Tomorrow Tamer

“So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.” Even we live in the moment. It’s also a scene of crossings, bridging past and present. People struggle ahead but often obsess themselves with the past and present.

Upon starting Joseph Boyden's Three Day Road it may seem to the reader that the train taking Xavier and Elijah from their home in the Ontario bush serves as a far more linear, and highly Western rejection of the circle, the narrative structure and aboriginal perspective that defines the novel. The train makes its first

For some, coming of age is a time of obstacles and success in a young youth's life. It involves a number of trials that is needed to overcome to become mature. Although, obstacles are not the only features that a young adolescents will encounter. The journey will happen beginning with successes and triumphs that will come to the shaping of who they are to become. One can simply presume that the occurrence taking place in the world would have a strong impact on how an adolescent comes of age. The tale Old Chief Mshlanga focuses on the main character, the protagonist known as “she” or little Nkosikaas her encounter with an African chieftain that causes her to see the differences between her people and the natives of the land they reside. The author, Doris Lessing, uses the protagonist to show radically changing attitudes towards the Old Chief Mshlanga.

When in the presence of the woman Romana trying to attack him, Condé writes, “He was about to throw himself on her, knock her down, kill her perhaps, when a voice reminded him of his difficulties in the Ashanti kingdom after the rape of Ayaovi. What would happen if he now committed murder? (Condé 265).” In two ways here, Malobali has grown up. First he realizes that all his actions have consequences and that he must realize them before making unwise decisions. In realizing this, Malobali represents Africans evolving as a whole to recognize that they must work together as a people. Secondly, Malobali realizes that Women are people too who can be reasoned with and respected rather than literally beat into submission. On a grand scale, Malobali’s second revelation represents a change in attitude toward women by African people. Still, more important is Malobali’s evolution in the context of the African Slave Trade.

You will hardly come upon your first view within the pages of this book without realizing that you have been brought into contact with something altogether new, something new and at variance with the traditions of other days. If you are like most of us, you will wonder if the future is to look like this, and, if it does, what your place is to be in it.

Mr. Mdeouze influenced Jose to write that incredible story. He told him enough stories to open up his imagination and produce a beautiful paper. Mr. M taught Jose the power of language. For extra credit for this class, I listened to an interesting lecture about African Storytelling. This is what Mr. M reminded me of. Traditional storytelling is usually told by adults and spoken to children about life, rewards, and consequences. The fables are usually metaphorical stories that have to do with lessons children will learn in their daily lives. While Jose listened to Mr. M’s

Two Men Arrive in a Village” (2016) written by Zadie Smith, is a short story following events that take place in a West African Village, narrated by a woman belonging to that village. The story is a parable, which is a symbolic story told with the purpose of teaching a spiritual lesson to its reader. “Two Men Arrive in a Village” tells the ever repeating account of two men arriving in a village, striking fear into its people, killing, raping and stealing from the villagers who inhabit it. Smith constructed the narrative in such a way that it traces a story that occurs in various locations at once, parallel to a specific situation, all taking place at the same time. By doing this Smith weaves a specific story and a broad story together. While following the events in the African village, Smith’s story also encompasses a prevalent point, that men can feasibly appear at any location at any time bringing destruction with them. The story begins with two seemingly friendly men arriving in a village. As the story unfolds the men become less friendly and more detrimental, in the process of plowing through the village unleashing “bloody chaos”. Even though the particular experience is not the story that repeats itself, Smith’s parable embodies the universal theme of power and violence all around the world.

The story by Abani is set in an African background. It may be unfair to render the people as backward automatically, but their decision to act arbitrarily and against the wishes of the elders speaks of weakness regarding civility. Like the villagers in Jackson’s story, the bloodthirsty mob carries out an illogical and crude act with no regard for the life of the man they perceive to be a thief in the hope that the children will learn a valuable lesson.

Afrika Road, a story that symbolizes oppression of the whites who are capturing the blacks. The blacks are being oppressed, controlled by the white people and Afrika road symbolizes their struggle of dealing with this problem. In Don Mattera’s short story “Afrika Road”, there are many examples that show the different character traits Afrika Road portrays. The different character traits of the protagonist, the story Afrika Road shows is meritoriousness, tolerance, and victimization.

In “Dead Man’s Path,” Chinua Achebe uses character, diction, and setting to illustrate how unwillingness to change never results in a positive outcome. The characters of Obi and Ani are very stubborn in their ways refuse to give in to each other’s beliefs. The stubbornness displayed by each character intensifies the tension between the traditional village and the contemporary school. The conflict in this story highlights a problem that is still deeply rooted in society today, resistance to

Further exploration of this novel will help to locate the past, elevate the present, and imagine the future.

Living in constant fear with his family and siblings in South Africa since young, he has grown comfortable in his own setting and his house without education. Mathabane’s parents hide from the police if they do not have their pass book and is force to do labor work for months. Without food supply, he and siblings suffers without food and plays in the yard each day, occasionally finding food with their mother. “Each day we spent without food drove us closer and closer to starvation” (Mathabane, 37). He lives in the neighborhood with rascal boys that have a bad influence on him. “Since staying at home meant hunger and chores, I began attaching myself to gangs of five-, six- and seven-year-old neighborhood boys who daily roamed the filthy streets of Alexandra in search of food and adventure” (Mathabane, 53). His mother realizes that he needs schooling so that he does not choose the same lifestyle of his parent. “I want you to go to school, because I believe that an education is the key you need to open up a new world and a new life for yourself, a world and life different from that of either your father’s or mine” (Mathabane, 133). Excelling through education will give them knowledge and know more about the world.

In 1949, many African nations began their surge for independence, and the native people did not accept the social modifications forced upon them. The revelation of the setting comes through the name “Ndume Central School” which is a school located within the African nation of Nigeria (595). Later, the setting reveals the deep divisions that take place in Africa at the time and allows the reader to understand why the villagers resists change. The separation between the school and village symbolizes the division, and this separation captures a modern school fighting a traditional village. Obi enforces the separation with the moving of the path and states that this new path should “[skirt] our premises” (597). The setting enhances the conflict between the villagers and Obi because the Africans at the time resisted the change that Obi enforced within the school. The setting of the school and village enhances the conflict because the school represents the transformation of society, while the village captures the stubborn, old way of living.

There is no better setting to present life’s unpredictable and uncontrollable nature than a veld in Africa.

    The presence of community and its role is presented in both African and Middle Eastern literature. These themes can be seen a variety of times in both pieces of literature. In “The Beekeeper’s Journey” the idea of inclusivity and community is presented as the author writes, “‘He could not fire a rifle with accuracy, he could not use a blade with any skill, and he knew nothing about fighting, so he would die...” (The Beekeeper’s Journey 8). In this Abbas (The main character of the story) is so committed to a sense of duty that he is willing to die for his community. Through this connection to his community, he is knowingly entering a battle with the knowledge that he will die. Thus furthering the idea of community over oneself in this story and many others that fall into the same genre of Middle Eastern literature. A piece of African literature that