Do we have a canon for Malaysian literary works? Let's say we do, who do you think are in it? Consider the fact that their works are well-known and most importantly included as part of the school syllabus- (both in BM and English)
Malay Literature
Dato’ Shahnon Ahmad
1982: Gelungnya Terpokah (short story) for SPM level
Prof. Dr. Muhammad Haji Salleh
1991: Anak Global (poem) for SPM level
English Literature
Kamaluddin Muhamad (Keris Mas)
1981: Jungle of Hope (novel) for SPM level
Datuk A. Samad Said
1986: The Dead Crow (poem) for PMR level
Prof. Dr. Muhammad Haji Salleh
1991: Si Tenggang’s Homecoming (poem) for SPM level
The poems by Erica Jong raise some feminist issues. What are they?
The feminist issues raised by Erica Jong in her poems are sex-positive issues, gender difference, gender bias, patriarchy and oppression of women, male dominance in love and family relationship, gender equality for women and women’s rights and interests.
Do you think they are suitable to teach at the secondary school level? Explain.
I think they are not suitable to be taught at the secondary school level because her works are sexually explicit and it might corrupt the young minds. However, her works are suitable for adult readers. Erica Jong is an American woman and she has been married four times. Her works reflects her thoughts and her community’s culture. Some issues discussed in her poems and other literary works are taboo in the eastern culture.
Is Hillary Tham's poem more suitable?
Hilary Tham is a local Malaysian writer. Therefore, her poems are more suitable for our eastern culture and they can be taught at the secondary school level because the use of language in her poems are more moderate and her poems often deals with common female issues.
The short tale from the Native American group is about a girl who is unsatisfied with her life. How is this universal experience? Can it teach our students anything?
This is a universal experience across all countries, societies, races and religions because no matter how much people get of something, they want more and more. In other words, people nowadays are ungrateful and never content with what they have. In relation to the real life, the people nowadays are very materialistic. Even if they have earned a lot, they are still not satisfied and they demand more than ever. Another example which I can relate to is some people are not satisfied with their marriage life so they end up having extra marital affairs. Referring to the story, the girl was deceived by the handsome outlooks of the man who turned out to be a horned serpent.
We can use this story to teach our kids to be grateful and content with the simple things they have already had. They need to appreciate their god, parents and teachers for the things they have given to them. They also need to learn that having something is better than having nothing. Other than the above, another moral value from the story is not to trust someone by their appearances because they might have bad intentions. They look good outside but they are bad inside.
From your findings about his background, tell me about the dilemma he conveys through the poem CROSS.
This poem explores the deepest emotions and troubles of a young man born into a world of confusion. He is confused by his heritage but arrogant in his pride. He is growing up in the whirl of a white society, and cannot decide whether he is white or black. Hughes, using a black mother and white father, completely makes it easy for the readers to understand and almost foreshadow where this poem is going. It is evident that there is an inner sense of not belonging in this child.
In line three to eight, it is clear that the child is sorry for all the pain he has brought on to his parents, unknowingly. He shows remorse for all the curses and bad wishes he said to his parents, now that they are dead. But this is all because of a bigger problem. Now that his parents are both dead, he has no one to turn to, to help him figure out whether he is going to die, in riches or in rags. The white father dying in a fine house whereas the mother dies in a shack, depicts the common view of the white race as being a more upscale and richer society and the black culture oppressed in poverty and forever boung to the slums of the world. This is the great dilemma Hughes presents to the readers and leaving the audience in query to this unanswerable question.
I find "Dinner Guest: Me" laden with irony and sarcasm. Briefly state if you feel the same.
“Dinner Guest: Me” by Langston Hughes is full of irony and sarcasm because of the following lines:
Stanza 1, Line 1 & 2
I know I am
The Negro Problem
Stanza 1, Line 9, 10 & 11
Of darkness U.S.A.—
Wondering how things got this way
In current democratic night,
Stanza 1, Line 14
“I’m so ashamed of being white.”
I personally think that this poem is about Langston Hughes being invited to a fancy restaurant by a white person and the two of them were discussing race. You can tell by the way he says “Asked the usual questions’ and how the white person is embarrassed to be white. A black person in a fancy restaurant was a big deal back in those days. Not only do they have to wait for service in the restaurant but their discussion is about the answer to race relations and in the end of the poem he says; the answer to the problem is to wait.
The experience in the poem Harlem is one that is true for many people. Do you agree?
Yes, I agree. It is about the unequal treatment among the blacks and the whites. The blacks are marginalized and they are treated like second class citizens. In 1951 (the year of the poem’s publication), frustration characterized the mood of American blacks. The Civil War in the previous century had liberated them from slavery and federal laws had granted them the right to vote, the right to own property and so on. However, continuing prejudice against blacks, as well as laws passed since the Civil War, relegated them to second-class citizenship. Consequently, blacks had to attend poorly equipped segregated schools and settle for menial jobs as porters, ditch-diggers, servants, shoeshine boys and so on. In many states, blacks could not use the same public facilities as whites including restrooms, restaurants, theatres and parks. Access to other facilities such as buses, required them to take a back seat, literally, to whites.
Langston Hughes fights for the voice of his people. What is the movement called?
New Negro Movement.
