English 06B Assignment Blog

      The short story, "Checking Out," by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, provides the point of view of a disadvantaged minority many people ignore. The main character, Obinze, is an immigrant from Nigeria, in London, struggling to gain citizenship in the UK. The political situation in Nigeria is at a bad point, and Obinze tries to obtain a visa to emigrate to the US, but is denied each time, which causes him to end up in London. His desire to go to the US stems from a commercial on tv called "Andrew Checking Out," where Andrew "checks out" of the country as if was a hotel, and leaves for America. This inspires Obinze to do try to do the same, and he fantasizes about what his life would be like in the US.     Most of Obinze's desire to leave Nigeria comes from his vision of the US. He sees it as a utopian-like society where he is free to do and speak what he wants, and can drink all the Fanta he wants. He imagines the intellectual conversations he would have...

    A utopia is an imagined place with ideal qualities with no conflict or negativity. It sounds impossible, and many would argue that it is. The word "utopia" originates from the Greek words, "ou," meaning "not," and "topos" meaning place, so quite literally, Utopia is "not a place." As seen in many works of literature, the creation of a Utopia ends up more like a dystopia, failing miserably at its intended purpose. Take for instance the books Divergent , by Veronica Roth, Matched,  by Allie Condie, and even The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins. One common aspect in each book is a society created for the benefit of everyone, with strict rules in place to ensure there is no reason for conflict or disparity between people. In the end, however, the rules and idea behind the society ends up causing much of the conflict throughout the story. The only exception of the three would be The Hunger Games , as the rules heavily favor the higher cl...

      Throughout the English 06B class I am in, we have studied works that could be considered "feminist." In Christina Rossetti's poem "Goblin Market," and Katherine Mansfield's short story "The Garden Party," there are common themes surrounding women and their roles and value in society. From Watching the TEDx video, "We should all be feminists," featuring Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, it is clear that she fits in with the likes of Rossetti and Mansfield with her commentary on the female value and role in society.     In "Goblin Market," Rossetti relies heavily on the use of symbolism to expose what navigating through society is like for a woman. Rossetti gives a feminine perspective of society, and how males view women, and Adichie talks about a similar concept. In the video, she talks about how women are raised to be good wives, and mentions that they are praised for virginity, but for men, it does not matter whether or not they...

      After watching a video on YouTube from BBC Newsnight on comedian, John Cleese's decision to leave the UK due to Brexit, it became clear that despite how interconnected the world now is, people still tend to focus on the things related to themselves. All over the news in the US were articles about the president, presidential election, racial injustices, and plenty of other issues within the US, while the UK was simultaneously going through their own big political and economic shift as well, which was almost invisible in the American news outlets. While people in the US were arguing about President Trump and the Black Lives Matter movement, people in the UK were arguing about whether or they should leave the European Union. Not having any affiliation with the UK myself, and not knowing enough about Brexit, I don't really know what to think about it. However, it does make me realize that each country shares many differences, but many similarities as well.    ...

     History comes from a number of sources, such as archaeology, scientific discovery, historical records, personal diaries, letters, and many more. One source, however, not only records history, but how people felt about the events happening in their time, and that is literature. Essays on the topics of societal issues, memoirs of the people living in that time, and poetry give readers a sense of what happened in the past time period and what it meant to people in their everyday lives. Even fiction contains themes important to social, political, and economic events in history. Among all of this, we can see how it is still happening today, in music, stories, academic essays, and other forms of literature that are commonly found everywhere. With the ongoing pandemic and social issues, history is in the making, and it is reflected in the art and entertainment we view each day. Three examples are the songs, "Dream," by Imagine Dragon and "No I in Beer," by Brad Paisl...

      Throughout history, literature and literary works have existed at times when they were most needed. Most often, especially within the last two hundred years, literature has been used to comment on social, economic, and cultural issues, and to display the inequities between the majority and minority groups. For example, with feminism in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, many female authors wrote stories, poems, and essays on their point of view in society and how they were unfairly unequal to men in countries that claimed all people were created equal. Many black people also created their own art and literature expressing themselves and their history as well, and sharing it with others to comment on their own unequal positions in a dominantly white society. Being only two examples, there are still many more works of art and literature by many different artists and authors that have some meaning about any issue that may have been present at the t...