I must admit i'm getting really into this book. I love the polarity of the plot and characters and how the perspectives of the same events are conveyed through the eyes of the two conflicting groups. As I was reading chapters three and four one phrase really stuck out to me. When Hadrame says "This strike is a war of eggs against stones" (42) it really got me thinking; I know that he meant that the Senegalese people were the eggs and the French were the stones but who is the true stone? By just reading the first few chapters you get a gist of what life is like for the senegalese. They work hard for very little pay. They endure daily hardships. They stand up for what they think is right even if it involves suffering. The Frenchies? They are sitting in their nice offices contemplating about how they can put down the strike. They don't want to pay their hard working employees pensions or give them a family allowance because it is means to create a larger family and take more money from the already incredibly wealthy corporations. Personally I think that the Senegalese people are going to turn out to be the stones here. Although at this point in the book it seems as though some of the characters are taking drastic measures in attempts to put food on the table for their families, in retrospect they know that this is a cause worth fighting for. As chapter three draws to a close it says how "the men began to understand that if the times were bringing forth a new breed of men, they were also bringing forth a new breed of women." Both men and women are becoming stronger than ever maybe not physically because the good majority of the characters are famished but mentally they are stepping up to the unjust situation. As for the French they are merely sitting in their money thinking that it can control everything around them. But when the battle wears down to will power, I feel like the French are going to end up being scrambled eggs.
What about you guys? Got any ideas?
I agree, I think that if the determination of the Senegalese to continue the strike persists the French are going to begin to have problems. They may eventually even have to give into the demands of the strikers leading to them becoming, in the way that you phrased it, "scrambled eggs".
ReplyDeleteThe tough thing about dctermaning who is the stone and who is the egg is each society. I think that in each society in their own eyes they may see themselves as the egg in some situations and as the stone in others. In this book I think the senegalese are the eggs (for the reasons you gave) because the story is being told though there eyes.
ReplyDeleteI'm not so sure, the French don't seem to be in any sign of giving way to the strikers. All we know thus far is just how hellish the lives of the strikers are. I don't think if I was in the position of the Africans, slaughtering a Ram for meat, I would be able to last long. If I was in the position of the French, (of what little I know of it), I think I could hold out. Hopefully the Africans do win, because this book would just flat out be depressing if the Africans have to give in to the French.
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