Connection

Can't believe the semester is already over! It has flown by and I can't believe we have already finished all of our novels. I remember looking at the list of novels on the first day of class and wondering how we were going to get through them all. Never fear, we did.

Each novel brought something new to the plate, each one opened my eyes just a little bit more. Not that I enjoyed every novel, but each one had a distinct impact on my mind. Whether it was large or small, it doesn't matter.
Today in class the question was asked as to what the connections throughout the semester in all of the novels we read were. The first thing that popped into my head was identity, searching for an identity. All of the novels we read, the characters were in search for something that was missing in their lives, searching for answers but in the end they were searching for who they were. The characters were trying to find where they fit in, if they fit it and how. All of these characters I am able to relate to because of that element. I believe that we can never truly find an identity since we are always change, just like society. Thus, our identity will be forever changing as well. There might be some parts in our lives, just like in Paradise where you hit "rock bottom" and need something to change in your life since it doesn't fit. But in the end, there is not a single identity to form.

To jump to another topic quickly. I wanted to say that after reading all of the novels I think that I enjoyed Edward P. Jones the most, his novel All of Aunt Hagar's Children. I can't exactly put my finger on it, but my speculation is that it truly made me think. It made me stretch and search for answers that I didn't know how to find, or even know what answers I was looking for. When I am looking through the novels we read, I have a lot of annoations and highlighted portions in his novel, not of questions but of exciting and great details, or those "wow" phrases! Jones gave it real character in his novel and voice. He has something truly distinctive about him.

Tough Language in Tuff

"When Winston Foshay found himself on the hardwood floor of a Brooklyn drug den regaining consciousness, his reflex wasn't to open his eyes but to shut them tighter," (3).

With that being the first sentence in the book, my first thought was wow this is going to be a good but intense book! I love satire's and love the humor interweaved into it all. The one aspect that really stands out is Beatty's language that he uses. (Side note, definitely would not be able to teach this to high school students.) The language is blunt and a little shocking at first. I had to step back really quick and get into the mind set. Beatty uses the language he is using for a reason. He doesn't use profanity and the "n" word for just no reason. There is a strategy behind this. Because Winston Foshay is in a drug den at first, trying to get out, I think that it is not uncommon for this type of language to be used, it is not suprising. But for some readers such as myself, I was shocked because I am not used to that language.

Also, I found it extremely interesting that Winston explained his out of body experience in each level: Ten Yards Up, Ten Thousand Yards Up, One Million Yards, One Billion Yards, etc... and finally ends with:
"One Thousand Light-Years: I see the souls of Demetrius, Zoltan, and Chilly Most trying to find the happy hunting ground. "Where are we? Alpha Centrauri?..." (23).
And was asked if he found heaven up there. The answer was with beer in hand and cigarette in the other. Yes, that is the answer. This just sets the entire tone for the book- the satire that Beatty has written.

Fledgling in High Schools

One of our discussions last class was whether or not Fledgling would be an appropriate novel to read and teach in high school. Good question. The initial reaction was no, there is no way I would teach this novel in high school. Why? Fledgling is about a young woman vampire who was picked up on the side of the road by an “older” man. It is kind of creepy because the young woman looked like she was 10 years old, however, in vampire years she was about 50 years old. However, my reasoning was not that reason. A little bit further into the book, the younger woman and this man have sexual relations when he does not know that she is older than 10. And other than that, I had no other reasoning. And so then I realized that single reason alone is not even a solid reason not to teach this novel in high school.

High school students are not given enough credit with the type of novels they are “mature” enough to read or to just understand.
This wonderment had me search the banned books list online for high school students. While researching this online, with the novels listed, it explains why they are banned and the court decision and how many times it was challenged. It is sad, to me, because a lot of the reasons as to why some novels are banned is something that the students can use as a learning tool. They can take the information, and the history that is being taught in a novel to understand history and the past of our country. To learn about how ideals were different in the past, how it has changed and why those ideals were like that in the past. And for me, that is one of the reasons why I love literature so much, understanding the history and the time period it was written, to pull all of that information together to create meaning. I was truly disappointed in seeing that To Kill a Mockingbird was on the list of banned books because I was able to read that novel my tenth grade year in high school and that is one of the first novels I truly was able to connect with, dialogue with and create meaning with the history during that time. I do believe it truly is one of the reasons why I want to be an English teacher and fell in love with literature.
To bring this information together, I think that as society we do not give enough credit to high school students to “handle” the novel. There is some “hard” information to understand and issues, however, the teacher may have to address something that is off the mark for just a second, but then just move right along, get back to what the book is actually addressing. Fledgling does have a lot of underlying meaning which might be hard to address everything in a unit plan that is only about a month long but it isn’t impossible, it can happen. This unit plan would have to be very detailed and creative for the students to understand everything going on in the novel, the hard hitting issues that are all underlying in the text.

