Love Drunk

"Love," by anonymous

There's the wonderful love of a beautiful maid,
And the love of a staunch true man,
And the love of a baby that's unafraid--
All have existed since time began.
But the most wonderful love, the Love of all loves,
Even greater than the love for Mother,
Is the infinite, tenderest, passionate love
Of one dead drunk for another.

     I don't like to think that I'd have to be drunk and dead in order to love completely, but this poem makes it sound like I need to be. But that's the 'wonderful' irony in the poem, created by a tonal phenomenon that we, as the reader, can sense by cold, Times New Roman text; we can feel its subtle, sadist message, the teasing and almost condescending nature that the poet uses regarding the concept of love in the human condition. He (or she) gives me the impression of a failed explanation of what love is, as if the reader were a complacent 5 year-old that he could influence and convince that love is not what the little girl thinks it is. Almost like reading a children's story to a group of kindergarteners, except you have the Grimm Brothers; edition. Something along those lines.

     But on to the tone itself. the rhyme scheme is what really sets the mood as childish and playful. It isn't until the very last line that we're hit with preliminary confusion, realization, and final discomfort at the message that this poet is trying to convey. There isn't really a shift in tone, per se--I read it with that same happy bouncing inflection that most rhyming poems deserve to have when read. But the meaning and implication of that tone changes drastically when the dead drunk is involved. Suddenly, the chipper voice of love transforms into a dry, sarcastic, and flat retrospection as to the meaning of love. Not of a love that is defined by coherent and acceptable people of society, but of a pure love borne out of drunkenness, confusion, and pain. The grating connotation of a dead drunk dissonates the tone that is used to read it, leaving the reader a bit disarmed in the process.

     So love must not have the greatest implications for the sad, sorry guy that wrote this. The concept of love is ripped apart as he not-so-subtly contrasts the allusion of true love in virtuous people (beautiful maids, stauncy men, and unafraid babies) with the realistic, passionate love that drunkards have of each other. Depressing to think about, really. the drunkard's love give rise to many implications; maybe of an unrestricted love? Of a proliferating love? The common assumption of drunks is that they have a looser tongue and less inhibition with each other, so it only makes sense that the love that they may share for one another appears to be unrestrained. Does this translate to true love, to pure love? Depends on the reader and what she thinks of drunk people, I guess. but gonig under the assumption that drunks are more free-spirited, the implication of love from the three 'virtuous' people  therefore seem rehearsed, taught, and controlled.

     And let's not forget that these drunkards are dead. The poet presents the stages of life backwards from the beginning to the end, starting with man and women, leading to a baby, and ending in death. What's up with that? He seems to suggest that in order to experience the "infinite, tenderest, passionate love," we have to have experienced its oppositve first: death. It sounds very similar to what my mother says about affluence and appreciation; one cannot appreciate the value of money unless he was poor first at some point in time. Is the true passion that comes with love only available to those who have experienced its opposite (death) to appreciate it more than face value, and be 'drunk' off societal pressure, without inhibition, in the process?

     I can only imagine what must have happened in his life to make him write something like this, so universally unacceptable to believe in, but realistically rings truer than any optimistic notion we have about true love and caring. Love might just be yet another human ideal that we all strive for, but never achieve. The existential me asks "What's the point?" though the ideal, optimistic me says "Let's change that notion." Maybe I should get drunk and see what happens. But knowing me, I'd be the type to fall asleep if I really lost all that inhibition.

Started at the Bottom…Still at the Bottom

     I'm no fan of Drake, but the titular lyric seemed fitting. After finishing A Doll House by Ibsen, I feel much obliged to state that I, in accordance to many many many (I assume) other students and teachers, hate the alternate ending that Ibsen imposed to please the audience he was stuck with. It's no wonder the poor dude can't even live with himself after releasing such an atrocity. Nora, the supposedly enlightened woman and an ideal that all men and women strive for to reach intellectual freedom and self-worth, goes mainstream and stays in her stagnant relationship with her clueless (and just as inexperienced) husband. Where's the sense of closure in that? There isn't any feeling, no artistic and symbolic thought that went into the writing of this ending--a huge contrast for Ibsen, as he wrote most of the play with subtle hints of deeper meaning without giving everything away. All of his artistic credibility as a playwright is lost with that ending.

     The main problem I have with this alternate version is the hypocrisy with which the husband uses to get Nora to stay. That, in itself, seems like a cheap move even for Torvald. In the heat of Act III, Torvald shows his true colors as a selfish husband who cares more for public appearance and perfection instead of the well-being of his family; his cries of "I'm saved! I'm saved!" are testimony to that. Krogstad's letter, which was more or less addressed to Nora instead of Torvald, is seen as Torvald's own saving grace (I'm saved) instead of Nora's (We're saved). It's as if she should have never deserved this solace, that she still has to suffer the burden of 'doing the wrong thing', or pay Torvald a price for making him so angry (even though she did all of this to save his life). There is absolutely no mention of their kids, or of their kids' futures, as far as Torvald's concerned; their well-being is nonexistent. It's like that classic test of parental wit; if a fire alarm sounds in a house, the first thing a thoughtful parent would look for is the child. If a fire alarm had sounded in the Helmer home (or any 1800s equivalent of an alarm), Torvald would be the first to bolt out the door. Sadly, Nora would be the second.

     So the hypocrisy is only overstepped when he uses the children (not his children--he doesn't deserve children) as an excuse to get Nora to stay at home. We see that his offspring are just as much as strangers to him as Torvald is to Nora when Torvald exclaims, "But first you shall see your children for the last time!" 'Your children'. Nora's children. Not 'our children,' a collective responsibility that makes a family whole. He is basically separating himself from his wife and kids here, creating a dividing line to separate 'family' into 'me' (Torvald) and 'you' (everyone else). He manipulates Nora into thinking she's the selfish one for leaving the kids, even though Torvald doesn't give a second thought of them, doesn't even consider them his own. Where is the justice in that? The 'honor'? The concept of a "real marriage"?

     The counterproductive conclusion of the whole story here is that nobody wins. The fact that Nora doesn't escape from her prison doll house shows that no change has happened, that Nora will revert back to her old ways despite her exposure to the benefit of knowledge and independence from the real world (through Dr. Rank, Krgostad, and Mrs. Linde). And, more importantly, the audience will see these three characters as villains for trying to break up such a 'perfect' marriage that the Helmers have. The message it sends is twisted in itself: 'keep living with me because I don't want to raise kids that aren't mine! And I like to control you!' Lastly, Ibsen's message of the struggle for individual freedom is completely lost in translation as Nora changes from a dynamic character to a static one. In the beginning of the play, she's a ditsy lost girl who does not know how to mother her children and happily submits to a husband who doesn't know any better; she climbs up the ladders of self-fulfillment and virtue, an arm's stretch away from the key to happiness and self-adequacy, at the end of it all she tumbles back down to the bottom of the cliff because she feels bad about leaving her children motherless, even though she isn't even qualified to be a mother.

To sum up my feelings, an equally fitting meme: http://img01.lachschon.de/images/155928_SadDoge_1.jpg

Alternate Ending:
http://ibsen.nb.no/id/11111794.0

¿Por qué no los dos?

     …comes the adorable reply of a little girl promoting the fabulousness of a combination of hard and soft-shell tacos in one box. It's funny, as I was fast-forwarding through the commercials to get to the real heart of the matter (an episode of Conan where he tries and helplessly fails at playing Tomb Raider, so he compensates by killing her as many ways as humanly possible), I stopped to look back at this long-forgotten product. As two older siblings fight tooth-and-nail to get what they really want for dinner (hard or soft shell tacos…an argument that my household has had the fortune never to go through), the smaller of the family of three, an adorable little girl, asks in Spanish, "Why not have both?" And while the party music plays in the background with the family celebrating in joy ("Feed your Fiesta!") my mind instantly shifts to Newland Archer. No, not because of some taco-induced tragedy that he goes through in the second half of the book. Fair warning-I'm about to go on a rant that may or may not reveal the ending. So for those who haven't finished the book, you've been warned.

     In truth, having the best of both worlds isn't always possible--with the exception of tacos, of course. As Newland Archer lives between two women, May Welland and Ellen Olenska, he figuratively digs himself a big and deep hole by wanting both women throughout pretty much the majority of the novel. What annoys me the most is his lack of future planning, of his brainless actions in wooing Ellen Olenska while wearing May Welland's ring. What did he expect out of this affair? What good comes out of being with Ellen as a married Welland man? In many scenes of the book his thoughts are just plain silly. There are notions of Newland wanting to run away from May and elope with Ellen, of sailing off to sea and never coming back…even of killing May so that his hook-up with Ellen will finally be seen as acceptable. His thought-process here is awful. Commit a crime--murder, per se-- to save face.

     But let's look deeper here, to see why he wants two women in the first place. There's the obvious; they're both foils of each other. Each carries a characteristic, trait, or personality that the other is absent of. May is a reserved, optimistic, rich, yet delightfully dull human being. She has all the requirements fulfilled to be the ultimate housewife, but she has the experience of a 3 year-old girl. Newland describes May almost as a slave to her own social class, claiming that "[t]here was no use in trying to emancipate a wife who had not the dimmest notion that she was not free" (160). Brought up by her mother, she exhibits her mother's ways of living as a stable house puppet of a wife for Newland. And her analytic, creative abilities? Forget it. She may be a straight shot with a bow an arrow at the Beaufort's annual Archery competition, but she'd also be the one who gave up against a bear attack, even with a bow and arrow strapped to her back. Thoughtless. She isn't driven intrinsically, by a desire to prove her worth; rather, she is a pawn of the social hierarchy, an outlet to produce and maintain the Welland family line.

