The thing that has stood out to me in this second half of Part 1 is the extremely odd behavior of Pilate, Milkman and Guitar. Guitar's life is all messed up with his group of revenge murderers. Milkman seems to have no morals which is becoming a problem, as pointed out by Lena. Not to mention Pilate has kept a bag of bones in her home because her father's ghost told her to. Very strange plot to this story.

I like the novel more than I thought I would. I am really enjoying the complexity of the characters. One thing I really like about the way the novel is written is how there is a lot of information that has yet to be reveled to come in the novel about the past of the Dead family.

I enjoyed the ending to Pride and Prejudice just as much, if not more, than the first half. The plot was always moving quickly and still reminded me of a drama T.V show. One thing that stuck out to me was how Mrs. Bennet was saying how horrible Mr. Darcy was and how she was sorry that Lizzy has to spend so much time with him, but once she finds out Lizzy loves him and they are engaged she us happy for Lizzy because of how rich Mr. Darcy is. Overall, I enjoyed the plot of this book.

My spring break was "epic" because I survived a 18 hour bus rise to Tennessee when it was only suppose to be a 10 hour ride. We broke down for quite some time at one point!

I really enjoyed the plot of the first half of Pride and Prejudice. I really like how this book is a more easy and entertaining read that some of our past books. I find the character of Mrs. Bennet to be comical and a very interesting character to follow through the plot of the novel. Reminds me of a funny T.V romance drama show.

When Kambili and Jaja visit their Aunt they live a completely different lifestyle than the one they usually do. After they have lived this new life style and had started to get accustomed to it I wondered how they would behave once they got back home. Jaja seems to be confronting Papa more than usual right when they get back which I think will become a huge problem. I am interested to see how this new attitude of Jaja plays out in the rest of the novel.

As I talked about in my last post, I thought of another sterotype/ misconception about the typical African way of life. When the novel is talking about how the government is corrupt and that the military is becoming more involved it made me think of what we just learned about in another history class of mine. We learned that in Minnesota in the early 1900's, there was this exact same kind of corruption and it was to the same extend also. There is a story about a reporter in Minnesota who published an article exposing the corrupt government and he was arrested for it. I thought that it is interesting that having a corrupt government may be looked upon as a typical sterotype for an African country when we just were living it here in the US in the early 1900's.

After reading and finiding out that Papa owned a successful newspaper business I was initially shocked. After rethinking over what I had read I remembered that feeling and imediately thought about the TED talk we watched with Adichie in it and about western misconceptions about African culture. When I first read that Papa owned a newpaper business I was a bit shocked and had never thought about Nigeria even having newspapers that are distributed. Then I was also shocked that his company was so successful and official. This is a common western misconception that I picked up on after I went through it first hand.

My thoughts from reading Part Two of Things Fall Apart is how incredibly narcissistic Okonkwo is and how it has lead to his misfortune. The most major example of this is that his narcissistic behavior to be the manliest person he could be was killing his "son" which lead to his exile from his clan. He also exemplifies narcissistic behavior by saying that the main effect his exile has has on him is delaying himself from rising in rankings within his clan.

Response to Kobe's Post:

I had not really noticed that the book appears to lack a central plot line. After reading his blog post I did notice that at some points while I was reading I felt a bit disconnected from what was happening which is probably an effect of the lack in central plot. After giving it thought the points where I have been most interested were the ceremonies and different cultural things which do not a need central plot line to be interesting. Good point Dellers.

I am enjoying reading Things Fall Apart. I find the cultural things that are included in the plot to be very interesting. For example, I thought the huge ceremony with the town, that would be a simple court case today, was a very unique way of a culture to deal with issues. I am enjoying the simpler writing style of this novel because I feel that I can focus more on what is happening and the culture more than deciphering what the text means. I am excited to see if the culture is different in the new place Okonkwo is being forced to live.

I really enjoyed the first 5 chapters in Things Fall Apart. One thing that I was thinking about after I read is how it was just acceptable for one clan to give another clan a boy and a girl for committing a murder. I didn't realize it until I had finished reading and was thinking about what happened to realize this. I think this shows just how different the culture and society is there. I did find the reading to be much easier to comprehend than the previous works we have read.

Achebe Response

Before reading this essay I actually had not thought about the Western perspective that we all look upon Africa with. For me the most influential source of information about Africa is the media. I have not read a book about African history before and have never thought about the perspective in which I receive my information about Africa. This essay has made me optimistic about reading our new novel to gain a more realistic perspective.