Christopher Columbus

Born: 1451
Birthplace: Genoa, Italy
Died: 20 May 1506
Best Known As: The explorer who opened the door to the Americas
Christopher Columbus sailed from Spain across the Atlantic Ocean in 1492, landing in the "new world" of the Americas and gaining lasting fame. Using ships and money provided by Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castille, Columbus sailed west in search of a sea passage to India. He had two goals: open trade routes for Spain and bring the word of Jesus Christ to the non-Christians he expected to meet. He sailed with three ships (the Niña, Pinta and Santa Maria) and on his first trip made landfall somewhere in the Bahamas. He returned to Europe to spread the word, and was named "Admiral of the Ocean Seas" by Ferdinand and Isabella. He made three more voyages in the following years, always believing that he had reached Asia, and his success opened the door for Spain to conquer the Americas. Five centuries after his daring voyage, Columbus is still famous but is also the subject of heated discussions about whether he was a good-guy hero who discovered new worlds or a not-so-nice guy who helped grab the Americas from their native inhabitants. Still, he has long been known as the man who "discovered" America, and the second Monday in October is celebrated as Columbus Day in the United States.

“Jamaica Kincaid” By: Annie John Chapter Eight: A walk to the Jetty

In the chapter “A walk to the Jetty” the narrator, who is also the main character, Annie John, narrates the day in which she is going out of her country to Europe to study to be a nurse. She tells all the details from that day, how were the things in the house, her parents’ and everybody’s attitudes, her wishes, thoughts and expectations for do and be something different, something else.
Some themes that are presented in that chapter are:
· The Love- it is presented in what feel her parents about her and her about her parents although she didn’t want to express it. Sometimes she said that she want not to see her mother again and the things that she had seen all the time she was there, “But as I was lying there my heart could have burst open with joy at the thought of never having to see any of it again”, but at the end of the chapter she express that she feel those nostalgic and melancholic feelings that you have when you are saying goodbye to something that you love: “But then, just as quickly, my heart shriveled up and the words “I shall never see this again” stabbed at me. I don’t know what stopped me from falling in a heap at my parent’s feet.” (145)
· Feminism, express that a woman could study, work and live without being with a man. We can see it in how Annie saw and described her parents relation, and when she said answering to her parents to the idea that she could came married: “How absurd!”
· The expectations of change and be different- It is presented in Annie’s wishes to go out. We can see it when she said: “but I would have chosen off to live in a cavern and keeping house for seven unruly men rather than go on with my life as it stood.”
“But as I was lying there my heart could have burst open with joy at the thought of never having to see any of it again”
“When I turned away I didn’t look back.”- trying to forget the past. It can express those feelings that every people have about searching something more, something different and maybe something better.
This story remember me before enter in the university and go to live alone in another town with most of the people and things different from what I know. I was happy to go out my home before I did, and then, after go out, I could realize how I like to be in my home and how I love my family and live with them.
I feel identified with the character in some of her feelings because I am always looking for more, to change. I really like what I am and the things I have, it is just that many times I think that I need something different to my life.

