Rob A

2009-04-26T21:36:00.000-07:00

Hey Mr. Coon,
Ya I see that my talking about the book assignment is there...one of them is blank but there is another right above it that is dated the correct date.
So hopefully you don't demerit me : ) because I did indeed have it done.

Thanks,
Rob

Things Fall Apart

2009-04-13T20:57:00.000-07:00

I wrote this already so I am annoyed with the computer now so this is now the abridged version.
I am doing my paper on Things Fall Apart by Achebe
I am writing it about the title and about the criticism coming from black and white authors and the possible opinions on Achebe's book.
I want to do things with criticism becaus of how...impassioned...Achebe was in his criticism of Heart of Darkness.

I have read half of the book.
I would like to also discuss the veracity of Achebe's depiction of Africa before white people show up.

Things are going well on this front for me...and things will definitely not be falling apart.

Rob

Things Fall Apart by Achebe

2009-04-13T07:44:00.000-07:00

The Warning is a Sandwich

2009-04-10T00:42:00.000-07:00

“When You Are Old” by William Butler Yeats is a warning in 10 syllables and 3 stanzas. The male speaker of the poem (let’s call him William) warns the woman (let’s call her Lesbia, actually let’s call her Maud) that she will regret denying his love when she is old. Although the poem takes place at the end of Maud’s life, it seems clear that William is warning Maud when she is still young. The warning is a sandwich. The bread, the first and third stanzas, bookend the second stanza and discuss what will happen in the future if Maud chooses to deny William’s love. The meat, the second stanza, discusses William’s love and what is happening in present time. The first and last stanzas also depict what William believes Maud will be doing and thinking in the future, while the second stanza narrates how William himself feels about Maud.

The poem begins with Maud being “old and grey” and “full of sleep” and “ nodding by the fire” (line 1). These lines demonstrate her age and how close she is to death because old people sleep a lot. Lines 1 and 2 have a halcyon mood to them, but the tone starts to change with the word “once” in line 4. “Once” changes the tone because it is the first evidence that this poem is not going to be about pure, unwavering love.

The second stanza does have some elements of that pure, unwavering love idea. With the passing of each line in the second stanza, William further separates himself from other suitors through his real love for Maud. In the first line of the second stanza we learn that Maud was popular, attractive, and well loved by many through the phrase “many loved her moments of glad grace” (line 5). The word “moments” in this line reminds us of the contrast between the vacillating nature of the way most suitors only love the “glad grace” of Maud and the way William loves Maud. “Moments” also reminds us of the temporal nature of her beauty and of the poem. In line 6, William clearly separates himself as one of the people who “[truly]” loves Maude. In lines 7 and 8, William further separates himself as the “one man” who loves the real Maud, her “pilgrim soul,” and the “only man” who will love her after her “changing face” has changed so much that her “glad grace” and “beauty” are gone (line 5-8).

At stanza three, William returns to the future, in the same timeframe as in the first stanza. The first line of the third stanza is used to transport us back into the old woman’s room, now detailed with “the glowing bars” of a fire (line 9). Lines 10-12 reveal that “Love” will leave Maud, without William. The capitalized “Love” dually represents William and all love, in general. The last two lines of poem have two meanings as well. The “mountains” and the area “amid a crowd of stars” could represent an unreachable destination that Maud, without William, could not reach, and/or a desirable place that William will be end up even without Maud.

With the understanding of William’s points about his love at present time in stanza two, and about Maud’s sad future time in stanza one and three, the overall warning tone of this poem becomes clear.

This poem is good, but was William’s warning successful?
Turns out the poem directly parallels William Butler Yeats’s "unrequited" love for Maud Gonne. The speaker, William, could actually be William Butler Yeats and the woman, Maud, could actually be Maud Gonne! If the poem is trying to get Maud to be with him, it fails. Gonne never returned Yeats’s love and Yeats ended up marrying another woman, Georgie Hyde-Lees. Hyde-Lees must be the “mountains” and “stars” that William, the speaker, moves onto when Maud, the woman, chooses not to be with him (Lives of the Poets 1217). But luckily for us, Yeats tried to warn Gonne, and therefore we still have the poem, “When You Are Old.” (676)

The Semi-Tragedy of a Salesman

2009-03-08T22:02:00.000-07:00

We sort of touched on the idea of this play being a tragedy–I think–but now that I have read the “Tragedy and the Common Man” essay I don’t think I want to write about anything else. I am not sure if I am convincing myself that we talked about tragedy so I can blog about it, or if we really talked about it in class, but regardless, I am going to talk about it in this blog.

*Also, I was wondering if anyone else feels this way, I am always mad at myself at Sunday blog time because every week I say to myself, “Robert, don’t say all of your thoughts in class or you will be left idea-less when blog time comes.” Every week I fail. Every week I say all of my ideas in class and then I sit down at the computer devoid of ideas at blog time.

I am similar to a sponge that has squeezed all of its water onto a table to clean it out of enjoyment and the kindness of his heart, and then when the sponge really needs to clean something it is all dry and useless because it spent too long cleaning the table. But I plan to continue telling all my ideas in class anyway.

So here we go.

I think the more important part of this play is not the actual death of the salesman, Willie, but the culmination of his death. This tragic culmination, as it were, is true the “death” of Willie. By the time his physical death takes place, Willie, and everything Willie stood for, hoped for, and dreamed of was dead.

After reading Arthur Miller’s essay I agree with what he says without saying. What he says without saying is that the Death of a Salesman is a tragedy. I am sorry Arthur, but I semi-disagree. I think the play is a Semi-Tragedy (and yes I will coin my own term for this idea and refer to Arthur in the vocative as if I am on a first name basis with him).

His essay is very good, but the only thing I didn’t think he had good support for was the idea of the “fall.” Although he argues that the flaw makes the fall into just losing what he “conceives to be…his image of his rightful status” (Arthur 1833). I think that is unfortunate to lose one’s image of one’s rightful status, but I do not think that loss constitutes a fall. What it constitutes is a trip that one stumbles from but gathers oneself and stands once again. Willie does not stand, but he definitely gathers himself. Maybe Arthur was not very athletic and struggled with this gathering-falling concept.

