Accordion to 12AP

There are many different themes in the Song of Soloman by Toni Morrison. One theme that is shown throughout the book is the theme of sexual discrimination in society. Almost every woman in Song of Soloman is treated as an object that men can just throw away when they finish using them and love when they need them. The most obvious example is when Milkman dumps Hagar and just sends her some money. This is extremely disrespectful and led to Hagar's hunt for Milkman later. For the most part, this is the history of women. Since the beginning of the human race, women are treated as being weaker than men, therefore, sort of owned by men. However, as history progresses, women have gained many rights that they didn't have before by starting reforms and protesting. These reforms gave women suffrage, property rights, and an equal opportunity in all fields of society. On the bad side though, Women's rights reforms evolved from a mild but powerful group into a radical group that gets o

In the book "Song of Soloman", Morrison introduces to us many relationships that Milkman dead has: his friendship with Guitar, his girlfriend Hagar, and his relationship with his family. However, those relationships seem to be really weak and meaningless. He broke up with Hagar, doesn't really care about his family, views Pilate as an outsider of his family, and gets into arguments with Guitar easily. Morrison also constantly puts big gaps of time in the story to make Milkson's life look fast and meaningless. This also shows how Milkman thinks that he does not belong in his community and refuses to identify as his own race.  After hearing Macon Dead's story about Ruth and his father, Milkman walks out on the streets and notice that everyone is going the opposite direction as him. When Milkman and Guitar argues, he refuses to live in Alabama and help other African Americans to fight for civil rights. These examples both show how Milkman does not think that he sho

For the past few weeks, we read Art Spiegelman's Maus, and I really enjoyed the comic book. It allowed me to take a short break from reading pages and pages of just plain text and showed me the versatility of literature. Honestly, at the beginning of the book, I did not have a high expectation for this book because I have been told way too many Holocaust stories that sound shocking but feel really distant. Those are the stories that sound good the first few times then they get really repetitive and boring. However, as I kept on reading, I got into the book more because I discovered that this Holocaust story is nothing like the generic ones that I have read before.  First, I think that the storyline of Maus has more variety than the other Holocaust stories. While the other Holocaust stories focus on the violent war or the terrible concentration camps and the suffering, Maus shifts some focus away from the violent aspect and more to the daily lives of the people caught in the war.

On the last page of Maus, there are many important imageries and details that suggest many possible endings that the book could have. The book ends  with a very vague ending, not the epic ending that I was expecting because of the conflicts and tension that had built up throughout the book. On the last page of the book, Vladek finishes his Holocaust story with a happy ending and tells Artie that he is tired. He then calls Artie Richieu. This could have two meanings: first is that Vladek is hinting how he was telling the story to Ri chieu the whole time, therefore, telling Artie that he could never live up to Richieu. Many times in the book, Vladek asks Artie to do something for him. When Artie rejects him, Vladek usually just say "Whatever, I'll do it myself". This shows that Vladek doesn't have that deep bond with Artie and just let him do whatever he wants, unlike a close father and son. Another way to interpret this is that Vladek finally accepted Artie and now he