English 121

"Shouldn't there be some way for them to ask us to sing?". This is a quote that I selected and I'm glad we got to discuss in class on Friday 4/15 as I would like to elaborate on it a little bit because I believe that this is still a problem in our society today. This is definately not a historical problem. Although it may not be as prevalent it still exists today. The brotherhood in the Invisible Man, on the surface, works to do away with racial identity. Instead it works to promote the collective conscious of there members instead of the individual. This becomes a problem, though because by identifying themselves as part of a large group they are segregating themselves and will be viewed not on indiviual merit, but by the active perception that other people have towards the brotherhood. So while it seeks to decrease stereotyping, I believe it is making a new one, hence, another way to divide people in our culture based on race. While the brotherhood may suppress the expression of these ideas, they are still boiling under the surface of its members as evidenced by the narrator's confustion/discontent on pages 314. It is unfortunate, but I believe that if this novel was written today the central story would remain intact. Perhaps the only things changed would be the brawl, as I doubt they still take place today, the college, as colleges are integrated, and maybe the race as Arab-Americans have taken the place of African-Americans as the most feared and hated racial minority in the United States.

"...he had no particular inclination for married life, being in love only with the arts, literature, and scientific curiosities, and therefore had no intention of disturbing her with the usual demands of a husband; they could live together, but not entwined, in perfect harmony and decorum. Relieved, Blanca threw her arms around his neck and kissed him on both cheeks." This is from chapter eight The Count and is found on pages 247-248. As we discussed in class ideology is the study of ideas, but it is more than just that. We study ideology in the text to find the truth which is hidden. We are presented in this quote and throughout chapter eight with facts that are distorted and we as readers are actively conned into believing a false consciousness by the actual text. In the above quote, the count covers up his real motivation for marrying Blanca by describing himself as highly sophisticated connossieur. Instead we later find out that he is an extravagant sexual deviant, who is interested in Blanca's family wealth. He mystifies Blanca into believing that there life, although not traditional, will be happy together. That when her baby girl is born she will have a daddy that loves her even though she is not his own. However, the conclusion cannot be finalized that the count is simply an evil person. Upon reexamination I remembered that he tried very hard to shield Blanca from this part of himself. He locked the door to the room where these acts took place, he never spoke of these acts with her, and he tried to conceal it from her. In other words, he knows he is a "sick puppy". The initial tendency is to villify the count, which can be easily justified, but it is never that simple. Personally, I think his behavior has more to do than just him being good or bad. Usually extreme behavior like this is not about the act itself, but about some unresolved emotional stress in a person's past. Ideology is another tool we use as readers to not just see black and white in a situation. Real life is never black and white, why should a piece of literature be any different. The effect that this use of ideology by the author had on me is it reaffirmed my belief that one should always try to exhaust all possibilites/explanations/views before rushing to conclusions.

Below I have posted an article that I believe to be the modern Antigone. If a film is based on Antigone this real-life event could be it. It would be unsettling for some movie-goers and it certainly would not be one to take the kids to, but it has all the elements important to the Antigone story: Forbidden acts, moral questioning, defiance of law, accepting consequences for actions Antigone feel are just though society has deemed them unlawful, and the story relates to modern times. Hey, it may be controversial. Actually, forget maybe, this would definately be controversial, but so was The Passion of the Christ, which last I checked cleaned up at the box office. Get a great director like Bryan Singer (The Usual Suspects, X-Men, X2) and a solid cast including America's sweetheart Julia Roberts and you have a modern adaptation of Antigone.

Court says ex-teacher, pupil she raped, can reunite
Sunday, August 8, 2004 Posted: 8:01 PM EDT (0001 GMT)

SEATTLE, Washington (CNN) -- A judge in Seattle on Friday lifted an order that barred contact between former school teacher and convicted rapist Mary Kay Letourneau and Vili Fualaau, the now 21-year-old man whom she was convicted of assaulting when he was her student at the age of 13.
Letourneau was released from prison Wednesday and, within hours, Fualaau petitioned the court to lift the no-contact order, saying he still loves her.
The order was part of her sentence in 1997. The prosecutor's office said the court took into consideration that the victim is now a legal adult, and determined there was no legal basis to prevent contact between the two of them.
The couple's daughters, ages 5 and 7, live with Fualaau's mother, and he mostly lives with family friends. Fualaau is unemployed and didn't finish high school.
Letourneau was a 35-year-old elementary school teacher in the Seattle suburbs when she began having sex with the sixth-grader. She was already a mother of four at the time.
At a 2002 civil trial, Fualaau testified, "We had sex in the gym, we had sex in the girl's bathroom and we had sex in her classroom."
When Letourneau was arrested in 1997, she was already pregnant with Fualaau's daughter. Though she professed her love for the boy, a judge sentenced her to six months in jail for second-degree child rape, and ordered her to stay away from him.
A month after Letourneau was released, she was caught having sex with Fualaau in her car. She was sent to prison for 7 1/2 years, and gave birth to Fualaau's second daughter behind bars.
As a sex offender, Letourneau will have to register with the state and receive court-ordered treatment.
Author Gregg Olsen, who has been closely following the case, told CNN, "So many people see this as a love story and want to see them together. I do want to remind people that he was 12 and 13 years old when this thing happened, and his life has been profoundly impacted by what she did."
Olsen said he met with Fualaau three weeks ago, and found him mature following such a troubling past.
"Everything bad that could happen to a teenage boy, which is what he was at the time, happened to him," Olsen said.

