Love in the Time of Cholera may focus around Florentino's many affairs, but its underlying theme is the relationship between Florentino and Fermina. Fermina, despite really not physically appearing in the book as often as Florentino (though she appears quite often), has the largest impact on the novel.
Fermina Daza is very aware of her actions. She knows she is headstrong, unfaltering, and proud, perhaps a bit conceited. She knows what she wants and will stop at nothing until she successfully gets it. For example, the reader learns in section one that when Dr. Juvenal Urbino does not let her own a pet that cannot speak, she finds one that can—a parrot. Also, she refuses to accept the blame for any wrong she indeed committ. She makes Dr. Urbino surrender to her conditions. She does this because she hates feeling guilt.
She may be tough on the exterior, but beneath this facade is a caring, nurturing woman. She takes care of her old, aging husband like she would a baby. She loves animals and flowers, a trait of her underlying tenderness. The girl who Florentino fell in love with, the girl who left the City of the Viceroys and never seemed to really return, is still within Fermina. She just exposes herself in very subtle ways.
Fermina becomes a woman when she leaves the City of the Viceroys and returns a few years later. Her desires for her first suitor, her thrills of forbidden romance are lost when she becomes a woman, because it has lost its scandalous and dangerous qualities. As she matures, she realizes (or convinces herself?) that her love for Florentino was foolish, and solely her expression of wanting to rebel from her dominating father. She does not linger on the whims of her youth for long, and certainly her marriage to Dr. Urbino seals those days as a past she forgets.
As an adult, Fermina holds herself, and conveys herself as, a highly esteemed person commanding respect. When she marries Dr. Urbino, she is shifting from the upper ranks of the peasantry to the upper ranks of the elite. This change affects Fermina by how she now upholds herself. Instead of fantasizing about idealism like she did in her youth, Fermina now upholds herself with the utmost proficiency for her position as a lady of society.
However, the stubbornness of her youth never leaves her. She dislikes religion and the Catholic Church after being expelled from an all girls Catholic school. She feels that the Church lack the virtue it preaches to its followers. Whenever the Doctor suggests that they involve the Archbishop in their faltering marraige, she refuses, almost proudly, because of her dislike of the Catholic Church.
Fermina's stubbornness and haughtiness makes me believe she doesn't really love Florentino at the end. More on that later.
(578)
Tuesday, December 4, 2007
Sunday, November 25, 2007
Benjy Compson: A Diagnosis
The Sound And The Fury's first section is told from the point of view of Benjy Compson, youngest Compson child and mentally incapable of anything beyond a three-year-old's mental reach. Faulkner does not say much about Benjy's mental handicap. Faulkner might have done this so that we just focus on its existence rather than its details. Or, Faulkner may have written The Sound and the Fury in a time when not much was known about mental disabilities. Either way, Faulkner has not talked much about Benjy's medical condition, and it was one of the first things in the novel that intrigued me. Benjy displays symptoms of both mental retardation and autism.
Benjy's biggest disability is his peculiar way of grasping the concept of time. His narration is told non-linearly—it's interrupted by many flashbacks. Mentally retarded children have trouble thinking logically, therefore, chronologically. Mental retardation diagnosis fits in this characteristic of Benjy, along with many others.
Another interesting quality about Benjy's mental disability is that he is not able to understand cause and effect. To him, people do not take items, items merely "went away", and he certainly does not understand why. Having trouble discerning cause and effect is a key diagnosis for mental retardation.
Benjy Compson cries when he senses change, remembers Caddy, or becomes confused. His tuned sense to others around him signal not mental retardation, but autism. The brain has shut down most of itself, but the parts that are still working, are working in overdrive.
But Benjy’s problem could be someone’s fault. Mrs. Compson could have consumed alcohol during the pregnancy, caused fetal alcohol syndrome with Benjy. The main effect of fetal alcohol syndrome is permanent and nonsubsequencial central nervous system damage, especially the brain. The developing brain cells and structures are underdeveloped, creating a myriad of cognitive and functional disabilities. Fetal alcohol exposure is the leading known cause of mental retardation in the Western world. If Benjy had fetal alcohol syndrome, he would be severely physically underdeveloped. This coincides nicely with Faulkner’s lack of physical description about Benjy. His brain would be structurally a lot smaller. His functional impairments fit those of fetal alcohol syndrome: learning disabilities, distorted social perception, lack of communication skills, memory impairment.
Benjy Compson could also have Down syndrome. Faulkner does not physically describe Benjy’s appearance or his mental disability. Perhaps he wants to leave the extent of the disability to the reader’s imagination. Down syndrome would make sense in terms of Benjy’s mental retardation and his limited perception of the world. Down syndrome is influenced by maternal age. While there is not a large age range between Quentin and Benjy (four years), perhaps Mrs. Compson had Quentin when she was 31 and Benjy when she was 35. However, Down syndrome has a specific facial appearance—the eyes are closer together, the face is generally fatter—that makes it easily diagnosed at birth or very shortly later. It is specifically pointed out in The Sound at the Fury that the Compson family realized Benjy was different when he was five years old. Even though the literature, technology, and general knowledge of diagnosing mental disabilities was not as good in the late 1800s, Down syndrome is a disease that one can definitely detect by age 2. Also, Down syndrome is mental retardation only to an extent. Most people with Down syndrome can talk and function to a greater extent than Benjy.
