In this short story Pak uses a few metaphors that can be interpreted in various ways. One such metaphor occurs on page 38 of the reader: "But something bad was in the soil. When Tats and the other sweet potato farmers began harvesting their produce...they found abnormally small sweet potatoes, some having the peculiar shape of a penis." Professor Wilson touched on this briefly during lecture, stating something along the lines of the sweet potatoes' shape being a physical "manifestation" of old Jacob's "mana." While reading this story, I noticed a few details that led me to interpret the metaphor slightly differently. I noticed that the land that all of the townspeople farm used to belong to old Jacob's family, and that it was taken away from them unwillingly by rich foreigners. I then noticed that most of the names of the townspeople did not seem to be Hawaiin names (judging strictly by what I have read in relation to this course). Though Professor Wilson did not believe that the names were good indicators of ethnicity or race, I felt that they were too obvious to be discounted as racial/ethnic indicators. Otherwise, what purpose would the names be serving? These details led me to read the "penis potato" metaphor as such: The act of planting crops in land that was not given or sold to them by the previous rightful owner makes the townspeople rapists. They would not be rapists in the literal sense of course, but by forcing the land to submit to their needs without the consent of the previous rightful owner they have effectively "raped" the land. If we also acknowledge the names of the townspeople as true indications of foreign decent, then the "rape" motiff would be enacted by foreign "invaders" against native Hawaiian land.
Brandon Lovette
Brandon -
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed your original reading of this aspect of the story, nice work. Another important aspect to bear in mind, which is true whenever speaking about race, is that it never follows clean delineations - meaning that from the time of their arrival, Asian and haole immigrants were mixing with the natives - which really complicates genetic claims to place and the term 'native' itself. This is why Rob didn't put too much emphasis on the names, being that a character could be part Hawaiian (Hawaiian mother) and still carry a foreign last name - but that said, I feel you are completely justified in your reading.
- Trey
Trey