Well that is enough of that… I enjoyed Fledgling basically and it was one of my favorite novels in the course.

Shori's Amnesia

I am going to have to say that I agree that I am enjoying this novel and Butler however, I also like analyzing novels. Making Jones, Morrison, and all the others we have read so far in this class enjoyable as well. Maybe at the time I didn't want to speak up, saying that I liked them because I have to sit back and think about it for a while before I decide if I like a novel or not- more specifically an author.

Anyways today in class while we were discussing the question: Why does Butler write Shori with amnesia, what statement does it make? Somebody said that it creates a blank slate for her, to start questioning everything she was told when she was smaller and just agreed with it since she was taught that. Much like we are in society today, don't alway question ideals and what is taught, to be part of the status quo. Needless to say, though, this brings up the topic of identity. Since she can't remember who she was, what she liked, so on and so forth, she is creating a new self, in essence a new "Shori." So my question to you is, if you had amnesia but could remember everything you were learning for a "first" time, would you change your life? And if yes, what would you change about your life or yourself?

Symbiont Servant

When reading Fledgling, with Shori, we learn about the Ina society. In this novel, Butler invents a whole biology and anthropology of vampire life. It is established that these vampires outlive the human race, the Ina live for about 500 years or even more. When they are injured, they can self- repair, (Shori clearly shows the reader) on a diet of red meat. The Ina society live exclusively of human blood alone. They also possess an extraordinary sense of smell, together with more acute sight and hearing than human beings do; all of these senses come into play in their relationships with one another, as well as human beings. Unlike our society, the Ina society, female Ina are more powerful than male and are organized around gender- segregated extended families. The male young live with the family of their fathers, the female with the family of their mothers. The Ina also have complex relationships with their “symboints,” the human beings upon whom they feed. In the novel, vampires almost never kill their human prey; they live together with them, and have sex with them, in extended families of seven or eight human symbionts for each vampire. Whether male or female, vampires generally have symbionts of bother genders, and the symbionts often develop sexual relationships with one another. So all in all, Ina society involves both vampires and human beings, involved in complex webs of polyamory.

Since Wright is Shori’s symbiont I have been trying to figure out what it means to be the human symbiont of a vampire. As readers we see only human thoughts and feelings through her narration, however, how do we know that is only her human thoughts and feelings. Vampire saliva seems to be both addictive and antiseptic for human beings: the human beings experience an immense sexual pleasure from being bitten, and quickly become dependent upon it. But with that, vampire saliva also results in their leading long and healthy lives: they never get sick, and they live much longer than ordinary human beings. The symbiont life seems to be ones servitude. Most vampires are ethical (however each individual reader wants to define that) enough to give their human prey some small amount of choice, to leave in an early stage of their relationship. So far, that is how far I have gotten through what a symbiont means…

Hate Crimes

Shoni and her "family" are dealing with hate crime. This wraps the ideal around the characteristics of what creates a sci-fi novel. Hate crim is still part of society today. This ideal of writing a novel that focuses in a wide lens, problems in scoeity is part of a sci-fi. I think that even though Fledgling focuses on hate crime, in a more narrow sense, it talks about hate crime with race. When shoni meets her father, she finds out that her mother is fully human, has been killed. On a quick side note, the scar and how the mother should not have been killed since she has more power- that reminds me of Harry Potter (sorry, total side note). But Shoni finds out that nobody knows why the other part of the community was killed, but the guess is it was somebody who was scared of who the Ina were- vampires. As Shoni brought up, anybody can own a gun or kill- everybody has the capacity to kill- just depends on the need and willingness. How Butler encompasses a couple societal problems is masked in how vampires are discriminated against. And, I think, it is a genius way to grab different cultures, perspectives, etc... to relate to different social groups. I guess the larger question is: how do we change this? Will it ever change? Can it change? Being aware of the problems in society to change this is the biggest obstacles. Why? Some people do not want to admit it is a problem. Perhaps, it will be an on-going question.

