Jamaica Kincaid’s descriptions and narrative around the British’s occupation of Antigua was frightening and must’ve been incredibly agonizing for her to discuss. It is clear to me that the British have forever distorted the nature of Antigua and have branded their mark across all the citizens, permanently altering their perceptions on themselves and Antigua itself. When discussing the nature of Antiguans being separate and hesitant about supporting capitalism, Kincaid states, “Well, it’s because we, for as long as we have known you, were capital, like bales of cotton and sacks of sugar, and you were the commanding, cruel capitalists, and the memory of this is so strong, the experience so recent, that we can’t quite bring ourselves to embrace this idea that you think so much of” (37). The British intruded upon their way of life, installed their own regulations, and permanently rooted their own philosophies upon Antiguans. When they suddenly leave, how are Antiguans expected to grow, expected to govern themselves when all they are aware of is being conquered and subjugated. Kincaid, as a writer, is excellent in placing the reader in her shoes and visualizing Antigua through her lens, a lens wrought with British control and an innate superiority complex. Her personal anecdotes about school and certain establishments reeled me in, not solely because of the circumstances, but primarily due to the perceptions held by native Antiguans. How native Antiguans can easily remember the name and the exact date when a black male was allowed to play golf or eat a sandwich at the Mill Reef Club, an ordinary establishment for “ordinary” people. These moments were historic to them. All under the guise that British occupation would’ve modernized them, would’ve made them more “civil.” Kincaid didn’t convey the message within A Small Place through shock factor, it was as  simple as taking us on a journey throughout her childhood.

“They are not responsible for what you have; you owe them nothing; in fact, you did them a big favour, and you can provide one hundred examples. For here you are now, passing by Government House. And here you are now, passing by the Prime Minister’s Officeand the Parliament Building, and overlooking these, with a splendid view of St. John’s Harbour, the American Embassy. If it were not for you, they would not have Government House, and Prime Minister’s Office, and Parliament Building and embassy of powerful country.” (Page 10-11)

This remark made by the protagonist is very interesting considering the way it contradicts some of their internal monolog made throughout the reading. At the beginning of the reading, the protagonist talks about being on vacation. As they travel through Antigua, they notice many issues within the country, but refuse to dig too deep into some of the issues because they worked long hard hours in America “(or, worse, Europe)” to be on vacation. On page 9, the protagonist makes a parallel between the state of Antigua and the island’s library. They made the point that similarly to how the island’s library was severely damaged during the earthquake of 1974 and hasn’t been repaired since, the influences of British imperialism still affect and influence the struggles of islanders to the current day. By the protagonist claiming they weren’t responsible for the past events of the island and shifting to say that they did the islanders a favor by opening an Embassy, it makes the protagonist come off as playing the role of the white savior instead of acknowledging and taking partial responsibility for the state of the islands in, which they themselves are very aware of. The protagonist even comes off as insensitive at times, as shown at the end of page 19 when they mention the relationship between tourism and natives, and aren’t very humble about their experience on the island in contrast to other’s experiences on the island and being hypercritical about every small detail instead since there arrival.

Throughout A Small Place, Jamaica Kincaid used a second-person point of view to address her claims by constantly using the pronoun ‘you.’ She did this in the opening by describing how a vacation in Antigua would be as a tourist. However, in my opinion, her description is on the more brutal side. For Example, on page 4, she states

… but they were much too green, much too -lush with vegetation, which indicated to you, the tourist, that they got quite a bit of rainfall, and rain is the very thing that you, just now, do not want, for you are thinking of the hard and cold and dark and long days you spent working in North America (or, worse, Europe), earning some money so that you could stay in this place (Antigua) where the sun always shines and where the climate is deliciously hot and dry for the four to ten days you are going to be staying there;…

These descriptions amplify her attitudes towards whites (‘you’) having the luxury of visiting this small place. Kincaid deliberately uses ‘you’ to make us feel like we are intentional characters in this novel. You may strick you by playing into this role, but I think that was the point Kincaid tried to express. Having your attention grabbed by placing ‘you’ in the story allows Kincaids’ message to be painted clearly–that ‘you’ are unmindful because ‘you’ are a tourist—an individual who gets can leave from the dull life ‘you’ have and visits a small place that is corrupt and in poverty because of your peoples’ wrongdoing.

