I was quite fascinated with the quote from serco: "PEOPLE ARE OUR BUSINESS." It shows how privatization of prisons have made people commodities. People are manipulating loopholes to wrongly imprison people and benefit off of them. This is a highly debated topic in politics and affect thousands of immigrants in detention centers today. It seems very immoral to use other people's pain(previous trauma in refugees) to benefit economically.

This is indeed very true. Art is a form of history that informs people about the cultural and historical significance of a structure or a picture. It traces back to the patterns followed by our ancestors in the past and is a precedent for our own identity.

This is kind of ironic because the sculpture itself is about an absent father and that is fairly common in the world. Whatever the author is making is completely based on small memories that she has had with him and the sculpture represents that. Perhaps it's the reason Gabrielle is buying it from her: to think about her own relationship with her father and relate to her.

These lines highlight the tragic reality of Antiguans. People in Antigua will always have the same poor condition they have in the present and the cycle of poverty and illiteracy will never end. The corrupts will enjoy their earnings and the common people will continue to be deprived of any sort of worldly pleasures. Similarly, it is locked for help from any one outside. Money sent for relief is used for corruption and no one is concerned enough to fight for the people's rights. People in Antigua are in a stalemate and live for the present with no expectations for the future.

As evident in our previous discussions of Julius' life, we saw that Julius was in search for "something" that was missing in his life. In that process, he has shut himself out from the society and prefers to be alone. This is noticed by Professor Saito and having experienced this himself, he makes the comment. However, Julius still doesn't understand what this means because he has no idea what he's missing out on. A lot of his story is like a diary and we notice that he has a lot of repressed feelings. I think that it is the reason why he hasn't been able to open up to the world and explore different possibilities for his life.

This line clearly lays out a political stance of Farouk. He expects there to be definitive action and head-on battles to end a conflict. Julias however, supports a peaceful protest and negotiations to end a conflict. While I appreciated Julias' eagerness to listen to something contradicting his views, it raised an important connection with Julias' past. We have seen Julias to have repressed trauma from childhood. Since he didn't do anything about it back then and ignored his feelings as an adult, it is only consistent to say that the same repression is now identified as "peaceful" protest.

This is a very deep statement pertaining the power of abstract materials. Not all enjoyments in life are physical or tangible in nature; there's also abstract materials that are equally important. It is evident in the first few lines how he has found joy in simple things like watching birds, listening to music, enjoying the buzz of New York City, etc. These feelings of joy can't be put down to word, only felt. Therefore, not all feelings require a verbal comprehension to be understood.

The story was very weird for me. It feels like Mrs.Gresham is baiting Mr.Kerry to do something out of his morals. She has been trying to seduce him since the beginning of the novel and when Mr.Kerry finally made the move, she gets bitter and defensive. She looks for reasons to blame and trigger Mr.Kerry. It is surprising because her attitude towards him was very appreciative before. Also, it's very weird that she keeps mentioning that he knows her and that he was a psychiatrist. For a moment, I felt like it was Mrs. Gresham as psychiatrist because she is trying to get Mr.Kerry to open up to her.

I found these lines interesting because even though they aren't spoken by Margaret, they directly relate to her life. Growing up, she was alone and in the present, she's alone, shunned by the society. She never got the privilege of making friends, having fun, being treated equally, or experiencing love. After she identified herself as Masarwa, all eyes are on her, yet she is trying to accommodate to her new environment and try out new things, especially love. But the power struggle between Maru and Moleka, and the prejudiced system will always label her as a slave and give her no leeway to experience new things. Hence, curiosity will indeed get her killed.

As seen earlier in the text, Margaret strongly opposes the idea of racial discrimination. Being privileged herself, she uses that as a medium to fight against the system(when she gave the burial to the women). Adopting the child was uncommon for her, as clearly seen when it is mentioned, "She had a real, living object for her experiment." While the child grew up, Margaret showed semi-servant behavior towards her. It's not because she doesn't care about the child, it's more so because she doesn't know HOW to. In any case, she wants the child to grow up under her shadow and fight the system.

It goes on to show how unreasonable the idea of segregation and racism actually is. Just being a white man gave them the privilege to outcast ANY person that looked different from them.

This clearly shows a very common instance of segregation in the society. The sad part about this is that it is a vicious, continuous cycle. Children learn from their parents and they forward the same mentality to future generations, thus making the process of change very complicated.

From the previous statements, it can be clearly seen that the author is greatly influenced by his mother's stories of war. The brutal stories have had a psychological imprint on the writer and thus, in the opening statement he writes,"Then this is a spell to reverse the line, the hole, the night itself" to suggest a paradigm shift. The author is trying to avoid any kind of trauma. As he mentions later in the poem, his "spell" isn't limited to just himself, but any family that is in need of help from any kind of trauma. These lines here suggest an ideal world the author envisions; a world where one can carry out basic activities and enjoy the present, without having to live through the trauma of the past.

This is a strong phrase because it displays yet another horror of war. Children are faced with death and it leaves a deep psychological imprint on them forever. The sheer chaos, and add that to being severed from her parents, one can only imagine what Sakina is going through.

Civilian displacement is a common occurrence during war. This line shows how the family reacts to being separated from each other and the pain they go through.

This shows the atrocities of war. People die in unimaginable ways. Things are fine one second, but conflicts arise in just a matter of seconds. This definitely confuses and scares people.

The person committing the crime feels that he has made a mistake. I think the setting of this poem is during wartime. It's the bitter reality that anything is fair in a war, and it can be very brutal. A person has to kill another, not because s/he wants to, but so that they can survive themselves. That definitely explains the guilt the perpetrator is facing.