Found this on CNN.com. If you want to check it go to http://www.cnn.com/2004/LAW/08/06/letourneau/index.html

We didn't have to post on this, but while working on my first essay I reread Mars Needs Terrorists and have decided to post something on it even though I'm not using it for my essay. In discussion with my group, I noticed that one line read, "1. Dead and Bloated 2. Sex". Being a Stone Temple Pilots fan I recognized that off their first major label album Core, the first track is Dead and Bloated and the second track is Sex Type Thing. Finding out that this poem was made up of google searches it did not surprise me that STP would pop up. Just about everytime a person does a search of any broad category song lyrics or titles pop up. With Mars it is almost as if the author is a search engine. Is the compiler of these lines saying that we are being programmed to look at and interpret information as if we were a search engine?

The most interesting thing about reading Cortez was the fact that you read the different versions from different points of view. It is a great example of how different versions of the same story are suited for different audiences. It seems as though Cortez is being treated less like an important historical figure and more like a mythical hero. For example on page 34 it reads, "it's all the same Border; and short or tall, dark or fair, its's the man that counts. And that's what he was a man." This passage along with the overall feel of the songs gives the reader the impression that anyone could be Cortez.

The question I would ask for Duplessis is "In our society whether it be music, poetry, literature, or film, we tend to focus on certain parts of a piece of work whether it be a particular passage, a line from a poem or song, a song from an album or a quote/scene from a film. Do you feel this view is correct or should we focus more on the work as a whole?"

Blood Wedding for me was a tragedy that served as an indictment of the institution and customs of marriages of this culture. As we discussed in class all of the main characters can be viewed as subjects. Their reactions to the events that transpire seem to be programmed responses to the forces that occur throughout the story. I am not saying this play was uninteresting though. In fact, I believe it is the best piece of work we have read in this class thus far. Since the characters are impersonal and rather bland, as a reader I focused on how and why these characters act the way they do. All other themes and plot in this story (forbidden love, death of the mother's husband and other son, suspicion of Leonardo, fate, etc) are secondary to the cultural rules/norms that manifest throughout the story. Having this particular reading did not ruin my interpretation. These themes still have truths today. The idea that people should marry for love, not for family or the continuation of a blood line. The ludicrous idea that if your wife or loved one betrays you that society deems it necessary to exact revenge on the man whom she is now with. We still see this in our culture today. Anytime a girlfriend cheats on a boyfriend, everyone automatically gets in the boyfriend's ear and tells him to go beat up the guy with whom the girlfriend did the cheating with even though the other guy may not have knowingly done any harm. We still in society overemphasize the importance of the joining together of two families with marriage. In reality, the family is not nearly as important as the two who are pledging their love for one another, not the other way around. It is the role of the families to be supportive of the newlywed couple, not making plans to join lands and have the couple provide young strong grandchildren to work the land. Overall, this was an interesting read filled with what should be inappropriate behavior on what should have been a glorious time in these people's lives. They allowed it to be ruined by their own stubborness of adhering to cultural norms and that is the true tragedy of Blood Wedding.

The Awakening tells the story of an unhappy upper middle class wife during the late 1800's. We have all discussed the logistics of the story and the various trials and tribulations of Edna. In this post I would like to focus on the suicide.

Is this suicide pre-meditated or was it a spur of the moment decision. There is evidence of both in the story. However, after reading the story it seems like it was a pre-meditated act. I am not saying it was or was not, but that is the impression that I get. It may have been an act for Edna to take her own life as a last attempt to take control when she really had no control over her life. Now the question, why did Edna not leave a note? I believe she did not leave a note to purposely leave a doubt in people's minds. Was it suicide or did she just have a swimming accident and as a result died tragically. We the readers know that this was suicide, but Leonce would not know for sure that it was suicide. It was obvious throughout the story that everyone in Edna's life just did not understand her. For example, there is a major discrepency in self-image. Edna tends to see herself as a woman first, wife and mother second. While Madame Ratignolle sees herself as a mother and wife first, her own woman second. We tend to view suicide as the most selfish act there is. Maybe in Edna's mind she was trying to be unselfish by letting people believe that she drowned instead of killing herself. In a world where image is everything, her husband and children would not have to live with the shame of Edna's suicide. Edna gets her release from the world she hated.

I do not agree with what Edna decided to do or attempting to justify suicide as a good option. It is not. However, after reading The Awakening I cannot help but feel this act was pre-meditated. This explanation might help explain why she did not leave a note, but decided to kill herself