My Name is Nobody Postmodernism in Derek Walcotts The...

Tales of journeys appear repeatedly throughout the expanse of literature; these sagas include the stories of Gilgamesh, King Arthur, and, more recently, The Lord of the Rings. Derek Walcott’s poem â€Å"The Schooner Flight† initially seems out of place amongst these surging legends of heroics and danger, yet through closer examination the poem flourishes as a postmodern retelling then deconstruction of the age-old heroic journey. The poem is a celebration of Greek mythology, a disruptive force against established binaries, and a question of what constitutes identity. The construction of the poem represents a contradiction, as it is a Homeric pastiche yet it defies the very nature of the customary heroic journey. However, this contradiction is†¦show more content†¦Shabine’s attempt to escape without notice is similar to Odysseus’s attempts to avoid being entranced by the Sirens’ singing and meeting certain death. Shabine states that â€Å"M aria Concepcion was all my thought† (44), as she encompasses his mind like the Siren’s singing did to Odysseus (Homer 248-249). Walcott’s use of pastiche of the style and tropes of the Odyssey should presumably position Shabine as the hero in the poem, yet his heroic position is ultimately subverted through a postmodern upheaval of the grand heroic narrative. At the same time the poem establishes a pastiche of the Odyssey, â€Å"The Schooner Flight† actually disrupts the grand narrative to focus on a more fragmented view. A main theme in the Odyssey, a theme common to many tales of heroic journeys, is nostos, meaning homecoming (â€Å"nostos†). The grand narrative of the hero’s journey, or the monomyth, is defined through the linear rites of passage of separation, initiation, and return (Campbell 23). While the Odyssey perfectly follows this metanarrative, â€Å"The Schooner Flight† subverts it and forms a petit rà ©cit, meaning a sma ll or local narrative that individualizes discovery (Hannabuss 220). Instead of the journey home, the poem focuses on a journey away from home, allowing for focus on Shabine’s individual experience, as opposed to a grand, presupposed cycle. The heroic grand narrative is further

