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Blog Week four
Feb. 4th, 2012 09:57 am1) The internment of the Japanese during World War II is part of the historical context of the short story "Obasan." Do you think this is significant to understanding the point of view of the narrator or the family dynamics in the story? Why or why not? Use quotes from the text and proper MLA in-text citations to back up your points in a T.E.A. paragraph or two.
The internment of the Japanese during World War II plays a significant role in understanding the family dynamics of the narrator in the short story “Obasan”. The imprisonment of the narrator’s family, during World War II, played a direct role in shaping the habits of the aunt and her children. At the very beginning of the story, the narrator notices that her aunt’s house had seem to “shrunk over the years” (Kogawa 4) and become “more cluttered then” (Kogawa 4) she “remembers.” (Kogawa 4) The imagery of the comment brings a strong picture of a small, tightly packed house with little room to move. It’s as if the aunt is portraying her past memories out into her environment. In particular, emulating the days her of imprisonment. In the interment camps, families of all sizes were shoved one room compartments no bigger then the average size bedroom. One could only imagine how cramped and clustered their homes would be for even a small family. Consequently, it makes sense that the whole experience of having all ones worldly possessions taken away, evicted from ones home and being sent to prison camps would traumatic. And, as we know, traumatic experiences can lodge themselves deep within the subconscious mind where they can remain for many years and when these experiences reappear, they can either have a detrimental effect on ones mental health or cause an one to re enact certain events habitually without conscious awareness. The built up clutter in the aunt’s house, was most likely mental rejection of the memory when the RCMP seizing the most prized possessions of the family. The experience most likely caused a feeling of withdrawal and emptiness inside. Making a need to keep all of her possessions close, even though she may have reclaimed most of her seized possessions, the shock and pain still remains. This brings an important point of the family dynamics. There is a binary here, the daughters of the aunt. They on the other hand took on an entirely different experience and developed the opposite habit from the interment camp experience. Instead of confining selves, like their mother, they wished to be free. The interment camp created a feeling of being trapped and chained down. It only makes sense that now, when they a free to do as they wish, that they would travel to the far reaches of earth, away from that place that once confined them.
2)What two or three most useful tips have helped you write essays in the past? Please share these insights, and then name one new writing strategy that you hope to implement in this course. This "new' strategy could be an idea you glean from our course material or textbook, or from another student's blog.
The most useful strategies that I have found necessary for writing essays are, knowing exactly what message I am trying to get across, taking breaks and reading my essays over out loud. The first strategy I mention is the most important. If you don’t know what message your trying to get across, how can you ever expect the reader to pull any significance out of your essay. Second, is taking breaks from writing. This strategy is often overlooked because most people don’t realize that the human’s average attention span, that is the ability to sustain focus over a period of time, is approximately only twenty minutes. It really doesn’t make sense to try and attempt to write something for an hour straight. The mind begins to wander very quickly after only twenty to thirty minutes. Simply taking a ten to twenty minute breaks, can some days, mean a world of difference for your creativity as well as your focus. Just remember, as your taking a break, you should not be thinking about your essay. Last but not least, read over your essay out loud, paying attention to every little detail. Listen to yourself as you would if you were in a conversation with another human being. If your words don’t flow easily and smoothly, then it probably doesn’t make sense. As for a new strategy that I wish to implement in my witting this semester, I would like to let others proof read my writing before I hand in my final draft. It’s a simple idea, but its something I, and others, often overlook.
The internment of the Japanese during World War II plays a significant role in understanding the family dynamics of the narrator in the short story “Obasan”. The imprisonment of the narrator’s family, during World War II, played a direct role in shaping the habits of the aunt and her children. At the very beginning of the story, the narrator notices that her aunt’s house had seem to “shrunk over the years” (Kogawa 4) and become “more cluttered then” (Kogawa 4) she “remembers.” (Kogawa 4) The imagery of the comment brings a strong picture of a small, tightly packed house with little room to move. It’s as if the aunt is portraying her past memories out into her environment. In particular, emulating the days her of imprisonment. In the interment camps, families of all sizes were shoved one room compartments no bigger then the average size bedroom. One could only imagine how cramped and clustered their homes would be for even a small family. Consequently, it makes sense that the whole experience of having all ones worldly possessions taken away, evicted from ones home and being sent to prison camps would traumatic. And, as we know, traumatic experiences can lodge themselves deep within the subconscious mind where they can remain for many years and when these experiences reappear, they can either have a detrimental effect on ones mental health or cause an one to re enact certain events habitually without conscious awareness. The built up clutter in the aunt’s house, was most likely mental rejection of the memory when the RCMP seizing the most prized possessions of the family. The experience most likely caused a feeling of withdrawal and emptiness inside. Making a need to keep all of her possessions close, even though she may have reclaimed most of her seized possessions, the shock and pain still remains. This brings an important point of the family dynamics. There is a binary here, the daughters of the aunt. They on the other hand took on an entirely different experience and developed the opposite habit from the interment camp experience. Instead of confining selves, like their mother, they wished to be free. The interment camp created a feeling of being trapped and chained down. It only makes sense that now, when they a free to do as they wish, that they would travel to the far reaches of earth, away from that place that once confined them.
2)What two or three most useful tips have helped you write essays in the past? Please share these insights, and then name one new writing strategy that you hope to implement in this course. This "new' strategy could be an idea you glean from our course material or textbook, or from another student's blog.
The most useful strategies that I have found necessary for writing essays are, knowing exactly what message I am trying to get across, taking breaks and reading my essays over out loud. The first strategy I mention is the most important. If you don’t know what message your trying to get across, how can you ever expect the reader to pull any significance out of your essay. Second, is taking breaks from writing. This strategy is often overlooked because most people don’t realize that the human’s average attention span, that is the ability to sustain focus over a period of time, is approximately only twenty minutes. It really doesn’t make sense to try and attempt to write something for an hour straight. The mind begins to wander very quickly after only twenty to thirty minutes. Simply taking a ten to twenty minute breaks, can some days, mean a world of difference for your creativity as well as your focus. Just remember, as your taking a break, you should not be thinking about your essay. Last but not least, read over your essay out loud, paying attention to every little detail. Listen to yourself as you would if you were in a conversation with another human being. If your words don’t flow easily and smoothly, then it probably doesn’t make sense. As for a new strategy that I wish to implement in my witting this semester, I would like to let others proof read my writing before I hand in my final draft. It’s a simple idea, but its something I, and others, often overlook.
