Quiet American, Station 8, 10, 11, 12 and 13

Station 8

Fowler and His Women

Work on your own.

Answer the following questions regarding Fowler’s attitude towards women as shown in Part II, Chapter 3/1 (pp. 125–133). Include quotations to support your interpretation.

Take notes.

1. Describe Fowler’s behaviour towards Phuong.

2. Why does Fowler’s wife refuse to divorce him?

3. Do you think Fowler’s wife is right in refusing the divorce? Discuss.

Be prepared to present your findings to the rest of the class.

Station 10

An Unpatriotic Film?

Work with two to four partners.

1. Read the article “The Quiet American: An Unpatriotic Film?” by James Borton and summarize it briefly.

2. Discuss the following questions in your group. Take notes.

a. Why was the release of the movie The Quiet American postponed?

b. According to the novel, what role did the US play in Vietnam? Think of Fowler’s comment about Pyle: “I never knew a man who had better motives for all the trouble he caused.”

c. What is your opinion on the USA as “the world’s superpower” (ll. 37–38) today? In what ways are the topics of the novel, “terrorism, conflict, and the abuses and the use of US power” (l. 2), still valid for the USA today?

Be prepared to present your results in a short talk.

Station 11

Nations and Characters

Answer the following questions individually or with a partner. 

1. Analyse the relationship of the three main characters in the novel.

a. What do the characters think about each other (Fowler about Phuong and Pyle, Pyle about Fowler and Phuong, Phuong about Fowler and Pyle)?

b. Describe the relationship between Fowler and Pyle, Fowler and Phuong, Pyle and Phuong.

2. How accurate is it to say that Fowler represents Europe, Pyle the USA and Phuong Vietnam?

3. “Democracy was another subject of his – he had pronounced and aggravating views on what the United States was doing for the world,” Fowler says of Pyle. Fowler thinks Pyle – and the United States – is wrong to believe that all nations would benefit from the introduction of democracy through the USA. Who is right, Fowler or Pyle, or both?

4. How much does a nation have to understand another nation in order to be able to help it (for instance, in its struggle for independence or in a civil war)? What does Fowler think understanding requires? What about Pyle? 

Take notes.

Station 12

Tension Between the Protagonists

With a partner, work on the following task.

Analyse the development of tension between the three main characters. 

In the diagram on the worksheet, indicate the development of tension by drawing a graph: enter points for all important events of the plot and label them. 

Mark the climax.

Be prepared to compare your diagram with that of your fellow students and to explain the differences.

Station 13

Going to the Movies

Watch the movie The Quiet American and read pp. 178–181 of the novel again. Then compare this scene with the corresponding scene in the movie. Work on the following tasks in groups of three.

1. Compare the differences between Pyle’s behaviour in the novel and in the movie. What do we learn about him? Support your argument with quotes from the text and detailed references to the movie respectively.

2. Why do you think the director of the movie changed this scene?

Take notes.

The Quiet American - Station 2, 3 and 4

Station 2

Looking Behind the Names

You can work on your own or with a partner.

Greene probably chose the names Pyle and Fowler for his protagonists quite deliberately. 

1. Think of English words that sound like or are written like these names. Which of them fit the characters of the novel? 

If you need some inspiration, look up the words pile(s), foul and fowl in a dictionary. Think of different kinds of fowl and consider which connotations they have. 

2. Have a look at p. 78 and pp. 125–133 and comment on your findings regarding the meaning of Pyle and Fowler.

Be prepared to present your findings to the other students.

Station 3

What a Country!

Work together in groups of three to five students.

Imagine you are a tourist guide in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. Before showing your group of tourists the sights of the city, you give them some background information on Vietnam. Record a tape on which you talk to them about the following aspects:

1. Country and people

2. Religion and culture

3. Politics and economy.

Use the Internet to find information on these aspects. The following websites may be helpful:

www.vietnamembassy-usa.org 

www.vietnamembassy-usa.org/learn_about_vietnam/

www.un.int/vietnam/

www.vietnamtourism.com/

Prepare a text (5–8 minutes) and record it. 

Later, you will be asked to present the tape to “tourists” (i.e. the rest of the class), who might ask additional questions. So be prepared! 

Station 4

The Vietnam War – A Historical Overview

Work together with two other students. 

1. Each student in your group reads one text and answers the corresponding question
(cf. tasks a, b, or c below). Take notes. Your teacher will provide you with a map.

2. Now tell each other what you have learned about the war in Vietnam. Listen carefully to the information given by the others and take notes. 

Be prepared to present the information of all three texts to the rest of the class.

a. John F. Kennedy, “America’s Stake in Vietnam”

On 1 June 1956, John F. Kennedy, then a young senator, gave a speech on America’s political interests in Vietnam. The following excerpt demonstrates the political principles which later, as a president, led him to increase US economic and military support for the Republic of South Vietnam.

Let us briefly consider exactly what is “America’s Stake in Vietnam”:

(1) First, Vietnam represents the cornerstone of the Free World in Southeast Asia, the keystone to the arch, the finger in the dike. Burma, Thailand, Japan, the Philippines and obviously Laos and Cambodia are among those whose security would be threatened if the Red Tide of Communism overflowed into Vietnam. In the past, our policy-makers have sometimes issued contradictory statements on this point – but the long history of Southeast Asia being stopped by Vietnamese warriors should have removed all doubt on this subject.