I think the fall of the protagonist in a tragedy is so important to the effectiveness and definition of a tragedy. What makes Death of a Salesman a less effective tragedy is that Willie hardly falls. In the play Willie’s past is left ambiguous by Arthur on purpose. This ambiguity is effective to show the confusion in Willie’s mind, but it also harms our ability to recognize a true fall in the protagonist. It seems fully possible that Willie has always been this unsuccessful as a salesman and as a person. It seems more likely that he was at least a little bit better than he is at the end of his life; however, this small difference between earlier Willie and Willie at his death shows evidence of the minimal fall Willie has made as a character.

Although Miller is a modern Aristotle in discussing tragedy, I think that because of the lack of a true and large enough fall in the Death of a Salesman it is not actually tragedy, but only a Semi-Tragedy. (633)

It is a Vicious Cycle

2009-02-23T06:03:00.000-08:00

It is a vicious cycle. Poor Nora. In the beginning of A Doll’s House I was sure that Nora was a weak, shallow, and coquettish (not my word–I wish it was–but Mr. Coon used it before me, so I am accrediting him) young woman. By the end of the play though Nora become strong, or stronger as she goes through a sort of rebirth with a corresponding life path. Helmer insultingly says that she is acting like “child,” but I thought this was actually a fitting complement because that is an improvement.

It is odd to realize that Nora acting like a child is actually a positive change for her. She used to act like a sky lark, a squirrel, and other “pets.” So she when she starts to transform into a stronger person she goes from a pet to a child. By the end of the play she seems to have grown from a child to a young adult who is ready to search for who she really is.

This change came about because she realized that her whole existence before her rebirth was very meaningless. She lived her life the way a parrot does: she was entertaining but just did and said things that seemed human-like but they were really just primitive behaviors to make her father and husband happy respectively. She started as a parrot in her “fathers hands” and then stayed a parrot when she was passed into her husband’s hands.

The vicious cycle is that Nora is not to blame for her weak personality; because she was never allowed become a strong person. To become a strong person, according to this play, one must experience difficult situations, deal with them, and solve them. Nora was coddled her whole life so she was never able to become a strong person. And then when she tries to solve problems, she fails because she is so inexperienced because she was coddled her whole life. I blame the father and the husband.

I think Nora at the very end of the play is a strong young adult because she escaped the cycle that kept her in the role of a subservient pet and then began moving out of her comfort zone (that wasn’t that comfortable anyway) to go on a walkabout to find herself (I realize she is not an aboriginal boy but I think this right of passage situation fits well).

It takes a strong person to realize your whole life has been almost meaningless, and then at that point of realization, start completely again leaving behind everything you know. (432)

The Method to the Madness

2009-02-01T21:58:00.000-08:00

Questions: Act II #5 = Blog Inspiration

Polonius [aside]: Though this be madness, yet there is method in ‘it–Will you walk out of air, my lord?

I think this quote is a very important quote in Act II and in taking a position on Hamlet’s actions. I think Shakespeare is directly talking to his audience/reader through this quote. I realize that the quote is an aside already, but this aside is even more directed at the audience than other asides in the play because this aside has a specific purpose: to gets the audience thinking about whether or not Hamlet has a goal and whether or not Hamlet has a plan to reach that goal. Polonius’s quote functions as a hammer to nail into Shakespeare’s desire to want his audience/reader to be thinking about the motives behind Hamlet’s actions.

By this time the audience/reader has started to think about whether or not Hamlet’s love for Ophelia is genuine, or if the relationship between the characters is a part of Hamlet’s plan that required Marcellus and Horatio to swear to act unaware of any motives behind anything Hamlet may do after that night with the ghost.

Polonius’s quote is also very interesting to me because there of much evidence for Polonius to draw from that would allow him to believe that Hamlet’s relationship with/for Ophelia is a part of any plot, but surprisingly Polonius still is very suspicious of Hamlets actions to some degree. I have not read Hamlet before so I am not sure if Hamlet’s dealings with Ophelia will have any specific purpose in the end, but my ideas about Hamlet’s plot and Ophelia’s questionable role in his plot are these:

I think the true reasoning for Hamlet’s love-struck and odd behavior towards Ophelia is important and a part of a plan, but not because Ophelia is involved. I think Hamlet just needs a credible witness to his “madness.”

To continue: Polonius’s quote is still correct in two ways: one, to Polonius, he believes Ophelia is a player in some sort of game Hamlet is playing. I think Polonius is not correct in his beliefs, but those are the beliefs in which relate to what Polonius meant by his quote. And two, I think the method to his madness is the madness. I think madness is literally the method Hamlet has chosen to achieve whatever he wants to achieve. I think Hamlet, for some reason feels as though he needs everyone to think he is mad or going mad for the rest of his plan to work the way he has designed it. I think Shakespeare wants us to see this meaning of the quote as well, before he reveals more about Hamlet’s madness, method, and plan.

All of the above discussion assumes that Hamlet has indeed chosen a goal and has already commenced a plan to achieve his goal, but to some that may not be true. I believe Hamlet does have a goal and a plan to achieve his goal. I think the ambiguous true meaning of Polonius’s quote could be the true meaning of the quote itself. Maybe the purpose of the quote is not to make us decide what the point of the quote’s meaning is, but rather the purpose of the quote is just to get us to think about the different points the quote reveals. (562. BOOM, Roasted)

I am not Convinced

2009-01-19T23:24:00.000-08:00

Let me begin by saying thank you for choosing my blog. I know you have a lot of blogs to choose from and I appreciate your choice to read mine. And definitely read the second paragraph: "I am not convinced....".

