Choose a representative passage from this novel that holds particular significence to you.

It is quite an ordeal to search through the pages of this book and find a particular passage that was meaningful to me, because i remember being awestruck many times throughout my readings. However if it cam to a single excerpt it would have to be the moment when Richardson and his family first visited their new accommodations.

'Outside, the drumming [from a ceremonial dance] came to a sudden halt, and the chanting boiled over into a wail. There was an unmistakable sound of hundreds of feet stampeding into the night...Then I saw why they had fled. Our entire home was agleam with light like some gigantic, awesome jack-o-lantern...We were not the only ones being baptized with strangeness.

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The reason why I found this passage so meaningful is because it showcases a complete view of the implications that their visit had in the Sawi. It seemed to me that Richardson was so intrigued and mesmerized by the ways of the Sawi that he was blinded from perceiving the influence that he had already made by building his home there. This passage is reminiscent of the times when people tend to dwell so much within their feelings and how their surroundings affect them that they forget the effect that they make. The diction used in the extract supports this, as words like wail and stampede reflect the extent of the impact that had taken Richardson a few moments to understand.

I believe that this passage is a wake-up call for us to begin to observe more at the alterations that we make on our environment just as much as how it changes and modifies who we are.

“For the great majority of mankind are satisfied with appearance, as though they were realities and are often more influenced by the things that seem than by those that are” - Machiavelli