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Should Literature Be Useful?

The article "Should Literature Be Useful?" argues that literary fiction makes people more empathetic. Two studies show that "the subjects who had read literary fiction either reported heightened emotion intelligence or demonstrated... that their empathy levels had soared beyond their popular- and non-fiction-reading counterparts." These conclusions revealed the problems behind the approach to teaching reading. The article also points out that empathy is not as simple as one things. In fact, it is much more complex. Empathy does not "have anything to do with the sensitivity and gentleness popularly attributed to it." The article also argues that "fiction's lack of practical usefulness is what gives it its special freedom." The freedom gives meaning to what people are thinking or feeling.

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"Reading Literature Makes Us Smarter and Nicer"

The article "Reading Literature Makes Us Smarter and Nicer" argues that literature teaches and influences us to be morally and socially better people. Multiples studies show that reading fiction causes people "to be better able to understand other people, empathize with them and view the world from their perspective." The article also argues that the use of "Deep reading," needs to be preserved and encouraged. Without deep reading, it would "imperil the intellectual and emotional development of generation growing up online." Third, the article argues that online reading is proven to be less engaging and less staying than physically reading a book.

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- Going to summarize the Single Story article
Thesis: "Multicultural literature provides arguments and truths against the single story that is constantly promoted by society.
- The bluest eye
- Invisible man

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"In short, how to get rid of the funkiness. The dreaded funkiness of passion, the funkiness of nature, the funkiness of the wide range of human emotions."
- getting rid of your identity to fit into what the people in power want you to be.
- white-washing

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"It was a small step to Shirley Temple. I learned much later to worship her, just as I leaned to delight in cleanliness, knowing, even as I learned, that the change was adjustment without improvement."
- She learned that in the society, she was to love things that were white and related to whiteness, which was linked to cleanliness.

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"Born like me in the Chinese year of the horse- which is supposed to be bad luck if you're born female- but I think this is a Chinese lie because the Chinese, like the Mexicans, don't like their women strong."
- women were expected to stay in the box of expectations

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"Only Marin can't explain why it mattered, the hours and hours, for somebody she didn't even know." (66)

- she knows that the death of Geraldo didn't matter to the doctors. His death could have been prevented, but because no one cared, he died.

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"We are tired of being beautiful."  (42)

- in the scene, the girls didn't want to wear heels because it made men see them as "women." -- it became dangerous for them to be female.

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"Those who don't know any better come into our neighborhood scared. They think we're dangerous."
"All brown all around, we are safe. But watch us drive into a neighborhood of another color and our knees go shakity-shake and our car windows get rolled up tight and our eyes look straight." (28)

- Other people think that their neighborhood is dangerous. They generalize the race--- a single story.

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- It is hard for people in poverty to get out of it because it is not as simple as people think. They work hard just for the bare necessities, and some people have families to take care of.
- Minorities areas are seen as dangerous because of prejudices and stereotypes.
- Because of stereotypes and prejudices, people deem immigrants, who are also just as human, to be of less worth.

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- Esperanza grows up learning that she is a minority in a minority. She is a women in a community/culture that deems her inferior to men.
- Women were either virgins or whores. Virgins were pure and had worth. Whores were seen as dirty. If a girl wore makeup or suggestive clothing- anything to bring out her femininity, then they were labeled a slut.
-  "Women by the window": women were trapped by men. They were expected to become a wife and to care for the family. Their freedom was taken when they married because they were dependent on their husbands.
- she struggles with the idea of being poor and how people thought she had no worth.

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"... So I knew the silence had to do with being a Chinese girl." (166)

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"A dumbness- a shame- still cracks my voice in two." (165)

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- Kingston is able to speak English and Chinese, and she is still American. American is not just being white and speaking one language. America is a mix of cultures and languages.
- American manners are not just white manners. In the novel, it is mentioned that Americans talked quietly compared to Chinese because the Chinese had to yell across the rice fields.
- When Kingston was a child, she flunked kindergarten because she did not speak, but that did not mean she was unintelligent.

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- Kingston struggles with keeping her Chinese and American culture/way of life separate because they are so conflicting.
- She writes to claim both of her identities.
- The talk stories that her mother tells her are part of her.
- Struggles with being told that she has worth in America, but at home, she is told she is never good enough, and that she can only be a wife or a slave.

