March 2015

One of the big issues that was discussed for this month in AP English was the issue of female and male gender issues. Virginia Wolfe's novel, A Room of Ones Own, discusses and brings accusations to light about the male superiority to women. She believes that men think that they are above women and thus they oppress the women. She uses examples from real female writers and authors to describe issues, such as the made up sister of Shakespeare that was oppressed by Shakespeare himself. She believes that eventually women can prevail from the oppression of men and make themselves known and equally as important and powerful as men themselves.

Unfortunately, gender issues are still seen in society today. Many women believe that there is a gender gap and still feel oppressed by men, especially in the work place. There is supposedly a salary gap between men and women, and it is proven that more men hold higher positions than women, which arises issues and concern among some. Even in The Doll House and A Thousand Splendid Suns has gender issues and oppression of women portrayed in the novellas.

Feb 2014 Blog

The middle East. It has always been interesting to us Americans. We here only bad things about the Middle East- such as terrorist groups, such as Al Qaeda and ISIS. When the Taliban came to the Middle East and took over, life changed drastically for the people living among the countries in the Middle East. This is seen in A Thousand Splendid Suns. The Taliban used excessive force to take over the Middle East. You were killed if you were caught committing a crime. When Mariam and Laila are caught trying to escape to Pakistan, the Taliban catches them and brings them home to where they are beaten almost to death by their abusive husband, Rasheed. Eventually, the Taliban executes Mariam for killing Rasheed. The men in the novel represent the real society under Taliban rule, in which the men have complete rule over the women in society.  The idea that really amazed me was how the women are treated under the Taliban rule. Every woman must wear a burqa veil no matter where she is going, which is seen in the novel. If a woman is found outside of her house with out her veil on she can be whipped or even stoned to death publicly. Afghan women have been pushed to the lowest form of living there is. The Taliban men have completely banned any education for women starting from kindergarten to graduate school. Also employment for women has been banned in their country. The poor women under the Taliban rule can’t wear make-up, nail polish, cut their hair short, wear colorful or stylish clothes, white socks and shoes, and can’t even walk or talk loudly. In fact the government believes women shouldn’t even leave their homes at all. If woman do choose to leave her home it must be for an essential, government purpose and she must wear the full burqa outfit. Even then these suppressed women risk their lives. Women born into this horrible lifestyle are born already dead. 

January 2015 Monthly Blog

A Thousand Splendid Suns is a novel written by Khaled Hosseini about political upheaval and the dreadful toll it takes on the citizens, as well as an examination of the limited role of women in Afghan society. The novel itself takes place in Kabul, which in the largest city and the capitol of Afghanistan. It is the target of territorial leaders; fighting in the streets is rampant and violent, and civilians are raped, tortured, and murdered, even in today’s society. As Americans, many of us perceive some the issues and people in the Middle East as unbelievable. In the United States, women are (almost) equal to men. In the Middle East, however, it is almost the complete opposite. Women are oppressed and treated like animals. They are raised with the belief that they are behind men in the social status. This is clearly shown in Hosseini’s novel through his portrayal of two main characters, Mariam and Rasheed.

Khaled Hosseini uses a strong conflict between the two main characters Mariam and Rasheed to present many important ideas within the novel. It follows Mariam’s struggle through her life with Rasheed, her abusive husband, which clearly leads to the idea of suppression of emotion. Through Rasheed's conflict with Mariam, we witness his total mistreatment of her and the idea of the oppression of women in Afghan society is established. He has complete control over her, and this is shown when he forces her to wear a burqa whenever she goes out in public. This portrays the burqa as an enclosure for Mariam where she is being kept in captivity by her abusive husband.