“You pass a building sitting in a sea of dust and you think, It’s some latrines for people just passing by, but when you look again you see the building has written on it Pigorr’s School. You pass the hospital, the Holberton Hospital, and how wrong you are not to think about this, for though you are a tourist on your holiday, what if your heart should miss a few beats? … Will you be comforted to know that the hospital is staffed with doctors that no actual Antiguan trusts; … that when the Minister of Health himself doesn’t feel well he takes the first plane to New York to see a real doctor” (Kincaid, Pg. 7 – 8)

This excerpt from the reading was very interesting to me because it is juxtaposed with a tourist riding in the back of an expensive Japanese car. You are left to wonder how can such a car be available to commonfolk when they lack other basic amenities. The author’s use of internal dialogue is excellent in helping us understand these conflicting ideas and their overall implications on the island’s current state. For example, the mention of the Minister of Health not trusting the doctors in his own country enough to use them is indicative of people in power clearly understanding the poor condition of their nation. Instead of working towards a better healthcare system that can be accessed by the less fortunate who live there, government officials choose to outsource for their own needs. The inner dialogue also helps to establish a pattern of corruption in the country. In addition to the hospital situation, the state of a school building is also described. We, as the reader, can see that the tourist may mistake this building for a public bathroom. This dilapidation of an essential institution in the face of high-ranking officials flying out of the country over small things truly displays how terribly the funds of the country are distributed. The public enjoys nothing while people in power have an excess of things, a classic trope in many developing nations.

“The Barclay brothers, who started Barclays Bank, were slave-traders. That is
how they made their money. When the English
outlawed the slave trade, the Barclay brothers went
into banking. It made them even richer.”(Kincaid 25-26)

Learning about the origins of Barclays bank disturbed me. I found out that the founders of one of the banks used so often was founded on the dispossession of Africans and their forced transfer to the Caribbean. The author uses irony to show how despite how Barclays shifted from slave trade to banking, it was still involved in the dispossession, humiliation, and racism against their descendants in British colonies. Barclays Bank is a metaphor for the fact that while things may change on the outside, the inner machinations of oppression stay the same.
Barclays supported other forms of oppression after slavery, including South African Apartheid, collaborating with the Nazis during the Holocaust, the aforementioned colonialism in Antigua, and Zimbabwean Whites’ dispossession in 2000, some of which we studied and others which we have not. Kincaid did not mention these roles in the oppressing of minorities, but had she done so, she would have found a connection between the many traumas of minority groups and figured out the corporate nature of the oppression of not just Antiguans but all peoples, regardless of race.

-Zachary Rosman

All throughout “A Small Place”, Kincaid highlights how “used” Antigua has been, and how that has impacted life in the country. She talks about the effects of colonialism, how even after Antigua gained it’s independence, it still had Queen Elizabeth’s birthday as a national holiday (though from what we can read, the Queen wasn’t really a hero); she talks about how government officials have used the country’s resources for their own personal gain and not really being there for the people of Antigua; and she talks about how the perception of Antigua as a paradise (though she does regard Antigua’s natural beauty) is false because of the amount of social issues still in Antigua’s existence. The highlighting of all these things prove to be convincing, at least to me, in showing how Antigua is not a perfect place and is actually far from it. It also makes me re-evaluate how I think about traveling to Jamaica as a U.S. citizen, though I have family there and can see first hand how life is for them. But overall, the read is powerful in it’s use of the rhetorical strategies like ethos, pathos, and logos, and though I’ve never been to Antigua it gives me a different outlook on how to view not just it but other countries in the same or similar situations as the island in their social, economic, and/or political issues.

Notice how in the early reading of chapter 17, Julis makes a note that in the sunnier times of the year is when he thrives, the flowers start to blossom and so does he. But when the seasons begin to shift, and it begins to become colder, that is when he is more closed in and would rather isolate himself. Isn’t it possible for this to be another excuse for his forced isolation? Because it is Nigeria, it is rarely ever cold as it is in New York, probably some rainy days but the sun is pretty much out most days and the temperature is also in a good state. Why say whether affects your emotions when you are the one in control of it unless it is indeed an excuse.

