“Self-harm is an expression of abject despair but in detention, it’s sometimes more than that. Because refugees are objectified and dehumanized…because they are reduced to incarcerated bodies…to harm themselves is to defy the system that locks them away.”

This comic was incredibly heart-wrenching and provided an insight into immigration detention centers that I hadn’t been aware of. One of the things that startled me was the concept of self-harm as a form of defiance. Though I do know of other instances where protesters engaged in self-harm as a form of defiance, such as Mahatma Gandhi or in the civil rights era which was successful to varying degrees, the notion is so counter-intuitive and so against natural tendencies that, to me, it is unfathomable.

The image of the man with the stapled mouth illustrates the sort of defiance the refugees may be engaged in and the types of symbolism, oppression, repression, etc. that may be intended by such self-harm. I found the captions explaining the self-harm unsatisfactory, and my first instinct was to criticize the self-harm for confirming and even reinforcing the notions of those objectifying and dehumanizing them that their bodies were not valuable enough to not be harmed. However, looking at it again and attempting to understand it, I can see it as an attempt to force attention to be paid to them, to use the symbolism to criticize their treatment in the detention center, and to garner sympathy and publicity for their plight.

“But I had already killed him over and over in my mind. In a robbery, a
duel, a terrorist attack, with bullets, grenades…This time I had apparently succeeded. He was dead, truly dead”

This line reveals just how complex the narrator’s emotions are. From despising her absentee father and wishing he suffers for leaving their family, she is now forced to contend with the reality of his agony and the agony of those who truly knew him. The tone in this line is bitter and remonstrative and portrays how she feels towards her father and the entire situation where the father she’s spent so much time obsessing over and wondering about is reunited with her only at his death. She feels that she had been treated unfairly, and she is justified in feeling that way, and feels resentment towards her mother who attempted to hide her away from her father and her father who did not make any effort to be reunited with her. All in all, the narrator’s feelings are very complex and this is reflected in the tone of the text, and the line I selected in particular, where she is unsure whether to be happy, indifferent, angry, somber, or devastated and these jumble of thoughts and emotions creates great confusion within her.

“We felt superior, for we
were so much better behaved and we were full of
grace, and these people were so badly behaved and
they were so completely empty of grace.” (30)

This sentence immediately made me think back to Disgrace and connect what Grace thought of Fiona and her nonsensical habits and mannerisms which she parades about with an air of superiority and the clothing of privilege. In both pieces, although the minority (those with less power) is less influential and wealthy than the dominant group (the actual minority and strangers to the region), they carry themselves with silent grace, knowing looks, and vitriol that they must keep to themselves in cognizance of their place in society. This sentence, in particular, does well to depict that sentiment, with the use of we, these people, and they designating the tourists/colonists as the outsiders, the ones alien to decorum, the sybaritic, empty-headed foreigners, and as amoral as they are self-deluded. Both texts, Place and Disgrace, turn the argument of civility that was the clarion call of the colonizers on its head forcing the reader to reassess their notion of what is normal or good and exhorting them to pay mind to the way they behave in foreign lands.

“from [my mother] I had learned that fearlessness. I haven’t been in a pool in years but, once, my abilities had made a difference. It was the year before I went
away to NMS; I had saved another’s life.”

The content of this quote surprised me in that his mother has had such a positive impact on him in his childhood and he attests to that which makes the change to their relationship that began before his father’s death and took an abrupt turn all the more surprising. To some extent, I think he might have blamed and resented his mother, the German, for his experiences of discrimination and ill-treatment, particularly the one where he was beaten by the instructor. What she had taught him, German and swimming, became what made him distinct from others, and seeking to escape this, he forgot those abilities. To him, his dad must’ve represented the part of himself that conformed to everyone else and his mom represented the part that ostracized him which might have been why he tried to emulate his dad, picking his side in conflicts and getting angry at his mother on his behalf. If interpreted this way, I wonder, then what was the nature of his relationship with his grandmother.

Scene at the restaurant with Farouq, Khalil, and Julius when they begin discussing portrayal in the middle east

Julius’s thoughts where he pretended to an anger that he didn’t have because he felt that the “game” required him to pretend to be an outraged American resonated with me most, not with being the outraged American, but because like him, I wasn’t sure how to feel about the scene. I wasn’t sure whether to be shocked and overly critical of their support of terrorist organizations, or to approach it as a view that although untactful in its expression and unwise in its support, was still comprehensible. In that passage, Cole uses abrupt and terse sentences which serves to reinforce the sense of a volatile mood between the characters as they go back and forth with one another leading to shocking statements being made. The setting is also another aspect of the writing that reinforces or is meant to be seen as even having led to the angry mood in the scene. The loud restaurant scene with alcohol, cigarettes, and loud speech played a significant role in the mood and can be used to explain why Julius seemed unwilling to probe into the deeper meaning and ideas behind their statements and why the two other men seemed unwilling to expand on their ideas.