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- The people who are in poverty are able to have more money if they worked harder.
- People from poorer areas, mainly minority areas, are more dangerous.
- Immigrants have less importance.
- If you are in American, you need to speak English.

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"Among all the waste and beauty of the world- which is what she herself was. All of our waste which we dumped on her and which she absorbed, and all of our beauty which was hers first and which she gave to use. All of us- All who knew her- felt to wholesome after we cleaned ourselves on her. We were so beautiful when we stood astride her ugliness. Her simplicity decorated us, her guild sanctified us, her pain made us glow with health. (205)
- Pecola was beautiful, is was just that people refused to see it or accept her beauty.
- Pecola was used to make people more beautiful. They kept her ugly so that they appeared more beautiful compared to her.

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-  It is hard to consider yourself beautiful when the media and people around you set a standard that is impossible for some people to meet. It causes people to feel shame about themselves.

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- Pecola learns from her surroundings that people with lighter skin are treated better. She becomes obsessed with the idea of having blue eyes, which is a stereotypical trait for white people.
- Pecola is obsessed with drinking milk from her Shirley temple cup. The milk is white, and so she thinks that by drinking white, she will become more white.
- Pecola's mother also prefers to be around white and beautiful things, so she neglects her family for a white family. However, over there, she is treated as if she is a pet, and not a person. she has the nickname "Polly."
- Cholly never grows up being loved, so he grows up without any morals.

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- The standard of beauty is having blue eyes and blonde hair.
- The whiter the skin the prettier you are.
- People with lighter skin are more trustworthy than people with darker skin

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"We invented an American-feminine speaking personality" (172)
"We American Chinese girls had to whisper to make ourselves American Feminine"

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" Chinese-Americans, when you try to understand what things in you are Chinese, how do you separate what is peculiar to childhood, to poverty, insanities, one family, you mother who marked your growing with stories, from what is Chinese? (5)

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- Being American meant that you have to have "American" manners.
- You have to be able to speak English.
- People who cannot speak English are considered to be slow or less intelligent

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"true darkness lies in my own mind, and the idea loses itself in the gloom."
- the individual is responsible for making sense of their own existence. They shouldn't wait for other people to validate it or define it. I think this shows how one has to separate themselves from the single story that is forced upon them.

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"To you he is a mark on the scorecard of your achievement, a thing and not a man; a child or even less- a black amorphous thing. and you, for all your power, are not a man to him, but a God, a force-"

- this goes to the ida that black people are not human. This also goes back to how white people help a little bit just to feel good about themselves, but they don't help too much bc they do not want to give black people more power.

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"When they approach me they see only my surroundings, themselves, or figments of their imagination- indeed, everything and anything except me.

- this goes back to being invisible. However, "figments of their imagination" is referring to stereotypes that are made.

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- Although not considered it, black people are human, and they are American. The moment someone treats another inhumanly (as an object, animal, or non-human), everyone becomes non-human.
- White people are just as dangerous as black people. Skin color is not a factor, but it is how skin color is perceived.
- Sure, black people are no longer physically chained, but they are still chained by society. They are still seen as inferior to white people, and it is impossible for them to have as much power as the whites, who have all the power.

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- The narrator is never given a name. He is an "invisible man" (IM) because people refuse to see him.
- In the beginning, IM believes that he is of some importance and that because he is more educated than his peers, white people will see that he has more worth.
- He comes to realize that people only see him for his skin color, and they do not care that he is more educated than his peers.
- At first, the brotherhood makes him feel as if he has importance and as if he is changing society. He is given a new name and identity. However, he learns that the Brotherhood does not want to cause change. They want IM to remain invisible.
- IM realizes that he needs to discard his social identity to find himself and his identity. He physically leaves and separates himself. He "hibernates."

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- For a black person to be considered an American, they need to be educated and bear "social responsibility."

- Black men are dangerous and "primitive."

- Black people are free, and it was the white people who "saved" them from their slavery.

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Find at least three passages from the novel that help broaden the idea of the single American story - indicate page numbers, splice a quote, and explain the connection.

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How does the novel show different versions of a single story and work to “regain paradise” by telling a story that is American but that differs from the single American story to which the author is responding? (basically how does it break the single stereotype)

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List and explain the different aspects of identity that the novel explores.

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Identify a single story about being an American to which the author is responding. Consider what Adichie said about stereotypes - that they are not untrue, rather they are incomplete; they make one story the only story.