The Pain Tree [review]

1. Who is your favorite character from the story and what kind of background do they come from? Why? (Use examples from Michelle Cliff's essay, If I Could Write This in Fire, I Would Write This in Fire)

I really like the protagonists of the texts. Larissa acted like a mother to Lorraine. You can sympathise with Lorraine because she could understand what really happened. The way the text is written shows her pain and regret for not appreciating what she lost and didn't notice and what really happened. It's not her fault, it's nobody's fault, just the way the society concieved it.

2. Why do you think Lorraine’s mother mocks the workers that want independence from England?

She was an old lady that wanted them to keep working as their slaves. She cannot see another realities or understand that even with another colour skin humans should have rights. As you can understand from the text, the workers were captured and brought to their houses to do housekeeping or any kind of work. As in cliff's essay you can notice that the whites had a lot of privileges. 

3. What is a “pain tree” and how does it play a role in the story?

It's a tradition that they (the workers) got into. They nailed a tree. It's some kind of metaphor. You use it to free yourself from the pain, you give it to the trunk. You pass you pain , but it also is selfish to my point of view. Larissa compares her situation. When she expresses that the protagonist might not need the tree, is because she reffers to her as naive or maybe happy, just because she doesn't have problems like hers. 


4. What is the meaning of the line “people like me would always inherit the land, but they were the ones who already possessed the Earth”?

It refers to the young people, the whites ones, that will live in that land, but it also means that they don't get what they might have, they don't give it a meaning like the wise people that habited before did.