|
|
LITR 5831 Seminar in World / Multicultural Literature: Tragedy & Africa UHCL-Ramsey
|
|
midterm submissions
(Immediately below the initial copy of Villanueva's midterm is another copy highlighted by instructor.)
Isaac G. Villanueva
October 18, 2011
Literature 5731 Multicultural Literature: Tragedy and
Africa midterm
The Value of
Learning by Experiencing Tragedy and Africa
If we take an historical point of view,
the question arises, “If Classical Greece is the birthplace of Western
Civilization, dating from about 2, 200 years ago, and Africa is the birthplace
of humanity, dating from approximately 150,000 years ago, then how do they
meet?” (1) From the handouts we have been given, and the assigned
readings, plus the discussions and lectures we have had in this area, I have
learned that they do, in fact meet, and parallel each other in several ways.
Africa seems to set the more traditional example, by virtue of its age, for the
more modern outlook of the Western Civilization. After studying our reading
assignments; The Orestiea Trilogy by Aeschylus, which consists of
Agamemnon, Libation Bearers, and Eumenides, Athol Fugard’s Master Harold
and the boys, Oedipus the King by Sophocles, and Things Fall Apart
by Chinua Achebe, the two that seem to set the best example of meeting and that
stand out the most for me are Master Harold and the boys and Oedipus
the King. These two works are so similar in so many ways that I believe a
strong dialogue does in fact exist between them. But, we must understand that
differences also exist in how both the traditional and the modern can be viewed
as tragic. According to Aristotle’s Poetics on Tragedy and Comedy, he defines
Tragedy as “an imitation of an action that is serious, complete, and of a
certain magnitude.” (2) During one of our first meetings, we
discussed how a simple definition of tragedy could be “when good men go wrong.”
This is the definition that stuck in my mind and this is how I view Tragedy from
what we have studied so far. Keeping that in mind, let’s examine some of the
similarities I found in all four of our reading assignments, particularly in
Master Harold and the boys and Oedipus the King.
To begin with, I see the lead characters
in both Master Harold and the boys and Oedipus the King, Sam and
Oedipus, as being the good guys who try to do good and have it turn out badly
anyway. It is ironic in that things don’t live up to their expectations. These
two stories are classic examples of what real life is like. We all have good and
bad in us and, when compared with works of romance and comedy, tragedy is most
like real life.
In Master Harold and the boys,
Sam takes on the role of the Elder, as in the traditional cultures, with Hally,
Master Harold, taking on the role of student, or youth. Sam tries desperately to
initiate Hally into the world but he just doesn’t seem to get it. Sam still
doesn’t give up on Hally, in spite of a transition being made from the
traditional, to the modern. In the modern, the youth has the power over the
elder. (3) Hally’s primary conflict lies in whether he should respect
his father and disrespect his friends, Sam and Willie. His father says Hally
“must teach the boys to show you respect, my son,“
(4) meaning he must put Sam and
Willie in their place. They have become too familiar with him. Even though Hally
doesn’t see it yet, Sam is the person who is showing him the most about life.
Sam has, in a sense, filled in the void left by Hally’s father who is crippled
by illness. Up to this point, Sam’s role has been the higher one because he
plays the elder, the father figure. He is an important man. He is the mentor.
So, even though they are not related by blood, there is still a sense of family,
and since one of the major components of tragedy is that they are stories about
families, this fact serves to classify this work by Fugard as a “modern”
tragedy. Most classic tragedies are mainly about royalty, as we shall see
shortly in Oedipus the King, while modern tragedies seem to be about
middle-class people, and we can see how the characters is this story seem to fit
this description. Most modern tragedies are also somewhat personal, and even
though this work starts out personal, it becomes political because of an
incident with a kite. (5)
At this point, we see the introduction
of the ideology of Apartheid. Sam could not sit at a park bench where he and
Hally tied the kite they were flying, because of his color, so he had to leave
Hally there by himself. Memories of this incident make Hally begin to see how
close he and Sam really were. They made him conscious of the man’s presence in
his life. He realized that even though it was strange for a little white boy and
a black man old enough to be his father to be flying a kite together, it would
have been just as strange, or stranger still, if it had been Hally and his real
dad, a cripple and a little boy, to be flying a kite together. We also see the
appearance of several conflicting emotions in Hally. We see his unwarranted
anger toward Sam which will later lead him to spit in Sam’s face. This anger
seems to stem from the fact that Hally’s dad is coming home from the hospital
soon. He is angry and afraid that he will be losing his position of authority.