The Effects of Hiring a Foreign Maid free essay sample

Nowadays, the employment of foreign maid has increasing tremendously. They are hired to do the house chores as the women are mostly having a career or profession which keep them spending most of the time outside of the house. As a result, the house works are taken over by the foreign maid and it brings negative effects to the employer’s family and also to the country. Hence, the insecure home, problem with the family institution, high costs and increase in expenses for the local government are therefore, the effects of hiring a foreign maid.One of the effects of hiring the foreign maid is that the sponsor’s home might not be a safe place for a family to live. This is because the house is open to robberies. The house robberies are possible to happen as there is a foreigner who is hired to do the house chores at home. Some of them are not fully intended to work as a maid. Hence, the housemaids might want to earn extra money by complotting with the outsiders to rob the employer’s house.According to â€Å"Cops collar thieving† (2010), a foreign maid was arrested by the local police due to the loss of the employer’s cash and gold jewellery. The incident happened as the foreign maid knew that the employer kept the jewellery and cash in a cupboard and then she opened it and stole them. The worst of this case is that she changed the jewellery with the imitation one. The foreign maid admitted that she had compromised with the local woman to steal the employer’s belonging and sell it to the mortgage shop. Furthermore, child abuse might also occur.There are several cases where the maid acts violently towards the child. The child is abused physically and mentally. As the examples, the maid abuses the child physically by canning on the child’s leg and also the child is abuses mentally when the maid scolds them. According to â€Å"Maid gets jail† (2010), Assistant Superintendent Norazlin of the Bukit Aman Sexual and Child Abuse Investigation Department said that there are only reports on the employers abusing the maids but now the employers are at risk as the maids are also abusing their children.It is a response to the crime made by an Indonesian maid where she stole the employer’s money and left the employer’s baby alone at home for about five hours. Hence, it is clear that the house is insecure when hiring a foreign maid as the house is at high risk for robberies and the children can be abused. Another effect of hiring a foreign maid is it may affect the family institution. One of the reasons is that the foreign maid might have affair with the employer’s partner. There are few ases where women are complaining about the peculiar intimacy with the employer and the employee relationship (Barbara, E. , 2000). This is because the employer’s partner is being seduced by the foreign maid. The looks of foreign maid such as the Philippines or the Thais are differ and prettier than the local people, hence, make the man attracted to them easily. As a result, the marriage may ruin and lead to divorce as there are absent of understanding and trustworthy in the relationship when the maid become the third party.Other than that, the children will receive lack of attention from their parents as the responsibilities towards them have been taken over by the foreign maid. In â€Å"Maid Services Advantages† (n. d. ) states that most of the important things in the house rely on the maid to be done. As the examples, the chores like feeding the meal to the kids and even reading the night time story are all done by the maid. The children keen for attentions from parents but they never get it from them. It will make them feel like being abandoned because the parents especially mother depends on the maid for doing those jobs.Therefore, it is clear that one of the effects of hiring a foreign maid is that it might ruin the family institution as the maid might have affair with the employer’s partner and the children exhaust the love and care from their parents. Besides that, the employer has to bear the high costs for the salary of foreign maid and the language or adaptive problems as the consequences of hiring a foreign worker in the house. Firstly, the payment for hiring the maid is eventually high. There is a crisis recently regarding the payment for the Indonesian maids who work in Malaysia.The Indonesian government asks Malaysia to raise the salary for their citizens who work as the housemaids so that it will be equivalent to the works that they do. According to Heidi (2010), Malaysia’s government disagree with Indonesia that demands RM800 as the minimum monthly sala ries for its citizens which work as the housemaids. This is because Malaysia does not practice minimum wages to be given to the maids. However, the total of RM800 is possible to be paid if the foreign workers are equipped with complete skills.As the examples are the babysitting skill and also the ability of the foreign maid to increase working productivity. Secondly, the employer has to pay extra cost in order to overcome the language or adaptive problems. There are quite numbers of the foreign workers which come from the Southeast Asia such as Cambodia, Thailand, Vietnam and Burma are mostly lack in education and only able to speak the language of their mother tongue. Therefore, the employers have to send them to the language class so that it will be easier for the employers to communicate with the foreign employees.Hence, the high wages for the foreign workers and the communication or adaptability problems are therefore, the expenses to be liable by the employer as the consequence of hiring a foreign housemaid. The other effect of hiring a foreign maid is it will increase the money spends by the government. Firstly, the local government has to bear the expenses to send the illegal foreigner to go back to their home country. The report said that the number of immigrants who are legally entered Malaysia has reached up to 2. 4 million people (The Star, 2009 as cited in Pak, 2010).Pak (2010) found that the number of foreign workers in the country is keep growing which is one out of three of them is coming to this country illegally. As a result, it is costly in order to send back the illegal foreigners. The examples are the money spends on feeding them when they are under arrest, the shipping cost of sending the illegal foreigner from local custom depot to their country and many more. Secondly, the expenses for the government will increase because of the recruiting and placing the foreign workers before they are allowed to work as the housemaids in this country.Heidi (2010) states that the cabinet committee on foreign workers have agreed to sign a Memorandum of Understanding on the Recruitment and Placement of Maids from Indonesia at the nearest time. As an example of the expenses that the government has to spend is the salaries of the staff in handling the recruitment process for the foreigners before they are well prepared to be hired by local people. Hence, it is clear that one effect of hiring a foreign maid is the raise in expenses for Malaysia’s government.As a conclusion, the consequences of hiring a foreign maid are the house is not safe, conflicts of internal family affairs, expensive hiring costs and also increase in expenses of local government for the foreigners in the country. Therefore, the right steps have to be taken such as increase the co st of recruiting foreign housemaid and control the imports of foreign people into the country in order to overcome those negative effects. Moreover, if this problem is not handle efficiently, it might cause the unproductively of social and economy growth of the country. One has said that, a pint of sweat saves a gallon of blood.