Literary+-+Fiction+&+Poetry

= Fiction: Investigating Identity Formation/Negotiation =



1. Great exploration of how language development changes understanding of self and placement within culture. [|Breaking the Tongue]

=Poetry: **Example of Hybrid Identity**= A wind is ruffling the tawny pelt Of Africa. Kikuyu, quick as flies, Batten upon the bloodstreams of the veldt. Corpses are scattered through a paradise. Only the worm, colonel of carrion, cries: "Waste no compassion on these separate dead!" Statistics justify and scholars seize The salients of colonial policy. What is that to the white child hacked in bed? To savages, expendable as Jews? Threshed out by beaters, the long rushes break In a white dust of ibises whose cries Have wheeled since civilization's dawn From the parched river or beast-teeming plain. The violence of beast on beast is read As natural law, but upright man <span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Seeks his divinity by inflicting pain. <span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Delirious as these worried beasts, his wars <span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Dance to the tightened carcass of a drum, <span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">While he calls courage still that native dread <span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Of the white peace contracted by the dead. <span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Again brutish necessity wipes its hands <span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Upon the napkin of a dirty cause, again <span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">A waste of our compassion, as with Spain, <span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">The gorilla wrestles with the superman. <span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">I who am poisoned with the blood of both, <span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Where shall I turn, divided to the vein? <span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">I who have cursed <span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">The drunken officer of British rule, how choose <span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Between this Africa and the English tongue I love? <span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Betray them both, or give back what they give? <span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">How can I face such slaughter and be cool? <span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">How can I turn from Africa and live? ||
 * **<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">A Far Cry From Africa - David Walcott **

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<span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue',Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Short Story: //Through the Tunnel// by Doris Lessing
This short story explores the rite of passage of a young boy who seizes an opportunity to create separation from his mother by seeking acceptance by a peer group he encounters while on vacation in a different country. The protagonist spots a group of naked “dark boys” diving under a rock formation and he attempts to join them and emulate the activity in an effort to gain acceptance from the boys, affirming his crossing over into young adulthood. The boy uses the symbolic experience of swimming through the tunnel (clearly representing a “second birth” as the tunnel serves as a type of birth canal) to reach the next stage in his identity formation. By gaining acceptance from these older boys from another culture, the boy finds personal validation in the eyes of the other boys. Once he achieves this, he is able to renegotiate his relationship with his mother. Teaching this piece as a way to explore identity formation through adolescent experimentation and merging with peers from other cultures as a means of seeking validation and confirmation.


 * Novel Study: //Grendel// by John Gardner **

Gardner's novel explores the epic story of Beowulf through the eyes of the nihilistic villain whom Beowulf ultimately defeats in the epic poem. In the novel, Gardner gets at the heart of the "otherness" of Grendel and his exclusion from the community due to his being different and a "monster" in the eyes of Hrothgar's and Beowulf's men. The novel is an existential exploration of the attempts of one labeled as "the other" to seek his place in an environment in which he seemingly does not belong.