...“Only I can change my life. No one can do it for me” –Carol Burnett. The twentieth century dramatist Ama Ata Aidoo perfectly fits this quote; as she really did change the society and people’ mentalities through her writings. Her voice depicts concerns over many social and political issues at the Ghanaian society. She stated repeated concerns for the dilemma of womanhood in Ghanaian culture at her time; she endowed the female characters in her literary works with strong wills and distinct personalities. Although she wants to prove her identity in her writings, she as well helps to expose the exploitation and disenfranchisement of women from the essence of their own identities. In “Something to Talk About on the Way to the Funeral” Aido describes women who bravely survive despite of the obstacles in the neo-colonial Ghanaian society. For the majority of her female characters independence has brought no relief and has in fact only increased the difficulties they face; this is exactly what happened to Aunt Araba or “the good woman who does not rot” She was given a part of her independence and was sent to live with a relative, as a consequence; she got pregnant without being married. Survival is the driving and divine force thorough out the story as even after she got pregnant without marriage and in the face of this tremendous troubles, Araba did not surrender nor even weakened. Instead she even got stronger “She returned home to her mother, she was looking like a ram from the...
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...this song was released more than twenty years ago, it still has relevance today. The things that went on then are still going on in black communities today. Each verse described each person’s view on how death has come into their lives. In the first verse, performed by Scarface, he talks about losing a close friend to a gun shout wound to the chest. He described the scene at the wake when he said, “And everybody dressed up in black suits.” The black suits is a part of a tradition practiced in many parts of the world. People are to wear something black to the wake or funeral of the deceased. He also described the sad expression on the faces of others around the death of his friend. Scarface recalled some things about their past, letting the listener know that he would never forget his friend and that his memory will live on forever. This verse was his way of saying good bye to his friend. He also explained how he felt about the situation saying that “it hurts to see the boy you broke bread with six feet in the dirt”. The second verse was performed by Bushwick Bill. He talked about how death seemed to be something that was happening quite often in his community. It also talks about how people are unwilling to accept the death of a loved one. This verse gave a glimpse into his world, a world where people were being killed for shoes. This verse was especially sad for me because it touched on the fact that the boy was too young to die. This led me to...
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...article on how the Funeral business is dying out. She talks about the changes in funeral rituals and how society is viewing funerals differently today. Throughout the text she tells short stories about her life that relates to the text. She started the text off with telling a story about how she got a letter from her cousins, right after her Aunts funeral, showing a chart of their families two burial plots at Hillside cemetery. Hingston states right after this that she plans on getting cremated. Hingston talks about how the funeral business is going out of business and how cremation is becoming more common. Hingston also talks about how todays technology is one of the reasons why the funeral business is dying out. In “The Death of...
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...What Rhonda went through was difficult in two ways. One, she had to experience the grieving of breaking up with her ex-boyfriend, and two, she had to experience the grieving of losing someone she knew. Both situations can be extremely difficult, and it would make sense why she might act out of hurt and confusion, and she might say things she doesn’t mean, but does it make sense for her to act this way at a funeral? Well, probably not. We do know, though, that Rhonda’s ex-boyfriend was going to be attending the funeral and that is why she acted the way she did. The situation Rhonda went through relies heavily on the idea of “face,” and it also relies on using correct communication strategies. The face work in the interaction at the funeral was not the type of person Rhonda wanted to be. The situation that Rhonda went through relies heavily on face. Her face was threatened due to outside factors of the breakup and the looming threat of seeing her ex-boyfriend put her on edge. The type of face that was threatened in Rhonda’s situation was her fellowship face. The fellowship face is defined as “our need to be seen as someone other people want to be around. It’s being seen as likeable and connected to others” (Sprague, R. 2018). Because Rhonda’s fellowship face was threatened, she was unable to connect with...
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...pose a threat to the U.S. (About). Alec Baldwin may have a privileged life but, he is not as privileged when it comes to his “fabulous” life in the spotlight. As a celebrity that is in the media’s spotlight, Baldwin has had...
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...as “referring to an individual you can share good times and bad times with them, and they will always love you in spite of it all. It is no longer about blood relations or heritage, it is about the connection between the two that makes them family”. This student’s definition is saying throughout the years the definition of family has changed. The most recent definition of family is spending the good times and the bad ties with and will always love you no matter the moment. Poets agree to this definition because in all their stories they say that Family is a joy to come home to to after a long, tough day at work and your family will always be there for you thru the good times and bad....
