English 121

Invisible Man

2005-04-17T09:06:00.000-07:00

"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.

Ideology with The House of the Spirits

2005-03-28T08:43:00.000-08:00

"...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.

Modern Antigone

2005-02-28T19:21:00.000-08:00

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

Mars Needs Terrorists

2005-02-28T09:15:00.000-08:00

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?

Ballad of Gregorio Cortez

2005-02-27T20:40:00.000-08:00

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.

Question

2005-02-15T09:32:00.000-08:00

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

2005-02-14T09:28:00.000-08:00

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.

Awakening

2005-02-01T09:58:00.000-08:00

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

Wallpaper1

2005-01-23T13:27:00.000-08:00

This was a very interesting reading. A fictional story based on the author's real life experiences, "Yellow Wallpaper" put the reader in the mind of a woman losing her mind, probably struggling with severe post-partum depression. The story chronicles the author as she becomes like this imaginary person in the wall. She creeps around without people seeing her is maybe how she really feels. Her husband does not pay enough attention to her. She has no life. All she has is the wall with the disgusting yellow wallpaper. She wants to escape this room and be out in the real world and active, but she cannot. She is not allowed. A prime example of the ineffective psychological treatments available at this period in time. Her reality has become the wall. Being completely isolated only works to further her condition. As discussed in our group session, the story is almost a tale of a woman in a mental hospital. The giant bed is nailed down, bars on the windows, her husband treats her like a patient more than a partner in life. Her sister-in-law takes on the role of her nurse and nanny as she looks in on her when the doctor is away and cares for her young child. It was gratifying to discover that this story helped other people deal with their own illnesses as it is clearly evident that locking away people who are having psychological problems from the rest of the world is not the solution. The reverse is. People need interaction and to be in an environment where they can think about what is going on with them instead of being discouraged from even thinking.

Thoughts on Douglas

2005-01-20T17:59:00.000-08:00

The most personally compelling attributes of the Douglas reading were two fold: First, is the importance of education and the effects it had on his life. Second, is the controlling presence of the author throughout the reading. Douglas was a very personal story. One that was more powerful because it was written by Douglas himself. A true testament to the rugged determination of the author.

In my opinion, the most telling portion of this narrative as it relates to Douglas' struggle can be found on the last page of Chapter X. "I have observed this in my experience of slavery,--that whenever my condition was improved, instead of its increasing my contentment, it only increased my desire to be free, and set me to thinking of plans to gain my freedom. I have found that, to make a contented slave, it is necessary to make a thoughtless one. It is necessary to darken his moral and mental vision, and, as far as possible, to annihilate the power of reason. He must be able to detect no inconsisitences in slavery; he must be made to feel that slavery is right; and he can be brought to that only when he ceases to be a man." In this quote you can see the essence of his struglle. From the overseers' cruelty, the beatings, the psychological warfare, the long hours, not having enough to eat/not having time to eat, to his head mistress not allowing him to learn to read, the purpose for all this inhumane behavior is to sustain the status quo of keeping slaves slaves and owners owners. When he is given a window into a world that dows not ahve him being merely a commodity for hard labor, he is able to identify and become enraged at the injustice. When all he does is owrk and eat his life reverts to almost a primal state of survival. He is a human, but he is not a man. he does not have the privelage of experiencing things like brotherhood, comradery, or the ability to learn anything to better himself. You would think maybe the opposite would be true--if he was treated well there would be at least some small contention in his life, but the opposite is true. The more he sees hemself as a man and not a slave the more he wants his freedom.

The other major theme from Douglas is the controlling presence of the author. Douglas does a very good job of exerting his ideas/opinions on the reader. His main persuasive argument seems to be that not only the simple fact that slavery is wrong, but also that all owners bad/immoral/evil. The first part of this contention can be disregarded immediately. Everyone reading this knows that slavery is wrong. All men and women are equal. However, it is unclear as to whether or not all slaveowners during this era were evil. At this point in our nation's history slavery was a government protected practice that had been going on for hundreds of years. The institution of slavery is all those people knew. I think someone used this example in class, so if somebody did and you read this I hope you do not mind me borrowing it, but think if you were born into a family of snake handling Christians. Now imagine that it is not just your family, but an entire congregation of snake handlers. Only it's not just one church, but an entire community. Not just a community, but an entire state of snake handlers. Not just a state, but an entire region of America, all of them snake handlers. Being nurtured in this environment one could not help but think, "Handling snakes is essential and completely right." Although Douglas does a good job of persuading the reader that owners are evil, one must account for how these owners were brought into this world; something that Douglas does not discuss in this narrative.

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2005-01-20T17:22:00.000-08:00

hope this is working