Quintessence

The obvious choice for the quintessential cereal is Honey Nut Cheerios. Slightly sweetened for flavor and yet a completely classic favorite. One may ask why choose altered Honey Nut flavored cereal over the original Cheerios. They are almost identical in appearance and texture so what gives Honey Nut Cheerios the edge? The answer is that they simply taste better. This is the secret to becoming the quintessential cereal: universal appeal. For the adults who don't want to feel like they are eating candy for breakfast, Honey Nut Cheerios are a healthy way to have a hearty breakfast. Adults don't want sugar-coated corn flakes or cookie shaped cereal, they want tasty simplicity. As for the children who can so easily be sucked in to marshmallow shapes and chocolate puffs, Honey Nut Cheerios has enough flavor to hold its own. In contrast to its blander precursor, the golden honey taste and nutty savor hold the affection of people of all ages.


"It is the sweet, simple things of life which are the real ones after all." Laura Ingalls Wilder

Lit Circle Post: Exodus

In Exodus, we see the Price women leave the Congo and also leave each other as they go their separate ways in life. This book is about leaving as Exodus means a departure. Prompted by Ruth May's leaving this life, the Prices, with the exception of Nathan, all journey to leave Kilanga and the Congo. This is when each character's story begins to separate from the others.

In our Lit. circle discussion, we talked about how each character chose what things were important to them. Without their father's will to decide what to believe in for them they are free to think whatever they want. This idea of freedom has been throughout the Poisonwood Bible from the bigger picture of the Congo to the smaller metaphor of Methuselah. In contrast to the devastated Congo and their pitiful parrot, the Price girls were not so dwarfed by their freedom. Leah, Adah, and Rachel all went on to lead argueably successful lives after their independence day from their father. Adah becomes a doctor and Rachel ends up owning her own hotel. However, no one can say that they all were not changed by their new found freedom.

If you look back at who these characters were at the beginning of the book you will find that they are almost a complete mirror image of themselves. All these characters have changed as Adah forshadows in Judges, "None of us is the same: Lehcar, Hael, Hada. Annaelro" (276).Take Rachel for example who wanted to return to Georgia while they were still in the airplane. She ends up making her home in Africa, on the very land that she cursed and begged to leave. Rachel resides in the Equatorial, a hotel that a late husbanded bestowed upon her. The Equatorial itself is symbolic as it serves as a dividing line between two very different worlds of Africa. Rachel has literally and metaphorically separated herself from her family, mainly Leah. Yet she retains the same ignorance in thinking that she is the one being alienated. She is still Rachel as we know her, shallow and vain; but she has also changed to fit into Africa.

Leah is perhaps the most noticable example of how Africa changed this family. After Ruth May's death, Leah stays in Africa with Anatole and eventually becomes his wife. She falls in love with the people of Africa and the land itself. This is not the same Leah who kissed the ground her father walked on and worshipped the Christian god of America. That Leah is gone, perhaps buried in Kilanga with the body of her sister. The new Leah renounces the father she once praised and worships the pagan gods or any god that will listen to her prayers. She has also gone from a tomboy who climbs trees with the boys to a wife and mother. She has chosen the more practical side of religion and the natural side of it as well. Leah has moved away from her father and made her alliance with everything he fought against.

Adah ironically is deeply distraught about losing her one defining characteristic. When she is medical school she meets a neurologist who fixes her crooked body and hindering limp. She is physically healed but admits to some feeling of discontent about the change. "Will I lose myself entirely if I lose my limp" (441)? The physical change of Adah being able to walk without a limp is not as important as the change of how she views herself. Who is Adah if not the crooked benduku? She does not know how to be the swift and graceful bird because all that she believes is based on her slant. Without her disability, she has no excuse to be so bitter. She can no longer feel betrayed by the world which is a fundamental part of her "Adah moral code". She needed her limp to justify herself and Africa took that away and changed her in the process.