Hate Crimes?

As I am reading further into Fledgling I realize that this story doesn't directly correlate with race but instead with hate crime in general. Hate crime in general terms is targeting a victim because of his or her membership in a certain social group. Within the first 60 pages the reader did not know the identity of the vampire girl that gave the reader a chance to know the girl without an actual connection to who she is; it seems like the reader was able to ease into the novel and understand who she is. But when the reader found out the girls name, Shori, the reader also finds out that her "family" was hurt and killed. And since the families in this community were vampires, people are scared that they die from vampires, instead of understanding them, they want to get rid of them first.

A Small Vampire

“I didn’t care whether I hurt or killed the gunman. I had knocked him unconscious when I hit him. Now I took his blood because he’d spilled mine, and because suddenly, I was in pain. Suddenly, I needed to heal. He was lucky I was aware enough not to take his flesh,” (45).

Octavia Butler certainly has brought an interesting novel into the universe, to say the least. The first 60 pages the young vampire girl whom is in first person narration, does not give us a name of who she is. But instead, she gives a detail description of what she is thinking as a vampire, that is a little creepy to me; diving into a “killers” mind.

One of the most disturbing parts during the first part of the book I think, at least, that she is a small girl that is in her early teens. So when she comes into contact with the first person, a man, and hops into the truck with him was weird at first. With the first instinct as I was taught since I was very little, do not get into cars with strangers—BEWARE! We find out soon that his name is Wright, but he takes her to his place into the woods. The disturbing part comes when Wright and this girl kiss and want to sleep together. But with this comes a bigger relationship connection between Wright and this girl. After the part where the two kiss is followed by the girl getting shot and needing to heal. We also find out that she can heal by herself, but she needs fresh meat to eat. It would be easy for her to find the meat since Wright is there with her, however she becomes too concerned about not hurting him, “He didn’t understand. “I’m serious, Wright, I could hurt you. I might not be thinking clearly when I wake up,” (46). Just a quick prediction for the book is that because the vampire has some feelings I think that she is part human- not full vampire. The full vampire, I believe, would not care about killing a human being and she is now attached to Wright.

Different Heaven

This is an addition from the previous post topic...

As I was finishing the novel I came across another reference to heaven. It is interesting how the different way that heaven is referred to from the start of the book, compared to the ending. This is speaking of when and how a religion is formed, "The elevator world will look like Heaven but not the Heaven you have reckoned," (241).

I want to bring this up in class in about an hour, so hopefully we will have time so I can make something out of this...

Heaven and Elevators... What?!

The Intuitionist is just one of those books. I really don't know how else to describe the book. I was a little confused when I started reading, especially since it is about elevators. Trying to wrap your mind around the idea that this book is talking really about something else, very abstract. Just the thought that it can be describing race, identity, etc... is very hard to figure out. However, once you get going into the novel, it is a mystery (picturing it all in black and white) and because it is a mystery, I want to know what happens.

With that said, I wanted to talk alittle bit about my favorite part of the book. It is the beginning of the novel, however, it is still my favorite, "But who can resist the seductions of elevators these days, those stepping stones to Heaven, which make relentless verticality so alluring? While the architects understand that the future is up, the future is in how high you can go, it is difficult to shake old habits," (16).

You can look at this passage in a couple ways. The first way is giving hope for the future and ambition. The elevator can represent the future with high hopes. Stepping into the elevator, or the alluring aspect of the elevator is that it is the faith and hope for the future that everybody wants. At first, I thought of seduction as a sexual thought, wondering why they are so seducting, but that is not what Whitehead was going for. To shake the old habits is to get rid of the bad thoughts and feelings and worries of the future.

With that said, most of the novel is about finding identity and looking for an answer. And that quote helps summarize that hope. The main character, Lila Mae, needs to find that hope for her future since she is accused of something that she did not do. And as one of the intuitionists, elevator inspector, she is some-what guiding and repairing that hope for others around her. But the one part of the book that is opposing this idea is her personality.

Lila Mae has an invisible personality, or so it seems. She is invisible to others and does not seem to care that she is and her personality is always, "That's the kind of person Lila Mae is," (47) in reference to anything she does. That is the only part of this theory that does not fit. But, I think that the elevator represents life after death: life being suspended in purgatory, up for heaven and decending into hell.

