As the semester continued, I began drawing more connections between Jemisin’s work and real-world events. One hit home, pretty hard. Jemisin writes, on page 123, “You hate the way we live. The way the world makes us live… we have to hide and be hunted down like dogs if we’re ever discovered.” As I read this, I automatically thought of two things: my family and the families of those who immigrate here as well. My mother immigrated to the United States in 1986 in search of the “American Dream”. After sending more than 30 years in the states she realized that her American Dream would be me. My mom was able to earn the opportunity to apply for her residency and I received the privilege of being a United States citizen because of her. The life we live today wouldn’t have been possible if she did not take the decision to leave her hometown in Mexico all those years ago. A year ago, I was assigned to write a report on a recent event in my U.S. Government class. As I scrolled down the New York Times’ website, I came across a headline that caught my eye and not in a good way. It read “Trump Administration Considers Separating Families to Combat Illegal Immigration.” I was in disbelief.
Systematic Oppression At Its Finest
You would think that the end of the world would constitute a very well-needed social change in society. Well, think again! In N.K. Jemisin’s The Fifth Season, she introduces and explores the concept of systematic oppression through world-building. Jemisin does this best through the creation and development of the Orogene “race” (race is socially constructed). These individuals have the ability to sense and manipulate the energy of the Earth. In its official capacity, Orogeny is used to do things like suppress earthquakes and minor shakes (since the Stillness is experiencing its recent and more dangerous season) to keep the Stillness stable and so that seasons can be avoided for as long as possible. However, there is one concern that drives the people of the Stillness to treat and control Orogenes the way they do. Orogeny is also connected to an Orogene’s emotions so it can cause a disruption in the Earth’s movement activity as well as the destruction of Earth. As a result, Orogenes are viewed as extremely dangerous, undesirable, and in need of control which is why so many people look down on them. Because of this, Orogenes are not able to reveal their true powers in fear of being discovered, tracked down by Guardians and taken to The Fulcrum against their will. At the Fulcrum, the Guardians teach young Orogenes “discipline” and “control” so that they can use their Orogeny safely but more importantly so that the Stillness can use their abilities to their advantage. Essentially, everything in this society is aimed towards keeping Orogenes oppressed (“in control”). Sounds horrible, right? Well, it’s not at all different from the world we live in today. It’s the reality that those who have power are the ones who shaped history to fit whatever ideal society they envision. We have seen it all throughout history and even in very recent times. This blog will touch upon those instances.
Can Earth Really Heal Itself?
Wow. I’m finally here, it took long enough. During the first week of September, I was delighted to see that most of the content we were about to learn was mainly surrounding two areas of study: Literature and Geology. Conveniently, the hardest of my two courses this semester. As I began to read The Fifth Season and the other linked articles, my brain began to do this weird thing where it fills up with different thoughts, all leading me in different directions, but somehow leaving me at the same conclusion: not everything is written in stone. The first thing that went through my mind was, how could the eruption of the Kīlauea Volcano possibly connect to N.K. Jemisin’s book? So, there I was opening up about 6 tabs, one after the other. I viewed all of them at a time and then it hit me, my first connection between the book and the Kīlauea Volcano. It was as clear as daylight, I couldn’t believe I didn’t see it before. In @Buitengebieden’s “The Earth is Breathing…” Twitter post, I listened to and saw the Aa (coarse) lava flow which is most commonly found in Hawaiian-type Volcanoes. It made me think of all the benefits and hazards of a natural calamity such as this one.
Last Wishes
After ending her trilogy, Jemison tells the reader of her mother’s death, by explaining, “mom had a difficult last few years” (416). This revelation made me think of the distant but protective relationship between Nassun and Essun throughout the book.