Moreover, the independence of Free Vietnam is crucial to the free world in fields other than the military. Her economy is essential to the economy of all of Southeast Asia; and her political liberty in all parts of Asia – and indeed the world. The fundamental tenets of this nation’s foreign policy, in short, depend in considerable measure upon a strong and free Vietnamese nation.

(2) Secondly, Vietnam represents a proving ground of democracy in Asia. However we may choose to ignore it or deprecate it, the rising prestige and influence of Communist China in Asia are unchallengeable facts. Vietnam represents the alternative to Communist dictatorship. If this democratic experiment fails, if some one million refugees have fled the totalitarianism of the North only to find neither freedom nor security in the South, then weakness, not strength, will characterize the meaning of democracy in the minds of still more Asians. The United States is directly responsible for this experiment – it is playing an important role in the laboratory where it is being conducted. We cannot afford to permit that experiment to fail.

(3) Third and in somewhat similar fashion, Vietnam represents a test of American responsiblity and determination in Asia. If we are not the parents of little Vietnam, then surely we are the godparents. We presided the birth, we gave assistance to its life, we have helped to shape its future. As French influence in the political, economic and military spheres has declined in Vietnam, American influence has steadily grown. This is our offspring – we cannot abandon it, we cannot ignore its needs. And if it falls victims to any of the perils that threaten its existence – Communism, political anarchy, poverty and the rest – then the United States, with some justification, will be held responsible; and our prestige in Asia will sink to a new low.

(4) Fourth and finally, America’s stake in Vietnam, in her strength and in her security, is a very selfish one – for it can be measured, in the last analysis, in terms of American lives and American dollars. […] Military weakness, political instability or economic failure in the new state of Vietnam could change al-most overnight the apparent security which has increasingly characterized that area under the leadership of Premier Diem. And the key position of Vietnam in Southeast Asia, as already discussed, makes inevitable the involvement of this nation’s security in any new outbreak of trouble.

It is these four points, in my opinion, that represent America’s stake in Vietnamese security.

Annotations: 

1 stake: (here) interest  3 arch: curved structure supporting the weight of what is above it, as in a bridge or gate • dike: long wall of earth, etc. (to keep back water and prevent flooding)   4 tide: Flut  5 issue sth. ['9Su.:], BE also ['9sju.:]: (here) send sth. out, publish sth.  8 crucial ['1kru.:Sl]: decisive, critical  10 tenet ['tenII9t]: principle, belief  12 proving ground: testing field  13 deprecate sb./sth. ['depr4keit] (fml): feel and express disapproval of sb./sth.  14 unchallengeable: undoubtable  21 determination: firmness of purpose • godparent: Pate; Patin 22 preside sth.: control or be responsible for sth.  24 offspring (sing and pl) (fml): child, children • abandon sb./sth.: give up, leave sb./sth.  25 peril: serious danger  32 Premier Diem = Ngo Dinh Diem (1901–1963): president and head of the government of South Vietnam until his violent overthrow and assassination in 1963

from: Gerhard Kirchner, Dieter Sang (Hrsg.). America’s Vietnam Experience. 

Textsammlung für den Englischunterricht. Berlin: Cornelsen, 1999, S. 23–24

Task:

Briefly describe America’s interests in the Vietnam War. What image of America does Kennedy’s speech create?

b. Richard Butwell, “Democracy and Communist Aggression” 

The following excerpt from an American encyclopedia deals with the causes of the Indochina conflict and the development of the war.

The Vietnam War – also called the Indochina War or Second Indochina War – may be said to have started in 1957 when Communist-led rebels began mounting terrorist attacks against the government of the Republic of Vietnam (South Vietnam). The rebel forces, commonly called the Vietcong, were later aided by troops of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North Vietnam). American combat personnel were formally committed to the defense of the South in 1965.

An agreement calling for a ceasefire was signed in January 1973, and by March the few remaining U.S. military personnel in Vietnam were withdrawn. However, the war between the two Vietnamese sides persisted inconclusively for two additional years before South Vietnamese resistance suddenly and unexpectedly collapsed. Saigon, the capital of South Vietnam, fell to the Communists on April 30, 1975.

The causes of the conflict can be traced back to the Indochina War of 1946–1954. After Japan’s defeat in World War II, the French had returned to Indochina as colonial administrators but were challenged by the Vietminh, Communist-led Vietnamese nationalists who had proclaimed an independent government in 1945. France, in an attempt to seem to give Indochina independence while retaining control there, granted nominal sovereignty to Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos as “associated states” of the French Union in 1949. The following year the United States recognized the three “associated states” and began supplying them with economic and military aid, although it was channeled through France. By 1954, the United States was furnishing 78% of the cost of the French war effort. In the spring of 1954, when the French were besieged at Dien Bien Phu, the administration of President Dwight D. Eisenhower gave serious consideration to providing them with air and even ground support.

Washington expected little of Ngo Dinh Diem, who assumed leadership in French-controlled Vietnam during the 1954 armistice negotiations that ended the war. After the Geneva Agreement of that year had temporarily divided Vietnam into northern and southern parts, Diem headed the government of South Vietnam in Saigon, while Ho Chi Minh presided over the Communist-dominated government of the North at Hanoi. The Geneva Agreement had provided for elections to be held in 1956 to reunify Vietnam, and the Communists had anticipated that they would win because of their elaborate political organization. For this reason Diem, a determined anti-Communist, blocked the elections – with the backing of the U.S. government. The Communists, unable to unify and dominate Vietnam through elections, then returned to military means of doing so.

