STEPHANIE<br/><br/><div class="floatleft">(http://i279.photobucket.com/albums/kk137/HaibaneR/StephanieWest_Avatar_01.jpg)</div>I remained parked against the windowsill, my ankles comfortably crossed, my cane in my hand laying down my leg hidden behind some folds of my long loose black skirt.<br/><br/><strong>"Technically, Kevin, it is excellent work. We cannot fault your assignment on the analysis or grammar or methodology. You select elements of the relationships between the main protagonists in the story and use them exhaustively to promote and support your argument. Unfortunately the focus of your piece falls outside the academically valid forms of critiquing Rodriguez' work. While a breakdown of the white supremacy elements or the racist content in the work, or even a study of the struggle of the slaves set against the comparable background of the rebellion of the Antuozano Tribes of Brazil's north-east Amazon basin in the 1870s would all fall into acceptable literary cases for study... the particular angle you chose does not."</strong><br/><br/>I wasn't smiling, not a bit of it.<br/><br/><strong>"Your study is one of the actual perception of slavery itself. But not even the exploitative or illegal elements of it. No, your work is a study of submission. Of bondage. Of feminine domination in the character of the plantation owner's wife. I personally am curious why you chose to take a major South American literary work and use it as a framework to promote what comes across as a personal preference for domination and submission. Particularly, it would seem, given your close study of the motives of the young slave Michigo and your self-identification with him, the latter."</strong><br/><br/>I leaned forward and tapped my cane lightly against my calf.<br/><br/><strong>"This is serious Kevin. The work in this form while technically accomplished is, as a response to the assignment set, wholly unacceptable. Unless of course you had a motive for placing onto our desks a well written piece clearly promoting your preference to be dominated by women. Do you have anything to say?"</strong>