“To harm themselves is to defy the system that locks them away.”

I thought this quote was ironic because it sounds like them harming themselves is hurting themselves even more than its harming those that are oppressing them. The system will just make space for another detainee that will stay where you stayed. I think this may have been a metaphor for creating the thrill of escape. They may stop at the point where they know that the harm is irreversible because that’s when it hits what they would be leaving behind, their family. The idea of escaping the oppression is an adventurous high that fells good in the moment because the pain would be gone, but the pain would have an everlasting impact on your family with the mourning.

“But I had already killed him over and over in my mind.”

This quote struck out to me because you can really feel the hurt that Nadia was feeling. Even though she had already created and anticipated this horrible image of her father when she met him she did not feel the kind of hate towards him that she had thought. This reminds me of when you are crushing on someone you create this personality for them in your head and when they don’t meet  those expectations you had of them you are disappointed that they are not who you thought they were. She may feel angry with her mother who stimulated this false narrative of how he chose to abandon them. 

“The English hate each other and they hate England, and the reason they are so miserable now is that they have no place else to go and nobody else to feel better than.” (Kincaid 24)

When I first came upon this quote I related is to us as college students and this feeling of imposter syndrome. Transitioning to college where everyone is as smart as you can be very discouraging and frustrating because in high school you were one of the smart ones. There is this feeling that your responses are not good enough as everyone else’s because you may think that they have a fancier and more intellectual response. You may also think why even bother because someone has already commented on it and you input would not be as valued anymore.

The English have already explored and taken over the place they planned, so there is not much for them to do because everyone has also already doing it and it won’t be as unique. Since everyone is at the same level as them they feel frustrated that in whatever they do others are also as capable of doing it.

“And now, here we were, all grown up, and she still carried this hurt, which seeing me again, and seeing that I had lost none of my callousness, she said, had renewed and had brought back to her a distress comparable in intensity to what she had suffered in those weeks, only this time, she said, she had tried, for reasons unclear even to her, to keep her pain hidden and put a happy face on the situation. She had tried to forgive, she said, and to forget, but neither had worked.”

This quote about the pain from the past that Moji tried to put behind impacted me because it seemed like she wants to put what she suffered to rest because it is easier than accepting the fact that she felt violated. She may may not have wanted to acknowledge what had happened to her because she did not want this experience to define her in society. She did not want to ruin the friendship between Julius and her brother because she knew how much it meant to her brother and she may have worried about the future that she would have ruined for Julius despite his priviledgedness. This scandal would have ruined him and she may have thought that she could have just brushed it off. In society, women are seen as they were at fault for these kinds of situations because their behavior is provoking or the way the way they dress is an open invitation to be disrespected.

I think that there is some deeper meaning as to why he is able to have a close connection with the older folks in his life. This relates to the confusing stage of being a young adult where you are expected to be a grownup, but you are still treated like a child because people don’t think that you are responsible enough. The older people in life treat him a way where he feels like they are equals and that difference in their ages is irrelevant in their deep conversations.

“I have always had a problem with the shoeshine business, and even on the rare occasion when I wished to have my scuffed shoes cleaned, some egalitarian spirit kept me from doing so; it felt ridiculous to mount the elevated chairs in the shops and have someone kneel before me. It wasn’t, as I often said to myself, the kind of relationship I wanted to have with another person.”

This idea of having someone kneel before you gives me royalty vibes because it reminds me of the kind of relationship that Nigeria had with America during times of war. Nigeria expected the United States to be their savior and help them but when they never did it was confusing because they thought they would have their back. Nigeria thought that they could depend on the US because they have the resources and the power to do so. This act of kneeling does feel kind of weird because you feel like you are someone who is in power and a sense of entitlement because you on a pedestal. The US was put on a pedestal because of their successful succession from British rule, so Nigerians looked up to them since they were in the same boat. Nigeria thought that since they were in the same boat at some point they could get help from from.

“The picture my mother had painted of her as a difficult and small- minded person was inaccurate; it was a picture that had nothing to do with my oma, and everything to do with my mother’s resentment of her. I was eleven when she came to visit, and I could see that both my parents were barely tolerating this strange old lady (my father sided with my mother). I also knew that part of what I was had come from her, and on this basis a sort of solidarity was established.”

This quote illustrates the strain that having a distant relationship with his mother due to his mother’s resentment has impacted the identity crisis that Julius has. His parents are closed off on helping him explore himself and the world outside of Nigeria while his grandmother is open to these exiting adventures. His mother may feel resentment towards oma because she left to Belgium after her husband died, which was a time that she felt they needed to be together to grieve. This is unreasonable on her Julius’s mother’s part because everyone grieves in different ways and she may have needed to get away from the place that reminded her so much of her husband.

