Journal Nov. 25

Okonkwo- Okonkwo is a man who was born into a family of not hard workers. He is now a very hard worker with three wives and more than two children. He owns two farms full of yams. His family is very high up and he is young. He is respected by the elders since he has worked so hard. He is also the protagonist.
Nwoye- Nwoye is Okonkwo's son and is not a very hard worker in the beginning of the book. However he becomes a slightly harder worker and his father starts to get along with him a little more. His father is still pretty harsh on him because he wants him to be successful.
Unoka- Unoka is Okonkwo's dad. He is dead and Okonkwo didn't get along with him very well. Okonkwo didn't like him because he was lazy. He was in major debt with everyone. He also was very poor and didn't have any farms of yams since he wasn't a hard worker.
Nwakibie- Nwakibie is a rich dude who gives Okonkwo a large number of seeds. He does this because he thinks that Okonkwo is a hard worker and can handle the work. He gives Okonkwo the seeds at Unoka's funeral.
Ani- Ani is the earth goddess and is respected by everyone. She is supposed to be in charge of all the crops and people make sacrifices to her.
Wives- A lot of people are said to have wives but their names are never mentioned in the story. They are just called the first wife or second wife. I think that this book is kind of sexist in this way because the wives don't have names.
Daughters- Okonkwa's daughters are mentioned a lot in the reading. They are mentioned a lot in the end. Their names are Ezinma, Ekwefi, Obiageli, and Nkechi.

Art Journal Nov. 23

There was this one picture with a bunch of flowers and a black background. I walked by this picture and at first glance it made me feel warm inside because it had a lot of flowers. Then I looked at it and after I looked at it for about five seconds I started to feel cold and sad. I think it was the black of the background that slowly made me feel cold. Another reason why I probably felt good when I first looked at the picture is that the bottom of the picture was bright. The flowers were bright and so from far away I only noticed the bright part. As you got closer you could see the darker parts of the picture which were higher up. The top flowers looked like they were older because the petals were falling off and some of the flowers had holes in them. One could not see that the flowers were falling apart from far away so one could only see that it was a group of flowers. The flowers also reminded me as if they were from a funeral because the background was black. They also looked old because they were falling apart. The combination of these things made me feel happy from far away but sad when close up.

Journal Nov. 22

2.

I think at the beginning of the story it shows that she doesn't know how to feel about Edward. This is because no men have been introduced into the story. As the story progresses she meets an interviewer who I think is supposed to symbolized Edward. The interviewer likes her and hires her and then starts to try to touch her. I think this represents Edward becuase Edward likes her and brought her to Jumping Monkey Hill but he is also creepy. I think the bank trust manager is supposed to represent how she feels about Edward at that time. She likes him but also thinks that he is not paying close attention to her anymore. Edward then starts to become very creepy and is always looking at her body. The alhaji is also supposed,to represent Edward because whenever he talks to her he does not look at her eyes he looks at her body. He also wants her to be his personal contact even though she had not said anything through-out the meeting. He then tries get her to like him by showing her his perfume collection. He will do anything to grt her to like him just like Edward. Chioma then walks out and leaves her job. I think this shows what Ujunwa wants to do. She wants to leave Edward because he is creepy just like how Chioma left alhaji because he was creepy. I also thnk that having a story in a story was a good and intresting way to tell the story. It provided more depth to the story but the story was still easy to understand. It was better than just saying something like "Ujunwa wrote a story about how Chioma..."

Journal Nov. 21

I think that the white man's burden is trying to say that all of their problems come from the African people. To me it feels like the white man's burden is just blaming the Africans for creating problems. The the white man's burden makes the person writing it seem rich and spoiled because they are saying they have all these hard thing to do. However the things that they are saying are hard aren't even that hard. The white man's burden makes it seem like white people are higher up therefore they shouldn't have all these troubles. The white man's burden is also saying that they feel like it is there duty to colonize everyone and they are putting more problems on themselves . They could easily solve most of there problems but they just chose to complain. The black man's burden kind of makes the white man's burden seem childish and whiny. The black man's burden  contains more realistic problems as well as harder problems. To me, The black man's burden is kind of like, "Oh, you say you have all these problems but look at us, we have more problems." I think that this relates to the book because the white men feel it is there duty to colonize Africa and they are putting more problems on themselves. However, the African people don't want them. 

Journal Nov. 16

Overall, I enjoyed Heart of Darkness. I felt like it was a very good book to read. I thought that it was confusing at times and discussing it in class helped a lot. It had a lot of symbolism that I didn't pick up on right apt thoe beginning but after we talked in class I began to enjoy the book even more. I think that the protagonist could either be Marlow or the Congo and the antagonist could be either Marlow or the Congo. I believe that the Congo was the protagonist and all of the Europeans settling around the Congo were the antagonists. I think that heart of darkness could mean the heart of Africa. It could all mean the heart of up advanced people. Another possible thing that it could mean is colonization. The Europeans were trying to do something good which would be the heart. However this thing they were trying to do turned to be a bad thing for the colonized people and that was the darkness.

Questions for seminar:

- Do you think Conrad was racist?

- Do you think that the arguement in Image of Africa were valid?

- What do you think heart of darkness means?

Journal Nov. 15

On page 10 in the kindle version, he describes the huts as having gaping holes and being very dark. This sets the mood of scary or abandoned. This intern makes colonialism seem like a scary thought because it is the white people who have been making these huts collapse. On Page 60 he starts talking about the fog and how thick it is. He also says that he cannot see through it and therefore he is unable to guide the ship. This make the mood seem mysterious. Out of nowhere he has the natives attack the ship. Since the story quickly changes from not knowing what's happening to all the sudden  being attacked, it makes the ambush much more dramatic. This puts emphasis on how bad colonialism is. The natives are attacking the whites because they don't like being colonized. A last example is when Marlow meets Kurtz. Kurtz is kind of just speaking random things and not making sense. This makes the mood creepy or confused. This mood helps when we find out that Kurtz has gone insane because of the Congo. Since he has also been hurt we find that colonialism is not only bad for the people being colonized but it is also bad for the people colonizing.

Journal Nov. 14 Addition

I thought of this like five minutes after I published my first journal. I think that the Congo represents Africa's growth and development towards technology. The Congo River is hard to travel and it takes a long time. It is also very windy with lots of turns. Africa is thought to be behind in technology and it is slowly starting to become more use to technology. This is like the river. Things move slow on the river and technology is growing slowly in Africa. It is hard for so e people in Africa to become use to technology just like it is hard to travel the Congo. However on the Thames River they are not going any where. This is because the tide is out. They are just going with the flow. This is kind of like England and technology. England is up to speed with technology so they can keep up with the technology of other countries. They can just go with the flow since they do not have to try to catch up. They will advance when the rest advances. The tide of the Thames represents the rest of the world and the boats on the Thames represents England. When the tide(world) is not moving it is very very hard for the boats(England) to move forward. However as soon as the tide(world) moves in or advances the boats(England) moves in or advances.