rewrite of Mulan, she gives Mulan the title of leader of her whole army. What surprised me while reading this, was that Mulan gave up her power to become a housewife because her parents in law asked her to. This pretty much was the complete opposite idea I thought Kingston was trying to express. Instead, of giving a fitting empowering ending that marks the importance and strength of women  in society, the ending that was given was very boring and very narrow minded.

Graphic Journeys

In Graphic Journeys: Graphic Novels' Representations of Immigrant Experiences, Michael D. Boatright talks about the controversial issues of immigrant status in the United States and he's trying to spread the fact that this is an opportunity for teachers to add a new subject into their curriculum. Boatright believes that the best way in teaching the importance of immigrants is through graphic novels because it allows characters to engage in dialogue. The three texts he uses for his literary analysis are The Arrival, The Four Immigrants Manga: A Japanese Experience in San Francisco, and American Born Chinese. Boatright believes that because of the combination of illustration and words, it gives a certain perspective in the representation of immigrants. He often uses the term "critical literacy". Which he describes as one persons ability of figuring out the meaning of an illustration or story without being explicitly told what it is about. When Boatright talks about The Arrival, he complains that the main character is a white person and that was able to assimilate easily to American culture because of his skin color. The main idea of this whole article by Boatright, is to give evidence on how significant graphic novels can be in teaching about immigrant status. I agree with Boatright that the issue of immigration is very important and a very delicate subject. I also agree with him that the topic of immigration should be visited by education systems and be taught in schools. There are many laws that try to put the immigrants down, but instead of trying to keep them down wouldn't a country be able to be more efficient if it gave an equal opportunity to everyone?

Make up: Trickster Tales

The two stories we read in the "Trickster Tales" were "Raven the Trickster" and "The Wolf and the Mink". Both these stories main plots are the deception and trickery of the raven and the wolf, in both of their respective stories. The wolf plays with the hungry mink's mind that he has already eaten the fish by putting the fish bones inside the mink's mouth while he is a sleep. The raven causes mischiefs and lies in his respective story. To tell you the truth, I am used to these types of stories ending with some sort of justice, but that wasn't the case in either story. So I was surprised. Both these animals used trickery to get them out of trouble. This is similar to humans. When humans are in an apprehensive situation they feel the need to lie, or try to scheme their way out of the situation instead of telling the truth.  lying and tricking works in the moment, but, from my experience, it always finds a way to come back to you and affect you. There is a simple saying that reminds me of this, "What goes around, comes around."