Lilia Mae: The Intuitionist

I wasn’t sure what to expect going into the next novel: The Intuitionist. Knowing the history of the United States during this time seems to be crucial, especially the first interaction of Lilia Mae Watson. Characters are defined by and relate to one another through their differences more than their similarities. Gender, race, and philosophical positions (i.e. empiricism versus intuition) are all causes for difference. The time is set at the point when Civil Rights movement is beginning and women still are not in the work-force. As the reader looks at Lilia Mae, she is a “colored” woman and an intuitionist. The reaction she receives is expected for that time, “the man’s lips arch up toward his nose and Lilia Mae understands that he’s never seen an elevator inspector like her before,” (4). Since times were changing the man had a hard time taking Lilia Mae seriously, especially after the inspection. He did not really believe her and gave her a hard time about her finalized inspection. I think the first chapter is a preview for the rest of the book.

Marriage Turmoil

In an interview that I came across on the internet with Edward P. Jones I noticed that his mother was divorced when he was a small child. Then, I started thinking about a couple of his stories, more specifically, In the Blink of God's Eyes and Tapestry. In these two stories, the main characters are married, but in the end are disappointed and upset at the end. Although Jones said, in the interview, that he does not like creating characters relating to real life situations or people in his life, it seems that there was a correlation. Perhaps because Jones did not see a happy marriage when he was smaller, he did not bring the marriage issue in his book to be left in a happy light.

Religious Connections with Short Stories

Throughout All Aunt Hagar’s Children I noticed that there were endless Biblical references, whether if it to the Devil, God, Jesus, the Spirit, so on and so forth there are one in just about every short story Edward P. Jones wrote. These Biblical references come in many different forms in the stories.

In The Devil Swims Across the Anacostia River, it is one of the easier short stories to breakdown the religious aspect since it revolves around the conversation between the Devil and Laverne in Safeway. In this conversation, it explains that, “the body will say it and you will take it as gospel. But they had not told her what to say, what do, whether to run or go forward and attack him with the fury of an angel doing God’s work,” (272). Okay, in other words this is what it means… the body will rewrite the truth from what actually happened in a situation. For this particular instance, Laverne’s grandmother died and she believes that her grandmother tried to walk on water and the Devil made her die. However, is that the truth? Or did Laverne rewrite a new gospel, or book to what happened. In this situation, Laverne did not know whether to be upset that the Devil was at Safeway, with her, or whether the Devil was doing God’s work; cleaning up behind God. In this setting, “the Devil was telling the truth, and she knew this, though just an hour ago it would not have mattered one way or another,” (289) and it was up to Laverne to take it to re-write a new version of the truth for herself. If there is trouble in one’s life, those who are religious take this time to turn to their faith, to hope for the future so that it will be better than the past—to rewrite the Devil out of it.

In A Poor Guatemalan Dreams of a Downtown in Peru, there were a few Biblical references throughout the story; however, the ending of the book is the reason as to why this story stood out. In the end when Arlene and her husband are headed on another “journey.” In these references, Jones refers to going to heaven (or so it seems), “she could see the eternal road emerge almost miraculously from the valley, still crooked, still shimmering, still full of humanity,” (161). In this passage from the story it is full of hope because of the word choices: miraculously, shimmering, full of humanity. First of all, miraculously is a law of nature and is held to a supernatural in origin or an act of God, which in itself seems for something for people to be hopeful for. Shimmering is not necessarily hopeful, however, it is still something to bring happiness. To shimmer can be related to heaven by the reference of angels that are shown as bright and shimmering in society. Which turns around to bring hope to people. Last, “full of humanity” seems to be self explanatory; full referring to the entire part and humanity as to people. It is hopeful for the entire world of people. In the beginning of the story it talks about miracles as well, “there had been miracles after miracles, each one reaching down and snatching her back from death while forsaking all the souls- loved and unloved by her…” (133). This short story is to give hope to the readers.

In the other short stories in this novel by Jones, as a single reader, I found a lot of hope for the future when there was Biblical discussions. This is the main theme which flowed through all of the stories was hope that God will guide no matter the situation, “ But our all-seeing God is a money God and knows money backwards and forwards. He will guide you,” (309). Since the world seems mean and unforgiving in all of these stories, there is a place which the people need to look to relieve the stress and to wish that something else, something better will become of their situations. In these stories, the main characters need help and need guidance in their lives, but the one thing about this novel is that each of the stories has different characters that make the stories different for people to relate to the unique situations.

