Do we have a canon for Malaysian literary works? Let's say we do, who do you think are in it? Consider the fact that their works are well-known and most importantly included as part of the school syllabus- (both in BM and English)
Kamaluddin Muhamad (Keris Mas)
Dato' Shahnon Ahmad
Datuk Dr. Usman Awang
Datuk A. Samad Said
Muhammad Dahlan bin Abdul Biang (Arena Wati)
Prof. Dr. Muhammad Haji Salleh
Datuk Noordin Hasan
Datuk Abdullah Hussain
S. Othman Kelantan
Dr. Anwar Ridhwan
Malay literature
Dato' Shahnon Ahmad - Gelungnya Terpokah (short story) for SPM level
Prof. Dr. Muhammad Haji Salleh - Anak Global (poem) for SPM level
English literature
Kamaluddin Muhamad (Keris Mas) - Jungle of Hope (novel) for SPM level (Form 5)
Datuk A. Samad Said - The Dead Crow (poem) for PMR level (Form 1)
The poems by Erica Jong raises some feminist issues. What are they?
Some feminist issues that were raised by Erica Jong in her poems are sex-positive issues, gender bias, gender difference, gender equality for women and women's rights and interests.
Do you think they are suitable to teach at the secondary school level? Explain.
No. The poems are not suitable to be taught at the secondary school level because most of her works are sexually explicit and it might have a negative effects in the young minds.
Is Hillary Tham's poem more suitable?
Yes. This is because Hilary Tham is a local Malaysian writer and most of her poems are based on our eastern culture and they can be taught at the secondary school level. The language use in her poems is simple and can be easily understood.
It is normally said that no matter how much people get of something, they want more and more. Therefore it is a universal experience across all country, society, race and religion. We can use this story to teach our students to be grateful and be satisfied with the simple things they have.
From internet sources find out more about Langston Hughes.
Langston Hughes was an American author of the Harlem Renaissance, a flowering of African American culture in the Harlem community in New York City during the 1920s. Langston Hughes is best known for his poetry today, but he also wrote novels, short stories, plays, operas, two autobiographies, newspaper articles, and translations of literature into English. His poetry is often characterized as jazz poetry, as it mirrors the rhythms and quality of jazz music, another artistic form that flourished during the Harlem Renaissance. Langston Hughes was born in Joplin, Missouri on 1 February 1902. His parents, Carrie Langston Hughes and James Nathaniel Hughes, divorced when Langston was very young, and he spent the majority of his childhood at his grandmother's home in Lawrence, Kansas. When Langston Hughes was 13 years old, his grandmother died, and he moved in with family friends and later with his mother and stepfather in Lincoln, Illinois. Langston Hughes' family moved a lot in search of work, and he ended up attending high school in Cleveland, Ohio.
From your findings about his background, tell me about the dilemma he conveys through the poem CROSS.
This poem explores the deepest emotions and troubles of a young man born into a world of confusion. He is confused by his heritage but arrogant in his pride. He is growing up in the whirl of a white society, and cannot decide whether he is white or black. Hughes, using a black mother and white father, completely makes it easy for the reader to understand and almost foreshadow where this poem is going. It is evident that there is an inner sense of not belonging in this child. In line three through eight, it is clear that the child is sorry for all the pain he has brought on to his parents, unknowingly. He shows remorse for all the curses and bad wishes he said to his parents, now that they are dead. But this is all because of a bigger problem. Now that his parents are both dead, he has no one to turn to, to help him figure out what his is. He can’t seem to figure out whether he is going to die in riches or rags. This is the great dilemma Hughes presents to the reader and leaving the audience in query to this unanswerable question. He cannot seem to find any truth in himself whatsoever, this child is and forever will be lost in his own identity. Hughes uses this boy’s struggles symbolically, not to show the pressures of a “crossed” child but rather to show how we as a society stereotype the races. The white father dying in a fine house whereas the mother dies in a shack, depicts the common view of the white race as being a more upscale and richer society and the black culture oppressed in poverty and forever bound to the slums of the world.
Yes. This poem is full of irony and sarcasm. Some of the irony and sarcasm are as follow:
Stanza 1, Line 1 & 2
I know I am
The Negro Problem
Stanza 1, Line 9, 10 & 11
Of darkness U.S.A.--
Wondering how things got this way
In current democratic night,
Stanza 1, Line 14
"I'm so ashamed of being white."
The experience in the poem Harlem is one that is true for many people. Do you agree?
Yes, I agreed. Langston Hughes was a Harlem renaissance poet. During the time he wrote the poem “Harlem (A dream deferred)” blacks faced prejudice and segregation. Their dream was to acquire equal rights in their constitutional right to peruse happiness. Langston Hughes asks if the dreams of the black community are ignored and suppressed, do they dry up like a raisin left in the sun? If you leave a sore untreated it will fester. Their dream was untreated and was simply abandoned and neglected. The blacks dreams of equality were seen as a nuisance like the smell and odor or rotting meat. They were a heavy load and burden to society and sagged like a heavy load. When finally all the emotions and optimistic dreams were waiting and waiting for the one spark to explode.
