Wednesday, January 31, 2018

Reading Notes W2: About-the-House Girl, PART B


Citation: “About-the-House Girl” -Karok p.40-50

Literary Devices used:

·        The author uses euphony describe the scenery as harmonious and flowing (a way of incorporating imagery). “it drifted upstream, sometime SHRILL and SHARP, with the THILLS and RUNS….LOW and SAD…Etc.”

o   That same sentence also employs circumlocution to produce a similar effect. This long, seemingly never-ending sentence is a metaphor to the long distance to the sound the flute travelled across the land.

o   The author then uses cacophony to describe Patapir. This is done to emphasize the character’s masculinity with harsh-sounding adjectives.

o    Style: The author starts by describing things in long sentences, but as the story progresses, the sentences got shorter, probably to emphasize that Patapir played his flute LONGingly and all day. But when he saw the house on the hill and the women, he put it down and started a different and new path, no longer longing, but exploring.

Culture:

·        I noticed that the culture is welcoming and homey *at least for the main character* (shown by how the aunt just let Patapir in to eat seaweed), but also hierarchical in a way. Families marry off their daughters to men, or, in other terms suitors. Patapir “paid the bride price” for marrying Ifapi. Her family wanted her to be happy, so they pretended she was ill to prevent men from buying her, but when she was offered by Patapir, she chooses her fate and we find she was longing to marry him. *something that wasn’t normal in the tribe*

Character:

·        Patapir starts off by playing songs on his flume about loneliness, longing, and love. This soon is “put down” and he sees beautiful women on the opposite bank. No longer is he longing for love, but instead, lust. However, after realizing the beauty and mystery of Ifapi, he again looks for love, this time, Ifapi’s love.

·        Ifapi is an interesting character. She comes from humble beginnings and avoids others. No one really knows why, but then we find her, on Patapirs voyage into the sea. She is different then, serving the Leader, youthful, good-looking, trained, and pure. This mystery fuels Patapirs longing once again and drives him to change again. We also find later on that she pretended to be ill to keep men away, all because she too had longed for the Flute Player *Patapir*.

In the end it was almost like a happily-ever-after. She and he found the spouse of their dreams, he also happened to be quite wealthy so her humble family benefited too. While many of the tribe teased, it was mainly out of jealous because its almost a Cinderella tale. A Prince falls in love with a beautiful maiden to find she didn’t amount to much, but they both still longed for each other. In this case Patapir falls for a mystery woman during a night party to find that it was the “ill” girl he met earlier, he goes to offer her family his hand and her family accepts because she too wanted to marry.

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Reading Notes W17: Poem, PART B

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