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Importance of Land Symbolism

In the book Cry, the Beloved Country, the author Alen Paton uses great descriptions of the land to symbolize the ever changing land scape, and demographical statistics of South Africa.  The descriptions of the land also emphasize the former prosperity of South Africa, and the loss of the prosperity, caused by unwanted invaders of South Africa. 
"The grass is rich, and matted, you can not see the soil. It holds the rain and the mist, and they step into the ground, feeding the streams in every kloof. It is well tended, and not to many cattle feed upon it; not to many fires burn it, laying bare the soil. Stand unshod upon it, for the ground is holy, being even as it came from the creator. Keep it, guard it, care for it, for it keeps men, cares for men. destroy it, and man is destroyed." In this paragraph Paton, is describing tribal South Africa, before the Europeans came in and took all the rights from the natives.  "rich and matted" describing the close nit, and rich culture of native South Africa. "not to many cattle feed; not to many fires burn it" Cattle representing the population, meaning that there is just the right amount of people to live, and us the resources of the land. The fires represent crimes committed. Meaning that there are some crimes, but there aren't so many that it ruins the representation of South Africa.
"Where you stand the grass is rich, and matted, you cannot see the soil. but the rich green hills breakdown. they fall to the valley below, and falling change their nature. for they grow red and bare; they cannot hold the rain and mist, and the streams are dry in the kloofs. Too many cattle feed upon the grass, and too many fires have burned it. Stand shod upon it, for it is coarse and sharp, and the stones cut under the feet. It is not kept, or guarded, or cared for, it no longer keeps men, cares for men, guards men, cares for men. the titihoya does not cry here any more." Here Alen Paton is describing South Africa after the Europeans invaded the tribal lands of native South Africans.  "too many cattle feed upon it; too many fires burn it" Paton is now saying that the presence of the Europeans has caused an over population, and the land is not able to support the extra people. Now because of the influx of people, and the displacement, and famine, of natives the crime rate has risen, because the natives have no other way of supporting themselves.  "for it is course and sharp, and the stones cut under the feet. Here he is saying that the European presence, has caused the natives of South Africa, to harden. Their souls have been hardened by the way they have been treated by the Europeans.
Paton uses great symbolism in his book to show the before and after, of South Africa before European arrived.  He uses descriptions, of how the land has changed to show how much the country has changed since Europeans arrived in South Africa.

Marked Tree My Home Town

Marked Tree My Home Town

I have gone to school in Marion all my life, but Marked Tree is my true home town.

Marked Tree is a small town of about twenty-eight hundred people. Marked Tree is nestled half way between Jonesboro, and Marion on highway sixty-three.

I lived on the corner of Sixth and Barbra Allen, near the highway. My back yard butted up against the highway, so I have many memories of the highway. When the highway was originally constructed the government didn’t have very strict laws on controlling how vehicles accessed the highway. In Marked Tree, we didn’t have overpasses or on ramps, so to get to the other side you had to cut across four lanes of traffic traveling at seventy miles per hour. This led to many wrecks, and deaths.

It’s a beautiful day in Marked Tree. I just got home from school. (I am six at the time) I am walking down Sixth Street, when all of a sudden I hear this horrible sound of crushing metal, honking horns, and the smell of burning rubber!

I ran through the empty lot between my house and the highway, not thinking about the monstrosity that awaits my young eyes.

As I got closer to the wreck I could hear the moaning of the men who were scattered all over the highway, covered with blood. Many lying limp on the cool Asphalt now stained with blood. I am now looking at twelve motorcycles, fifteen men, 3 dead, one without a leg, and an uninjured truck driver. Within ten minutes they had the entire highway shut down and a helicopter in the median. That has to be one of the worst memories of Marked Tree.

Because of this and many other wrecks they have redesigned and are still updating the highway so that it will become future I-555.

At the end of our cul-de-sac was a gazebo. It was a small white gazebo. It has a beautiful back drop with the mature trees, and rose bushes in the back ground. The gazebo was a popular place for weddings. There were usually four to five weddings a year.

I remember asking every time there was a weeding if I could help them set up chairs or tables for the weddings. They normally would let me help, but one summer I remember they paid me fifty dollars to help set up chairs and other miscellaneous wedding things. I thought I was the riches kid in the world. Fifty dollars to a six year old is like giving them the world.

 

            Our neighbors, the McCrary’s, had a gigantic side yard, between their house and the gazebo. I remember all the neighborhood kids playing wiffelball in the yard. They soon made it into a regulatory wiffelball field, with a fence and everything you need to have a wiffelball field. I can remember hitting my first home run over the fence.            