“Let every man in mankind’s frailty / Consider his last day; and let none / Presume on his good fortune until he find / Life, at his death, a memory without pain.” (Exodus 297-300). That’s pretty deep Sophocles, or maybe just Choragos, but is it optimistic or pessimistic. To say that even though your life might seem great, you should be wary because in the last moments before your death you may realize your life was terrible seems pessimistic. Sophocles’s quote through the character Choragos could also be seen in an optimistic way: that we should take advantage of all the good times throughout of lives so that even if in the end we realize something terrible has ruin our lives, we still enjoyed our lives. I think Sophocles wants us to see the optimistic side of this ambiguous quote upon further investigation, but when we first read this quote I think Sophocles expects and wants us to see the pessimistic side of this quote, since Choragos says the quote as if it were a warning to the “Men of Thebes” (292).

I am not convinced that Oedipus is evil. Oedipus himself is convinced he is evil though. He calls himself the “child of evil” (135) and exclaims, “How evil!” (183) in reference to himself. I definitely agree that Oedipus’s deeds are evil, but I think the gods, specifically “Apollo” (110) because Oedipus thinks, “He [Apollo] brought his sick fate upon me [Oedipus]” (112). The Greco-Roman citizens learned morality mostly religion. So through religion and partly through society Oedipus (an ancient and mythical Greco-Roman) learned that killing his father, and marrying his mother is not morally acceptable. But Oedipus also learned from religion and society that obeying the will of the gods is also acceptable and more importantly, almost mandatory. So when Oedipus follows along the fated path Apollo prepared for him, I can’t fully fault Oedipus for his actions. Even with free will Oedipus cannot escape his fate. And I think if he could he would have. Oedipus was a good man and lived a good life all except for obeying the terrible actions that he was forced and fated to do by the gods. I definitely do not exclaim, “How evil!” when I exclaim things that have to do with Oedipus (183).

Poor Oedipus!? Poor children of Oedipus! While I was reading I wondered about the fate of his poor children because they are now orphaned and because they probably will have a terrible fate if the pattern of the terrible fates continues down the “line of Kadmos” (152) and “the house of Laïos” continues (155). The degree of how terrible each fate is increases down the ancestry line. The least terrible of the terrible fates would be Oedipus’s father’s fate: that his son would kill him and marry his wife. Next would be Oedipus’s fate: that he will kill his father and marry his mother. Then would presumably come Oedipus’s children. But who knows what fate can come for the spawn of the Oedipus and Oedipus’s mother/wife–who first produced a child who would kill her husband then marry her who would produce more children of his own with her. Oedipus even rhetorically stated, “Is there any evil waiting [for my children]” (262) because it seems so unlikely that they would be from the “bane” (261) of their family’s past.

Then I realized that we would soon find out what happens to one of these poor children because Antigone is one of Oedipus’s children, and she is the title of the next drama we will read in English. I wonder if the lives of Oedipus’s children will be less, just as, or more complex than the life of their father/brother. I have a hard time being optimistic about the fate of these children. (673!)

Pregnant Women are not as Moody as Ivan Ilych is.

2009-01-11T23:04:00.000-08:00

Assuming that Ivan Ilych’s illness is, in part, mentally self-imposed, then it is no surprise that Ivan’s mood alters so much according to the people who surround him at any given point of time while he is sick. With the idea that the severity of his illness depends on how “false” (251) he feels anyone in his company is, proves or supports the idea that Ivan’s illness is indeed mentally self-imposed. Ivan’s mood changes intrigued me the most about this novella.

Once Ivan gets really sick, his mood changes according to the “falsity” (251) are really apparent. Ivan admits to himself that “the deception, the lie” is really what was “tortur[ing] him.” For me the mental side of Ivan begins with his interactions with Gerasim in paragraph 217. Gerasim’s pure mind and outright intention to do what he can do “for a dying man” because “someone would do the same for him when his time came” (217) is what makes Ivan really happy and comfortable around Gerasim. I do not believe the way Gerasim positions Ivan’s legs has anything to do with Ivan’s welfare.

With the doctors, Ivan feels “[j]ust as terrible as ever,” because Ivan thinks the doctors act “falsely” because they do not say what they truly think. He believes the doctors think, “How are our affairs” and not what they do say, “What sort of night have you had?” (243). Ivan would rather fully avoid Praskovya Fëdorovna, because he–although he doesn’t directly know–he feels he how “false” his wife’s reasons for caring about his health are. Ivan is “always” in pain when his wife is around (282). Accordingly, he “hates her with his whole soul” for how he feels when he is around her (250). Not even his daughter helps to ease his pain. She too seems false to Ivan, because, unknown to her, she is too influenced by her fiancé and mother.
Ivan’s son, who pities him out of freight, does not cause Ivan any change in mood. His son pities him, an action that makes Ivan feel better, but because his son pities him out of freight, and not like one pities a child, Ivan feels sick. His son’s actions cause a zero net change in Ivan’s mood.

The greatest realization about mood comes not from my brilliant ideas, but the self-realization that Ivan himself has. He realizes that his mood is not just affected by others, but he himself and his mood affect the people around him. As Ivan dies he has been killing the people around him (300-305); this is the real irony of the story. Ivan is so mad that others are not curing him and helping him, but he does not realize that he is hurting those around him as well. In the end (of his life and of the novella) Ivan realizes that “must…release them [everyone around him]: release them and free himself from these sufferings” (352). He frees himself by allowing himself to die, and frees everyone else by being dead.

I also enjoyed the confirmation and communion scene because of the way Tolstoy/the narrator describe the feeling Ivan has after confirmation. I liked the way it is described because it accurately portrays the way I feel after confirmation. (541)

Kerr's Reversals

2008-12-07T21:28:00.000-08:00

In Douglas Kerr’s article “Three Ways of Going Wrong” I really liked his last main point. Kerr pointed out that Waiting for the Barbarians and Heart of Darkness both have a similar plot in which one character, Kurtz in Heart of Darkness, and the Magistrate in Waiting for the Barbarians, “goes wrong” by departing from his cultural identity by adopting, fostering, or accepting the juxtaposed culture of the native people as laudable or/and as his own culture. What makes these two books different, though, is the lens through which we see each story. In Heart of Darkness we hear the story through Marlow’s oration about a man “gone wrong,” but in Waiting for the Barbarians we see the story as it happens through the eyes of the actual man who has “gone wrong.” After understanding Kerr’s point about “going wrong” it seems to me that these books are very much almost the same book, but from the other point of view.

