but I am very young—“Too young to walk like an old man, Alibhai!
Is Alibhai some type of reporter who was sent to report on a group of people like what we see on the news?
52 Matching Annotations
- Nov 2017
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All of us sport necklaces of red thread: signs that we belong to the party of the ogres, that we are prepared to hide and fight and die with those who live in the forest, those who are dirty and crooked and resolute
Shows that one's class does not ddefine the person that God made each of us unique. Mary and Alibhai accept that they are ones with the ogres and want to be with their people.
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Two paths lie before me now. One leads to the forest; the other leads home.
References to Frost's "Road not Taken." Alibhai is presented with two choices: the ability to return home, or go with Mary to visit the ogres.
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“When the child goes into the forest, it wears a red necklace. And when the ogre sees the necklace, it spares the child.” She says: “I think you and my brother are exactly the same age.”
The red necklace is a shield from all the evil in the world
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But Konyek only laughed and tore down the net and disappeared with a sound of thunder. He is now, Mary believes, in the region of Eldoret. She tells me that her brother and the other young men who devised the trap have not been seen since the disappearance of Konyek.
Is this a flashback that shows us that Mary's family was killed by Konyek. Does bringing up his name cause her to show fear or vengefulness?
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His purpose is to trick gullible young women. He will be betrayed by song. He will die in a pit, pierced by spears.
Kisirimu is like a womanizer who "gets around". By him being betrayed by song, I feel that there will be consequences for his actions and will be sent to hell to rot for his sins.
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If my employer discovered these notes, he would call them impudence, cunning, a trick. What would I say in my defense? “Sir, I was unable to tell you. Sir, I was unable to speak of the weeping mother of Kiptegen.” He would laugh: he believes that all words are found in his language.
Alibhai is fearful that if he were to bring this event up the employer would have no care in the world about it. The employer shows that he has very little empathy for others' feelings
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His human wife bore him two sons: one which looked human like its mother, and one, called Kiptegen, which resembled its father. When the wife was rescued by her human kin, her human–looking child was also saved, but Kiptegen was burnt alive.
Mixed race affair. The boy who was a human was accepted however the illegitamate child was burned alive because of the make of his skin and appearance. Racism and segregation at the forefront.
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No questions!” she repeated, seething with anger. “If I went to a mission school, I’d burn it down! I have always been a free woman!”
She feels that the values that school teaches us and its missions are of little significance to her. She doesn't need school and has always looked after herself almost like she is saying that she's better off by not going to school.
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Mary has had, I suspect, a mission education.
Mary only has one goal on her mind and I feel that she will stop at nothing to get what she wants. Very high-strong and determined.
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Mary tells me that one day Dhegdheer’s daughter, wracked with remorse, will walk into the sea and give herself up to the sharks.
Didn't we just read that she was planning to kill her mother and now she is willing to give herself up as a self-sacrifice to get eaten by sharks? I feel like she must really hate her life.
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I will be required to record his kills, as I keep track of all his accounts. It would be “damn fine,” he opines, to acquire the ear of Dhegdheer.
Is Alibhai just a pawn in his employer's quest to kill all the people on the land? I get the feeling that Apul Apul and Dhegdeer and the others are ogres which makes them inferior to the employer that he needs to destroy them.
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The daughter is beautiful and would like to be married. Eventually, she will murder Dhegdheer by filling her ear with boiling water.
This kind've ties into the poem "White Lies" with how the girl viewed herself in society by being of a different race and status. Does Dhegdheer's daughter blame her mother for the condition in which they live. Did the daughter feel since she longs to be married, that if I kill my mother her life will be filled with more love and happiness? Kind of distrurbing and morbid.
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He is allergic to lead.]
Apul Apul has been through so much pain that the very thought of being in charge makes him mentally and physically ill. Could this be a fear that he doesn't want to let his people down just like how he couldn't save his children from the burning house?
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A melancholy character, he eats crickets to sweeten his voice. His house burned down with all of his children inside. His enemy is the Hare.
Melancholy, according to Dictionary.com, is defined as, "a gloomy state of mind, especially when habitual or prolonged; depression." Apul Apul is depressed and for good reason because the people in the world that he cared the most about, his children, were tragically killed in a house fire. It states that his enemey is the Hare, so is he plotting retaliation ?
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Now we have three of us in this class
I feel like the author views herself as an "illegal alien" based on the color of her skin. The three of us in class line represents that she has found solace in the fact that she is not alone and that there are 2 kids who are just like the author. But the color of their skin deprives them from being accepted in the school which makes them chasticed.
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Believing her, I swallowed suds thinking they’d work from the inside out.