Benjy’s retardation is unusual because though he can only absorb visual and auditory “cues” from his surroundings and not interpret them, he does have an acute sensitivity to order and chaos. He is so used to the order of things that he knows when anything is wrong or out of place. So, as bizarre as it sounds, the mentally retarded character of The Sound and the Fury is one of two characters that can really notice the Compson family’s decline, through he cannot understand it.
Benjy Compson’s disability is probably nothing particularly specific. William Faulkner has it this way partially so that Benjy’s made-up disability will serve to the plot and the storytelling of the novel, but also so that the reader can interpret the mental disability for himself or herself.
(700)
Benjy's biggest disability is his peculiar way of grasping the concept of time. His narration is told non-linearly—it's interrupted by many flashbacks. Mentally retarded children have trouble thinking logically, therefore, chronologically. Mental retardation diagnosis fits in this characteristic of Benjy, along with many others.
Another interesting quality about Benjy's mental disability is that he is not able to understand cause and effect. To him, people do not take items, items merely "went away", and he certainly does not understand why. Having trouble discerning cause and effect is a key diagnosis for mental retardation.
Benjy Compson cries when he senses change, remembers Caddy, or becomes confused. His tuned sense to others around him signal not mental retardation, but autism. The brain has shut down most of itself, but the parts that are still working, are working in overdrive.
But Benjy’s problem could be someone’s fault. Mrs. Compson could have consumed alcohol during the pregnancy, caused fetal alcohol syndrome with Benjy. The main effect of fetal alcohol syndrome is permanent and nonsubsequencial central nervous system damage, especially the brain. The developing brain cells and structures are underdeveloped, creating a myriad of cognitive and functional disabilities. Fetal alcohol exposure is the leading known cause of mental retardation in the Western world. If Benjy had fetal alcohol syndrome, he would be severely physically underdeveloped. This coincides nicely with Faulkner’s lack of physical description about Benjy. His brain would be structurally a lot smaller. His functional impairments fit those of fetal alcohol syndrome: learning disabilities, distorted social perception, lack of communication skills, memory impairment.
Benjy Compson could also have Down syndrome. Faulkner does not physically describe Benjy’s appearance or his mental disability. Perhaps he wants to leave the extent of the disability to the reader’s imagination. Down syndrome would make sense in terms of Benjy’s mental retardation and his limited perception of the world. Down syndrome is influenced by maternal age. While there is not a large age range between Quentin and Benjy (four years), perhaps Mrs. Compson had Quentin when she was 31 and Benjy when she was 35. However, Down syndrome has a specific facial appearance—the eyes are closer together, the face is generally fatter—that makes it easily diagnosed at birth or very shortly later. It is specifically pointed out in The Sound at the Fury that the Compson family realized Benjy was different when he was five years old. Even though the literature, technology, and general knowledge of diagnosing mental disabilities was not as good in the late 1800s, Down syndrome is a disease that one can definitely detect by age 2. Also, Down syndrome is mental retardation only to an extent. Most people with Down syndrome can talk and function to a greater extent than Benjy.
Benjy’s retardation is unusual because though he can only absorb visual and auditory “cues” from his surroundings and not interpret them, he does have an acute sensitivity to order and chaos. He is so used to the order of things that he knows when anything is wrong or out of place. So, as bizarre as it sounds, the mentally retarded character of The Sound and the Fury is one of two characters that can really notice the Compson family’s decline, through he cannot understand it.
Benjy Compson’s disability is probably nothing particularly specific. William Faulkner has it this way partially so that Benjy’s made-up disability will serve to the plot and the storytelling of the novel, but also so that the reader can interpret the mental disability for himself or herself.
(700)
Love is a Disease
Some thoughts:
- Love is a sickness. Or so Gabriel García Marquez convyes in Love in the Time of Cholera. The protagonist, in his sickness, becomes his own antagonist. Florentino Ariza is sick with love, and the symptoms are dangerous. His mind is crazy with his longing for Fermina. He is no longer rational, he acts solely on his feelings. He is literally plauged by his passion for Fermina. He stalks her, watches her house, even when she’s not there. No rational person with intelligence like Florentino would exhibit such obsessive behavior unless they were under a serious illness. He can think of nothing else besides her. Though he is smart and successful, at work he cannot even do the simplest of tasks, such as writing a business letter. He is spending so much energy and drama on the person who might not even be the right one for him (though he is convinced differently). Florentino becomes so physically ill from lovesickness that his godfather at first thinks Florentino has cholera. His madness caused by his undying passion for Fermina transcends from psychological to physical when he eats flows and drinks cologne, then vomits it, all to know the scent of Fermina. He is sick in his heart (figuratively) which becomes sickness in his stomach. His emotions have made him lose rationality, and make him mentally disturbed.