     The other Welland--a classic attitude that many of the Wellands and Mingotts take on Ellen--is otherworldly and fantastic. Raised in New York, but inhabitant of Europe, she embodies the all-knowing qualities any travelled man should have. In terms of housewifery, she's a lost cause. She is an outspoken, down-to-earth woman who cuts through the superficial haze that the upper class created for itself. This is apparent in her criticism of New York. "It seems stupid to have discovered America only to make it into a copy of another country," (196), Ellen says, implying how conceited and unoriginal the American society really is, in contrast to what it claims to be. Her subtle yet hard-hitting jabs at the New York way of life irks the inhabitants of the city, and her family is no exception. She's lived through it all, and like the wise words of Tardar Sauce the grumpy cat, "I am not amused."

     And being the greedy, expectant man Newland is, he wants both. He craves some type of stability and comfort, of an innate need to fulfill even his own mother's wishes of going with the high society flow in marrying May (and he does). He loves the idea of 'teaching' May all the things he knows, to shape her and play with her like a doll whenever he feels the need. But this idea of her being a hollow case with nothing on the inside to show for it is what makes him turn to the other woman--Ellen. He consequently also wants an equal, a woman who shares his interests in traveling, exploring, and admiring the arts. Ellen would be a perfect fit here, regardless of her sex. Newland doesn't care for other people's family business or clothes (like Jackson or Lefferts), and for this reason we see that he doesn't have many friends to begin with. So when someone like Ellen walks in, a beautiful damsel in distress and an intelligent human being, it's not surprising that he feels an instant attraction towards her. So which woman is the perfect one for him? I can't be sure. Newland is too complex of a character to really love May regardless of her faults, but he is also too rigid in stature to really love Ellen, including her gutsy attitude. And with that note, I believe that neither woman was a good fit for Newland. The fact that he kept jumping between the two women means (to me, at least) that neither had all the qualities he desired in a partner, so he couldn't have been happy with either one. Sadly, he's too blind from puppy-love with May and admiration with Ellen to really open his eyes. His saving grace is found in his children, specifically his first-born, Dallas. If he can't fulfill true happiness, at least teach to his offspring who can, right?

     When the little girl in the TV asks, "¿Por qué no los dos?" I shrug and say that sometimes having two good things isn't always the best idea. Newland tried to have both, and look what happened to him. He nearly drove Ellen out of the country (and she later does, but on her own will--a loss for Newland). His life with May isn't exactly depressing, but he never expresses gratitude and happiness for his wife besides a reserved and self-taught affection. Has he fulfilled his purpose in life? Does he have regrets? I'll leave that for Newland to decide when he sits on the bench and stares out at Ellen's Parisian balcony, years and years later. As for me, I will continue fast-forwarding until I see Conan flail his controller around.

Taco Commercial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vqgSO8_cRio

Conan 'playing' Tomb Raider (a bit inappropriate, but it is Conan after all): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xCe8-1dbXZc  

Growing Pains

A Story, by Li-Young Lee

Sad is the man who is asked for a story 
and can’t come up with one.

His five-year-old son waits in his lap.
Not the same story, Baba. A new one.
The man rubs his chin, scratches his ear.

In a room full of books in a world
of stories, he can recall
not one, and soon, he thinks, the boy 
will give up on his father.

Already the man lives far ahead, he sees
the day this boy will go. Don’t go!
Hear the alligator story! The angel story once more! 
You love the spider story. You laugh at the spider. 
Let me tell it!

But the boy is packing his shirts,
he is looking for his keys. Are you a god, 
the man screams, that I sit mute before you? 
Am I a god that I should never disappoint?

But the boy is here. Please, Baba, a story?
It is an emotional rather than logical equation,
an earthly rather than heavenly one, 
which posits that a boy’s supplications 
and a father’s love add up to silence. 

     Hmm. This is one of those poems that I can't quite work out. It is also one of the few that gives us (the teenage, pre-college population) an extremely different perspective from the adults who had the joy of raising us. Many questions circle around my naive head. Why can't he come up with a story? Why are they both silent? Why does the man live in the future? I honestly don't know. On the surface it sounds like the ultimate trade-off for having a child--having to let go of him when the time comes. But where does that pain come from? And how do 'stories' relate to it? 

     I breathe a secret sigh of relief that I wasn't an AP Lit student in 2011. This poem would have stumped me, and maybe rendered me heartbroken because it would have been even more relevant as I sat in the testing room, taking my last test as a high school senior living under my parents' roof. Then I'd realize how my parents loved me all along and wanted me to be with them forever, that I wasn't just a money sucker, and I would leave my tears along the edges of my Timed Writing paper when I finished. How are you supposed to to feel when that happens? Something along the lines of what the poem is trying to convey? 

     As the child asks for a story from a father who can't think of one, you can see that the child is still wholly dependent on the father figure; the term baba carries this meaning in itself, as it hints at the child's young age and inability to say "father" or "dad" (baba is a lot more fun, and easier, to say). This physical and mental weakness of being too small and immature to understand the world is the reason why he asks his father, the baba, to describe it for him in the form of stories. However, the father simply can't; the contrast in the third stanza between the father's lack of story time skills and the enriched environment around him emphasizes this point. But why? All these lessons to teach his young son, all the anecdotes in the world that the father can come up with from his past experiences, and not one single utterance from his mouth.

     His fault lies in his mind's place elsewhere in the world, the future. The first half of the poem can be viewed in such metaphorical terms, the stereotypical situation where the father is never living in the present day, taking care of his son, because he's too worried about the future. It's a sad truth that many children live in and many fathers regret when the first true look they give to their son is one of his back, leaving the door for college, or a job, or who-knows-where. Once the father feels stable and comfortable about the future, he looks back only to realize that the son has already grown up, has already given up on those promised stories left in the past. It turns out to be ironic, then, when the son doesn't answer the father's question in the fifth stanza. At this point, the father is desperately grasping at straws, finally focusing on the present time of telling stories to a son who is already thinking about the future, seen in his packing of clothes and searching for car keys; he's all set on moving forward. The places that life takes him is seen as more important than the dull, childish time with his father. They've switched places. 

     This leaves both father and son at a standstill; they're never quite in the same place, thought-wise. The father's cries of defiance and the son's silence is mirrored immediately in the final stanza, when the son pleads the father for a story. He wants this knowledge that the father has been abstaining in fear that his child will grow up to be the all-knowing man the father fears to be. But it's all so futile! No matter how many stories the father tells (or refuses to tell), the son will always leave. That's part of life, part of child-rearing, is it not? This leaves the father thinking in sad circles, thinking not "logically" but "emotionally," almost a selfish need to keep his son by his side when the son is more than ready to leave. 

     But the last two lines present us with the final stroke of irony: how the child's pleads, added with the father's undying but worrisome love, "add up to silence." This again mirrors the future, when the son's and father's roles are reversed, but the end result is the same--the silent treatment. Thinking about this gives me this aching, heavy feeling in my heart. It's something none of us can really escape from, but the pain comes from the love we have with one another. It' just sad to think that this overwhelming passion for one another creates nothing but silence, a deadening feeling that leaves you numb. How do you fix something like that? I know my parents enough to realize I wouldn't get an answer if I asked one of my parents. I'd just be met with silence. 

If you Believe in Yourself, You Believe in God

I read a lovely poem the other day.

I didn’t realize it at first, of course. But it was after I finished analyzing that last line, sat back and smiled, that I came upon this ‘enlightenment.’ Well, not enlightenment, more of a playback. Reading Blake's poem "The Divine Image" was like reading a third person's account of my own beliefs of God that, no, aren't necessarily religious, but are more spiritual.

In truth, my mother told me about her own theories of religion; I didn’t come up with a philosophy on my own. I’ve always been confused throughout my high school years when I hear people talking about/preaching about their religion, be it through Christianity, Buddhism, Judaism, etc. etc. They seem to know so much about their spiritual roots, and for a while I wondered why my mom didn’t do the same for me. She’s a devout Muslim–she prays 5 times a day, washes her face and arms 5 times a day, fasts 30 days every year for Ramadan…everything short of blowing something up (ha ha). Does she not think I’m able to handle a religion, or that there isn’t hope for me? (My dad doesn’t care about that sort of stuff. I’m a lot like my dad.)  A couple of years ago, when I finally had the nerve to ask her why I don’t really practice a religion, she simply told me, “You don’t have to.”

This didn’t help.

“But I know nothing about Muhammad! I learned about my religion through AP World! I don’t even know who Adam and Eve are!” (That’s a truth–I didn’t know about that whole creation story until it was mentioned in Frankenstein for the senior summer reading assignment. I am currently a senior.) And then she looked into my eyes and told me, “Religion isn’t about whether you are a Christian, Jew, or Buddhist. Or atheist. It’s only about God. Don’t all those religions have a God? Do they not mean the same thing?”

I frowned. “Atheists don’t believe in God.” She asked me what God was, and I went silent. I didn’t know. A man that sits on a chair in the sky. No, that’s not right, lots of men (and women-gasp!) do that already, that’s what airplanes are for. I didn’t know.