Through reading these chapters, I have observed Julius’s consistent usage of generalizations to better understand the world around him. I believe this leads to him feeling disconnected with the events and people that he engages with. In the opening pages of chapter 18, his first thought of walking past two other black adults was the idea of “brotherhood.” How they were connected through their experiences of racism in the city and this united them in some way. Immediately following this generalization, he is robbed by the same two individuals and seems to shut down, thinking about anything but the actual moment in time he is faced with. He thinks about his future wounds, not about the present. He analyzes the actual robbery and the assailants with great detail, but never seems to mention his personal feelings around the ordeal. Julius seems to think about everything but himself, trying to rationalize and justify what is currently happening with past anecdotes or experiences to detach him from the present. Another instance is his father’s funeral. Instead of feeling any sort of grief from his passing, he is caught up with the fact that it is not a “funeral day” and the weather is very nice. He thinks about death in a completely unrelated experience that took place years ago to find some sort of connection, some sort of feeling to understand what is going on. But ultimately, I believe Julius is very disconnected with himself and the world around him, ignoring his personal feelings and just drifting along in the wind. 

After getting beaten up and mugged, Julius begins to experience what is typical for an assaulted individual. He disassociates, stating that he begins to stop feeling the pain and just take it. He tries to minimize the experience by telling himself it could have been worse. Then he starts to turn his experience into an existential one. His body is no longer his and his experience was something observed but didn’t feel. Once he gets back to his apartment he stares out onto a woman praying. Julius states explicity that he dosent have a form of ‘davening’. For people who do have it, it grounds them. Brings them back to reality. I think this is Juliuses form of meditation. It forces him to look at whats happening in the present. For a situation like the one he just came out of, a little bit of grounding could do him a lt of good. It was only after the expereince of watching the woman pray that he was able to reflect and return to his normal stream of conciousness.

The novel Open City by Teju Cole focuses on the similar experiences that immigrants and those of mixed ethnicity have. Julius, the main character, often feels lonely and isolated from other people. He tends to detach himself from any form of emotional connection. In chapter 17, Julius saves the life of a boy who is drowning, but doesn’t feel fulfilled. He says that, “But almost all that day’s details was soon lost to me, and what remained most strongly was the sensation of being all alone in the water, that feeling of genuine isolation, as though I had been cast without preparation into some immense, and not unpleasant, blue chamber, far from humanity. (Cole, 177-178).” Julius quickly forgets the details of that heroic day and even the boy’s identity, except that the boy is mixed. Julius removes any emotional connection from that event and instead believes that he was thrown– without prior knowledge into a sea of loneliness and isolation. He compares the sea to a “blue chamber, far from humanity” because he feels trapped in a closed location away from people. Although Julius discusses this topic of loneliness often in the Open City, he’s not completely against it. He says that the immense blue chamber is “not unpleasant.” He believes that it’s tolerable, but strange. 

“Nietzsche became angry when his schoolmates would not believe the story. And so, the fifteen-year-old Nietzsche plucked a hot coal from the grate and held it. Of course, it burned him. He carried the resulting scar with him for the rest of his life” (Cole 223)

In his younger days, Nietzsche once told a story of how the Roman hero Gaius set his hand on fire to prove his determination to the Etruscan king, Porsenna. However, none of his schoolmates believed him. To prove his point, Nietzsche pulled a lump of hot coal from a boiler and held it within his fist, leaving him with a permanent scar. The physical trauma endured by Nietzsche mirrors the trauma experienced by Julius and Moji. The negligence of Julius’ parents left him with a distant persona, and Moji’s sexual trauma has permanently scarred her. In each of their cases, they don’t feel empowered to share their experiences with other people for fear of rejection or repercussions. 

I find it interesting that the novel is surrounded by an aura of skepticism. Julius is established as an unreliable narrator early in the novel. Our access to the setting is solely through the lens of Julius himself. Furthermore, the setting is mostly metropolitan. Many of the characters don’t have names or are abbreviated (such as the marathon jogger, or Ms. V). Urban environments obfuscate the identity of individual peoples. It’s hard to remember the faces of everyone you see in a single day, let alone their behavior. There’s always a sense of isolation in the city. In a way, it almost feels like the perspective that can be most trusted is your own, since the people around you are nameless and faceless. The sense of isolation that one feels feeds into the sentiment that you cannot share your experiences with other people (which leads to Moji and Julius’ repressive tendencies). This creates a feedback loop where not being able to connect with others only reinforces this sense of isolation. Furthermore, the unreliability of a single point of view reinforces the aura of skepticism, creating another feedback loop that interrelates with the isolation loop. “Open City” presents an interesting contradiction wherein the places with the most people are some of the most isolated environments, and despite the multitude of names and faces in a crowd, the only one that is recognizable is your own.

