Hasfariza Hassan

  The Shrouded Woman by Maria Luisa Bombal is such an interesting read because the main character is a woman named Ana Maria who is dead. It centers around how she’s lying down at the funeral wake and people from all walks of her life come to visit her. The beginning of the novel, “(a)s night was beginning to fall, slowly her eyes opened” alludes to how death was creeping closer for Ana Maria and how she was in the transitory moment between life and death. “For she was seeing, she was feeling” alludes to how she’s able to experience out of body experience even though she’s dead. The tactile imagery of seeing “herself lying motionless face upward in the spacious bed” reiterates the notion that she is able to see that she’s dead.  The repetition of the “falling” of the rain could point to how she is more attune with her senses once she is dead. In some cultures, people say you have to be delicate with the dead, especially during the transitory phase from life to death because th...

  I found Nadja interesting because I felt that it had some similarities with Proust in how the story utilizes a lot of internal monologue and internal thought processes. This parallel of self-identity and figuring out memories is intriguing. Putting these two books together, it made me think about how difficult it is to examine life from a retrospective lens. In Nadja, Breton is an unfulfilled character who seems to have lost himself as a person. This is evident through the opening of the novel, “Who am I?” This further highlights his conflict of identity and uneasiness of how his life is transpiring. This unfulfilled nature stems from how he recounts his life and his failing marriage. The lengthy syntax and structure of his thoughts mirrors how lost he feels in life. I think meeting Nadja was a turning point in his life because he needed something to hold onto, to tell him to keep going in his life. That’s why he was so fascinated and “in love” with Nadja. She was refreshing and ...

  I found Marcel Proust's "Combray" to be really interesting. It made me think about how dreams can be intertwined with memories. The opening of the story portrayed how the author was walking through memory lane and how dreams are associated with revealing your innermost thoughts and memories. This made me think about how sometimes I dream about things or people that I haven’t thought about in a long time. When I wake up, it makes me think about my past and memories. The long sentences reflect the journey that the author is going through to unlock the memories within him.  At first, when I was reading this book, I found it confusing and difficult to understand because the author started to go through different time periods and memories which made it seem scattered. At the same time, it made me think about how memories, especially of our childhood, are not always clear or precise.  However, when the author was describing his action of sipping the tea and eating a madeleine...

 I found Marcel Proust's "Combray" to be really interesting. It made me think about how dreams can be intertwined with memories. The opening of the story portrayed how the author was walking through memory lane and how dreams are associated with revealing your innermost thoughts and memories. This made me think about how sometimes I dream about things or people that I haven’t thought about in a long time. When I wake up, it makes me think about my past and memories. The long sentences reflect the journey that the author is going through to unlock the memories within him.  At first, when I was reading this book, I found it confusing and difficult to understand because the author started to go through different time periods and memories which made it seem scattered. At the same time, it made me think about how memories, especially of our childhood, are not always clear or precise.  However, when the author was describing his action of sipping the tea and eating a madeleine,...

Hi! My name is Hasfariza Mohamed Hassan and I'm a third year political science student. I'm from Malaysia, but I grew up in between Malaysia and the states. I moved to Vancouver because I wanted to pursue political science at UBC. I'm really passionate about Southeast Politics, the imbalanced dynamics between the Global South and the Global North, and environmental politics especially relating to waste colonialism. I love reading books, especially thrillers and murder mysteries. I like being in suspense and trying to figure out who is the culprit. I also love writing stories and poetry. I hope to publish a book in the future. I’m a person who loves to try new things even though I may not necessarily be good at them.  I chose to take RMST 202 this term because I’m interested in literature that is from different cultures and languages. I’m familiar with a lot of English literature and have taken literature classes at UBC relating to science fiction and indigenous literature. ...