And that’s when my mom told me the most crucial and insightful advice that I still keep close to my heart (besides marrying a rich Arab oil monopolizer for the monies)– “God is made in man’s image. If we strive to be with God, we only strive to be kind, caring, loving, and patient. Any good Christian, Buddhist, or Atheist would want to be these things to be happy in life. You already had all these things from a young age; from that point, I had nothing else to teach you.”

I was still confused. Keep in mind, I was a sophomore at this time, things never made sense to me as a sophomore. My mom continued, “For as long as you keep being these things, you will believe in God because you believe in yourself and those around you. God is within you. For as long as you can believe that, nothing will stop you.” Then she left to yell at my dad for not washing the dishes.

It took a good long while for me to figure this out, but it profoundly changed me as a person. For one thing, my lack-of-religion doesn’t bother me as much (hooray). I’m a lot more grounded as a person–or maybe I was all along, but never realized it. And when we read the William Blake poem, it just brought back this particular memory of how I became a devout spiritual believer (but not in the obvious sense, of course).

So, really, the whole point of this post is that Blake put into poetic words what I never could when someone asks me "What do I believe in?" I'm seriously starting to keep a pocket-version of "The Divine Image" around so I can recite it whenever someone asks. The four critical characteristics of religious association--"Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love"--are not only the goals that a religious person follows; they should be the ideals that everyone follows. It's ridiculous to say that I'm not a peaceful person because I'm not a [insert faith here]. Rather, it's much better to be these things for the sake of being human, for isn't that what separates us from other organisms? This idea of being superior in intellect? Thus, to be human is to embody these four spiritual (not religious) elements. If Blake believes that this is his idea of God, and you embody these things, then congratulations. You believe in God.

Spoiler Alert: Beowulf Still Wins

     Today marks the end of another chapter of my life--the Grendel chapter, that is. All the headache, stress, and confusion that comes with growing up was condensed into this little novel, and we were lucky (?) enough to go through this intensive maturation phase in just under a month. Don't get me wrong, the novel was brilliant and wonderfully written--you could tell that the work came from the thoughts of a modern thinker, not an old hag that we couldn't possibly relate to. Grendel's struggle between two different forces--faulty religion and depressing existentialism--is part of the search for identity that all pre-adolescents face, even if it isn't as intense or even conscious. These questions of "Where do I belong? Why am I here? What's the point of my existence? What's the point of existence in the first place?" pass through our minds at some point, and some days we feel better than others about not knowing the answers to any of these questions.

     But what is John Gardner saying about this transitory period in the human life through Grendel? I mean, the fact that Grendel was actually more than an evil monster doesn't change the end result; Beowulf still destroys Grendel. Is Gardner saying that our angsty selves will be the cause of our destruction, that we never really get out of the role and identity phase until the day we die? Look at Grendel. So philosophical and insightful, knowing the pros and cons of both religious and existentialist intentions, yet he ends up a hallucinating creature who doesn't know right fromm wrong…basically he goes crazy juggling all these ideas in this head and not finding a solid use for them. I like to imagine him like a chicken running around with its head cut off. And what's Beowulf's role in all of this? Is he a force to be reckoned with? A savior from our own thoughts?

What is a savior? Is he one who enlightens you, or one that destroys you to ease the pain?

     Too many questions, too little words to answer them with. Reading this book was a whirlwind of these unnamed emotions that I frankly have a hard time describing (it's safe to say that this confession is a good indicator of how poorly I'll do on the timed writing). It is a physical tug of the heart, to decide between a comforting but lying religion, a truthful but futile existentialism. How do you choose between two extremes?

     I think this is where Beowulf becomes an integral part of the story, even though he only takes up two chapters and does nothing but stare vaguely out into space and rip Grendel's arm off. Beowulf is able to live because he never actually chooses. His few (but important) lines of dialogue showcase his thoughts of life, a mix between the dragon's and Shaper's rants. Although he accepts the futility of life as the dragon sees fit, he rejects the notion of the meaninglessness of it. A Shaper's hope transmitted in religion is then taken by Beowulf and interpreted as a hope of impact and identity within each human being. He has the ability to control his own destiny, illustrated when he claims that "time is the hand that makes." Not quite the aim that a Shaper was going for, since it doesn't mention any religious fate that each man and woman has in this world, but it gives each of us an opportunity to do what we please in this life and be proud of it. This completely changes the backbone of the dragon's futility theorem, where the infinite span of time makes the impact of man infinitesimal. In Beowulf's opinion, time is in our own hands, something we create that expounds on our goals and achievements. Time doesn't rule us; we rule it.

     The winner of this battle of the philosophies goes to Beowulf, for being able to accept the Shaper and dragon within without throwing himself off a cliff to dull the pain. Acquiring knowledge is only one part of being successful, as seen in Plato's Cave Allegory. If he had just let that prisoner free, out into the world, then of course he wouldn't have an impact on mankind. He'd just be…there. Standing, sitting, whatever it is freed prisoners like to do. But going back to your origin, your people, and trying to enforce this knowledge, accommodate it to your own beliefs to find your own truth in this crazy world, is what determines heroism and success. Beowulf does exactly that; he has a dragon's knowledge but a religious heart, like Grendel. Unlike Grendel, he morphs the two to be in agreement with his own beliefs. He spreads this knowledge to those willing to listen to it. I can't say the same for Grendel, who berates his own mind for acquiring knowledge, but does nothing about it, remains inactive. Beowulf represents the ideal freed prisoner that crawls back into the cave, to spread his knowledge. Grendel only toys around with it, lives through it.

Thus, John Gardner presents us with two possibilities--the Grendel complex or the Beowulf complex. You can technically survive through either one, and neither actually guarantees a certain level of happiness that every living being hopes for in this world. Your desire for initiative will define the type of hero you are. Do you want to live a life full of 'useless' knowledge, knowing that you won't spread your thoughts with others? Or do you want to do something about it? It isn't necessarily saying that we've answered any of the questions listed above, but we have a basic idea of how to go about answering it, without getting to the answer. And knowing how to get there will at least give you the incentive you need to find an answer, and this gives you that purpose that makes life so meaningful.

Happy Fall, I Guess...

Reapers, by Jean Toomer (1894-1967)

Black reapers with the sound of steel on stones
Are sharpening scythes. I see them place the hones
In their hip-pockets as a thing that's done,
And start their silent swinging, one by one.
Black horses drive a mower through the weeds,
And there, a field rat, startled, squealing bleeds,
His belly close to ground. I see the blade,
Blood-stained, continue cutting weeds and shade.

The poem is talking about farming, right? About harvesting, gettin' that corn out of the fields and onto the dinner table, gathering those last bits of gold before the sun sets in the distance.

Oh, who am I kidding.

There is something creepy, dark, and sinister about this poem; everything from the way the words roll off the tongue to the choice of phrasing used to describe what should be a harmless day out on the mower points to something more than just happily ending the season's harvest with food aplenty.  There are two different scenarios that play out here, side-by-side. The obvious one is the one we mentally see in our heads--farming. Getting those horses out to the long corn fields, mowing them stalks down before any more cold weather spoils the vegetables. But what we feel--that is doubly more interesting, not to mention haunting. I feel an ominous presence, almost lurking feeling on the horizon, of something reaping instead of mowing, I smell blood, my skin breaks out in goosebumps as the darkness curls around my arms--honestly, the poem falls more under this latter description. It seems to me that there's a more powerful presence reaping here, and corn should be the last thing on our minds when we hear about this reaper prowling around, eager to find its real prize.

I'd first like to point out the genius in the first line itself--of "Black reapers with the sound of steel on stones". If there were any way to vocally describe the opening of a horror movie, this line would be the best fit. The first image that pops up is, of course, the infamous Grim Reaper cloaked in black with scabby fingers and a scythe at hand (looks scarily like a dementor from the Harry Potter series--but then again, isn't that where J.K. Rowling got the original idea?). What you hear in your imagination is a horrific dissonance of noise, a cacophony of high-pitched screeching from the "steel on stones" that makes you forget about the popcorn and be aware of controlling your stomach for the next scene to come. As the second line personifies the mowing machine, you're left uneasy--is the poem really talking about a machine? I've never heard of one with hip-pockets before. They can sharpen their own scythes? That's lovely...then, one by one, as if an army of black death is marching, cutting down any obstacles in the way, the hooded figures swing their scythes in your general direction. And when you're close enough to see each individual blade of the entity, blood-stained from the creatures whose lives its taken, you realize that there are no obstacles left, no more shade to hide in, and that you are the next weed that it's ready to cut.

Ok, that's about as far as I can go with that spooky stuff. This is a great piece of scary literature, but what meaning is there besides trying to make you pee your pants during a Lit class? Some background inference would be helpful here. Days of harvest, of collecting food and grain, can be linked to death from another perspective: the seasons. And what we're talking about here specifically is Autumn. It only makes sense that all harvest must be collected to be consumed, but a key word choice changes this assumed meaning completely: the use of reap instead of mow. According to the dictionary, reap implies gathering or taking a crop or harvest, while mow is simply the act of cutting down crops with a scythe or machine. You can mow crop, sure, but you can't mow a person--this is where reap comes into play. The use of reap suggests that Autumn not only is the time for man to collect his harvest, but for Nature to collect hers as well--harvest of human lives, mind you. Personifying the reaper to be more like the dark-hooded figure we know today (sharpening scythes, fashionable Grim Reaper hip-pockets) in our culture includes the fall of human life as the season runs its course. Thus, Death's influential hand stretches out into our own 'field,' "cutting weeds and shade" so that no human has any other place to hide from Death. No single person will be treated differently from the rest under the wrath of nature and time, in the way that no farmer would let a mature crop go to waste by letting it be.

