Thursday, November 13, 2008
Quater 2, Post 1
This quarter I'm reading The House at Sugar Beach for my outside reading. It's an autobiography by Helene Cooper who's, "family and the rest of the descendants of the freed American slaves who founded Liberia in 1822" (Cooper 6). In the start of the book the first thing that I noticed that there was a lot of division in the story. First, by gender. Cooper talks about their guard sleeping in the "boy's house" (5). She references again later. This seemed strange to me, to have have separate houses for the genders. It might have something to do with them being in another country with different customs and culture. Another part that could play into it is the time this book takes place. Helene is growing up in 1980 and 1970. Although we saw women as equals in America, it was not the same around the world. That's not the only separation, she mentions how when the freed slaves moved here the natives called them "Congo people" and how the freed slaves called the natives "Country people." The huge amount of separation in the book seems like it will lead to conflicts further along in the book. Especially the division between the two kinds of people. If they don't get along and still live in the same place, there will be a lot of tension.
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3 comments:
Yup! Cool story-- sounds like it'll tell of the cruelty of racism and sexism and the inablity of humans to embrace differences. The gender thing doesn't sound too odd to me-- think of summer camp; boys cabins on one side, girls the other. The name calling over ethnically different people is interesting though-- usually we hear the story where the slaves are completely silent and suffering. Then again, these are freed slaves, so it's a fun premise to play around with. I wasn't quite sure what you were talking about in your post though as far as plot goes-- is Helene a descendant of a slave, and if so where is she living, is she involved in all this, or is she just an observer to the racial tensions?
First things first: Kate, you did a great job balancing the interpretations along with plot summary.
Also, this book sounds very interesting and I want to read it. Sexism seems fairly common throughout the world today, but there aren't as many books about it so it would be interesting to read one.
I'm really interested in the relationship between the "Congo" and "Country" people because the freed slaves had probably felt a strong bond with their home land while in slavery, and had not felt accepted by the Americans, but when they do return to Africa they do not feel part of that culture either. I would very much like to know if they were successful in re-assimilating into the culture or if they became a separate sect of people themselves.
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