Thursday, April 30, 2015

Section discussion

In section today, I was in Group 3. For the close reading exercise, we read the passage about with Anthophora and Osmia bees. Fabre seemed partial to the Anthophora bees. He said they were the pioneers, artists even. On the other hand, he described the Osmia as theives, the bees that would steal from the Anthophora. The passage, to me, sounded like a metaphor for war. The Anthophora were building their homes and defense system, while the Osmia waited until the Anthophora were vulnerable to strike and take their homes, or a section of their complex tunnel system.

1 comment:

  1. I was also in Group 3, but I interpreted the passage differently. I saw it as more of an allegory for communism because the Osmia commands the Anthophora bees to work and divides them into uniform sections. If the Anthophora tries to leave the hive, the Osmia will seize them. The Anthrophora could be viewed as the working class and the Osmia is their ruthless leader which is similar to the structure of communism. I also found it interesting that Fabre juxtaposes the beauty of the Anthophora with the unorganized way the Osmia arranges them. In a way, Fabre shows the Osmia's disregard and unappreciation of the Anthophora's beauty further strengthening the idea that the Osmia is a ruthless leader. Aside from the allegory, I think that Fabre also tries to show that there exists a hierarchy as the Athophoras serve the queen Osmia.

    ReplyDelete