One problem in reversing the books to make them very much resemble each other is the narrator. Originally, in Waiting for the Barbarians, the story is told from the point of view of the man “gone wrong.” Waiting for the Barbarians to be reversed into Heart of Darkness would need a character who had not “gone wrong” to retell the story. Colonel Joll has not “gone wrong” in Kerr’s meaning of the phrase. What makes him fit this description is that Colonel Joll would tell his story of the Magistrate the way Marlow tells his story of Kurtz: that the Magistrate and Kurtz had “gone wrong” and gone mad as they grew more and more interested and connected to the native/barbarian culture.
To change the narrators in the other direction, Heart of Darkness to Waiting for the Barbarians, Kurtz would have to tell his story in the way the Magistrate tells his story. In this switch these narrators would makes their “going wrong” seem logical and justified and not actually “going wrong,” the way the Magistrate does in Heart of Darkness, just as it seems logical and justified that the two are indeed “going wrong” according to the narrations of Colonel Joll and Marlow.

The other problem is time. In Waiting for the Barbarians all of the action takes place in present time, but Heart of Darkness is a frame story, in which Marlow looks back on his experience in the Congo. To reverse these stories Colonel Joll would have tell the story as he looks back on his experience with the Magistrate. The Heart of Darkness to Waiting for the Barbarian reversal is much easier, as Kurtz would just tell his story as it was happening, the way the Magistrate does.

Since these two basic changes can reverse the two stories, these two stories clearly are very similar. Both, through slightly different methods, effectively raise questions about imperialism, war, empires, race, and especially, which path is truly “going wrong,” which is why the two books are both strikingly similar and also strikingly effective. (505)

Waiting for Chapter IV!

2008-11-23T19:50:00.000-08:00

Waiting for the Barbarians starts by introducing the narrator, who we intuit to be uneducated or unexposed, since he has never seen a pair of sunglasses before. But as the novel progresses we learn our narrator is a Magistrate and that he seems to possess more and more intelligence.

This book, in the tradition of AP English, does not give its characters or its setting actual names, besides the character, Colonel Joll. We only know our narrator by his title, Magistrate. The novel is set in a nameless colony of a nameless, country-less “Empire.” It seems obvious that Coetzee doesn’t name anything because he wants his main point (which we don’t know at this point) to seem relevant in every place being colonized by an empire.

Coetzee’s style is much clearer than any novels we have read thus far. His style consists mostly of dialogue supplemented with the interwoven thoughts of the Magistrate. Many times these thoughts are in the form of a rhetorical question. I liked the way Coetzee has each character transforming. He makes the Magistrate seem like a slave in the beginning and by the end we see him as an intelligent leader and even though he is not superior by rank to Colonel Joll, he definitely seems morally superior, besides his sexual decisions. Coetzee also develops the Magistrate’s slut from a slut to a smarter, important, and influential woman.

For a while I felt as though a more accurate title for this novel would be Waiting (but not for long) for the Magistrate’s Next Sexual Experience. I am not sure why there have been so many sexual scenes thus far in the story. They seem to have no purpose.

However, after reading the last line of section three, “the army is here, the promised campaign against the barbarians is under way,” my pessimism diminished as my excitement grew. I didn’t much like the beginning of this book, but I guess Coetzee wanted us to wait for the Barbarians.

I write this blog optimistically because now I have waited for the Barbarians long enough, and because the last line of chapter three finally establishes that the conflict–the Empire taking the Barbarians’ land and the Barbarians being mad about it–that was supposed to be driving the plot is finally going to start driving the plot in chapter four! (390)

Second Time's a Charm

2008-11-18T11:09:00.000-08:00

“Heart of Darkness and Racism” by Hunt Hawkins, 365-375

-My Author’s points mostly come from analyzing other critiques on Conrad rather than his own interpretation of the book, which I feel takes away from Hawkins’s points.
-The controversy of race has ironically given new life to the study of Conrad.
-Hawkins agrees with Achebe argues reading it carefully, but not banning
it.

Elements of Racism
-Realizes that none of the Africans have names, and none get more than a few sentences besides Kurtz’s mistress.
-Conrad is influenced by the temporal evolution writings of the time. The evidence is Marlow’s “traveling back to the earliest beginnings of the world.”

Expansionism/Imperialism
-Conrad opposed European expansion on grounds of the hypocrisy of the “civilizing mission” and opposition to the conquest of the Earth.
-It is ironic that they Europeans are civilizing the Africans when the Africans show restraint.
-Conrad also argues that as Europe moves into Africa they could slide backwards in the evolutionary scale, this argument is effective against imperialism, but is it s racist argument assuming Africans are at the bottom of the evolutionary scale.
-Conrad argues that the Africans do not corrupt Kurtz, but that Kurtz corrupts himself because unlike Kurtz, Marlow resists exploiting the Africans.
-These arguments come from Darwin’s The Descent of Man.

Conrad Himself
-Unlike Twain and Doyle, Conrad did not ever donate more of himself to the Congo after “witnessing” horrors there, maybe because he didn’t actually see the horrors himself.
-Conrad may seem racist now, but he was a lot less racist than his colleagues, so maybe to get others to agree with him he did not want to be so absolutely radical.
-Conrad would be proud that Heart of Darkness helped expose the horrors in the Congo, as it is now synonymous with alarming atrocities.

