No This is Not Beyonce's 'If I Were a Boy'

   My mother never had good luck with having children. I was the only one that survived and ended up growing into a beautiful woman. Why can’t you be thankful for that? I know I am favoured by you father but you still can’t seem to see past my gender. I am everything you want in a child yet you still wish for more. Every time you look at me I know you wish to see a boy. I see you stare at me and all I can see is disappointment in your eyes. It makes me hate who I am and what I was born with more and more. You will never know how you make me feel when you say those words *dramatic pause* those words, “I wish she was a boy.” I am ashamed of who I am and I blame you for it all! Oh how badly I just want to SCREAM that in your face! Is that what it takes? It that what it takes for me to be accepted by you? No... It can’t. Nothing will help. I just wish I were a boy. That would solve everything.

Your a Hero... Not.

In my previous response to “is Okonkwo a hero?” I said that he wasn’t. Although he threw down the Cat when he was young and may be a hero throughout his village, he still is not a hero to me. I also explained that Okonkwo at his older age still possessed his heroic characteristics such as strength and war-like abilities but now has a temper. Then I went on how the temper came from the history with his father, Unoka.

After completing “Things Fall Apart” and taking notes on what a tragic hero is I still agree that Okonkwo is not a modern day hero that holds the traits of being a respectable person to their society or  just an overall good person. But now I can agree that Okonkwo is a classic version of a tragic hero. A tragic hero is one who has developed some kind of flaw that leads to a downfall. The person is also unaware of the flaw they possess and not responsible for it. I believe that flaw for Okonkwo is his past with this father.

Unoka was a kind and gentle man which led Okonkwo to strive to be the opposite of that. Okonkwo strikes fear into his wives and children: “His wives...lived in perpetual fear of his fiery temper...so did his little children” (page nine). A modern day hero is not someone who makes others fear them especially their own family. A hero we know today is someone who provides comfort and safety to others.

Okonkwo’s real son Nyowe displays traits from Unoka which Okonkwo is ashamed of. He begins to start a relationship with Ikemefuna that he has always wanted to have with a son. But the bond between Okonkwo and Ikemefuna is destroyed when Okonkwo is forced to send Ikemefuna to death. I believe deep inside Okonkwo had enough feelings for him to stop the execution but of course Okonkwo could not show his weakness and his warrior side out shined his fatherly feelings towards Ikemefuna. At this point this classical tragic hero’s downfall began. This was one of Okonkwo’s weakest moments of the story. He could not eat or drink and struggled not to think of what he had done to Ikemefuna.

To me, Okonkwo is not a hero. He beats women and is not an overall respectable man. To his village, Okonkwo is strong, fearless and never shows weakness. In the end, Okonkwo commits suicide by hanging himself which shows the biggest weakness of all.

Lets talk about conflicts

The central conflicts in my novel, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, are man vs. himself and man vs. man. The main character, Dave’s parents just died a few months apart from each other and now he has to deal with his emotions of the loss. I believe this sort of conflict cannot be resolved because the only way to truly resolve this problem would be to bring Dave’s parents back to life. Since that is impossible Dave remains with the internal sorrow of this unfortunate predicament throughout the story. At the same time that conflict is happening, another is brought up which is man vs. man. Dave has a little brother named Toph who is too young to take care of himself so Dave takes initiative and begins to take care of him on his own. I have only read up to the part where Dave just begins to take Toph into his own hands so I don’t know what will happen for sure yet. I can only guess there will be some struggles along the way Dave will experience. I can imagine how difficult it’s going to be for Dave to maintain a normal life style such as getting a job, going back to school and keeping up with bills along with raising his eight-year-old brother Toph.

This conflict somewhat reminds me of the novel/movie The Outsiders. They both relate to the idea of brotherhood and each of the novels characters have lost their parents. In The Outsiders there are three brothers and the eldest, of course, struggles with keeping his younger siblings safe and out of trouble similar to how Dave has to make sure Toph grows up to be a respectable young man.

Post-Colonialism

Before defining post-colonialism I think knowing the meaning to colonialism is in order. Colonialism is the exploitation by a stronger country of a weaker one and using the weaker country's resources to strengthen and develop the stronger country. “Post” is a prefix that means after or behind. Now the term post-colonialism refers generally to the ways in which race, ethnicity, culture, and human characteristics itself are represented in modern time, after many colonized countries gained their independence. So is this basically referring to the aftermath of colonialism. This development has led cultures to fade and natives that were involved in colonialism start to seem ancient and second-rated. Europeans started to take over their culture and traditions by replacing it with their own ways. One outcome of this was that the “white man” was viewed as the ideal person and superior to any others who were seen as a lesser value, people particularly being black. A trend was put in to people’s heads that they needed to have white skin to be seen as beautiful and  many people who didn’t meet this demanding criteria were discriminated. In this day and age society no longer takes discrimination and racism as lightly as it did but pressure to be perfect is absolutely ongoing just not as enforced as it once was. 

  Movie stars, models, and singers featured in the media today all have that flawless, airbrushed look to them that everyone wants. Most of these people broadcasted in the media are skinny and have perfect skin (particularly white). Unfortunately not everyone has a personal trainer, their own make-up and hair stylist, and gets all their photos airbrushed. Most people do their best by watching what they eat and taking care of themselves. But others go to drastic measures to become these impossibly perfect popular people. One thing that people do is go on crazy starve-your-self diets or even worse, take deadly weight loss drugs or go through live risking surgeries. But thankfully aside from that superficial media there are advertisements and talk show hosts promoting to love who you are and the skin you’re in because that is real beauty. Natural beauty is what I believe makes a person beautiful.                                                                                 

p.s.

Check out this article on a potentially deadly weight loss drug recall   

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