Does that mean that we're all destined to die in the Autumn? Obviously, no, or else I wouldn't have to turn in a blog post. But there's a definite change in the air, a change in the environment around us, that the supernatural, ubiquitous 'Reaper' shapes for us in this chilling season. We don't have to hope for imminent death in the near and coming months, but we are all susceptible to the colder winds, the drier air, and the dying greenery that surrounds us. Think of it as a friendly reality check that time stops for no one, and this under-rated season reminds us that death is necessary in the cycle of life, whether you imagine a Grim Reaper single-handedly sucking the life out of every flower and ray of sunshine, or only absent-mindedly realize that you had to wear a jacket today.

Don't be the lame neighbor that gives out apples and bananas this Thursday; go out there and buy some candy or else you'll be finding a rather angry reaper/mower knocking on your front door. Unless, that is, you're a dentist; in that case many kids already think you're some sort of Hell-spawn destined to make their lives a pain in the tooth (ha ha). Happy Halloween!

All the World's a TV Show/ And all the Characters in Grendel Merely Actors

     I love the idea of Grendel; really, I do. Besides the fact that Grendel is actually a very amusing character to listen to, the themes of the book delightfully shake your beliefs and challenge your morals in a way that makes your head hurt (and I mean that in the best way possible, if that's possible). His rants about life go a lot deeper than any teenager's loathing, yet it carries a meaning and questioning that all human beings--teens, adults, my parents--have in their mind, but don't quite have the words to explain. One of them particularly interested me: the idea of truth. We had an interesting and mind-bending conversation regarding Grendel and Plato's allegory of "The Cave" and the possible implications between the two. Grendel is so relatable because of the questions he asks, the philosophies he ponders. What is truth? Is it in the eye of the beholder? Where can we find absolute truth? And even then, does truth carry a meaning if there's no one around to interpret it? At which point, the truth isn't absolute anymore, but just another interpretation?

     I'm really tempted, every day in class, to slouch back in my chair and declare "I don't know, please don't ask again." But there's no fun in that, and I can't help but think about my own beliefs and how they match up with Grendel's. Throughout the book, Grendel contrasts the human version of truth against his own, and they definitely don't match up; the funny thing is, though, they're both essentially 'true.' This is the struggle that Grendel deals with. He seems to know his own version of life and death, all a pointless act that we live through aimlessly and hopelessly until the day we die--that existentialism exists, and nothing else. His solipsist view on life is true for him, and it is at its core true for everyone; we're born here, we do stuff, and then we die somewhere else. That's how life works.
   
     On the other side of the coin, the human beings that inhabit the 'real world' above Grendel's cave attribute all wins, losses, and natural signs as an act of God or other intangible force, a message that is passed down, telling people what to do in order to get to heaven (or hell). Religion, a spiritual existence, is what human beings strongly believe in and live their life by, and it's sure more comforting and stable than Grendel's daily rants of helplessness and wanting to jump off every cliff he passes by. For a majority of people, religion is their truth, and who can deny that? It's an anchor and a solace, and if it works then power to them. But Grendel knows this not to be true. For one reason or another, he knows that religion does not exist, and these people are just living in lunacy. He was born in 'hell', for lack of a better term, and for this reason I believe in this statement that Grendel does seem to know more than human beings do. He is part of the religious background, but isn't affiliated with it, and that's significant.

     What's most interesting about Grendel, however, is how willing he is to ditch his existentialist self and cross over to the more spiritual one, the human truth, regardless of its consequences. For example, upon hearing the Shaper's poem about how heroic man was for 'beating' Grendel, Grendel states,

"I knew very well that all he said was ridiculous, not light for their darkness but flattery, illusion, a    vortex. [...] Yet I was swept up. [...] My heart was light with Hrothgar's goodness, and leaden with grief at my own bloodthirsty ways" (48).

Despite what really happened--Hrothgar's posse burned inferior halls to the ground, "hacked down trees in widening rings [...] till the forest looked like an old dog dying of mange" (40)--Grendel wants with all his heart to believe that these people are doing good in the world, even though they aren't (at an existential standpoint). He wants to fall into the notion that man supersedes all, is good to all, and is willing to sacrifice for his own kind (in reality, Hrothgar wants to eliminate competition in his land and expand his kingly hand). Grendel battles with himself, especially in the fourth chapter, about the contrast between what humans say and what they actually do. They say they glorified their men in epic battles to protect their homeland; but weren't they just murdering anybody who got too powerful? And when Grendel bursts into Heorot, pleading mercy and peace, the men hacked at him with poisonous blades and he had to retreat in an effort to save themselves from a monster; but all Grendel was trying to do was express his guilt and admiration for the human spirit.

     And this is where I strongly believe that reading Grendel is like watching a TV show--and you're Grendel. TV dramas make such obvious plots, scenarios, for the watcher to fall into, be it romantic choices, conquering lands, singing your heart out to win the Glee cup. You already know how everything will end; the girl will get her heart broken, the king will lose his crown for being too greedy, the kids will lose because they had a shaky year and didn't practice hard enough. But you grind your teeth, you sit down in that sofa and believe as hard as you can that the opposite will happen. You are willing to disprove what you have believed will happen since you watched that first episode that none of it is true. And three months later, when the season ends, you're let down. See the parallel here?

     Grendel fights with himself, to try and believe two completely different philosophies. He wants the cut-and-dry good versus evil that man puts their hearts into, but he can't. There are too many contradictions in human nature for this to be possible for a non-human creature to believe in. "It was a cold-blooded lie that a god had lovingly made the world, [...] that one of the races was saved, the other cursed" (55). Every time Grendel gives mankind a chance to walk the walk, to act upon what the Shaper proclaims that mankind is, it is shut down by violence, cruelty, and unfairness, and reality. Is this not the definition of a monster, a definition that Grendel was supposed to fill, not mankind?

Vicious Circle

     "The Love Story of J. Alfred Prufrock" is, number one, not a love story. Number two, it is not heart-warming. His language and diction may be eloquent, his imagery may be beautiful, but if this poem doesn't leave you in a jumble of nasty, afflicted emotions after an intense close reading, then get out of my face (not really...just read it again, please). Is it ironic that all these depressing truths about the meaning of true love and how impossible it is to attain is learned in senior year, almost as an intro-to-real-life class? I'm not sure...that might just be me being pessimistic. Unless it's actually true, then hooray, I guess?

     But that's the thing with this poem, and even with Winesburg, Ohio, that always bugs me: all this guessing, the lack of concrete feelings, the unsureness, the "I guess"-ness of it all. No one really knows what they're really talking about; all you can get out of these two pieces of work is its emotional baggage that the characters perpetually carry, and this emotional baggage is what ties Winesburg, Ohio with "The Love Story of J. Alfred Prufrock" so well. Whoever it is that's speaking in both works talks about an inevitable loneliness and lack of communication that is tied into love. As we age, love seems to dissipate into nothingness and we have no one left except, well, us. Love looks like an impossible ideal that no one can reach because of our human incapability to describe our feelings and communicate this in a way that the other party, be it a loved one or a stranger, can understand. Is this all due to fear? Maybe...but fear of what? A misunderstanding, of exposure, of dependence to this other person who may know all your secrets and desires if you over-communicate? Who knows? (I sure don't.)

     Take the first stanza of Eliot's poem, for example. He is describing a journey that "you and I" are about to partake (with "you" referring to whoever you want it to be--a lover, a friend, maybe even you, the reader). In a type of dream-like state, the speaker describes these uncomfortable places that we can go: "half-deserted streets" (Eliot, line 4), "one-night cheap hotels" (Eliot, line 6), "sawdust restaurants" (Eliot, line 7). I don't know about you, but this sounds like a foolproof plan to ruin date-night. But the real connection here is in its last three lines, where the speaker states "Oh, do not ask, "What is it?"/ Let us go and make our visit" (Eliot, lines 11-12). Immediately, the image I see is this boy and girl staring down a long road, with the buildings stretched out to the point of the road far in the distance, on the horizon line. What blew me away was when we went to class the next day for the rotating poster activity, and at least 3 people drew the same picture. Why? Why do many of us imagine this same picture?
   
     It's the uncertainty of life that pops up in many of our minds as we read this first stanza that is also evident in Winesburg, Ohio when George is trying to overcome childhood and graduate into the lovely new world of adulthood. This uncertain attitude could refer to relationships, love, the future...practically everything that you didn't have to worry about when you were still a child. Thus, the vision of the long road gives off that unpredictable, uncharted feeling. The ideal of perfect first dates, lovely strolls in the evening, is ruined by the reality of cheap restaurants and dingy hotels. The speaker of the poem mentions an "overwhelming question" that cannot be asked because no one knows the answer. George is a young boy in Winesburg, Ohio who wants to grow up and make something of himself, but doesn't seem to do so successfully because he doesn't know how. It's like the same story, the same problem, in two different formats--poetry and short stories.

