When the emperor was divine ending

The ending of this book was pretty interesting. The beginning of the fathers confessions really capped off the ending of the book by giving the reader a sense of helplessness that was felt by most American-Japanese of the era. He was tired and hungry, so he used a false confession as a means to an end, by telling them exactly what they wanted to hear to determine his fate quicker, and get it over with either go home or accept punishment. There seems to be three parts to his confession. In the first part of the confession, the father starts to state just about everything that the American-Japenese (spies) were being accused of: "I poisoned your reserviors. I put insecticide in your food. I sent my peas and potatos to the market full of insecticide." ect. In the second part of the confession, he throws out as many roles of an everyday American he can possibly think of: "Who am I? You know who I am. Or you think you do. I'm your flourist. I'm your grocer. I'm your porter. I'm your waiter." etc.. Then in the final part of the confession, he starts to spit out all of the slang terms used to insult Asians: "I'm the one you call slits. I'm the one you call slopes. I'm the one you call yellowbelly. I'm The one you call a gook." and so on. At the very end  he said "And if they ask you someday what it was i most wanted to say, please tell them, if you would, it was this: I'm sorr. There. Thats it. I've said it. Now can I go? I found myself questioning alot about what was going on in this part (the ending) more so than any other part of the book, and still skeptical of what to make of it. In my opinion, he was simply laying all the cards out on the table for judgement. Again, he had seemingly given up hope and essentially just wanted fate to take its course.

When the emperor was divine

So I just got the book yesterday and began reading it. The book sort of dragged in the beginning but started to get my attention because of the events that were taking place. In chapter one we learn that the story begins in Berkeley, California in 1942. Signs begin to spring up all over town saying that any persons of Japanese decent must prepare to be located. It is interesting how were always taught and well informed about Hitler and the Nazi regime growing up, as well as the concentration camps. However, we barely hear of this event that happened in the US. Although these camps were no where near similar or as horrible as the concentration camps, the stories of these camps are still overlooked in our teachings of history. Its interesting that we are reading this book in class and starting to learn about a subject that for the most part (speaking for myself) is unspoken of. I'm interested to learn a little bit more about this time in history in the U.S. It's pretty coincidental that in my philosophy class, we began learning about the genocide and dehumanization that took place in the 90's. They had concentration camps as well similar to the ones in WWII! and this was in our time. Its interesting how these parts of history can be overlooked, and it amazes me how unaware I am.

Push: readers guide question

In this post I'm going to focus on a question from the readers guide of my book. Q: Push presents what one viewer called "one of the most disturbing portraits of motherhood ever published." (city paper November 1996). How would you explain or interpret Precious' mother Behavior?

Precious' mother was basically not a mother (in my opinion) She had abused her daughter all the time, giving her beatings for the slightest things, and throwing things at her. She insults her daughter every chance she can get calling her "fat ass," "lying whore," "You cant learn shit," even things such as "I should have aborted your ass." She hits her daughter every which way possible not only physically but verbally. When you have a mother thats doing this it can cause a child a great deal of harm, an inability to grow up to be a "normal" civilized human being. Along with the verbal and physical abuse, her mother sexually abused her as well. I think that she was more or less in a sense enslaved by her mother. Not only does her mother abuse her sexually but her father as well, and her mother blames that abuse on her. When I think of a mother I think of a warm hearted person who gives her unconditional love, and support to her child. When I read this I was reminded of the definition of a mother. (mŭTH'ər) n.

1. 1. A female person who is pregnant with or gives birth to a child.
   2. A female person whose egg unites with a sperm, resulting in the conception of a child.
   3. A woman who adopts a child.

Push

When I first started reading this book it kind of dragged. I wasn't really sure what I was in for, and was startled at the grammar but I started to put the picture together as I read on. This was one of those books that when you read the first couple chapters you start to get an idea of what might happen and what the overall moral of the story is. I'm not gonna lie certain parts of this book made my stomach do flips, but nonetheless this is whats keeping my attention (haven't finish it yet). In this blog I wanted to talk about the title "Push" and its significance. I think that it is a perfect title for the book, and my interpretation of it. (in my own opinion) The title signifies the struggle of Claireece Precious Jones to essentially learn and depart from her home life and poor role modeling that was instituted by her parents. Her father raped her frequently and got her pregnant, her mother used her to please her sexual desires, and abused her. In the beginning of the book it seems as though Precious' desire to learn wasn't there. But you can start to see her change, and eventually start to push herself not only to learn school wise, but to learn right from wrong something that she was not familiar with. "Miz Rain" is a determined teacher in the book who wants to see her succeed, and pushes her to do her best. The title "Push" signifies a push of precious' self to do better, and push from her determined teacher.

Fun Home final response

As I posted in my previous blog entry, reading the book "Fun Home" was a whole new different experience for me. I think that Alison Bechdel decision to make this book a graphic novel was a great choice because it helped make sense of the book a little bit better. When you read a book, you really have to have a sense of imagination in order to capture an image in your head from what your reading. I tend to have a little bit of trouble with this because I'm not an avid reader, nor do I enjoy reading too much unless its something that captures my attention from the moment I begin reading it. The images in the book made it that much easier for me to understand what was going on which allowed me to read the book faster. I don't think I've ever read a book as fast as I read this one. This book overall was just a wierd book to me but definitely not in a bad way, because the wierdness kept my attention. The entire plot was just of a situation that many can say they have never heard of in real life or can even relate to which compelled me even more. I think that Alison's father definitely killed himself. I don't think that he planned on it but merely saw an opportunity and was spontaneous about it. My reasoning for this conclusion is because it was evident that he was very uncomfortable with his own sexuality and despised it. You can see in the pictures that Alison was very boyish even at a young age and he tried to get her to be more lady like. Then Alison opened up to him and told him she was gay and shortly there after he killed himself. So I think that her coming out bothered him that much more and when he saw that truck coming it was just a spontaneous "I'im killing myself."