memory

Memory: the mental capacity or faculty of retaining and reviving facts, events, impressions, etc., or of recalling or recognizing previous experiences.

It would be difficult to prove that memory is a true, accurate retelling of specific events. Memory is completely personal and is affected by the person remembering. It can be affected by mood, personality, tendencies, biases, etc... Example: I get in a very big fight with a friend while we're on vacation in Greece. We fight the whole time and we don't get to appreciate Greece for it's beauty because we're fighting. Years later I'm asked if I've ever been to Greece. I say nothing about Greece was really that great but I remember feeling tense the whole time.

My memory of it would be completely based on the fight I had with a friend. I wasn't noticing Greece I was noticing the fight and therefor Greece became synonymous with tension and a lack of beauty when in fact it is at polar opposites with that description. Memory conveys a very raw truth in mood and emotion but rarely conveys truth in facts . This is because no one can experience something with an outsiders viewpoint. If you're having the experience you as a person affect what you get out of it and therefore your memory of it.

Julia de Burgos strikes me as a very tormented soul. She seems to be writing about in most of the poems about a lack of control. In the first one, titled "To Julia de Burgos", she writes a letter to herself resenting herself in the future if she were to become a victim of social confinements. At the time that she wrote the poem she views herself as "I am life, strength, woman." She does not want to become the type of woman who "curls [her] hair and paints [herself]. She hopes to not become submissive as women often become after marriage. She worries she will become like that but she knows that the fire or passion inside her will always contradict that way of living. In Rio Grande de Loiza, she writes about water and the effect it has and has had on her. She uses water also as a metaphor for the continuation of offspring. She she even uses "wellspring" which reminds the reader of the word "offspring." She states she doesn't know whether or not she will continue on with children and she states that if it does happen she doesn't know when either. She seems to have a great contempt for men and she states that because the only man that has kissed her soul and her body is the river. And for that reason she may not be "spilling to open new furrows," but rather "be freezing in icicles" or become barren.

After doing some studying this weekend for the test, I feel I understand even more than before, how difficult life has been for Latin Americans. One of the patterns I feel emerged is almost tragic in nature. It seems every time Latin America has a chance of rising and becoming powerful with a good balance of logic and emotion, something comes along to corrupt it. Whether it be corrupt rulers, like Facundo, or even people with good intentions. While Bolivar was/is in fact considered an inspiring man, he did have large hand in splitting the Latin America up. That's not to say it wasn't a necessary action, however, it did have in addition to having a positive effect also a negative one. Latin America is still going through hard times. For most of my life, granted not too long, but for at least the past 2 decades , Sao Paolo, Chile, and other places in Latin America are not even considered safe to visit. Again the tragic quality in this is that Latin America is geographically so far from a wasteland or a place not worth visiting. It's considered one of the most naturally beautiful places in the world and not so long ago a place to be with many intellectual and poetic people. It's interesting and sad to try and trace back the troubles of Latin America and I wonder how long it will continue to be in trouble.

Because "Sab" is mainly about 4 characters, I think the paper could be a character analysis. It's true that there other important characters and events definitely shape the plot as well but, Theresa, Enrique, Carlotta, and Sab really are the forces that drive the story. Sab has an effect on the other 3 characters in a way that is very specific to who Sab is and his way of thinking about life. The paper could be : Discuss specific ways in which Sab had a personal effect on Theresa, Carlotta, and Enrique. Were the effects all positive and how did they respond to the effect?

After reading "Sab C'est Moi," I thought it was interesting to find out that Gertrudis Gomez was a wealthy, white, woman. The story of Sab originally made me think the author was an average to poor white man writing a story that showed the empathy and maybe even admiration he had for slaves. However, it was interesting to find out that the author was someone so physically different from Sab, yet so similar in sentiment.  I think the the author was very effective in making Sab's character almost inhuman. He had characteristics of a woman and a man, a slave and an educated man, a child and an adult. By doing this Gomez achieved an intensity felt by the readers throughout the whole book. It kept me more interested and made me feel as if I could not predict the ending of this story, which made it more enjoyable.

Here's a link to a video with pictures of what Haiti and Puerto Principe used to look like in 1981. The song that is being played in the background is by a canadian band called "Arcade Fire" but the lead singer is of haitian descent.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1blT1aM702o&feature=related