In the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries most of the major European powers were part of this colonial grab for power and territory; and after the American Civil War, so was the United States. Almost immediately this translated into an East/West schism in which both sides harbored bias about each other, never really understanding the motivations of each other's actions. This is the world in which Pinkerton arrives -- a Nagasaki that has barely opened its doors to the West, but sees Western naivete and cultural values such that it is easy to manipulate them for money. In the case of the French, their long history of conflict in Indochina was seen by the Chinese as a perfect example of the Marxian view of the oppressed. Songs masters thought nothing of using her to glean information as well as disseminate disinformation. After all, Song was two things despised by the current Chinese government: an artist and a homosexual. She was disposable, and only useful to a point. Goro sees Cio-Cio-San as a commodity and has found Prince Yamadori, a wealthy Japanese noble who is somehow entranced by this Americanized Geisha.
And then we have the matter of love; Cio-Cio-San does not "love" Pinkerton in the modern sense; for she does not know him. He is a symbol -- a way for a young and naive girl to recapture respectability, and she certainly believes the stories of romantic love and gives herself to him. Suzuki is clearly devoted and loves Cio-Cio-San; Pinkerton, we are not certain, is capable of love, even with Kate, his American wife. He seems to be doing the proper things expected of him as an Officer, but certainly not out of any internal morality. This, however, does not seem to be the case with Song and Gallimard -- what began as an obsession, an itch if you will, turns into love, at least on some level -- two decades is more than a sexual dalliance. Yet, two things puzzle the audience: how could Gallimard not know Song was a man, even with the lights off, and if he truly loved Song, why would that matter in the end?
Finally, it is in the finale of both works that we find the pathos of similarity. Both Gallimard and Cio-Cio-San must decide to live with dishonor or die with what semblance of honor they can elicit. This, for both characters, oddly juxtaposed, is their final act of power -- and both die for love, albeit love unrequited. Song utters the same words as Pinkerton -- "Butterfly, Butterfly," and both live. Pinkerton will forever be shamed when he looks...
Colonialism & Resistance There is a scene in the documentary film Jane Goodall's Path in which an elder living on Pine Ridge reservation in South Dakota is interviewed. Looking directly at the camera, the elder tells how he lost his sixteen-year-old son to suicide. His bewilderment apparent, he tells how many other young people living in Pine Ridge have killed themselves, too. He reveals that the rate of alcoholism is 90%.
Moreover, some, like the former Italian Somaliland, are written off as failed states where terrorism flourishes (Johnson pp). Uganda and Kenya, that were once considered paradises are now increasingly poor and dangerous (Johnson pp). Black majority rule has failed virtually everywhere, and rapid population growth, indebtedness, and diseases such as AIDS, have brought additional misery, however, the main failure has been political (Johnson pp). Many of these countries, such as
Colonialism and Imperialism in Heart of Darkness, Things Fall Apart, And Apocalypse Now The shadow of colonization: Projecting European anxieties onto nonwhite peoples The Jungian concept of 'the shadow' is not that 'the shadow' is inherently dark or evil: rather, it is a hidden part of an individual or collective subconscious that is a repository of all of the aspects of society wishes to hide. The shadow' may contain elements of forbidden
During the civil war, this was a continuation of this pattern as the various Angolan militias would fight with each other; for control of select mineral rich areas. At the same time, they would fight foreign-based forces such as: the communists and anti-communists. In this case, the various communist / anti-communist forces were replacing the Portuguese. While the different militias, would be a continuation of the hostilities that would
(p.135). Finally, the author ends the chapter with a discussion of whether colonialism helped or hurt Africa. The author makes a very valiant and effective attempt to remain neutral and to present the information in an unbiased manner. However, the author makes several assumptions about the material presented. First, the author makes the assumption that the Europeans were exploitative when the colonized Africa. While acknowledging that Europeans may have legitimately
He notes that "anticolonialist critics have sought to "demystify the national myths" of empire and to write an alternative history of the colonial encounter" by focusing on "the politics of the early modern English-Native American encounter" with an eye towards "moments of textual rupture and contradiction in early modern texts such as The Tempest" (Cefalu 85). One may identify the scene of Prospero's accusation as one such moment, and
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