When I first read the scene where we see Ruth breastfeeding Milkman long after he's too old for it, I wasn't really sympathetic to her. I was more... freaked out. If the author had written the scene differently, I would've seen it as more like a mother having different or more old-fashioned ways of raising her child. But, in that scene the author makes it clear that this isn't the case. Ruth knows that it's strange or even wrong. That's why she does it in secret. And we see in that scene that Milkman doesn't even really want to still be breastfeeding, so the problem isn't that Ruth can't get him to wean. Part of the reason I was weirded-out by this scene was that Ruth thought of it as her one secret pleasure during the day. This came across as creepy, but that was before I knew her backstory.
Now, after having class discussions and having read much more of the novel, I'm able to see this scene much more differently (one of the trademarks of Morrison's writing style). As a reader I now know much more about Ruth's life and am able to see her perspective much more clearly. Ruth is a very lonely woman, and I think this ritual of breastfeeding was a way for her to feel relevant, and connected to someone (namely her son). In her childhood, the only person she had was her father, who was quick to marry her off and didn't have as much affection for her as she did for him. After a few years, her husband distanced himself from her and she became isolated once again, especially since her father had died. Although they never had love, Ruth was desperate to regain some kind of affection and went to Pilate to get a sort of love potion. She then became pregnant with Milkman and I think she wanted to hold onto him as long as possible since he was really all she had, and she had gone through so much for him to be born. Thus, she continued the ritual of breastfeeding him long after it was necessary.
Friday, December 13, 2013
Thursday, December 12, 2013
Clipped wings
Something that really intrigued me when reading Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys was the image of the burning parrot falling from the roof and the metaphors it portrays. The first time I read that scene in the book, without contemplating the meaning behind it, I found it somewhat gruesome and felt awful for the parrot. It had lived in a cage all it's life, and had it's wings clipped so it didn't have any freedom. When it's life was put in danger, it wasn't able to free itself and instead died a horrible and painful death.
The parrot embodies Antoinette in many ways. They both are confined for most of their lives, for example. The parrot is caged and has it's wings clipped. Antoinette is confined by her lack of identification with any social group, so she is forced to be alone for a lot of her childhood. After Coulibri burns, she is confined to the convent which she never leaves until her stepfather comes to get her. Once out of the convent, she marries Rochester and is confined by that marriage to live with her husband and how he wants to live. They move to England and she's confined in the attic which is the last place she lives.
At the end of the novel Antoinette is sick of being confined, and sick of having to live for everyone else and unable to live for herself. She doesn't want to be a parrot for anyone, being cooped up in the attic and only supposed to tell people what she'd been told to say, much like a parrot only repeats back what the people around it say. She ends this by throwing herself off the roof of the house and taking her own life. This is similar to how the parrot is on fire with clipped wings, unable to fly, and in a lot of pain. Instead of going on like this for as long as it could, it threw itself off of the top of Coulibri and died. Antoinette is also unable to fly in a way, since she inhibited by perhaps some mental or emotional blocks that restrain her from coherently saying or doing what she's trying to accomplish, and/or the people around her not trying to understand her or give her a chance to fly.
The parrot embodies Antoinette in many ways. They both are confined for most of their lives, for example. The parrot is caged and has it's wings clipped. Antoinette is confined by her lack of identification with any social group, so she is forced to be alone for a lot of her childhood. After Coulibri burns, she is confined to the convent which she never leaves until her stepfather comes to get her. Once out of the convent, she marries Rochester and is confined by that marriage to live with her husband and how he wants to live. They move to England and she's confined in the attic which is the last place she lives.
At the end of the novel Antoinette is sick of being confined, and sick of having to live for everyone else and unable to live for herself. She doesn't want to be a parrot for anyone, being cooped up in the attic and only supposed to tell people what she'd been told to say, much like a parrot only repeats back what the people around it say. She ends this by throwing herself off the roof of the house and taking her own life. This is similar to how the parrot is on fire with clipped wings, unable to fly, and in a lot of pain. Instead of going on like this for as long as it could, it threw itself off of the top of Coulibri and died. Antoinette is also unable to fly in a way, since she inhibited by perhaps some mental or emotional blocks that restrain her from coherently saying or doing what she's trying to accomplish, and/or the people around her not trying to understand her or give her a chance to fly.
