Last Semester's Pastiche and This Semester's Pastiche

How to Write About a Woman

Before you even start writing, let out your aura and make every woman in your house feel that they are oh so utterly blessed to have even just a whiff of you.

Embed the overemotional, pathetic and clingy side of her in the character development because let’s face it, when have you not seen a woman clingy? Since family dramas are the ‘in’ genre, making her the family wrecker would win you a bestseller and that’s when your wife and daughter will stand by your side with hugs and kisses. And of course, a huge congratulations!

Don’t you dare make the cover a woman with bitten nails, or a distraught face. Your publisher won’t approve and neither will your readers. Subtle words must be used to describe your woman character, that's if you incorporate a women in your book, to sky rocket her self-esteem and this will be just good enough for the reader to believe that the woman in your book had to overcome her weakness. Not a particular weakness, other than, of course, being a woman. Repeat it as many times as it takes to make her worship the global truth that she is fighting the battle every woman is- it would be a pity to receive no pity.

Describe your setting as a home sweet home with the wife in the kitchen cooking your favorite meal and she has your children tucked in bed. And why should you feel blessed after a stressful day when you have to do everything from finances to paychecks. YOU are the blessing to the family.

Never shall you forget that the woman in your novel will love to gossip about almost anything- from the color of her morning excretion to the color of her baby’s excretion. And now don’t say that changing diapers is such an amazingly hard job. It is a piece of cake, just like every other small errand which can honestly be done with your butt on the chair.

There will be a point in your book when the woman will be asked out, of course she won’t be doing the asking out, and that’s when you make sure your male character buys the most clichéd and stereotypical gifts for her- obviously assuming that she will love it because which woman wouldn’t? Always present the woman as someone shy and caring because the man will be the knight in shining armor to save her during the hardest times.

The one and only dream of every woman is to have a husband with lovely kids. You fulfilled your wife’s dream now it’s time to put that same dream on paper to remind the women out there of what there dreams are made of. Describe in detail when she marries the man of her dreams keeping it all surreal because when you look around the only thing you can possibly see is a beautiful fairytale. Now copy paste this scene of book for further use of paraphrasing in your upcoming books because as an author, you job is to lead the women in the right path of dreams in every single book. Over and over again.

            Whilst setting the mood of her in law’s house, make sure the woman acts brash and the mother-in-law is unaccepting of go her because the universal rule is that in-laws can never get along- especially women. Choose your words carefully so it almost sounds like a sappy movie where the husband will have to make the biggest decision of his life when the climax is approaching: choosing between his mother and wife. After writing this and putting thoughts in women’s heads, wonder where the women of your society develop such feelings about their in-laws and vice verse, but that’s never the author’s fault because it is up to the reader to look beyond the surface to search for a deeper meaning. A meaning so deep that even the fish would suffocate.

            After the miraculous chapters of the in-laws drama and a settlement of the women agreeing to look at each other, bring in the husband’s big heartedness in the last few pages of the book. Make sure that he inspires his wife to take up a job, obviously not because he is having a hard time paying the bills. When she receives the job offer letter, announce the motivational talk you had with your wife so they all know that behind every woman’s success, there is a man.

            At the ultimate end when your wife does get a promotion after working long nights, congratulate her for the hard work and dedication she displayed. Unless you assume that she slept her way to the top.

And this, my dear friend, is the prompt for your second book.

How To Write About Indians

Do not forget to mention the ‘bindi,’ ‘curry,’ and of course ‘arranged marriages,’ to define our sole purpose in life. Keep in mind that we ride elephants and have an innate talent of snake charming and this introduction will surely hook the readers.

            Go pickup your phone and call any call center because I can assure you that one of my kind will be the one to it pick up because the entity of our population, 1.3 billion people, work at call centers. And this is why your main character SHOULD work at a call center, or the IT sector, either one works fine as long as you maintain the authenticity of the nature of our given jobs. Now out of such a vast population surely all of us speak ‘Hindu,’ so don’t even bother building up the character’s background because it will be a waste of your pages. Wait, isn’t Hindu a religion? Doesn’t matter- same difference.

