Day 2: Whats Fair

There is quite a few issues in my novel ” The Book of Negroes”, but i belive that the biggest one that jumps out at us would have to be how the blacks were treated as inferior to the white man. Some incidents were i have found this novel has had it, was when Aminatas village was attacked and all the black people were rounded up and put in shackles. For example in the second chapter when Aminata is taken she says that “I live in terror that the captors would beat us, boil us and eat us.”  This shows the true power and intimidation that the white man possessed. Later on we find out that these black people would be sold on the slave market and forced to work on plantations. In my mind i belive that this kind of act is inhumane, it is not right to beat someone up, chain them up and force them to work for you just because of the colour of their skin.

The characters in my novel are having trouble adjusting to their experiences of injustice. For example Aminatas a young girl who has just been taking away from her home and everything she loved, she is having a hard time adjusting to the fact that she will never be able to go back to here home land.

I think that this has the biggest disadvantage for the women because they have to do a lot more work than the me and the white man could possibly rape these women which is just horrible. Although i hate to say it but i belive that the white man has the biggest advantage over the blacks because they have more power and they are the ones that are making the profit off of selling these poor, innocent black people.

Blogging Day 2: The Book Thief

There are many different issues of injustice in The Book Thief. For example, the fact that Liesel’s mother turned her over to foster care because she couldn’t take care of her must have been tough on Liesel. Liesel and her brother were on a train to their foster parents when the brother died. It was even worse living with new parents when her brother wasn’t there when he should’ve been. Liesel is not reacting well to the unfair acts that have recently been in her life. Liesel cries a lot at night because she is lonely. Also, she cries just over the loss of her brother. I do not think Liesel is handling the fact that her mother sent her off to a foster home because she couldn’t take care of her. It would be different if Liesel did not know her mother but she did so she obviously wouldn’t think the same way about her foster mother because she knows it’s not actually her real mom. Another act of injustice in this book is when Liesel is at school and all of her classmates laugh at her when she can’t read. This is unfair to Liesel because her teacher is not supporting her when the other students laugh at her. I think some characters are more advantaged than others because of jobs. I think Lisel’s friend Rudy is more advantaged than Liesel because his family has good jobs and Lisels foster parents don’t have amazing jobs. Her foster father is a painter and her mother does laundry but business is slow.

TATDOAPTI – Day Two – All’s fair in love and war?

What is the issue of injustice in your novel? (Essentially, what is unfair in your novel so far?) How are the characters reacting to experiences of injustice? Are some characters more advantaged or disadvantaged than others?

In “The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian,” there are many things that are unfair to Junior- and writing the title isn’t one. Living on a reservation, Junior is enclosed within a small community of people, where everyone knows everyone, and everything about them.

Because he was born with too much cerebral spinal fluid in his brain, Junior was left with physical problems due to the damage in his brain (too big of a head, overcrowded teeth, glasses, small body, etc.) – which everyone picked on him for. Junior is called severely cruel names, such as; retard (page four), and Hydro Head (page 20). This, I find unfair, because his physical appearance is being judged and criticised and he can’t change the way he looks, especially the side effects from his disorder.

As well as within his community, Junior is attending a new school outside the reservation, and he is the only Indian student, other than the school mascot. At first, the other students look down on him, which is unfair; but so do the teachers. Junior is constantly under pressure, and feels compared to the white people all the time. From the clothes he wears, to the way he walks and talks, he feels judged in a different way. The girls at the school laugh at him or ignore him, and the boys; mostly the jocks; call him racist names like “chief“, “red skin“, “squaw boy“; and make racial jokes, like the one on page 64. This is unfair, as well, because of his background and religion, as well as his physical features.

Overall, Junior is mistreated and unfairly thought about because of the way he looks, who his family and friends are, and where he lives, which is the most unfair overall.

Blogging #2

An issue of injustice that is present so far in The Kite Runner is the discrimination between the Hazara’s and Pashtuns. This is being demonstrated is Amir son of a rich afghan and Hassan his servant(or so they claim) that seem to have a strong friendship that is deteriorated because of the prejudice and racist against those like Hassan (Hazara) in Afghanistan. An example of their relationship being judged by the so called “upper class” in Afghanistan even though most would think that no such thing existed there as it does in North America was the small disagreement between Amir, Hassan, Assef, and Assef seemingly pressure friends. In this scene Assef shows his true opinion on this discrimination when he said ” Afghanistan is the land of Pashtuns. It always has been, always will be. We are the true Afghans, the pure Afghans, not this Flat-nose here. His people pollute our homeland, our watan. They dirty our blood”. Thus, providing that many children similar to Assef or own forced or impaled on the same opion on Hazara’s treat as much. Like dirt. Or as some like Amir and Baba will treat them well and almost equal. But seem to have a whole different appearance and point of view in front of society. Why is that? Well i can only assume that this is a result of pressure caused by society forcing its views on others which in this case results in unfair treatment of Hazara’s and servants, low life, and many more not savory things done to and otherwise innocent race of people, and influence Pashtuns to treat them as such just because of this very discrimination.