In 1996, the Taliban took over Afghanistan. This was the beginning of the societal oppression of women in the Middle East. I have a friend named Sabrina, who is from Pakistan, who went to my old school. We were always good friends, but when I moved schools, we lost touch. Two years ago, I remember hearing from my mom that her mother and father chose a man for her to marry- an arranged marriage, and she was to move to Pakistan to carry out her life with that man. She was 15 at the time. To me, this is beyond belief that this occurs, because it is such an unfamiliar occurrence in our society. Doing further research on this novel, I found out that Hosseini was inspired to write this novel while on a trip to Kabul in 2003. He describes in an interview the sights of women on the street crying and bleeding, and he felt that he needed to bring Americans to light of what is going on in other parts of the world. When I heard about my friend Sabrina, I was scared for her. After knowing what can happen to women in that part of the world, it is scary to think that it could even happen to her.

December 2014 Monthly Blog

Change is something every human experiences in their lifetime. There are both good changes and bad changes. We have control over some changes, such as physical appearance and our attitudes towards certain things, but many people still fear the change that we cannot control. Okonkwo in "Things Fall Apart" is a perfect example of a human that completely rejects the subject of change. Religious "white" men come into his village, bringing new culture and religious views with them, causing an uprising from Okonkwo. His choice to not support the changes being brought in did eventually lead to his downfall. Okonkwo is like many humans in today's society. They are scared of what change might bring to them and the outcomes of such change, causing them to reject the changes. We may wonder what would have happened to Okonkwo if he would have accepted the changes- would he have still committed suicide or would he have flourished as a farmer and lived a happy life? Change is inevitable- every human being is faced with change in their everyday life. The thing we can control is how we handle such changes- do we accept it or do we fight the changes?

November 2014 Monthly Blog

NOVEMBER 2014

In “The Challenge of Cultural Relativism”, James Rachels  says that there is no objective “truth” in morality, only opinion. He explains the general rules that all societies will follow in order to be able to function and how society must look at the reasons for its cultural actions, and judge their actions based on the given reasons. I generally agree with Rachels’ arguments and how cultural relativism is not an universal protection from criticism. I believe that we, as a society, must look inward and outward to fix any moral problems seen in society in order to improve. By focusing on reasons rather than judgment, we can create a greater understanding between cultures, promote tolerance, and achieve progress as a nation. Societies, seen in Beowulf for example, are said to have disputes with other societies. One section is in a dispute with the other when Beowulf comes to the Geats, eventually resolving the dispute.

Rachels has written against the views stated in the article, arguing that the main argument for Cultural Relativism fails, and that there are good reasons to think that there exists an objective standard of morality. The Cultural Differences Argument, he claims, isn't valid because it does not follow from the fact that societies disagree on moral issues- that there is no truth in the matter. He then provides three consequences that would follow if Cultural Relativism were true: first, we could not longer judge other societies; second, our society’s standards would be the unquestionably right standard for us; third, moral progress would be impossible. He sees that none of this is possible and argues that this leads us to have grounds for supposing that Cultural Relativism is false. He explains what he thinks is the identity of standards, saying that actions that promote the welfare of human beings are morally good, while actions that hinder the welfare of human beings are immoral. 

I agree with his critiques of Cultural Relativism and his arguments for thinking that an objective standard exists. I can see how there are many cultural differences among our nation and other nations, which, even though we don’t always admit, cause disputes among what culture is considered practicing their own culture better than others. 

AP English Blog 10/31/14

Cultural Norms. They hold us together as a culture, but separate us from being unique individuals at the same time. A society’s cultural norms are the set of laws in society that in some way run America. The set of cultural norms in one’s society then leads the individual to become molded by those cultural norms. They influence actions of society today and how individuals interact with others within their own culture. In The Importance of Being Ernest, cultural norms are very obvious. We see elite, high end individuals living among one another, judging each other over what they eat or how they dress. In All Things Fall Apart, we see a man who has several wives and can legally beat them. Different norms are accepted in different cultures, which was shown in both novels. 

