Family to the community to the whole culture/ History
As I watched this movie again and thought more about it in terms of this class, I was struck by the ways in which this very quiet little film reveals the complex effects of the AIDs crisis within Africa, from the individual to the family to the community to the whole culture. This also allows us to look at a classic example of one of the four main types of conflict in literature: man versus nature (with disease being a force of nature). There are also examples within the film of the other main types of conflict: man v. self (how will Yesterday come to terms with her own feelings); man v. man (how will Yesterday and her husband work out their relationship); man v. society (how will the community react to Yesterday’s plight). In your Initial Comment on the film, choose ONE main focus from this list of possible ways (or one similar to these) to examine the film. Resist the urge to give us a plot summary, but focus instead on HOW the film reveals something about the culture or the individual’s response to one or more of these kinds of conflicts. What does this seem to suggest about how the culture deals with conflict?