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...not need a long, complicated lecture about death. It is important to communicate that Grandpa lived a good life, and his body might be gone but the memories of him will always live with us. In my family, as a Christian, it would be important to explain that Grandpa is now in Heaven with Jesus, and that he has been looking forward to this his whole life. Also, I would tell they child that he will be able to see his grandparent one day when he dies and goes to Heaven. 2. Your 40 year old friend has recently been widowed. List 3 things you should not say to her or do, and explain why? -Three things you would not to say or do to a recent widow are: A. You would not want to pretend that the spouse never existed, and to avoid talking about that person altogether. A widow would want to talk about the memories of their spouse, and you should be there to listen and encourage this discussion. It is a positive way for a widow to deal with grief. B. You would also never want to tell the widow that you know how they feel. It is impossible to even imagine how the person feels unless you have gone through it yourself. It is best to say that you could not imagine what they are going through and that you are here for them whenever they need to talk. C. I would also never tell them that they can call me if they need anything and just let me know what I can do to help. This is often somewhat insincere; instead I would say something like I am free on the weekends, why...
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...disrupts a current speaker - although disruption as such can also be regarded as interaction. Drummond claims that the disruptive potential of a turn can and should be evaluated based on the way the overlap was resolved in the interaction. Lerner (1989) observes that there are interruptions which can be justified in the ongoing interaction based on the sequential context of turns that lead to interruptive turns. He calls these justified interruptions. There are also "delayed completions", which represent a device for resolving overlap; a locator producing them might have been 'interrupted' by a current speaker before reaching the end of a (prior) turn - this gives the locutor the status of an interuptee, and thus the interuptee gains the "right" to complete his or her previous turn by interrupting the current speaker. In defining overlaps, the following qualify as important concepts: 1. Transition Relevant Places (TRPs) - they are a natural place for the occurrence of short overlaps or simultaneous onsets of turns. Overlaps related to TRPs are short and produced when one or more interlocutors perceive a projected TRP in the ongoing turn and initiate their own turn(s) with a brief overlap of speech. 2. Discourse Management Devices (DMDs) - they are produced to show, first of all, an agreement about the distribution of the interactive roles. The listening party will produce the DMDs to...
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...their time and energy to this subject a lot because it is something that happens in reality that can effect a lot of people. You cannot hide from it because soon as your born you are already dying. They also talk about it because it is rarely talked about. People do not like to talk about death. We benefit the knowledge of it from reading the authors work. It seems scary but it is not. Maybe they had a real close experience with death to be so in depth and write about it. Reading a real creepy death poem at night can send chills down your spine. It could have come from the old days of people not knowing much about death to talk so much about it to eventually writing poems about death. Poetry enables any poet to meditate upon and emotionally and lyrically respond to death, whether the death of a stranger, a loved one, oneself, or just the fact of death itself. Death is a small word that is so powerful and has the ability to change some ones mood. Just the thought of it makes you think of something bad or somebody close to you that died. In the first stanza of "To an Athlete Dying Young" the athlete is prized for winning their town the race. The town people seemed to love him a lot and thought of him as a hero kind of. He seemed to be back in the day to be carried through a market-place. Now it seems like the town’s people are carrying him in his casket throughout town. The town people sets the casket down for the funeral it seemed "And set you at your threshold down"(7). He says...
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...Losing Loved Ones Kyla Jones SW Death and Dying Oakland University Abstract Death is something I personally think about a lot. I have not experienced much loss, but the losses I have experienced have affected me enough to the point of thinking about why people die at random times of the day. I have had a total of five deaths of family and friends in my 20 years of life. They have all been within a few years of each other but the first death there was a larger gap in between until the next death. The first death I experience was my Grandma’s best friend Kim, then my Grandma’s Sister Carol, then my great great grandpa, then my father and last but not lease my friend who was like a younger brother to me. Some of these had a major impact on how I view death and how I am when death is a topic of concern for most people. At the age of 20 I can say I am not afraid of death because I have accepted that it will happen to anyone, and if it is your time to go then God believes it is your time to go. I look back and wished I handled myself a little different when it came to certain deaths, but once I experienced a death of someone really close to me that was the one that really made me question what is the point of living if we are going to die anyways? But if I experience another death soon, I believe I know how to deal with it head on and be able to help the other people who are affected by it as well. I am very thankful for having people surround me and explain to me more so what...