I found chapter 17 very interesting because Julius no longer shows that sense of isolation as he did before. On the contrary, he feels a bigger sense of belonging in an “Open City.” We, as readers, understand how Julius’ mind works, and how he tends to make connections with almost everything that passes through it. And in a way, this unpredictable flow of thought is reflected in Julius’ interactions with his friends in central park. For example, Julius states, “These last few decades, I said to my friends, in which wars flare up in patches instead of being all-consuming, and agriculture no longer evokes elemental fear, and the seasonal variations in weather are not harbingers of starvation, is an anomaly in human history. We are the first humans who are completely unprepared for disaster. It is dangerous to live in a secure world” (181). This affirmation is something we would only see through Julius’ thoughts. However, the sense of familiarity that Julius feels around his friends slowly makes him want to share his ideas and his observations. Another example of Julius’ sense of familiarity with his friends is when he talks about some of his patients’ stories. Especially those stories about “the alien visitations and government surveillance” (182).  This shows how confident and open to show solidarity Julius is compared to the beginning of the story. 

“They left, and time’s shape was restored. They’d taken my wallet and my phone. I sat on the road in silence, bewildered, thinking it could have been worse, thinking too, that it had been inevitable,” (Cole 193).

I thought this passage from the novel stood out as it appears to be ironic and relatable for me. Julius believes this encounter to be “inevitable” as he had thought that at some point in time he would be harmed in some way, in this case through a robbery. However, he in a way “makes light” of the situation thinking that things could have gone worse. This was ironic to me as at the same time he is being pessimistic in thinking that something like this would eventually happen to him, yet it is not the worse that he could have experienced, thinking in a glass half-full way. In the same way, I have similar thinking too as I believe when bad events occur it is a part of life yet there are always worse case scenarios, and it causes one to think, when is something truly the worst possible scenario? Or when can one truly accept their situation rather than compare it to other situations?

The focus of my last couple of blog posts—as well as one of the central topics discussed in class—has been about the stark lack of plot in Open City. Instead of again focusing on the uniqueness of having a novel like this, I will instead focus on how Cole was able to still captivate readers’ attention despite this. The answer, of course, lies in Cole’s tone of writing. Other’s in the class have mentioned how Julius’s judgemental remarks are admittedly relatable to the New Yorker in each of us. But it’s also the way in which he constructs his sentences. For example, on page 176 when he read about the skydivers, Cole writes, “There had been a plane traveling at such a height above us that the grumble of its juts was barely audible over our discussion. Then only its faint contrails remained, and just as that faded, we saw the three white circles growing. The circles floated, appearing to fall upward at the same time they were falling down, then everything resolved, like a camera viewfinder coming into focus, and we saw the human shape within each circle… the parachuters were expert, floating toward each other until they were kind of shuttlecock formation…”
I loved reading that passage. As you start, you feel just as confused as Julius and his friends, with no idea what the white circles can be. With Cole’s camera metaphor, however, you discover that the circles are parachuters with the same clarity that the metaphor itself is implying. Especially in the modern era of smartphone cameras, everyone’s experienced the clarity obtained by focusing on a subject in a photograph, as the background fades into a distant blur. Cole delivered this metaphor perfectly at the moment he choses to reveal that the circles are divers falling into focus.

“These things happen, it was only a matter of time, count your blessings, and , yes it could have been worse- and such bile rose into my throat at these thoughts” (195).

This quote was shortly after Julius had gotten robbed from those young boys. The beginning of this chapter had me so upset for Julius as it truly showed how naive he can be at times. When those boys had first approached him, he did not even think anything of it even though they were very rude towards him. Instead he brushed it off and even felt some sort of empathy for them as I believe he referred their connection as “brothers” and understanding what they have been through due to their shared race. However, Julius quickly realized that these boys came to steal from him and it made me even more upset at how they even laughed at him as well. One thing I noticed was that Julius still explains everything as it happens rather than explaining his emotions. This line stood out to me because it showed a glimpse into how he truly felt after. I also resonated with this line as it is really true- sometimes life can be very unpredictable and therefore it is important to be thankful for the things we do have.