Lastly is Orleanna who goes through a different kind of change as Adah notes, separating Orleanna's backward name with a period. After the death of her favorite child and her exodus from Africa, Orleanna loses her hope. A part of her died with Ruth May as I suppose a part of every character died. Orleanna handles her independence more like the Congo and Methuselah. In essence she lets it kill her. In the death of her child and hope she received her liberation. "We married with simple hopes: enough to eat and children who might outlive us" (387). She was let down, but found the strength to keep moving for the remainder of her family. Her change was the strength to leave her husband and the realization that she loves the things she can lose.



"Dreams are not enough to win a war"

Six Degrees of Separation

In class this past week we watched this movie called Six Degrees of Separation. While we were not able to watch the entire movie, we got the point of the movie.

Six Degrees of Separation is based on the idea summarized by the character Ouisa Kitteridge, "I read somewhere that everybody on this planet is separated by only six other people. Six degrees of separation between us and everyone else on this planet. The President of the United States, a gondolier in Venice, just fill in the names. I find it extremely comforting that we're so close. I also find it like Chinese water torture, that we're so close because you have to find the right six people to make the right connection... I am bound, you are bound, to everyone on this planet by a trail of six people." The idea of Six Degrees actually connects to a lot of the ideas we have been reflecting on in English this year. The Singer Solution to World Poverty asked what are obligation to the world is. If we are all connected by a mere six degrees, then perhaps Singer is right in accusing us as murderers. As Singer asserts, we are culpable for the well-being of everyone on this planet. This theory of connectedness simply makes Singer's arguments more tangible.

Looking back on the post of my impression of the Singer Essay, I cannot say that I agreed with his position on world poverty. While the introduction to the Six Degrees theory does not quite change my opinion of his essay, it does increase my feeling of responsibility and possibly my consciousness about how much our actions affect one another. If we are all joined by six degrees, then we can no longer claim that we have no relation to the children Singer is pushing to save. Although most of us have never met any of the underprivileged children Singer attempts to save from poverty, we are associated by six degrees. I suppose the question of whether or not we are responsible for people we have never met before is still unanswered. However, maybe the six degrees theory shows that we are more connected than we all think.

Coincidentally, I also happened to watch the movie Babel this weekend. Besides the fact that it won all these awards and had Brad Pitt in it, it also demonstrated this idea of Six Degrees. Babel takes these four seemingly random families living in four different countries nonetheless and shows how they are all connected through a series of events. It is absolutely amazing how the actions of people on three different continents can convene at a moment in time. Although this is only a movie, it conveys a very real message of connectedness and similarity. The characters in this movie were not just joined by a rifle and a shooting, they were joined by their similar feelings of isolation. Everyone had their own issues and insecurities and every main character faced rejection during the span of the movie. Their separate lives all overlapped into the others and provided a window to the links in our lives.

One line that stuck out to me in Babel was a news reporter saying that "the American people finally have a happy ending". In Babel, every family experienced tragedy except for the Americans. Cate Blanchett's character does not die and her and Brad Pitt get to return home to their two safe children. This actually reminded me of the Poisonwood Bible. When the Price family no longer had wealth in Africa, the villagers could not comprehend the idea of a poor white person. The Congolese saw white people like they were invincible and nothing could harm them. In contrast to the happy ending in Babel, the Price family received their own anguish. While the movie conveys the sense that things always end up in favor of Americans, the Poisonwood Bible shows a more impartial sense of tragedy. I do not know which perspective is truer but it is interesting to see the views of these two stories.



"The imagination. It's there to sort out your nightmare, to show you the exit from the maze of your nightmare, to transform the nightmare into dreams, that become your bedrock. If we do not listen to that voice, it dies, it shrivels, it vanishes. The imagination is not our escape. On the contrary, the imagination is the place we are all trying to get to." Will Smith Six Degrees of Separation

SAT Essay

So the prompt was something like "we put too much emphasis on practical learning" whatever that means. There was a quote too about focusing too much on "how to make a good living and not how to live a good life."