     Secondly, there's this problem with communication that I never seem to understand as a problem in our society (probably because I talk way too much, so I wouldn't be able to empathize with this point). Eliot's poem is peppered with unanswerable questions directed towards himself about this overwhelmingly large question: "Do I dare/ Disturb the universe?" (Eliot, lines 45-46); "And should I then presume?/ And how should I begin?" (Eliot, lines 68-69). All of this questioning yields no answers, sadly enough; all this questioning, only to realize that "It is impossible to say just what I mean!" (Eliot, line 104). Enoch Robinson immediately comes to mind when Prufrock laments about who-knows-what. Both of these characters want to be understood, but in such a specific way and form that they can't communicate it easily. All they're left with in the end is their own, unsolvable questions that never even leaves their lips. ""I'm alone, all alone here," said [Enoch]. "It was warm and friendly in my room but now I'm all alone"" (Anderson, 177). Neither character can take that first step in asking the right question, or saying the right thing, in a way that can be understood and empathized by the people they're surrounded with. They don't want to end up like Wing Biddlebaum, in other words--shunned from society because of his miscommunication with kids. And the fact that a majority of American kids sitting in an AP Lit class thinks he's gay. That's a heavy burden to carry!

     In their fright of miscommunication, the people of Winesburg and the people in Prufrock's poem create their own loneliness. It's a vicious circle; there's no discernible endpoint because no one wants to take that first step, to be outspoken about their identity. We've seen the product of such people who try to communicate their ideas and feelings: Elizabeth Willard, Kate Swift, Wing Biddlebaum, to name a few. These characters' endings are not happy endings, I can tell you that much. In an effort to communicate their ideas and truths, they end up being labeled as loose women (sorry, Elizabeth), hard-headed and strict (yes Kate, you), or gay (it's not your fault, Wing). The complete opposite side of the spectrum is Prufrock, this man who stays silent for too long and ends up stagnating. In time, he grows old and realizes his silence contributed to his demise, but it's far too late to change, he's too old. Either action leads to loneliness, and it seems that we've only got two ways to go about this: die alone with a preconceived notion from society about who you are, or die alone with no one actually knowing who you are, or what impact you've made on life.

     I can't decide yet. I'm way too young to make this type of decision; I'd rather believe that communication and understanding is possible in this world, not an impossible ideal to strive for. But doesn't that make me sound a lot like George in his naivety? Probably. 'Vicious circle', remember?

When Having High Hopes can Potentially Ruin your Life...

     Ok, long story short, I had another "Paper Pills" moment...and it was with "Respectability." More than anything, this was a complete opposite of "Paper Pills" in its content. Everything goes so wrong with Wash Williams and his love life, and the damsel in distress is, in fact, Wash. Maybe it's because I'm a girl, or maybe I'm just underexposed to female antagonists, but reading this short story was like swallowing a very large, nasty pill. I knew situations like this happened all the time, where the woman is unfaithful and the man is over-emotionally attached, but the reality of it didn't really hit me until reading about Wash. His story is a representation of any man out there who had to deal with a broken, cheating marriage; the woman almost always escapes the situation as a victim, and the man is the one to blame. It's sad, it's pathetic, and it's so very real. And I can't believe it took me this long to realize the pain that not only women, but men feel in the effects of heartbreak.

     However, first paragraph in, I wasn't completely sold on that belief. The correlation between the monkey and Wash already made me assume the worse for this hateful man. He's physically dirty and portrayed as this primal creature who can't even maintain his hygiene, let alone a marriage! Everything about him seemed dirty--"even the whites of his eyes looked soiled" (113). He was ugly, he was fat, he was smelly...need I go on? Basically, everything about him screamed slob--except his hands. This is important later (to be honest, when are hands not important in this book...?). Sherwood Anderson spends so much time elaborating on this man's uncleanliness and hatred of life, men, and women. By the end of the second page, there isn't a doubt left in your mind that would suggest Wash as an innocent victim of love. This is where I learned that you can never assume an outcome if Sherwood Anderson is writing what you're reading.

     The line that first threw me off was an off-putting sentence about his hate for women, which is described as "a love as absorbing as the hatred he later felt" (115). Hold up, what? I thought Wash was just born with this hatred, and I'd be reading a sob story about how his mother left him as a child and he was brought up loveless and with an aloof father who never took care of him. That literally would be the background for a third of the characters in this book.
   
     But this is different. He actually had a life. He was clean, once upon a time. He had a wife, a postcard-perfect house, a job, a garden. Such small details made me start to doubt Wash's backstory; what horrible thing happened that caused so much hate? And in a woman? In literary terms, hating a woman would symbolize everything from hating birth, hating life, hating comfort, understanding, softness, motherhood...that's a lot to hate. It's tiring to think about.

     Go back a couple years to when Wash was a clean, aspiring man, precious, polite, and thoughtful. He was a gentleman, a far cry from his present slobbish self. He is one of the only male characters that is described as virginal, which takes a lot of self-control and faith in one central idea: true love. I hope you're beginning to think that this idea is his version of a truth, because you'd be right, in my opinion. He believed in this childish, naive love and poured all of this faith into a blonde, blue-eyed girl. They marry, buy a house together, have tons of sex (reading about the seeds was more uncomfortable than watching a sex scene with your parents...almost), and Wash is a pure, happy man.

     But when he figures out that faith doesn't run both ways, he is devastated, and in turn I'm crushed and just a lump of metaphorical tears. The angelic girl with the golden hair and blue eyes is a cheater, and has been with at least two lovers while Wash was away at work. Wash's complete faith in true, pure love is ruined. This girl, who was his anchor and his ideal, his truth, was destroyed by reality: infidelity, lying, and cheating. But it doesn't end there.

     It was the assumption of Wash as an indifferent animal--a beast--that really made me angry. Very angry. For when Wash left his wife and sold his house, the girl's mother called and asked to meet with them at her house. The mother gives Wash hope, and he "ached to forgive and forget" (119). What they really needed was to sit down and talk: communicate their problems and resolve the situation. But the mother didn't go about it this way. She assumed that Wash was an unthinking, unfeeling creature that wants nothing more than sex, and this is what she abhorrently offers him when he arrives in the home. The mother pushes her naked daughter in front of Wash and locks them together in a room, hoping that sex will ultimately solve everything. Her assumption of Wash's primal mindset really pushes my buttons, for some reason. To think that lowly of a human being, to assume that he doesn't understand any higher-order cognitive functions other than impregnating a woman--that to me is the most monstrous thing you can do.
   
     'Unfortunately' for the mother, Wash's primal instincts do fire off--but not in the direction she had intended. Instead of having sex with his now ex-wife, man's violent streak sets in, and he bashes the mother's head with a chair before he is pulled away from instilling more harm. This event was what really sealed the deal on Wash's present attitude towards women; it wasn't just an unfaithful wife that shut down his empathy towards females, but the belief that all women think they can get away with anything because they are the smarter, more emotional sex.

     So is the claim of Wash being the monkey out in the streets justifiable? Maybe, to an outsider looking in, sure. But remember that his hands are clean--in fact, they are the cleanest parts of his body. This says a lot about his innocence as a character, amidst all these sneaky and dirty people living around him. "His hands are clean" therefore apply to him literally and figuratively. Again, we shouldn't judge a character based on his overall presentation; the details will give you the most insight. Take, for instance, his ex-wife; she is the only woman in this book depicted as having blonde hair and blue eyes. You almost imagine her as an angelic figure, but in reality she is an unabashed cheater with a witch of a mother. Then you look at Wash, this unkept, primal-looking man, but his purity shines through his hands and his name. He put his heart into love, and this truth became his falsehood. He is innocent to infidelity and crime, but guilty to believing the impossibility of true love. Who really is to blame? I don't really know...but I understand a bit more of why the men of Winesburg respect Wash so much. He is the wounded soldier in battle, a traumatized human being who had to fight the most dangerous enemy of all: women. In war, there really is no one to blame.

     When we were talking about writing for a timed essay, the teacher emphasized that we should always write in the present tense when analyzing a piece of literary fiction. For some reason, this rule of thumb reminds me of this story, and it makes my heart sink. In any regular novel, the prince will always end up getting the princess, every time you read it, in whatever language it's transposed in; the ending is still happy, still the same. But in "Respectability", you can't hope for anything like that; in whatever dimension Wash is living in, he will always hate women, he will always be wrongly compared to a dirty monkey, and he will always bear the pain of losing the girl he loved too much.

The Subway Will Never be the Same

In a Station of the Métro, by Ezra Pound

     The apparition of these faces in the crowd;
     Petals on a wet, black bough.

Wait...that's it? That's all you get to say on the Parisian subway station, the New Yorkesque hubbub of the European world? All I see are two disjointed sentences that seem to have no connection to each other (except the semi-colon--not that that helps). What else? Is there more? Where is it?!?!

So the poem might have driven me crazy over the past week; yes, I could have simply chosen another poem from this dense Lit book, but to be completely honest I didn't want to be beaten by two (or three, if you count the title) lines of text. Upon reading the poem again, a picture formed in my mind: a solitary, old Asian lady sitting on a wet bench inside the Métro, people-watching. There's a mural in front of her, where the subway tunnel is, of a Japanese-like painting of those trees with white-tinged-pink petals on it...kind of like this:

http://images.fineartamerica.com/images-medium-large/cherry-blossom-andrea-realpe.jpg

I still can't decide if this is a sad or happy picture. I do feel this twinge of sadness, not for the old lady, but of overall dark and empty this sentence brings. There's no connection between the people in the crowd and the speaker, and this irks me for some reason. Even the title brings this up; the description of the setting as a subway station alludes to the ever-changing, temporary place--an intermediary for people who travel, whether from the house to the grocery store or from Germany to Russia. It's like this lifestyle makes people move too much, too fast for anyone to make any type of personal connection to anyone else in this station, despite the physically close proximity to all these travelers.