- Other symptoms include his susceptibility to love poetry and romances.
- However, he thrives on this sickness. He loves that he’s suffering for her, even when he’s thrown in jail for serenading her. He takes satisfaction when Lorenzo Daza threatens to shoot him.
- Florentino’s drug to help his sickness is sex. While he is plagued with love, he sleeps with many women to forget his heartache and desire for Fermina.
- While cholera often affects the poorer classes of society, lovesickness affects anybody.
- Florentino’s passion has persisted like the plague of cholera. Florentino is literally plagued by love.
- Love is a sickness. Or so Gabriel García Marquez convyes in Love in the Time of Cholera. The protagonist, in his sickness, becomes his own antagonist. Florentino Ariza is sick with love, and the symptoms are dangerous. His mind is crazy with his longing for Fermina. He is no longer rational, he acts solely on his feelings. He is literally plauged by his passion for Fermina. He stalks her, watches her house, even when she’s not there. No rational person with intelligence like Florentino would exhibit such obsessive behavior unless they were under a serious illness. He can think of nothing else besides her. Though he is smart and successful, at work he cannot even do the simplest of tasks, such as writing a business letter. He is spending so much energy and drama on the person who might not even be the right one for him (though he is convinced differently). Florentino becomes so physically ill from lovesickness that his godfather at first thinks Florentino has cholera. His madness caused by his undying passion for Fermina transcends from psychological to physical when he eats flows and drinks cologne, then vomits it, all to know the scent of Fermina. He is sick in his heart (figuratively) which becomes sickness in his stomach. His emotions have made him lose rationality, and make him mentally disturbed.
- Other symptoms include his susceptibility to love poetry and romances.
- However, he thrives on this sickness. He loves that he’s suffering for her, even when he’s thrown in jail for serenading her. He takes satisfaction when Lorenzo Daza threatens to shoot him.
- Florentino’s drug to help his sickness is sex. While he is plagued with love, he sleeps with many women to forget his heartache and desire for Fermina.
- While cholera often affects the poorer classes of society, lovesickness affects anybody.
- Florentino’s passion has persisted like the plague of cholera. Florentino is literally plagued by love.
Tuesday, October 2, 2007
Connie Knows the Devil and his Name is Arnold Friend
Joyce Carol Oates’s “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” is a story of childhood destroyed by evil. Its antagonist, Arnold Friend, primarily drives the short story. On the surface, Arnold Friend is everything Connie would be attracted to. He listens to music she enjoys, he drives a nice car, and he dresses in a fashion she prefers. However, throughout the story, he becomes more menacing and more terrifying, through his manipulation of Connie, as well as his threats, outlandish statements, and demands. Arnold Friend frightens the reader by manipulating his and Connie’s conversation into directions he intends.
Oates craftfully creates the slow deterioration of Arnold Friend’s mask, but she does foreshadow is ill intentions. As Connie leaves the diner with Eddie, she first sees Arnold Friend, unbeknownst to her. His character first leaves an impression by his reaction to Connie: “He stared at her and then his lips widened into a grin… there he was still watching her. He wagged a finger and laughed and said, ‘Gonna get you, baby,’ and Connie turned away…” (¶ 7). His fake persona is slightly hinted at when he first approaches Connie at her house. “There were two boys in the car and now she recognized the driver: he had shaggy, shabby black hair that looked crazy as a wig and he was grinning at her” (¶ 16). Connie notices again that Arnold Friend seems to be wearing a wig when she observes, "He placed his sunglasses on top of his head, carefully, as if he were indeed wearing a wig..." (¶ 94).
Arnold Friend speaks far more like a kid than Connie. In his rant to Ellie, he practically rolls out a list of hip phrases to tell Ellie to shut up, and Connie notices it to be peculiar, “… he [was] running through all the expressions he’d learned but was no longer sure which of them was in style, then rushing on to new ones, making them up with his eyes closed” (¶ 50). With his hip phrases, he is trying to lure Connie with imagery of childhood, in an attempt to make her more comfortable with his presence and willfully go with him. However, this tactic does not work out so well, because Connie has no desire to speak like a child, and finds his speech to be artificial. Connie recognizes Arnold Friend’s bad intentions when she notices, “that slippery friendly smile of his, that sleepy dreamy smile that all the boys used to get across ideas they didn’t want to put into words” (¶ 77) but she does not comprehend it (“But all these things did not come together” (¶ 77)). Even his name—which could very well be a fake name—suggests he is someone Connie can trust: Arnold Friend sounds like “an old friend.” The name proposes that Arnold Friend possesses a friendly demeanor than he really does.
However, some of Arnold’s manipulation happens almost inexplicably, suggesting he has supernatural powers over Connie. Oates always refers to him by his full name, when she could easily use pronouns instead. Her usage of his full name suggests that he has an overwhelming presence, possibly not even human. His presence makes Connie notice things about her surroundings she had never observed before. When she runs into the kitchen to reach for the telephone, Arnold Friend’s presence makes her realize, “The kitchen looked like a place she had never seen before…” (¶ 114). His knowledge of incredible details of the barbeque Connie’s family is attending—“There’s your sister in a blue dress, huh?” (¶ 98)—suggest that he has an all-seeing power, like Satan. The devil imagery is further conveyed when he draws an X in the air as his “sign” (¶ 77). He controls Connie’s actions towards the end of the story, actions she would never normally do. When Arnold Friend is commanding her over to his car, she has no control over her actions:
“ ‘Now get up, honey. Get up all by yourself.’