In the rich areas of the world most people have the luxury of being able to focus on living a good life. However, in underdeveloped countries like the Congo, the people are forced to put their emphasis on survival. The irony in this is people who are fortunate enough to focus on their quality of life often do put too much emphasis on practical skill whereas the poorest people who need practical skills are still able to find some happiness.
When people have money and wealth they usually have a certain standard of what a “good” life is. For the most part, their belief is that they ascertain a good life by making a good living. The thing is that being wealthy and having profitable skills do not determine the caliber of happiness in a life. An example of this can be seen in Barbara Kingsolver’s Poisonwood Bible. Mobutu is the ruler of the Congo during the 60s. He built himself luxurious castles with the money that should have been used to pay government workers. By practical standards, he would have a good life, living with a country’s treasury for his personal use. However, this elegant lifestyle did in no way make him a good person. Although Mobutu had lavish homes and control over a country, he was despised by his country. I cannot believe that a man bearing the hate of a country would consider his life fulfilling.
The Poisonwood Bible also shows the other side with depictions of the native Congolese living in the worst poverty imaginable. The Congolese in this story spent their days trying to make enough food for a meal and their nights sleeping in dilapidated shacks. In these horrible conditions they only had use for practical skills like hunting and growing manioc, their principle food. They needed practical skills not to make a living and get rich, but to survive from day to day. Despite these despondent conditions, the people of the Congo took the time to enjoy the few, fleeting moments of happiness they had. The Congolese only knew how to do practical tasks and yet to say they put too much emphasis on learning the skills that allowed them too live is silly. While it is true that the Congolese put more emphasis on practicality than the people in the United States do, they have a greater need for pragmatic skills. In countries like the United States the privilege of living is taken for granted. As the Poisonwood Bible shows, in the Congo there is not a more useful skill than that of surviving.

There is no greater sorrow Than to be mindful of the happy time In misery. Dante

Bel and the Serpent

"The trilling of our neighbors' tongues set loose knives that cut the flesh from our bones and made us fall down with our shame and our love and our anger. We were all cut down together by the knife of our hope, for if there is any single thing that everyone hopes for most dearly, it must be this: that the youngest outlive the oldest. In our family the last was first. I would like to believe that she got what she wanted." (371).

In this quote, Ruth May has just died from being bitten by the green mamba snake. As is custom in Kilanga, when someone dies, there is a funeral procession where villagers come and pay their respects to the deceased. The women come bring their children to visit Ruth May's body shrouded with mosquito netting. Under the funeral arch weaved from palm fronds the women wailed their solemn cry for the dead. The bilala. When the Price girls first heard this cry they thought it came from an exotic bird. However now in their own mourning they begin to feel the pain of the Congolese people. After Orleanna has moved Ruth May outside, she gives all of their belongings to the people of Africa. She lost the most important thing in the world and then gives away all of her other possessions.


The quote explains how the family is feeling after the tragedy of Ruth May's death but I think it also relates to a tragedy on a greater national level. On the same day of Ruth May's death, we find out that the savior of the Congo, Patrice Lumumba, has also been assasinated. While the girls used to think this crying was beautiful, on this day it pierced their flesh. This moment was a kind of reality check that broke the border between the Price family and the Kilanga villagers. Now they had experienced death. The death of their youngest and most precious.

In the quote, it speaks of knives that were hope cutting their skin. It is interesting that the image of hope has such an air of violence throughout this book. In The Revelation, Adah speaks of hope as "the thing with feathers" quoted from Emily Dickinson. In this chapter, Adah tells of the demise of Methuselah. A parrot whose flesh was torn apart by a civet cat. He was torn apart until there was nothing left but feathers. Again in Bel and the Serpent, hope is the knife that cut them down. I wonder what the author is trying to convey about hope? What I think she is saying is what kills us is when hope is lost. Two hopes were lost that day. The hope of the Price family and the hope of Africa. I think that the realization that these hopes were lost is what "cut the flesh from our bones". The disappointment and guilt are what kill us but without hope there can be no disappointment. In contrast to the Emily Dickinson poem that Adah quotes in The Revelation, Kingsolver reflects on the darker, tragic side of hope. She gives a different perspective on a usually cheerful and humbling topic of hope.




Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune--without the words,
And never stops at all,

And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.

I've heard it in the chillest land,
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.

Emily Dickinson