Author: mariagtorres

Maria G Torres

Professor Polish

Eng 102

Research Paper of Anonymous

The text ‘Anonymous’ revolves around the experiences after a tragedy. It also dwells on the challenges of refugees in a new land. The text raises significant questions that have been a focus to scholars. This paper dwells on the questions that I formed after going through the text such as why refugees are discriminated against by natives, the reason behind the existence of sexual harassment in the workplace and the relationship between tragedy and psychological disorders. Also, I am left asking myself about the mechanisms that disaster victims use to reunite with family members. Moreover, I am left wondering how the memory functions and the effect of supernatural powers on people daily life. Also, I have included findings from scholarly works in an attempt to answer the questions.

The text raises questions as to why immigrants face differential treatment from the natives. Despite many nations upholding the constitutional right for individuals to enjoy equality before the law, immigrants receive lesser treatment. In the text, Calista informs Naja that his father views refugees to be dangerous and he instructs his children to live within their gated community (Izuuka 68). Individuals are yet to uphold pluralism and just like in the novel differential treatment towards refugees arise from their unique language and culture. Researchers have made enquiries in the conduct of racism. Recent research affirms that racism in America arises from antagonism against individuals of other origins based on beliefs of white superiority (Matsuda 20). Policy makers find it important to understand the cause of racism to come up with successful strategies to counter the same.

The text raises a significant question about the origin of sexual harassment in the workplace. Also, whether both genders are affected by sexual harassment in equal measure and why the practice has been persistent. The author reveals how Mr. Yuri Marcus, an employer at a tailoring company admires Nemasani, one of her female employees (Izuuka 68). Nemasani is not interested in a love affair with her boss. The employer threatens her that she is going to lose her job if she fails to comply with his demands. The boss explains that he wants to marry Nemasani since she has gone through challenges in her life. Recent research reveals that sexual harassment occurs in the workplace due to misuse of power by senior management (Arief 136). The high prevalence of harassment in the workplace is associated with lack of reporting due to fear of retaliation and fear of stigmatization associated with instituting court proceedings.

The text leaves the readers asking themselves about the relationship between tragedy and psychological disorders. Anon at one time is suffering from mental lapse and he can hardly remember the events that occurred during the battle (Izuuka 65). The mental loss is serious to the extent that he cannot remember the physical appearance of his mother. Nemasani is disturbed psychologically after she could not find his son. It has been a long time since Nemasani parted with his son but she beliefs that she is going to find him either dead or alive. Anon’s mother experience delusions that lead her to make a shroud to bury his son. Individuals who see their friends die during disaster suffer post-traumatic stress disorder (Baldwin 403). Post traumatic disorder causes fear and anxiety through ought an individual life. Also, individuals suffer from depression. Depression is associated with failure in social networks and lack of social support.

The text poses questions on the accuracy of methods used by war victims to reunite with their family members. For instance, Nemasani talked about the blue butterflies in his original home to establish whether Anon came from the same place (Izuuka 77). The color of animals in different regions depends on the climatic conditions, and the existence of the blue butterflies was exceptional. A recent development to help in the identification of victim family members is the Facial Recognition software that is used to recognize individuals with facial injuries (Rautaray et al. 13). The technology is essential in large scale disasters where victims place a priority on reuniting and identification of dead persons.

The novel raises questions about the use of memory. In some instances, the characters remember occurrences through a conscious attempt, while in other times they remember events automatically. Ali affirms that he remembers some things unconsciously while in a dream. Also, individuals remember emotions that occurred in the past. For instance, Anon remembers how his mother used to hold him because of the emotional connection associated with a mothers love. Belen recalls past experiences consciously, and she urges her friends that they must try as much as possible to remember (Izuuka 74). Scholars understand the memory to be divided into two parts the explicit memory that is the conscious recollection of past events, information, and experiences (Trewartha et al. 1129). Also, the implicit memory that involves unconscious recollection of past experiences. Recently, there has been increased research in the emotional memory. Such arise from activated feelings from recalling a painful or an enjoyable moment.

The book raises doubt about the effect that supernatural powers have on daily lives of people. Nemasani argues that Mr. Yuri Mackus is going to incur the wrath of the gods if he tries to force her to marry him. The statement makes Mr. Yuri calm down in fear that he would not want to agitate the gods. Today, religious denomination associates themselves with belief in supernatural power. Religion provides consolation and answers to questions that are unanswered from scientific inventions. For instance, religions such as Islam and Christianity developed from individuals questioning about the creation of the universe.

To conclude the text ‘Anonymous leaves readers thinking and makes them have the desire to establish how the different concepts work. The text argues about common aspects such as racism, sexual harassment and use of memory. Importantly, most of the questions are not answered in the test and it necessitates looking at scholars’ findings on the same.

Works Cited

Arief, H. Hanafi. “Sexual Harassment: Legal Protection Against Workers in Malaysia” Al Adl: Jurnal Hukum 9.1, 2017, pp. 135-142.

