#2 The Truth About Awiti (ym)

  “She was happy the little Montaudoins were gone forever. It was her revenge. For her people. For all the Africans Michael’s forefathers had packed into boats and sold into slavery.” (Patrick, 207)

The separation between Awiti from her family fills her with grief followed by anger, an anger which seethes into hatred and revenge when later betrayed in love, she is given the gift of immortality and her power over rain strengthens. Awiti becomes able to control violent storms and hurricanes.

  #1 Is peace the goal she ought to be pursuing, or is her campaign serving another purpose?

“And that is the difficulty. The peace is never long-standing. It is only enough to sustain me for a short time. And before I know it, the heartache returns. Although I tried many times, I have never found peace that eradicates suffering. The type of peace that brings stillness and calm. Does there even exist such eace to overpower the hate?” (Patrick, 292)

From her sentences above, I can understand that pursuing peace was actually her goal. However, the separation of Awiti from the family took everything from her, as it is clearly described how much she hopes for her reunification. Therefore, she ends up using her power of causing the storms and hurricanes to make people experience her pain. Awiti wanted people to experience and feel her pain. Especially in Chapter 20, it clearly shows how Awiti does not have the idea that she wanted other African-Americans to spend a better life than hers, not keeping her grief and pain by herself. 

However, in the same chapter, when Rose died, Awiti also tried to wipe out the sickness and memories, which creates a contradiction. If her real purpose was to make people experience her pain, she would not erase the memories of their lives, because memories is the factor Awiti cannot get rid of herself. Because of the memories from the past and her youth, she is developing her feeling of anger and struggling to create peace. Therefore, I felt that Awiti is not trying to achieve peace by herself, but letting the other African-Americans experience her life, and finally letting them decide how they are going to shape this world.

  #2 How should Awiti be handling her pain?

Throughout the book, I felt that Awiti is not fully applying her strength of immortality. If pursuing peace was part of her goal throughout her life, she could have come up with solutions that can best reach peace by using her ability of immortality. For an example, she could have gone through different perspectives during the 1800s to listen for different opinions among races, because it was definitely a chance for her to know the world. 

“I can say with certainty such reconciliation is not true for everyone, and most certainly not for me. I have never resolved what was taken from me.” (Patrick, 291)

The sentence above best describes how she could not stop her anger and the desire for vengeance. For Awiti, her youth was everything.

Also, maybe her immortality is one of the reasons why she could not get out from her campaign of vengeance. The extract above continues, “But I believe time has made matters worse. Time has afforded me more opportunity to ponder as anger and resentment hover over my memories like flies… …They say that when you are truly loved, even in death, you still exist. You live in the hearts of those you leave behind… …Some speak to me with happy memories, while others beckon for restitution, pleading with me to make things fair. To make the world pay for what was done to them.” (Patrick, 291-292)

If she did not have her ability of immortality, there was the possibility that she could have spent the left of her life within the hearts of her parents. However, because she could be immortal, she sacrificed herself and ran into revenge for all of the African-Americans will grief and anger.

  #3 Does that have implications for how we might or should act in a world structured by the experiences and transnational arrangements that provoke her wrath?

Personally, I think that the most closely related matter similar to the African-American slavery problem is war. Similarly to this problem, we cannot repeat the same tragedy, especially through violence. Repeating the greatest mistake on Earth, with violence, is never allowed to anyone. As I was reading this book, I think I was able to know about the soul of the people; how they have overcome (still overcoming) their grief, pain, and anger throughout their lives. 

  Awiti does not cause violent storms and hurricanes because she is sad and painful. She does not cause them just to pursue her campaign of vengeance. The truth is, she cause them to express her psychological conflict of not being able to overcome from her grief and loss although she is wanting peace.

  I am really excited to read other blog posts and know how my classmates felt about these blog topics! Please comment your thoughts freely ◡̈⃝