First Years of the War. The terrorist incidents that began in 1957 intensified over the next two years. Initially the rebels were Communists left behind in the South after 1954, but they were soon reinforced by others who had moved to the North in accord with the Geneva Agreement. By 1964 the Vietcong rebels had been joined by regular North Vietnamese army units.

The objective of the Vietnamese Communists remained constant throughout the war: the overthrow of the non-Communist Saigon government and its replacement with a regime that would agree to ultimate unification with the Hanoi government. [...]

President Eisenhower had pledged in 1954 to assist the Diem government in “developing and maintaining a strong, viable state capable of resisting attempted subversion or aggression through military means.” He sent several hundred military advisers to South Vietnam. The mounting Communist assault against the Diem government and Saigon’s inability to deal satisfactorily with this threat prompted President John F. Kennedy to increase U.S. military advisory personnel to 16,000 by the time of his assassination in November 1963. Some of these men saw limited combat service.

Earlier in November 1963, Diem was overthrown and killed. The U.S. government had clearly despaired of him, and was aware of the plot to remove him. His overthrow increased the likelihood of direct U.S. intervention in the war, however, for a series of incompetent administrations rapidly followed one another in Saigon, and the military effort against the Communists suffered from the political preoccupation of South Vietnam’s leaders.

The Tonkin Gulf Resolution, passed by the U.S. Congress in August 1964 after two naval incidents involving U.S. and North Vietnamese craft, authorized President Lyndon B. Johnson to “repel any armed attack against the forces of the United States and to prevent further aggression.” The question was later raised in Congress and elsewhere as to whether the administration had misrepresented aspects of the Tonkin Gulf incidents, and subsequently it was established that the resolution had been drafted in advance of the crisis. After serving as the main legal basis for major U.S. escalation of the undeclared war, the Tonkin Gulf Resolution was repealed in 1970.

Failure of Escalation. Even as late as 1965, when the United States began to step up its participation in the war, Vietnam itself was not the primary consideration in Washington’s Southeast Asian policy. What moved the Johnson administration to act was its desire to reinforce the credibility of the United States as an ally.

During the Johnson years the number of U.S. forces in Vietnam increased from 16,000 to more than half a million, although at the end of 1964 there were still only 23,000. The war was also escalated in other ways: sustained U.S. bombing of North Vietnam began in early 1965; the annual cost of the war increased from $5.8 billion to $28.8 billion between 1966 and 1969; and adjacent Laos, through which ran the system of Communist supply routes known as the Ho Chi Minh Trail, was drawn into the Viet-nam War as an increasingly important theater of conflict.

From the Encyclopedia Americana, 1991 Edition. Copyright 1991 by Grolier Incorporate.
Reprinted by permission of Grolier an imprint of Scholastic Library Publishing Inc.

Annotations: 

1 Indochina: the southeastern peninsula of Asia  2 mount sth.: set sth. up; organize sth.  5 be committed to sth.: take on the responsibility for sth.  6 ceasefire ['sI:i.sfa94r; BE -fai4]: stop to all fighting 
15 grant sth.: give or allow sth.  18 furnish sth.: supply sth.  19 besiege sb./sth. [b91si.d7Z]: surround and attack sb./sth.  22 assume sth.: begin to act in or exercise sth.  23 armistice ['2A:rm9st9s, BE 2.-]: agreement during a war to stop fighting for a certain time • negotiation [n9!'g48USIi1e9S4n]: discussion aimed at reaching an agreement  26 provide for sth.: establish the legal basis for sth. to happen later • anticipate sth. [– '– – –]: foresee sth.  27 elaborate [91'läb4r4t] (adj): worked out with much care and in great detail  32 reinforce sb./sth.: make sb./sth. stronger  33 in accord with sb./sth.: in agreement with sb./sth.  38 pledge to do sth. (fml): solemnly promise to do sth.  39 viable ['va94bl]: able to exist without outside help  45 despair of sb.: give up hope in sb. • plot (n): secret plan, conspiracy 
48 preoccupation: state of constantly thinking about sb./sth.  49 naval (adj): of or belonging to a navy or to warships 50 craft (n): boat, ship  • repel sb./sth.: drive sb./sth. back or away  54 draft sth.: make a first, rough version of sth. (e.g. a document)  55 repeal sth.: withdraw sth. officially  56 failure ['fe9lj4r; BE -j4]: lack of success • step sth. up: increase sth.  59 ally ['äla9]: person or state giving help or support 62 sustain sth.: keep sth. going  63 adjacent [4'1dZ7e9snt] (adj): close; neighboring  65 theater (fml): scene of important events

Task:

Outline the development of the Indochina conflict and the Vietnam War following it. c. Military Strategies in the Vietnam War

In order to make up for US material superiority the Vietcong guerrillas resorted to hit-and-run tactics, surprise attacks and booby traps ranging from such simple devices as sharpened bamboo stakes in covered holes to grenades, mines and bombs which exploded when a hidden contact was stepped on. They found protection and hiding places among the population and in the vast Vietnamese jungles and were often indistinguishable from the civilian population.

