Translations

The ending of the play "Translations" kind of threw me off.  To me, it seemed to end very abruptly when Manus just left and Captain Lancey comes and tells the classroom that the town will basically be destroyed if Lieutenant Yolland is not found.  We are given hints as to where Manus has gone, to be with the Donnelly twins, and that the Donnelly twins might have something to do with the disappearance of Yolland.  The ending also sounded like the beginning of the Irish Revolution to me.  I do not know much about the Irish Revolution so I found a website that gave some information.  I hope this information helps anyone else who might have been somewhat confused like me!

Translations

I have just started to read the play "Translations" and I am very confused.  The play so far has been interesting and engaging.  What I am confused on is when the characters are speaking English and when they are speaking Gaelic.  And to be honest I am not sure what Gaelic is.  I went to youtube and found a video of the Lord's Prayer in Gaelic.  Since I know what the Lord's Prayer should sound like in English I thought it would be a good thing to look at for a comparison.  It really did help.  I did not know Gaelic was so different from English.  Since it is spoken in Ireland, which now English is a very predominant language in, I assumed Gaelic would have some words sound different than the English words.  I was totally wrong.  If someone was to speak Gaelic to me I would have no idea what they were saying.  Hearing The Lord's Prayer really helped me identify with the characters Captain Lancey and Lieutenant Yolland.  Both of the men are in a country where they do not speak the language.  I have never been to a place where there wasn't at least ten other people who spoke the same language as me.  I cannot imagine how much extra work the language barrier adds onto their job.  I am interested to see how Yolland does with learning some Gaelic and see if the language barrier will be as big of a problem as I think it will be.

Power

Beliefs and knowledge.  The two words can mean many different things to many different people.  The way I understand the meanings of beliefs and knowledge to be are just as Merriam-Webster defined them.  It is not clear that Omishto agrees.  He understandings and stances of what are beliefs and what is knowledge vary throughout the book, but they mostly agree with beliefs and knowledge being the exact opposite of what I understand them to be.  Since Omishto and I have opposing opinions on what beliefs and knowledge are, I wanted to get the opinion of a third party.  Frater Achad wrote the article "Beliefs versus Knowledge".  He describes beliefs and knowledge in terms of religion.  "In regard to religion it will doubtless at once be evident that a great deal could be said on the subject of Belief, it being, one might almost say, the principle on which most, if not all, Exoteric Religions are based. It will also be evident, though perhaps in a lesser degree, that all these various religious beliefs, held by masses of people in all lands, must have arisen in the beginning out of the Personal Experience of a few who had somehow obtained a direct perception or knowledge of certain facts in regard to 'The Absolute', 'God', or at any rate some Being or Beings of a distinctly higher order than themselves".  Achad seems to agree with Merriam-Webster and myself with the definitions of beliefs and knowledge.  Since Omishto's opinions of what beliefs and knowledge are has varied so much in this first part of the novel it will be interesting if her opinion ever becomes the same as Achad, Merriam-Webster, and my opinion.

Power

Nature is a key element in Linda Hogan's novel Power.  Nature has played a role in so many events already in the novel, and it's only been the first two chapters.  The role nature took on in the novel that has stuck out the most to me so far is the fact that it is Omishto's safe-place.  Usually a safe-place is a room in a house someone goes to to get away from everything.  Omishto takes it to a different level when she gets on her boat and goes out into the lake.  Omishto describes being on the lake in the first chapter; "It is beautiful here, this place I call mine, where clouds are born from water" (2).  You can picture this beautiful landscape.   The picture to the right is what I picture the lake to look like, engulfed by trees, calm, and beautiful.  It seems that Nature holds a special meaning to Omishto, especially the lake and her boat.  When the storm came Omishto was not OK with leaving her boat untied, so she risked her life to go and secure it.  That seems kind of ironic to me.  Omishto risks her life to save her boat, which is her main connection to nature, yet the storm, nature again, could take her life.  I am interested to see how nature affects Omishto's life, in a positive or negative way, throughout the remainder of the novel.

Lucy

I never really understood the cover to the novel Lucy until I read the middle section of the book.  The cover is a painting of a naked woman.  I am assuming the girl in the painting is Lucy.  I did not have a clue as to why Jamaica Kincaid would have picked this as her cover until I read the section that included both Peggy and Paul.  I now am guessing that the painting was done by Paul because at the party Peggy takes Lucy to where she first meets Paul she learns he is an artist by the many paintings around his apartment, some of naked women.  I am wondering if in the last part of the book we hear of the time Paul painted this or if what I have just speculated is just thoughts made up in my head.  I can see this painting have an influence on Lucy and Peggy's relationship because just the fact that Lucy has a sexual relationship with Paul rubs Peggy the wrong way.  I have a feeling that this painting will in some way change either the direction of the story in relations to Lucy's life or just in relations to Lucy and Peggy's relationship.  I hope to learn an answer in the last pages of the novel.

This Blessed House

At the end of our class discussion on the interview of Jhumpa Lahiri and the story as a whole, the question "is everything you do a performance?" came up.  My first instinct was to say no, but then I got to thinking and realized the answer is much more complicated than a yes-no answer.  In the story, Twinkle could be interpreted as putting on a performance when she wants to display the Mary statue in their lawn and Sanjeev could been seen as putting on a performance when he acts like he doesn't hate the christian trinkets in front of his guests at his party.  I also started to think of everyday instances where people, including myself could be preforming instead of acting as myself.  The first occasion I can think of when I do put on a performance instead of acting as myself is when i meet people my dad works with.  This only occurs ever once in a while when my family has a party or my sisters and I go downtown to meet him for lunch.  Are there times in everyday life that people are putting on performances?  Are some people's entire lives performances?  I have never know a person whose entire life is a performance, but then again how would I know?  The only time I have seen this is in movies and books, but that is because as a reader or viewer you get to see all sides.  Everybody does their little performances in certain situations but I would like to believe that a person's entire life is not a performance but it could be.  

This Blessed House

I found it very interesting that Twinkle in a way converted to Christianity because of a game.  She was inspired by the many Christian knick-knacks she found hidden throughout her new house.  She treated each new trinket as if it was the best thing in the world.  When she started finding the Christian paraphernalia she was not Christian.  Her and her husband, Sanjeev, were "good little Hindus" (Lahiri 139).  Sanjeev was not very happy with Twinkle displaying the Christian symbols in his house.  He especially did not approve of the statue of Mary lawn ornament.  I find it a little strange how quick Twinkle was to change her religious beliefs, in a way.  She never started practicing Christianity but she refused to throw away or hide any of the items she found throughout the house.  As a reader, we do not get to find out much of Twinkle's past so we have to infer a reason for her quick change of heart.  There are many reasons and hopefully in class tomorrow some of my classmates might have come up with some of these reasons.