In Bessie Head’s 1968 novel ‘When Rain Clouds Gather’ the reader is introduced to the protagonist, a South African refugee, Makhaya Maseko. Makhaya is fleeing to Botswana to escape persecution in South Africa. Makhaya has endured great suffering in South Africa and this is another reason why he decides to flee. Makhaya escapes South Africa and settles in a village called Golema Mmidi in Botswana. Here he meets a variety of people from all walks of life and through these people Makhaya is able to heal and find peace in his life. In this essay, we will examine the hardships and suffering Makhaya has experienced in South Africa as well as how the other characters played a role in Makhaya’s healing.
In the first chapter, the speaker mentions
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This quote highlights how Makhaya also experienced the oppression of the Apartheid system. Makhaya decides he cannot live in a country whereby he is constantly persecuted for the colour of his skin and treated at a sub-human level. In the next line of the text Makhaya further explains how he cannot live in a country that is mentally and spiritually dead “he simply felt like moving out of a part that was mentally and spiritually dead through constant perpetuation of false beliefs.” Again the reader is shown the contempt Makhaya feels towards South Africa and its situation. Makhaya has suffered under the Apartheid system and he can longer withstand the inequality of the …show more content…
Dinorego in the novel takes on the role of Makhaya’s adoptive father. Dinorego constantly refers to Makhaya as his “son.” When he first meets Makhaya, Dinorego believes Makhaya would make the perfect husband for his daughter: “he had a difficult daughter whom he wanted married before he died.” However even though Makhaya did not end up marrying Dinorego’s daughter Maria, Dinorego continues to act as a fatherly figure towards Makhaya. Makhaya accepts Dinorego as the father figure in his life we see this as Makhaya refers to Dinorego as Papa: “I know what I want Papa.” Dinorego contributes to Makhaya’s healing process by accepting him into the community of Golema Mmidi even though he was an outsider and a refugee. Dinorego treated him as his own son and forming a strong connection with Makhaya, we see this in the line “he felt a closer bond with Makhaya, the way God usually feels towards the outcast beggar rolling in the dust.” Dinorego does not feel pity for Makhaya but rather feels a fatherly love for
When Rainsford stumbles upon General Zaroff’s mansion, he is welcomed with clean clothes and fresh food. “‘Now you want clothes, food, rest. You shall have them ... I was about to have my dinner when you came. I’ll wait for you. You’ll find that my clothes will fit you, I think.’”(Connell 4) According to this quote, General Zaroff welcomes Rainsford into his home warmly and offers him fancy clothes, hot food, and a cozy bed to sleep in. General Zaroff tries to make a good first impression on him by being kind and acting civilized around him to lure him into a false sense of security. After General Zaroff says he hunts humans, Rainsford becomes wary of him. “‘And now,’ said the general, 'I want to show you my new collection of heads. Will you
glass window. We were drawing near the island then. What I felt was a --
In this excerpt you are introduced to a young African boy, Olaudau Equiano, who begins to describe his everyday life before being captured. Olaudau, who is the youngest of six sons but not the youngest child, who in which is his sister. As a child, he was raised and trained in both agriculture and war, receiving a great deal of emblems in javelin throwing and shooting. However, at the age of eleven, Olaudau’s life changed forever. One day while the elders went to the fields, two men and a women invaded their camp and swiftly kidnapped Olaudau and his younger sister; thus beginning his life as a slave. “The first object which saluted my eyes when I
“Rainsford said,Hunting? Good God, General Zaroff, what you speak of is murder.’” (Connell 70). Rainsford’s personality changes throughout this story, but, the trait of bravery stays true throughout the story. Through his personality trait of bravery Rainsford moves the “Most Dangerous Game” plot forward.
In the novel “Inside out & Back Again” written by Thanhha Lai , The main character Ha flees her home due to war. Her and her family were looking for a new home trying to start a new life. Although it wasn’t easy for her to start a new life she had to learn to overcome many challenges. In the novel Ha reveals that her life is related to the refugee life even though it was unexpected. When refugees flee their home, it affects them when they leave and find a new home, it also involves affecting them when their life is turned inside out,and it demonstrates why they relate to the refugee experience.