Life and Death

I think my favorite short story in All Aunt Hagar’s Children has to be, thus far, is The Devil Swims Across the Anacostia River. First off, probably because Jones used Safeway, specifically, in his story creating this question throughout the story as to why is he using this store? And even at the end of the story, the reader is left hanging, wondering and questioning many different aspects of the story. But even with those characteristics, the thing which tops the list is the passage on 288. This specific passage seems to describe the entire book and even life in general.

"Himself lets no one die. Himself doesn’t have the power of life and death. You die cause you wanna die. You live cause you wanna live. The Devil closed the imaginary book."

It is interesting that the Devil said this to her because the Devil is telling her that she has the option whether to listen to him or to run in the other direction. Which tells Laverene that her grandmother had the choice of sinking to the bottom or living. Only you, yourself have the real power of your mind; if you let somebody talk you into doing something then you can only blame yourself. For example, who do you blame if you are addicted to drugs—the drugs themselves or you. Since you may have tried the drug once, created an addiction and your body cannot live without it, is it your mind or the drug making you keep this addiction. Because your body without the drug is not “normal” since it does not feel or react the same without it.

With that, Laverene does not want to know the truth that the Devil is telling her. The Devil, out of this story seems to be the one who is giving the truth, “The Devil was telling the truth, and she knew this, though just an hour ago it would not have mattered one way or another,” (289) even if it is hard to learn. And since she seems like she wants to give up, he is giving her flat out, the options. In the end, she was truly alone; she did not go back to her husband and her son. And it was her choice and it was the way she wanted to live.

A Poor Guatemalan Dreams of a Downown in Peru

In A Poor Guatemalan Dreams of a Downtown in Peru there are a couple of interesting aspects of this short story. The first theme that I would like to talk about is forming a family that is through situation and condition. In a sense, college students can relate to this situation. When students come to college, for the first time they are truly away from their parents and family. Who is their family? Each of the students have to create families of their own, to turn to in good times and in bad; somebody that feels like home. It seems threw the circumstances and situations, it can bond you to a person or people even more, thus creating another family.
But with that sense of family and being connected there can be this mystical, spiritual link. It can be served as a religious purpose or just a “kooky” feeling. However, in this book of A Poor Guatemalan Dreams of a Downtown in Peru it serves as a goodbye for family. And I have had this feeling before as well, with my great-aunt when she passed away about 4 years ago. I was at a high school production and I remember looking at the clock because it was the sword fight scene and I just had this sense of urgency to go home to be with my family. And with that, I thought of my aunt at that moment. However, when I arrived home later that night, my mom or dad didn’t say anything to me. The next morning I went and baby sat for a family, after I was finished and as I drove into the driveway, I knew what my parents were going to tell me; that my aunt had passed. So instead of the reality hitting me, I decided to sit in the car for a while. Nevertheless, I was correct. I walked inside, mom was crying and then I was told. I was close to my aunt, family and family friends told me that I was like her in many aspects. With that, my grandma was in Boston at the time with my aunt and they were also at a production, and around that time that the sword scene was on, about 7 in the evening (when she passed), in the other production, there were angels coming down. And both my aunt and grandma felt the same thing. Kooky, perhaps. Connection, perhaps. Spiritual, perhaps. Nobody will truly know. It is all perspective and what one believes in.
At the end of the short story, there were numerous connotations, referring to spiritual and religious ideals and beliefs. The Holy Cross was said numerous times, saying that she missed the Holy Cross, which can mean different things spiritually; not feeling as if one is connected to God not spiritually sound. Or, even, truly is missing the Holy Cross and needs to find it, in heaven. Also looking down at the “dusty sandals” which can refer to Jesus. But the interesting thing is that, if it does refer to the Christian belief and Bible, instead of it being a man, known as Jesus, it is referring to these aspects in a woman. Each of the parts at the end of the story remind, at least reminds me, of Jesus and heaven, “she could see the eternal road emerge almost miraculously from the valley, still cooked, still shimmering, still full of humanity…” (161). This could be them leaving, going to a new life or going to heaven to be with the Holy Cross.

