Wednesday, October 24, 2012

Audio Description Pt. 1

3. http://croak.eu/TTuf5n
http://croak.eu/Xef0sB
http://croak.eu/XefK0U

Audio Description Pt. 2

3. http://croak.eu/SeB1Fq

Recommendation


9.  For this book I would recommend this book to anyone who is old enough to comprehend and who is capable of appreciating the content of this gripping novel. The explicit content may not be something appropriate younger kids, but I would strongly suggest this book for adolescents and above. This books overbearing theme of the strength of family bonds is such an important message for everyone to read about in this inspiring novel

Monday, October 22, 2012

Book Rating (Scale of 1-10)


7. Rating Alice Walker’s text, The Color Purple, on a mere scale from 1-10 seems rather insulting and discrediting to her work. The rationale behind that opinion comes from the video posted above; how Walker informs the public that the foundation for The Color Purple steams from her own linage and ancestors. Who are we (2 High School Juniors) to judge Alice Walker’s ancestry on a scale of 1 to 10? Not to mention the pain, discrimination, and suffrage they underwent. For the assignment, however, we have decided to give it a number anyway. It is probably transparent enough already, but we have decided to give this book a 10. The fact that Celie is able to overcome obstacle and obstacle while still a loyal and dedicated housewife is truly remarkable. Also her hope truly strikes awe, because even though it may have dwindled to flicker, it never burned out. Celie was able to constantly find hope and joy whenever she could get it, and that has altered our outlook on life, and will walk with us for the remainder of our lives. It is for those reasons that Nicole and I have decided to give this work a 10. 

Should The Color Purple be Banned?


6. It is understandable that the book has a lot of explicit content that may not be appropriate for certain age groups but I don’t believe that people should told what they can and cannot read. This novel also has such an important message and story that I think anyone should be able to read it if they want to.  

The Color Purple Excerpt


4. Sofia, who is Harpo’s wife, is a strong headed and short tempered woman, and for this time period that wasn’t the expected behavior of women. Women were supposed to follow everything that their husbands said and this shows how the genders roles and switched in parts of this novel.
“All your children so clean, she say, would you like to work for me, be my maid?
Sofia say, I say, Hell no.
She say, What you say?
Sofia say, Hell no.
Mayor look at Sofia, push his wife out the way. Stick out his chest. Girl, what you say to Miss Millie?
Sofia say, I say, Hell no.
He slap her.
I stop telling it right there.
Squeak on the edge of her seat. She wait. Look down my throat some more.
No need to say no more, Mr._____ say. You know what happen is somebody slap Sofia.
Squeak go white as a sheet. Naw, she say.
Naw nothing, I say. Sofia knock the man down.
The polices come, start slinging the children off the mayor, bang they heads together. Sofia really start to fight. They drag her to the ground.” (Walker 90-91)

When The Color Purple was Published


2. The year The Color Purple was published was 1982 

Why The Book Has Been Banned

5.      The Color Purple chronicles the life of a young woman named Celie and her heartbreaking struggles that come with being a domestic housewife and a woman in the early 1900’s. For many the novel is an ‘emotional rollercoaster’ while learning about the trials and tribulations of Celie’s day; for others, however, it is an explicit and inappropriate text that should not be available for just anyone. Although it may seem absurd, there is a valid argument opposing the access of the novel; perhaps one of the most common would be the shared opinion that this story is very graphic and explicit. On the first page alone Walker depicts a horrific scene of young Celie getting raped and impregnated by her father, “First he put his thing up against my hip and sort of wiggle it around. Then he grab hold my titties. Then he push his thing inside my pussy. When that hurt, I cry. He start to choke me, saying You better shut up and git used to it” (Walker 1). Later on when the antagonist meets the character Shug Avery, it is discovered that they develope a relationship that is more than friends. There are scenes in which Celie and Shug Avery stay bed together all night, and this can makes the book controversial to people who have opposing views on homosexuals. “She say, I love you, Miss Celie. And then she haul me off and kiss me on the mouth. Um, she say, like she surprise. I kiss her back, say, um, too. Us kiss and kiss till us can’t hardly kiss no more. Then us touch each other” (Walker 118). The time we live in now is more accepting of homosexuality, but it is still a controversial issue today. Considering the views of American society in the 1980’s, when this book was published, many disagreed with the sexual issues depicted in certain scenes.
The reasons listed above, among many others, provide a lot of evidence as to why this book is banned across the nation. School boards have stated that the book is too sexulay explicit, conatins themes of rape and sexual harassment; and harsh language. It has also been banned for portraying African American people in a shameful and negative light. In the case of Oakland California in 1984, the book was removed of the syllabus and shelves of their libraries because of the work’s “sexual and social explicitness” as well as “troubling ideas about race relations, man’s relationship to God, African history [negative context], and human sexuality.” The novel has also been banned in Newport school library, Virginia, for students under the age of 18; the book was deemed to inappropriate to minors due to it’s “profanity and sexual references”. If students were over the age of 18 and wanted to read the book the must have had their parent or guardian sign a sheet that gives them permission to read The Color Purple. It has become evident through the various examples listed above that Alice Walker’s, The Color Purple has stirred quite the controversy and will remain challenged.

Sunday, October 21, 2012