Clothes by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

Summary
Clothes by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni is a short story written in 1995. It is about Sumita and her arranged marriage. Her friends in India are jalous of her because she is going to marry a man who lives in America.
She moves to America to live with her husband Somesh and his parents, and she slowly starts to fall in love with him. Eventhrough Somesh's parents, lives in America they are still very Indian and therefore Somesh and Sumita hides that she secretly wears Americans clothes. Sumita is torn between the Indian culture and her new life in America.
Sumita's husband is killed at his workplace by a man with a gun, and now Sumita has to choose between a life with her in-laws or move back to India but she choose to put her American clothes on, and not go back to her home country.

The narrator 
First person narrator
Seen from Sumita's point of view

Place
Both America and India

Themes 
Identity, Arranged marriage, Clash of cultures, Integration.

The clothes
Sumita dresses in many different kind of clothes, and it is a important element in the story. The clothes is symbolic, to her development and identity.

Perspective
Dusk over the Atlantic Wharf, both of the girls in these texts, gets married to a man they doesn't love in the beginning, they are both moving to a new country, and are going through a process figurering out how to fit in.

Aspects of the American Dream - Keywords

• Life = Liv
• Liberty = Frihed
• Pursuit of happiness = Stræben efter lykke
• Opportunities = Muligheder
• United people = Forenet folk
• Justice =Retfærdighed
• Civil rights = Borgerrettigheder
• Freedom of religion = Religionsfrihed
• Hope = Håb
• Human Rights = Menneskerettigheder
• Segregation = (Race-) adskillelse
• Oppression = Undertrykkelse
• Equality (-or lack thereof) = Lighed (-eller mangel på samme)
• Prosperity = Velstand
• Survival = Overlevelse
• Independence = Uafhængighed

I hear America singing

Eftersom jeg ikke er på toppen i dag, og derfor ikke kommer til fremlæggelsen, kan I se hvad jeg har lavet her: 

I hear America singing: 

It is written by Walt Whitman in 1867.

Setting: it is in America, in the working classes 

Speaker: is Walt Whitman who speaks in the poem, it is like he goes around and hear the people sing their song.

Composition: 11 stanzas in the poem.

Poetic: there is a metaphor, because the sound and actions of the workers is compared to music.

Theme: celebrates the individual workers of america 

5 word: america, workers, culture, national solidarity

Revision Notes

The night before your presentation put a few Revision Notes on the text in question on the blog - write the most important points in your notes so that the rest of the class can use your notes afterwards.

Name your blog post the title of your text and put it under the label "Revision Notes" - in that way they will be easy to find during your reading period (læseferie).

Guide to Student Presentations and Oral Exam

When you are revising you have to prepare a 10 minute presentation of a text as well as put some notes for the rest of the class on the blog (see the blog post Revision Notes).

Depending on what type of text you get these are the things you have to look at. This is a good exercise for the exam where you have to do the same thing.

Remember to always use examples from the text to support whatever you are saying.

(Look for further inspiration for your presentations on pp. 244-256 in Contexts.)

Fiction

• Plot
• Setting (time, place, social environment)
• Characters
• Composition
• Narration
• Atmosphere
• Language
• Title
• Theme
• Message
• Perspectives

Non-fiction

• Type of text
• Structure
• Sender
• Receiver
• Language (specific vocabulary, tone/style, rhetorical devices used, imagery, quotations (if yes by whom and how are they used?))
• Arguments - strong or weak?
• Message
• Intention
• Reliability

Poetry

• Title
• Setting
• Speaker
• Composition (stanzas, verses)
• Rhyme
• Poetic language (metaphor, style, symbols etc.)
• Theme
• Message
• Perspectives

Speech

• Type of speech (informative, persuasive, special occasion)
• Topic
• Structure
• Speaker
• Audience
• Language
• Rhetorical devices (alliteration, repetition, anaphora, epistrophe, imagery, tricolon, references (direct/quotes or indirect/allusions))
• Forms of appeal (logos, ethos, pathos)
• Message/intention
• Perspectives
• (Inspiration - think of the pentagram we worked with)

Revision Plan

Below follows the list of when you are going to revise what themes in the remaining English lessons. It will also say whether there will be student presentations of text or group work about texts.

Below you can also see which text you have to make a presentation of.

Tuesday 23 April 2013
Growing Up - Student presentations

"Indian Camp" Ernest Hemingway Luna
"Clara's Day" Penelope Lively Christian
"The Shining Mountain" Alison Fell Jeanette

Tuesday 30 April 2013 (2 lessons)
Violence - Student presentations and group work

"Just Like That" Michael Richards Villy
"Serrusalmus" Lesley Glaister Vicky
new text - "Rendezvous" Daniel Ransom

Tuesday 7 May 2013 (2 lessons)
Aspects of the American Dream - Student presentations and group work

"I Hear America Singing" Walt Whitman Tina
"I, Too" Langston Hughes Lene
"I Have a Dream" Martin Luther King, Jr. Jakob
new text - "Our America" LeAlan Jones

Tuesday 14 May 2013 (2 lessons)
Clash of Cultures - Student presentations
"A Sikh Girl's Bridal Path" Madeleine Fullerton Jan
"Clothes" Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Signe
"Dusk Over Atlantic Wharf" Susmita Bhattacharya Philip
"Just Below the Surface" Kate Nivison Rune L.

Thursday 16 May 2013 (2 lessons)
Horror - Student presentations

"The Boogeyman" Stephen King Rune W.
"The Tell Tale Heart" Edgar Allan Poe Morten
"Suffer the Little Children" Stephen King Tommy
"Dracula" (excerpt) Bram Stoker Line P.