Now comes this feeling of discord and isolation in the first line. The word 'apparition' is used here, which you would think is connected to some type of ghost or imaginative figure; however, this is used to describe 'these faces in the crowd'. The addition of the word "these" gives it a sense of almost wonder that faces even exist in such a place as the Métro. Faces stand for emotion, for liveliness and connection, but adding on the "apparition" changes this connotation entirely into that of a ghostly, pale feature without a body. Kind of creepy, now that I think of it: apparitions of floating faces on top of indistinguishable, blurred bodies due to fast-paced movement. And what is up with the lack of bodies in general? It's as if all the speaker notices is the face, and all these faces are part of a crowd, which isn't a living thing either--it's just one moving, machine-like entity.

Now comes the second part of the poem, which provides a metaphor for this loneliness, if you look hard enough. 'Petals on a wet, black bough' is that painting of the tree I was talking about before. There's that parallel between faces and petals; petals are the parts of the flower that everyone notices first; it's the part of the flower that's beautiful and makes an impression on the mind. But then again, there's the fact that the petals only form part of the flower, in the way that faces are only part of the body. By itself, petals are quite lifeless things, and don't keep well without the source that brings them life: a body, a heart, or a stem, the roots.

The second portion--"a wet, black bough"-- is the medium for which these lifeless things live through. The alliteration of the hard 'b' in "black bough" first gives me that ominous feeling of darkness and uneasiness. Or maybe it's just me.
And what's a 'bough', you ask? It's a branch of a tree--connections, connections. Like a crowd, the boughs form this unquantifiable number of branches, similar to the crowd. And yet, there's no mention of the branch, or the stem, that the petals are part of. It's black, which may refer to how wet the branches are. Black symbolizes the usual, depressing topics: death, intimidation, secrets, the unknown. Is this not like the crowd running around from train stop to train stop?

I guess Ezra Pound does have a point to get across with this deceivingly short poem; something about our movement, our constant shifting, contributes to this lack of connection to the human spirit in our body's core. Of course there are faces that have the ability to convey emotion, but it's only temporary, and that's all the speaker notices; a flower's petals are appealing to our olfactory senses, but only if connected to the source that gives them their smell. The ever-changing, fast-paced life takes away from the whole picture, the whole figure of the being disappears and all we see are unrecognizable, blank faces. Now that I think of all these parts that make up the poem, the emotions and picture that rises matches to the one before the analysis--a lonely woman on a bench viewing this generation of hurried souls who only take notice of faces, not of people.

Opposites Attract: "Tintern Abbey" and Frankenstein

     I have to admit, after the first reading of "Tintern Abbey,"I couldn't for the life of me connect it to Frankenstein in any way. The calmness, the effervescence and warmth and bittersweet memories that come from "Tintern Abbey" don't mesh well with the horror, science fiction, and aestheticism of Frankenstein. And then I realized, it wasn't about comparing the two ideas; in fact, they complemented each other fairly well in their differences, not their similarities. It's the contrast that makes "Tintern Abbey" fit so well within the terrifying ideas that Shelley proposes in her novel. 

     In fact, on page 139-140, Shelley cites a certain passage from the poem to describe Victor's closest friend, Henry Clerval. The section in particular seemed to just describe Clerval's love of literature and nature in general, expressed through his passion for the natural aura around him and that gives him such delight. This contrasts with Frankenstein's background in the rigid natural sciences, the mechanical creation of nature that doesn't provide him these similar pleasures. In essence, these two works of fiction (Frankenstein and “Tintern Abbey”) are doubles, just in the way that Victor and Henry are doubles; each has what the other doesn't. Victor has the bookish knowledge, the memorized rules and laws of nature, while Henry possesses the internal salvation, the "aching joy" and profoundness that nature offers.

     When I read this portion of Frankenstein again, the impact of nature in Victor’s life and the whole work becomes more apparent; the connotations of nature now include what Wordsworth described as “Nature” in his poetic ramblings, which range from "anchor" to "savior" to "guardian." Shelley put “Tintern Abbey” in her own work to display nature’s workings on man, such as the feeling of joy, tranquility, and other pleasurable sensations in a way that a mechanical recreation of nature never could. In addition to Victor’s overreaching personality, his unnatural conception of his creature--which should have been the epitome of human discovery, the recreation of nature in man's hands, not God's-- doesn’t give him this type of solace that Henry Clerval is able to achieve through his travels in the European countryside, enjoying nature for what it has to offer. These two contrasts of 'fake' nature and 'real' nature occur throughout the book, in each character's past, present and future. Kind of similar, again, to the structure of "Tintern Abbey" itself...the layout of time frames and the effect of nature from the mind of a boy to the mind of man.

     Just think about the poem that Wordsworth uses to describe nature; his words, his lines, and his poetic laments of nature could have just as easily been placed in Victor’s mouth and we wouldn’t know the difference! Victor's situation only digresses in that nature, in the form of the creature he created, doesn’t share the same awe-inspiring, eye-opening effects that real nature gives. But other than that, is there not a distinct past, present, and future that Victor goes through in the book? It starts with his past misunderstanding and crude interpretation of nature through Agrippa’s works; the present insight—unfortunate, but still, insight—of the power and dangers of nature, regardless of superficial formation; and the future of passing down what he learned to a youth (Walton, in this case) about he mysteries of nature, in the form of warning and reverence for this power. In addition to creating a convoluted allusion of the Creation story and Prometheus, Shelley does the same with “Tintern Abbey” in her novel, which in the beginning, was a whole lot to process for just one book.

We Need to Talk About Kevin.......and Literary Fiction, of Course

     Some day, I'll blog about something that has nothing to do with movies and won't hint at my bad habit of watching them during school nights...but today is not that day. While procrastinating yet again on schoolwork, I stumbled upon We Need to Talk About Kevin, and I think I've found that rare gem of a film, one that practically no one's ever heard of, that just might fit that elusive definition of a literary fiction (if it were a movie, that is). There is just something about how this movie was shot, the actors involved in it, and the plot that it was centered on, that really set a new standard for all movies out there...this film made me think, it made me wonder about the human condition and how external and internal forces influence us in ways we can't imagine. It's nothing like your summer blockbuster, which comes out every summer and gets billions of dollars in sales. People will talk about it in the next couple of weeks, the news will be applauding its financial success, but after a few years-- maybe even after a few months-- no one will remember the main character. Or the plot. What was the movie even about?? Don't look at me, that stuff is too mainstream for my taste. That is a perfect example of a commercial fiction--er, I mean movie. You get the idea. But We Need to Talk About Kevin will surpass the obstacle of time, and maybe years from now people will finally watch this film and uncover the great insight it offers about our messed-up era we call Post-Modernism. The future generations can infer our beliefs of the human condition and the inescapable flaws we're presented with. The future high school students will analyze this movie as much as we did with Frankenstein, if not more. And that, reader, is what finally made me able to differentiate literary and commercial fiction. 

     But enough about the differences; fiction is fiction, and whether it's literary or commercial, if it's pulled off well then everyone can enjoy it, right? Well, We Need to Talk About Kevin was a variety of things; it was artistic, it was gritty, it was subtle, and it was downright horrifying. I've seen my fair share of scary movies, but this psychological twister really pushes all the buttons. I don't want to give the whole plot away, but I also have a hard time shutting my mouth about these types of things, so read at your own risk. The movie is centered around a young couple who recently got married; the two love traveling and doing lovey-dovey couple things together, etc. etc.-- think of it as an extended, 2-year honeymoon. Of course, at one point, the woman (named Eva) gets an unexpected pregnancy. The father, Franklin, is overjoyed; the mother is not. She spends the nine months of the pregnancy wallowing right up until the very end, when she gives birth to a baby boy named Kevin. Here is where all notion of normalcy ends.

     

     We need to talk about Kevin. Why? Because he is born with an innate hatred towards his mother, and his mother only. He has no problem with the father, or any other living being for that matter, except for the woman who gave him life. After birth, Eva actually does a slow turnaround about the idea of having kids, and has just begun to accept her new role as a mother with cautious enthusiasm, but this enthusiasm is short-lived. As the child gets older, it becomes more and more apparent to Eva that Kevin tries his very best to spite, bother, annoy, physically and mentally hurt the mother; nothing she would say or do would lessen this hatred within him. But when the father was around, Kevin would do a complete 180; he turned into the adorable 5 year-old that wanted to play with paper planes and hug his daddy, all in front of the boggled, exhausted mother. Things don't look up as he becomes a teenager; at this point the mother conveys no love nor interest for her son, and he returns this in kind. He still does subtle things to annoy her, such as leave his room a mess, watch pornography when she's around-- any horrible thing you can think of that a teenager could do, he's probably done in the movie. 

     Eva, on the other hand, thinks she's going crazy. She keeps telling her husband that Kevin doesn't act right around her, as if he wasn't even her son, and Franklin doesn't believe a word she says; this is justified from his perspective, since Kevin acts like the perfect teenager around him. All of these psychological torments lead up to a final, desperate act by Kevin to really show the world how much he hates his mother; he locks down the school during a pep rally and starts shooting at random students on site. This was the final straw, and he's sent to jail for his actions. Now, the last scene is the most interesting of all. The son finally lets all of his emotions out during a jail confession about how he's had this unexplainable ache to harass his mother since he was born. He confesses that he used to know why he wanted to kill all those students, but now he isn't sure he remembers. And in that moment, Eva (who was in the confession room with him) did an unexplainable thing; she hugs her son for the first, and probably only time. 

