Blog Post 12/20/18

Short reflection due: what were your personal strengths and weaknesses in this project (review the video to assess your performance). 200 words. Post on blog

272 words

Some of the main things that I need to work on is my line memorization, when I went on stage I skipped a giant section of my script which went on to mess everyone up. While I knew the line I hadn't prepared enough with my group to be able to go through everything smoothly. I also need to increase my volume, I think I was stuck in the idea that my character because she was a child and innocent that I in turn had to be quite. While I can still be quiet it is important that everyone can hear me when I am speaking so that they understand what I am saying. I think that I also need to work on my blocking mode, I need to create more movement within my side because I was very static and it wasn't a good use of space overall. SOme of my strengths throughout the piece was being able to after I messed up getting everyone back on and finding a spot that we could all benefit from starting up again. I also did a lot on the sound and lighting cues. I think that I had a huge strength in writing the script and coming up with the ideas overall, as well as helping to stage and get props. WHile I did know my lines it is also important that I practice them onstage to be ready for when the final happens. Also if I could look more towards the audience rather than down I think that I could use my facial expressions to get my point across more as well.

Blog Post 12/14/18

Blog post due -- what do you need to revise on your drafts to show more clarity, conviction, commitment, emotion, and overall strengthen your performance. Be specific on what you need to revise and why. 300 words

Word Count: 345

To revise our draft, I think that we will need to plan when we have our back to the audience and when we don't. Having our back to the audience is usually something that you try to avoid, but for the idea of not being remembered and having a name, it is important to the story. I will also note that we will need to have our voiceovers and music timed well so that there is a good feeling evoked when the scenes are conducted, The introductory song is important because it allows us to set the tone without even saying anything. I will need to address my mother in a very cautious specific way because we did change some of the aspects from the story and how that relationship changes compared to the one that I have with David and the emotion that I have when I am writing. something that I want to focus on is being fairly unemotional when I am writing and progressively more emotional as the scene goes on and I continue to lose different emotions. For clarity, I think that the projection of my voice and emphasis while my back is turned will be the most important thing because the audience will not be able to see my face so they will need to get my emotions through audio. 

As far as strengthening my performance I think that adding some more motion to my character will be good, changing up where I stand in my section of the stage will add levels and depth to my part, but also show the size and quality of where I am living. I think that I want to deliver some of my lines very quietly, and play on the more passive side of my character to show her innocence and the true destruction that has become of her life. I know that many times I project very loudly, but I think for this performance I will need to do the opposite and make it very contrasting with what I have done before. 

Blog Post 12/09/18

Blog post due on how to best perform your scene to highlight the specific literary elements and analysis you have identified -- 300 words

To best perform the scenes that we have laid out we need to make sure that the scene changes are clear and very clean so that you can tell where everything is happening. I think that we also need to include lots of different lighting cues to get across emotions when silence is used, these parts include when there is silence in the prison so that we can show the sober mood and the way that the scene is serious and the danger of the situation. Another thing that really needs to be taken into consideration would be that there needs to be almost constant background music and noise. This needs to be done so that the viewer doesn't lose focus on what's going on and has another element of stimuli to understand the situation adn be put in the hoes of the characters. this will add another element of realism. A third that that is really important will be body language. The scenes don't have out faces in it much and I think that is important fo rth story to show what Danticat had about remembrance and being remembered, how these women weren't so not having faces leaves that mystery and we need another element to show the audience out emotions since our faces can't be seen. Having good body language will make it really interesting so that what we are trying to get across will be very clear. The scene is important to show the point that dondicat makes about the cruelty and sadness that was going on in haiti and to explain to people how theses tories may have been muddled, without our faces, and how impactful they were at the same time. The most important thing to the scene will be the last line where all three of us speak together. This is the most important line of the story to get our point across and having this scene end this way leave the viewer with a great sense of understanding and respect for these people. this last line will accomplish what everyone wanted in the scene and get across our message of understanding each other and loving one another before it i too late.

Uta Hagens 9 Questions

1. Who am I? Who is your character?

Identify all the details: name/age, physical traits, relatives, education, personal opinions, likes, dislikes, hobbies, fears, ethics, and beliefs.

• My name is Josephine
• My mother is in prison
• My grandmothers has died
• I dont have nay family living with me
• I dont have much education
• I am very poor
• I am fairly young
• I don’t believe in the Modonna, or my mother flying
• I go down to the river with my mother often
• My mother was arrested for Vodoo
• I visit her often in prison
• I dont speak much when I visit her

2. What time is it?
The year, the season, the day, the minute. What is the significance of time?

• It is a few years past 1937, most likely around 1947 or so
• It is day time, when Josephine walks around and the majority of the scene takes place
• As time passes mother gets worse and JOsphine gets more attached to the Modonna and her mother
• 
  

3. Where am I?
Identify the country, the city/town, the neighborhood, the building, the room, the specific area of the room.

• I am in Haiti
• I am ina small village in HAiti that is unnamed
• I am in a small living space, about one room by myself
• I have come blankets for a bed and a chair for the Modonna and myself 
• I have one “table to sit at 
• I own one outfit
• 
  

4. What surrounds me? What is happening in the environment around you?
Weather, landscape, people, animate/inanimate objects.