Battles in a traditional sense were very rare. Only in the period from 1965 to 1968 did North Vietnamese strategy allow for occasional head-on confrontations. This phase of the war was terminated with the Tet Offensive (named after the Vietnamese New Year) of February 1968, which, although a military debacle for the North Vietnamese and the Vietcong, proved successful politically in turning the American public, shocked by the numbers of American casualties, against the US war effort.

Initially, US ground combat forces were only protecting air bases and supply facilities, but when this did not prove sufficient, the American forces were committed to direct combat. Missions ranged in intensity from “security operations”, designed to help maintain control over roads and waterways as well as political control over villages and hamlets, to “clearing operations”, meant to drive large enemy forces out of populated areas, to “search-and-destroy operations”, designed to find, fight and defeat enemy forces.

Another objective of US military strategy was to eliminate enemy places of refuge or logistic bases. Bunkers and tunnel systems were destroyed with explosives and forest cover was eliminated either by chemical defoliation with Agent Orange or similar herbicides or by razing areas with heavy bulldozers. Civilians sometimes were evacuated to separate them from the Vietcong, and cleared areas would then be declared “free-fire zones”.

Without the usual standards for measuring progress, the US military turned to imprecise statistics: number of villages “pacified”, i.e. brought under US or South Vietnamese control, numbers of miles of highway opened and of enemy soldiers killed. The latter, the notorious “body count”, further eroded American public support for the war in the second half of the 1960s.

A major development in American tactics was the use of helicopters to move troops into battle positions without the risk of being ambushed on the ground by the enemy. In typical airmobile operations, artillery, jet fighters and helicopter gunships raked an area with gunfire while infantry units were flown into the battle area by transport helicopters. Moments before they landed, the supporting fire was lifted and the soldiers embarked from their helicopters with guns blazing. This tactic allowed US combat forces to avoid the ambushing of road-bound reinforcements and supply convoys.

From March 1965 to November 1968, the US conducted bombing operations over North Vietnam. At first the bombing was designed to cut transportation routes in the southern part of North Vietnam and thereby slow infiltration of personnel and supplies into South Vietnam. In 1966, this operation with the code name “Rolling Thunder” was expanded to include North Vietnamese ammunition dumps and oil storage facilities, and in the spring of 1967 it was further expanded to include powerplants, factories and airfields in the Hanoi-Haiphong area. In 1969, American planes bombed North Vietnamese and Vietcong base areas in Cambodia. The operation was kept secret, but reports in American newspapers further fuelled anti-war protests. In 1972, further bombing operations were flown against targets in North Vietnam, mainly to force the North Vietnamese to negotiate and sign a ceasefire agreement.

from: Gerhard Kirchner, Dieter Sang (Hrsg.). America’s Vietnam Experience. 

Textsammlung für den Englischunterricht. Berlin: Cornelsen, 1999, S. 47–48

Annotations: 

1 resort to sth.: use/do sth. bad in order to succeed or deal with a problem  2 booby trap: (here) hidden bomb that explodes when you touch sth. that is connected to it  • stake: (here) pointed piece of wood pushed into the ground  12 initially: at the beginning  • supply sth.: provide sth.  • facilities: equipment or services that are provided for a particular purpose  13 sufficient: enough  • commit sb. to sth.: (here) say that sb. must do sth.  15 hamlet: very small village  18 refuge: place that provides protection from danger  20 defoliation: process of using a chemical substance on plants to make their leaves drop 
• herbicide: substance used to kill unwanted plants  • raze sth.: destroy sth. completely so that no part is left standing  23 imprecise: not exact  25 erode sth.: make sth. smaller in numbers  28 ambush sb.: attack sb. from a place where you have been hiding  31 embark from sth.: (here) leave sth. 
35 infiltration: secret introduction of sb. into (an organisation or place)  40 fuel sth.: (here) give strength to sth.  41 ceasefire: agreement to stop fighting for a period of time, especially so that a more permanent agreement can be made

Task:

What were the main military strategies America and the Vietcong used during the Vietnam War? In what ways did they contribute to America’s problems during the war?



The Quiet American - Station 1 - Your Opinion on the War

Your Opinion on the War

Work on your own.

Imagine you are a reporter. But unlike Fowler you want to take sides. 

Write an article of approximately 150 words about the situation in Vietnam in the 1950s. Use one of the quotes below in your article. 

Be prepared to read the article to the class.

• Mr Heng, who sympathizes with the communists, tells Fowler: “Sooner or later […] one has to take sides. If one is to remain human” (p. 191, ll. 10–12).

• Pyle says about the victims of his assassination: “In a way you could say they died for democracy” (p. 197, ll. 6–7).

• Captain Trouin, a French pilot, claims: “The men of Vichy did not bomb their own country. I felt worse than them. […] [But] those others – they do some monstrous things also” (p. 167, ll. 13–19).

The Quiet American- Station 6 - Martin Luther King

At Station no. 6, you're asked to read excerpt from a sermon by Martin Luther King. Here is a link where you can listen to it:

Why I am opposed to the War in Vietnam. 

Martin Luther kIng was a great preacher. It is a treat to listen to his voice. Take the time to listen to this! 'True compassion is more than flipping a coin to a beggar" - he was just great a coining memorable phrases. We might not fancy this kind of pathos as Germans, today, but if you listen carefully to Obama's speeches, you will find how much he owes to the tradition of preaching in the Black church.