Thursday, November 14, 2013
Antoinette and Sandi
The relationship between Antoinette and her cousin, Sandi, is one definitely worth pondering. The first mention we get of Sandi is when he stops the two kids from bullying Antoinette on her way to the convent. They had obviously known each other previously, and must have had some sort of positive relationship for Sandi to care so much about the kids bothering Antoinette. He's very insistent on making sure that the kids don't bother her in the future either, not just stopping them from doing it that one time. Antoinette, however, seems to brush her cousin off. She barely acknowledges him, and to the reader mentions that she felt strange about talking to him since her stepfather had been talking about black people. We gather that Sandi is an illegitimate son of Antoinette's uncle on her father's side, and is of color (although not completely black).
The next time Sandi is referred to is when Rochester is talking about bathing, and he says that Antoinette has an astonishingly good arm when it comes to throwing things. When Rochester asks about who taught her to throw, she says: "Oh, Sandi taught me, a boy you never met." Again, Antoinette must have spent some portion of her childhood with Sandi, but though we are exposed to much of her childhood through the first part of the book, Sandi is never mentioned. He must have played some role since he taught her to throw and cares about her enough to scare away the bullies, but yet Antoinette disregards him completely. When asked about him, she doesn't elaborate on their relationship at all. She simply refers to him as "a boy." He's her cousin, and must be/must have been more than just "a boy" to her at some point, but she doesn't acknowledge this.
Later, when Daniel raises suspicions about Antoinette's past/heritage to Rochester, he hints that Sandi and Antoinette had a 'thing' together before Antoinette met Rochester. This most likely isn't true based on the evidence that Daniel is pretty shady and obviously trying to stir up trouble, and that Antoinette and Sandi are cousins, but it seems to unsettle Rochester quite a bit along with all the other things Daniel tells him about his wife.
On the other hand, maybe Antoinette just brushes Sandi off when asked about him because there was something going on there and she didn't want to be questioned about it/didn't want to raise any suspicions... we don't really get the full picture so we don't know for sure. But, these are definitely thoughts worthy of being pursued.
The next time Sandi is referred to is when Rochester is talking about bathing, and he says that Antoinette has an astonishingly good arm when it comes to throwing things. When Rochester asks about who taught her to throw, she says: "Oh, Sandi taught me, a boy you never met." Again, Antoinette must have spent some portion of her childhood with Sandi, but though we are exposed to much of her childhood through the first part of the book, Sandi is never mentioned. He must have played some role since he taught her to throw and cares about her enough to scare away the bullies, but yet Antoinette disregards him completely. When asked about him, she doesn't elaborate on their relationship at all. She simply refers to him as "a boy." He's her cousin, and must be/must have been more than just "a boy" to her at some point, but she doesn't acknowledge this.
Later, when Daniel raises suspicions about Antoinette's past/heritage to Rochester, he hints that Sandi and Antoinette had a 'thing' together before Antoinette met Rochester. This most likely isn't true based on the evidence that Daniel is pretty shady and obviously trying to stir up trouble, and that Antoinette and Sandi are cousins, but it seems to unsettle Rochester quite a bit along with all the other things Daniel tells him about his wife.
On the other hand, maybe Antoinette just brushes Sandi off when asked about him because there was something going on there and she didn't want to be questioned about it/didn't want to raise any suspicions... we don't really get the full picture so we don't know for sure. But, these are definitely thoughts worthy of being pursued.
Wednesday, November 13, 2013
Existentialism is everywhere
Having been sick and confined to my bed by my mother, I decided to use my time missing school to read a book that I'd recently purchased and had been looking for an excuse to read. It's title is Allegiant by Veronica Roth, and it's the third (and last) in the Divergent series. In the first book, you're introduced to a world set in Chicago, although it's not like it is now. The city is divided up into 5 factions, and each faction focuses on pursuing a certain trait such as intelligence or peace. When you're 16, you choose to either stay in the faction you grew up in, or join a different faction where you'll spend the rest of your life away from your family. The main character, of course, chooses to leave the Abnegation (selflessness) faction for the Dauntless (courage) faction. She also discovers that she is a special kind of person called Divergent, meaning she has the aptitude to be in multiple factions. This type of person isn't desired in the city because they go against the norm and are hard to control. Thus, the leader of the Erudite (intelligence) faction has made it her mission to find and kill all the Divergent people.