• At home it is very barren and plain.
• TEh jail is grey and muddy
• The river is very beautiful and shrimp.
• IT is usually warm and sunny,
• Not much other water except the river that is by the boarder
• not many people are around
• Not really any animals or wildlife around
• MAybe some plant matter but that’s about it

5. What are the given circumstances?
Identify events in the past, present, future. What has happened, what is happening, what is going to happen?

• MY mother was arrested when I was younger
• I live along, with no family
• I take care of the Modonna, and I am pour
• I dont really believe in Vodoo
• I dont really understand my mother but I want to be closer to her
• I am going to visit my mother often
• I go down to the river every year when my mother was around
• 
  

6. What are my relationships?
This is more than your relationship to other people. Think about your relationship to objects, characters, and events.

• I have a bad relationship with my mother that I want to fix
• Other than that I am fairly alone 

7. What do I want? What do you want immediately? What does the character want overall?

• I want to help my mother 
• I want to be with my mother
• I want to have a better relationship with my mother
• And I want to understand her and Vodoo 

8. What is in my way? What are the obstacles to getting what you want?

• My mother is in prison for life
• I live so far away from her
• 
  

9. What do I do to get what I want? What actions do you take (both physically and verbally)? What tactics

• I walk long ways to go see her
• I visit the river
• I bring her the Modonna
• I try to have more conversations with my mother
• I try to understand Vodoo
• 
  

IA Proposal - Hope

Stories:

1. A Wall of Fire Rising
2. Night Women
3. Children of the sea
4. Epilogue 

Character list: (3 Actors)

1. Guy (Possibly the narrator)
2. Little Guy (Main character) (also the boy on the boat)
3. Lili (also the night woman)

Theme(s):

1. Hope
2. Loss
3. Rebuilding and destruction of hope.
4. Escape

Directors Vision:

1. Focus on the way that hope takes over the family and destroys their lives, then the rebuilding of hope form Lili to get a better life only to have the hope broken when she has to become a night, women, then the son after having his part in the play, believing in rebellion and building hope into being the boy on the boat and his hope for freedom again destroyed by dying in the ocean
2. Closing is the line in the epilogue "those who lived and died and lived again" (referring to the hope that they had lost had lost and had before loosing and the family needed. 
3. Lots of silence from actors, with music playing over and focused mostly on actions and reactions without lines. 
4. Use the butterfly to demonstrate that what's happening is the butterfly effect. 

Why it's interesting:

1. A lot of use of shadow manipulation rather than acting in front of views, behind a backlit screen
2. INterpretation of carrying of characters through time, also the complexity of the family's dynamics changing
3. Musical elements lost of sound effects and songs playing throughout the piece
4. Focus mainly on moments rather than lines, focus on the way that silent reactions happen, rather than a memorization of lines. 

Aspects of the text:

• Want to highlight Danticat's flow between stories and the connections hat she makes between them.
• Also, highlight how hope can do anazing things and create change but it can also cost people their lives. 
• Show what happens, the butterfly effect

IA Proposal - Drafting

Stories

1. A wall of Fire Rising
2. Night Women
3. Children of the Sea

Characters

1. Lili - Woman
2. Little Guy-Man on Boat
3.  Guy/ Father of girl/ Captain of the boat 

Topic: Transformation of lives through Haiti Start in a happy-ish family transform throughout following the cause and effect of what happens. 

Main Elements:

• Escape
• Mother/child
• Shadows - Father yelling at the girl, light from behind a curtain so you just hear audio and see the shadow moving
• Music accompaniment - Dance between mother and son
• Rags 

Proposal: 

The scene opens with Lili's family standing together in synchronized steps they walk forward twice then back to their original location before turning and exiting, backs to the audience on stage right.

Idea 4
To have hope is to live and to die

• the connection of all the stories but focusing more on hope rather than the actual connection of the families, showing how one family can have hope, be destroyed have to hope and again and almost like a curse within the family and how that has affected them their different hope and stuff. 
• Girl in children of the sea becomes the woman in between teh pool and the guardaniea.

Idea 2:
CHildren of the sea and seeing things simply

girl from children of the sea has a daughter who is the girl in seeing things simply, and her mother was forced to give her away because the father was the boy and the government wants to kill her because the father was a rebel the significance of the animal fighting and "kill him" lines.

Idea 3
Elipogue

Mother tellikng her daughter stories of haiti and the daughter committing them to memory and writing them down. Mother being angry because it is a descruction of tiem and culture they are told stories handed down by families, andnot for others to see. shame in what haappend and where they were from

Idea 4
To have hope is to live and to die

children of the sea
A wall of fire rising

Discussion Questions - Analyze With Direct Quotes

KK Blog Post 4 due. Choose two of the discussion questions posted on the blog. Use/analyze at least 2 direct quotes in your writing. 500 words.

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Stella Question:

5. What is the purpose of the "Epilogue: Women Like Us"? Especially the part where she explain her choice of writing and her mother disagree with it.

