Written task literature: Global Challenges

“In your course you have studied global challenges through English-language literature and films. Write a text in which you reflect on how effective a literary text and a film have been in raising your awareness about one or two global challenges. Use examples from each work.”

When we are watching films and reading books, in addition to enjoy ourselves we also learn things. A lot of the films and books today is based on global challenges, and although we may not think about it while we are reading or watching films, this definitely raises our awareness about global challenges in the world.  There are several books and films that have raised my awareness, but some made a bigger impression than others.

Last year we watched a film called "12 years a slave ". 12 years a slave is a drama film based on a memoir from 1953 by Solomon Northup, a free African-American man who was kidnapped in Washington D.C in 1841, and sold into slavery. Northup worked on plantations in the state of Louisiana for twelve years before his release in 1853.

In the film, Solomon works as a violinist in New York, and he lives with his wife and their two children. He gets a two-week job offer from to men called Brown and Hamilton, to be a musician, but only if he travels to D.C with them. When they get there, they drug him and deliver him to a slave pen owned by James Burch. He then gets shipped to New Orleans and a slave trader gives him the identity of “Platt”, a runaway slave from Georgia.  Later on, we learn about all the conflicts, problems and all the horrible things he has to see and go through the 12 next years. In the end, Solomon is released and is reunited with his family.

    From the film. Salomon number third from the left.

Before I watched this film I did not give much thought to the problem slavery, and I thought that this was something that did not exist anymore. However, after watching it, I was curios and I did a little research on the internet, only to find out that an estimate of 21-36 million people are in slavery today. This means that there is more people in slavery today than at any other time in human history. Slavery is one of the biggest global challenges in the world, and it is very important that people’s awareness is raised. Movies like 12 years a slave is a very effective way of doing this, and my awareness was definitely raised after watching this movie. It made me interested in the problem, and made me find out more about it.

In addition to the film Twelve years a slave, there is also a book who has made a bigger impression than others have, and raised my awareness about another global challenge: The book "Secret Daughter" is written by Shilpi Somaya Gowda. It is the story of two families from India and the USA who has a big connection they do not know about. The book starts with a woman named Kavita giving birth to her first child, a girl. But Kavita is from a culture which favours sons, and right after the birth her husband takes her and she is gone forever. Her next child is also a girl, and she knows that the only way to save her newborn daughter’s life is to give her away. This decision haunts her for the rest of her life, even after her son is born.

The baby girl who she gave away was adopted to a family in the USA, a doctor named Somer and her husband Krishnan. The story follows Kavita and Somer, and the child that binds both of their destinies.

I have always known that there are some cultures where it is “normal” to get rid of the newborn baby if it is a girl, because they would rather have boys and they can not afford to have a girl. However, this book describes it so well; the mothers desperation for her second child who turns out to be a girl too, and that you in the end of the book realise that the father has struggled just as much with this ever since it happened, even though he does not show it and it does not seem like it. The book made me think about this challenge, and it is definitively a global challenge, because this happens in many cultures.  

Both the film and the book has raised my awareness about different global challenges. They have made me interested and made me want to know more about them. This is very important if someday in the future these global challenges can be solved. People’s awareness’s has to be raised, and they have to want to do something to change it, to make it better. Films and books can raise awareness, and by raising awareness people begin to think, and when they begin to think they might act, so I definitively think films and literature can help in solving global challenges.

Sources: 

Secret Daughter: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6905012-secret-daughter

12 years a slave: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/12_Years_a_Slave_%28film%29

Slavery: https://www.freetheslaves.net/page.aspx?pid=301

Pictures: 

12 years a slave poster: http://www.artwithimpact.org/sites/default/files/12-years-a-slave.jpg

12 years a slave movie snapshot: http://i.newsarama.com/images/i/000/124/338/original/12-Years-a-Slave-Shot-2.jpg?1393368275

Secret Daughter bookcover: http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1347708559l/6905012.jpg