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is an African post-colonial piece of jewelry that is both post-colonial and also possesses gender and class implications.
One can see this piece of jewelry as being either Mother-Earth, Mother-Universe or Female Guardian Orisha. It has definite gender -- based connotations with a maternal warmth and sympathy emanating form the image. At the same time is authentic primitive African art and is also class-based since its origins are tribal and would expect a certain lower class of Africans to more likely wear this piece than the upper class. Its connotations, too -- since this is a fertility goddess -- are of people who desire to have children or who have suffered loss in childbirth. This has often been the case of the 'regular African folk -- the lower class -- who due to hardships of regular life have often lost children during or after birth as well as in their formative years.
This jewelry too is also symbolic of religious values and Christian culture: the female figure opens her arms in the shape of a cross.
The figure -- copper/bronze -- is approximately 2.5 inches long or 4.5cm and the arms are 2cm wide. It is an example of Modern African ethnic art forma and is post-colonial in that it not only addresses African pride but also incorporates gender and class in its image.
Post colonialism is the approach that addresses matters of identity, gender, race, racism and ethnicity asserting that the colonized nation / oppressors, specifically the West imposed unwanted belief system and values on a particular nation (generally, but not necessarily Africa), that many of these values are oppressive and unsuited to the specific nation (e.g. Africa), and that they wish to re-assert their own values. Post-colonial theory sees the influence of colonialism as the influence of the mighty over the more vulnerable and seeks to assert themselves by developing their own post-colonial national identity and challenging Western ways of thinking. Their ultimate goal is combatting the residual effects of Western ways of thinking on their colonial culture.
These impressions are indicative in this necklace. The necklace is profoundly and inherently African. Her female breasts and navel are accentuated and the entire form and style militates against Western historical trend towards inhibition of the human form, particularly the female. The art too differs to Western art form aside from which the West never inclined towards fertility goddesses. Both image and style are, therefore, thoroughly alien to the Western mindset and would well have been rejected in a colonialist era by the Western 'oppressors'. Wearing this jewelry openly shows identification of the wearer to pure African values and a certain combatting of Westernized influence on the African mind of the people.
Postcolonial theory challenges the dominant discourse of the West challenging "inherent assumptions," as well as critiquing the "material and discursive legacies of colonialism" (Dictionary of Human Geography, Blackwell Publishing, 2007). This necklace does both of these by challenging the West's inhibition of women as sex objects with pornography seen in a negative light as something that must be concealed. The necklace openly flaunts the woman's body but does so in a neutral way focusing on the fertility metaphor. The West may see this as pornographic. Africa, on the other hand, sees nothing wring in so doing. The woman is not a sex object. She is something hallowed; she is a goddess.
The necklace also questions the Western assumption of monotheism in a least two ways. In the first case, it openly implicates a belief in deities that can be appealed to for fertility. In the second case, it merges Christianity - a monotheistic belief -- with paganism -- a polytheistic set of rituals. The fertility goddess is delineated in the shape of a crucifix, proud body taut, breasts and navel pronounced, arms extending in a naive form of embrace. The integration of Christian ascetism and form with African naive and primitive art and liberal sensualist can be shocking for some. Not only is the image alien to Christian colonialism but it challenges that Christian colonialism by integrating the symbol of that colonialism (Christianity) with the symbol of pure African ethnicity (paganism and goddess-based practice).
In this way, the necklace incorporating both Westernized and African images epitomizes post-colonialism since, according to Mbembe:
It derives both from anti-colonial and anti-imperialist struggles on the one hand, and from the heritage of Western philosophy and of the disciplines that constitute the European humanities on the other. ( http://www.eurozine.com/articles/2008-01-09-mbembe-en.html)
Necklace by Guy De Maupassant Guy de Maupassant's short story, "The Necklace," deals with many different themes. This work of literature examines notions of beauty and youth, class and money, and a liveliness and zest for life that is contrasted with the conception of aging. Despite all of these thematic issues, it appears to the shrewd reader that the principle theme that this work of literature is based upon, and which
Loisel feels that she has no dresses worthy of the elite party. Rather than appreciate the material goods she and her husband do have, she laments what she lacks and thus seems bitter and ungrateful. Her life filled with fantasy and longing causes quite severe mental and emotional impairment, even depression: "she wept all day long, from chagrin, from regret, from despair, and from distress." Madame Loisel was depressed
757). Chopin (2002) writes: "There would be no one to live for her during those coming years; she would live for herself. There would be no powerful will bending hers in that blind persistence with which men and women believe they have a right to impose a private will upon a fellow-creature" (p. 757). Louise is discovering that she will have say over what she does and there will
And as before, rather than expressing openness about her true feelings, in the face of wealth she becomes embarrassed and ashamed, and this also proves her undoing, as if she had only been open about what had transpired with the necklace, then she would not have had to labor her entire life to pay back the debt. Mathilde bankrupts her husband, by losing the paste necklace, but this selfishness is
In Guy de Maupassant’s “The Necklace” (1884), a beautiful young woman named Mathilde is depicted almost as having been deprived of a higher station in life simply because of her impressive physical characteristics and that fact that she lives in humble dwellings. She is sharply aware both of her beauty and of her modest status. Having been born into a family of clerks and married a clerk, she feels constrained.
Faience Necklace This necklace was found in the Egyptian tomb. Wealthy Egyptians who died were buried with many of their most precious and/or sentimental life's possession that they wished to take with them to another world (the Afterlife). This necklace was found in one ancient Egyptian tomb and evidently manifested value despite its cheap nature. (Faience was a relatively cheap material) (Andrews, 1981) The beads are various scintillating colors representing various
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