By putting in an epilogue that has stark contrasts with the rest of the story Danticat is displaying her own truth and meaning. The epilogue is almost like a poetic piece of her own life. Danticat says, "Someone was crying. You and the writing demons in your head. You have nobody, nothing but this piece of paper, they told you. Only a notebook made out of discarded fish wrappers, panty-hose cardboard." (192) Danticat uses very sober, poetic language in this paragraph to demonstrate her internal and external struggles without focusing the camera on herself. Danticat uses her book to connect people and show the true terrors that still go on today from through a different lens than is usually done. Danticat also makes in well known that these stories are about the people of Hati and that they are much less about her own experiences, stories, and life. Danticat is injecting small amounts of her own emotion and life into this story. Danticat knows that writing isn't necessarily something that she should be doing which is why she includes this specific portion that focuses on the frustration of her mother and her initial reaction to the offensive language. "her disappointment when you told her words would be your life's work, like the kitchen had always been hers. She was angry at you for not understanding." (193) Danticat is focusing her epilogue as her own goodbye to the stereotypes that she addresses in her stories. Danticat shows us the importance of the connection between generations and the gaps that it causes without having it. She displays the importance of history and past, knowing what your history as a people is and where you fall, for her the disagreement between her and her mother is just like the characters in her story but, in the end, they always realized what their parents sacrificed for them, Danticat, on the other hand, seems to know just what her mother sacrificed and rather than being angry with what reaction her mother is getting, she plays a More understanding angle that has tones of anger and sadness. Overall, Danticat adds the epilogue to give us how these stories relate to her and how they could relate to us all, she approaches this ending as something more than a character but as a reader, and an author displaying a truth that many people can connect with, understand and appreciate. 

Nia's Question:

what do all the stories have in common?

Together these stories combine a lot of different themes that have an overarching connection to history and identity. Knowing your past, 1937, understanding where you have come from and knowing why your family does things a certain way, Carolines Wedding. All of these stories also push on the fact that there is a generation gap between what traditions ard used and accepted as normal, or meaningful enough to pass on. The entire book shows in multiple ways children being unaware of what their parents are really doing. In Nigth Women, the son has no clue what the mother was really doing, the same goes for New York Day Women the children in these stories are/have grown. 

Discussion Questions

1. What is the purpose of Dandicat adding the Epilogue and focusing that on connections with people, the audience, when most of the book involves a form of segregation and separation?
2. Why is the chapter named New York Day Women, as opposed to something else, and what does both NYDW and Night WOmen have to do with taking care of children?
3. WHy would Dandicat organize these stories in this specific way, What meaning does it have?
4. Why did Dandicat include Caroline's wedding in her selection of stories, how does it fit with the others, and why is it different. What would be a better last story to the book instead of carolines wedding?
5. 
   

Epologue

• Lots of You statesments
• Possibly Danticat herself
• Mentions a lot of teh themes athat are in the whole nbook, age gape etc
• there is an explination of writing and the moticves behind such tasks
• Talks abotu how poeple dont write their own stries btu sit in teh dark corneers
• talks about the women whisperinf and pushed the sotires to be told
• Short piece
• Almost like an explination and a reasoning into why the book was written
• 
  

Carolines Wedding Class - Theme

Superstitions are often a means of communication and storytelling, to keep people connected with their culture and know their identity and their past. Quite similar to family heirlooms.


Second Paragraph on page 150

Carolines Wedding

- grace gets American citizenship
- Family doesn’t seems super impressed or happy. Tells her to put it away
- Hermine is excited, wants her to go and get a passport.
- Mother IS excited and she goes to fi”e for a passport.
- Family is nervous about papers because of past experiences.
- Has to trad in naturalization papers to get passport.
- Celebrate with bone soup, something to cure all ills
- Wants to get Caroline away from her fiancé
- Caroline doesn’t have her forearm, soup to cure Caroline doesn’t like it and is tired of it.
- Caroline is an American citizen becuSe she was born there and now grace is one aswell.
- So their identity’s are muddled, is Caroline Haitian or American and the superstitions confused her possible because of her different upbringing?
- Hermines husband died and she wants boho daughters to Mary Haitian men.
- Hermine is from Ville Rose and knew Josephine was in

- Mother has a memorial service and wants daughters to go

- graces oges and caroline does not

- Prayr for Celianne, presuably, about her

- Caroline is leaving and packing clowly so that she doesnt worry her mother.

- Father died of cancer

- Girls would dream of  him and disobey and father would visit them in his dreams.

- Never told mother baout dreams becsue o fher beliefs.

- Mrs. Rutz son killed trying to take over a plane.

- Eric goes to dinner, and has a learning disability making him talk slow.

- Grace keeps dreaming of the father

- Caroline was nicknames NEw York Childbecasue of where she was born.

- caroline has phatom limb pain andwears a prostetic arm.

Hermine comforts Caroline when she feels ill and doesnt try ot get her not to get married.

• Grace gets her passport
• Caroline leaves for honneymoon
• Caroline sends roses

Blog Post 3

KK Blog Post 3 -- Compare Night Women to New York Day Women. What new opportunities do women have in the US vs. Haiti? What experiences are similar in both stories/places? What does this suggest about gender roles? 500 words.