Periods of Time

After starting to read All Aunt Hagar’s Children the first theme that popped into mind was the meaning of time. The title of the first chapter is In a Blink of God’s Eye. Used in society today is the simple phrase, “in a blink of an eye,” which refers back to a tiny second. For an example, a fellow student was telling a story about how a teacher she was observing in a high school, just blinked for a second and a high school student was drinking something out of a beaker. Thus, in a simple term, it is a split moment in time, something short and sweet. Throughout the first chapter newly married couples leave behind the familiarity of rural life to pursue lives of urban promise only to be challenged and disappointed. With that, it seems as if a chapter of a book talks about a single time, not moving forward so quickly in one chapter, which is ironic since the title of the chapter is In a Blink of God’s Eye. Nevertheless, a short period of time, or a long period of time is all relative to the reader, the audience. To me, it could mean that the author, Edward P. Jones, covered an extensive period of time for a single chapter, whereas another reader could believe that it was a short period of time covered.

Trivial World Problems

I have noticed through reading, novelist, take in consideration current events that is trivial to the time period to write about, or even if a huge event in the past was trivial enough, the writer would write about that as well. The question brought to mind, however, is defining what trivial is considered. Each person may consider what trivial is. Is trivial something that is life and death? Does it have to do with family, concerning a family member? Concerning your own life? What are the characteristics of trivial so that it can be written about and change ideals around the world.

Looking at The Dew Breaker I was trying to define what characteristics make it stand out from other novels. The big issue which is being addressed is the issue with the Hatian government and those who are torturing the civilians and citizens of the country. Danticat explores further in-depth about how those who were involved with this issue, deeply, were affected by it. And with that, it brings up other issues, more personal issues with the family, more intimate. Which one is more trivial? Is one issue more important than the other issue?

Trauma is Justified for Ka

Tears flood the eyes of a woman saying goodbye to her husband for the fourth time being deployed, two states away a child is screaming because he is upset at his dad for spanking him, a family walks into their house across the street to see that their house has been broken into, a woman and her daughter sleep in a cardboard box during the winter in New York, a six year old boy is diagnosed with cancer, and so on and so forth. These are all classified as traumatic events in lives, but the simple question of why are these traumatic events turn into a complex question. Is there such thing to classify a traumatic event, and if there is why is that characteristic(s) classified? These questions help approach The Dew Breaker, especially when the reader first attempts to understand Ka’s relationship with her father, but more specifically her anger towards her father which ends up being a traumatic event. Some may consider this a traumatic event, while others will question Ka and her reaction towards her father.

To bare trauma means something different for individuals, it will differ with the next person on the street. However, there seems a single distinct theme which reoccurs; it is quite simple, distressed and displaced in the specific situation. In The Dew Breaker Ka just found out that her father lied to her about his profession. To Ka, this is traumatic, thus, the traumatic experience has turned her angry towards her father. During the discussion in class, some believed that Ka should not be angry towards her father and just forgive him for what he did, but on the other hand, others believed that Ka was justified because this is a traumatic experience. Again, to bare trauma is all perspective and dealing with it changes from person to person, thus, since each of us are not in her shoes, it is justified that she is angry with her father.

The most traumatic event in my life, I would probably consider to be walking in on a suicide attempt. I would classify the most traumatic event because of a couple reasons; the first is because I was terrified and frozen in spot when I walked through the door. Next, I was unfamiliar with the situation, thus, making me uncomfortable, making me not able to act very quickly. However, the most traumatic part of the situation was life was hanging the balance, which put me into pure shock. But on the other hand, somebody else would probably disagree with my statement and say that their traumatic experience was different, perhaps saying goodbye to a love one who was getting deployed, or loosing somebody. Even for a child, in their eyes, not being able to play outside or watch television could be a traumatic experience for them. As adults, looking at that, in the eyes of the child, and would probably disagree. Nonetheless, the child would be crying and upset because of this situation; but it is in their eyes and in their shoes.

With that in mind, Ka is experiencing this terrible event in her life; her father just has lied to her. Basically has lied to her his entire life. If I were in Ka shoes, I would be upset and it would be traumatic for me. I would not know what to do with the information my father told me about him being a torturer, somebody that I hated throughout my entire life, or was socially hated. This was not something small he lied to her about, he also was trying to justify for her to be okay with it because her name with Ka, telling her that she is a good angel. But she has a right to be upset and angry.