Here are your questions:

Opposing the War in Vietnam

Work on your own.

You are going to listen to a sermon delivered by Martin Luther King in New York on 30 April 1967. Martin Luther King was one of the most prominent Black leaders of the Civil Rights Movement, a movement designed to achieve equal rights for Blacks in the United States. He became a symbol of the non-violent struggle against segregation and against the discrimination of Blacks. He was assassinated in 1968. In his sermon he speaks out against the war in Vietnam.

• Listen to the sermon. 
  
• Read the text, then answer the following questions:
  

1. Why does King oppose the war in Vietnam? Give four reasons. 

2. Which one do you find most convincing? Why?

3. Describe the effect the speech has on you.

• Be prepared to explain your opinion to the class.
  

The Quiet American - Station 9 - Dylan Song

At Station no. 6 you're asked to listen to a Bob-Dylan-song. Here is a link:

With God on Our Side

And here is another one, with a very young Bob Dylan and Joan Baez. Very authentic sixties unplugged sound!

With God on Our Side

Here are the questions you have to work on:

With God On Our Side?

 Work with two or three students.

 You are going to listen to a song by Bob Dylan, who for many young people was the voice of conscience of their generation.

 1.     Have a look at the transcript on the separate sheet, in which a couple of words are missing. Read it and try to fill in the gaps. Then listen to the song and add the original words to the gaps. Compare both versions.

2.     In his song, Dylan criticizes people’s attitude to wars.

a. Say which wars he mentions and describe how people justify them.

b. What does he blame people for? Think of the title of the song. 

3.How does the song make you feel? Explain your reaction.

4.     Explain why Dylan might have been called the voice of conscience of his generation.

5.   Compare the attitude expressed in the song to Fowler’s and Pyle’s attitude in The Quiet American.

Be prepared to present your findings to the class.

Chapter five-quote

1) 'A dollar love had good intesions, a clear conscience, and to Hell with everybody.'

--I think Fowler thinks that the relationship between Pyle and Phoung is very materialistic and he actually fears that she may prefer Pyle because of his better financial situation.

Chapter four-quotes

1) ' The canal was full of bodies: I am reminded now of an Irish stew containing too much meat.'

-- I think this is a quite brutal thought, comparing such a shocking scene with stew.


2) 'Whew', he said, 'I'm glad that's over, Thomas. I've been feeling awfully bad about it.' It was only too evident that he no longer did.

--You can sence here how the friendship grows into Fowlers aversion to Pyle.

Chapter three-quotes

1) 'Innocence always calls mutely for protection when we would be so much wiser to guard ourselves against it: innocence is like a dumb leper who has lost his bell, wandering the world, meaning no harm.'

--I think that fowler means that shy and helpless Pyle has been certain danger for him.

2) ' Pyle could see pain when it was in front of his eyes. (I don't write that as a sneer; after all there are many of us who can't.)

--I think that Fowler tries to accentuate Pyle's inexpierience of life, because he's much older than Pyle and he sees him in a fatherly view.

Chapter two-quotes

1) 'My fellow journalists called themselves correspondents; I preferred the title reporter. I wrote what I saw. I took no action-even an opinion is a kind of action.'

--The narrator appears to me as a calm,passive, not determined or strong willed person.

2) 'Pyle believed in beeing involved'

--Pyle appeares to have been the complete opposite of the narrator.

Chapter one -quotes

1) ''...A quiet American', I summed him precisely up as I might have said, 'a blue lizard', 'a white elephant'.'

--I think this statement shows how American people were seen in the world at that time. I think it is a dirrect reference to Americans always trying to fullfill the American dream and never being still and settled.

2) 'She had attached herself to youth and hope and seriousness and now they had failed her more than age and despair.'

--This quote not only shows us the situation Phoung has gotten into, because of Pyle's death, but it also tells very much about Pyle and the narrator.

Slavery- summary

lavery

[lat. sclavus- dependet human]
It is in contrast to the bondage an enduring condition of dependence and of

ownership of a slave. (This meens that the owner/ holder (also known as the "master") was entitled to sell some of his slaves or even to kill them).

Slavery began in ancient times and in Asian regions it was known since roughly 2300 B.C. .
Most slaves were prisoners of war or hoboes.

They were used for hard work or as cheap workers. Also in Greece and in Holy Roman Empire slavery and slave trade were very important. In the Middle Ages slavery was rampant mostly in the islamic states, while in modern times slaves were transpored from Africa to America, to work there on plantations. After French Revolution many of the European states began to abolish slavery in their colonies. In the USA, where 4 million black slaves lived in the middle of the 19th century, the abolishment of slavery was the trigger for the American Civil War.

Here are two videos (The second is in another language [russian] and from the movie "Good buy, uncle Tom". The two men carry on negotations with each other about the slaves. One of them says that the slaves get maize and salad to eat. At the end the man wants to sell one slave for 150 Dollar. The other man agrees and takes four slaves , just saying "harascho", what means "okay, good")








@ Mrs. Koch: Thanks for correcting my text! There were some really stupid mistakes : D. I looked up some of these word, like pulper or something like that. (www.leo.org) Well, now I think that this isn't a so good online-dictionary, is it?

