While I think it is important to discuss Bowen's character in Return to Laughter, I feel that this is a discussion better suited once we finish the novel. Kelly's post stresses that we should have sympathy towards Bowen, while Brianna's post below dismisses her as rude and spoiled. I think it is more important to consider this book in its sociopolitical and historical contexts. What was happening in the world when Bowen wrote this? More importantly (and this was touched upon in class), what was happening in the field of anthropology at that time? I think the best approach towards this novel is to suspend our judgement (briefly) of Bowen's character and instead look at other aspects of the novel as we are reading. I would rather discuss the setting of Bowen's novel. This is supposed to be a realistic, fictionalized account, but not much detail is given of the environment. We know that yams are grown, that there are cattle, goats, chicken, etc., and that Bowen is in Africa. Africa is a continent, it is not one nation-state or ethnic/linguistic group. Why did Bowen leave everything so vague in this regard? What does this accomplish? Her novel is a fairly popular piece of anthropological literature. Has she drawn a boundary around Africa? Does this novel, and if so how, help cement and reinforce "Africans" as the Other?
While I think it is important to discuss Bowen's character in Return to Laughter, I feel that this is a discussion better suited once we finish the novel. Kelly's post stresses that we should have sympathy towards Bowen, while Brianna's post below dismisses her as rude and spoiled. I think it is more important to consider this book in its sociopolitical and historical contexts. What was happening in the world when Bowen wrote this? More importantly (and this was touched upon in class), what was happening in the field of anthropology at that time? I think the best approach towards this novel is to suspend our judgement (briefly) of Bowen's character and instead look at other aspects of the novel as we are reading. I would rather discuss the setting of Bowen's novel. This is supposed to be a realistic, fictionalized account, but not much detail is given of the environment. We know that yams are grown, that there are cattle, goats, chicken, etc., and that Bowen is in Africa. Africa is a continent, it is not one nation-state or ethnic/linguistic group. Why did Bowen leave everything so vague in this regard? What does this accomplish? Her novel is a fairly popular piece of anthropological literature. Has she drawn a boundary around Africa? Does this novel, and if so how, help cement and reinforce "Africans" as the Other?