Bullets for "Primitivism and African Women in Heart of Darkness" by Marianna Torgovnick pg 396-405

2008-11-16T19:38:00.000-08:00

396-405: “Primitivism and the African Women in Heart of Darkness”
by Marianna Torgovnick

Women
Kurtz has mated with the magnificent black woman-violating British code
Because of her high decorations and leggings—she possibly is his wife
Her and the "Intended" are both impressive
His view on women is that they are all the same: seductive, beautiful, dangerous,
and deadly is ironically primitive
Women are connected with death, because landscape is death in the novella, and the
women reflect their landscapes

Primitivism and Extras
Kurtz loses his “restraint” by letting the Africans worship him
Marlow and Kurtz hypercritically dislike Europe after being in Africa
Conrad’s clever use of euphemism: work and business to mask what is happening in Congo
Conrad’s version of the primitive is a cheat: he fails to transcend the very Western values
he attacks
The work’s language veils not only what Kurtz was doing in Africa, but also what
Conrad is doing in Heart of Darkness

The "Sound" and the "Fury"

2008-11-03T19:51:00.000-08:00

One of my favorite parts of any book is the point at which I understand the meaning of the title. Sometimes the title comes from part of an important quote in the book, and sometimes the title is an idea that can only be understood after finishing most of the book.

I was especially interested in the meaning of The Sound and the Fury’s title after I learned that Faulkner had once titled The Sound and the Fury, Twilight. I believe that in the closing two pages of The Sound and the Fury we can confirm our assumptions of what this title means. I believe that The Sound and the Fury is not an idea, or a part of a quote, but that the "sound" and the "fury" represent two characters, respectively. I think the "sound" is Benji and the "fury" is Jason. Firstly, the belief that Benji moans, screams, and makes a lot of noise is evident everywhere that Benji is mentioned in the book. And secondly the idea that Jason is angry, cynical, and mean is evident in all the sections, but is especially prominent in the “Jason section” of the novel.” In the broad sense of the book each does represent sound or fury.

On page 320, the novel ends with a specific example of Benji being the "sound" and Jason being the "fury." Jason “backhanded” (320) and told Luster that he will “kill [him]” (320) for taking Benji out past the gate and for driving on the wrong route; "fury." And Benji “bellows” this whole last scene and only stops after he has a flower and after the carriage is on the right route; "sound." My interpretation of the ending and of the title of the novel allowed me to finish the novel with a feeling of closure. (301)

Benji: His Name is Even a Dog's Name!

2008-10-26T21:14:00.000-07:00

According to Jacqui Griffiths’s work Almost Human: Indeterminate Children and Dogs in Flush and The Sound and the Fury she states:

How often have you heard a dog-lover refer to a particular dog as ‘almost human’? Couple this with the nurturing relationship that many people have with their dogs, and that ‘human’ quality becomes decidedly infantile. Now try something else. Imagine the reaction you would get if you told somebody that his or her child was ‘almost a dog’: not a favorable one, I suspect. But if it is considered complimentary to suggest that one’s pet dog is just like a human child, or even that it is a ‘child substitute’, why does the suggestion that one’s child is like a pet dog seem so insulting? The point might seem obvious, but this dualistic, oppositional attitude toward children and animals, particularly domestic dogs, has far-reaching implications for the representation of either species.

I think this is a particularly interesting passage firstly because of its effectiveness as a humorous introductory paragraph to her work, and secondly because it reveals that her work is partly about Faulkner’s descriptions of Benji as a dog. My favorite of Faulkner's skills is his manipulation of groups of words with heavy connotations to describe a scene that does not have to do with the regular connotation of those chosen words. He does this several times, but the two most evident implorations of this technique are the use of sexual language in the “sex scene”/”knife on throat” scene between Caddy and Quentin on page 151, and the scenes in the very beginning of the “Benji section” where the other characters use language that we would normally associate with talking to a dog.

The parallels between Benji and a dog are abundant. Benji recalls, “If you dont [sic] be good you’ll have to go to the kitchen,” “Keep him in the yard now,” and “Caddy uncaught me,” (as if he were on a leash) (Faulkner 5). Because Benji can’t talk, he seems even more dog-like. As readers we receive information that is not normally included by orthodox narrators. A human narrator would not normally put so much emphasis on the smell of other people and the smell of his or her surroundings, but a dog would and so does Benji. Benji’s constant, “She smelled like trees” comments are proof. Benji is also treated as if he has a master, because he basically does. Caddy. Caddy. Caddy. She indeed coddles him when he is sad, and protects him from the torment of the other characters. Some of these phrases and situations make more logical sense if the reader keeps in mind that Benji is a mentally challenged child, but Faulkner purposely chooses language that is normally associated with dogs.

Although making Benji similar to a dog is insulting, as Griffiths would agree, but Faulkner had thought-out reasons for making the comparison. I believe Faulkner uses this parallel because he wants us too see that the good qualities Benji possesses are the same good qualities that a good dog possesses. And to say that this comparison would be “so insulting” is not true (Griffiths). Loyalty and Honesty are important values that not many people can uphold. Benji is loyal to Caddy and loyal to himself beyond a shred of doubt. And throughout his section in the book we learn that he does not process ideas, but just retells them. That is honesty, even if he doesn’t have to decide between being honest and lying, he is still honest. Faulkner’s purpose of paralleling Benji to a dog is two-fold. One, to show that Benji is a mentally-challenged human who has the cognitive understanding of a dog, and two, to show that despite his mental handicap he still possesses laudable human qualities. (631)

Deathbed Advice

2008-09-24T23:22:00.000-07:00

The meaning of “Battle Royal” revolves around a grandfather’s “curse” (3): “Son after I’m gone I want you to keep up the good fight. I never told you, but our life is a war and I have been a traitor all my born days, a spy in the enemy’s country ever since I give up my gun back in the Reconstruction. Live with your head in the lion’s mouth. I want you to overcome ‘em with yeses, undermine ‘em with grins, agree ‘em to death and destruction, let ‘em swoller you till they vomit or bust wide open….Learn it to the younguns,” (2). The grandfather, on his deathbed, tells in a regretful way, the characteristics that he only now realizes were really important to sustain a laudable black identity. To achieve this laudable black identity, an identity that is self-respected and socially respected, the grandfather stipulates that a black man must be duplicitous with a purpose, self-respectful, driven, and smart.

