Week four- Twenty love poems and a song of despair

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For this week’s readings, I read “20 love poems and a song of despair” by Paul Neruda. These poems illuminate themes of passion and lust through the use of strong imagery, expressing the human form with the natural elements of the world. This can especially be seen in lines such as: “white bee, you buzz in my soul, drunk with honey/ And your flight winds in slow spirals of smoke” (page 27) and “you were what the wind was making with illuminated leaves/ Behind the nocturnal mountains, white lily of conflagration/ Ah, I can say nothing! You were made of everything” (page 39). The use of environmental metaphors throughout these poems provides an extra layer of intensity and emotional impact, allowing the reader to deeply connect with the feelings of the narrator as he seems to experience the progression of love and loss. The images created in these poems also may allow the readers to clearly understand the heartfelt emotions as the carefully picked out words emphasizes the heartfelt emotions within each poem. Additionally, I found a quote from the introduction to be quite interesting, stating “these are not abstract poems aimed at idealizing beauty or love, but the messy, scented perceptions of lived loves-and lusts” (Page VIII). As mentioned, these poems do not seem to reflect what one may first think of when they see the words “love poems” but rather emphasize the darker parts of love in the aftermath of passion.

If I am going to be completely honest, I have always had trouble with reading poems as I generally find them quite hard to interpret. These poems were no different to me, so I turned to the lectures in order to deepen my understanding of the content. In watching these, I became increasingly aware of the underrepresentation of the role of the woman in his work and could not look passed the overt objectification of the woman throughout the poems. In particular, in the poem “Vastness of Pines”, Paul Neruda refers to a female as a “toy doll” within the poem as though she is solely an object resembling a status of high beauty that is there to fulfill his desires rather than an actual human being with their own feelings and emotions. While he does mention feelings of love toward the women within his poems, this love does not seem to me to be a reciprocal relationship but instead, a love of a woman in a passive sense as, in accordance with one of his poems, “I like for you to be still: it is though you were absent, distant and full of sorrow as though you had died” (page 57).

Discussion question: What are your thoughts on how the woman is described by Paul Neruda throughout his poems? Were there any quotes related to this that really stuck out to you? Why?

Week three- Cartucho

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This week’s reading was Cartucho by Nellie Campobello. While I found this book interesting to read due to the style of its writing, I have to admit I was a bit lost at times and had to review a lot to gain a better understanding of the stories being told. This was in part due to my lack of knowledge of the Mexican Revolution, so I decided it was best to research this as to gain a deeper understanding of the context in which the story was based in. From my little research, I found out that the Mexican revolution occurred from 1910-1920, sparked after Fransisco Madero rose up against dictator Porfirio Díaz. In the north (where this story is set), Francisco “Pancho” Villa was the Guerilla leader for the Rural population as he and his followers (known as the Villistas) fought against the dictatorship of Portillo Diaz. With my new general background of the history in which this story is set in, I found it a bit easier to follow what was occurring in the vignettes.

Additionally, I found it interesting how this story compared to last week’s reading of Mama Blanca’s Memoirs. In both stories, the main narrator is a young girl living in the midst of a time of high tension or turmoil in their respective countries. Despite these similarities, the two stories seem quite different in the perspective of the world around them. To be more specific, in Mama Blanca’s Memoirs, Blanca Nieves seems to be quite sheltered from the outside world as she grew up on the plantation, and had more innocent perspectives of the world around her before moving, as discussed last week. On the other hand, the narrator of Cartucho lived in the midst of the Mexican Revolution, seeing all the gory detail of the war. Because of this, she recalled some normalcy and curiosity in the tragic events that were around her, as she recounts “our young eyes found it quite natural” (32). I found this contrast between the two stories quite interesting as it seems to be rare that literature takes the accounts of a historical event from a child’s perspective and for these two stories to show how different a child may live through these times is quite fascinating.

Overall, I found this story a little hard to follow at first, however, did find some of the vignettes to be very powerful, drawing vivid imagery that is unforgettable. This book allowed me to explore the Mexican Revolution a little deeper, seeing it through a lens that is generally forgotten when recounting these moments in history.

Question for the class: As mentioned, in the last two books we see the stories depicted through the eyes of a child. In your opinion, why do you think it is important to view historical events through the eyes of the youth who as lived through them? What advantages or disadvantages does it bring to our understanding of a certain time period?