She stood up.
‘Now turn this way. That’s right. Come over here to me…” (¶ 156 – 158)
Connie’s lack of control over her movements makes Arnold Friend endowed with a God-like ability to control actions. However, because Arnold Friend represents the dark and evil, he represents Satan. Connie describes Arnold Friend’s face as “a mask… tanned onto his throat but then running out as if he had plastered makeup onto his face but had forgotten about his throat” (¶ 110). His mask could be covering up the real face of Satan.
The biblical references do not end with Arnold Friend. Oates establishes the secret code as a reference to the Bible. The numbers are 33, 19, and 17. Going backwards in the Old Testament of the Bible, the 33rd section is Judges. Chapter 19, verse 17, is “And the old man lifted up his eyes and saw the wayfarer in the street of the city; and the old man said to him, ‘Where are you going? And whence do you come?’”
The title itself is asking a very similar question in two different ways, with different tenses. The title remarks that Connie never truthfully tells her mother where she really is going all those nights she’s at the mall and the movie theatre. And after her encounter with Arnold Friend, she will never be able to again. (890)
“It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue” lyrics
by Bob Dylan
"You must leave now, take what you need, you think will last.
But whatever you wish to keep, you better grab it fast.
Yonder stands your orphan with his gun,
Crying like a fire in the sun.
Look out the saints are comin' through
And it's all over now, Baby Blue.
The highway is for gamblers, better use your sense.
Take what you have gathered from coincidence.
The empty-handed painter from your streets
Is drawing crazy patterns on your sheets.
This sky, too, is folding under you
And it's all over now, Baby Blue.
All your seasick sailors, they are rowing home.
All your reindeer armies, are all going home.
The lover who just walked out your door
Has taken all his blankets from the floor.
The carpet, too, is moving under you
And it's all over now, Baby Blue.
Leave your stepping stones behind, something calls for you.
Forget the dead you've left, they will not follow you.
The vagabond who's rapping at your door
Is standing in the clothes that you once wore.
Strike another match, go start anew
And it's all over now, Baby Blue."
Oates craftfully creates the slow deterioration of Arnold Friend’s mask, but she does foreshadow is ill intentions. As Connie leaves the diner with Eddie, she first sees Arnold Friend, unbeknownst to her. His character first leaves an impression by his reaction to Connie: “He stared at her and then his lips widened into a grin… there he was still watching her. He wagged a finger and laughed and said, ‘Gonna get you, baby,’ and Connie turned away…” (¶ 7). His fake persona is slightly hinted at when he first approaches Connie at her house. “There were two boys in the car and now she recognized the driver: he had shaggy, shabby black hair that looked crazy as a wig and he was grinning at her” (¶ 16). Connie notices again that Arnold Friend seems to be wearing a wig when she observes, "He placed his sunglasses on top of his head, carefully, as if he were indeed wearing a wig..." (¶ 94).
Arnold Friend speaks far more like a kid than Connie. In his rant to Ellie, he practically rolls out a list of hip phrases to tell Ellie to shut up, and Connie notices it to be peculiar, “… he [was] running through all the expressions he’d learned but was no longer sure which of them was in style, then rushing on to new ones, making them up with his eyes closed” (¶ 50). With his hip phrases, he is trying to lure Connie with imagery of childhood, in an attempt to make her more comfortable with his presence and willfully go with him. However, this tactic does not work out so well, because Connie has no desire to speak like a child, and finds his speech to be artificial. Connie recognizes Arnold Friend’s bad intentions when she notices, “that slippery friendly smile of his, that sleepy dreamy smile that all the boys used to get across ideas they didn’t want to put into words” (¶ 77) but she does not comprehend it (“But all these things did not come together” (¶ 77)). Even his name—which could very well be a fake name—suggests he is someone Connie can trust: Arnold Friend sounds like “an old friend.” The name proposes that Arnold Friend possesses a friendly demeanor than he really does.
However, some of Arnold’s manipulation happens almost inexplicably, suggesting he has supernatural powers over Connie. Oates always refers to him by his full name, when she could easily use pronouns instead. Her usage of his full name suggests that he has an overwhelming presence, possibly not even human. His presence makes Connie notice things about her surroundings she had never observed before. When she runs into the kitchen to reach for the telephone, Arnold Friend’s presence makes her realize, “The kitchen looked like a place she had never seen before…” (¶ 114). His knowledge of incredible details of the barbeque Connie’s family is attending—“There’s your sister in a blue dress, huh?” (¶ 98)—suggest that he has an all-seeing power, like Satan. The devil imagery is further conveyed when he draws an X in the air as his “sign” (¶ 77). He controls Connie’s actions towards the end of the story, actions she would never normally do. When Arnold Friend is commanding her over to his car, she has no control over her actions:
“ ‘Now get up, honey. Get up all by yourself.’