Right now, he considers himself the man of the house and feels that in order to
retain that status, he must indeed put the boys in their place. Very strong
prejudices emerge when he attempts to do this, as does a form of what is called
the Oedipal Complex which is Sigmund Freud’s theory. Here, we can begin to see
the parallel to Oedipus the King that we shall also see in The Orestia
Trilogy ad in Things Fall Apart. I believe the important lesson to be
learned from this story is the need to overcome prejudices, much as Oedipus
could have also learned many lessons of great value if he had stopped trying to
run away from his problems and fears.
During our discussions on Oedipus the
King, I mentioned how I viewed Oedipus as running away from his problems,
and my remarks were misinterpreted to mean that I was making him out to be a
coward. Those were not my intentions. I was merely pointing out how Oedipus
preferred to avoid making a bad situation worse.
In this play, Aristotle uses the plot as
the supreme example of Tragedy, and Sigmund Freud uses it as the basis of his
theory of the Oedipal Complex, which claims that every boy has a desire to kill
his father and sleep with his mother. It seems obvious to me that Oedipus chose
to remove himself from the people he thought were his real father and mother,
Polybus and Therope, to prevent this from happening. That is exactly what
happens anyway when he unknowingly kills his real father Leius in self-defense,
at a three-way crossroad. Oedipus still refuses to believe that he has killed
his father even when Tiresias, the blind prophet, reveals the truth to him. He
is in a state of denial, as also is his wife/mother, Jocasta. She tells Oedipus
that all prophecies are silly and reminds him that the Delphi Oracle once told
Laius that he would be murdered by his own son, but that Laius son was dead. It
seems that deep down, both Jocasta and Oedipus are closing their eyes to
reality. They are both terrified to consider what it would mean if the prophecy
were true. I believe this is why Jocasta can tell Oedipus of the prophecy that
her son would kill his father and Oedipus can tell her about a similar prophecy
given to him by an Oracle, (6) but neither makes the connection nor
remarks on the coincidence of why Oedipus can hear Jocasta’s story of her
binding her child’s ankles (7) and not think of Oedipus own swollen
feet. It seems all the prophecies that fill Oedipus the King turn out to
be true which leaves me to believe that there must be limits to one’s free will.
Perhaps fate then, does play a strong part in tragedy.
We saw something similar happen in
Master Harold and the boys as Hally starts becoming more and more like his
father. We see fate dictating that Apartheid would be a part of the South
African culture during this period in history. Hally lets the idea of white
supremacy enter his mind and he starts viewing himself as being higher than Sam.
But it seems that Hally intentionally chose to follow this path in order to
retain what he saw as his position of authority. Oedipus, on the other hand,
came about his situation unintentionally. Once again, I view Oedipus as trying
to run away or remove himself from what he doesn’t want to happen. And, until he
finally hears it from the shepherd and messenger, the eyewitnesses whom he sent
for, he keeps denying the truth. Upon finding out the truth, instead of facing
it, he chooses to blind himself so he wouldn’t see it, by stabbing out his own
eyes. Once again, I view this as ironic in that things didn’t turn out as he
expected.
We see irony carrying on into the
Orestia Trilogy as similar incidents occur. The story begins when
Agamemnon’s father, Atreus, murders his brother Thyestes children then serves
them as food to the unwitting Thyestes. Atreus, like Master Harold, must have
felt his position of authority threatened and chose to hold on to it in any way
possible. This caused Thyestes to curse Atreus’s house which leads to a vicious
cycle of violence and vengeance.
Clytemnestra, Agamemnon’s wife, and his
cousin Aegisthus, Thyestes’s only surviving child, plot and vow to kill
Agamemnon for killing Iphigenia, Clytemenstra and Agamemnon’s daughter, in order
to gain favorable winds for his fleet, and also for what he did to Thyestes,
Aegisthus’s father, by feeding him his own children. They succeed in killing him
and his concubine, Cassandra, upon his return from the Trojan War. We see a
parallel to Oedipus the King, emerge in a prophecy made of Orestes,
Clytemnestra’s son. This is another reference to the mother/son relationship.
The prophecy says that Orestes would return to avenge his father, which only
seems to lead to the continued cycle of violence. The characters all seem to
want to end this cycle of violence but they believe the only way to do it is by
committing more murders, and this is what I believe makes the characters
hopefulness seem tragic and ironic. I see this hopefulness as also making,
Master Harold and the boys tragic. They also want to see the cycle of
prejudice and Apartheid come to an end but it is fated to continue.