This rift between his parents and oma meant that Julius would not see her so often. Julius felt that she was the connection to his culture because sometimes he felt out of place as an immigrant from Nigeria. He at times felt that he did not live up to the standards of being a Nigerian which made him think that he was disconnected to his roots. The openmindedness that Julius and his oma shared brought them together because the idea of seeing outside of Nigeria did not mean they were leaving their history behind, it meant that they were learning to be more culturally aware by traveling.

“Children must mos look after their parents; Grace took care of her own mother, herself a geitjie at the best of times, until the day she died in her very own arms, but not Tracy-Anne, oh no, she has not a cent left over to pass Grace’s way.

This quote stood out to me because it reminded of this book I am currently reading about the affects of American racism on immigrants. The book discusses this idea that immigrants have this mentality where they feel they are obligated to help their parents since they feel indebted to them for raising them with all the advantages that they were able to have by growing in the United States. There is a dependency on the youth by elders because in a way it’s their turn to care of them since they are all grown up. This places a burden mentally, financially and physically on youth who are still figuring out their life. The child may be faced with decision to defer their dream in terms of career and life goals because similar to how parents defer their dreams for preparing their child they are expected to do the same.

This connects to the earlier question that Fiona asked Grace of what her secret to looking so young was, which reminded of the stereotype that “black don’t crack.” This stereotype of older black people looking youthful is not really a compliment because it categorizes race as it’s own beauty standard where it feels like they are telling you that you are beautiful for a person of this race. This generalization doesn’t take into consideration that black comes into different shades. Because of this it doesn’t take in consideration that lighter people will crack sooner, but that doesn’t make them less black or less beautiful, which creates insecurities and separation among our own race.

“It wasn’t your mother Old Joubert was betraying, you cow! It was my mother he betrayed! (Calming down) It was my mother he exploited. A poor ignorant girl out of the bush, she came to work for your damned family a young woman unaccustomed to the ways of white men, full of goodwill and trust-and your damned father (Softly) our father-used her.”

The fact how the woman was more concerned about the betrayal that her mother experienced from her father than the abuse Dr. Kerry’s mother faced tells you a lot about how in reality she was the one who was indoctrinated to believe these unjust laws that society had created for women. She, herself did not acknowledge the harassment she faced when at the sea. She would tell her herself that she was basically “asking for it” because of her figure. She justified these actions because she thought that these were compliments which boosted her confidence, so they were purely harmless.

This quote also reminded of the idea of the sympathy that my English class discussed last semester. We discussed that people don’t feel bad for others unless they put themselves in the shoes of that person, which is kind of selfish. The woman did not feel bad for Dr. Kerry’s mother because accepting this fact would look poorly on her since she accused Dr. Kerry of doing the same to her. This would mean that he inherited that from their father who she loved dearly. This truth would shatter the oblivious bliss that she was sheltered in, where she was not as innocent as she claimed to be.

“Then this is a spell to reverse the line, the hole, the night itself.”

This quote particularly stood out to me because of the connotations that helped me define what the author was referring to when she said line, hole and night. Line means boundary, hole means a piece is missing, and when I think of the night, I think of scary. These connotations drew me to the conclusion of what the author’s life was life. The author alludes to this feeling of being unlovable because she fears love since she saw how the love for a religion hurt her people. She did not want to be loved because from what she saw, love made people do crazy things. The nights were scary because she feared for the safety of her family and what the future held for them. The line that the author is referring to the boundary that separates a child from an adult which is maturity. The author was forced to grow up at such a young age because this trauma made her strong.

To add on to what Jane said about the loss of autonomy that Sakina had since her perspective of her assault was not given, I think that that incorporation was necessary to see to how the events changed her. Her father may be hopeful just because she is alive but things will never be the same. She may need psychological help which may help her cope with the violation that she faced, but her father should understand that this loss of innocence will not be easy to cope with.

“He was shock, suspended as it were over a bottomless pit.”

This quote about Sirajuddin feeling like he was over a bottomless pit puzzles me because it reminds me of the kinds of dreams that you have where you are falling and some people say that they mean that you are growing which is a good thing since it’s means you are becoming a big kid, but in this case, it is ironic because this traumatic event is where his world is withering. He is unsure of the state of his family which means everything to him. This idea of bottomless pit symbolizes inevitable pain which may be the loss of his loved ones. As you are falling you think about the fate of the death that is in store and the loved ones. His only motivation for pushing through is his loved ones because part of him has accepted what the change in regime means for him.