Ashford University Creation of Interdisciplinary Assessment Team Discussion Writing Assignment Help

The discussion posts are based off the musical South Pacific. Response guidelines are as follows……Do the responses add to the conversation? Do they expand on the idea of their classmate? Do they add a new response based on inspiration from their class mate’s post? 100 word minimum per response.

Post One

This musical takes place during World War II, a time where segregation of different races were still happening. Emile is a white man who has children with a Polynesian woman. The woman passes away and we never meet her. However we do meet their children, Ngana and Jerome. Emile falls for Nellie Forbush, a nurse from Little Rock, Arkansas. She falls in love with Emile before she even knows of his past. Once she meets his children, she seems to have changed her mind about him. Although she still loves him, she can’t get herself to be with a man who has been with someone of a different race. Emile asks if his Polynesian wife is the reason they can’t be together. “Yes. I can’t help it. It isn’t if I could give you a good reason. There is no reason….Why do I feel the way I do?” (page 139) Nellie replies. She doesn’t want to feel this way but society has taught her to. This is exactly what Joe Cable is singing about during the “You Have to be Carefully Taught” song. During this time people are taught these prejudices and it seems as if Nellie couldn’t get them out of her head. Cable falls for Liat, Bloody Mary’s daughter. Liat is a Polynesian girl however unlike Nellie, Cable doesn’t seem to care that they are different. Cable does however have doubts in marrying her: “I love her and yet I just heard myself saying I can’t marry her.” (page 136-137) says Cable. He wants to marry her but the prejudices are stopping him. Cable then dies before him and Liat can be together. As for Nellie, she grows close to Emile’s children and is able to overcome her thoughts on interracial couples.

At first, Emile refuses to help the marines on their dangerous mission. He feels that he has too much to lose now that he has fallen in love with Nellie and they are to be married. But when Nellie tells Emile that they can no longer get married because of his wife and children, he then accepts the offer to help. If Emile didn’t go on this mission, they wouldn’t have any of his knowledge of the islands. They also wouldn’t have the help of Emile’s friends on the island once they were there. I think maybe more people would have died without Emile’s knowledge about these islands and his help.

Today, racism still exists but it’s not the same as it was during WWII. During WWII, there were actual laws in place for segregation among races. However in 1964, The Civil Rights Act went into place and abolished all state and local laws requiring segregation. Today, racism only exists within people’s minds. Just as in South Pacific, there are people out there today who maybe don’t agree with interracial couples. Also there are probably people who just don’t like other races in general. During the time of South Pacific, racism was much more present in that there were actual segregation laws in place. So the amount racism in America has gotten much better from where it was but it still exists today, just in a different way.

Post Two

Nellie’s prejudice is regarding Emile’s children who had a Polynesian mother–she cannot get over the fact that they are not white. Similarly, Cable is unwilling to marry Liat due to racial differences despite them both being in love with each other. Bloody Mary encourages her daughter, Liat, and Cable to marry because she says that Liat is unwilling to be wed to any other man and because as Cable’s wife, she would have the opportunity to live a better life–in America–which is something she had wanted for a long time. However, Cable is unable to accept his love for her: “I love her and yet I just heard myself saying I can’t marry her. What’s the matter with me…?” (138). This demonstrates that even a Princeton educated Northern American like himself was not immune to racial prejudice. Even those who received a formal, liberal, education could not be freed of what they learned while growing up. Although Cable never ends up overcoming his past beliefs, he ultimately dies while on a mission to save Billis leaving Liat with no choice but to marry another man. In contrast, Nellie falls in love with Emile and believes they have a real future together–that is until she is introduced to his children. Having grown up in a small, midwest town, her racial prejudice causes her fears to take over and she tearfully runs from the life that she and Emile have. She struggles to understand why she can’t accept Emile’s children: “It isn’t as if I could give you a good reason. There is no reason. […] This is something born in me” (138). However, after hearing the Emile is missing, she realizes how foolish she was and decides to visit his children. She gets past the color of their skin and gets to know their personalities, soon coming to love them. They sing together before Emile returns, learning that Nellie has conquered her prejudice. Although both Nellie and Cable ha
ve deep-seated racial prejudice due to what they were taught by the people around them when they were younger, Nellie is able to overcome it for the sake of love, while Cable is not–despite how much he may have loved Liat.

Emile is hesitant to help in the dangerous mission but agrees after realizing that it is unlikely that Nellie will overcome her prejudice and marry her–he feels as though he has nothing left to lose after the loss of the girl he loves. When Nellie receives news that Cable has been killed and Emile has gone missing amid the mission, she is faced with the sudden awareness that she may have lost Emile: “Do you think there’s a chance I’ll ever see Emile de Becque again? If you don’t think so will you tell me?” (158). For her, this puts things into perspective–it allows her to appreciate her love for him and realize that he is worth overcoming her fears for. As a result, she is able to do so, fall in love with Emile’s children, and live a happy life with him after they are reunited. However, if Emile had chosen not to leave on the mission, it may have either taken Nellie much longer to overcome her prejudice, or she may not have been able to do so at all. It took a lot–the possibility of her never seeing Emile again–for Nellie to give his children a chance. There was also a long period of time where Emile and Nellie weren’t together and yet she still couldn’t overcome her prejudice. Although she may have eventually done so, I think it would’ve taken much more time or another equally as dramatic event as Emile being missing such as either of them leaving the island. If Cable hadn’t been killed and had escaped from a near-death experience, I also think that he may have returned with more perspective, and possibly opened up to the idea of marrying Liat. Even if he hadn’t, I think that Bloody Mary may have continued to push them to marry each other and he would’ve eventually come to his senses because of how much he loved her. Cable and Nellie both had a very strong love for their significant other but for Nellie, it just took a little perspective on the shortness of life to overcome her fears and I think that Cable would’ve been the same if he hadn’t died. Because of that, Emile’s choice to go on the mission was a good decision, although Cable’s may have not been.

Unfortunately, some of the racial prejudice that the characters experience in South Pacific can also be seen in American society today. For example, white supremacists continue to believe that they are the superior race and that they, like Cable and Nellie, cannot be associated with anyone who is not. Additionally, the prejudice of certain police officers has led to fear non-white people. This is also similar to Cable and Nellie, except Nellie overcomes it. However, the officers are in a position of power and so instead simply not willing to be in an interracial relationship, they use violence towards usually innocent people. Additionally, although the US is still at war, it is occurring within a different country and so we aren’t nearly as affected by it as the characters in South Pacific are. Despite this, millions of soldiers continue to risk their lives and military families are separated. In the same way Cable and Emile went on the dangerous mission and Nellie didn’t know if he would return to her and his children. Although Emile survived, Cable didn’t. His acts were heroic, but he also never got to see the woman he loved again.