Fate also plays a hand as the cycle of
violence continues with Okonkwo in Things Fall Apart. From the beginning,
we see Okonkwo as an inspiring warrior, a great wrestler, a “hero” of his
village. He gives the impression of aggression with his springlike walk and his
readiness to pounce on anyone. He feeds and knows his power and is very
hot-tempered. He prefers to settle differences with his fists. He had a very
successful farm with bountiful harvests of yams and he had many wives, as was
customary. His character seems to fit the description of the American self-made
man since he made his farm prosperous and made his living on his own. He did not
inherit anything from his father. He was regarded highly in his village, in
keeping with the Ibo culture, which already had its own set of standards. But
the British entered the picture and they, like the Americans, think they are
helping other countries and peoples by instilling their own way of life on them.
They see nothing wrong with what they are doing. However, Okonkwo chose to live
his life according to his own traditional culture instead of the “modern” way,
which is what caused things to fall apart for him. Since this story also deals
with family, in Okonkwo’s case, both his immediate family, and his clan, his
extended family. I believe this qualifies this story as a “traditional” tragedy.
Things appear to happen from the beginning to the end and evolve from generation
to generation. Okonkwo seems to be trying to prove his manhood from the
beginning, by following tradition. For example, even though he was warned by an
elder not to do it, he still took part in Ikemefuna’s murder, just to prove he
wasn’t weak. Tradition continues on the end of the story as the villagers refuse
to remove his hanging body. Like in biblical references, it was considered
unclean.
In conclusion, these stories, especially
Oedipus the King, presents the wife the question, “Is all tragedy fated?”
One of the handouts we received refers to this play as a “tragedy of fate,”
(10) and this topic did in fact come up in our discussions. The question
that sticks out most in my mind is still one of whether tragedy is the product
of fate. Is it a form of predestination, a resignation to the will of the gods?
There are even biblical passages that allude to this. In Psalms 139:16, it is
written that,”….your eyes foresaw all my actions; in your book all are written
down; my days were shaped before one came to be….” That being the case, then to
my understanding this means that no matter what Sam, or Oedipus, Agamemnon or
Okonkwo, or anyone else did, things would have still turned out the same, since
all their stories appear tragic. They would have still been good men who went
wrong. But, then, that presents another dilemma for me. Christianity also
teaches us that we are all given free will, the ability to choose right from
wrong. These men all chose to do what was right, according to their cultures and
beliefs. Their cultures seem to already have had a set of social standards they
adhered to. Now, I understand that the lesson we are to learn from tragedy is
one of perception to our own impotence, but I don’t understand if this is
supposed to be a definition of the Western Culture, the Modern, or is it of
African origin, the Traditional? If it is of Modern origin, then what is it that
says Western Culture must bring “civilization” to them, I refer here to the Ibo
people from Things Fall Apart, and that it is the “right” way? Often
times, Western Civilization fails to see its own short-comings. To support this
statement, I would ask if the killing of thousands of unborn children through
abortion is any better than the Umuofia cultures ritual of leaving twin babies
in a forest. To many of us, it might seem barbaric, but then again, to them,
many of our customs are probably barbaric as well. I believe these peoples have
managed to survive quite well so far without our imposing our set of moral
standards on them and will continue to do so. The lesson I believe we should be
learning by experiencing Tragedy and Africa is that it’s time we let other
peoples live their lives according to their own set of standards. The attitude
being exhibited now seems to be one of moralism instead of one of morality. The
message seems to be one of absolute right and wrong; I am right and whoever
disagrees is automatically wrong.
NOTES
1.
Dr. Craig White, 2nd
Syllabus; Historical Objective #2a, 2
2.
Aristotle, Poetics.
Ca.340 BCE. Text from S.H. Butcher,
Trans, Aristotle’s Theory of Poetry and Fine Art, 4th
ed. (New York: Dover, 1955),
handout, 2
3.
Dr. Craig White,
Tradition and Modernity,” Terms and Themes handout, 3
4.
Athol Fugard, Master
Harold and the boys, (New York:
Samuel French, Inc. 1982), 60
5.
Fugard, 33
6.
Sophocles, Oedipus
the King, trans. Ian Johnston; online @http://www.malaspina.org/home.htm;
lines 949-961
7.
Sophocles, lines
851-861
8.
Chinua Achebe,
Things Fall Apart, (New York:
Anchor Books, 1994), 61
9.
Achebe, 207
10.
Dr. Craig White,
Oedipus Complex; Terms and Themes handout, 2
[Instructor’s note: endnotes like this aren’t required.]
