Stories of growth: Caribbean Women Writers (3)

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Stories of growth Caribbean Women Writers (3)

• Olive Seniors Bright Thursday
• Do you have experience of living with your
  grandma or aunty in a house or place very
  different from your own?
• Do you know claustrophobia and agoraphobia are?

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Outline

• Olive Senior Introd.
• Youtube films
• You Think I Mad, Miss http//www.youtube.com/w
  atch?vqMuq8J9bErk
• Democratic Voice and Missing
  http//www.youtube.com/watch?vcs1i_GcNGU0
• Tree Reading Series Featured Reader 27 Jul 10 -
  Olive Senior http//www.youtube.com/watch?vzaoX9
  I9LKmw
• Bright Thursday
• color scheme and education
• the fathers (lack) of influence
• Quiz

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Olive Senior an Embodiment of Conflicts

• The daughter of peasant farmers, she grew up,
  after four, with well-off relatives whose
  lifestyle was the opposite of what she had known
  as a child. ? tension between two different
  households, between rural and urban settings
• ? two Jamaicas (source http//www.nalis.gov.tt
  /Biography/bio_OLIVESENIOR_Jcanauthor.htm ) --gt
  Children moving between two households.

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Bright Thursdays--Genealogy

• Dolphie Watson Miss Christie
• Mina Bertram Myrtle Johnstone
• (white U.S.) (brown)
  (dark)
• Laura 2 sons (2
  fathers)
• (Bertrams Mistake Bertrams stray shot)

A childs perspective a gradual process of
alienation
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Bright Thursdays--Questions

• Why is Lauras story not like ours visits of our
  grandparents?
• If we divide up the story into the beginning,
  middle and end, where is the middle part in
  which the action starts?
• Why does the story have a long introduction?
  What does the intro. show about Laura? Why does
  she feel alienated from her siblings? What is
  she afraid of?
• What is the significance of the photographs,
  mirror, the mountains vs. the wide open space and
  the clouds, and Lauras sense of space?
• What does the ending mean?

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Color System in the Caribbean Society

• Ms. Christie Dying to raise their color all of
  them (199)
• The color triangle white
• brown
• dark

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Bright Thursday intro.

• Intro. Pp. 194 - 207
• Myrtle as a single mother in conformity with
  social values
• Myrtles view of Lauras fatherproud of being
  associated with him, not expecting him to do
  anything (p. 197)
• Myrtles dream of status improvement (197-98
  200)
• Myrtle vs. Ms. Christie Myrtle all polite and
  Ms. Christie, condescending and implicitly
  critical (pp. 198-99)
• Laura in the two households
• at her mothers feeling well protected p. 200
• at Ms. Christies feeling displaced and scared
  p. 195 196

Lauras sense of space dinner table 195-96 Home
in the mountains vs. grandmas203
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Contrasts between the two households

• Mountains vs. hills pp. 203 204
• ? sense of insecurity as reflected in her views
  of the clouds (204)
• Meanings of the clouds?

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Space and its Symbolic Meanings

• Spatial imagery
• psychological -- Lauras sense of displacement
• Feeling alienated (because of the mothers
  special treatment) even at home.
• permanently transported from mothers house to
  fathers
• out of place or no space (photos on the
  bureau195)
• Social -- Lauras sense of inferiority
• enclosed and protected(mothers house in the
  mountains, hemmed in 203)
• empty space (the dining table 196 fathers house
  204-05)
• fear of the open space, which is still
  constraining ( like a blue bowl 204-205)
• Fear of bright Thursday and the need to walk to
  school 206-207 (the bus)
• Need protection and safety from the earth
  (digging potatoes 207)

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The Cloud and Agoraphobia

• geographic metaphor attached with social
  meanings The Cloud Christs judgment?
• A projection of social hierarchy from one social
  field (the other people) to another
  (religion/Christ)
• Metonymic displacement of Christ to the Cloud
  which he is associated with.
• Lauras fear of open space or agoraphobia
• physical factor moving to an area she is not
  familiar with
• psychological factor sense of placelessness and
  inferiority
• Social factor see definitions of agoraphobia

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agoraphobia

• Agoraphobia is a condition where the sufferer
  becomes anxious in environments that are
  unfamiliar or where he or she perceives that they
  have little control. Triggers for this anxiety
  may include wide open spaces, crowds, or
  traveling (even short distances). Agoraphobia is
  often, but not always, compounded by a fear of
  social embarrassment, as the agoraphobic fears
  the onset of a panic attack and appearing
  distraught in public. This is also sometimes
  called 'Social Agoraphobia' which may be a type
  of social anxiety disorder also sometimes called
  social phobia.
• Agoraphobia occurs about twice as commonly among
  women as it does in men.4 The gender difference
  may be attributable to social-cultural factors
  that encourage, or permit, the greater expression
  of avoidant coping strategies by women. .
• Branches of the social sciences, especially
  geography, have increasingly become interested in
  what may be thought of as a spatial phenomenon.
  One such approach links the development of
  agoraphobia with modernity. (source see also
  panic attack)

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Middle part

• The grandmother
• -- calls Laura my little adopted, instead of
  granddaughter
• -- criticizes Myrtles attempt at whitening her
  family, but she herself has been doing it.
• The father
• present only as a photo 208 few fathers around
  
• dreaming about being rescued by her father
• will bring nothing but bright Thursdays (208)

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Quiz

1. Why is Laura agoraphobic? 15 one sentence
2. Why is Bright Thursday scary? 45
3. What happens at the end? 45

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Ending final revelation and initiation

• Color hierarchy represented by the opposition
  between the mother and Mina p. 210
• A story of disillusionmentthe breaking up of her
  hope and dreamsbloody bastard (211)
• Turned into an orphan no more clouds
  isolation and independence?
• Running for education