Postcolonial Homelands

In class, “Lulu” sparked discussions around violence, around dualism (between the twins, society, difference between countries, etc.), around the neutral use of technology, and around censorship (of both siblings). To further this discussion, this essay will focus on the common thread of compulsion among characters. The various compulsions include that of Lulu to post and to discover things, of her mother to keep the image of the family, of the brother to check on her sister and to play video games, or society as a whole to follow the instructions in the name of “safety” if not for others than to themselves. Narration comes from her twin brother’s perspective, who specifically explains the intensity of the bond between the two twins, but also invites readers to understand the moral choices the unnamed brother finds himself torn between. The brother is readers’ window into the story, told from the I, with no reference to his given name. Then, in the opening, the brother refers t...

Both Joukhader and Alsutany tackle representation of Arab, Middle Eastern people, particularly with regard to collectivized stories in the US. While both make many points, often going hand in hand, or calling to another understanding of how to break down the stereotypes. Still, Joukhader’s short story is shocking and emotive. While Alsutany’s article helps to contextualize it, the story can reach those without extensive access to data, or varied stories. The horror, the internal conflict, the effort to fit in, and then the great lengths to try to regain control, as Sam endures, is palatable to those who may not identify with her particular struggle or fantastic, outward exacerbation of said struggle. I was left harrowing for her crisis. I took on her pain because the written words allowed for the mindless derailment to one singular phrase repeated as a mantra, a plea, a cry, or a traumatized note be etched into, now, my brain, too. It is an intense breakdown, she is left to continuousl...

When I was abroad in Cape Town, I met a woman who meant a great deal to me. Still, there was one thing I could not stand: she kept calling me a “hoarder.” At first, I rejected the term adamantly, but when I went to her place, I could see most of the white on the floors and walls and noticed very little of her own things taking up space. In her wardrobe closet, she could easily still have fit us both inside, whereas mine would’ve had to remove clothing or suffocate between the varying types on hangers to do the same. I understood that I, even as a traveler, had many more things with me. I even saved broken things thinking that maybe I could fix them, or use the pieces for a project, or reference a note for a future paper, or maybe this odd item might just help save me some money someday. Someday. Indeed, she used to laugh and tell me that those exact thoughts were what constituted a mindset of a hoarder. I protested to say my mother was much worse. Still, that did not negate the facts...

In her piece, "Towards a New Consciousness" Borderlands La Frontera Gloria Anzaldúa deconstructs our presumptions surrounding identity. She argues that identity should be “flexible,” it should “shift out of habitual formations” (Anzaldúa 101). She continually reaffirms that it is a fluid movement of ideas that cannot be restricted. Her “mestiza consciousness” (99) stands between two cultures, straddling the fault lines between them. It also stands outside of both cultures. Her multifaceted identity as a queer woman somwehere between Mexican, Indian and American culture places her at a crossroads of selfhood. Anzaldúa writes, “All countries are mine because I am every woman’s sister or potential lover. (As a lesbian I have no race, my own people disclaim me; but I am all races because there is the queer of me in all races.)” (102). Her identity not only stands at the border of two sets of people, but also between conflicting ideas. In effect, Anzaldúa’s reaffirmation of her ...

Imaginary Homelands By: Salman Rushdie 11/20/2019 Thomas DiMarco Salman Rushdie ·        Born June 19, 1947 ·        Critically Acclaimed British-Indian Novelist o    Responsible for writing Midnight’s Children in 1981, winner of the Booker Prize o    Combined elements of magical realism with historical fiction o    Deals with the connections and disruptions that arise from the migrations between Eastern and Western civilizations ·        In 1983 (the publishing year of this essay), Rushdie was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and later knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in June, 2007 ·        In 1988, he wrote The Satanic Verses , which had to deal with Muhammad and the creation of the Quran o    Sparked major controversy, receiving many death threats, even having a fatwa declared aga...

Nathan Galloway  EN376 11/20/19 Imaginary Homelands Salman Rushdie, an Indian writer living in England, examines the mixed outcomes of creating an imaginative homeland in his essay  Imaginary Homelands . He comes to the conclusion that these piecemeal ideas of home have great importance as a data point of home, but he warns about the use of a singular writer’s representation of home when it is applied to the general population. This conclusion is very important and is still needed almost forty years after Rushdie published his essay. However, one of the most essential building blocks of his argument is his understanding of the philosophical empiricism.  David Hume, one of the founders of western Empiricism, argues in his book  An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding , that all of our essential knowledge comes from our sensory experiences. I bring Hume’s argument up because Rushdie has elements of his argument that follow in close parallel to that of Hume...

In “Imaginary Homelands,” Rushdie explores two phenomena which occur when you spend a substantial amount of time away from your home. The first of these phenomena is the change in the way that you perceive your home when you return to it. Rushdie describes this feeling while discussing her return to her childhood home, which she remembers only from a photograph. She describes an “eerie” (9) feeling upon returning. She felt as though her childhood home existed in “reality,” (9) while her everyday life existed apart from the home as an “illusion” (9). As I have mentioned in class before, I experienced a similar feeling when I returned to my own childhood home after being away at boarding school. I have a diary entry saved on my computer which I wrote the second month that I lived away from home (October 3, 2015). It reads, “Fifteen...the year the town is behind me before I can look back. My heart still thinks it is there, yet my feet lie on the path before me.” Perhaps the similarity be...

          I think it was Jasmine that so demonized the characteristics of “old India”. It spoke of superstition, of futile pursuits, and of a lack of agency. The “old India”, the recently postcolonial India lacked a motivation to it. The “new India” as it were, thought to be prime for a younger generation of rationalists, working in “productive”, timely jobs like tech and medicine. It was believed that the two were incompatible and one could not exist without the vanquish of the other. But I would argue that Dharma’s Love and Longing in Bombay , from what we have read views the India of old in a much more romantic light. Can it be no wonder that the very solution to Jago’s problem is an embrace of the ancient and spiritual? Jago’s apparent conversion then seems to be the driving force of this excerpt and, in turn, an attempt at blending or at least fostering a camaraderie between the “new” and “old” India’s.         ...

As Americans, we tend to be hypercritical of ourselves. There is, for lack of better words, a lot wrong with this country that is open for debate, recognized, and criticized. Such faults tend to be out in the open, or so we might think. Perhaps America’s faults are flaunted as way of demonstration, but little is done to correct them. However, that can be its own discussion. For the most part, the American understanding of freedom of speech encompasses the internet and all public media and the capacity for criticism and self-loathing/checking. The characters of Lulu however are not accustomed to this idea of expressive freedom. They exist in a world of censors and stifling. It seems so engrained to the characters’ way of life that they in fact expect to be silenced and somehow inhibited. Lulu herself attempts to challenge such status by posting Chinese national faults, that would be accustomed on American screens, on the Chinese internet. For this, she is repeatedly j...