The Happiest Refugee written in 2011, is an award winning autobiography portraying ones will to survive amongst extreme hardships. Above all, the story displays resilience and optimism at their finest, despite the setbacks and adversities faced by Anh and his family. Readers as a result are invited to empathise with the hardships confronted by refugees, in turn enlightening them to be grateful for the many pleasures
The use of the melancholic tone in Dawe’s poetry enables him to explore life from his poems “Homosuberbenisis” and “Enter Without So Much As Knocking” and death through his poems “Katrina “and “A Victorian Hangman Tells His Love”. Dawe’s poems “Katrina” and “A Victorian Hangman Tells His Love” explore death through the extensive use of metaphors, tone, similes and imagery. “Katrina” is a poem based on Dawe’s two-month-old daughter
The refugee story of Viola shows us what the process of the adapting to a new climate and environment is like, as well as how this process relates to that which
In chapter two of Leymah Gbowee’s memoir, Mighty Be Our Powers: How Sisterhood, Prayer, and Sex Changed a Nation at War, turmoil is happening all around her. The chapter starts with Gbowee graduating from High School and enrolling into the University of Liberia. Shortly after she enrolls it is announced that rebel forces have invaded Liberia. Gbowee’s parents move to a newer house in Monrovia. Then Gbowee experienced her first encounter with guns when there was shooting near her house, along with her grandmother, Ma Korto, pushing one of the children outside. After that, she and her family were taken to St. Peter’s church to stay in the residential compound. Shortly after she arrived at St. Peter’s, Gbowee saw a young man shot in the street. The streets seemed like battlegrounds and people prayed their houses would become fortresses. When Gbowee describes the way the beginning of the war affects her personally, she overlooks the deeper problem of how fear and courage alter the ways in which the people around her fight the daily battle of surviving. In neglecting to see the suffering of others, she shows that she has not yet, “come of age” and still has a lot of maturing to do.
Families and their traditions can impact on the level of devotion and affection that ties people together, as well as how one reacts to a particular situation that may reinforce or harm his or her relationships. The notion of family belonging is an idea repeated throughout The Happiest Refugee and the analysis of various techniques makes this evident. ‘But my father treated that loss as if it were a win, and it was a lesson that stayed with me for a long time. If the worst happens, but you still celebrate coming second. There is no need to fear failure’ is a quote from page 48 that highlights the level of family belonging through the use of repetition as it is a message that reoccurs throughout the memoir. The sole idea recreated throughout the novel thoroughly
This essay is about the universal refugee experience and the hardships that they have to go through on their journey. Ha from Inside Out and Back Again and other refugees from the article “Children of War” all struggle with the unsettling feeling of being inside out because they no longer own the things that mean the most to them. Ha and the other refugees all encounter similar curiosities of overcoming the finding of that back again peaceful consciousness in the “new world” that they are living in .
Millions of people around the world have no choice but to flee their homeland to escape war, genocide, torture and persecution (Amnesty international, 2014). In the story ‘The Happiest Refugee’ written by Anh Do the famous Australian comedian talks about his family’s life as a refugee and the struggles they faced beginning their life in Australia. The components that will be looked at include: The effects of poverty on his family, the struggle of being a refugee and how family stick together.
When you surf the internet to look for the new about Central African Republic you hear stories about terror, civil war, rebels, murder, bloodshed etc. But what are the other aspects of life in the region that no news reporter wants to cover? A trip to the Center of the African rain forests reveals what happens and has been happening for very many years to the region’s residents. In Listen Here is a Story, Bonnie L Hewlett deals with different aspects of women’s lives of the Aka (Foragers) and Ngandu (Farmers) in this part of Central African Republic mainly, and reveals the political, social, cultural, Ideology in life of these people. There are some studies where people are travelling to explore the subjective experience of women’s in small societies, and this book is one of them.
This section demonstrates how the fear manifested itself among the whites. The Afrikaners’ power is not in numbers, as “they were few” but instead in political authority. They exploit this and impose harsh laws on the black to try to control and restrict them. However, they have bound themselves in their fear of the natives, a force that is perhaps more confining than their rules. Instead of trying to understand their fear and show their compassion towards these other human beings, they instead choose to hide it so that they will not appear weak. Additionally, the solution of love that Paton suggests presents a conundrum. In order end the fear, they must love, but to love they must stop being afraid. This demonstrates the almost impossible nature of true equality occurring between the natives and the Afrikaners.
It is this dignity that many African people's all but lost in the colonial period...The writer's duty is to help them regain it by showing them in human terms what happened to them, what they lost." (Achebe/Killam Eds. Pg. 159.)