Tuesday 21 may 2013
Robots - Student presentations

"Supertoys Last All Summer Long" Brian Aldiss Henrik
"Segregationist" Isaac Asimov Kristoffer
"The Life and Times of Multivac" Isaac Asimov Martin

Robot Revolution: Androids are coming

Robot Groups

When we work with our final theme, Robots, you will be in permanent groups. These groups will be the basis of all the work that is to be done on the Robots-texts and that is the reason for them being on the blog - you can always find them:

1. Vicky, Line P., Morten P., Jakob
2. Line S., Signe, Rune W., Tina
3. Villy, Morten A., Alexander, Tommy
4. Kamilla, Jan, Jeanette, Henrik
5. Lene, Rune L., Christian, Jesper
6. Martin, Luna, Kristoffer, Philip

The Tell Tale Heart, Part Two

Answer questions in groups. We will sum up in class.

1. What is the narrator hearing at the end of the story? Remember that the narrator is unreliable - what do you think he is in fact hearing?
2. What are two controlling symbols in the story? What might they represent?
3. Are there any other symbols in the text? (Yes, this is a leading question J)
4. Give examples of how Poe creates suspense in the story.
5. Which of Todorov's categories does this text belong to in your opinion? (the Marvelous, the Fantastic, the Uncanny)
6. What is the main theme of this text?

Christian, Tina

This picture is a moment from the horror story "the Boogeyman". In this story, a unknown "thing" is terrorizing young children and killing them. The Boogeyman comes at night, through the door or closet. In this picture, the Boogeyman is edging closer to his next victum. 

In this picture, the Boogeyman is reaching his victum. The long claws of the shadow is getting dangerously close to the child, who is helplessly asleep.

Line p, Vicky

Child murder

Child murder is pretty obvious in this case, because the story is about a father who kills his three children.

 

 

 

Mental disease

The father of the three children is suffering from a mental disease, and tells his story to a psychiatrist.

The father tells the psychiatrist that it is a boogeyman that killed his children, but the reality is that he did it himself and that tells us that maybe is suffering from a split personality.

At first it seems like that the story belongs to Todorov's categorie the Fantastic because we accept that the monster is a "real" thing, but as we keep reading we realize that the father is suffering from a mental disease and that the boogeyman is in his imagination, and the story ends under the categori The Uncanny. 

Philip- Jesper

• This picture relates to the boogeyman theme: 
• Here we see a shadow that makes the illusion of some supernatural creature, going up stairs towards the dark closet. 
• The way this shadow reminds us of the boogeyman, is when you focus on it`s claws and it`s abnormal body shape. We also se the monster indirectly, which indicate the genre of horror.
• This picture inspires the readers imagination to work on his own. This also indicate that this genre is horror. 
• Is this a dream? or just bad running out of control? This is how the horror genre works, as we see in the story, where it is hard to the protagonist to see whats dream or reality. 

Lene, Rune, Martin

This picture illustrates the children from the Boogeyman followed by the death(dad)
 

This creates a perfect image of what the children in the story Boogeyman has seen.

Henrik

Face it or him. 

The boogeyman or Mr. billings. I think the pictures hints at the theme "who is the boogeyman". It a "normal" hand but the darkness behind does not show anything. This keeps us guessing. This is relevant in the story of the boggeyman because we never sees the boogeyman. He always creeps in the dark. 

Morten P. & Jakob

The blue-eyed kid is the victim of a traumatic childhood; this could in fact be Lester Billings.  Mr. Billings had a very traumatic childhood because of how his mother treated him. She always shouted at him and he thinks of himself as a cripple because of her overprotection. 

In our interpretation of The Boogeyman we have an idea that Lester Billings has a split personality. He is not aware of his other personality, just like the man on the picture whose shadow is different than it should be. The shadow symbolize a second personality, which he is not aware of.  

One of the themes in The Boogeyman is murder. In this picture we does not see the actual killing. We have a theory that there will be a murder, but we does not know. In The Boogeyman there is a murder as well.

Line S, Luna, Jeanette

The Boogeyman is killing

The picture is illustrated how the boogeyman is killing the child with his claws. It is described in the second killing, when the girl Shirl is mention that she sees the boogeyman’s claws.  P. 5. L. 10-11.

Schizophrenia 

This picture illustrated the two personalities we think Lester Billings have. He starts with saying that he has killed his children and he seems like a normal man. P. 1. L. 11-12. Later in the text he mentions the boogeyman, and now it is the boogeyman that kills Lester Billings children. P. 5. L. 2.

Alex - Villy

The Boogeyman's claw!!we read that the boogeyman has claws, and we think that they must look like this.

- Horror -> 

The Real Boogeyman!!this is our interpentaiton of the real boogeyman from the story.

- Horror -> "it had to hunt around, slinking through the streets at night and maybe creeping in the sewers. Smelling for us." we're getting a picture of how the boogeyman looks like. and that reference to horror.

in the way it relates to the story is that boogeyman can mean boogey from the nose or boogeyman in the closet.

Jan

The slightly open door, or the almost closed door depending on your worldview. What is behind it? An unspeakable horror of your own imagination? Darkness? Or perhaps just the stench of the clothes you haven't bothered to wash? In any case you shouldn't convince your offspring into thinking there's actually something frightening in there. It's cruel and they just might grow up and kill their three children in most horrific ways. Just sayin'.

The Boogeyman: Illustration assignment

Find 1-3 pictures that can function as illustration(s) to one or more of the story's themes. Find inspiration in the themes we discussed in class Thursday 10 January.

Each picture must be followed by a detailed explanation of how and why the picture is a good illustration to the story's theme.

Write your names in the title and give the post the label (etikette) 'The Boogeyman'.