Baldwin, David S., et al. “Evidence-based pharmacological treatment of anxiety disorders, post-traumatic stress disorder and obsessive-compulsive disorder: a revision of the 2005 guidelines from the British Association for Psychopharmacology.” Journal of Psychopharmacology 28.5, 2014, pp. 403-439.

Iizuka, Naomi. Anonymous. An Adaptation of the Odyssey. Abrams Artist Agency, 2006, pp. 65-77.

Lucas, Ernest C. “The Bible, Science & Creation.” Evangelical Quarterly 87.2, 2015, pp. 11-17.

Matsuda, Mari J. “Public response to racist speech: Considering the victim’s story.” Words that wound. Routledge, 2018, pp. 17-51.

Rautaray, Siddharth S., and Anupam Agrawal. “Vision based hand gesture recognition for human computer interaction: a survey.” Artificial Intelligence Review 43.1, 2015, 1-54.

Trewartha, Kevin M., and J. Randall Flanagan. “Distinct contributions of explicit and implicit memory processes to weight prediction when lifting objects and judging their weights: an aging study.” Journal of neurophysiology 116.3, 2016, pp. 1128-1136.

Maria G Torres

Professor Polish

Eng 102

Narrative Essay

Childhood protects us (or in my case, protected me) from the ugly sides of life that later in life reveal. I was lucky to grow up around people that resembled me complexion wise, but even still there was that pressure to be fairer than the rest. I did not realize the magnitude that this type of thinking could reach until I came to America. Like Kamala, I have experienced my share of being treated differently, being made a joke of, being judged wrongly, and people calling me names among many other things, including my own dose of self-demeanor.

In the same manner in which Kamala questions certain things about their family and mode of life, is the same manner in which I would question myself about my appearance. I too, at some point, felt like confronting my parents with that question, as Kamala did her dad (Abu) as to whether the reason she could not go to the party was because she was a girl. But I knew that there was no answer to that question. In fact, I could have ended up being given a good whopping.

I would admire the white people because they seem to have their lives figured out. Everything favored them due to the nature of their skin color. They work in best paying jobs, attend the best schools, have higher living standards, they make up the most of our TV stars, they are the inventors of most things we see today, produce the best movies, are generally the wealthiest, they live in the wealthiest nations; and the list goes on and on. I on the other hand, nothing good associated with my skin color.

I started reading comic books when I was young. My parents would always buy them for me, first to learn how to read and then later to make me happy as I had come to love them. One thing that I noticed about these comic books, the super heroes, who I loved so much and even wished to be them were always white. And for some reason, the bad people, who we all hated, were color people. This amplified my desire to be white and even considered them superior. This also had an equal negative effect on my perspective about people like me (dark skinned people).

I relate so much to Kamala’s situation when she thinks how stupid it was for her to try and fit in and even become one of them. In my efforts to fit in, I would try to emulate white people way of living and how they carried themselves around. I would try to speak like them, enjoy the kind of music and sports that they do, adopted a white name, and associate more with them. However, that still did not turn me into them, or make me one of them. I still felt insecure about my skin color and inferior to them. But later on, as with Kamala, I realized that there was no need in trying to be something that you are not. All we need is to love ourselves the way we are and appreciate our races and everything that make us unique.

This comic book has been able to capture and bring out the challenges that most children face on a day-to-day basis because of their skin color, religion, nationality, and race among other things. It brings out the insecurity that these children live with. Through using Kamala, who based on her religion, nationality, race, gender, and way of life is considered inferior, backward, and weak as the superhero this comic book gives kids a new perspective in life. Young girls from Arab nations can find someone that they can relate to and look up to for inspiration. Imagine the kind of message this sends out to kids in school.

I am advocating for the production of additional comic books with superheroes from different races. Individuals’ perspective regarding themselves and life in general are natured from a young age. That means that if you feed them negative information about themselves, they will grow up hating who or what they are and the reverse is true. This comic book is trying to change all that by creating a female, Arab superhero.

Personal Reflection

I have learned throughout this project that we need to appreciate ourselves and what makes us unique, as well as respect other people for who they are. What we think about ourselves play a huge part in our development, especially mentally and emotionally. I can implement the lessons I have learned in this class in real life, by treating other people nicely and learning to fall in love with myself. Also, I can use this information to reach kids who go through the same or more things, as I and Kamala did, and rebuild their love and respect of self.

This comic has different angles with which one can analyze it. It is educational, entertaining, based on real life situations, while at the same time fictional. I opted to give more life to my analysis by making it partly about my life experiences. This helped me to bring out the themes in the comic and express them in a way that is easy to understand. The process of peer review helped me to obtain deeper insight of the story making my analysis easy.

1. Do you feel like you are on the process of finding your own identity and acceptance?
2. On the poem she tried to prove that she overcame the abandonment of her biological mother but then, why she tries to have some kind of communication with her?
3. Do you feel the struggle on being split between two different cultures?

When I was reading the last part of the poem my eyes started to open more and, like I’m really feeling every word that she said, and at the end of the poem I was stunned and took a deep breath.