(Copy of Hawkins midterm highlighted by instructor)
Isaac G. Villanueva
October 18, 2011
Literature 5731 Multicultural Literature: Tragedy and
Africa midterm
The Value of
Learning by Experiencing Tragedy and Africa
If we take an historical point of view,
the question arises, “If Classical Greece is the birthplace of Western
Civilization, dating from about 2, 200 years ago, and Africa is the birthplace
of humanity, dating from approximately 150,000 years ago, then
how do they meet?” (1)
From the handouts we have been given, and the assigned readings, plus the
discussions and lectures we have had in this area, I have learned that
they do, in fact meet, and parallel each
other in several ways. Africa seems to set the more
traditional example, by virtue of
its age, for the more modern outlook
of the Western Civilization. After studying our reading assignments; The
Orestiea Trilogy by Aeschylus, which consists of Agamemnon, Libation
Bearers, and Eumenides, Athol Fugard’s Master Harold and the boys,
Oedipus the King by Sophocles, and Things Fall Apart by Chinua
Achebe, the two that seem to set the best example of meeting and that stand out
the most for me are Master Harold and the boys and Oedipus the King.
These two works are so similar in so many ways that I believe a strong dialogue
does in fact exist between them. But, we must understand that differences also
exist in how both the traditional and the modern can be viewed as tragic.
According to Aristotle’s Poetics on Tragedy and Comedy, he defines Tragedy as
“an imitation of an action that is serious, complete, and of a certain
magnitude.” (2) During one of our first meetings, we discussed how a
simple definition of tragedy could be “when good men go wrong.” This is the
definition that stuck in my mind and this is how I view Tragedy from what we
have studied so far. Keeping that in mind, let’s examine some of the
similarities I found in all four of
our reading assignments, particularly in Master Harold and the boys and
Oedipus the King.
To begin with, I see the lead characters
in both Master Harold and the boys and Oedipus the King, Sam and
Oedipus, as being the good guys who try
to do good and have it turn out badly anyway. It is
ironic in that things don’t live up to
their expectations. These two stories are
classic examples of what real life is
like. We all have good and bad in us and, when compared with works of romance
and comedy, tragedy is most like real life.
In Master Harold and the boys,
Sam takes on the role of the Elder, as in the traditional cultures, with Hally,
Master Harold, taking on the role of student, or youth. Sam tries desperately to
initiate Hally into the world but he just doesn’t seem to get it. Sam still
doesn’t give up on Hally, in spite of a transition being made from the
traditional, to the modern. In the modern, the youth has the power over the
elder. (3) Hally’s primary conflict lies in whether he should respect
his father and disrespect his friends, Sam and Willie. His father says Hally
“must teach the boys to show you respect, my son,“
(4) meaning he must put Sam and
Willie in their place. They have become too familiar with him. Even though Hally
doesn’t see it yet, Sam is the person who is showing him the most about life.
Sam has, in a sense, filled in the void left by Hally’s father who is crippled
by illness. Up to this point, Sam’s role has been the higher one because he
plays the elder, the father figure. He is an important man. He is the mentor.
So, even though they are not related by
blood, there is still a sense of family, and since one of the major components
of tragedy is that they are stories about families, this fact serves to
classify this work by Fugard as a
“modern” tragedy. Most classic tragedies are mainly about
royalty, as we shall see shortly in
Oedipus the King, while modern tragedies seem to be about
middle-class people, and we can see
how the characters is this story seem to fit this description. Most modern
tragedies are also somewhat personal, and even though this work
starts out personal, it becomes
political because of an incident with a kite. (5)
At this point, we see the introduction
of the ideology of Apartheid. Sam
could not sit at a park bench where he and Hally tied the kite they were flying,
because of his color, so he had to leave Hally there by himself. Memories of
this incident make Hally begin to see how close he and Sam really were. They
made him conscious of the man’s presence in his life. He realized that even
though it was strange for a little white boy and a black man old enough to be
his father to be flying a kite together, it would have been just as strange, or
stranger still, if it had been Hally and his real dad, a cripple and a little
boy, to be flying a kite together. We also see the appearance of several
conflicting emotions in Hally. We
see his unwarranted anger toward Sam which will later lead him to spit in Sam’s
face. This anger seems to stem from the fact that Hally’s dad is coming home
from the hospital soon. He is angry and afraid that he will be
losing his position of authority.