“Jamaica Kincaid” By: Annie John Chapter Five: Columbus in Chains

Columbus in Chains is the chapter five of “Jamaica Kincaid” where the narrator, a girl, tells some events of her life that occurred simultaneously in her school and in her home. She presents some characters, her mother and father, her school mates, her teachers, and her best friend.
Something that is funny from this chapter is the way that the narrator presents herself as prefect in school, intelligent and bright, well behaved in class and home, and the opposite in other circumstances and with her friends. She recognize it in the story, that she was doing some things wrong, that she was conscious she should not do that but she wanted and she liked it and at the same time express her panic, her fear about loose her place and privileges, especially in her home, but also in school.
I believe about the part of the story when she wrote Columbus picture, that we could feel identify with her and with her reason and feelings. Our feelings when we are obligated to do something that we do not like, how our thoughts and feelings are influenced with external things and other people thoughts. Also she feels the fear about the result of her actions, as we many time feel about the consequences of our actions.
Sometimes we cannot control what is inside of us and want to go out. She just has a thought and posts it. Many times we can’t suppress our wishes, thoughts or feelings even if after do it we became remorseful. The girl losses her position in school just for that reason, it show us the weak equilibrium of the things. This anecdote teaches us our weakness and the weak equilibrium from the things around us.
Restrictions and emotions
The story also presents a point of view of restrictions that human have in their society. Some things that you can do, another that you can’t; good and bad, rights and obligations, prizes and punishments, all that things that control and limits our behavior. In the story the girls express their energy and emotions dancing and singing bad songs, and showing off their legs, and they were punished for it, as if it were a terrible thing. I believe the society was limiting their expressions in that way, and it also limits their development.
To see her mother as a crocodile mean she was seeing in the mother her bad actions, I mean she saw her mother as she feels.

"To the hell with dying" By: Alice Walker

“To the hell with dying” is a story from Alice Walker that talks about a curious situation in a girl and her family life. That situation is related with the relation they have with their neighbor Mr. Sweet. A man that is alcoholic and diabetic and weak emotionally. The girl that narrates the story tells how she and her brothers share with Mr. Sweet, playing the guitar singing and dancing. The kids loved him. When he was with them they feel he was part of them, like a child. He made them to feel comfort, like in group. Kids and Mr. Sweet were friends.
When Mr. Sweet became worse in his sickness, he fell in his bed with a really no good aspect, the people believe he probably could die, but the family of the girl made like revivals with him.
I believe it was the family love and their attachment to him, what made him remain alive. They use to throw out the death away from Mr. Sweet. In the revivals what they do was express that they loved and want him alive, and fill him of kisses and affection. I think Mr. Sweet also loved them and they were one of the reasons because he really lives or liked to live, because they made him feel important, admired and loved.
A very curious fact of the story for me is the relation that the girl who narrates the story had with Mr. Sweet. He made her feel so different, happy, nostalgic, and he use to call her “my princess” and she feel pretty and important.
Something that was very strange for me was at the end of the story when she was 24 years old and she recognizes, when Mr. Sweet died, that he was her first love. I knew she loved him, because they have a nice relation when she was a girl, but what I understood was that she loved him more like a father or a grandfather, who teach you things and call you princess and those things.

“Every Day Use” By: Alice Walker

Reflection:
“Every Day Use” is the story of a family composed by tree woman. Their story is about identity, culture, exclusion, and personal differences. The story is narrated by one of the characters, Mama, in first person point of view. Mama related into other things, the arrival of one of their daughters, Dee. Dee is very different from Mama and Maggie; she is interested, opportunist, ashamed about her origins and she believes she had deserve everything. She thought she was more intelligent and value because she had a different style of life that she thought was better. But it was not necessary better the way she was living. Most of the time, Dee did not visit Mama and Maggie, but the story tell a day she did. I believe she was just interested, not to see Mama and Maggie, but to take things of value. But she was surprised and envious when Mama chooses Maggie to give her the quilts. I believe the quilts represent the identity and the traditions. Dee did not want the quilts from what they represent; she knew what they represent because she said it: “Your heritage”, but she could not take them as it; because she lived trying to change what she was, trying to erase her origins. Something special in the story is the way that Mama feels that the quilts should be for Maggie, how she had change just in that moment her preference from Dee to Maggie.
In the story we can see like a comparison that Mama is making between Dee and Maggie, they were very different, in their personalities, attitudes, capacities and abilities, intelligence, and physical characteristics. Maggie was very humble, she believed her sister deserved everything but for her anything; “like somebody used to never winning anything, or having anything reserved for her”, because always in her house was in that way. But that day the story became fair and the heritage and the traditions go to the person that will use it.

“Every Day Use”