The Lord of the Rings

Three Rings for the Elven-kings under the sky,
Seven for the Dwarf-lords in their halls of stone,
Nine for Mortal Men doomed to die,
One for the Dark Lord on his dark throne
In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.
One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them,
One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them
In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.

This is a poem by Tolking out of the book "The Lord of the Ring",I like it very much because it describes the origin of the whole story

Don't ever bite your sister

Don't ever bite your sister.
Don't kick her in the shin.
Don't slap your sister silly
and don't sock her on the chin.

Don't tape a "Kick Me" poster
upon your sister's back.
Don't take your stinky socks off
and then put them in her pack.

Don't purchase plastic spiders
and place them on her head.
Don't leave your rubber rattlesnake
inside your sister's bed.

Don't do this to your sister
for, if you ever do,
I'm pretty sure she may do something
even worse to you.

--Kenn Nesbitt

I think the poem is really funny and it isn't such a big, hard poem, like those, who are from these famous poets.

On The NingNangNong

Spike Milligan

On the Ning Nang Nong

Where the Cows go Bong!

And the Monkeys all say Boo!

There's a Nong Nang Ning

Where the trees go Ping!

And the tea pots Jibber Jabber Joo.

On the Nong Ning Nang

All the mice go Clang!

And you just can't catch `em when they do!

So it's Ning Nang Nong!

Cows go Bong!

Nong Nang Ning!

Trees go Ping!

Nong Ning Nang!

The mice go Clang!

What a noisy place to belong,

Is the Ning Nang Ning Nang Nong!

poems

Your presence is a gift to the world,
You're unique and one of a kind.
Your life can be what you want it to be -
Take it one day at a time.

Count your blessings, not your troubles,
And you'll make it through what comes along.
Within you are so many answers,
Understand, have courage, be strong.

Don't put limits on yourself,
Your dreams are waiting to be realized.
Don't leave your important decisions to chance -
Reach for your peak, your goal, and your prize.

Nothing wastes more energy than worrying -
The longer a problem is carried, the heavier it gets.
Don't take things too seriously -
Live a life of serenity, not a life of regrets.

Remember that a little love goes a long way -
Remember that a lot goes forever.
Remember that friendship is a wise investment,
Life's treasures are people... together.

Have health and hope and happiness,
Take the time to wish on a star.
And don't ever forget for even a day...
How very special YOU are!

unknown author


We think it has a really deep meaning, because it shows the many ways a person can torchure themselves.

Poem

 I think of you when the sunlight shimmers,
beaming from the sea;
I think of you when the moon's gleam
paints the streams.

I see you when, on distant roads,
the dust rises up;
in deep night, when on the narrow bridge
a traveler quivers.

I hear you when there, with a muffled roar,
the waves rise.
In the still grove I go often to listen,
when everything is silent.

I am with you, even if you are so far away.
You are near me!
The sun sinks, and soon the stars will shine for me.
O, if only you were here!


The original version is in German and made by Johann Wolfgang Goethe in the year 1795.

A Slave on three Continents

A Slave on Three Continents
Olaudah Equiano was born into a wealthy West African family in Nigeria. His father was a village chief. In this village they had slaves, but

as Olaudah Equiano reports, that delete they weren't treated badly, but were actually nearly equal to the masters, the biggest

differnce - typo difference

being, - no comma here!

that they were not allowed to eat together with the free-born.
At the age of eleven Equiano and his sister were alone in the village, because all the others were out, doing their daily work. While the other village members were absent,

african Languages and Continents are CAPITALIZED

slave traders captured Equiano and his sister and sold them

seperatly - typo separately

to different slave masters. Equiano was then sold several times, until he was bought by an old widow. Being a slave of the old woman, he discovered a side of slavery he had not seen before. He was washed, perfumed and took meals with the free-borns. But he was taken to the

african - here also African coast soon, and had to board a slaveship bound for

america. - Now you know, right?

Equiano was sold to a

british - and here once more - if you remember this rule, you'll cut down on your mistakes a lot!!!

navy lieutenant, who gave him a new name: Gustavus Vassa. Equiano refused to answer to his new name, so every time he did, the lieutenant slapped him. Eventually Equiano accepted it. Except for this, his new master treated him well, and Equiano learned to be a sailor and even fought for Britain in the seven-year war. Seven years later his master tried to sell him to Captain James Doran, but because Equiano had had a chance to educate himself in the seven years working as a sailor,

he wouldn't accept it, that he was being sold. - He wouldn't accept his being sold (this is very formal English) He rejected being sold (this is how I would say it)

It did not matter though, for eventually he was sold to James Doran, and then sold to a Quaker in the Carribean, who made him work on a Carribean slave ship.
He started trading glasses and other objects to

gain money - you earn or make money - you gain acceptance, knowledge of...

and was able to buy his freedom. As a free man he worked as a sailor until one day a captain decided to sell him. When Equiano asked why he wanted to sell him, he was simply hung up on the mast of the ship. They only set him ashore because a carpenter convinced the others with the argument, - no comma here! there are  all and all less commas in English

that he was obstructing the sails.
Later Equiano turned to the abolitionist cause and wrote his biography, which became a bestseller. (biography and bestseller are not written with big letters)

The journey from Africa to America was called "The Middle Passage." It was the middle leg of the triangular slave trade which began and ended in Europe.