She stood up.
‘Now turn this way. That’s right. Come over here to me…” (¶ 156 – 158)
Connie’s lack of control over her movements makes Arnold Friend endowed with a God-like ability to control actions. However, because Arnold Friend represents the dark and evil, he represents Satan. Connie describes Arnold Friend’s face as “a mask… tanned onto his throat but then running out as if he had plastered makeup onto his face but had forgotten about his throat” (¶ 110). His mask could be covering up the real face of Satan.
The biblical references do not end with Arnold Friend. Oates establishes the secret code as a reference to the Bible. The numbers are 33, 19, and 17. Going backwards in the Old Testament of the Bible, the 33rd section is Judges. Chapter 19, verse 17, is “And the old man lifted up his eyes and saw the wayfarer in the street of the city; and the old man said to him, ‘Where are you going? And whence do you come?’”
The title itself is asking a very similar question in two different ways, with different tenses. The title remarks that Connie never truthfully tells her mother where she really is going all those nights she’s at the mall and the movie theatre. And after her encounter with Arnold Friend, she will never be able to again. (890)
“It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue” lyrics
by Bob Dylan
"You must leave now, take what you need, you think will last.
But whatever you wish to keep, you better grab it fast.
Yonder stands your orphan with his gun,
Crying like a fire in the sun.
Look out the saints are comin' through
And it's all over now, Baby Blue.
The highway is for gamblers, better use your sense.
Take what you have gathered from coincidence.
The empty-handed painter from your streets
Is drawing crazy patterns on your sheets.
This sky, too, is folding under you
And it's all over now, Baby Blue.
All your seasick sailors, they are rowing home.
All your reindeer armies, are all going home.
The lover who just walked out your door
Has taken all his blankets from the floor.
The carpet, too, is moving under you
And it's all over now, Baby Blue.
Leave your stepping stones behind, something calls for you.
Forget the dead you've left, they will not follow you.
The vagabond who's rapping at your door
Is standing in the clothes that you once wore.
Strike another match, go start anew
And it's all over now, Baby Blue."
Sunday, September 23, 2007
Necrophilia, phonies, and butter churns
I dedicate this blog entry to the Google tech support team. They answered my questions and basically rose my blog from a peculiar doom. That's why it's been oddly empty for the past while. This shan't happen again, or so say the Google people.
"A Rose for Emily" is the only literature I have come across that makes me pity a possible necrophiliac. I enjoyed the writing style of William Faulkner in this story, and now I'm excited to read The Sound and the Fury. Some sentences in "A Rose for Emily" really struck me as beautiful, almost poetic, such as, "She carried her head high enough—even when we believed that she was fallen." (33) The reader pities her as they see the world around her evolve, and she stays the same. Emily never learns to really let go. Even though her father died, Emily could never shake off his strong influence on her. And, as the reader discovers at the end of the story, she never parts with Homer Barron. Her unwillingness to release drives her to madness, murder, and bizarre motives.
While many writers compose positive stories regarding social activists, Alice Walker's "Everyday Use" shows the dark side of heritage pride. Dee, who grew up ashamed of her family, returns to her home to treat it as a relic. She embraces a past she once tried to deny. However, though she is accepting her past as a reminder of her African heritage, she does not embrace the people of her past: Mama and Maggie. While Dee's attitude toward her past and family has changed, it has not necessarily changed for the better. Dee is an insecure person trying to prove her cultural authentic past. With Dee's advance college education, she sees herself as better than her family because she has more advanced academic knowledge. However, despite her higher education, she has not acquired the knowledge of manners and kindness known to Maggie and Mama.
What I found interesting is that Dee, or Wanegro, scorned her immediate roots, the ones she grew up with. But she embraces roots she is not very familiar with, a native African identity. Her family has been in America for many generations—even Mama is not familiar with anything from their native Africa except bits and pieces of the African culture still remaining. When she arrives at the house, she starts to snap photos of her house and her family, as if they are relics of a life she never knew, not the people and place she grew up with.
Also, when Dee asks to take the butter churn, Maggie is slightly distressed, but passively accepts this. Maggie loves the butter churn, and knows its history. This is almost ironic because Dee has been trying to find out her history beyond her generations in America, and Maggie is knowledgeable of the family's history many generations before her, as shown with the butter churn. Which history is more relevant to their present lives? In my opinion, Maggie's understanding of her past generations is not only more pertinent but also more authentic than Dee's attempt to seek her African identity.
It's really fascinating to see two siblings be completely opposite of each other. Growing up in a family of five kids, all of us different from each other, I can see how you can still grow up to be very different people even though you come from the same family or roots. However, with Dee and Maggie, they are beyond opposites. There is really nothing that remotely connects the two other than their shared genes. Dee wants material happiness, things she can flaunt in her house that will impress others. Maggie can't even understand material happiness. She has such a one-track mind, so different from her sister. She can appreciate the true meaning of her grandmother's possessions because she isn't really capable of knowing other possible meanings.