In the second book, there's a revolution and the faction system is overthrown by a huge group of factionless (basically homeless) rebels. The main character, Tris, is involved in it because it's led by her boyfriend's mom. At the end of the book, she discovers secret video footage hidden by the leader of the Erudite before she died, and goes against the rebellion to expose the footage to the city. It's from the people who set up the factions, and it says that the outside world sucks and the Divergent need to be sent out to help those outside the city when there's a large enough number of them. Bottom line: Divergent turn out to be good.
Now starting to get to the point of all this; a lot of things in the third book reminded me of The Stranger. A quick plot summary is that a group of people from Chicago rebelling against the factionless takeover go outside the city to see if the Divergent are really needed. They find out that no, the video was basically a scam and Chicago was set up as a genetic experiment and the Divergent are just people who's genes are whole. Well, starting to tie into The Stranger, one of the members of the expedition to the outside world named Peter reminded me somewhat of Mersault. Throughout the series, Peter has continually made bad choices and gotten on everyone's bad side (this isn't like Mersault, but I'm leading up to it). In the first book during Dauntless initiations, he stabbed Tris's friend in the eye, and then proceeded to try and throw Tris into a chasm of death. All the choices he makes are for his own benefit, and to get himself ahead. Towards the end of the third book, Peter is pretty unhappy with himself, but doesn't feel like he can change.
What reminds me of Mersault is that once in the outside world, Peter is trying to grasp the concept of his own insignificance to help him deal with his self-hatred. He takes a map of Illinois and circles all the places he's been in the world (basically just the Chicago area). Then he takes a map of the US and circles where he's been, and takes a map of the whole world and circles where he's been. He comes to the realization that all his bad choices don't mean anything in the grand scheme of things, that they don't really matter. I think it helps him come to terms with himself, and be able to live with himself knowing that the things he did didn't really make a difference. Similarly, in The Stranger, when Mersault is faced with his own death, realizing that his life, or life in general, doesn't matter helps him to accept the fact that he's going to die, and help him to come to terms with it instead of dreading it.
Although Allegiant and The Stranger are two very different books, they both contained a common theme of existentialism and I thought it was really interesting how a modern dystopian fiction novel could remind me so much of a novel written in the 1940's about a man unintentionally getting involved in a murder that makes him rethink life.
In the second book, there's a revolution and the faction system is overthrown by a huge group of factionless (basically homeless) rebels. The main character, Tris, is involved in it because it's led by her boyfriend's mom. At the end of the book, she discovers secret video footage hidden by the leader of the Erudite before she died, and goes against the rebellion to expose the footage to the city. It's from the people who set up the factions, and it says that the outside world sucks and the Divergent need to be sent out to help those outside the city when there's a large enough number of them. Bottom line: Divergent turn out to be good.
Now starting to get to the point of all this; a lot of things in the third book reminded me of The Stranger. A quick plot summary is that a group of people from Chicago rebelling against the factionless takeover go outside the city to see if the Divergent are really needed. They find out that no, the video was basically a scam and Chicago was set up as a genetic experiment and the Divergent are just people who's genes are whole. Well, starting to tie into The Stranger, one of the members of the expedition to the outside world named Peter reminded me somewhat of Mersault. Throughout the series, Peter has continually made bad choices and gotten on everyone's bad side (this isn't like Mersault, but I'm leading up to it). In the first book during Dauntless initiations, he stabbed Tris's friend in the eye, and then proceeded to try and throw Tris into a chasm of death. All the choices he makes are for his own benefit, and to get himself ahead. Towards the end of the third book, Peter is pretty unhappy with himself, but doesn't feel like he can change.
What reminds me of Mersault is that once in the outside world, Peter is trying to grasp the concept of his own insignificance to help him deal with his self-hatred. He takes a map of Illinois and circles all the places he's been in the world (basically just the Chicago area). Then he takes a map of the US and circles where he's been, and takes a map of the whole world and circles where he's been. He comes to the realization that all his bad choices don't mean anything in the grand scheme of things, that they don't really matter. I think it helps him come to terms with himself, and be able to live with himself knowing that the things he did didn't really make a difference. Similarly, in The Stranger, when Mersault is faced with his own death, realizing that his life, or life in general, doesn't matter helps him to accept the fact that he's going to die, and help him to come to terms with it instead of dreading it.
Although Allegiant and The Stranger are two very different books, they both contained a common theme of existentialism and I thought it was really interesting how a modern dystopian fiction novel could remind me so much of a novel written in the 1940's about a man unintentionally getting involved in a murder that makes him rethink life.