“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.

“Now every cliche by which the assault could be minimized hurried to claim space in my head. These things happen, it was only a matter of time, count your blessings, and, yes, it could have been worse- and such bile rose into my throat at these thoughts.” (Cole, 195).

These two lines above really interests me because of how relatable they are in a general spectrum. I feel like it is just human nature for people to instantly think about how a situation can be avoided after it happens. We tend to focus on the past when there is clearly nothing that can be done about it. I have recently been adapting to a more positive mentality of “if I can’t do anything about it, I should stop worrying about it”.  However, it seems that though Julius first reacts like the majority would after a situation like this, we see that he quickly adapts a completely different mindset and kind of just shrugs its off. He additionally says that the situation “could have been worse”, which is not something that most people would think after being assaulted. Seeing this quick shift in Julius’s character is interesting as I too am trying to shift to a more stress free lifestyle, but I’m not sure I would be this calm after a situation like getting mugged.

Here are two quotes, the first from chapter 20 and the second from chapter 18. I recognize that both elaborate on the theme of pain in Open City. Julius describes his assault, the mugging that happened to him out while walking on the street. He felt great pain and also mentions how he “took the blows in silence” (192). He describes how the situation could have been worse, which infuriates him as he invalidates his own feelings, because the situation would have been much better if it had never happened. After learning of Moji’s sexual assault, it was clear to me that Julius’ mugging foreshadowed the reader learning of Moji’s assault. Julis invalidates his own feelings, saying “how it could have been worse”. This invalidation of ones feelings is present often in sexual assault victims, like Moji. Moji has lived with the pain of being sexually assaulted by Julius, and she faces the fear of being another woman where her assault will not be believed. She describes the pain she has endured for years while Julius has acted as if it had never happened. It has haunted her, time and time again, and it is something that she could not forget unlike him.

Julius expresses that what happened to him was “worse than safety and an un-violated body”, which is a truth of Moji’s experience. She was violated, but had to deal with the pain on her own for years. Even though Julius’ response to pain is similar to Moji’s in a way, Julius does not know of the emotional and physical damage he placed upon Moji regardless of his experience with pain.

As a few of my peers have mentioned, Moji’s pain reminds me greatly of Veena Das’ “Language and Body” regarding the physical and emotional pain women have endured. A similar theme is present in The Return, with Sakina’s assualt.

-hannah khanshali

I was very intrigued by these lines because they portray Julius’s self-righteousness in a great way. Although hints are spread throughout the book, I think the author’s careful diction here paints the best picture. Using phrases such as “healer” and “cure the mad”, the author establishes Julius as someone who is seeking to free the world of its ailments. However, this is contradictory to his own ideas earlier in the chapter where he is exploiting the illnesses of patients by indulging his friends with their stories. He even goes as far as to pass off the stories of his peers’ patients as his own to keep them entertained. So, the wording here clearly shows how out of touch he is and how grand he thinks his value is in this world. These lines seem to parallel his pseudointellectual rant from earlier about how people in today’s world are sheltered from threats and can’t live life to the fullest. Again, he seems to have this idea that he knows the “real” truth about things, and everyone around him is too self-absorbed to see the greater design.

(Cole 222)

This line in Chapter 21, “Open City” by Teju Cole gave me deja vu; it reminded me a lot of “Black Psychiatrist” by Lewis Nkosi. Both works had a female character confronting the male character who had sexual relations with them. Both relationships were also illegal Dan Kerry and Gloria Gresham’s relationship was incestuous albeit consensual, while the relationship between Moji and Julius was non-consensual. Both of these relationships occurred a long time ago in a distant country in Africa. Both left a lasting impact on the female character, with Moji saying, “I have cursed you too many times to count,” showing the trauma that she felt from the rape. Gloria Gresham said in “Black Psychiatrist about his relationship with Kerry, “You used me and then you threw me away when it suited you” (Nkosi 21), suggesting that the breaking off of the affair caused much grief and trauma in her. It is also of note that both Dan Kerry and Julius are psychiatrists and a product of an interracial union. All these similarities suggest that Cole deliberately made the chapter similar to “Black Psychiatrist” by Lewis Nkosi to show the messed-up dynamic of Julius’s past in “Open City.”

