God’s bits of wood chapters 1-3

God’s bits of woodchapters 1-3 Mariya, Kenny, Davon, Amina

Summary • Chapters 1-3 introduce the characters and situation of the story. Most apparent is the impending revolution, just as their parents had done in the legendary 1938 strike. They want to fight back against the authorities on order to establish a more perfect union. This also demonstrates the contrast between black and white. The black locals are under the white immigrants who take advantage of the unprivileged natives.

Out line • Summary • Vocabulary words • Interactive oral

Vocabulary words • Colossus • Tumult • Adulation • Heaps • Tarpaulin

Colossus • Noun • A person or thing of enormous size, importance, or ability • “He was a thirty-year-old colossus with a thick muscled body, enormous shoulders, and a bull neck on which the veins pulsed angrily.” (pg.9 par 2)

tumult • Noun • A loud, confused noise, esp. one caused by a large mass of people • “Disconcerted by the tumult he had unleashed, Mamadou Keita waited silently, but the disorder only increased.” (pg.9)

Adulation • Noun • extreme admiration or praise • “Pleased and proud, their faces creased with laughter, they drank in this adulation.” (pg.10)

heaps • Noun • A collection of things thrown one on another (pile) • “…piles of old tin cans, heaps of excrement, little mountains of broken pottery and cooking tools…” (pg.13)

tarpaulin • Noun • A piece of material (as durable plastic) used for protecting exposed objects or areas • “The roofs were held together by stones and iron bars and old jugs filled with earth, and the holes in the tarpaulin of the outhouse were plugged with rags and cardboard, but they were houses.” (pg.13)

The real facts about the strike • The 1947 strike occurred when the French colonization was coming to an end, based on what Sembene implies throughout the first three chapters. • Towns such as Thies and Kayes have the railway as their main enterprise. The railway had a confluence of rails at Thies. Therefore Thies benefited from it greatly. • During the colonial period, the French used Africans for works requiring unskilled labor.

The Europeans indeed enjoyed having the advantage of receiving more payment with less labor in Thies. • As said on page 8, “We’re the ones who do the work,’ he roared, ‘the same work the white men do. Why then should they be paid more? Because they are white? And when they’re sick…”

Thies • Thies is a region in Western Africa. • According to Savonnet, Thies holded a new repair facility in 1923. • As a result, the town quadrupled in size of population because of the concentration of workers in the area. • The previous strike in 1938 that Niakoro referred to on page 2; “…a savage memory for those who had lived through it, just one season of rains before the war”, indeed beared a significant amount of casualties.

The book in General • Although the book is facts embellished with a little fiction, it really tells the story of the 1947 strike. • However Sembene Ousmane also included the lives of ordinary African citizens and also implies the disintegration of the French federation in Western Africa. • The book was originally written in French. It is ironic how Sembene included the instance where Niakoro was trying to pass across the message that the Africans ennobled the French and their language.

God’s bits of wood chapters 1-3