Remember to mention the infamous Bollywood industry where every damn movie is 3 hours long and all we ever do is sing, dance and shake our heads. No wonder I perpetually feel like I’ve sprained my neck. Constantly ask us about how to meditate and do yoga because that is what our lifestyle is about. Feel proud that you know Diwali is the festival of lights and equate it to your Christmas because we most definitely do not celebrate any other festivals. And how could you forget our love for cows because after all we DO worship and idolize them.

Ask me about my ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ life and preach me a bit of that Gandhi because that is what will land you a bestseller. 

           

Paper 2: How does Things Fall Apart conform to, or deviate from, the conventions of a particular genre?

How does Things Fall Apart conform to, or deviate from, the conventions of a particular genre?

            The genre of this text is classified as post- colonial literature coupled with realistic fiction. Things Fall Apart written by Chinua Achebe conforms to the conventions of this particular while fulfilling its purpose. The purpose of this text is to depict how life was before, after and during the colonization of Igboland (situated in a part of Nigeria) by the Europeans. Additionally, Achebe achieves his purpose by giving a relatively unbiased view of both cultures- Igbo and European- as he essentially shows that both parties were at fault during the transition period of Umuofia.

            Realistic fiction is a genre, which consists of bits and pieces of stories that may have occurred to people in a plausible setting. These stories tend to resemble real life and fictional characters within these stories have actions that imitate the ones of real people. Igboland is a real place in Africa; however it is not sure whether characters such as Okonkwo and Obierka actually existed but it can be deduced that characters of similar sort may have once thrived in that land because even in current day, we see people with similar character attributes such as self righteousness and hot headedness. Additionally, issues such as gender inequality still exists at a global scale so this shows that the pivotal factor that caused the downfall of Okonkwo still persists.

Furthermore, Achebe digs deep into the culture, tradition and values of the Igbo people and that provides a sense of reality and trueness to the setting of the plot. One can easily identify with the culture of the Igbo people. For example, the Nwoye’s mother told him stories such as folktales and fables during bedtime; this instance can be related to the bedtime stories children read before sleeping and this fulfills Acehebe’s purpose of showing an aspect of the Igbo life and how it was similar to the current western culture yet also different as their culture was more oral based than the western culture. Contrast and similarities between the two cultures augments the purpose of showing life in Umuofia as it gives a sense of realism to it while being a fictional piece of work.

The second genre this text relates to is post-colonial literature. Achebe wrote this novel after Igboland was colonized and while he was writing this novel, he wasn’t living in Nigeria. This text has many attributes of post- colonial literature as it shows the flaws of the Western colonizers and change in society and culture however, Achebe also portrays the flaws of the society being colonized, Igboland. This portrayal of both communities in equal light demonstrates how this text doesn’t follow the conventions of post colonial literature as the purpose of postcolonial literature is to be critical of mainly colonizers. For example Okonkowo, who is from the group of people being colonized, is portrayed as tragic hero and how his own character flaws along with his fate led to his downfall. Additionally Obierka, Okonkwo’s best friend, is depicted as the wise one from the group of people being colonized. On the other hand, Mr Brown isn’t shown as an antagonist even though he is part of the colonizers because he is shown as a person sensitive to the Igbo culture whereas Mr Smith, who is also a part of colonizer, is shown as a negative character. This mixture of good and bad in the group of colonized people and in the group of colonizers makes the text less bias and more credible because in reality, no single groups is either completely good or completely bad. This deviation from the conventions of this particular genre fulfills the purpose of demonstrating a realistic version of what life was like in Igboland during that time period.

In conclusion, Achebe approaches this text from a conventional perspective in the genre of realistic fiction however he has attributes, which aren’t specific to post colonial text at the same time. The conforming and simultaneous deviation from the genres fulfills the purpose of showing Igbo life before, during and after the period of colonisation. 

