Let's Talk About Sex, Baby

Throughout his book, Alejo Carpentier uses references to sex. These references not only recapture the attention of college aged readers, but they also help to show the power structures between the French Colonists and the African Slaves. There are sexual moments in the beginning of the book between negresses and their white owners. This seems commonplace. I suppose this could be seen as a sign of oppression between the two races.

                Another sexual symbol we see in the book is Pauline Bonaparte. Pauline is a very feminine character, and is perceived as such from the moment she is introduced: “From the minute she stepped on board, Pauline had felt a little like a queen on that frigate loaded with troops bound for the Antilles) “84). She is later described as “despite her tender years, was a connoisseur of male flesh” (85). Everyone on the island, African slaves in particular, sees Pauline in a sexual manner. The interesting part about Pauline is that she knows it too. She likes to meditate out in the open and sleep naked outside. Soon after, she starts having Soliman, an African slave, massage her: “While he was bathing her, Pauline took a perverse pleasure in grazing his flanks with her body…for she knew that he was continually tortured by desire” (89). Pauline, through her sexuality with the slaves, acts as the intermediary between the French colonists and African slaves.

                In between these two sexual examples, we see another example of how sex shows the power structure.  During the revolt, we see the African slaves really go after their masters. Sexual rage comes in to play with this revolt. We see that this sexual rage has been around for awhile, even though it just comes out in the revolt: “For a long time now [Ti Noel] had dreamed of raping Mlle Floridor” (68). As the raid continues, we see that rape is a way for the slaves to show their power: “The Negroes had violated nearly all the well-born girls of the Plaine” (71). In this book, sexual power is clearly an indicator of the power shifts between the slaves and colonists.

               

Before the Storm

Before the storm the calm,

Before the calm the sun,

Before the sun the storm,

The cycle’s never done.

Though the sun is out more oft,

And though the sun brings light,

The storm will be remembered,

A pretty, awful sight.

Fun story behind the photos…I wrote a poem about the impending storm on Friday night, but my original pictures didn’t really capture it, so I went back out to the prairie on Friday night to take more photos. I tried about a million times, but I couldn’t get my camera to capture the lightning with nature, so this is what I came up with.        

Ben Franklin

I found Ben Franklin interesting to read. Maybe it because he is more well-known to me than other authors we have read, through movies, history class, and popular culture, but I felt like I got a better sense of Franklin’s voice through his text. Franklin has an interesting way of bringing together self and text in his work, which is what I will be trying to illustrate in this post.

                One of the things I notice about Franklin’s writing is his seemingly humble tones. In Rules by Which a Great Empire May Be Reduced to a Small One, Franklin gives a disclaimer, saying that he is a “modern simpleton.” Likewise, in The Way to Wealth, Franklin starts off by saying, “I have heard that nothing gives an author so great pleasure, as to find his works respectfully quoted by other learned authors.” This tone leads the audience to think that, since Franklin has only heard about it, he has not had his works quoted by learned authors. He confirms this thought by saying, “This pleasure I have seldom enjoyed.” Perhaps Franklin is trying to put a sense of himself into the text by using these disclaimers. Perhaps he is trying to lower his audience’s expectations by painting a certain picture of himself.

                Based on what Franklin goes on to say in his works, I don’t think that the idea of Franklin lowering the standards of himself is too hard to believe. The Way to Wealth, for example, is a list of his own saying that he has heard someone say. Obviously someone has read his work, and likes it enough to quote it multiple times.

                In a similar fashion, Rules by Which a Great Empire May Be Reduced is a text that is written to jab at the British in America. These are some complex “rules” that probably put the thoughts of a lot of Americans into words for the first time. This was not the work of “a modern simpleton.” In his works, I think Benjamin Franklin wants to throw out a disclaimer that he is just a humble writer, but really he is a pretty damn good one.