It was horrorable - the word is horrible : There were three or four hundred Africans in a lower deck. The cargo hold was tiny -> you couldn't even stand up in it. So the air got hot and stale very fast. Additionally you smelled unwashed bodies and the stench got dangerous.
The captain and crew struggled to keep their valuable cargo alive. They forced the Africans to dance on deck for exercise.
A lot of the slaves died. Up to 25 percent of a slave ship's Africans died during the voyage.

Made by

Proverbs

One stitch a time saves nine.

This proverb says that it's very important to do everything on time,
because otherwise it could be that things happen, which could have been avoided.
It also means that it saves a lot of work, if you do everything in time.

This is from Olga and Ann-Kristin

Plantation owners, who needed slaves to work on their plantations or help in the house, went to a slave auction.

At

this auctions - these auctions, better: At auctions like these

you could buy both slaves  who were just brought to America and slaves who had already lived there. You could choose exactly the kind of slave wich you needed: strong slaves for the fields, female slaves for cooking, etc.

The slaves

often were sold  - word order: were often sold

by plantation owners who didn't need them anymore or who needed money, e.g.  to pay their debts.
Families had to break up if maybe the son was sold to

an other man - to a different plantation owner

 than the mother.
The sold slaves had to go wherever their new owners wanted to bring them and had to do whatever they wanted them to do!
Slaves were treated like objekts!

Daniel + Lara

Preparing for Your Class Text - 11b

Our first class test will be about the American South. You will be given a text that you have to read and understand. The text will be annotated, i.e. I will give explanations for difficult words.   

You will have to work on the following parts:

I Comprehension:

Comprehension is another word for 'understanding'. You will get two questions. In answering these questions you show that you understand the text. There will be 2 - 3 comprehension questions.

II Comment:

I will give you a choice of two topics that are related to the text, but will give you a chance to expand on the issue. For example: "Do you think slavery still exists today? Give examples and show ways to end slavery."

III Grammar: Exercises the way we did them in class.

This is what the test will be about:

 The South

 – Hurricane Ike/Katrina, geographical facts, Slavery, Civil War

To prepare watch the video clips again, read the hand-outs, read the blog, read the 11c blog, go back to the website on slavery that we worked on.

Make sure you can explain what the Triangle Trade was, why the South 'needed' slaves, and what happened in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina.

 Grammar:

for and since

past progressive – simple Past

countable/uncountable nouns

To prepare, study the hand-outs you received. 

 Vocabulary:

surge, levee, to evacuate, plight, deploy, emergency supplies, launch, domestic/foreign, sustainable, spend/donate/give, mansion column, colonial style, plantation, to lynch, cargo, port, to enslave, Middle Passage, molasses, manufactured goods

I will not ask vocabulary questions in this test - these are just for you!

Proverb Interpretation

The best mirror doesn´t reflect the other side of things. (Japanese)

I think this Japanese proverb epresses that even the best mirror isn´t able to show feelings of people.

So its a demand not to look just at outwardnesses, but at feelings and personal qualities, because it´s necessary to understand how somebody feels, because thats the basis of a relationship and your mirror image is not the most important thing in life.

von Dominik

Witness a slave auction

Who could have stopped the auction?

The slaves: The only possibility for slaves to become free was to run away, which was very dangerous because they had no food and were hunted by slave-hunters. Some also could earn money to buy their own freedom, but almost no masters allowed that.

The auctioneer: His livelyhood depended on selling slaves, so even if he had bad feelings he would be unlikely to stop it.

The justice: The law in the USA allowed slavery and in addition black African Americans and women were not seen as full human beings so the rights of equality
didn't count for them.

The newspaperman: His income depended on the readers of his paper and most of them owned slaves. He must justify slavery in order to get more readers.

Torben, Dominik, David

Understanding Slavery

Understanding Slavery

Homework Understanding Slavery 06.10.08

Spanish Main ( 1516- 1880) :

In the 1500s century a Catholic monk stopped the fight of enslaved Native Americans in Spanish America.

There was a great need for labor in Latin America e.g. in the gold and silver mines, as well as on the cattle ranches and above all on the plantations.

The Indians couldn’t stand the terrible working conditions, because of foreign illnesses from Europe.

So the monk introduced better treatments for the Indians that made the slave owners look for other slaves elsewhere.

But this act caused horrible consequences for the Africans, who then got enslaved. So the import of slaves from Africa began.

North America (Pre-Columbian 1865) :

Several Native American tribes were the first slave owners in North America. Then, in the 1860s, the white European-Americans enslaved people from Africa who then had to work on their plantations in the American South and were in servitude for their whole life! In contrast African slaves in Europe, however,got free after several years of work. They were called indentured servants.

In America the gap between slaves and slave owners got bigger and bigger, because the masters had total power and could even kill the slaves.

In the 1865 the slavery in the United States ended, because of President Abraham Lincoln who issued the Emancipation Proclamation.( → declares the freedom of all slaves in any state of the Confederate States of America)

Nina and Alissa

A slave in three continents

Olaudah Equiano was a black man born in 1745 in the area which is today Nigeria. His father was a tribe chief so he grew up with slaves, but they were treated nicely. One morning slave traders came and stole him and sold him. He was with a very friendly family then, and he thought they wanted to adopt him, but suddenly he was sold to a slave sailor and he was put in a slave ship and this ship sailed via the middle passage to America. Many blacks died during this journey. In the USA he was sold to a lieutenant of the British navy and this man gave him a new name and taught him how to be a sailor. He also fought for Britain in a war. After that he was sold to a Caribbean merchant, but Olaudah tasted the freedom and didn’t want to be a slave anymore. So he traded glass and so on and with this method he saved more than 40 pounds which was a lot of money for this time, and this was enough to make him free. As a free man he worked as a sailor on a white man's ship. One day this white man wanted to sell him, but he refused and so he wasn’t sold. After that he went to England and became a great speaker against slavery. He wrote his autobiography in 1789 and died in 1797.

