Where are all the men going?

In this reading, two of the most important characters so far died: Kevin and the dad (we have no reason to believe that the dad is still alive, even though his death hasn't been officially confirmed). Now we have an interesting situation where there is no "man of the house" or authoritative, grown-up male figure to lead the community or the family. I am really excited to see what Octavia Butler does with this situation, and I would love to see a stronger feminist narrative emerge.

The second implication of the dad and Kevin dying is that Lauren's biggest barriers in promoting her Earthseed beliefs are gone. The only person left with any authority over Lauren is Cory, who is too emotionally distraught to take any control. Lauren has two options now: share the Earthseed with her community and invite them with her outside, or leave her community alone (her original plan). I'm curious to see if she'll take the first option, because she doesn't feel right leaving her community at this difficult time. I also am curious to see how big of a role Curtis will play in Lauren's future.

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How Disney perpetuates voodoo stereotypes

In the opening chapters of Mumbo Jumbo , we've been introduced to Papa DaBas, a voodoo priest. In class we talked a bit about the largely negatively perception of voodoo in America. This immediately made me think of the Disney princess film, The Princess and the Frog . This movie is set in New Orleans, and follows a princess who falls in love, blah blah blah...but the villain is a voodoo-practicing witch doctor, Dr. Facilier. I found it really interesting to look back at Dr. Facilier's character after discussing the American perception of voodoo, because Dr. Facilier is portrayed as a man of pure evil (here's a picture if you haven't seen the movie to show how creepy he is). His soul belongs to evil loas (his "friends on the other side", as he calls them), and he uses their power to achieve his greedy goals, convincing the loas to continue working with him by feeding them the souls of innocent victims. He's manipulative and extremely powerful. ...

Final thoughts

Before I get into this, I want to start by pointing out that Jill was #1 on my most likely to die list, and she is the one who died. It feels wrong to congratulate myself, but I am a little bit proud. The ending was quite satisfying. It felt almost too good and peaceful for the end of such a wild and tragic novel. Nearly the entire group survived, they moved on from their ghosts of the past, and they have great resources that they can begin their Earthseed community with. I'm a little upset that Lauren is still in a relationship with Bankole, but it's good that there are so many relationships within their community as they plan for the future. The most surprising part of the ending was when Lauren discovered that Greyson, Emery, and their kids are all sharers. I was not expecting this at all, because sharing was Lauren's most unique trait. However, it does alienate her less from the rest of the group, and it makes the former slaves more united with the rest of the group. T...

'Hard-boiled': a post about egg metaphors

"It is awfully easy to be hard-boiled about everything in the daytime, but at night it is another thing." This line uttered by Jake is fascinating to me, and not only because he compares himself to a cooked egg. First of all, this is one of the few scenes where we see Jake admitting that he has any emotions - he spends the majority of the novel trying to be nonchalant and as stereotypically masculine as possible. We mentioned in class that a perk of Hemingway's bland style is that emotional breakthroughs are much more significant. We experience one of those breakthroughs here, where Jake is finally admitting that his personality and attitude is a façade that he hides behind. However, the thing I really want to talk about is the term 'hard-boiled' and why I think it's such an accurate description of Jake. So, I'm assuming we're all familiar with hard-boiled eggs. Hard shells, soft insides, cooked in pots of boiling water. By calling himself hard-boiled,...

Crafting Creative Concepts with Charlotte

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