"Needy" Regina

Regina's family background has molded her needs in an intimate relationship in a way that she has became used to being needed by someone. She is the eldest of fourteen children so she was used to her brothers and her father always needing her to do something for them. As for Easy, he has never really asked Regina to do anything for him until he asks her to find information on a potential suspect. She wants Easy to need her like her family did when she was growing up. With this absent, she continues to feel that Easy does not love her and lets this affect her relationship him.

Who is Easy Rawlins?

           In the city of Los Angeles, a man named Ezekiel Rawlins is called to work alongside the LAPD in order to track down the murderer of four women. In the book White Butterfly by Walter Mosley, Easy is an average citizen living in a predominantly black neighborhood called Watts during the year 1956. He is chosen to help solve this mystery because he knows his way around South Central Los Angeles and the people who reside there. Throughout his journey, Easy reveals more about his character as he gets closer to finding the suspect.

           At first, Easy denies his call to action when a black officer named Quinten Naylor asks for his help to solve the murder of three black women. Easy does not want to get involved in another case but he knows that he is the only person that cares enough to help Officer Naylor because of his knowledge of the streets. Because Easy values his African American culture, finding justice for the women who were murdered and for his community is important to him. If he does not help Quinten, the case will not be solved because of the prejudice and racism that is present during this era. Since he is the hero of the story, it is his job to restore wholeness and right wrongs for the people of his community.

           After getting involved with the case, Easy finds himself struggling in his relationship with his wife Regina. The couple has been married for about two years and have two children. Because of Easy’s work, he has many secrets and tends to keep things to himself. Regina notices this and it leads her to want Easy to be open and honest with her because she was used to being depended on by her thirteen brothers and her father. Although Easy tells her he loves her, he does not fully grasp that there is something lacking in their relationship. He is blinded by his perspective of what a man should be and what a woman wants. Easy believes that no man should be emotional or vulnerable because a woman does not want to put up with a man who cannot handle his own feelings. He thinks he has to be the strong figure in the relationship by providing Regina and their children with whatever they need. Since he does not verbalize his thoughts, Easy does not understand that Regina wants more than the materialistic things. He thinks that if he provides Regina with the money she needs or with anything she asks for, she will love him for that. Easy ends up losing Regina because he did not change his mindset.

           As Easy continues on his investigation, he meets with many people who not only help him with the information, but reveal more about himself through these meetings. One thing Easy shows when speaking to a man named Roger Vaughn is that he believes in second chances. This is shown when Roger speaks about his wife leaving him with another man and Easy tries to convince Roger to give his wife another chance. Easy believes that Roger can fix things with his wife if he talks to her. But Easy is too compassionate to understand the issues between Roger and his wife are more complicated than he thinks. His compassion is also shown when he speaks to Mrs. Garnett, the mother of the last victim. Easy visits Mrs. Garnett to give her information about her daughter that he knows she is unaware of. The grieving mother is emotional after finding out that her daughter was a stripper. A different side of Easy is shown because he shows concern for her and even checks in on her when she steps out of the room.

           Altogether, Easy continues to develop as a character as he gets closer to solving the mystery. Even though he does not realize it, each individual Easy meets or knows throughout the story aids in him in his self-discovery. Although he finds himself in the situations he is in, he will only see himself progress in the case and in his relationship once he changes.

Three Stories in Mojo

"Rosamojo"

1. The title of this selection is "Rosamojo" by Kiini Ibura Salaam. This story is about a girl named Rosamojo who is sexually abused by her father. In order to protect herself, she uses a protection prayer that ends up killing her father. The setting of this story is contemporary. There is no exact location where the story takes place other than Rosamojo's home and the funeral home.

2. The specific point of view of the story is first person single narrator.

3. The protagonist in the story is Rosamojo and she is also the narrator. The antagonist in the story is her father.

4. The main conflict that Rosamojo is struggling with is protecting herself from her father. This type of conflict is person v.s. person. The source of this conflict is Rosamojo's father molesting her.

5. Rosamojo is the conjure woman in this story. Some conjure woman traits that Rosamojo has are that she uses a spell to protect her. She is independent, self-sufficient, and self-sustaining.