I was really turned off by Dee when she was patronizing her mother and sister one moment and bullying them the next. She claimed her family knew nothing of her heritage, which is silly, because it's their heritage too. If anything, Mama is more knowledgeable about their heritage simply because she's older. I found it interesting that Alice Walker, a social activist herself, wrote such a negative image of someone involved in the civil rights movement. However, I see know that she did so almost to warn readers about phonies who say they are deeply involved in new social movements but who really participate as ways to cover their insecurities and gain material success.
(721)
"A Rose for Emily" is the only literature I have come across that makes me pity a possible necrophiliac. I enjoyed the writing style of William Faulkner in this story, and now I'm excited to read The Sound and the Fury. Some sentences in "A Rose for Emily" really struck me as beautiful, almost poetic, such as, "She carried her head high enough—even when we believed that she was fallen." (33) The reader pities her as they see the world around her evolve, and she stays the same. Emily never learns to really let go. Even though her father died, Emily could never shake off his strong influence on her. And, as the reader discovers at the end of the story, she never parts with Homer Barron. Her unwillingness to release drives her to madness, murder, and bizarre motives.
While many writers compose positive stories regarding social activists, Alice Walker's "Everyday Use" shows the dark side of heritage pride. Dee, who grew up ashamed of her family, returns to her home to treat it as a relic. She embraces a past she once tried to deny. However, though she is accepting her past as a reminder of her African heritage, she does not embrace the people of her past: Mama and Maggie. While Dee's attitude toward her past and family has changed, it has not necessarily changed for the better. Dee is an insecure person trying to prove her cultural authentic past. With Dee's advance college education, she sees herself as better than her family because she has more advanced academic knowledge. However, despite her higher education, she has not acquired the knowledge of manners and kindness known to Maggie and Mama.
What I found interesting is that Dee, or Wanegro, scorned her immediate roots, the ones she grew up with. But she embraces roots she is not very familiar with, a native African identity. Her family has been in America for many generations—even Mama is not familiar with anything from their native Africa except bits and pieces of the African culture still remaining. When she arrives at the house, she starts to snap photos of her house and her family, as if they are relics of a life she never knew, not the people and place she grew up with.
Also, when Dee asks to take the butter churn, Maggie is slightly distressed, but passively accepts this. Maggie loves the butter churn, and knows its history. This is almost ironic because Dee has been trying to find out her history beyond her generations in America, and Maggie is knowledgeable of the family's history many generations before her, as shown with the butter churn. Which history is more relevant to their present lives? In my opinion, Maggie's understanding of her past generations is not only more pertinent but also more authentic than Dee's attempt to seek her African identity.
It's really fascinating to see two siblings be completely opposite of each other. Growing up in a family of five kids, all of us different from each other, I can see how you can still grow up to be very different people even though you come from the same family or roots. However, with Dee and Maggie, they are beyond opposites. There is really nothing that remotely connects the two other than their shared genes. Dee wants material happiness, things she can flaunt in her house that will impress others. Maggie can't even understand material happiness. She has such a one-track mind, so different from her sister. She can appreciate the true meaning of her grandmother's possessions because she isn't really capable of knowing other possible meanings.
I was really turned off by Dee when she was patronizing her mother and sister one moment and bullying them the next. She claimed her family knew nothing of her heritage, which is silly, because it's their heritage too. If anything, Mama is more knowledgeable about their heritage simply because she's older. I found it interesting that Alice Walker, a social activist herself, wrote such a negative image of someone involved in the civil rights movement. However, I see know that she did so almost to warn readers about phonies who say they are deeply involved in new social movements but who really participate as ways to cover their insecurities and gain material success.
(721)
Thursday, August 30, 2007
The Lovely Coping Mechanisms
I was rather attracted to reading The Lovely Bones because it dealt with a grimmer side of life: grief. I find humanity's capability to feel so much sadness and anger after loss to be one of our most amazing traits. Many never recover after someone close has died, others go through an incredible transformation, for better or for worse. The passing of a single individual can affect so many lives in so many different ways. I do not believe happiness is that infectious.
The Lovely Bones conveys the different reactions to the death of the narrator, Susie Salmon, as she watches from heaven. Her kidnap, rape, and murder eventually lead to the disintegration of a normal, nuclear family. The family struggles to cope with life continuing after such a huge tragedy. Alice Sebold displays, through her characters, that while grief many come in many different forms, everyone will have his or her burden to bear. How he or she chooses to bear this burden is entirely up to their widely varying coping mechanisms. The characters in this novel embody truly human characteristics in different ways they cope with the similar burdens they share.
Susie's mother, Abigail, grieves several things: the loss of her daughter, the collapse of her family surrounding the death, and the loss of her life she never had the opprotunity to live. Susie's death pushes Abigail's previous, personal problem of her youth cut short by having a family into a large ordeal that brings her family down with her. Abigail spirals down into her personal turmoil. After having an affair with a detective investigating Susie's death, she leaves her family for seven years. Susie's death left Abigail selfish and unfeeling, her only way to disconnect from emotions involving others. Ms. Sebold conveys a certain aspect of grief with Abigail's character: becoming self-centered as a way to not feel emotions connected with others.