            It was another beautiful day in Marked Tree. Me, Anna, Brodie, Jagger, and Bailey where all playing wiffelball. Jagger was pitching, and I was up to bat. I had two strikes. He pitched me the ball, I swung. Foul ball. Another pitch. foul ball. If I remember write, I hit six foul balls. Until finally I hit the ball solid. When I hit it, it seemed as if the ball stayed in the air forever. But finally it fell out of the sky and onto the ground, on the other side of the fence! I didn’t even run around the bases, I kind of had a casual stroll around the bases.

 

                Even though there are some bad memories of Marked Tree, I wouldn’t change a thing about where I am from or my home town.

 

 

 

Learning To Read

                As a child I learned to do many things such as talk, crawl, walk, tie my shoes, and read.    One of the most important was learning to read!   My mom, who teaches kindergarten, believes children learn to read sitting on the laps of their parents. She says she read to me since I was a little baby.   I was given books at a very early age and always had the opportunity to buy books that interested me. 

              When I was three years old, I went to a preschool program at the First United Methodist Church in West Memphis.  This is where I learned my alphabet letters.  At four, I also attended preschool at Avondale Elementary School and learned that these letters had sounds.

             I started kindergarten at Avondale Elementary and had a really good teacher.  She loved to read to us and wanted us to love to read ourselves.  We learned to read using a program called Distar. In Distar we learned how to blend letter sounds to make new words. Distar was easy to me. With my mother being a teacher and my grandmother being a principal I always had access to lots of reading tools and activities.   With these three ladies teaching me all I needed to know, I excelled through kindergarten.

            I also had a great teacher the next year in first grade.   She taught us how to read and write bigger words.   We also started to read real books in first grade. (We read some stories in kindergarten, but the stories we read in kindergarten were not real books, they were books that a company wrote to help us learn how to read. )  In first grade we also learned how to read and write paragraphs.                                                                                                                                     

              In second grade I had a wonderful teacher. This year was also the start of a program called Accelerated Reader. I enjoyed reading for points and prizes and I was one of the top readers of my class for reading.  In the Accelerated Reader program you would read books and then take tests on the book.  Points were awarded depending on how challenging the book was.  The Accelerated Reader program also tracked the types of books and the difficulty of the books read.   To start, I was reading small one point and half point books, and every once and a while I would try a two or three point book. My teacher also assigned you a number of points that you had to have at the end of the nine weeks.  We would be given class time each day to read these books.  I remember reading with my parents before bed and in the car as we drove to and from school trying to reach my goal.  At the end of each nine weeks it would all pay off and I would get to enjoy the AR Party.   This program continued through my seventh grade year. 
              Learning to read does not happen over night and is not taught by one person.   It is the result of many learning experiences and develops over many years.


 

           

I Am

I am fun and outgoing

I wonder if the Mayans are right

I hear people shouting my name

I see myself as President

I want to travel the world

I am fun and outgoing

 

 

I pretend to clean  my room

I feel what other people feel

I touch my phone constantly

I worry about where our country is heading

I cry when I hear myself sing

I am fun and outgoing

 

 

I understand The Circle Of Life

I dream about being President

I try to make the best of everything

I hope to be successful

I am fun and outgoing



Not Understanding The Most Handsomest Drowned Man In The World

                The genre of "The Most Handsomest Drowned Man in The World", is magical realism. I have not read much magical realism, and it looks like I will not be reading any more magical realism. The story ,to me, was very hard to understand, I could not follow what was happening in the story. Like when the dead guy washed up on shore, why would the kids start playing with a dead person. What you think will happen does not happen. Like normal kids would not play with a dead body, a normal kid would run and tell their parents or tell the police, not play with the dead body!
              Another thing that threw me where all the analogy's, such as when the women are putting his shirt on they say "that the strength of his heart broke the buttons on his shirt" A dead persons heart does not beat so how does his heart pop the buttons off his shirt. This makes absolutely no sense because the heart of a dead person does not beat or have any kind of force. Also some how they mistaken a man for a whale. I have personally seen a whale and a whale looks nothing like a human or vise versa. Another thing is that there is no telling how long this man has been floating in the ocean. He should already be decomposing and smelling really bad. If I was a woman just the smell of rotting flesh would make me stay away from any thing no matter how handsome or beautiful the person or thing is.
              What is the point in magical realism? Why is it so confusing and hard to understand? I personally do not like magical realism because of all the confusion between what is happening in the story and what the characters are doing. To me magical realism is just a bunch of weird words jumbled up in book format and then published to make money.