7. Two values that are important to Rosamojo are her own safety and her mother's opinion. Valuing her own safety aids Rosamojo's struggle with her father. If she did not value this, she would continue to let her father molest her. Valuing her mother's opinion causes some hardship for Rosamojo because this stops her from speaking out about her conflict. Since her mother's opinion is important,  she conceals the truth about the sexual abuse from her mother.

10. I think the theme of this story would be if one is being harmed by someone or something, they should do something about it to stop it. The genre of this story is conjure/magic tale and it is also a growing up story. From this story, I learned that it is important to stand up for myself. I should not let anyone control me or to take advantage of me. Rosamojo is a strong individual and I see her as a role model for other girls.

"Asuquo"

1. The title of this story is "Asuquo, or The Winds of Harmattan" by Nnedima Okorafor. This story is about a woman named Asuquo who stuggles with being herself in her village because she is not accepted by the people in her village. The setting of this story is in the African Coast during slave trade.

2. The point of view is third person, omniscient.

3. The protagonist in this story is Asuquo. The antogonist of the story is the village.

4. The main conflict that Asuquo is struggling with is being who she really is in her village. The type of conflict this is person v.s. society. The reason for her struggle is that she is a conjure woman and the people in her village do not accept her powers.

5. The root woman in this story is Asuquo. Some conjure woman traits that she has are that she is a female. She does have powers that make her a powerful figure in the community.

7.  Two values that are important to Asuquo are love and her family. From valuing her family, this causes hardship because they contributed to her death. She continuously wants to please them, but in the end they turn on her.

10. The theme of this story is that should not try to conceal who they truly are. The genre of this story is a conjure/magic tale. From this story I learned to not hide who I am as an individual because I will not succeed and accomplish things I want.

"Trial Day"

1. The title of this story is "Trial Day" by Tananarive Due. This story is about a girl named Letitia who struggles with making her father realize that Brother needs help on trial day. The setting of this story is contemporary time in a town called Oak City.

2. The point of view is third person, central character.

3. The protagonist is Letitia. The antagonist is Bernadette.

4. The main conflict that Letitia is struggling with convincing her father to go help her brother on his trial day. This type of conflict is person v.s. person. The source of this conflict is the spell her stepmother put on Daddy, which is stopping him from helping Brother.

5. The root women in the story are Letitia and Letitia's mother. Some traits they both have are that they both perform spells and rituals. Letitia is a conjure woman in training so she is learning from her mother. Letitia ends up sacrificing her cat to help her Brother.

7. Two values that are important to Letitia are her brother and justice. These values aid her conflict because if she did not value her brother, she not want him to help him on trial day. She also values justice because her brother had a higher chance of being killed over the robbery since he is black.

10. I think the theme of this story is not giving on something that is important. This story is a conjure/magic tale and a growing up tale. I learned to not let anything stop me from accomplishing something that is important. Letitia learned to solve the issue on her own and I find this admirable.

Presenting Lesson

Giving presentations has not always been one of my strengths. In the past, I was always the one in charge of the presentation, while my partners would do the speaking portion of the project. After preparing and presenting for this presentation, I learned how difficult it was to work with partners and how to improve our presentation from receiving feedback.

As my two partners and I prepared for this presentation, we found it difficult work together because we had different schedules. We could not meet as much as we had hoped, so we had to work everything out online. This was problematic because we could not share our thoughts and opinions on certain ideas for our presentation. Although our final product turned out well, I think we could have used more group time to express and talk about our thoughts on the assignment.

Once we presented our presentation, the feedback we received should us areas where we could have improved on. There were some images that could have been changed to fit the setting of the play. I felt the same way about this as well but I did not want to tell my partner. who was in charge of that slide, that it did not fit. We also were told that one of our slides could have been presented better, but while we were speaking about it, we saw that we could have zoomed into the text. If we had met and practiced with the presentation, we would have thought about this before class.

Overall, I was able to gain more expertise on presenting from going through the complications of meeting with my group and from the feedback we received. Even though we had our issues, we worked around them to complete our assignment. I look forward to working on other projects with my group after this experience because we now know what we need to change for our next presentation.

Assignment 1

Notes on A Soldier's Play

Discussion Questions. Type the following answers. Use the Glossary for clarity on definitions of literary terminology.

1. A Soldier’s Play by Charles Fuller won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1982.
2. This play originally opened on November 10, 1981. It premiered at Theatre four in New York City.

