Trent Davol
Professor Bass
INTRODUCTION
For me, a white middle-class male in my early 20's, it is somewhat difficult to understand the implications of something like slavery, the Holocaust, or the mistreatment of Native Americans. I do not have Jewish or African-American relatives who can pass down their stories and their experiences to me. It is only through books such as Ceremony, MAUS, and Beloved that I have the chance to understand the personal stories and what it means to suffer and survive.
I have arranged my web site around this idea of passing along stories which help others understand the unthinkable and see it in different ways. To read something provides only the base level insight. It is not until a work is viewed within its context and ideas are exchanged that one truly gets a feel and understanding of its purpose.
This site will mainly look at Leslie Marmon Silko's Ceremony, but will also include Toni Morrison's Beloved and Art Spiegelman's MAUS. Though the works are initially seen as very different in terms of form and content they rely on similar principles of expression. They are each concerned with the way in which the unspeakable and the unfathomable is told.
By clicking on NEXT at the bottom of a page, you can move through this site in the standard way. Below the site is split into its seperate themes and links if you want to jump to something of interest.