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Word Count: 383

While at first glance Night Women seems vastly different than New York Day Women, it is creditable to note that there are actually a vast number of similarities. For example, in Night Women there is a divider int eh shack that keeps the mother separate and away from the sons eyes, the mother in New York Day Women (NYDW) has a metaphorical sheet up against the daughter, the line where Suzie says that she left her mother with newspaper for rollers in her hair and bathrobe on but then sees her dressed and walking through the city is  the daughter pulling the curtain down on her mother and revealing something that she didn't know. Both children also have education, the little boy is sent to school and Suzie has a job in which she needs to have some education and talks about parent-teacher conferences. NYDW is different in the fact that there are more opportunities for women who have to work aside from their husbands. First, the mother is a nanny and the daughter is in an advertisement. It is important that not all jobs for women are extremely strenuous or a very high education level required. There are different levels for the women based on the education and what they want, this gives women choice, something they don't have in Haiti. The women also are given freedom, something you don't see in Night WOmen, they have options to choose and have the ability to refuse someone or something. They are much more human-like in NYDW.

While the husband is still relevant in NYDW it is important to note he doesn't seem like much of a father figure and of much importance to Suzie. Also, the fact that Suzie didn't know about what her mother was doing for so long almost give hope to the woman in night women because she is trying to keep her own secrets away from her son and if this mother could do it then so could she. It is also important to take into consideration that the mother in NYDW is only ever called mother, and this could be a respect metaphor but it shows that there is a connection and that she is seen as a mother first before anything else, just like the night woman.

New York Day Women

• My Mother
• Repetition feels a lot like a poem
• Dialogue is in bold 
• In Brooklyn
• Mother seems like she is a more of a naturalist
• More street smart
• Not a lot of education
• Mo5her walks through the city
• Gets a child from a mother who looks like she is going on a run
• The mother might be a babysitter
• Switches salt is heavier than shame to shame is heavier than salt
• Doesn’t want her daughter to be ashamed
• Older women that had to work
• Daughter learns to appreciate her mother and what she does only after following her through the city
• Mother and Daughter both are day women 
• No mention of the father really, so a presumably single mother is a day woman in the U.S but not in Haiti
• Women's rights and available jobs
• Mother still doesn't have a high paying job
• Daughter seems more grown in this one
• More of a memory, not so much of a written work, not much like a story.

Author Visit Discussion Questions

1. Why did you tell this story through an animal lover as opposed to any other person? (Zookeepers wife)
2. Why is there so much science in your writing, how did that shape your storytelling ability and methods?

Seeing Things Simply 10/11/18

Seeing Things Simply

• Princesse hears shouting from  school yeard, crosses the street to watch the roosters battle
• The Banyan tree holds "Vodou" ceremonies at night but people use it during the day for weddings. funerals, and in this case animals fights
• Women are working, selling drinks and lottery tickets. 
• A woman telling her husband to leave in which he replies to leave him alone and he "puts a spell on her" to make her mute.
• The wife laughed and walked away and he cursed her more as she walked

Seems to me like this girl believes in Vodoo and that this man is really putting curses on the woman and she might be a little bit scared. But at the same time, it is a third person communal language which makes e think that she is also not feeling this way at all and its all the author describing what common belief 

• Princesse is 16
• The old man winked and called out to the girl telling her she was pretty
• Shooting away his wife with spells that never worked"
• Maybe she knows that vodoo isn't real
• Reached for the hem of the girl's skirt while talking to her
• Catherine has come into the story seems like maybe she is wealthy
• Has a bathing suit and a cover to go over it much different from the scraps the other families had
• Catherine is 27
• She paints in the sun
• loves to sunbathe and doesn't tan all that much
• Princesse is taking off all her clothes and Catherine is sketching on paper 
• Princesse lays down on a white sheet on the Veranda
• says that princesse is comfortable with her nudity since she is hidden from others views
• Catherine is sketching and painting princesse 
• Catherine is telling her to relax that nobody will see these paintings in the village
• Catherine will bring that painting to face or Guadalupe
• A man was crying about one of his roosters dying in the fight.
• MAn is sad his father gave him the rooster that died and now that hsi father is dead he is giving the bird back to his dad
• Catherine would not always draw and paint her naked
• Catherine is telling princesse about her life back in Paris and teaching her what she learned while she is drawing her' Princesse would go every day on then one day Catherine wasn't there 
• SHe went to the beach and wished she could paint the sly
• Catherine gave Princesse a painting of herself 
• Princesse wants to paint and make pictures
• 
  

Reflection - 10/9/18

Post a short reflection on your blog -- what did Tuesday's in-class performances reveal about the characters and stories presented? What was interesting and what did it make you think about or realize? 250-300 words




Jacob Ivan

Ivan

Doing actions to sow the shack that they are in. Tucking the boy in

Knock on door
Jacob
Closing doors not sure who he is supposed to be

Job for money maybe also a night woman not clear for the longest time until he feeds us a lot of information.