A. Fort, Louisiana, World War II 1944-Army base

B. Allusions. 1) The two photos on the wall are of F.D.R. and PVT. Joe Louis 2) F.D.R. was the 33rd president and Joe Louis was the first heavy weight African American boxer.  3) F.D.R. was the commander and chief during World War II. Joe Louis is important because he was seen as a role model during this time since he was one of the only colored boxers. 4) The photo of F.D.R helps the audience identify the time the play is set in because he was the president during this war. Joe Louis’s photo identifies the time because he was the World Heavyweight Champion between 1937 through 1949.

C. Social Context of Play. Yes the United States Armed Services is segregated in 1944 during the World War II. Yes white and black soldiers are serving in segregated companies that keep that separate from each other.

D. Cast of Characters.

1. Black soldiers:
1. Vernon C. Waters (Sergeant)
2. Bernard Cobb (Corporal)
3. James Wilkie
4. Louis Henson
5. Melvin Peterson
6. Tony Smalls
7. Ellis (Corporal)
8. Richard Davenport (Captain)
9. C.J Memphis

     

    2.) White Characters

    a.) Charles Taylor (Captain)

    b.) BYRD (Lieutenant)

    c.) Wilcox (Captain)  

Davenport has a higher rank than the black soldiers due to his status being Captain. The person that has a commanding rank would be Captain Taylor.

E) Major Characters. 1) Davenport is an African American captain as well as a lawyer for the segregated Armed Services. He also polices colored troops. He is there to figure out who killed Sergeant Waters. Yes I think Davenport will be important to the play because he solving the murder mystery. Also he is going to reveal to the audience the truth of what really happened to Waters. 2) Waters is a light brown skinned man and a Sergeant. He was murdered at the beginning of the play. He is important to the action of the play because without him there would not be a storyline. Also without Water’s death there would be no need for Davenport to interact with Captain Taylor who is white. The interaction between Davenport and the white soldiers is important for the audience to see because it gives the reader a sense of the era and the racism/segregation that was going on during 1944. Sergeant Waters is the catalyst. Davenport is the protagonist.

Davenport Quiz

1. He is a Captain in the U.S. Army.

2. He is a lawyer.

3. He polices colored troops.

4. He is going to conduct interviews with the men of Sgt. Waters.

5. He is in charge of the case regarding Sgt. Waters's death.

My Reading Challenges

Reading used to be something I did everyday. As I grew older, I lost interest in this hobby. Reading Salem's Lot by Stephen King was a bit of a challenge for me. This novel was about the protagonist's Ben Mears return to the small town of Jerusalem's Lot and discovers that vampires are taking over the town. While reading this book, I faced some issues. This novel was a challenge because the vocabulary was difficult, there were many characters to keep track of, and I struggled with not wanting to read.

Since I do not read often, my vocabulary is not broad. As I read this book, I ran into multiple words that were brand new to me. It made it difficult to understand what the author meant because I did not know the meanings of some of the words he used. This was the first I read a book by Stephen King so I was unaware of what kind of vocabulary this novel would have. In order to simplify the reading, I wrote down the words I did not know and searched for their definitions. This helped me because I started to notice that some words were used more than once throughout the novel.

Another challenge I had was keeping track of all the characters that were in the book. There were a couple of minor characters who were mentioned only a couple of times throughout the novel and I would forget who they were and what their role was. One thing that helped a lot was the character list. Every time a minor character was mentioned, I referred to my list so that I would know who they were. If I had not met the character before, I added them onto the list so that I would know that who they were later on in the book. I did not think this would help, but it was very helpful due to the large number of characters.

When it comes to reading, I am very lazy with it. As I was reading this novel, I found myself not wanting to read it. It was not that I did not like the context, I was just not motivated to read. When I was supposed to read, I kept pushing it away. I knew that I had to get it done, but I still kept it at the bottom of my “to-do” list. This was difficult because I started to get behind and the readings kept piling on top of another. In class, we would have discussions about events that happened in the book and some things were ruined for me, but it was my fault because I was not on track with the reading. I did not overcome this challenge because it is something that I need to work on.

All in all, this book offered was a challenge because it had some complex vocabulary, numerous characters, and I did not want to read. After this novel, I have learned what helps me get through a reading and what does not. It showed me that reading is not to be done on my time, but it must be a part of my schedule. Reading is a process and that is the only way I will learn from it.