Right now, he considers himself the man
of the house and feels that in order to retain that status, he must indeed
put the boys in their place. Very strong prejudices emerge when he attempts to
do this, as does a form of what is called the
Oedipal Complex which is Sigmund
Freud’s theory. Here, we can begin
to see the parallel to Oedipus the King that we shall also see in The
Orestia Trilogy ad in Things Fall Apart. I believe the important
lesson to be learned from this story is the need to overcome prejudices, much as
Oedipus could have also learned many lessons of great value if he had stopped
trying to run away from his problems and fears.
During our discussions on Oedipus the
King, I mentioned how I viewed Oedipus as running away from his problems,
and my remarks were misinterpreted to mean that I was making him out to be a
coward. Those were not my intentions. I was merely pointing out how
Oedipus preferred to avoid making a bad
situation worse.
In this play, Aristotle uses the plot as
the supreme example of Tragedy, and Sigmund Freud uses it as the basis of his
theory of the Oedipal Complex, which claims that
every boy has a desire to kill his
father and sleep with his mother. It seems obvious to me that Oedipus chose
to remove himself from the people he thought were his real father and mother,
Polybus and Therope, to prevent this from happening. That is exactly what
happens anyway when he unknowingly kills his real father Leius in self-defense,
at a three-way crossroad. Oedipus still
refuses to believe that he has killed his father even when Tiresias, the blind
prophet, reveals the truth to him. He is in a state of denial, as also is
his wife/mother, Jocasta. She tells Oedipus that all prophecies are silly and
reminds him that the Delphi Oracle once told Laius that he would be murdered by
his own son, but that Laius son was dead. It seems that deep down, both Jocasta
and Oedipus are closing their eyes to reality. They are both terrified to
consider what it would mean if the prophecy were true. I believe this is why
Jocasta can tell Oedipus of the prophecy that her son would kill his father and
Oedipus can tell her about a similar prophecy given to him by an Oracle,
(6) but neither makes the connection nor remarks on the coincidence of why
Oedipus can hear Jocasta’s story of her binding her child’s ankles (7)
and not think of Oedipus own swollen feet. It seems all the prophecies that fill
Oedipus the King turn out to be true which leaves me to believe that
there must be limits to one’s free will.
Perhaps fate then, does play a
strong part in tragedy.
We saw
something similar happen in Master
Harold and the boys as Hally starts becoming more and more like his
father. We see fate dictating that Apartheid would be a part of the South
African culture during this period in history. Hally lets the idea of white
supremacy enter his mind and he starts viewing himself as being higher than Sam.
But it seems that Hally intentionally
chose to follow this path in order to retain what he saw as his position of
authority. Oedipus, on the other hand, came about his situation
unintentionally. Once again, I view
Oedipus as trying to run away or remove himself from what he doesn’t want to
happen. And, until he finally hears it from the shepherd and messenger, the
eyewitnesses whom he sent for, he keeps denying the truth. Upon finding out the
truth, instead of facing it, he chooses to blind himself so he wouldn’t see it,
by stabbing out his own eyes. Once again, I view this as
ironic in that things didn’t turn
out as he expected.
We see irony carrying on into the
Orestia Trilogy as similar incidents
occur. The story begins when Agamemnon’s father, Atreus, murders his brother
Thyestes children then serves them as food to the unwitting Thyestes. Atreus,
like Master Harold, must have felt his position of authority threatened and
chose to hold on to it in any way possible. This caused Thyestes to curse
Atreus’s house which leads to a vicious cycle of violence and vengeance.
Clytemnestra, Agamemnon’s wife, and his
cousin Aegisthus, Thyestes’s only surviving child, plot and vow to kill
Agamemnon for killing Iphigenia, Clytemenstra and Agamemnon’s daughter, in order
to gain favorable winds for his fleet, and also for what he did to Thyestes,
Aegisthus’s father, by feeding him his own children. They succeed in killing him
and his concubine, Cassandra, upon his return from the Trojan War. We see a
parallel to Oedipus the King, emerge in a prophecy made of Arestes,
Clytemnestra’s son. This is another
reference to the mother/son relationship. The prophecy says that Orestes
would return to avenge his father, which only seems to lead to the
continued cycle of violence. The
characters all seem to want to end this
cycle of violence but they believe the only way to do it is by committing
more murders, and this is what I believe makes the characters hopefulness seem
tragic and ironic. I see this
hopefulness as also making, Master Harold and the boys tragic. They also
want to see the cycle of prejudice
and Apartheid come to an end but it is fated to continue.
