Sugar Cane Alley

Compare to Achebe.
A. The story of a culture.
   --Medouze of course shows an aspect of the culture. Define his role. Historian. Naturalist, Teacher—in the best sense of the word.
   --Also. The drumming/ dancing/ wrestling on the night of payday. (Note that for Jose, the carnivalesque has little attraction).
   --The funeral oration. Rationale for the kind of derogatory comments bestowed on Medouze?? In our culture, exactly the opposite.
   --A part of the culture that comes from who they are as a community rather than from history is the way they come together to aid each other when troubled. When Medouze is reported missing the response is instantaneous. Then there is the lights, descending from the hill, meeting at the body of Medouze. This play of communal aid doesn’t end with those with black skin—when deThorail is kicked the response by the bathers (who he detested) is instantaneous.

B. The use of the child to connect with the audience.
   --Children’s games very similar to other children’s games—well, except. The mongoose and the snake. The horrible fire (the laughter that accompanies the drunkenness is cut short by the seriousness of the fire business).
   --We think of the child as the future—full of possibility and not yet wizened by life. Here though, we have a very dramatic scene when the children are initiated into the workplace. They are happy about this because it makes them like adults and gives them some earnings. But it is Grandma Tine who sees these first steps as the beginning of a long and terrible trip into hell. (We may wonder what happened to Jose’s parents—the cane fields may give us the answer.)

C. There is also the introduction of modernity, or the potential transformation. Is this the transformation of the culture, or the potential transformation of some individuals in the society? How does the potential to transform assert itself?
   --Jose of course. And this through education and personal advancement—one child saved from the cane fields.
   --Also, Carmen, the city black. Commentary on his dreams, methods?

D. Education is the key that opens the second door to freedom.
   --the character of the education. What is it that Jose learns. History of the French conquests. The regional divisions in France (county, department, etc.) “What strange names those towns have!” Tomorrow I will ask again about the glaciers. As in the 4 rivers of France listed on the board in Camus’ story, the issue is French education, not education in French to appeal to the Island inhabitant.
   --language. Begins in Creole?
   --The double education of Jose. How does this enrich his education in the schools?

E. The racist quality of society.
   The de Thorail family name. The awful story of poor Leopold. (Named after King Leopold of Belgium?) (Note that de Thorail is the donor of an important church artifact).
   Also from the inside of society out. We have the cashier at the movie-house who is ashamed to be black. Has been colonialized in a sense that we’ll be better able to put into words after reading Fanon.