Society, today, is very particular. You need to dress, look, and act a certain way to be accepted by society. We are very into electronics and social media is everywhere that we look. We interact, get news, and talk to one another through social media. It is a cultural norm to rely and have a Facebook and Twitter. In The Importance of Being Ernest, it is a cultural norm to eat pastries and dress in dresses all day every day. You must marry someone with an elite name, such as Ernest. If they didn’t conform with an expectation, they were looked down upon, which is how today’s society acts towards us. Not only in elite societies, but in lower classes, such as in All Things Fall Apart, the cultural norms are different from ours. If men went around beating their wives today, or even having more than one wife in our society, they would be looked down on. Okonowa beat his wives and his friend had over thirty! Just seeing how different each society is, is fascinating. We only usually hear about our own society’s and we forget that each society is different. 

AP English Blog- 9/30/2014

       “Prison brutality”, I thought during class. That is something that the novel The Power of One is built around. The only difference is that the brutality in the novel happens inside of a boarding school, not a prison. Peekay, the main character, was terrorized and abused by the Judge, a boy attending the boarding school alongside of Peekay. We see violent abuse, verbal harassments, degradation, and dehumanization happening to Peekay in The Power of One. Unfortunately, these problems of abuse are still transpiring to this day inside of our prisons in our nation.

Prison brutality in and of itself is overall a horrible problem. What I believe is even worse than the abuse itself, is when abuse does occur, and no one speaks out. Only 1 out of every 8 cases of prison brutality are reported to the federal government for investigation due to the circumstances, such as fear of retaliation, or that a guard abused an inmate himself. “The Department of Justice chooses to exclude the bulk of violence committed inside its correctional facilities from the national crime surveys” (“Prison Crime Rate: The US Violent Crime Rate Is Falling”). In The Power of One, Peekay, the Judge, and the Judge’s “clan” could not have been the only ones present in the boarding school at the time, nor could they have kept that many incidences of abuse quiet throughout the duration of the months that they were attending. The supervisors in the novel are said to have “walked around with a whip” (Courtenay) and they did nothing to stop the abuse from occurring to Peekay. Prison guards do the same actions- “The guards encouraged fighting… When fights broke out.. the guards did nothing to stop them. They beat, choked, and threatened to kill the inmates on a daily basis” ("Inside OPP: Prison Guards, Inmate Detail Brutality inside Jail”). “On man on death row for killing a prison guard was brutally beaten to death. He began writing to Florida newspapers about prison brutality and corruption. "So a gang of guards stormed into his cell to shut him up. They broke almost every one of his ribs, punctured his lung, smashed his spleen and left him to die” (“Torture in US Prisons”). The supervisors in The Power of One may not have been such a physical factor in the abuse to Peekay, but they let the situation go on continually, and took no apparent action to put an end the conflict. It is the duty of those appointed to such high authority to take action to protect humans, under circumstances, both in the novel and in today’s prisons. 

I have always been fascinated, but horrified, by stories about what happens behind bars and in our nation’s prisons. I find myself under the documentary section in Netflix, glancing through the one’s associated with prisons. Seeing how horrifying some of the conflicts that take place inside of our prisons, makes it inconceivable how these stories can just go unreported. If I was a supervisor in Peekay’s boarding school and I heard about these things happening, after looking into the hearings more, I would go straight to the principal. If I worked in a prison and I observed abuse happen unjustly, I would not be able to restrain myself from going to the warden. When I first read about the brutality done to Peekay in The Power of One, I couldn't help myself but think what would’ve happened if he had told someone. Just as if a guard told a warden about observing brutality to inmate. Would anything be different?

Works Cited

Picou, Jelpi. "Inside OPP: Prison Guards, Inmate Detail Brutality inside Jail." New Orleans City Business. N.p., 17 Nov. 2011. Web.

Courtenay, Bryce. The Power of One. New York: Delacorte, 2005. Print.

Voorhees, Josh. "Prison Crime Rate: The US Violent Crime Rate Is Falling." Slate. N.p., 30 June 2014. Web.

Lendman, Stephen. "Torture in US Prisons." Rense. N.p., 14 Nov. 2010. Web.