Lindsey Salmon, Susie's younger sister, grips with Susie's death in silent emotional intensity. She wills herself to take the mother position of the strong woman in the family, as Abigail has abandoned her family's feelings. Lindsey shares a physical and mental connection with Susie: her striking physical similarity to Susie, and her sisterly bond with Susie. Abigail senses the similarity between Susie and Lindsey, finds it too much to handle, and shuts Lindsey out of her life. Lindsey discovers, painfully, that the world moved on after Susie's death, and soon the town forgot about what happened to their family. Lindsey learns to lead her family and raise her younger brother when Abigail leaves and her father loses most of his will to live after Susie's death. Lindsey's character is remarkably human because though she is silent and strong, she suffers hugely. Ms. Sebold shows that even those who do not outwardly express their grief still hurt and often have more emotional burdens than others.
By the end of the novel, the grief has shaped the characters in profound ways, yet they all have learned to continue with their lives. Susie says, "These were the lovely bones that had grown around my absence: the connections—sometimes tenuous, sometimes made at great cost, but often magnificnet—that happened after I was gone. And I began to see things in a way that let me hold the world without me in it. The events my death wrought were merely the bones of a body that would become whole at some unpredictable time in the future. The price of what I came to see as this miraculous lifeless body had been my life." Alice Sebold, by the end of this novel, conveys that while the human feeling of grief can consume people in many different ways, people can heal through the strength of others and the strength of themselves.
The Lovely Bones conveys the different reactions to the death of the narrator, Susie Salmon, as she watches from heaven. Her kidnap, rape, and murder eventually lead to the disintegration of a normal, nuclear family. The family struggles to cope with life continuing after such a huge tragedy. Alice Sebold displays, through her characters, that while grief many come in many different forms, everyone will have his or her burden to bear. How he or she chooses to bear this burden is entirely up to their widely varying coping mechanisms. The characters in this novel embody truly human characteristics in different ways they cope with the similar burdens they share.
Susie's mother, Abigail, grieves several things: the loss of her daughter, the collapse of her family surrounding the death, and the loss of her life she never had the opprotunity to live. Susie's death pushes Abigail's previous, personal problem of her youth cut short by having a family into a large ordeal that brings her family down with her. Abigail spirals down into her personal turmoil. After having an affair with a detective investigating Susie's death, she leaves her family for seven years. Susie's death left Abigail selfish and unfeeling, her only way to disconnect from emotions involving others. Ms. Sebold conveys a certain aspect of grief with Abigail's character: becoming self-centered as a way to not feel emotions connected with others.
Lindsey Salmon, Susie's younger sister, grips with Susie's death in silent emotional intensity. She wills herself to take the mother position of the strong woman in the family, as Abigail has abandoned her family's feelings. Lindsey shares a physical and mental connection with Susie: her striking physical similarity to Susie, and her sisterly bond with Susie. Abigail senses the similarity between Susie and Lindsey, finds it too much to handle, and shuts Lindsey out of her life. Lindsey discovers, painfully, that the world moved on after Susie's death, and soon the town forgot about what happened to their family. Lindsey learns to lead her family and raise her younger brother when Abigail leaves and her father loses most of his will to live after Susie's death. Lindsey's character is remarkably human because though she is silent and strong, she suffers hugely. Ms. Sebold shows that even those who do not outwardly express their grief still hurt and often have more emotional burdens than others.
By the end of the novel, the grief has shaped the characters in profound ways, yet they all have learned to continue with their lives. Susie says, "These were the lovely bones that had grown around my absence: the connections—sometimes tenuous, sometimes made at great cost, but often magnificnet—that happened after I was gone. And I began to see things in a way that let me hold the world without me in it. The events my death wrought were merely the bones of a body that would become whole at some unpredictable time in the future. The price of what I came to see as this miraculous lifeless body had been my life." Alice Sebold, by the end of this novel, conveys that while the human feeling of grief can consume people in many different ways, people can heal through the strength of others and the strength of themselves.
My less-than-steller debut in AP English IV
Mr. Coon,
I'll get to the bottom line first: I'm not an English person. Okay, that came out wrong. My academic strengths do not lie in the English department. I much prefer to watch a History Channel documentary about the Cold War than to read a Jane Austen novel about love. That being said, I do not mind reading literature, both fiction and nonfiction. I'm just really picky. Books with simple language, an engaging plotline, and excellent characters draw my attention. Let's put an extra emphasis on simple language—I cannot stand novels with super ornate sentences and ten-page long descriptions of a tree. I want to read escape, not to admire. I love that when I find a good book, and if I have a lot of time, I can sit down and read like a speed demon. When this goes awry, when I'm reading a book I do not particularly enjoy, I take a very long time to finish it. My favorite book is definitely The Catcher in the Rye. Once we were assigned to read it in English III, I finished it in about two nights. Other favorites include Ragtime, The Perks of Being a Wallflower, and The Lovely Bones. And I can gobble up a Harry Potter book of 800 pages in about 10 hours. As silly as that sounds, I think J.K. Rowling employs all the characteristics in literature I'm looking for when I read. Also, I'm a closet Harry Potter geek.
