Online Task Two

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)

1. Samad Said

2. Che Husna

3. Shirley Lim

4. K.S Maniam


The poems by Erica Jong raises some feminist issues. What are they?

1. The intimates feeling of a woman.

2. The true feelings that were face by many women.

Do you think they are suitable to teach at the secondary school level?  Explain.

Erica Jong’s poems are suitable to be taught at the upper secondary school level from Form 4 to Form 6. This is because it takes a mature students to understand her poems like After the Earthquake or Beast, Book, Body. Students have to really understand the poems that she wrote because her poems may raise certain issues that can be consider a taboo in Malaysian culture. For me we can use this poem as an alternative in teaching sex education for students.

Is Hillary Tham's poem more suitable?Yes, because the elements in her poems reflected the issues of Malaysian people and also the experience that students can relate to. The example of poems that girl students can relate to easily is “Becoming A Woman”. It is suitable because all of the girls will face a certain change in their life in becoming a woman.

The short tale from the Native American group is about a girl who is unsatisfied with her life. How is this a universal experience? Can it teach our students anything?Human being will face many experiences in their life. As a normal human, we are always have the feeling of dissatisfied of our feeling. Jealousy and envy always fuels the advocate us to feel unsatisfied with many things. The story is a good choice to be taught to our students because it is full of moral values which can help them to reflect their own life.

 
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 reader 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 through 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 what his is. He can’t seem to figure out whether he is going to die in riches or rags. This is the great dilemma Hughes presents to the reader and leaving the audience in query to this unanswerable question. He cannot seem to find any truth in himself whatsoever, this child is and forever will be lost in his own identity. Hughes uses this boy’s struggles symbolically, not to show the pressures of a “crossed” child but rather to show how we as a society stereotype the races. 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 bound to the slums of the world.

I find "Dinner Guest: Me" laden with irony and sarcasm. Briefly state if you feel the same.

I feel the same about “Dinner Guest: Me”. Being half black and half white people he talks about how black people are put at the lower class of social hierarchy. Being half white and half black, he is like an alien at the dinner party at Park Avenue where white people look at him as black.

The experience in the poem Harlem is one that is true for many people. Do you agree?
I agree that the experience in Harlem is true for many people; Racism can caused a lot of problem.  It could disturb the peace and harmony in a community and could cause a country to face with many problems if no action is taken and matter is not done fairly to all.


Langston Hughes fights for the voice of his people. What is the movement called?

New Negro Movement