One thing that stands out in these chapters is the attempts of Julius to draw no attention to his injured hand from having been mugged. He didn’t report the mugging to police, nor did he even ask the old man walking past him after the incident to call 911, nor did he say to Moji what really happened to him when she asked about the hand—instead, he mumbles to her about “slipping on a threshold[.]” (218). I don’t know why he, instead of seeking physical help—or emotional, being that he was a victim of this assault, –he chooses to keep his pains to himself. Maybe it correlates to the pain that other black people, whether they were enslaved or free, faced in America of which he references in multiple different occasions. Maybe it’s his way of finding commonality with their suffering, considering the multiple ways he has felt outcasted due to his mixed race. (Not just from situations in America but also abroad like in Nigeria). But either way, it seems he finds more strength in keeping his own issues to himself—though it can very well be more complex than this.

“This incident caused the assembled adults obvious discomfort, but it amused me, and it is impossible for me, even now, to think of the events of that day, wreathed as they were in sorrow, without feeling a certain gratitude to those children, all younger than eight, who fell under the momentary spell of mirth and let air into a room that the rites of death had been asphyxiating.” – Page 206

Julius recalling this memory from his father’s funeral is a nice juxtaposition to another one of his memories from earlier that day before the funeral occurred. Earlier in Chapter 19, Julius monologues about his only positive memory from the funeral day being when he went to the tailor to get his clothing for the event. He made the point that when he went to the tailor, the tailor comforted him because to Julius getting a suit was similar to getting a haircut or visiting the doctor in the sense that you trust them getting close to you to see positive results afterward. In this portion of the book, Julius recalls the children present at his father’s funeral that day contrasting them to the parents and relatives at the funeral that were very solemn. Their solemn attitude although professional, created a negative atmosphere for Julius, especially when paired with the insincerity they had when approaching him to talk about his father. The children enjoying themselves brought Julius joy by not taking the event as seriously as the other adults lowering tension and creating a sense of comfort.

” These glances were exchanged between black men all over the city every minute of the day, a quick solidarity worked into the weave of every man’s mundane pursuits, a nod or smile or quick greetings.”

( Cole, p. 191)

In chapter 18, Julius and two young black men initially give each other a friendly exchange. The next second, however, they attack and rob him. Julius feels a sense of betrayal because of the connection he thought he had with them. He thought the glances that black men give to each other were a way of acknowledging their common struggles in life. There is an irony in this situation where the young black men who rob Julius are hurting him rather than supporting him.

I think the irony in this chapter highlights the lack of belonging that Julius feels, even among people whom we think Julius could connect with. Even though Julius is a black person from the African continent, we would think that he would have a friendly connection with the two young black men. However, we see throughout the book that Julius does not necessarily feel a strong sense of connection with people just because of their common nationality or ethnicity. In fact, Julius feels a broad- universal connection with people based on their experiences such as Dr.Saito and Farouq.

“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.

“Freud suggested that, in normal mourning, one internalizes the dead. The dead are fully assimilated into the living, a process he called introjection. In mourning that does not proceed normally, mourning in which something has gone wrong, this benign internalization does not happen. Instead, there’s an incorporation. The dead occupy only a part of the one who has survived; they are sectioned off, hidden in a crypt, and from this place of encryption they haunt the living” (209).

Although Julius relates this to 9/11, and there also may be applications of this to the death of Julius’s father and the school girl, I felt Julius’s literary reading of Freud’s analysis of death foreshadows his rape of Moji. We have learned previously from Veena Das how how women’s bodies show pain and need languages to express those pains, as well as the relationship between mourning and life. Perhaps Moji’s mourning of the harm to her body has been lost between introjection and incorporation for many years as she encounters Julius again and is forced to find a language for her pain. For Julius, his repression mirrors a death that is sectioned off and haunts him every day, prohibiting him from connecting with others. I’m unsure whether either of them can reach Freud’s introjection despite Moji’s confrontation of Julius as they are so fundamentally harmed. Julius relating to this text also points to a lesson Cole is pushing– that we can learn more about internal processes from looking at our relations to external objects.