https://padlet.com/andreajlawrence1/f30rwi6jddboq1u9 Ayi Kwei Armah 4-5pm en-us 2022-03-10 14:02:52 UTC 2026-01-16 15:12:38 UTC hello@padlet.com https://padlet.com/andreajlawrence1/f30rwi6jddboq1u9/wish/2088717412 P12 (end of ch1)
Description of the bannister - same bannister being repackaged as new. However, the change is superficial; the same rot remains. The gleam of the polish cannot fix the structural rot.

Continuation of the ideas that ruled under colonialism as pervading into post colonial Ghana as well. 
“The wood would always win” ]]> 2022-03-10 16:35:46 UTC https://padlet.com/andreajlawrence1/f30rwi6jddboq1u9/wish/2088717412 https://padlet.com/andreajlawrence1/f30rwi6jddboq1u9/wish/2088733733 P132 vs 148

Comparison through drinks; not only regarding the price but also the accessibility. ]]> 2022-03-10 16:43:56 UTC https://padlet.com/andreajlawrence1/f30rwi6jddboq1u9/wish/2088733733 https://padlet.com/andreajlawrence1/f30rwi6jddboq1u9/wish/2088736813 Final Page: "never-ending knowledge that this aching emptiness would be all that the remainder of his own life could offer him" 
      The man seems to have an overly pessimistic outlook towards the future--his lack of identity, just being known as 'man' suggests a lack of power to change the situation of their lives; the period of change and freedom was successful in name but not in action. This leaves him feeling empty and hopeless that he will ever see a period of improvement--"the beautyful ones are not yet born." However, this line and the image of "a single flower" suggests a sense of hope for future generation, the hope that his children and those yet to be born will not experience the despair and emptiness he has. Although he is in despair, he does appear to want to hold onto a generational sense of hope. 
The novel begins and ends with the image of the bus--this creates a sense of despair as it shows the lack of progress. Nothing has changed; even though Ghana is in a postcolonial period, it remains under the same social structure.]]> 2022-03-10 16:45:31 UTC https://padlet.com/andreajlawrence1/f30rwi6jddboq1u9/wish/2088736813 https://padlet.com/andreajlawrence1/f30rwi6jddboq1u9/wish/2088737576 “The sweet sadness of congo music flowed out through a window near the end of a row of little houses, and the man stopped there [...] the radio announcers, a man and a woman, read out a long list of names that sounded at once very far away and very African, and then another of those sad harmonies came floating outward from the little set.” (p.58)

• Sibilance of “sweet sadness” = melancholy and creates a sombre atmosphere
• “Names that sounded at once very far away and very African” = link to fragmentation/displacement in modern world literature
  • Cannibalist manifesto, suggests that colonised nations ingest/consume the culture of the coloniser & so transform it. Transformation of imposed cultural influences (combining cultures via ‘cannibalism’)
  • Suggests either liberation, breaking away from colonialism & creating new combinations of cultures, or alternatively suggests unfamiliarity & sense of distance from one's own culture

]]> 2022-03-10 16:45:56 UTC https://padlet.com/andreajlawrence1/f30rwi6jddboq1u9/wish/2088737576 https://padlet.com/andreajlawrence1/f30rwi6jddboq1u9/wish/2088738868 Pg 30-31
Moral corruption has become such a normalised aspect of Ghanaian interaction that the fact the man refuses the bribe becomes something worth laughing at. Additionally, the visitor appears to presume himself superior in their dynamic purely because he has assimilated himself into a society of filth and corruption. This filth is implied further through the physical description of the visitor.]]> 2022-03-10 16:46:36 UTC https://padlet.com/andreajlawrence1/f30rwi6jddboq1u9/wish/2088738868 https://padlet.com/andreajlawrence1/f30rwi6jddboq1u9/wish/2088739107 The metaphor of the gleam represents corruption while simultaneously aligning it with whiteness e. g the bungalows of the elite are describes as 'white with a wounding whiteness'. Therefore, the corruption in Ghana's government and elite is due to the remnants of white colonialism.]]> 2022-03-10 16:46:43 UTC https://padlet.com/andreajlawrence1/f30rwi6jddboq1u9/wish/2088739107