     I didn't give everything away, but even from the crude summary all you think is "Whaaaaaaat? did I miss something?" But that's exactly how it ends: in their embrace. These two seemingly sworn enemies, hugged it out, as if nothing ever happened in those 18 years of purgatory in raising a child that does nothing but hate you back. But what I got out of this movie was a lot more than goosebumps for the actor Kevin's chilling performance, or the massive bloodshed throughout the latter half of the movie; it was how seemingly plausible this could all be. The movie raises the controversy of nature versus nurture, battling both sides against each other upon analyzing Kevin's upbringing. What was it that really made him hate the mother? Was it something within those nine months prior to conception that contributed to his behavior? Was it purely by environment alone? It also questions the strength of that bond between mother and child. Can it persist even the most heinous of crimes? Is this love innate, or is it learned? The director seemed to have at least one concrete idea in mind when answering these questions: some mothers will love and support their children even if her children don't deserve it. This is displayed through the hug that Eva gives to her son in the end of the movie, but this is solely from one perspective. Many others claim that the hug was her final ironic act as a mother, and that she was actually resolved to let go of her monster instead of her child in giving that hug. 

  

     Then there's Kevin himself. The director mixes nature and nurture in this character to make him what he is, and what can we deduce of this? Maybe sometimes hatred is innate in children, and that it must be unlearned a certain way for the child to properly love his parent? Or that the life source is just as important, if not more important, than the creation itself in determining its fate? It twists the societal impression that children are born as a blank slate, and that mothers have no influence on the behavior of the child. This movie contradicts our ideas or parenthood into something quite nasty and uncomfortable instead of loving and supporting. As I sat back when the credits rolled, I created my own doubts in my head. What would happen if I didn't love my child because it was ugly? What if my child didn't want me? What if, what if, what if...I wasn't lying when I told you this movie made me think. Sure, the whole plot could have been a dramatization  that might never actually happen in real life, but its rooted in questions that many parents may have when they want to start a family. These what ifs are what make this movie worth your time; it's bold and unforgiving when it displays not the good, but the dark side of both children and parenthood. 

Why Paper Pills are so Beautiful

     So I began reading Winesburg, Ohio shortly after finishing Frankenstein, and may I say that it is such a lovely change from all the darkness that we had to endure with Victor and his creature...no more bloodshed, no more horrible human traits and sinful revelations about the human condition (I hope!). But when I read "Paper Pills", the third story in the novel (or collection of short stories, it really depends on the reader), I knew that this story would be one of my favorites, and I'll tell you why: the combined symbolism and allusions that the author employs in this short, 3-page story add up to be bigger than the sum of its parts. It describes a feeling that you couldn't put your finger on; all you can do is just read the story again and get something different from it the second, third, nth time upon reading.

     First, let's start with the heart-wrenching details. The story is about a doctor who marries a beautiful girl, only to see her pass away barely a year after their marriage. What makes this woman so unique is her situation; she seems to break every literary rule in terms of symbolism as described in Foster's book. Both of her parents passed away and "had been a large fertile farm when her father died" (18). You would think that this alludes to the woman's excellent health and ability to have children, right?

Wrong.

Like I said before, she passes away merely a year after marrying Doctor Reefy! Shortly after her parents passed away, she tried desperately to find a man to marry and share her estate with, but these seemingly successful men-- alluded as perfectly round apples, "shipped to cities where they will be eaten in apartments that are filled with books, magazines, furniture, and people" (19)-- just didn't do it for her. Although they seemed perfect and charming on the outside, the woman could see through the false exterior to see the demons that these men had within them. Imagine, all those crookedly-smiling boys you meet and knowing that half of them only want to be with you because they want to exploit you...or worse! That was what she sensed in the men that she encountered--that is, until she met Doctor Reefy.

     Now Doctor Reefy is what Anderson described as the "twisted apple." As if saying so explicitly isn't enough, he has large hands that, when clenched as fists, has popping knuckles that look like...gnarled apples. He is a peculiar sort of doctor, who practices a medicine that is old and becoming obsolete in the present time. It even mentions the fact he wore the same suit for ten years, which suggests that he is stuck in time. Old-fashioned would be the best way to describe him; he writes random thoughts on paper before crumpling them up and stuffing them in his pockets.

     When the two meet, it was under rather odd circumstances; the woman had just walked into Doctor Reefy's office to ask him about her strange, deprecating condition as he was pulling out a woman's tooth. The imagery and symbolism reminds me of a rather rough sex scene, to be quite frank, and yet I don't believe that Reefy and the woman even went that far into their relationship because of her unknown illness. Nevertheless, when the two met, any other notion of meeting other men flew from the woman's mind:

"she was like one who has discovered the sweetness of the twisted apples, she could not get her mind fixed again upon the round perfect fruit that is eaten in the city apartments" (22).

Doesn't that make you sigh contentedly? I certainly did, even though I wouldn't attest to it if you asked me personally. They spent every waking moment with each other, and Doctor Reefy, the once seclusive and mysterious man, opened up his thoughts (literally: he read all the thoughts he wrote down on paper to his wife, to her delight and his joy) until the day she died. Her death is even a slap in the face for symbolist-nerds everywhere; in the fall, the season of harvest and of slowing down, the two get married; in the winter, the season of death and old age, the two spend their happiest months spending time with one another and shared the doctor's thoughts; and in the spring, the season of birth and creation, Doctor Reefy lost the woman he loved to the illness. I guess because she had such a mysterious, unexplainable illness, it defies the normal signs associated with nature and the seasons...but that doesn't make me any less upset about what happened.

But one portion in the end did make the story a lot more bearable (even though it wasn't technically a happy moment...). The last sentence described his happiness at sharing his thoughts to his sick wife during the winter, and how after he finished reading them he'd stuff them into his pockets until they became perfect, round, hard balls. Does this ring a bell??? The perfection of the sphere, formerly associated with the apples, is now used to describe the crumpled pieces of paper that Doctor Reefy wrote on. This sort of connects with the title itself, "Paper Pills"; these half-finished thoughts are the only treatment that can cure Doctor Reefy's loneliness after his wife passes away.

The allusions to perfection and perceived "imperfection" are endless at this point. The perfection of the paper balls may allude to his extreme happiness at sharing his thoughts with his wife, and how his inner being (which is where one finds thoughts, after all) was perfect, even though on the outside he had large hands and gnarled knuckles. These crumpled balls of thoughts also may refer to the "perfect" love he had with his wife, and how this memory is forever engrained within the round spheres of the paper wads. His physical imperfections didn't stop the beautiful girl from falling love with what was inside of the doctor, which was his warm, caring heart and his wonderful thoughts. The townspeople often wondered why that affluent girl left such a large portion of her wealth to the odd doctor with the odd knuckles, but to me it made perfect sense. "Only the few know the sweetness of the twisted apples."

The Creature's Best Friend Would Be.......Dobby?

     The final day of the week, and the final assignment of the novel (an intimidating timed essay.....that was the most horrifying experience up to date) brings our class to a satisfying close to the Frankenstein novel. There are more themes in that story than I care to admit, and I'd be surprised if we even scratched the surface during our three-day seminar. But what really struck me as unusual occurred after finishing this book, when I was watching yet another movie that inspired this blog post...Harry Potter, of course. Being the hermit that I am, I celebrate Friday nights by watching old movies (did you know the second Harry Potter came out 11 years ago??? I feel old), and after watching the final scene with Dobby, I realized that he was placed in the exact situation as the creature that Victor created in the novel. It had nothing to do with physical appearance or anything, but it was the fact that, even taking into consideration their strengths and advantages over the human race, they remain inferior to the human being. I was astonished that we haven't talked about this in class all that much, though we did touch on it a couple of times. But it was just super ironic-and frankly, unfair- that these two creatures ended up in the state that they did because they seemed to be better than us. I mean, what does that say about our society as a whole? That we reject those that are better than us and make them feel inferior, when they should be considered equal?

     You may think, "Victor's monster is gigantic. He kills people for a living. He is pure evil. How does this make him inferior?" Well, you'd be partly right...he is pretty large. But that's the only true statement you made! The rest of it is purely subjective, and is a product of years of movie reproductions that stray from the essence of the monster as depicted in the novel: an inexperienced, young, and abused character with physical deformities that render him dangerous, even though he isn't. Here's a better physical description of him, which the movie industry nailed quite well:

"His yellow skin scarcely covered the work of muscles and arteries beneath; his hair was of a lustrous black and flowing; his teeth of a pearly whiteness; but these luxuriances only formed a more horrid contrast with his watery eyes" (Shelley, 51).

Yeah, that doesn't sound too appealing. He looks like he can kill you with his bare hands (and he probably can). But did you know that he's a vegetarian throughout the whole book, which subtly hints at his deep respect towards living things? Did you know that he saved a little girl's life from drowning in the water, only to be shot at by her father for thinking that he was going to harm the life he had just saved? This "monster" is nothing more than an unfortunate creature that is defined by society based on his physical characteristics. By physical, he seems 100 times stronger than the normal man, twice as tall, and doubly menacing. This puts him quite above the normal human by physical standards. And yet, he is placed underneath the human; in fact, he isn't even considered human. When he was "conceived" (for lack of better term), he is treated like a dirty animal, like a rabid dog, even though he is completely coherent in language and has set morals for himself. Why didn't society accept him as one of their own?