At first the narrator does not understand what his grandfather means, especially since the narrator was proud to be “an example of good conduct–just like [his] grandfather” (3). But after his ordeal at the “entertainment palace” (57) the narrator and the reader learn what the narrator’s grandfather meant through relating the events that occur at the “palace” to each point the grandfather makes in his speech.

The grandfather would argue that Booker T. Washington and “a potential Booker T. Washington,” the narrator, are both traitors to themselves (5). The narrator is a traitor when he allows himself to be “part of the entertainment” (4) as opposed to being an individual and important person; when he persists to “stumble about like a baby or a drunken man” (22); when he “groped about like a blind, cautious crab” (23); or when he “embarrassedly...struggled…for coins” (53) only to feel as though his “back…had been beaten with wires”¬ (59)–as if he were a modern slave being whipped. To be a traitor according to the grandfather is to voluntarily humiliate oneself.

When the grandfather says that he was a “spy in the enemy’s country,” he means that he did things for white people upon their request. The difference between being a traitor and a spy, according to grandfather, is that a spy has only humiliated himself upon a request or demand. By humiliating himself upon a request or demand, he, a spy, is working for the other side. If you are working against your side–yourself–you are by definition, a spy. The narrator is a spy as well as a traitor. As a spy he obeys the “leave that alone!” command from the white audience when he knows full well that it is ridiculous to wear a blindfold when he is fighting (19). When the narrator is commanded to continue fighting with Tatlock, he realizes that the fight should not be “[f]or them,” (30) the white people; sadly this slight recognition is not enough to get him to stop fighting or doing things for “them,” as the story continues. Even when it is time to give his speech, the white people “almost forgot” that the narrator was actually there to give a speech (61). Unsurprisingly the whites in this story are even disrespectful during the narrator’s speech; he narrator even has to fix his voice by swallow the disgusting mix in his mouth: “blood, saliva, and all” to fix his failing voice and get the white people’s attention (68). But the saddest part concerning the narrator’s speech is that the whites do not even listen. They manage to hear one phrase: “social equality,” taboo word for blacks at that time (82), and they hear enough to mindlessly give the narrator “thunderous applause” at the end (95).

The first part of the grandfather’s speech tells what not to do, but the second part of his speech explains what should be done as a black man. The grandfather explains to the narrator that he must learn to live within a white dominated world (“lion’s head”), and to be succeed there he must be upright on the outside, but with a purpose: to promote himself to a social position higher or equal to the social position that the white people have (“overcome ‘em with yeses…”). Although the narrator is humiliated at the “palace,” in the end, he is given a briefcase with “an official looking document inside”–“a scholarship to the state college for Negros” (102).

It is ironic that the black people in the story are treated as subhuman “crabs, snails (23), clown[s], and jack-in-the-box[es] (37), when the white people, who already have achieved a seemingly higher social position are really the ones acting subhuman. Besides using the black boys as entertainment the whites also “choke” them with their cigar smoke, “laugh and howl” (9) at the “magnificent blonde” dancer (7), and cheat the boys “with brass pocket tokens” (103) when they said earlier that the money on the electrified mat was “good hard American cash” (54). This theme of characters with the lower social position having a higher moral fiber than characters who are literally higher in class has been thoroughly explained thanks to Elizabeth and Lady Catherine, so that will be all on that bit.

At the very end of the story, since it is clear now that the “circus” in the dream is the “entertainment palace” and the “clowns” are the black boys, it becomes explicitly clear to the reader, but not the narrator, that the narrator had acted against his grandfather’s advice (105). With the quote, “Keep This Nigger-Boy Running” the idea that the white people are trying to keep the narrator busy by sending him to college and giving him something to “Keep [him] Running” instead of actually encouraging him to improve himself and move up the social ladder, becomes clearer. In the very last line the grandfather is laughing in the narrator’s dream. Sadly the grandfather could be laughing that the “overjoyed” narrator for being so proud of a back-handed and insulting gift that limits the narrator to only leading the black community, leading whole communities. The grandfather could also be laughing at the white people who are trying to keep the narrator “running.” This could be humorous now since he knows that the narrator will live the rest of his life through understanding the meaning and through following the pillars in the grandfather’s deathbed advice.
1076

Deathbed Advice

2008-09-23T09:05:00.000-07:00

The meaning of “Battle Royal” revolves around a grandfather’s “curse” (3): “Son after I’m gone I want you to keep up the good fight. I never told you, but our life is a war and I have been a traitor all my born days, a spy in the enemy’s country ever since I give up my gun back in the Reconstruction. Live with your head in the lion’s mouth. I want you to overcome ‘em with yeses, undermine ‘em with grins, agree ‘em to death and destruction, let ‘em swoller you till they vomit or bust wide open….Learn it to the younguns,” (2). The grandfather, on his deathbed, tells in a regretful way, the characteristics that he only now realizes were really important to sustain a laudable black identity.

At first the narrator does not understand what his grandfather means, especially since the narrator was proud to be “an example of good conduct–just like [his] grandfather” (3). But after his ordeal at the “entertainment palace” (57) the narrator and the reader learn what the narrator’s grandfather meant through relating the events that occur at the “palace” to each point the grandfather makes in his speech.

The grandfather would argue that Booker T. Washington and “a potential Booker T. Washington,” the narrator, are both traitors to themselves (5). The narrator is a traitor when he allows himself to be “part of the entertainment” (4) as opposed to being an individual and important person; when he persists to “stumble about like a baby or a drunken man” (22); when he “groped about like a blind, cautious crab” (23); or when he “embarrassedly...struggled…for coins” (53) only to feel as though his “back…had been beaten with wires”¬ (59)–as if he were a modern slave being whipped. To be a traitor according to the grandfather is to voluntarily humiliate oneself.

