Author: miles.294

Text Review – Dune

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I decided to do my text review assignment on a famous sci-fi novel called Dune by Frank Herbert. As some of you may know, this book has recently become a blockbuster movie released in the last month starring a loaded cast with Timothy Chalamet, Zendaya, and several others. After watching the movie, I decided I wanted to read the book to find out the rest of the story as the movie ends just after the first portion of the novel. Throughout the story, Paul Atreides is the heir to his family’s throne and is an intelligent and gifted teenager born into a destiny that he does not yet understand. Paul’s father, Leto, is given the most dangerous yet profitable planet in the universe in order to “mine spice,” which is needed for intergalactic space travel and is the most expensive resource in the universe. The planet is called Arrakis, home to the Fremen who are known to be incredibly dangerous and are the only inhabitants that can navigate the vast dunes of the planet. House Atreides is taking over the planet from their arch nemesis, the Harkonnens who leave the planet sabotaged with bad equipment and end up re-invading the planet and slaughtering about all of House Atreides except for Paul and his mother who are forced to flee to cross the Dune and work with the Fremen. I found that this book ties into our course because it deals with different races, cultures, and clans clashing in a power struggle. Relating to a beginning concept from our course known as “othering,” all of these different races and clans view each other as practically scum. All they each want to do is dominate the other and act in their own interest. This is where Paul comes in as acting as the heir of House Atreides, but has another roll as the profit for The Fremen. Paul is able to cross the “othering” barrier between the two different societies and helps fight against the Harkonenns.

Context Presentation: Interpreter of Maladies and Indian Partition

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The novel Interpreter of Maladies is a collection of short stories by Jhumpa Lahiri published in 1999. The title Interpreter of Maladies is an expression suggesting clarifying or explaining ailments of the body, mind or moral. The story follows a visit of a Bengali American family, consisting of Mr. and Mrs. Das and their three children Tina, Robby, and Bobby as they take a vacation in India visiting tourist site with their Indian guide. The purpose of the story is meant to reflect the trauma and self-transformation through immigration, resulting in a series of broken identities. Lahiri’s stories show a struggle to keep hold of culture as characters create new lives in foreign cultures. In real world context, Interpreter of Maladies is meant to reflect the violent legacy of the Indian Partition.

The Indian Partition occurred in 1947 when fifteen million people were displaced and more than a million killed after the British finally left India after 300 years. As the British left due to not having the resources to control its greatest imperial asset after world war II, the subcontinent was partitioned into two independent nation states, Hindu majority India and Muslim majority Pakistan. As soon as India was partitioned, one of the greatest migrations in human history took place as millions of Muslims trekked to the West and East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) while millions of Hindus and Sikhs headed in the opposite direction, with hundreds of thousands not surviving the journey. While these cultures coexisted for almost a millennium, they instantly began attacking each other causing an unprecedented mutual genocide. A few descriptions of the events that took place were gangs of killers setting whole villages aflame, hacking to death men and children while carrying off young women to be raped.

By 1948, the great migration drew to a close and more than 15 million people had been displaced from their homes, with between one and two million deaths. In relation to India’s modern identity, the Partition is central, similar to how the holocaust is to identity among Jews, representing painfully onto the religious consciousness by memories of unimaginable violence.

Dalrymple, W., Mishra, P., & Coll, S. (2015, June 22). The mutual genocide of Indian partition. The New Yorker. Retrieved November 5, 2021, from https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/06/29/the-great-divide-books-dalrymple.

Lahiri, J. (1999). Interpreter of maladies: Stories.

Diary of Systemic Injustices Showcase: Autism and Bullying

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For my systemic injustice showcase, I chose to focus on an experience that I witnessed firsthand while working a clinical rotation for my major. This specific clinical rotation involves working at a high school in the Columbus area, advocating for the student’s health and well-being. While I have come to know several of these high schoolers and hear all about their overly dramatic lives, one student in particular stood out whose name is Adam. Adam is a cross country runner with shin splints who is absolutely an outstanding and kind young man, who also happens to be on the spectrum for Autism but is a highly functioning, smart, and a social individual. One day, Adam came into our office in tears after being exposed to bullying. According to his story, while he was in the bathroom stall, other classmates (who are typically in trouble) began pounding on the stall door, pouring water on his head, and filming Adam while on the toilet. After the entire event, Adam chose myself and my coworkers to share this story with and seek help and guidance.

Personally, I was extremely troubled by this story for Adam because I know that he did nothing to deserve this type of treatment, and nobody should experience that type of bullying. Systemically, bullying occurs throughout every school and social setting across the globe, it is just that plain and simple. While I do not know if the individuals who chose to commit this act to Adam were aware that Adam is on the spectrum for autism, there is no excuse for that kind of behavior. While I never really thought much about bullying as a teenager, something suddenly switched in my mind once that event occurred. Going forward, I think that it is obviously important to advocate for autism and special needs awareness and advocation to reduce events of bullying large or small. I will never really know how this event will carry on with Adam or the bullies in the future and that is the difficult aspect of observing abusive situations in the short term.

When relating this story to our class, I often think about De Beauvoir’s theory of “othering.” De Beauvoir describes her theory as a fundamental theory of mankind to think of yourself or others like yourselves as “the one,” while people who contrast as “the other.” There are several forms of othering that occur throughout the world such as racism, sexism, ageism, and social behaviors. I think this theory accurately represents the ways the bullies acted towards Adam, viewing him as an “other” and enhancing this viewpoint by making him feel even lower.

https://www.autismspeaks.org/

https://www.stopbullying.gov/