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...a steady seeming marriage. Their life together with their son Dean passes regularly until Stuart and his three friends during their yearly fishing trip to the Naches River find the dead body of a young girl in the river. The conflict that arises takes their relationship out on a side track and reveals that their mutual communication is not sufficient to cope with anything out of the ordinary. Stuart is introvert, does not want to talk about the dead girl and avoids Clair’s attempts to make contact: “He chews, arms on the table, and stares at something across the room. He looks at me and looks away.” (p. 1 lines 2-3). When the men found the girl floating in the river they did nothing for the first couple of days but to make sure she could not drift away. They went on fishing, drinking, playing cards and telling stories. They phoned the sheriff on their way home and thought that was all they could possibly have done in this matter. They could not see why a dead girl should interrupt their men’s trip. Stuart does not wish to tell his wife about what have happened, and when he has to do...
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...sharing our grief would help us ease our burdens. I might have meant something to each and every one of you. Personally, I was my guardian angel. I remember when we were in school you often got into fights because of me. People used to tease me and he didn’t want to see me get hurt so he tried to protect me. He is also the only person I could confide in. I could talk to him about anything because he never judged or scolded me. He always had some great advice ready for me. He had this trait where he could always turn a dull party around. He was such a character. He knew how to be serious at times and he also knew when to joke around. As a friend he was also very dear. He always found time to be with his friends. He was a very loyal and kind friend. He was also very polite; he was the kind of man who always opened doors for ladies. He could be very immature at times but that’s just because he was still a child inside a young man’s body. I remember our last talk together; we talked about death and how our funerals should be. You didn’t like to see people cry, especially your family. We only talked about this as a joke and now I realize why you had mentioned it. He told me he wanted to have rides at his funeral or anything that would make people happy. I jokingly answered him that I could easily arrange for it but I’d have to face his mother’s wrath. He just answered, “that ’it will no longer be his problem”. That talk happened just last month. I know he left lots of things undone...
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...Working in the funeral industry and having to deal with grief myself I have had the opportunity to notice that each person deals with grief in their own unique way. There are the five stages of grief. Firstly, Denial&Isolation this is often recognized as a defence mechanism that covers over the shock of death. You see this in the process of arranging the funeral. It isn't until those few weeks are over when all the family and friends get back to work and you are alone that you start to enter into the second stage of grief anger, this is sometimes pointed to the person who's live has been taken and although we know it that person is not to be blamed our emotions take over and we assume it was their choice to go.The third stage of grief comes into play bargaining is trying to find a solution for why this happened, “ If only we didn't go down that road in the rain” or “ If only we went to see a doctor sooner” this is where we try to regain control of the situation....
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...disappear or do I make the best of my time left. I will not wither up and disappear. I will live my life to the fullest. If I can not walk I will use a cane. If I can not dance I will swim instead. When I can no longer dress or undress myself I will get help and I will teach my class even when I am suffering. I am not going to be afraid of dieing. I have been a teacher all my life and now I am going to teach my students the meaning of life and how to accept death and dieing. This disease may take my body away but it wont take my thoughts away and my memories. Why did I have grow up in a home with out love? We were poor. My father was so cold and uncaring. Did I do something to make him treat me this way? He couldn’t provide for us emotionally or financially. Why did I have to read the telegram about my mothers death. That should have been my fathers job. My father could not read English. I also had to lie to my brother and tell him that Eva his step mom was really his biological mother. Why would they make me lie like this and put this burden on me. Eva my step mom was the only person to show me love and kindness. She instilled in me my love of books and desire to learn. In my memories I see my former student and friend Mitch. When he graduated he said stay in touch. Fifteen years later he finally calls because I am dieing....
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...Communist Party) was running the economy, the death of Hu Yaobang, and how China was open to a major economic reform. China Communist Party is a political party in China. The Students were joined by a wide variety of individuals seeking political, social, and economic reforms ( Tiananmen Square Incident ). Hu Yaobang’s death was the first thing that caused the people to protest at Tiananmen Square. They wanted to persuade the government to rehabilitate Hu’s reputation, but the government decided to have a state funeral after all. The funeral was on April 22, 1989 and the Square was filled. About 100,000 Beijing students were present that day. Zhao Ziyang, the General Secretary, was concerned about the protests held during the funeral, he believed that after the ceremony was over the protesters would be gone, he was so confident that he decided to take a trip to North Korea for a summit meeting. The students however weren’t satisfied with the government of what they did for Hu’s funeral and they demanded a more proper...
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