Supposed to be talking to herself. Not having an interview. Carification would have been better

Nia Jack

Facing each other, possibly in conversation

Jack Starts outside, walks in

Reading off the screen

NIa

Gasping and surprise

Maybe she is Lili, not sure but surprised from who walks in

Says Lili is a night women. Now makin that connection that may or may not be tru


Jack

Seems to be guy

Talks bout the balloon’

Coming after death being an angle

Guy says that he is happy now that he is dead and


Leslie Jasmin

not use who either of them are supposed to be

Oe of them is supposed to be pregnant
Girl is pregnant with no husband

Jasmin is supposed to be a night woman had to give us those wording for us to know would havelikes to know more

Leslie is Celine JAsmin again had to blatantly say who they ar otherwise I would have had no idea who thy were

No emotions very monotone

Not sure what the scene was or where it took place
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I think that overall the performance were good because there was so little time, I also thought that the scene that my groups di wasn’t very strong, there were very few movements and it wa all improvised. I thought there wasn’t good dispersion of lines and it was kid of like what do I say next to keep this moving and you didn’t quite know what the others would do. I also thought that thee were quite a few times when in each of our performances it wasn’t clear who each character was, for Leslie and Jasmins I had no idea who either of them were until Jasmine told me who they both were while she was acting. I needed a verbal cue becuse they didn’t put through the specific characteristics of the character. I also had a hard time telling who characters were because a lot of The performances were monotone and I didn’t get a old feel for what the scene overall was supposed to be. I would have much rather enjoyed more emotion and character details but I think that wasn’t possible because of the time constraints. I would had liked to see more stain in all of the groups, Ivan used quite a bit which helped a lot with telling who their character was which I liked and I liked Nias reaction when Jack first walked into The room. Overall the performance were good considering Everything but a lot of people were the night women and Guy and I think hat there were definitely plenty of other options that people didn’t pick‘.

Krik Krak Blog Post 2 - Uta Hagen

KK Blog Post 2 due. Choose one character from the first 4 stories and do a character analysis using Uta Hagen's 9 questions. 500 words
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Character: Guy


1. Who am I?

Who is your character? Identify all the details: name/age, physical traits, relatives, education, personal opinions, likes, dislikes, hobbies, fears, ethics, and beliefs


2. What time is it?

The year, the season, the day, the minute. What is the significance of time?


3. Where am I?

Identify the country, the city/town, the neighborhood, the building, the room, the specific area of the room.


4. What surrounds me?

What is happening in the environment around you? Weather, landscape, people, animate/inanimate objects.


5. What are the given circumstances?

Identify events in the past, present, future. What has happened, what is happening, what is going to happen?


6. What are my relationships?

This is more than your relationship to other people. Think about your relationship to objects, characters, and events.


7. What do I want?

What do you want immediately? What does the character want overall?


8. What is in my way?

What are the obstacles to getting what you want?


9. What do I do to get what I want?

What actions do you take (both physically and verbally)? What tactics?

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Character: Guy

Guy is an Adult male living in Hait, therefore he is a Haitian male who is married to Lili and has a son, Little Guy. He has a somewhat part-time job working but has a hard time supporting his family. He wants to be able to do this though, support his family it is something that he stressed through the entirety of the story. Guy is very headstrong and likes to do things his way, he argues often with Lili about lots of things but mainly about signing little Guy up for the list which will allow him a better job in the future than what he got. Guy doesn't have a good education if one at all.  he wants freedom as well as the ability to support his family, so he is willing to go to extreme lengths to gain his freedom such as the air balloon scene. Haiti is very hot so his job is very taxing on his body and there is little reward for all of his labor. Guy and his family live in a small shack that is dirty and most likely falling apart at the seems. Guy becomes obsessed with the balloon and starts to lose connection with his family and reality a little bit, he has a madness forming to take this ballon for it to be able to fly and give him some freedom. But he faces obstacles, like his love for his family, his ability to get to the balloon fly it without being caught, having to abandon his family. Guy has all of these obstacles floating around in his space. Since its so hot out and the sun is described often I would say that it was around summer time in Haiti during this and they are located in a small rural ton almost off the map. Guy loves the sky for its freedom properties, the never ended-ness, and the vast space that he could be in so when he died it is easier for him to keep his eyes open and look at the sky. 

In Class Writing - Kirik Krak 10/4/18

Chose and compare a common theme with at lest two stories
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Theme: Blood is thicker than water
Stories: Children of The sea
Night women
1937?
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Blood Can Not Crash On The Shores, It Is Too Thick

Edwidge Danticat focuses on a family for each of her short stories in the book Kirk? Krak! Among these stories is become evident that there is a sacrifice, but more than that this sacrifice is for family each and every time. Danticat focuses on what the families are willing to do for each other and the survival of their loved ones, mainly when The outcome for them is often death. In the First story Children of the Sea Danticat uses the father, who is portrayed as a villain in the daughters' eyes, risk everything for that same daughter who hates him so that she can survive. “some nights papa sleeps at his brothers, uncle pressoir’s house. uncle pressoir sleeps at our house, just in case they come. that way papa will never be forced to lie down in bed with me.”(11) When first reading this line I thought that he was doing it for himself to keep his own reputation clean because the story portrays this father as a man who is angry and selfish, but after knowing the ending I come back to this line and realize that he wasn't her to be safe more than he fears about his own reputation. Later in the same passage is says they knew a girl who got pregnant that way, and the father doesn’t want his daughter to feel the same of that rather than himself, because he could live with that but he wants to protect her. You can see this again when he says “papa hear about it. He wet to the post and paid them money, all the money he had. Our house in port-au-prince and all the land his father had Leif this, he gave it all away to save my life”(21) These two lines are only ten pages apart but the daughter goes from angr towards her father to great fullness and understanding. Similarly in Nineteen Thirty-Seven the grandmother dies in the crossing of the river so that she can protect her daughter and future granddaughter who would be born that night. The mother then keeps Vodoo from her to keep her safe and protect her so that she doesn’t have The possibility of getting caught and stays alive and out of prison. These sacrifices that happen for Josephine to be able to live a long and happier life than what had been given to her mother or grandmother. "on that day so long ago, in the year nineteen hundred and thirty-seven, in the Massacre River, my mother did fly." (42) Josephine has realized previously in the book how her mother created the Madonnas tears and knows hoe the voodoo things she does have secrets that will become clearer with age, but she also knows that Voodoo meant for her and how to embrace it and makes the conscious decision to continue and share the stories of the flying women from across the river and continue her legend. Josephine learns the importance of her mothers' sacrifice and her grandmothers too beyond the gift of life, the gift of freedom to be the best version of herself that she could be in these horrific circumstances. Josephine learns to find comfort where she couldn't before and bond that had long been forgotten with her mother. Overall, Dandicat uses her ideas of family and family connections to dive in deeper with the story and add elements fo realism to it overall. Dandicat makes sure that we know how much sacrifice people are making in their daily lives for their family and the gratefulness or anger that poeple feel for it. 