Sources:

McGill, S. A., MAS Ultra – School Edition, & Primary Search. (2009). The Mexican Revolution. Great Neck Publishing.

Parra, M., & Project Muse University Press Archival eBooks. (2010;2006;). Writing Pancho Villa’s revolution: Rebels in the literary imagination of Mexico. University of Texas Press. https://doi.org/10.7560/706972

Week two- Mama Blanca’s Memoirs

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Hello! This week’s reading was on Mama Blanca’s Memoirs written by Teresa De la Parra and I thought it was an incredible story to start off the course. As the story is narrated by a young Blanca Nieves, I found it interesting how the narration highlights an innocent perspective of serious topics or recollections of the past. For example, Vicente Cochocho is a character subject to a fair amount of racism, which can be seen from Evelyn, who saw Vicente as “a filthy, loathsome creature who, being a louse himself, probably had a head full of them”. While Blanca is aware that these prejudiced comments originate from a “complex, personal race hatred” towards Cochocho, she and her young sisters view him with admiration regardless of his social position in comparison to her own. After describing the nature of his nickname, Blanca is quick to state that to her, his “art and greatest glory was that of having made the ugly beautiful”. Throughout this section of the story, the narrator continually expresses their admiration for Cochocho’s wisdom and noble manner despite the views set forth by her caregivers. Personally, I feel as though in most literature I have read this child-like perspective is rarely explored and I found it interesting to view these topics through a unique lens.

Additionally, Something I first looked past but further investigated was the importance of names within this narrative. This significance was illuminated to me after Blanca’s description of the cows, stating that “between the cows and their names there existed a kind of harmony or concordance that was lacking between us and ours”. Thinking deeper into this quote, I noticed how as Blanca described the cows, their names correspond quite literally to the traits they exhibit, such as sunshine having. Golden brown coating. On the other hand, the names of certain human characters seemed to contradict Blanca’s perspective of that person, mainly in relation to their personality. For example, Blanca states that her sister Violeta embodied “the spirit of Juan Manuel the Desired” rather than “the modest, sweet-smelling little winter flower” that her name is based upon. Furthermore, Blanca perspective of Vicente’s noble and kind personality does not reflect the literal meaning of his nickname “Cochocho”, referring to a louse. I find this aspect of the story quite intriguing however am a little puzzled as why certain characters, such as the cows, use literal names in contrast to the complexity of the human characters’ names and corresponding personality and would love to explore this theme more in depth.

Discussion question: Looking further into the meaning of your own name, do you think your own name matches its original meaning? How so? Do you think others would have the same perspective as you or not (e.g. how Blanca does not believe that Violetta’s name corresponds to the meaning of the name)?

Week one- Introduction

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Hello everyone!

My name is Amanda (although most people call me Mandy) and I am a second-year student with a major in speech sciences. To introduce myself a little further, I was born and raised in Vancouver and I hope to pursue a career in speech pathology after completing my education, specifically working with young children with speech impediments. I became interested in becoming a speech-language pathologist a couple of years ago because I enjoy the idea of helping children express themselves and reach their full communicative potential.

Personally, I decided to take this course to fulfil part of my literature requirement after receiving an email and viewing the trailer promoting the class. To be completely honest, the literature requirement is the part of my degree that I have been putting off the most as I have never been great with analyzing literature however after reading more about the ‘choose your own adventure’ aspect of this course and the large variety of literature, I thought I would give this class a try! I am really excited to learn more about Latin American literature as I haven’t read much from Latin American authors and I am always excited to gain new perspectives and learn about different cultures.

One thing that also intrigues me about this course is the theme of play. As someone who currently works with children, when I heard the word ‘play’ I first think of all the games I play with others and how creativity is key to being one of the first to achieve the objective of the game. For example, if you are playing hide and seek, it is generally the person with the most creative and out-of-the-box hiding spot that is last to be found or the person with the best strategy in uno who is the first to lose all their cards. With all this being said, I am excited to view the literature through the lens of ‘play’ and see the creativity of how the varying authors convey the meaning behind their stories. Additionally, I am excited to see the creative different perspectives and interpretations of the text from all my classmates to open my eyes to new points of view.

With all this being said, I am really excited to get to know all of you over the course of the term and learn about all the different pieces of literature provided in this course!

Question to think about: If you were given the option to transport as any book or series, which one would you choose and why?