I feel that by doing this, it feels to me like a complete do over. I feel that the suds represents healing for the young girl almost as if she's trying to communicate, " This wasn't the life I wanted and this is the new me and this is my life now."
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This is to purify, she said, and cleanse your lying tongue
This could be some type of punishment by the mother for the way her daughter is rationalizing the color of her skin. Maybe the girl's mother is trying to instill in her daughter that God made you the way you are and to be thankful for what you have.
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I could easily tell the white folks that we lived uptown, not in that pink and green shanty-fled shotgun section along the tracks.
The author thinks that maybe if she lived in a more affluent and higher class part of town she would fit in and not be so ashamed of where she came from.
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light-bright, near-white, high-yellow, red-boned
Is the author ashamed of her skin color and wishes to be of another race? Or could her parents be interracial meaning they were mixed? Does the author wish that she was another race just so she could be accepted in the society that she lives in?
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- Oct 2017
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Still, must fight good fight! Think of Dad. When Mom left Dad, Dad kept going to job. When laid off from job, got paper route. When laid off from paper route, got lesser paper route. In time, got better route back. By time Dad died, had job almost as good as original job. And had paid off most debt incurred after demotion to lesser route.
With all the trouble going on in his life, he takes solace with the way his father was able to pick up the pieces after his mother left and make something of himself
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Not that they are growing up in paucity.
paucity is the presence of something only in small or insufficient quantities or amounts
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Discouraging, I felt. Because (1) why does young girl of thirteen want such old-lady gift, and (2) where does girl of thirteen get idea that $300 = appropriate amount for b-day gift? When I was kid, it was one shirt, one shirt I didn’t want, usually homemade. However, do not want to break Lilly’s heart or harshly remind her of our limitations
Even though he is against the idea of spending $300 he puts his children in front and decides to do whatever he can to make his daughter's birthday special even if going broke
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Very depressing birthday party today at home of Lilly’s friend Leslie Torrini. House is mansion where Lafayette once stayed. Torrinis showed us Lafayette’s room: now their “Fun Den.” Plasma TV, pinball game, foot massager. Thirty acres, six garages (they call them “outbuildings”): one for Ferraris (three), one for Porsches (two, plus one he is rebuilding), one for historical merry-go-round they are restoring as family (!). Across trout-stocked stream, red Oriental bridge flown in from China. Showed us hoofmark from some dynasty. In front room, near Steinway, plaster cast of hoofmark from even earlier dynasty, in wood of different bridge. Picasso autograph, Disney autograph, dress Greta Garbo once wore, all displayed in massive mahogany cabinet. Vegetable garden tended by guy named Karl.
The Father feels defeated as the Torrini home is a symbol of the life the Father longs for. The father comes to terms that he will never be able to give his family the stuff that the Torrini's have in their possession.
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When will I have sufficient leisure/wealth to sit on hay bale watching moon rise, while in luxurious mansion family sleeps? At that time, will have chance to reflect deeply on meaning of life, etc., etc. Have a feeling and have always had a feeling that this and other good things will happen for us!
Father dreams of having wealth and being able to see the world different. Thinks that if his life wasn't so frail himself and his family would not be so poor and is optimistic that good things will come
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Lilly (oldest, nearly thirteen!), as always, put all in perspective, by saying, Who cares about stupid bumper, we’re going to get a new car soon anyway, when rich, right?
The oldest daughter feels that eventually their fortunes will turn and someday they will be able to afford nice material things
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Exciting to think how in one year, at rate of one page/day, will have written three hundred and sixty-five pages, and what a picture of life and times then available for kids & grandkids, even greatgrandkids, whoever, all are welcome (!) to see how life really was/is now.
By writing a page, I feel like this writing can be a family memorabilia that gets passed down from generation to generation.
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They do some wonderful things. They have some wonderful fun. My mother sneers, but I say it’s fine
Referencing to kids who have lower status than the speaker. When the mother sneers she looks down on those children like they are insignificant and a waste of time.
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That George’ll be taken to Jail soon or late (On account of last winter he sold our back gate).
Like Johnnie Mae, the mother views George as a bad influence due to how he chose to live his life by engaging in stealing and theft.
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My mother, she tells me that Johnnie Mae Will grow up to be a bad woman
Mother strikes fear in daughter by stating that if you continue to hang out with her, you will ruin your life and to get away from her.
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I want to go in the back yard now And maybe down the alley
The alley is almost as a sacred place where all the poor kids go to hang out. The alley represents wholeness as all the children come together and are connected and not have to be worried with being labeled good or bad.
