Kyle McCrossin

The purpose of the first chapter was to establish our protagonist as Okonkwo but to understand him we must first learn about Unoka.  Seeing as later we find out that Okonkwo is everything his father wasn’t and that he stands against everything his father stood for, we as the reader must have a firm idea of each of these men in our minds.  The first chapter’s purpose is to give us back ground knowledge of this village (1 of 9), Okonkwo, and Unoka.

What i learned from my research was almost this intire poem.  Due to the old language the imegery in this poem was not coming acros to me except in the 4th stanza.  So my research made me realize what the heck is going on in this poem.  From the men (god/men) chasing women, to the musican and the his lover under trees forever young, and the villagers leading the cow to be sacrificed traveling to an unseen destination and coming from an unseen town.  my research also taought me the paradox of this poem between the negative connotation and positive connotation comparitavely between the 2nd and 3rd stanza.  My research also confuessed me so much more in the final stanza because it made me consider who was talking and who was being addressed.  some combination between the speaker, the reader, or the Urn itself.  Besides from other questions that arissed from my research, i really want to know more about the word choice of teased.  “(the Urn) doust tease me out of thought.  Teased in that in this ideal life of the Urn there is no full fill ment or the Urn made the speaker escape from the problems of life?  The sites I visted were more questions then awnsers (kind of like class ok 215 I’m done)

From the title to many of the details I found this story very hostile and rude.  For example the narrator is an indian man who has very little culture in his life and can’t recognize others who share his same culture.  I found the whole theme of cokroaches (or little pest) to always be bothering him even though he says he tried his hardest to rid his house of them.  The jumping around between his heritage (grandfather), his father, and himself really eximplefies how ethnicty really doesn’t matter that much now.  As I read threw this story I found that this text really realtes to many people today.  The frustration of long term lasting incurable problems, the loss of ones own heritage or people, the loss/confusion of religon, and the way of trying to coop through joking.  His hostility towards others is him lassing out at the world around him because of problems/things he can’t control. 

Over all I was interested by the ideas that we purtrayed in each little section, that added depth to the book in a weird way.  Whether it was him giving a back story to a nurse, or trying to borrow a blanket and in doing so was connected back to hsi people, or finding out abour his grandfather’s death threw heroism.  I don’t know really what to say now but what I can say is that I really look forward to discussing this story more.  Oh wait and wahat was up with all those questions at the end I didn’t understand their purpose.