I've always been a "reluctant reader". My older sister, Faith, loves to read. I grew up with Faith reading every Great Illustrated Classics she could get her hands on. I was content with comic books and atlases. This perturbed my parents; they thought it was some parenting failure. And I don't think it was until Grade 5 that they figured out that I could read a lot, I just had not been reading things to my liking. In grade 5, social studies was American History. We had a small, easy textbook. It was the first in the series of nine. They were only about 300 pages each. As soon as I was assigned my first reading, I was hooked. I finished the first book in about a week, and I begged my parents to buy me the rest of the set. Over the course of grade 5, I read the entire set of A History of US by Joy Hakim. The history textbook reading tradition continued when I was in grade 8. I read the entire US History textbook I purchased for the class the summer before school started. This tradition did not continue in my Junior year, but I still looked forward to AP US History reading assignments. As my love for American history grew, my time spent reading pleasure books diminished. As Kurt Vonnegut says, "So it goes."
As a writer, by now you can tell that I write a lot like I speak. This makes creative writing really fun for me, and research papers not so much. However, when I really work hard, when I really stay on task, when my short attention span does not get the better of me, I can produce really great writing. My proudest writing moment of my high school career is definitely my I.D. paper. It helped that my assigned novel, Ragtime, is an amazing book. I worked impossibly hard on that paper, but for more than a good grade. I wanted to prove to Mr. Martin that despite my poor English grades of the past, I was a good writer. It worked. I received a 94 on the paper (it would have been a 98 had I not been a bit lazy with citations). A 94 on one of the milestones of the PCDS curriculum is not bad for a kid who generally dislikes writing academic papers.
I am not sure if this is an incredible insight into my psyche as an English student, but I hope you now possess a clearer picture of me as a reader, a writer, and a person in your mind.
Peace, love, and lobster,
Lizzy Burton
I'll get to the bottom line first: I'm not an English person. Okay, that came out wrong. My academic strengths do not lie in the English department. I much prefer to watch a History Channel documentary about the Cold War than to read a Jane Austen novel about love. That being said, I do not mind reading literature, both fiction and nonfiction. I'm just really picky. Books with simple language, an engaging plotline, and excellent characters draw my attention. Let's put an extra emphasis on simple language—I cannot stand novels with super ornate sentences and ten-page long descriptions of a tree. I want to read escape, not to admire. I love that when I find a good book, and if I have a lot of time, I can sit down and read like a speed demon. When this goes awry, when I'm reading a book I do not particularly enjoy, I take a very long time to finish it. My favorite book is definitely The Catcher in the Rye. Once we were assigned to read it in English III, I finished it in about two nights. Other favorites include Ragtime, The Perks of Being a Wallflower, and The Lovely Bones. And I can gobble up a Harry Potter book of 800 pages in about 10 hours. As silly as that sounds, I think J.K. Rowling employs all the characteristics in literature I'm looking for when I read. Also, I'm a closet Harry Potter geek.
I've always been a "reluctant reader". My older sister, Faith, loves to read. I grew up with Faith reading every Great Illustrated Classics she could get her hands on. I was content with comic books and atlases. This perturbed my parents; they thought it was some parenting failure. And I don't think it was until Grade 5 that they figured out that I could read a lot, I just had not been reading things to my liking. In grade 5, social studies was American History. We had a small, easy textbook. It was the first in the series of nine. They were only about 300 pages each. As soon as I was assigned my first reading, I was hooked. I finished the first book in about a week, and I begged my parents to buy me the rest of the set. Over the course of grade 5, I read the entire set of A History of US by Joy Hakim. The history textbook reading tradition continued when I was in grade 8. I read the entire US History textbook I purchased for the class the summer before school started. This tradition did not continue in my Junior year, but I still looked forward to AP US History reading assignments. As my love for American history grew, my time spent reading pleasure books diminished. As Kurt Vonnegut says, "So it goes."
As a writer, by now you can tell that I write a lot like I speak. This makes creative writing really fun for me, and research papers not so much. However, when I really work hard, when I really stay on task, when my short attention span does not get the better of me, I can produce really great writing. My proudest writing moment of my high school career is definitely my I.D. paper. It helped that my assigned novel, Ragtime, is an amazing book. I worked impossibly hard on that paper, but for more than a good grade. I wanted to prove to Mr. Martin that despite my poor English grades of the past, I was a good writer. It worked. I received a 94 on the paper (it would have been a 98 had I not been a bit lazy with citations). A 94 on one of the milestones of the PCDS curriculum is not bad for a kid who generally dislikes writing academic papers.
I am not sure if this is an incredible insight into my psyche as an English student, but I hope you now possess a clearer picture of me as a reader, a writer, and a person in your mind.
Peace, love, and lobster,
Lizzy Burton
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