Veiel AP Lit

Executive Order 9066 did not only characterize those of Japanese ancestry as enemies of the United States. Beyond targeting the individual, by placing all with Japanese blood into this same category the entirety of Japanese culture was vilified. Whatever American culture one might have adopted became inconsequential; at their core, Japanese-Americans were still just Japanese in the eyes of the government and the public, and this fact was made to be a point of shame. We see this in the novel as the woman finishes packing, rolling up her "Oriental rug" (7). When the rug is rolled up, the the intricate patterns it contains and the culture expressed therein become concealed by layer on top of layer of more and more rug. Additionally, the woman removes the "tiny bonsai tree" (7) from the inside of her home, and takes it out into the yard. Interestingly though, she does so still with great care for the tree's wellbeing, placing it "beneath the eaves where it woul...

Morrison opens this speech by explaining a story she has heard "in the lore of several cultures." A wise, old, blind woman is mocked by a group of youths who ask about a bird they hold in their hands. They charge her to determine if the bird is alive or dead, and she responds that all she knows it that it is in their hands. It may be dead, naturally or by their hands, or it may live, but ultimately still be at the mercy of its captors.  Morrison goes on to say that she likes to think of "the bird as language and the woman as a practiced writer." Language she equates to agency, and the writer is the one with the ability and the duty to protect it. Just as the wise old woman feels a concern for the bird and contempt for those who have violated it, a practiced writer ought to revere language and encourage its good use. After all, as Morrison says, language is a mortal thing which might be killed by "carelessness, disuse, indifference and absence of esteem." L...

"I destroyed white baby dolls" (22) Claudia makes her hatred for all things white, (conventionally) beautiful, and Shirley Temple-esque very clear in the novel's opening section. In many ways we as readers empathize with Claudia. We, like her, hate the idea of conforming to externally imposed standards of self-valuation. No one likes (or at least no one ought to like) being told who to be. However, this negativity surrounding Claudia only breeds more of its kind within her. Claudia's hatred for Shirley Temple is born from a (well-founded and legitimate) envy of her dancing with Bojangles. She "destroyed white baby dolls" as a result of this hate. And she even expresses a desire to do the same to "little white girls" (22) and to hear their "fascinating [cries] of pain" (23). This may seem like an extreme sentiment: and it surely is. However, that does not make its examination and understanding any less legitimate. If anything, it greatly i...

TheopeningofthisbookisfascinatinginmanywaysforexampleDickandJanearenottheprincipalcharactersofthenovelthesentencesthemselvesareverybasicandtheprogressionofthewritingtoaconvolutedandconfusingformcompletelylackingspacesandpunctuationsuchastheoneyouarereadingrightnowisdisorientingandfundamentallyunlikeanythingyouhavereadbeforewhatcouldMorrisonhavemeantbythiswhatwasherpurposeinconstructingthisjumbledblockofcharacters As you just saw, punctuation and spacing are as essential to legible writing as oxygen is to breathing. You can read without these elements and you can breathe without oxygen, but not for very long before you pass out. Toni Morrison is not the type to insert such a hazard into her writing without good reason. Therefore we are left to try and make sense not only of what these constricted words are, but what they mean. Dick, Jane, and their family are used as the tool through which the most basic and common parts of the English language have been taught to children of all races ...

Artistry is one of the first things we consider as a marker of humanity's uniqueness as a species. Cave paintings, in all their simplistic glory, are the subject of extensive study and admiration. As humanity has advanced and society has evolved, so too have the manners in which we express ourselves as well as what we attempt to express. A common way to reflect the ideas, emotions, or culture of a person or people through art is to give that art human form, in figures or statues. From the Venus figurines of the Paleolithic Era to the Renaissance and Michelangelo's David, every sculpture ever made has something to say about the person who created it and the place where it was born, so to speak. The Golem of Prague is another creation that follows this form.  The Jewish history in Europe is, unfortunately, one of persecution–as a distinct "other" in the predominantly Christian communities of Europe, they were easily isolated and scapegoated with little ability to defend...

Joe's Antarctic posting in Part Five is an interjection in the story which takes the theme of escape to an entirely new scale. We can apply to this section a Kornblumian maxim recited all the way back in Part One, Chapter Two: "'"Forget about what you are escaping from ...Reserve your anxiety for what you are escaping to "'" (21). What is it, then, that Joe felt so compelled to escape from that he (albeit unwittingly) traveled so many thousands of miles, and what did he hope to find there? It would be easy to believe that Joe's sole motivation for his enlistment is pure, unmitigated rage and hatred for all things German following his brother's death. Such a factor ought not to be ignored, certainly; though we must caution ourselves from oversimplification of something as complex as the human emotional psyche. Rage can blind and overpower an individual. But so can love, so can hope, so can fear so can any emotion if we let them. And even if we don...