Symbols of Lost Escape in Ama Ata Aidoo's "No Sweetness Here"
Her dead son's school uniform and books to which Maami Ama clings in grief represent a lost egress from the village that has rejected her. She cannot be clutching these items in bereavement for Kwesi because they do not have an immediate connection to him. These objects were tied to her son's education, which offered the potential of him being upgraded beyond the grade six limit of the village from which his mother was estranged.
Her son's schooling would have been a vicarious exit from the village in which she had "been the topic of gossip for many years", being called a "bad woman" and "a witch." Where to her husband, who planned on taking Kwesi away from her, she had "ceased to exist". These difficulties made her an outsider in the village where she was bound to continue living, and because of this alienation, symbols of deliverance from outside had importance to her. These emblems of foreign freedom, in addition to her own Methodism, were the system of education, the teacher, her son's school books and his uniform. These scholastic factors were external in source from the village and therefore marked the direction to which her surrogate escape pointed.
Her choice to clutch her late son's school uniform and books could not be purely the result of her sorrow over losing him. These items did not represent who her son was because he did not embed either of them with his identity. He would throw "his books down" with "a thud", and he would come home from school with his uniform "smeared with mud, crayon and berry juice". Kwesi must have had many possessions and items of clothing that he loved and cared for more than his school things. Those would have better represented his character for his mother to hold to her breast in her pain of separation. In grieving over these symbols of learning that stem from beyond, she is mourning not only the loss of her son but also a missed opportunity to escape the village by proxy.
When I finished that I decided to get the other assignment out of the way that is due next weekend so I can focus on my essay. This assignment is an online quiz involving the use of the various search options offered by the Oxford English Dictionary. It took me two hours to finish because I had breakfast while taking the quiz. My score was .89 out of 1.05, which means that I got two questions wrong out of fifteen. Those questions were probably the ones where we had to guess the process that brought about the origin of a given Canadianism. We are allowed to retake the test an unlimited number of times but I don't know if I have time. Maybe if I hand my essay in early next Saturday I can correct my answers. My score right now works out to an A minus so I may just settle for that.
I weighed 83.5 kilos before breakfast.
I went to No Frills at around 12:30 where I bought four bags of grapes, some bananas, a pack of seven-year-old cheddar, a pack of pork chops, olive oil, white corn and black bean salsa, and two small containers of skyr.
The cashier Jessica is so nice to everybody. She let a customer know that a box of crackers he got was cheaper if he bought two and so she waited while he got the second one.
I weighed 84.1 kilos before a late lunch at 13:43. I had saltines with five-year-old cheddar and a glass of limeade.
In the afternoon I took a bike ride downtown and back. At Queen's Park and Bloor, there was an Iran protest blocking my way so I went south to St Joseph and then across to Yonge.
I weighed 83.8 kilos at 17:00.
I was caught up on my journal just before 18:00.
I finished reading Marie de France's Fables.
I wrote down some stream-of-consciousness thoughts toward my essay.
I made pizza on a slice of Bavarian sandwich bread with Basilica sauce and five-year-old cheddar. I had it with a beer while watching episode 15 of The Beverly Hillbillies.
The Clampetts are still back home in Tennessee for the holidays and it's an extremely cold winter. The cabin is freezing and Jed and Jethro have to sleep on the floor by the fireplace while Granny and Elly May share what seems to be the only bedroom. This doesn't make sense since before they moved to California, Jed, Granny, and Elly all lived together in that same cabin. On top of that Granny has to contend with all of Elly May's wild animal friends such as a skunk and two wolves in the bed. Since they've only been living in California for a few months, it's odd that these issues are treated like they are something new.
It looks like everybody is ready to go back to Beverly Hills but they can't because Jed has promised that they won't leave until Mr. Brewster has proposed to Jed's cousin Pearl. That night is supposed to be the big night when Pearl makes a final push to land Brewster. She sings for him and she has a horrible singing voice, but she thinks she's a good singer because her friends are always telling her that she should sing out of town. Pearl's efforts do not work.
The next day Jed has a talk with Brewster and convinces him to propose to Pearl in public so that she can say "no" and save face in her community and then come out to California with Jed. Most importantly the proposal has to be in front of county gossip Elverna Bradshaw. As Brewster, before he became an oilman, had a background in theatre, he considers this a chance to rekindle his talents. He says that the proposal will take place at the theatre during the silent movie for which Pearl plays the piano.
It's a full house and Elverna is there. The movie is the 1925 film "The Eagle" starring Rudolph Valentino and Vilma Bánky. It's during the kissing scene that Brewster shouts, "Stop the picture!" and comes up the aisle from the back. He proposes to Pearl in front of the audience and she says no, but he begins to ham it up and keeps on proposing. She continues to refuse but his pleas become more and more dramatic and convincing until finally, she says "Yes!" and Brewster realizes he should have left well enough alone.
The term "Latin lover" was invented to describe Rudolph Valentino. He was the first male sex symbol in the movies. He left Italy for the United States just after getting someone pregnant. He became a taxi dancer in New York and women would pay ten cents a dance to be with him. He became a popular club dancer and had an affair with a society woman. After she divorced her husband she shot him and Valentino left town again. He went to California and started working in B movies. After he was spotted by Metro executive June Mathis, she cast him to star in "The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse" and he became a superstar. After a few more hits he quit Metro and joined Famous Players for much less money. But in 1921 they gave him his most famous role in "The Sheik". When "The Young Rajah" failed he went on a one-man strike and refused to honour his contract. He went on a very successful dance tour and promoted a product called "beauty clay". He wrote a very successful book of love poems in 1923 called "Daydreams". He signed with another studio and had several box office bombs, as well as relationship and custody problems. He finally had another hit in 1925 with "The Eagle". "The Son of the Sheik", the sequel to "The Sheik", was another hit but he died shortly after it came out. He was an obsessive big spender throughout his adult life and despite his fame, he died in debt.
I searched for bedbugs and found none.
No comments:
Post a Comment