Reflection

Area 1  

Within Gina Apostol’s “Francine Prose’s Problem” which she states that “inversions” and “double consciousness” develops a perspective as a reader as although a book may share similarities in the tone and meaning, as she stated that the “doubling [of consciousness] makes any reading of a white-dominant text by a person of color quite fascinating, and in my view almost indefinitely richer,” She means that by putting ones view and experience into another to compare and contrast how both lives are different but yet still the same is a unique thing for books, such as growing up in a urban environment and reading of oppression of minorities who also lives under the same atmosphere can realize how ones life is radically different based on nationality. She brings up “inversions” to counteract the issue Francine had as although the book shares the same meaning, it doesn’t represent plagiarism of another writer- during the semester, the course introduced me to “McMansion Hell” by Kate Wagner and Elizabeth Wharton’s “The Decoration of Houses”. While both can be compared through the meaning of “intertextual coupling” as these texts as they contain a similar premise that criticizes improper design decisions and architecture but with a different tone, McMansion being more modernized by providing short but detailed comments over how the design was poor, while Decoration of Houses being much elaborate and detailed in explaining how room designs are or should be done is different concepts entirely and not copying one another. 

Area 2  

In “My Life’s Sentences” by Jhumpa Lahiri, she wrote that “The best sentences orient us, like stars in the sky, like landmarks on a trail”, meaning that a sentence can be created which guides the reader without directly speaking or knowing it (as in the stars in the sky), but nevertheless marking the trail that the reader can create a example from based on their own knowledge. A non-graded writing of a short sentence, “The writers response to how the community cannot be changed by one, but rather by the entirety holds similar premises to revolutions in history” was the comment wrote on the article of “The Neighborhood is the Unit of Change”, and this sentence showed a “guide” to the trail for readers such as myself as it directly compares a response towards his point that changing one person cannot change the community, as although bleak, by giving them a role model which they can aspire to is oddly comparable to the act of revolutions in which individuals gather support from a unified working class society, urging for change in the systems of government for the better of the people; or more directly to the rise of Communism led by Lenin as he, although a role model, held great powers to change the government through his community. Landmarks of retelling the comment to a relatable event was a trail which the article shares similar points of inversions, and provides example of how it’s related with one another. 

Area 3 

“If Black English Isn’t a Language, Then Tell Me What Is?” written by James Baldwin was a ‘Letter to Editor’ response to the statement regarding the language indifferences. He explains how the uniqueness of ones language holds “a political instrument, means, and proof of power. It is the most vivid and crucial key to identity: It reveals the private identity, and connects on with, or divorces one from, the larger, public or communal identity”. From this statement, we find it important to understand one’s unique language is not just from what they speak, but how it’s spoken such as “My Mother’s Garden” by Kaitlyn Greenidge which the writer expresses a inner contempt towards the community by writing a personal story of how her mother struggled and tried her best to maintain a family and a garden all the while studying in secret due to prejudice faced to the poor and especially African Americans at the time. The short story held no hard resolution and didn’t talk about how her mother was feeling humanizes the piece as a memory of a poorer class citizen and their story which beared no happy-ending similar to life. This is compared to ApartmentTherapy, who talks about the apartments only the higher classes can afford and decorate, they write in a non-discrete manner, or third-person view to PREVENT their own thoughts or memories from infringing in how the apartments were designed, and aa simple “storyline” of showing a issue that the owners have with their houses or apartments, and fixing it by decorating or renovating the home. These opposites are the most notable difference of the readings done in the semester as Greenidge shows heavy emphasis on how humans cannot always find a solution to a issue, while ApartmentTherapy chooses to create a ideal fantasy of living by giving examples of how to solve a issue.