Another injustice issue that i find intriguing in The Kite Runner is the fact then in a term or show of respect most Hazaras call Pastuns by their birth name then use the term Agha. This is shown many times when Hassan refers to amir as Amir Agha. However, sometimes Hazara’s have to use this term to other Pastuns that they dislike extremly. An example of Hassan using the term Agha to his “superior” against some other things he may have called that individual is when Hassan was attempting to reason with Assef. Hassan said “Please leave us be, Agha,”. Thus showing the injustice of how Hazaras have to have much more control over their emotions then Pastuns which leaves then at a disadvantage and Pashtuns at the advantage of continuing to treat them little better than the dirt they walk on.

Blogging Day 2 @_@~~!

I suppose that today is a blog of ‘injustice’, and the injustices of The Book Thief.

The injustice that is seen in the newest section of the book is probably during her classes. She often gets into trouble for nothing, and given the period of time that this all happens, the staff at schools dealt with the children’s misbehavior by means of abuse (usually spanking or lashing them).

Back to the point though, the main injustice in school wasn’t actually the abuse itself, but the events leading up to it. Liesel, our main character and 10-year-old book thief, has been learning how to improve her reading skills in school. As a test all of the students in the class had to read a passage from a book, but despite the teacher thinking that Liesel wasn’t ready for it, Liesel insisted that she read. In her immense panic of the situation, she forgot what was written on the page and tried to improvise from her own book, The Grave Digger’s Handbook, which she had memorized by heart. The teacher though, not understanding this, whipped her and sent her for what we could now call a ‘time out’.

Now we get to the fun part. Of course, kids being kids, love to make fun of their peers, be it in a joking manner, or to be truly hurtful. In this case, it WAS to be hurtful, and Liesel didn’t take this well. She did end up getting into a lot more trouble than she original was in. In her defense though, she was being bullied by various kids for the sole fact that she messed up on her reading. Unfairness? I’d say that would be unfairness in one of it’s highest forms to a child.

Blogging-Day 2

So far in the novel The Kite Runner, there have been some issues that I find unfair. First of all Amir’s father, Baba. In some ways he favours Amir’s best friend/servant, Hassan. Baba treats Hassan better and more like a son than he does Amir. He shows this by always pushing his son away and not being as a father should be to a son, but yet he treats Hassan like that. A father should treat a son like he wanted to be treated with his father. In a good, respected manor. Another unfair thing is that Baba seems to hate Amir a little. This is because when he was being born, he “killed” his mother and ever since then he hasn’t cared for his son as a father should. For example when Baba is in his study talking with Rahim Khan. He said to him that if he didn’t see him being born from his wife with his own eyes, he would never believe that was his son. He also said that he is more or less ashamed to have Amir as a son because even when the kids on the street pick on him he doesn’t stand up for himself and Hassan has to fight them off for him. Finally, another unfair thing in the novel so far is that Hassan’s mother looked at him after he was born and saw his cleft lip and gave the baby to his father and called him an idiot child and left. They never saw her after that. So I think that was unfair because it’s not like Hassan could’ve helped it so because of something he had no control over, his mom ditched him. And a mother should never do that because now Hassan has nothing but his dad to depend on for family, and Amir as a friend-like brother. These are the things I find unfair in the novel so far.

Slumdog Millionaire Blog 2

In Slumdog Millionaire the protaganist Ram always seems to lose. Whether it is him getting acused of cheating on a game show and beaten because of it or getting left on the streets by his own mother when he was just a baby Ram always loses and it is unfair. He does not have a chance in any situation because he is over powered and cannot fight back. For example when Ram and Salim are with Maman who was a person that adopted the two of them they nearly got their eyes cut out. If they did not run away they would have become blind and forced to beg on the streets to survive. In this example because Ram is nnot old enough to provide safety, shelter, and food for himself so he is forced to live with other people who just happen to end up with him in their homes. Even when Ram gets taken in by these generous people and families, the people always end up either dying, or in urgent need to leave and move to another place leaving Ram once again on the streets. Another example of unfair events where Ram is working for a family and living in their house is when Ram is working for an Australian family and he gets occused of  stealing from the family and fired with no pay at all. Ram did not end up being guilty of stealing but, when another servant for the Australian family tried to steal from the father, the family had to move to another country, which left Ram on the street with 50 000 rupees. Now Ram did end up with the money he earned but when he hopped on a train to go to a new place to stay  the train he was in got robbed and he lost all of his hard earned money. As you can see Ram is very unlucky ever since he was born, but it seems like he become lucky very soon.