Interpetation: Proverbs

Slavery in Germany, Caribbean and Britain

Germany: Nazi Germany was very racist in the 1940s. They took other minorities who lived in Germany like Jews, Gypsies and so on to concentration camps, where they had to work very hard. Over 700000 people were enslaved at that time and a large number of them methodically killed.
For over hundred years Britain was the most important country for the slave trade. Supported by the British public, slave traders shipped many Africans to the colonies all over the world and made an enormous profit by that. In the late 1700s the protest against slavery began to grow and slavery was outlawed in 1772 after abolitionists had exposed the horrors of the slave trade to the public. In 1807, the Abolition Act ended the British slave trade. And in 1833, the Emancipation Act abolished slavery in all British colonies.

Africans had to work as slaves in the 17th and 18th centuries on Caribbean sugar plantations to satisfy Europe's hunger for sugar. Because of the horrible working conditions and the bad food one third of Africans died within three years of arrival in the West Indies. In the 17th century 100000 Africans, that means ten times as many as Europeans, were imported. Only one revolt succeeded . The army of ex-slave Toussaint L'Ouverture defeated the French and established the republic of Haiti.

Witness a slave auction. Who could have stopped the auction?

Most of the people at the auction were not able to stop the selling, although they might have wanted it.
for example the clergy man:
He would have been thrown out of his church and he didn't want things to end like this.
Another good example is the seller, because we think he wouldn't have tried to sell Mariah and Samuel, if he didn't need money.
Of course Mariah and Samuel weren't able to escape the auction either, so the only option left for them was to run away.
If they had had money, they might have been able to buy themselves free.
They also could have run away, but they would have been caught and killed.
So they didn't have a chance, either.
Another person at the spectacle was the bidder.
He could have left his idea to buy the slaves and could have let them go back to their family, but he needed them because he was used to having slaves around his house. Very good!

Slavery from 509 B.C. till 476 A.D.

In the Roman Republic, slaves had to work on plantations. That made large plantations profitable.
For this reason, the Roman Republic became a slave- based society.
Many years later, the Roman Empire was built. But not by the population but rather by the slaves.
Millions of kidnapped victims or war captives were enslaved, so the slave numbers outnumbered free people three times.
The slaves had no rights, They were not protected by any lawas. (You cannot say 'to use the law' ) to use any law. Their only chance was to pay for their freedom and then live as a free man or woman.
Often, when the slaves outnumbered their owners, they revolted.
Therefore we know the most famous revolt, which was led by Spartacus.
He had 90.000 soldiers, but was killed in a battle with many of his combatants.

Witness a slave auction

If their masters had money problems, too many slaves or other reasons for not wanting them anymore, they sold the slaves.

Therefore they had auctions at the slave-market where they offered their slaves - sometimes the whole family, sometimes only one family member. The slaves where shown to the bidders and they had to say the price they would pay to buy them.

But who could have stopped the auction?

If the slaves had tried to run away, they lived on their own from then on. Lots of them had no experiences in living on their own, and therefore many died of starvation and illness.

The Clergyman would not stop the auction, because it was said that the bible supports slavery, and if a clergyman would have tried to stop the sale, he would have lost his congregation.

Also the Banker wouldn't stop the auction, because his bank would lose money and his collegues and friends would be upset if they heard about it.

The Justice and the Journalist wouldn't stop the auction either. I'ts possible that they owned slaves themselves to help them to work, and if they tried to stop slavery, they would loose customers.

It's certain that the Seller, the Auctioneer and the Bidder would not try to stop the auction.

So in this case, nobody would have stopped the auction, because everyone would have been in trouble after hindering the auction. The reason for that was that slavery was allowed at this time and there was no law against it.

West African Slavery

The West African countries participated in slavery, too. But they didn’t engage in trading slaves; they used them in a different way. In West Africa slaves were a symbol of the wealth of a family in which they had to work. But being a slave was only like being a temp worker. That means that a slave was free after some years of work. Additionally the West African slaves had many rights, for instance they were allowed to own property and their children were born in freedom. But in the late 15th century, a European slave trading network had developed which enslaved West Africans. Later on those were the slaves shipped to America to work on cotton fields for example.

Posting Your Article on Slavery

By now,  you will have received an invitation to post on this blog. The e-mail pretty much explains what you have to do. If you already have a google account, it is very easy, if not, you have to create one, which shouldn't take longer than a couple of minute.  Take a minute to think about which name you want to use to sign your posting - if you don't want your first name to appear, use a nickname or just your initials.   

Alright, now you are an author on this blog! And what does an author do? S/he writes! So go ahead and click on 'new post' and copy and paste your paragraph on slavery in the window. Then find an image that illustrates your article and post it along with it. To do that, you have to click on the little stamp-size image icon and follow instructions from there. You can try all of this at home, but we will also go over it in our next class in the computer room.