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Where it’s rough and untended and hungry weed grows
Life isn't always what it seems as you can have everything in the world but there are people out there that have absolutely nothing.
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I’ve stayed in the front yard all my life.
Brooks uses " the front yard" to state shelter and protectedness from society.
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And wear the brave stockings of night-black lace And strut down the streets with paint on my face.
Symbolism of a prostitute and the speaker feels like its ok to experience it since she never had a chance to see the other things in life. When it comes to "paint on my face" it symbolizes the stereotypes that prostitutes were being labeled as during the time.
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That George’ll be taken to Jail soon or late (On account of last winter he sold our back gate).
Like Johnnie Mae, George is and will be a bad influence just like all the others as he lives his life by stealing.
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My mother, she tells me that Johnnie Mae Will grow up to be a bad woman
Her Mom is trying to scare her daughter and does this to stir her away from the children in the alley. Does she feel that Johnnie Mae is a danger to society?
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How they don’t have to go in at quarter to nine.
They don't have a curfew or parents who don't look and care for them.
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To where the charity children play. I want a good time today.
The charity children are the poorer of the poor and she resonates with them.
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But I say it’s fine. Honest, I do. And I’d like to be a bad woman, too
She thinks that she's better than her Mom and wishes to be like Johnnie Mae
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I’ve stayed in the front yard all my life.
Is the girl stating that she longs for adventure or is she stating that she feels like she can't escape like she's a prisoner?
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- Sep 2017
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Six Days’ Work
Comparing his completion of the Bell Tower to the ancient scripture story of when God had created the earth in six days according to the Book of Genesis.
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In short, to solve nature, to steal into her, to intrigue beyond her, to procure someone else to bind her to his hand — these, one and all, had not been his objects, but, asking no favors from any element or any being, of himself to rival her, outstrip her, and rule her. He stooped to conquer. With him, common sense was theurgy; machinery, miracle; Prometheus, the heroic name for machinist; man, the true God.
Bannadonna refers to himself as a god that no man is more greater or as powerful as he is. Going back to the unblest foundling quote from the beginning.
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And so, for the interval, he was oblivious of his creature, which, not oblivious of him, and true to its creation,
Since Bannadonna was so enamored with creating the Bell Tower he became oblivious to Talus and the beauty of nature. Was this a sign that Talus has emotions?
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at early dawn, before the concourse had surrounded it — an earthquake came; one loud crash was heard. The stone pine, with all its bower of songsters, lay overthrown upon the plain.
Upon one year of the anniversary of the bell tower, nature ruined it with the earthquake.
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In the one erection, bell-tower and clock-tower were united, though, before that period, such structures had commonly been built distinct; as the Campanile and Torre del Orologio of St. Mark to this day attest.
This is special because it has never been done before meaning that it must be unlike anything seen before.
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“Una’s face looks just like that of Deborah, the prophetess, as painted by the Florentine, Del Fonca.”
In Christian Scripture, Deborah, was a prophet of the Israelites and became the fourth judge of pre-monarchial Israel. Known as a counselor, warrior, and was the only female judge.
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n the south of Europe, nigh a once frescoed capita
tells where Bannadonna is going to create the bell tower and what stood there before.
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So the blind slave obeyed its blinder lord, but, in obedience, slew him. So the creator was killed by the creature. So the bell was too heavy for the tower. So the bell’s main weakness was where man’s blood had flawed it. And so pride went before the fall.
When we become so obsessed with materialistic objects it can drive us to insanity. Ultimately, the Bell tower was the demise of Banadonna as ambition killed him.
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“Una’s face looks just like that of Deborah, the prophetess, as painted by the Florentine, Del Fonca.”
In Christian Scripture, Deborah, was a prophet of the Israelites and became the fourth judge of pre-monarchial Israel. Known as a counselor, warrior, and was the only female judge.
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It was one trait of his, that, even in details, he would not let another do what he could, without too great loss of time, accomplish for himself. So, for several preceding weeks, whatever hours were unemployed in his secret design had been devoted to elaborating the figures on the bells.
He becomes so enamored with being the top guy that the very thought of another person challenging his abilities utterly disgusts him. Struggle for power and authority.
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In the one erection, bell-tower and clock-tower were united, though, before that period, such structures had commonly been built distinct; as the Campanile and Torre del Orologio of St. Mark to this day attest
This is special because it has never been done before meaning that it must be unlike anything seen before.
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In firm resolve, no man in Europe at that period went beyond Bannadonna
During the time period that the Bell Tower takes place social class was used in relation to power. In this contest Melville states that Banndonna thinks of himself as superior to all the men of Italy.
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