When the grandfather says that he was a “spy in the enemy’s country,” he means that he did things for white people upon their request. The difference between being a traitor and a spy, according to grandfather, is that a spy has only humiliated himself upon a request or demand. The narrator is a spy as well as a traitor. As a spy he obeys the “leave that alone!” command from the white audience when he knows full well that it is ridiculous to wear a blindfold when he is fighting (19). When the narrator is commanded to continue fighting with Tatlock, he realizes that the fight should not be “[f]or them,” (30) the white people; sadly this slight recognition is not enough to get him to stop fighting or doing things for “them,” as the story continues. When it is time to give his speech–once the white people finally remember that the narrator was actually there to give a speech–the whites are disrespectful and to get their attention the narrator fixes his voice by swallow the disgusting mix in his mouth: “blood, saliva, and all” that was effecting his orality (68).

The first part of the grandfather’s speech tells what not to do, but the second part of his speech explains what should be done as a black man. The grandfather explains to the narrator that he must learn to live within a white dominated world (lion’s head), and to be succeed there he must be upright on the outside, but with a purpose: to promote himself to a social position higher or equal to the social position that the white people have (the overcome ‘em with yeses…part of the quote). Although the narrator is humiliated at the “palace,” in the end, he is given a briefcase with “an official looking document inside”–“a scholarship to the state college for Negros” (102).

It is ironic that the black people in the story are treated as subhuman “crabs, snails (23), clown[s], and jack-in-the-box[es] (37), when the white people, who already have achieved a seemingly higher social position are really the ones acting subhuman. Besides using the black boys as entertainment the whites also “choke” them with their cigar smoke, “laugh and howl” (9) at the “magnificent blonde” dancer (7), and cheat the boys “with brass pocket tokens” (103) when they said earlier that the money on the electrified mat was “good hard American cash” (54). This theme of characters with the lower social position having a higher moral fiber than characters who are literally higher in class has been thoroughly explained thanks to Elizabeth and Lady Catherine, so that will be all on that bit.

At the very end of the story, since it is clear now that the “circus” in the dream is the “entertainment palace” and the “clowns” are the black boys, it becomes explicitly clear to the narrator that he had acted against his grandfather’s advice (105). With the quote, “Keep This Nigger-Boy Running” the idea that the white people are trying to keep the narrator busy by sending him to college and giving him something to “Keep [him] Running” instead of actually encouraging him to improve himself and move up the social ladder, becomes clearer. In the very last line the grandfather is laughing in the narrator’s dream. He is laughing at the white people who are trying to keep the narrator “running” because now he knows that the narrator fully understands his message and that the narrator will live the rest of his life by the pillars included in his deathbed advice.
(883)

"Live Above Weed, Live Above the Influence"

2008-09-21T22:01:00.000-07:00

I read “Cathedral” twice because Janey was the Essayist. When I read it the first time it was a late night and after a few words into paragraph 57–“[t]hen I asked if he wanted to smoke some dope with me”–I thought I definitely was too tired, dozing off, and was making up lines for the story, but upon my reading that line in paragraph 57 a second time–to my surprise–the narrator and Robert were indeed about to “have…some cannabis” (64). Upon my second full reading of the story I came to the conclusion that because of the mentioning of the dope, the rest of the details in the plot and the overall message of the story thereafter are obscured and compromised.

I wish Carver had continued to be a “minimalist,” even though it was “a term that Carver himself did not like,” (introduction) and kept the dope passage from the plot. He could have then avoided the drug humor ambiguity that harms his message and made his actually insightful message “more powerful than [he] could have ever imagined”–yes that is a Star Wars quote, and you may be thinking “Robert you too could have made your writing ‘more powerful’ if you had not added that that unnecessary quote.” I understand that, but the quote is funny and fitting, so I shall keep it anyway.

The ambiguities caused by the dope passage begin in paragraph 78. The narrator’s wife seems to be quite high and tired when she says, “[s]ame here…[d]itto. Me too.” She says the same thing in three ways in an uncharacteristic way that seems humorous since she is high. We trust our narrator since there seems to be no bias or reason to think about his possibly altered version of that night. But when he describes the cathedral in paragraph 98, it seems as though he is just doing a poor job because it–understandably–would be hard to describe something so distinct to a blind person. But lest we forget he is high. It seems probable that on the night when he is with Robert, he was actually slurring his words and doing a poor job describing a cathedral, because of how high he was, not because it is a difficult task. Later, when the narrator starts to draw a cathedral so that Robert can run “the tips of his fingers over the paper” (119) to understand what a cathedral looks like, even the narrator himself describes his drawing as “[c]razy” (117). I was most upset because the mentioning of dope all the way back in paragraph 57 tarnished my ability to fully absorb Carver’s message in the last four paragraphs of the short story. When the narrator chooses not to open his eyes, the message of understanding what it is like to be a part of something bigger, or to be someone else–a blind person, is not what is first illustrated to me. I was stuck immaturely thinking about how the narrator is probably too high to want to open his eyes.

Overall Carver’s message was indeed relayed to me; however, I was upset that he was enough of a dope to leave the dope details of the plot in his story–they are just distracting. To Carver’s credit he does indeed mention why the narrator smokes dope: because after seemingly scary dreams he wakes up from them with “[his] heart going crazy” (85), so the dope is to calm him and keep him awake. Just to convey that the narrator has trouble sleeping so needs to smoke dope to sleep would not be a strong enough reason to keep the distracting dope passage my short story. But maybe Carver just likes dope, or thinks that it is funny to mention the drug in his short story the way I think it is funny to mention Star Wars. I wanted to keep my Star Wars quote in my blog, and maybe he wanted to keep his dope passage in his short story for solely personal reasons. Carver’s story is good, but because he is going for a more profound message in his story, it would have been much more effective to keep it above the influence.
(706)

A Rose for William

2008-09-16T14:06:00.000-07:00

Dear Mr. William Faulkner,

I realize that you died 44 years ago; however, I think that me still reading your story only attests to your skill as a writer. I read your short story, "A Rose For Emily" (by using the comma I assume that you have written more than one story–you seem to be an accomplished writer–The Sound and the Fury–very impressive–so you probably knew that.)