Kirk Krak Notes 10/4/18

Style:

• Depressing tone
• reveals truth (even if negative) - real life scenario
• Detailed
• Reader feels the suffering
• Facts
• Emotions
• Personalized 
• Wats readers to know what its like
• Uses repetition
• Analogies/symbols
• Angles
• Wings
• Butterflies
• Sky
• Flying
• Simple stories/ language
• Almost like a diary 
• Action/Reaction - Dramatic 
• Multiple Persepctives
• Sounds like poetic language 
• Repetition 
• Symbolic language 
• Not always linear story 
• Goes ina circle not nessisarily a straight line all the time
• Realism
• Depiction of violenc 
• Contrasting to the poetic language that often depicts beauty 
• CONTRAST 
• Describing the style 
• Why
• Reflection of theme
• Hope/future v.s Hoplessness/past or present 

Discussion Question:

1. What is the point of Dandicat describing the woman’s scarf as blood red in Night Women and why does she have the son, who is presumably innocent wearing it rather than the mother who because of her prostitution has a negative connotation of stains? 

Krik Krak 4 - Night Women

Talked in class about the possibility or Lili being the mother and the son is Little Guy. Keeping that in mind while reading the story I took the following notes

• 'Tonight I am much older than the twenty-five years that I have lived" 
• The mother is remaining unnamed which leaves the question as to who it is, and if it really would be Lili.
• She has to live in prostitution because she is, first of all, a woman meaning that she can't get many jobs and there are a few maid jobs but those are so hard to find.  
• She does have a son
• Seems to be young enough to buy the lie that angels come
• Old enough to be called a man in the lines 
• Said to be big enough
• There is little to no money and they mention being in one sack and having scraps if things nad nothing new 
• Red scarf 
• If Lili is the woman it old represent the blood of her husband's death
• Son wears it oo 
• Tempt suitors
• If Lili again she couldn't really find another man because of her husbands legacy
• Wearing his Sunday clothes to bed
• Usually formal and he is careful not to wrinkle them so he knows that he has to keep them clean and not messy even though he is sleeping
• SOn wears the scarf to have something of her further pushing the blood of the farther
• Talks about the sky
• Lili didn't close her husband's eyes so that he could look at the sky 
• Holes int eh ceiling so suitors can look at the sky
• "I am stuck between the day and night in a golden amber bronze"
• Lili used to be a day woman but now that her husband is gone she is a night woman
• She believes that ghost women are with her so that they can stay 
• Mention the butterflies again
• remembrance is all over this book
• Remember the people that are there and remember what their lies are like
• 
  

Krik Krak - 10/1/18 - 1937 and A wall of Fire rising

Read the next 2 stories in KK. Write a blog post in response to the first 3 stories. Choose a theme that you see to be common in all 3 and explore what Danticat is showing us or asking us to think about this theme. Analyze 2 direct quotes. 500 words 

516 WORDS

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While there are endless possibilities to chose from it became apparent to me while I was reading that a common theme between all three stories was that of theft. This is clear to me because in Children of the Sea the couple had their love stolen from them by the Haitian government. The split due to the fear of the man being caught and destroying them both, in this was the Haitian government stole their future together and eventually the boy's life, regardless if they actually killed him on their own shores. "They were going to peg me as a member of the youth federation and then take me away" (21) This quote while not directly speaking about the stolen future the lovers would have shared it touches upon the taking of a life. A theft that can never be justified, and the government's desire to kill and steal lives from people is common throughout. The government is posed as a constant terrorist to the people and displaying just how much they can take from you in even the smallest of ways. In 1934 this 'stealing of life' is not death but imprisonment that these Haitians face, "She was being pulled along by two policemen, each tugging at one of her arms as she dragged her feet."(35) This passage speaks about the mother being taken after the accusations of Voodo and witchcraft were made because a child had died in the same house as her. Danticat shows us this in a very visual way by describing it not from the mother or some bystander but rather straight from the child's mouth making the passage all that more impactful. Using just these two stories it is fairly evident that Danticat is showing how much the Haitian population suffered and what the government takes from them by implementing harsh rules and their execution. Having some knowledge about Haiti's past it helps to form the opinion that the constant battle in Haiti around this time period especially the massacres that occurred, namely 1937 one, is a constant impact for her own identity and the formation of who she is and her viewpoints. It's important to note that while the third story in this book doesn't have the same theft connotations it is still very prominent in the theft of lives by Guy jumping out of the hot air balloon and the list that little guy was going to be but on. With Haiti's constant battles lives are always in the balance and many of these lives that are ended are that of civilians with no purpose to the war efforts and their punishment is death for their uninvolved innocents. Danticat is trying to get outside people to understand the turmoil that Haiti faces in the present as much as int eh past and how often lives were ended and why it is so important to understand a nation's past. Danticat is focused a lot on trying to get the knowlage of Haiti across and what the lives of these civilians, freedom fighters, and families that happened to be Haitian.

