Always

In her conversation with Yolland, they repeat the word always to each other, and although Maire does not understand what this word means, it has an impact on her. She feels a connection to Yolland, and they do not speak the same spoken language, and understand very little about each other's culture, but they understand what the other is feeling emotionally, and this is enough to convey feelings. The word always sticks with Maire enough that it urges her to learn English from Hugh, and her first question is what does the word always mean? Unfortunately, he does not tell, her instead he tells her it a silly word, and not a good one to start with. He brushes off the word, and in doing so, I think it is symbolic in that nothing can last for ever, therefore we have no need for the word itself. The word was the turning point in the conversation between Maire and Yolland, and it seemed to convey that they would have a happy ending. However, things change, and in brushing off the word, I think that Hugh is saying that there will be no happily ever after for Maire and Yolland.

Tragedy versus Comedy

For much of the beginning of the play, I was under the impression that it was a comedy. Or at least not a tragedy. There were scenes that were funny, characters that were meant to bring comic relief, lines that were supposed to make the audience/reader laugh. I love Hugh and Jimmy's conversations and the way they interact with the other characters, they just seem happy in their situation, or at least oblivious to their potential troubles. Owen and Yolland's scene where they figure out the mispronunciation of Owen's name is very lighthearted. Then the romance begins with Yolland and Maire, and you think, ahh this is going to have a happy ending. Love is in the air. It makes you want to buy a plane ticket to Ireland...or at least watch P.S. I Love You...and then it ends. And you are like WHAT?! I mean the army is threatening to burn the village, Manus runs away, Maire and Sarah are both heartbroken, and Owen is stuck in the middle between the new and old. And all of a sudden you realize, this play isn't a comedy, its a satire! CRAP! How are you supposed to get those warm fuzzies? But the more you think about it, the way it ended, with ambiguity and openness to interpretation, means that the audience can create their own ending in their heads. And suddenly, you realize that if it had ended with a happy ending, you would have thought it a cop-out...

Names

The final part of Act 1 is a conversation between Owen and his brother on his brother's name. The English officers pronounce it wrong and Manus seems to take offense to it, finding it to be the English men's way of reducing the value of the Irish. I think that he thinks the English see the Irish as less of a person, and they do not even make an effort to learn about the culture, and this mispronunciation is one more way they can do it. Owen makes the argument that however they pronounce it, he is still the same person, but I think Manus argument, and I might agree with him, is that if you take the culture out of a name, you lose a part of yourself in the process. It will be interesting to see how this mistake in translation affects the rest of the novel.

Creative Writing

I hate writing papers...almost as much as I hate USC...and trust me thats a deep hatred. So trust me when I say, this creative writing assignment was just one more paper that I was going to hate, put off until the last minute, and then not even care what I was writing about, just as long as it got done. That is, until I started writing it, and discovered that there was so much in my head, so many ideas, plot twists and turns, dialogue, that could be put to paper. I found myself enjoying this paper, moreso than any other paper we have written in this class, and probably moreso than any other paper I have written in a long time. So it just proves that you really should keep an open mind about an assignment, book, professor, or even roommate, because you never know when you will find yourself enjoying it.

New Cultures

I loved the discussion in class about the struggle Omishto has between the two worlds she has been exposed to. The first, the one of public school and technology, is one that we can all relate to, and so it is comfortable, and seems normal. The other is the native culture that is introduced to her by Ama, and it is a foreign concept to most of us, and that is why I think I struggle with understanding every aspect of this novel. It is hard for me, someone who has never been exposed to a radically different culture, to understand the full severity of the situation with the panther. The idea that the panther and Ama are connected due to the creation story in the Taiga culture is something that is difficult for me to wrap my brain around, but at the same time I think that is a good thing for us to study them. I have enjoyed learning about each of the different cultures in all of the works that we have looked at this semester. As privileged American college students it is easy for us to live in a bubble, but I think that by looking at these different cultures it is opening my eyes to what is around me.

Lost Innocence

innocence...it's a subject that Lucy brings up towards the end of the novel, as she is evaluating her life. She says on page 153 "I was twenty years old-not a long time to be alive- and yet there was not an ounce of innocence on my face." It makes her feel disconnected from the rest of the world, as if she will never really belong to the city. She feels this way about both the city and her home island. She feels like an outsider in both places, and because of her conflicting experiences in both places she feels like she can't relate. Her experiences from her childhood have given her a different insights than the people that grew up in the city, therefore they don't really understand her, and vice versa. Then she comes to the city, and what she goes through there isolate her from the people she knows from home. She no longer can talk to them about things they could possibly imagine. She has become trapped between two worlds, and it makes her completely alone.

Anger

Anger is a funny emotion. It can motivate someone to do or feel something completely alien, something completely out of the ordinary. It can create this reaction inside a person that is so opposite of what they have said their whole life, or in this case, book it makes the reader very confused. After Lucy hears her father has died, she feels many emotions, much of which she doesn't really know how to detail. But there is one line that sticks out to me that portrays anger. "My father died leaving my mother a pauper" I realize that Lucy did not have a close relationship with her parents, which is a subject for another blog post, but I didn't realize until this moment that if it came down to it, her feelings for her mother were so strong, whether they be good or bad, that her thoughts would almost immediately travel to her mother in this time of sadness. She is angry at her father for the condition he has left her mother in. She has attempted to express her distance and frustration with her mother the entire book, but when it comes to a time of crisis, she still identifies with her and is angry at the person leaving her mother in a vulnerable position. Even though this person is her own father! The contradictions in feelings I think is a frustration that Lucy struggles with, because she still refuses contact with her family, so who knows what she is actually feeling for her mother, but from this line, it is indicative towards empathy to her mother.