Discussion #3
Reread pp. 172 - 173. What is the significance of the desert for Julie? Feel free to find other references to Julie's fascination with the desert. Go deep.
posted by Randy Barnett @ 3:10 PM
Monday, October 24, 2005
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13 Comments:
It is written “Nullity is purity; detachment from the greedy stirring of growth.” The passage about the dessert talks about how there are “no seasons of bloom and decay…” There is no judgment, there is no “measure of space” there is nothing in the dessert but open space. Throughout the book Julie distances herself from her “own kind” and begins to discover a world beyond the LA Café, but is that really what her intentions are? Just learning about the world? Or is she trying to do something more? During this passage one could interpret her actions as those of someone who is lost or maybe trying to be lost. “In a film of haze there is no horizon.” Julie seems to be fascinated with this idea of the desert, maybe because there seems to be no limit to it, it is never ending and she is not bound by it as she has been in her original society. In some cases authors describe landscapes to signify sex or intimacy, maybe Julie is solely fascinated with being sexually intimate or maybe it is as simple as what the words say; Maybe the desert passage signifies her life long yearning to be free from the materialistic world she has been placed in. She wants to be lost and never found only remembered in the never ending space.
Julie's fascination with the desert stems from a need for a haven. Like sasha said, back in South Africa, her haven was the EL-AY cafe, a place where she could escape her daily problems and annoyances. At the EL-AY cafe, she had a ritual: she could sit down and lose herself in the discussion of societies problems that she and her friends had gone over thousands of times before. This was her way to relax.
Now that the cafe is gone, she need to find another way to let herself go. In this new place where she doesn't know anyone and doesn't fit in, understandably, she is not going to seek out human contact. In the desert she finds solace. The immobility of the desert is contrasted with the ever-moving life of the streets. Even as she is leaving the desert, she says that she experiences "the feeling of being sent off, although there was nobody" (page 168). In this foreign country, she finds a friend in the quiet solitude of the desert.
Julie is trying to find herself wihtin the nothingness of the desert. She, however, uses the desert's vastness inorder to hide from the emptiness of her own life. Julies is lost in the nothingness of the desert and therefore fails to see the nothingness in her own life. Before Julie was able to concern herself with problems greater than herself as she sta in the LA Cafe, thus never have to face the meaning of her own life. Here in Ibrahim's world she utilizes the desert in the same way. Julie has never been forced to concentrate on herself because has the means and money to worry about the larger picture. "The desert is eternity" thus its complexity overwhelms Julie. Her captivation acts as sheild protecting her from facing reality. Julie also feels free in the desert, there are no constraints. She rebels against her father because she wants to go her own way, here, in the desert, she has the opportunity to do so.
annonymous = KYLA!
The desert makes Julie feel free and unlimited. and unlimited.She says, "there is no horizon", meaning whish means there are no limits and this leaves Julie to be free to do what she wants.
The desert to Julie is a place unlike anything she was ever used to being around. While in South Africa, she knew a type of lifestyle that was just not possible at her new home. Yet, Julie does not see this as all bad, rather, she uses it as a chance for another adventure. The desert is her get-away. In this different environment Julie is able to explore another side of herself, she has nothing but time holding her back at this point. Because she has no job or major obligations when first moving to the desert she was able to create it to be whatever she wanted it to be.
The desert is massive; it is powerful in its vastness, almost to the extent that God is powerful. It has no apparent end, it outlasts all other things, as shown by the wall, which was built when the desert was there and has since crumpled, while there has been no noticeable change in the desert. I agree with what most other people already said; that the desert is a place of relaxation for Julie because it makes no demands of her, it is immobile, and it is simple. I believe it is also a constant in her ever-changing life, something to hold on to.
Julie is adapting quite well to Ibrahim's culture, and fitting in with her family. She has begun to help with the cooking, and learned a significant amount of Arabic. However, even though she has begun to read an english version of the Koran, she is not a muslim, or religious. Every aspect of the place she lives in now revolves around religion, and most of the women spend most of their time praying. Religion plays such a big role in Ibrahim's culture, that Julie experiences a void in her days. The desert fills the role of religion in her life, because it is vast, powerful, eternal, and unanswering like God. It also brings her to a better understanding of herself and her surroundings, which is what religion does for a lot of people.
To Julie, the Desert is a place she has had little time to explore, while for Ibrahim, the desert is a very well-known area as well as a home a way from home. In the Desert, Julie is lost without Ibrahim, yet at the same time, almost all of it is to her disposal. In the desert she has the freedom of thought, but the fear of confusion. So with this at the tips of her fingers, she can choose any road and follow it, and take these new and fascinating things to her advantage.
Julie is enthralled by the desert, because not only is it a landscape she has never truly experienced before, but it reflects her current situation as well. She is not sure where her life is going right now - she knows what she does not want, but she does not know what she does want. So she leaps upon the things that will take her away from what she is avoiding, her parents. Thus, she finds herself in a strange land. Like the desert, she has "no measure of space." This can mean that she does not know her place in this new world. Gordimer also talks about how everything seems black and white, or cold/icy and hot (desert). This also describes her situation, and she is searching for something less extreme, something she can become comfortable with. She needs water, which is imperative to survival. With it in her life, the "ice age" which she is stuck in will become unfrozen, and she can let herself run free again; she will "become again."
Julie's feelings towards the desert have a relation to living. In the desert there is no distinction of life, "all drifts together...there is no onlooker". This contrasts with the everyday reminder of life in a big city with busy roads and many people. Her understanding of water represents how she will survive. Her "water" in South Africa was her father's assistance, but now "water is a lost memory" and she is in "an ice age." With there being no one to support Julie and since she is now a minority in a foreign land, she must discover and restructure her idea of what makes up the essence of her self.
Julie appreciates the simplicity of the desert, "no seasons of blooms and decay, just the endless turn of night and day." Like it has been said many times before, the complexity of South Africa was overwhelming for her, and the simplicity of the desert lets her leave the problems in her life. There is s strong theme for equality in this book with the role of women, and the mix of Abdu's culture with Julie's culture, and the desert is an absolute blending of all that is in Julie's world. "no measure of space, no horizon, sky-haze is indistinguishable etc." All of Julie's problems at this point are results of the racial conflict in her relationship, if only the people in her life could be like the desert (externally indistinguishable) then her apparent problems would go away. It seems that Julie wants everyting (cultures, stereotypes, social norms) to melt together to be one like the desert, so that the conflict of womens rights and interracial relationships no longer effect her. "there is no onlooker" Julie is tired of being judged based on the expecetations people have of her (expectations of her father) and in the desert, there are no judgements
Green is commonly used when representing Islam. When she "dreamt green" perhaps the new style of life has become so pervasive that it has begun to enter her sub conscious thought and that she needs to get away from it. It can also be interpreted as her acceptance of what she has gotten herself into.
Julie sees the dessert as something lost and foriegn to her. She can't see the beauty inside of it, she can't grasp the lifestyle that is necessary to live there. Instead she sees the deadness of it. She sees it as a dry barren wasteland. Instead she thinks it should become more like her home, more like the western world with grassland and water. Her unability to grasp the suttle nature that exists in the dessert represents her inability to see the subtle emotions that exist in the Arab culture
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