I like to think of myself as a bit of a writer, so when I read a story I am unimpressed when the story is written in a humdrum way that I could have written it. In "A Rose For Emily" you show your mastery of the shocking ending, and I definitely could not have written it.

Shocking endings are common and easy to produce, but the supported shocking ending–as I have named it–is my favorite and the difficult literary device to use effectively. Plain shocking endings receive the reaction, "what? that makes no sense" or "duh, I saw that coming," but the middle ground between the two reactions to plain shocking endings is the embodiment of the supported shocking ending.

Your use of the supported shocking ending is perfect. The perfect supported shocking ending is marked by the reaction, "how crazy? –Oh but her house did smell, and she did buy arsenic...etc. (et cetera being the flood of all the other details that now, after reading the ending, foreshadowed the ending so vividly, but). The foreshadowing makes the ending logical and since the foreshadowing was lacking and dispersed enough to keep the shocking ending hidden.

Your supported shocking ending is so enhanced through your use of the anonymous narrator in mixed time. The anonymous narrator seems to be a more trusted storyteller since the narrator is not an actual character; character narrators often times twist the story to fit their own view. Since the anonymous character is trusted, when the narrator (speaking for the town) stipulates that “they [Homer and Emily] are married” (45) and that after Emily buys arsenic “she will kill herself” (41) the narrator steers us into not putting these details together in their true relation, that Homer does not leave the house because he was killed–not married–by the arsenic. The narrator also tells the story out of the linear progression of time. The mixed time allows for the foreshadowing to occur, but occur in a way that cloaks the foreshadowing and conceals the shocking ending.

So Mr. Faulkner, I realized the point of your story and I wanted to know if I was correct. But first, all of the affirmations I made to you and about your skill in having a supported shocking ending, to you the supported shocking ending only really functions to highlight your main point: that we need to show appreciation to other people even when they are quite insane, disturbed, or different. So the narrator gives “A Rose” to Emily to show his/her appreciation of Emily. His/Her “rose” for Emily is the story that is impartial and just to all elements of Emily’s life in hopes that the reader will make an unbiased decision about Emily and her life.

I am not sure of your reasoning for this story–maybe it was for you or someone you knew that was unfairly judged or not appreciated. So indeed Mr. Faulkner, I have written this letter as my “rose” to you. Your story was my favorite of this week and I look forward to reading some of your other works. Good job.

Your Fan,

Robert Adrian

2008-09-16T12:07:00.000-07:00

Summer Reading--The Curious Incident of Robert's Summer Reading

2008-08-25T21:08:00.000-07:00

Most of my reading, at least in regards to time was logged on the Jersey shore. I started both Catch 22 by Joseph Heller and Tropic of Orange by Karen Tei Yamashita; however, I started Tropic of Orange because Catch 22 took a brief swim in the shore break. And I never finished The Tropic of Orange because it too took a brief swim in the shore break. I never wanted to have a day without a book so when these books got wet I moved on (I have found I love the beginnings of books the most anyway). I liked the beginnings of these books, but I ran out of time to read my other two required books.
Luckily, there was no more ocean when I started The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon. I started and finished it in an airport, but I did most of my reading on the plane: EWR (Newark) to PHX (Phoenix) nonstop flight 5 hours and 12 minutes. I love to sleep, and I especially love to sleep on planes, but I could not put this book down. Needless to say I liked this book so much I would "do sex" with this book; however, I do not believe in that since I am a good Catholic boy.
I consider myself witty-funny, and the humor of this book was almost eerily similar to my own humor, which is my favorite kind. In the middle of the book I had a realization that I was laughing at a mentally challenged child, but then after a few pages I realized I was not laughing at Christopher, but at Haddon's short, quick, playful, and intelligent wit that was just as sharp as the saw edge of the blade of Christopher’s Swiss army knife. After reading the book I thought about it as a work by an author instead of just a funny book, and I was able to appreciate how well Haddon was able to fully get into the mind of a child like Christopher. The way Haddon rationalizes Christopher's socially unacceptable habits is amazing. When Christopher "does groaning" to think, punches the police officer, and pushes his mother away when she hugs him would normally be socially unorthodox, but Haddon does such a good job rationalizing those events through Christopher’s thoughts that I remember thinking, "well he or she touched him...that's the only reason he flipped out" or "well why would he eat that food...it was yellow and it was touching another food!" I would then realize I had been so deeply engrossed in Christopher's mind that I had detached myself from the real world and how the real world would normally react. Christopher is also a great foil for modern life issues that are discussed in the book such as: adultery, parenting, divorce, and murder. I also really enjoyed the pop culture references, especially the ones to the Apollo Missions and to the Sherlock Holmes novels.
Not that this book is just funny dialogue and thoughts, but those are the best parts of the book. The plot is suspenseful while remaining simple. It is without a doubt interesting enough to keep the suspense high, but more importantly, it functions perfectly as the structure on which witty comments and the observations about life may be placed. The observations I liked best and thought were brilliant were the following: the reasons we choose for not liking something; how people are just like computers; and that most faces are somewhere in-between happy, sad, and mad.
This book represents the point of literature. Literature should be creatively original, humorous, and broach new observations about life. Without these three necessities a book is not good. Haddon's creativity in this book is overwhelming and along with his creativity, his humor and "bloody" brilliant observations shows not just on the pages of his book, but on the success in pages on the New York Times, as this book was on the newspaper's "best seller's" list. Books that that can turn non-readers, such as my brother, into readers are what make books, good books.
I loved everything about this book. I loved it so much still to this day I wish I could shake Haddon's hand and put my hand out and spread my fingers so that Christopher could put his fingers and hand against mine. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time is definitely a good book; so good that even thinking about it makes me feel as though I have seen five red cars in a row!