Children Of The Sea - IN CLASS NOTES

Children of the Sea

-Two narrators are in love, have some relations ship
-Father disapproves

MALE STORY

• Man is part of the rebellion, radio station program where he talks about views which puts h8m in danger and government wants to get him. 
• Father wants them to not be in love he wants to protect his daughter. 
• Man has to flee and leave on the boat 
• Boat is sinking and throw everything overboard 
• Last thing he will throw overboard would be his notebook 
• Celianne has her baby but her baby is a girl stillborn 
• Forced to throw baby overboard 
• Jumps over after the baby and commits suicide 
• Celianne flashbacks to government raiding her house and raped her causing her to get pregnant, her family was forced into immoral relations and brother was accused of being immoral 
• Soldiers held guns to head and Lionel, brother, was forced to have intimate relations. 
• Mother made him aswell because she didn’t want him to die 
• Raped Celianne 
• Arrested Lionel and never saw him again 
• Celianne scarred herself with a razón by cutting her faced
• REalized she was becoming pregnant, found out about the boat got on, 15 years old 
• Father portrayed as a bad man, but protecting because what happened to Celianne could have happened to the girl and what happened to Lionel could have happened to the man. 

FEMALE STORY 

• Resistance to the father 
• Father slaps he rshe hides the tapes of male radio 
• He tries to burn the tapes and wants to get gasoline for them to leave 
• Father sacrificed himself to save her 
• Sold everything, house land, everything to keep her safe and aliv and not being accused of the government and get her away. 
• Neighbor whose son was killed 
• Witnessed what happened with at the neighbors house 

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Haitian History - IN CLASS

Haiti is a country on the island of Hispaniola in the Caribbean Sea; Hispaniola has two countries. Haiti makes up western 1/3 of the island while the Dominican Republic makes up the eastern 2/3 of the island. The two countries are not on very friendly terms and never have been since their roots are very different.

Haiti is primarily populated by African-Caribbean people with a history of French colonialism. On the other hand, the Dominican Republic is made up of Afro-European mixed blooded people and their roots are very deeply affected by Spanish colonialism.

Timeline: Haiti

A chronology of key events:

1492 - Christopher Columbus lands and names the island Hispaniola, or Little Spain.

1689- Spanish vs French

1791-1803 - A slave rebellion is launched by the Jamaican-born Boukman leading to a protracted 13-year war of liberation against St. Domingue's.

1804 - Haiti becomes independent; former slave Jean-Jacques Dessalines declares himself emperor.

1806 - Dessalines assassinated and Haiti divided into a black-controlled north and a mulatto-ruled south

1818-43 - Pierre Boyer unifies Haiti, but excludes blacks from power.

1915 - US invades Haiti following black-mulatto friction,

1934 - US withdraws troops from Haiti, but maintains fiscal control until 1947.

1937- parsley massacre - trujillo dictator in DR- kills haitians in DR

Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier

"Baby Doc" Duvalier retained his father's brutal methods

Born in 1951

1956-1971-duvalier（papa doc)- dictator/ president for life.

1957 to 1986, Haiti was ruled by the Duvalier family in persons of Francois Duvalier and his son. This was a period of brutal dictatorship, the suppression of most normal freedoms in Haiti, particularly political dissent from the "Duvalier revolution." It was also a period of a rather stable law and order society that one tends to get with dictatorship.

1964 - Duvalier declares himself president-for-life and establishes a dictatorship with the help of the Tontons Macoutes militia.

1971 - Duvalier dies and is succeeded by his 19-year-old son, Jean-Claude, or "Baby Doc", who also declares himself president-for-life.

1986 - Baby Doc flees Haiti in the wake of mounting popular discontent and is replaced by Lieutenant-General Henri Namphy as head of a governing council.

1988 - Leslie Manigat becomes president, but is ousted in a coup led by Brigadier-General Prosper Avril, who installs a civilian government under military control.

Democracy,

1990 - Jean-Bertrand Aristide elected president in Haiti's first free and peaceful polls.

1991 - Aristide ousted in a coup led by Brigadier-General Raoul Cedras, triggering sanctions by the US and the Organisation of American States.

1994 - Military regime relinquishes power in the face of an imminent US invasion; US forces oversee a transition to a civilian government; Aristide returns.

Former president Aristide lives in exile

Profile: Jean-Bertrand Aristide

1995 - UN peacekeepers begin to replace US troops; Aristide supporters win parliamentary elections

Rene Preval, from Aristide's Lavalas party, is elected in December to replace Aristide as president.

1997-99 - Serious political deadlock; new government named.