Fate also plays
a hand as the cycle of violence
continues with Okonkwo in Things Fall Apart. From the beginning, we see
Okonkwo as an inspiring warrior, a great wrestler,
a “hero” of his village. He gives
the impression of aggression with his springlike walk and his readiness to
pounce on anyone. He feeds and knows his power and is very hot-tempered. He
prefers to settle differences with his fists. He had a very successful farm with
bountiful harvests of yams and he had many wives, as was customary. His
character seems to fit the description of
the American self-made man since he
made his farm prosperous and made his living on his own. He did not inherit
anything from his father. He was regarded highly in his village, in keeping with
the Ibo culture, which already had its own set of standards. But the British
entered the picture and they, like the Americans, think they are helping other
countries and peoples by instilling their own way of life on them.
They see nothing wrong with what they
are doing. However, Okonkwo chose to live his life according to his own
traditional culture instead of the “modern” way, which is what caused things to
fall apart for him. Since this story
also deals with family, in Okonkwo’s case, both his immediate family, and
his clan, his extended family. I believe this qualifies this story as a
“traditional” tragedy. Things appear
to happen from the beginning to the end and evolve from
generation to generation. Okonkwo
seems to be trying to prove his manhood from the beginning, by following
tradition. For example, even though he was warned by an elder not to do it, he
still took part in Ikemefuna’s murder, just to prove he wasn’t weak.
Tradition continues on the end of
the story as the villagers refuse to remove his hanging body. Like in biblical
references, it was considered unclean.
In conclusion, these stories, especially
Oedipus the King, presents the wife the question, “Is all tragedy
fated?” One of the handouts we
received refers to this play as a
“tragedy of fate,” (10) and this topic did in fact come up in our
discussions. The question that sticks out most in my mind is still one of
whether tragedy is the product of fate. Is it a form of
predestination, a
resignation to the will of the gods?
There are even biblical passages that allude to this. In Psalms 139:16, it is
written that,”….your eyes foresaw all my actions; in your book all are written
down; my days were shaped before one came to be….” That being the case, then to
my understanding this means that no matter what Sam, or Oedipus, Agamemnon or
Okonkwo, or anyone else did, things would have still turned
out the same, since all their stories
appear tragic. They would have still
been good men who went wrong. But, then, that presents another dilemma for me.
Christianity also teaches us that we are all given free will, the ability to
choose right from wrong. These men all chose to do what was right, according to
their cultures and beliefs. Their cultures seem to already have had a set of
social standards they adhered to. Now, I understand that
the lesson we are to learn from tragedy
is one of perception to our own impotence, but I don’t understand if this is
supposed to be a definition of the Western Culture, the Modern, or is it of
African origin, the Traditional? If it is of Modern origin, then what is it
that says Western Culture must bring “civilization” to them, I refer here to the
Ibo people from Things Fall Apart, and that it is the “right” way? Often
times, Western Civilization fails to see
its own short-comings. To support this statement, I would ask if the killing
of thousands of unborn children through abortion is any better than the Umuofia
cultures ritual of leaving twin babies in a forest. To many of us, it might seem
barbaric, but then again, to them, many of our customs are probably barbaric as
well. I believe these peoples have
managed to survive quite well so far without our imposing our set of moral
standards on them and will continue to do so. The lesson I believe we should be
learning by experiencing Tragedy and Africa is that it’s time we let other
peoples live their lives according to their own set of standards. The
attitude being exhibited now seems to be one of moralism instead of one of
morality. The message seems to be one of absolute right and wrong; I am right
and whoever disagrees is automatically wrong.
NOTES
1.
Dr. Craig White, 2nd
Syllabus; Historical Objective #2a, 2
2.
Aristotle, Poetics.
Ca.340 BCE. Text from S.H. Butcher,
Trans, Aristotle’s Theory of
Poetry and Fine Art, 4th ed. (New York:
Dover, 1955), handout, 2
3.
Dr. Craig White,
Tradition and Modernity,” Terms and Themes handout, 3
4.
Athol Fugard, Master
Harold and the boys, (New York:
Samuel French, Inc. 1982), 60
5.
Fugard, 33
6.
Sophocles, Oedipus
the King, trans. Ian Johnston; online @http://www.malaspina.org/home.htm;
lines 949-961
7.
Sophocles, lines
851-861
8.
Chinua Achebe,
Things Fall Apart, (New York:
Anchor Books, 1994), 61
9.
Achebe, 207
10.
Dr. Craig White,
Oedipus Complex; Terms and Themes handout, 2
[Instructor’s note: endnotes like this aren’t required.]
