My last attempt at sounding intelligent

Last blog post. It's a sad day for Amlit 338.

I wanted to continue the discussion we were having on Tuesday. I think that all the different opinions that people had were correct. I don't think that including the foreign languages was for any one reason but for a number of them. It isn't necessary for us to know what the other languages says to get the overall meaning of the book but including it does a number of things.

For starters it ties in with the whole colonialism aspect of the book. What better was to say what colonialism does than to include a language that from what I learned on Tuesday is all but dead? From the information about it making a comeback in tattoos and what not it sounds like it may pull a Hawaiian and make resurgence as the people there try and reclaim their heritage/culture.

I also think she included it because it adds more mystery to her poetry. If people want to look it up they can and get a little extra meaning out of it while the people who could care less don't necessarily have to look it up but I think those that do want to are forced to look deeper than just a dictionary. Poetry is mystery in its own right as the language of "What in the hell is this person trying to say?" and including something that no amount of analysis with the book can uncover is adding another layer to her book. All we could interpret was that the one language that I forgot the name of corresponded with the other language in terms of sentence length and structure.

I think she included the different languages to show how the main topics of her book, war, colonialism, and the violence that comes along with them, force the world closer together. It reminds us that not everyone speaks the same language and that we should respect other cultures.