2000 November - Aristide elected president for a second non-consecutive term, amid allegations of irregularities.

2002 July - Haiti is approved as a full member of the Caribbean Community (Caricom) trade bloc.

2003 April - Voodoo recognised as a religion, on a par with other faiths.

Sri Lankan UN soldier patrols street in Port-au-Prince

UN force was sent to help stabilise Haiti

UN authorised despatch of 6,700 soldiers, 1,600 police

Mandate set to expire in October 2008, "with the intention of further renewal"

Peacekeepers led by Brazil

2004 January-February - Celebrations marking 200 years of independence turn into uprising against President Aristide, who is forced into exile. An interim government takes over.

2004 May - Severe floods in south, and in parts of neighbouring Dominican Republic, leave more than 2,000 dead or disappeared.

2004 September - Nearly 3,000 killed in flooding in the north, in the wake of tropical storm Jeanne.

late 2004 - Rising levels of deadly political and gang violence in the capital; armed gangs loyal to former President Aristide are said to be responsible for many killings.

2005 April - Prominent rebel leader Ravix Remissainthe is killed by police in the capital.

2005 July - Hurricane Dennis kills at least 45 people.

Preval wins elections

Haitian voters try to enter polling station, February 2006

February 2006: Voters swamped polling stations

Current days: Today Haiti is a nation in disorder and disarray, unsafe, economically desperate without much clear hope of significant improvement in the future. The majority of Haiti's people live in desperate poverty and personal unsafety. They are suffering from hunger, unemployment. The international community, like the US, which has great power in Haiti, seems without serious interest in the plight of the masses of the Haitian poor.

Children of The Sea

Characters:

• "You"
• daughter
• Mother or sister? Man?
• Papa
• ManMan
• Pregnat woan
• Captin

Summarize the plot

• Woman, sister or man is on the boat away from haiti
• they are sort of drifiting at sea
• seem to be people that the hatian government wants to kill.
• Back in haiti it sems like a like sister has been raped and father is angry with her often
• Woman has babby on boat 
• pap hits girl 
• radio kids is the rebellion the boat girl was part of
• Soldiers will go into houses pointing guns and forcing sexual enciunters
• both people are fine with death and one wants papa to die
• mandan killed
• dead children and people everywhere
• baby girl
•  baby is dead
• family in haiti is driving away
• had to throw baby overboard
• had to throw notebook overboard
• woman jumped in after baby and drowned
• 
  

Some personal response

• The story is quite shocking and i thin that it is like beats of no nation
• sad but good in terms of the writing it is realy sad but there is beauty in the sotry it is almost poetic in a way that if you look at the specifc writing it si good but the story is truly heartbreaking which makes it good becase it is believeable and well writtien
• 
  

 "Children of the Sea." Post some reading notes on your blog, specifically 1) identifying characters, 2) summarizing the plot, and 3) offering some personal repsonse/ideas about the story

Haitian History

 

• Discovered by Christopher Columbus 
• owned by Spain
• Independent in 1804
• 1915 us invade Haiti
• 1934 troops leave 
• Stories about military boots
• Ruled by tyrants for a long portion of time 
• Many floods happened recently

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/1202857.stm

Edwidge Danticat

Used Britannica and Wikipedia and her website to put in information

• Themes
• Diasporic politics 
• Mother-daughter relationships 
• National identity

• She visited the school last year
• From Hati
• By the time she was four years old, her mother and father had moved to the United States, leaving Danticat and her brother behind with an aunt and uncle. She joined her parents in 1981, but, with her Creole language and Haitian dress and manners, she found adapting to life and school in the United States difficult
• series of interconnected stories about a Haitian immigrant who had tortured and murdered dissidents during the repressive rule of Franƈois Duvalier. Her memoir, Brother, I’m Dying(2007), won the National Book Critics Circle Award.
• Won multiple awards
• January 19, 1969
• centrality of the mother-daughter relationship to self-identity and self-expression [v]. Sophie's experiences mirror those of her mother's Martine.
• 1994 Fiction Award The Caribbean Writer
• 1995 Woman of Achievement Award, Barnard College
• Pushcart Short Story Prize for "Between the Pool and the Gardenias"
• National Book Award nomination for Krik? Krak!
• 1996 Granta magazine's Best Young American Novelists[17]
• Lila-Wallace-Reader's Digest Grant
• 1999 American Book Award for The Farming of Bones
• The International Flaiano Prize for literature
• The Super Flaiano Prize for The Farming of Bones
• 2005 The Story Prize for The Dew Breaker
• 2005 Anisfield-Wolf Book Award[18] for "The Dew Breaker"
• 2007 National Book Award nomination for Brother, I'm Dying
• 2007 The National Book Critics Circle Award for Brother, I'm Dying
• 2008 Dayton Literary Peace Prize for Brother, I'm Dying
• 2009 MacArthur Fellows Program Genius grant
• 2011 Langston Hughes Medal, City College of New York
• 2011 OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature for Create Dangerously
• 2012 Smith College Honorary Degree
• 2013 Yale University Honorary Degree[19]
• 2014 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction, shortlist for Claire of the Sea Light[20]
• 2017 Honorary Doctor of Letters (DLitt) degree from the University of the West Indies Open Campus[21][22]
• 2017 Neustadt International Prize for Literature[23]

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