“We reprised the old relationship[…]An hour went by quickly[…]I promised to return soon”

This set of lines stood out to me because it shows it was the first time that he’d interacted with another character on a personal level and revealed warmth towards others. Being so analytical and somewhat egocentric, which I believe the author attempts to portray through the steady stream of consciousness, and very quick to diverge his thoughts towards his surroundings rather than his interactions, it was surprising first coming across the warmth with which he described Professor Saito and their relationship.

“Grace thinks of Fiona as that woman. She is from overseas where they have funny ways, like using first names when they don’t even know a person, although of course in Grace’s case she is only the char and so that is her name…”

I found this quote interesting because it could have a broader application of the relationship and the interactions of the white people and colored people in South Africa at the time. The interaction between Grace and Fiona in this section seems to suggest that the colored people are viewed as inferior and backward, implied in Fiona’s question of how long Grace has to travel to fetch water, and highly amusing, implied in Fiona’s questions of Grace’s secret in keeping herself so youthful and suggestion of a visit for tea both of which do not seem to be serious or genuine. This, at least, is Grace’s interpretation of their interaction and it’s easy for the reader to also view the interaction in this way. However, later in the passage where Fiona declines to write about South Africa because she has not lived there and sends the 100-rand note to Grace adds nuance to Fiona’s character suggesting that she might not be explicitly biased as it appeared but that are interactions were the influence of implicit bias.

“Next time you’ll know better than to come budging in here, turning
up a lot of stones! (He laughs scornfully) I wanted to re-live the past. There are usually scorpions under rocks.”

This end to the dialogue is incredibly interesting and really elucidates the somewhat confusing air of the entire conversation. The woman, Gloria, seems to be attempting to play mind games with him and this comes out in the structure of the dialogue and in their interactions which also confuses the reader, however, this end shows that the doctor did realize who she was and that he might have even suspected it from the beginning. There are clear racial and sexual tensions within this text where the characters’ connection and societal influence lead them to say and do questionable things. The sharp turn in the dialogue where the positions of Gloria and Dr. Kerry are switched and she is now suddenly put on the defensive is interesting and their responses are also interesting to compare. Dr. Kerry acts more collected and expertly denies her accusations, painting himself as the victim of a racist, goading white woman reminiscent of Emmet Till, whereas she is utterly discomposed by his revelation and, this ending where he gains power over her in the end highlights the power structure that even in a society heavily prejudiced against black men, still, the power of men to women is incommensurate.

This was a very complex poem to read in the beginning but one aspect that I really enjoyed was that although it was a poem and it was incredibly fragmented, the words flowed and it read like a narrative or short story. Although some things are lost to me such as the stylistic effects, and deeper meaning with certain words, phrases, or syntaxes, I was able to get the crux of the poem.

Because it was as if.
When my family crossed that line.
That border, that boundary.
That nothing more could be recalled.

These lines stood out to me because they delineated the problem the author had with which he wanted to use his spell to reverse. The problem being that although he had not witnessed the tragedy that took place during the partition, it had been an enduring part of his family history, one that had impacted their lives and interactions, perhaps subconsciously, but which was been forgotten. The imagery that follows these lines in which the author uses evocative lines to reveal just how tragic the event had been which makes it so bad that he did not previously realize the extent of the tragedy. The escape of his family into another nation had created a line, a partition between him, the future generation, and the rawness of the event that his family had suffered. Given this, the spell to reverse the line would be to repeat it to pass on the memory of trauma to the future generation through stories or other mediums.

Your post has provided me with a better grasp of the text and what is really happening in both stories. In my post I tried to connect both “Sorry” and “The Return” coming to the conclusion that one or multiple men that had found Sakina had assaulted her and the scene in the beginning was a description of that event but I now realize that they were discrete stories and, I agree with your take on both pieces and I think Dylan Patel does well to put it into words, stating that the author had employed an element of subversion in both pieces that play on our expectations then sharply disabuses us of them, unveiling the curtain to reality.

The first section under the title of sorry was really fascinating to me. The imagery used, the content of the paragraph, and its relation to the entire story is very interesting to consider. I have only a limited amount of information about the text but from what is given, I am assuming that the man with the knife had stabbed Sakina and this grave injury is what has left the doctor tense in the last sections of the story. It may be that the realization that the father who had just been reunited with his child only to have the wounds of sorrow opened anew is what gives the doctor a “cold sweat.” The interesting aspect about the first paragraph is its play at humor, dark humor, in which after slicing the belly, he slices off the string holding what I assume to be his own pyjamas and has an exaggerated regret at its falling. Whether it was on him when he sliced the belly of the other person or it was on the other person, I think, will help reinforce or disprove the interpretation I’ve taken.