Word count: 691

Obierka's Memoir

Umuofia is my land, my identity and it is our culture; or it was. I will admit my friend Okonkwo wasn't perfect- far from it actually. Now that I reflect back on what happened, I can see how the downfall of my beloved friend was parallel to the destruction- or civilization- of my identity, language and community. Okonkwo wasn’t fond of change, especially if it wasn’t propagated by him and unlike me, he was very expressive about it. Whether it be Mr Brown or Mr Smith, none was better than the other. They both had the same intention and purpose. Mr brown was like sweet poison and Mr Smith was like a cut down our throat.

 The minute fate turned against Okonkwo, Umuofia started disintegrating bit by bit and eventually, all of it was shattered like broken pieces of glass. It is sad to know my culture wasn't strong enough to resist against invaders. It is sad to know that the thousands of years spent on forming my culture, which is my identity, is no longer existent. I've mourned enough. I've seen what a hard head can lead to and it is not a happy place. I can righteously say that the only way forward is to embrace my new given identity and keep the memories of my old one because cultures fall apart, communities disintegrate and sometime in the future, my new given identity will be stolen away from me by a new set of colonizers. From this I can deduce that things really do fall apart.

Paper 2 Blog post

Literary works often show men and women struggling to resolve problems and not succeeding very well. To what degree do you find this to be true in Things Fall Apart?


In Things Fall Apart, there's a distinct difference between the problems men and women suffer and this is done for the purpose of showing the most possible authentic version of the Igbo community however, it can be argued that the depiction of the two genders could have been less discriminant  with the author achieving his intended purpose.

In Things Fall Apart, Achebe showed Okonkwo as a male chauvinist and the purpose of doing this was to show how he was only capable of understanding his culture on a surface level and the Igbo community had female societies which played a significant role, not necessarily as significant as the male societies but the female societies were of a respectable level and an example of this would be how the men consulted the oracle of hills before a war. Keeping that in mind, if the true purpose was to show how the community in itself didn't have the same/similar beliefs as Okonkwo, why were the men who died without a title called 'agbala?' Agbala is a term which means women so if some one with no respect, dignity or authority is referred to as a women, it automatically equates the existence of women to a deragatory level and this clearly shows that either Achebe had a sense of discrimination within himself or that he failed to portray the subtle distinctions between Okonkwo and his community in an appropriate manner. This shows that the male members of a community, such as Okonkwo, struggled to resolve these issues such as gender discrimination or even acknowledge and define it as an issue because the society as a whole didn't seem to have any objection with the term agbala being used for titleless men and from that it can be deduced that contrary to popular belief, Okonkwo was a reflection of his society to a great extent.

 Furthermore, the book didn't mention the women having any problems/issues with their gender being equated to disrespectful levels so even the people who were the centre of this problem didn't acknowledge and this leads to the struggle in resolving this problem in the Igbo community because the issue needs to be addressed first in order for it to be resolved; therefore I find it to be true that literary works, such as Things Fall Apart, often show men and women struggling to resolve a problem, in this case the treatment of different genders, and not succeeding very well simply because the problem isn't recognised by the parties involved, even the people it concerns. 

Okonkwo's tragic fall was caused by the his gender superiority. I believe that along with his tragic fall, the society's tragic fall was also caused because of the unawareness of persisting issues because as mentioned previously, the people in Igbo community weren't aware that gender inequality was an issue that existed and according to Achebe, the audience was supposed to detect this problem mainly within Okonkwo and not the society but there were instances which indirectly showed that Okonkwo wasn't the only with that flaw. Achebe only portrayed some aspects of the society so if the community was blind to such a blatant issue such as gender discrimination, it can be concluded that they may have been unaware of the other existing issues which lead to their downfall along with the other obvious reasons such as European colonization, otherwise referred to as civilization.