The Kite Runner- Day 2

           Being that my novel takes place in a war-torn country, where there are many conflicts between countries and other racial and tribal groups. Because of the setting, the characters feel that there are many injustices that take place to them and others in the novel.

            At the beginning of the story, Amir, the main character talks about how his father’s love goes to Hassan, his half-brother and none of it goes to Amir, his full-blooded son, the legitimate one. This makes Amir feel that it is unfair, since Amir is his father’s son, and it is confirmed when Hassan gets his cleft lip surgically repaired, and Amir gets nothing but another toy for his birthday. Feeling that he has been wronged, Amir takes out his anger on Hassan, and eventually drives his boy-hood friend away forever.

     The other major unfair and unjust part of the novel is when Amir is trying to bring Hassan’s orphaned son, Sohrab, back to the United States with him, but he cannot because He does not have a death certificate for Hassan and his wife, and must try to get a humanitarian visa to take him back home. This is unfair because all Amir wants to do is make things right after what happened between him and Hassan, and then the death of Hassan, and wants to keep the child safe. The world is cruel, harsh and unjust towards Amir.

       Although it is not a significant part or section in the novel, they mention the unjust and unfair ways of the Taliban, and how the country is so depressed, awful and poor after the start of the war. The smart and respected people of the society are not allowed to practise their professions, the teachers can’t teach, the lawyer’s can’t practise truthful justice and the business men are deprived of what make good businesses grow: money, clients and contentment.

     The characters of the novel react like any other normal human being would do if they were put into these harsh, unfair and unjust situations. Some of them  fight back, some stand down and others die. Amir finally stands up in the end, and makes things right for everyone else. He realizes that he has become the person who stands up to people in the end, like he should have for Hassan in the alley. He is finally NOT a bystander.

Day 2

What is the issue of injustice in your novel? (Essentially, what is unfair in your novel so far?) How are the characters reacting to experiences of injustice? Are some characters more advantaged or disadvantaged than others?

Write 300-400 words on this topic, using specific references to the text

The injustice in my novel The Book of Negroes would be towards the African-Americans. The book is showing injustice towards the African-Americans when the white people move through the villages burning them and taking people to become slaves. Then they take them to a ship to be shipped to become slaves and on the ship many people die and are killed. This is injustice towards them because they weren’t harming any body in their tribes when the people decided to come through and kill a lot of them. Also the injustice is shown through the main character Amniata and what she goes through. Amniata’s parents are killed and then see is taking on the ship forced to be naked and also she is forced to deliver the pregnant womans babies. Many different characters show the injustice in this the book, the men the were taken for slavery have it a lot worse than the woman. The men always have to be tied up to each other and they always have to have neck collars on to keep them close to each other. When the woman are allowed to be free and don’t always have to be tied to each other, just when they sleep. Another example of that would be when the men were hurt they were just killed or left to die. But when the woman were hurt the were allowed to get help and everyone would wait for them and get them what they need. An example of that is, “One woman tugged my hand. I looked toward Chekura, who nodded that I was free to go. The woman led me by the hand while the other followed” (Hill, 39). This is when the main character is hurt and she is allowed to go to the village and get help without any guards with her.

Injustice In Slumdog Millionaire

     How are the characters reacting to experiences of injustice? Are some characters more advantaged or disadvantaged than others?

     Salim and Ram are put into a juvenile home. At this home the kids aren’t treated very good. But  Ram is treated a bit better then the other kids. Ram is treated better because he can speak English, and he sometimes gets seconds from the cook, and he is never called down to Mr. Gupta’s room. But Salim doesn’t have the same luck and one night is called down to Mr. Gupta’s room. When he gets there, Mr. Gupta is sitting in his chair and is  wearing pajamas. When Salim enters his room, he tells him to get undressed, Salim does as he is told. Mr. Gupta gets up and goes behind Salim when he hears a scream and tells Salim to leave his room, but it is too late, the guards, the cook , and the warden are at his room and find out about  his dirty secret.

     What is the issue of injustice in your novel? (Essentially, what is unfair in your novel so far?)

     The issue of injustice in this book is that orphan kids are treated like they are worthless and are treated like trash. They are also given barely enough food to live.