     On to Dobby...in general, the house elves are treated like vermin, and they must (MUST) abide their master at all costs. They do everything from cleaning the house, to doing the laundry, to cooking-anything the master demands, the house elves must perform or they will be punished (usually by self mutilation). And be mindful, these house elves are barely 3 feet tall, and they are barely clothed; the only way to set a house elf free is to give him clothes, which he cannot provide for himself (symbolic of not being able to feel shame or provide the basic necessities for himself). Now, how does this fit in with the creature? What makes elves better than people? It isn't mentioned in the movies (isn't that a surprise), but house elves have within them an ancient magic that supersedes the magic that a normal human wizard can conjure. For instance, the ancient wizarding school Hogwarts is completely shut off from Apparition (teleportation, for you non-magic folk) and cannot appear on school grounds unless they want to be blown up. But can a house elf do so? Certainly. They can perform all their magic without the use of a wand, and this magic is powerful and deadly (but cannot be used unless the house elf is free-that is, without a master). Does this sound familiar to you at all? The subjugation of subjects in society that are far stronger than the normal human being?

     If the creature and Dobby meet in their version of literary heaven, they'd hit it off, I'm sure. Our poor treatment of these special beings, even though they may be more skilled than we are, in literary work suggests that the human society is too proud to let any other living thing be "better" than we are. And who are we to argue? Was there not a time where you hated someone because they were smarter than you, or that they performed better than you did? They earned more money than you, so they must not be good people! The neighbors got a new car, they must've gotten an under-the-table deal or something, they can't afford that! It happens all the time, and in order to make us feel better about ourselves, we put them in a level that seems beneath us, even though in actuality they aren't.

     And this brings up the final connection between the inferior-superior complex and the novel. Feminism. The two themes can go hand-in-hand, since feminism aims at destroying the idea of inferiority in women in the first place. The book is practically an outlook of what were to happen if man had the power to create life instead of woman, and this, as you all know, ended with the deaths of innocent people, a backslap to God, and many a broken dreams. In real life, women are still subordinate to men in many ways-occupational equality, household responsibilities, sex, you name it. For whatever thing there is that you need to do in life (driving, cooking, cleaning, etc), there's always a joke about a woman not being able to perform it as well as men (or that it is the responsibility of the woman, not the man, to perform it). And yet, women have strength in numbers on this earth--there are, literally, more women than men currently living, and it's always been that way. Women have the ability to create life and pass our genetic code onto the next generation; all we need is just one small tiny sperm cell. Can men say the same about themselves?

     It's the same pattern that happens over and over again with inferiority; it's the beings that are more than able, or are better able, than the rest of society that are subject to it. What better way to protect your status than to undermine the stronger class of beings, be it Dobby, the creature, or a woman? To make them feel like they're worth less than the human life, and to deny them equal rights, is the foolproof way to ensure your kind's continued success without being dethroned. And that was what made Frankenstein so great; it could explain all of this without even explicitly bringing it up.

INCEPTION IS FRANKENSTEIN. THIS IS THE REAL DEAL.

I know, you might think it's a stretch. You might even think it's crazy, but people, the connection is there! I was lollygagging the Lit assignment and watching Inception on Netflix--so, basically, I was watching Inception on Netflix--when that strange feeling of deja vu hit me. It was that uneasy twist in the stomach, a brain-flip, that nasty feeling when your heart is in your throat--I've heard of this story before. The story within a story, a recurring theme between all the characters, the implantation of an idea...little did I know that the answer to the strange sensation was lying askew, page forgotten, on the sofa.

Inception is Frankenstein.

The similarities between the two seemingly disparate stories are scarily accurate, with allusions and doubles of characters, plots, settings, you name it. Sure, you might have thought that Christopher Nolan was a genius director for making up a plot so brilliant, so dazzling, so fresh--but it's just like what that hotshot Thomas C. Foster said about stories, movies, paintings, art in general: it all stems from one story.

A whole story. 

And that, my friend, brings me to the point of this connection between Nolan and Shelley--or rather, the fact that Shelley came up with this beautifully complex idea first and Nolan borrowed it hundreds of years later.  Let's start with what Shelley was writing on about first. Of course, there are a variety of themes that play into the highly-acclaimed novel, Frankenstein, many of which do actually bleed into our society today and still cause controversy. The theme that I find most interesting, however, is the danger of technology and human advancement. What do I mean by that? 

Shelley introduces us with our first, but not main, character--Walton. He's an up-and-coming traveler and geographer, intent on finding a shortcut to the other side of the world by starting at a pretty ominous spot: Russia (this fact will be important later). Even from here we find the beginnings of a dangerous situation, right in the first sentence, when Walton exclaims in a letter to his sister, "You will rejoice to hear that no disaster has accompanied the commencement of an enterprise which you have regarded with such evil forebodings" (Shelley, 12). Um, hello? In addition to warning the reader that this Walton guy is heading into troubled waters (literally and figuratively), this pre-chapter also hints at the real main character's own problems when he decides it would be a good idea to create life out of inanimate objects. 

Who is this guy? None other than Victor Frankenstein, of course. And guess what? He has a doting sister that lives far away when he goes on his dangerous exploit, with only one method of contact: letters. Shelley succeeds, with the issuance of one single sentence, to create two layers in this book, which is more than I can say for other novels of this era. And then there's you, the reader. What if, at this very moment, while reading this book, I had just received a letter from a faraway cousin who was exploring the deep jungles of Africa, trying to find a magical herb that cures cancer? What are the chances that I, a caring and loving relative, would worry for his safety and return? The answer is pretty high, I love my cousin.

Ok, so the circumstances don't have to be that extreme. But even with risks in life that we, or others take, the story of Frankenstein becomes applicable. My cousin could risk his own life trying to find a cure for cancer, and even succeed--but where would that lead us? The advancement of technology in Shelley's imagination led to the ruin of all the Frankensteins by the very technology that Frankenstein created. If we cured cancer, what would happen? Happier families, sure, a safer planet, why not--but what about increased healthcare costs across the board? Overpopulation? Pollution? Margaret, Elizabeth, and I would all agree that these are pretty foreboding. With this in mind, Shelley doesn't create just two, but three layers if you count the reader. Mary Shelley is inception-ing you at least two times, to get her message across; sometimes human advancement is bad for us. It's like that horrible line in the fifth Harry Potter movie from the equally horrible Professor Umbridge: "Progress, for the sake of progress, must be inhibited!" Yeah, I shivered when I read that, too. 

So, the basic story that Victor has to live through is that he creates this monster of a human being in the hopes of bettering the human society, spends half of his life running away from it, queue the POV change to the monster for a bit to hear him lament, come back to Victor when he loses everything, and finally Victor hit up with Walton when he tries and fails to find and kill his creation in the desolate, icy waters of Russia. Now, from Victor's point of view, he definitely failed in his goal; he couldn't kill his monster, he dies of exhaustion, and our protagonist loses the battle. In reality, Shelley's the real winner, for her point comes across quite clear for both Victor and Walton: technology that's ahead of our time is dangerous and should be stopped, or at least hindered, until the right time comes. Victor died never knowing what actually happened afterwards, but the monster stated that he would end his own life in front of Watson, and Victor's sob story (and the angered crew-mates on the ship that were freezing to death) convinced him to turn around and end his journey. Advancement has stopped. 

Now let's look at Inception. The main character, Cobb, creates a type of technology that can enter dreams and, therefore, subconsciously implant ideas in your head. Good source of revenue for Cobb, except for a small problem--Cobb creates a monster within the system that threatens his life and the lives of his team whenever he enters inception. That monster is Mal, his deceased wife. Throughout the whole movie, they go deeper and deeper into a rich man's mind to make him change his dad's company and destroy it, but the deeper they go, the more havoc Mal causes. In other words, half of the movie involves Cobb running away from his ghost of a wife until the very last level, which is in--you guessed it--snowy, cold, desolate, Russia. It is here that two very critical things happen: Cobb successfully implants the idea of shutting down the company (to stop global monopoly), and he also seems to have shot and killed his monster wife. 

But did he?

In the final scene of the movie, Cobb's team members slowly move away from him, one by one, leaving him all alone at an airport. He comes back to America (which he was banished from for being wrongfully accused of killing his wife, who actually committed suicide) to see his smiling kids and they all seem to live happily ever after, except that the ending gives the audience the final, unanswerable question: is Cobb still in a dream? Is he alive, or is he still sleeping? This is such a strong parallel to Victor, who died not knowing what was ever going to happen to his creation (even though it did say it was gonna kill itself, it isn't elaborated in the book). In Inception, Mal believed that she had to kill herself to 'wake up', and when we watch the movie, we begin to wonder who really is in reality: Cobb or Mal? In a way, Cobb will never know if he did the right thing or not, because he doesn't even know if he's awake! In the end, if he is indeed is in a dream (which a majority of viewers seem to think so), then the single holder of inception is stuck in dreamspace forever. No one else will be able to use this technology for any reason, good or bad.

Advancement has stopped.

What is Inception then? Still a brilliant movie, of course. Beautiful scenery. Great effects. To add to that list: best representation of Frankenstein. Sorry I went over my word count...there had to be some way to get this out of my head.

SOURCE:
Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft, and Karen Karbiener. Frankenstein. New York: Barnes & Noble Classics, 2003. Print.