Literature

Introduction

Kambon Obayani is the professor of English, creative writing and ESL at Pierce College and California State University Northridge. He wrote five novels and a number of works on African-American history, culture and art, including plays, poems, and movie scripts. The main theme of family saga under the name of Colors:Book One is particularly close to the author, since he belongs to African-American culture and promotes understanding and tolerance between races in America and other continents.

Introduction

Theban Plays of Sophocles picture very strong characters of women. One of the brightest protagonists of the plays is Antigone, who challenged the law of state under penalty of death for the sake of divine law and his brother’s honour. This Antigone’s act of defiance is a good deed, a deeply moral act that made her a heroine of civil disobedience. This act of disobedience eventually caused political and legal reform in Ancient Greece. The plays carry the idea that even in those times, women have the possibility to self-realisation and can be as strong and wise as men.

Alice Walker’s Everyday Use, a short story written in the late 1960s, is, perhaps, a story of cultural discrepancies in the American society of the 50s and 60s caused by racial issues. The story shows how one’s culture and heritage could be seen from different points of view. This essay is focused on the cultural conflict between two sisters – Maggie and Dee – whose characters are neatly contrasted in the story by its author.

How does the novel describe the disease of plague and its impact, and how is this relevant to current discussions about modern epidemics, such as AIDS, and potential epidemics caused by disease or by terrorism?