Post #8 OEDIPUS COMPLEX

What Oedipus Complex is, is that it is a theory of Sigmund Freud's that says young males are unaware of a desire that consists of penetrating both his parents: one with the tip of a sword, and the other with a penis.

My opinion on this is that I do not think this is true because I have never experienced such absurd thoughts of killing my father and marrying my mother. Though I agree on the other topic discussed in class earlier days ago, which was I believe: finding a friend or even a significant other who share the same characteristics of our parents.

The Oedipus Complex in my opinion is a disturbed idea that will stick to our heads for the rest of our lives because it is very overboard and unique.

Film Adaption Personal Response (lightings/actor performances)

A Streetcar Named Desire was first adapted for film in 1951 by Tennessee Williams. Although the stage directions of the written play was clear, Tennessee William’s film adaption would give the audience a clearer idea of the mood during the scenes through stage lightings and actor performances.

There were a lot of additions and minor changes to what happened in the novel that could affect the meaning and perception of the character greatly such as the part “My clothes’re stickin’ to me. Do you mind if I make myself comfortable? (he starts to remove his shirt)” (26) where according to the play Stanley started removing his shirt before Blanche had given a response yet, but in the film it was clear that Stanley only took it off after Blanche told him “please, please do.”

Furthermore, the acting of the actors made it easier for the audience to understand the character’s personality and what they were like. For example, the look in Blanche’s eyes whenever she got reminded of Belle Reve or her dead husband showed that there was definitely some mental stress within the character in between all her daintiness and frailness. Stanley was often being portrayed as this violent-tempered, vicious man but in the film for the most part, the actor did not seem to be reenacting the character of the written play as much. Although he could be rough at times where he yanked and pushed Stella several times throughout scene 1, the way he spoke made him sound stupid, irritating, and ridiculous. His way of slurred speech along with the loudness while speaking when arguing with Stella proved his animalistic stupidity but didn’t seem too violent.

Besides the actor performances, the lightings of the film also would provide the audience with better ideas of the scene’s mood as whenever Blanche was reminded with Belle Reve or her dead husband in the middle of a conversation the lights would start blinking at a slow and steady rate, sort of like the lightings in a horror movie, and that no one else would notice the light. It reflected what was going through Blanche’s head as those were certainly traumatizing experiences for her, placing her on the brink of sanity every time.

The lighting and actor performances brought the originally written play to a film filled with emotion and mood.

Post #7

5 Quotes

"It excited me to imagine that fifty years later, someone might find an ancestor in the Book Of Negroes and say, "That was my grandmother."" (Hill 331)

I think that this quote describes Aminata's character a lot as two of the things she has wanted most appeared on this quote. It fits very well into the theme of identification as Aminata is always afraid of dying without having anyone knowing who she is mourning for her loss just like all the other slaves that had died. This quote is very significant especially considering the time that Aminata is at when this quote was mentioned where she had nobody, everyone who she has once known had died or killed, and now the least that she could hope is that someone recognizing her name from the Book Of Negroes. It also relates to the symbol of the Book Of Negroes being the book that she was working on in that chapter.

"Each night, I climbed into bed with my daughter and tried to calm myself by following the rise and fall of her breathing." (Hill 383)

This quote displays the traumatic experiences that the protagonist in the story has gone through and it is significant to the novel because this novel is about a 'Negro's life, who once was a slave and had gone through some very horrifying and traumatic experiences in her life.

"Sometimes a deal with the devil is better than no deal at all."

The quote means a lot to this novel seeing that Aminata is constantly living in the most extreme conditions with people around that can't be trusted at all. It signifies to the readers that there really isn't much choice at those times, almost no one could be trusted and when Aminata was in some really desperate situations she would have to be forced to make a deal with the people

Post #6

Aminata faced lots of obstacles throughout the novel "The Book of Negroes" as she was kidnapped at a very young age without any idea of the western slavery world. The obstacles that I think that she had to face were the toughest were that getting over the pain from the loss of her loved ones. She has lost everyone she knew multiple times. First were her parents, who were both killed while the white men invaded her village. Then later in the novel her child was stolen, majority of Charles Town including everyone living in the house of Mr. Lindo were dead except for Solomon himself, she found out Chekura's ship was lost... She had to work hard in terrible inhumane conditions to survive. Aminata's faced so many obstacles that it can't be counted.

For me, my obstacle in my life was getting used to doing homework after getting accepted to Ridley. I didn't do any homework ever since I got into the boarding program at my school in Hong Kong in Grade 6. So I got into Ridley and I didn't do any assignments. All the teachers hated me and I was failing all 8 courses. How I Resolve it was I spent some of parents' money to hire a tutor so that he could help me catch up to my work. so money was my resource. The skill I used was obviously, knowing how to speak, read, and write a foreign language, which was english. so I actually can relate myself to the book of negroes becuas aminata's skill of knowing how to speak a foreign language actually made her life easier just as it saved me from getting butchered by my parents.  I was being enslaved by school assignments. It changed me a lot as I went from not doing any homework to finishing all of it as I have learned my lesson. And teachers didn't hate me anymore.

Post #5

The Zimbardo Prison Experiment
The experiment is assigning roles for a group of experiment subjects, one role as prisoners and the other as guards. Then the subjects will be placed inside a prison, where they will be whatever the roles they were assigned with. The experiment lets us see how the guards start to abuse their powers and authorities over the prisoners and things get out of control, as one of the guards started spraying a prisoner with a fire hose. This experiment connects to The Book of Negroes in a way when the Toubabu abused their powers and took complete control over the Africans, physically and mentally abusing them so much just like the prison guards to the point where the Africans couldn't take it anymore and rioted on the ship.
The Milgram experiment
The experiment starts with 3 people: one being the experimenter, one being an actor, one being the subject. The actor will pretend to be a subject as well and the subject and him will both be assigned the roles of teacher but the actor will however, act that he has received the role to be a student. The subject would now be the teacher and has to obey the experimenter, he has to teach the learner (the actor) a set of words and when the leaner didn't get it correct the subject will have to shock him, the shock is fake though. This experiment is to test how far people would be willing to go to obey the authority, being the experimenter and the results shown that

most of the subjects are willing to shock their patients to death (a full shock) to obey the authority. This relates a bit to the Book of Negroes because the Africans were willing to work in the plantations as hard as they could even if it meant death for them to obey the authority just because they didn't have a choice.
Stockholm Syndrome
A psychological disorder that makes the person in captivity have a positive feeling towards the captors. This connects to the Book of Negroes where Aminata defends Mr. Lindo by saying that 'killing him won't bring our child back' when she was asked by Chekura whether he should kill Lindo or not. 

Post #4

Post #3

I feel that the title "Book of Negroes" is just to get public attention whether it is to enrage everyone in the country that led to front page burnings and censorship because I think that the author knows that the title will eventually be accepted and people will start massively purchasing these books because of its publicity or former history. Or maybe the author wanted to put the title as 'The Book of Negroes' so that it feels more like the times when black people were actually called 'negroes'. The title is obviously not appropriate at all especially since it was released at a time when the word 'Negro' was so sensitive to people's ears, it might lead them to think that this book is racist or offensive. I think that the book burnings are just people overreacting to this situation, even when the details of the book is appropriate, and if they hate the book so much why would they spend money to buy it meaning supporting it then burning it afterwards? Isn't it a waste of money? Based on what I read from the novel so far, I think that the title could be changed to simply something like "Aminatta Diallo's Diary" or "Aminatta Diallo's Life of Slavery and Freedom"