The first thing that came to my mind was how, no matter how far away they are from each other, they can still identify one another’s orogeny. They spend the whole duration of The Stone Sky living separate lives. Shortly after Essun wakes from her coma, or what Hoa would call “periods of half waking and half sleeping” (11), she begins to remember locating Nassun while opening the gate. She confides in Tonkee, “‘Nassun. I know where she is” (22), and exclaims, “‘I have to go find her”‘ (23). Continue reading “Last Wishes”
Young orogenes as child soldiers
N. K. Jemisin first introduced us to the horror of the node-maintainers’ existence in The Fifth Season with their presence serving as a representation of institutional oppression and a public dependency on that oppression. Mistreatment of children is always an emotional subject but the rendering of the node-maintainers into coma states and selling their bodies is closer to a Dr. Mengele experiment than it is to being simply upsetting. As an educator, the welfare of children is my business and so I was deeply disturbed by the Fulcrum’s solution to quelling shakes. The existence and perpetuation of the node-maintainer network was something that we looked at in class as a reference to earthquake and tsunami monitoring stations that form nets over seismically active areas. This certainly captured the preventative aspect of the node-maintainers use but separated them from the obvious injustice of making the humanity of a person inert. I’d like to offer a different reading of the node maintainers in the Stillness as conscripts of the Fulcrum and something similar to modern day child soldiers. Continue reading “Young orogenes as child soldiers”
Hero or Villain
“Every villain is a hero of his or her own story” Christopher Vogler, The Writers Journey: Mythic Structure for Writers, 3rd Edition
Throughout Jemisin’s work readers are often left in the dark of the finer details of things. There is no clear good side or bad side. You don’t really know people’s intention. In the first novel, we assume that Essun is good and the Fulcrum/the guardians are bad. By the second novel the Fulcrum doesn’t exist anymore so who can you shift the role of the bad guy too, because we all instinctively label people as good or bad. By the third, I’m questioning who really is the “good” guy. It’s really hard to tell which side is which. Continue reading “Hero or Villain”
Starting Over After the End of the World
Authors: Sarah Bracy, Ashley Daddona, Steven Minurka, Lauren Ngo, Elena Ritz, & Jose Romero
“They came from diverse tribes and countries, and their traditions had no word for what had happened. But they were one in their shock and grief, huddled under the pall of hunger, the fear of disease, and the utter fatigue of starting over after the end of the world” (Babcock 1).
With pain there is beauty, which is surely demonstrated in the interactive piece by Lorena Babcock Moore, titled Tsunami Art. The Earth rests on the back of a turtle which is shook by an earthquake, causing a tsunami in the Indian Ocean. Each section of the shell has a different story to tell about the devastation that came with the tsunami, and the incredible artistry is a beautiful way to tell the story of the disaster, and those who fell victim to it, for years to come. This intent to tell the story of the disaster and its effects is an interesting parallel to the stonelore that we see throughout Jemisin’s trilogy, which serves the same function — keeping relevant information alive throughout time. Continue reading “Starting Over After the End of the World”
LIVE IN ART??????
A piece by Sabrina Bramwell, Delaney O’Shea, Joy Kim, Laura Montes, Brigid Goodman, and Molly Mattison.
What started off as a quiet and ordinary day turned into one of the most notorious natural disasters ever recorded in history. But, how exactly? Continue reading “LIVE IN ART??????”
The Deeper Inspiration of Catastrophe
By Denis Hartnett, Jonah Goldstein, Patrick Alexander, Michee Jacobs, Lizzie Gellman, Heather McFarlane, and AJ Jurado
The 2011 earthquake in Tohoku, Japan was a disaster on a scale to which the modern world is unaccustomed. The tsunami following the earthquake caused a number of nuclear power plants in to shut down and deplete. The earthquake rendered a great deal of land uninhabitable in an already limited living space. The after-effects of the tsunami and earthquake affected all aspects of environmental life and caused a tremendous upset of the ecosystem. The 9.1 magnitude earthquake originated a short distance from the coast of Japan, generating a gigantic tsunami wave that collectively caused 15,890 deaths and $235 billion in damages, making it the most costly natural disaster in history. The Earthquake’s preliminary quake went on for 6 minutes, followed by aftershocks that destroyed many buildings and a great deal of infrastructure. This earthquake gave way to a massive tsunami which caused the majority of the near 16,000 deaths. This was not the end of the event however, as the forced shutdown of nuclear reactors in the affected area which led to the meltdown of these reactors and the contamination of those areas by nuclear byproducts. Continue reading “The Deeper Inspiration of Catastrophe”
This Volcano Erupted in 1991: You Won’t Believe What Happened Next!
By: Kristopher Bangsil, Xavier Bodensieck, Sabrina Chan, Andrew Cook, Abigail Ritz, and Helen Warfle
The story of the Mt. Pinatubo eruption began several months before the actual explosion. On April 2, 1991, a series of small explosions caused a fissure to open up on the side of the mountain, alerting geologists to the volcano’s reawakening. Because of this, scientists from the USGS Volcano Hazards Program along with the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (PHIVOLCS) began a joint operation with the US military to create a seismic map and observatory to monitor the volcano. Using technology developed in 1981 to monitor the Mount St. Helens eruption, the scientists were able to predict that the volcano would erupt around June 15, and they were surprisingly accurate. On June 6, a series of volcano-tectonic earthquakes began to “puff up” the volcano – that is to say that the volcano was preparing itself for the eruption. Thus, on June 10, 15,000 people were evacuated from the area. On June 12, the first eruption occurred, spewing a twelve-mile high ash column and convincing the scientists the evacuation had been warranted. On June 15, exactly as the scientists predicted, the volcano exploded. The eruption was so large that a new, 1.6-mile wide caldera was formed at the top of the volcano. Valleys in the area were filled with volcanic flows of magma and rock, layered as thick as 660 feet and the ash column grew to reach as far as twenty-eight miles into the atmosphere.
Continue reading “This Volcano Erupted in 1991: You Won’t Believe What Happened Next!”