Thursday, October 17, 2013
A frog in his throat
Why is it that in The Metamorphosis when Gregor first gets up and his mother yells at him, he is able to reply in a relatively normal-sounding voice, but later on when he tries to speak no one can understand a word he's saying?
A thought I had was that maybe has something to do with everyone's growing concern for Gregor and not necessarily the physical state of his vocal chords. The first time that Gregor speaks after he's been transformed, no one is aware that anything at all is amiss. Gregor is somewhat late in getting up but it hasn't quite yet turned into a huge crisis. He reassures his mother that he's getting up in a mostly human-sounding although slightly gravelly voice that is completely understandable. The next time he tries to speak, no one has actually seen his new body yet, but the manager has come to the house and everyone is suspecting that something must be seriously wrong with Gregor, either physically or mentally, that he would be so adamant about staying in his room. Maybe the change in mood somehow prohibited them from understanding Gregor's speech. At first nothing is really the matter, they don't expect there to be any serious problems, so they have no trouble understanding Gregor. But once they realize something's seriously the matter and once they expect something to be the matter, then they panic and are unable to comprehend Gregor's speech.
Another possible theory is that the fault isn't in Gregor's audience, but rather in Gregor himself. When he first speaks, he makes it clear that he was trying to speak slowly and enunciate every syllable so that he could be understood clearly. He isn't totally panicking at that point, he's maybe just somewhat surprised about his transformation and worried about getting to work. All he's trying to communicate at that point is reassuring his mother that he's getting up. But the next time he speaks he's very flustered and anxious about losing his job. His boss has threatened that he hasn't been a good employee of late, and Gregor is hastily trying to defend himself. He isn't careful in enunciating his words and he isn't speaking as calmly or slowly as he was before. Maybe no one could understand him because he'd stopped being careful about his speech. Just a thought that is somewhat irrelevant, but interesting; this possibly is an example of Gregor losing his humanity. He quickly loses his resolve to carefully make his speech understandable to those around him.
A thought I had was that maybe has something to do with everyone's growing concern for Gregor and not necessarily the physical state of his vocal chords. The first time that Gregor speaks after he's been transformed, no one is aware that anything at all is amiss. Gregor is somewhat late in getting up but it hasn't quite yet turned into a huge crisis. He reassures his mother that he's getting up in a mostly human-sounding although slightly gravelly voice that is completely understandable. The next time he tries to speak, no one has actually seen his new body yet, but the manager has come to the house and everyone is suspecting that something must be seriously wrong with Gregor, either physically or mentally, that he would be so adamant about staying in his room. Maybe the change in mood somehow prohibited them from understanding Gregor's speech. At first nothing is really the matter, they don't expect there to be any serious problems, so they have no trouble understanding Gregor. But once they realize something's seriously the matter and once they expect something to be the matter, then they panic and are unable to comprehend Gregor's speech.
Another possible theory is that the fault isn't in Gregor's audience, but rather in Gregor himself. When he first speaks, he makes it clear that he was trying to speak slowly and enunciate every syllable so that he could be understood clearly. He isn't totally panicking at that point, he's maybe just somewhat surprised about his transformation and worried about getting to work. All he's trying to communicate at that point is reassuring his mother that he's getting up. But the next time he speaks he's very flustered and anxious about losing his job. His boss has threatened that he hasn't been a good employee of late, and Gregor is hastily trying to defend himself. He isn't careful in enunciating his words and he isn't speaking as calmly or slowly as he was before. Maybe no one could understand him because he'd stopped being careful about his speech. Just a thought that is somewhat irrelevant, but interesting; this possibly is an example of Gregor losing his humanity. He quickly loses his resolve to carefully make his speech understandable to those around him.
Debt
One thing that struck me when reading the first part of Franz Kafka's The Metamorphosis was the absurdity of the Samsa's financial situation. Let's examine it bit by bit, shall we?
First, we learn that Gregor has a job as a travelling salesman. This seems fair enough, as most grown people aspire to have jobs. What is somewhat odd, however is that Gregor has a job but lives with his parents and sister. But at this point in the novel we can, perhaps give him the benefit of the doubt. Maybe he hasn't been at this very long and doesn't have the funds to buy his own place.
The next morsel of information regarding Gregor's work situation is that doesn't enjoy his job, and the only reason he hasn't quit is for his parents' sake. Gregor tells us (indirectly) that his parents owe his boss a large debt and he probably still has 5 or 6 more years of working until it's paid off. This raises the obvious question: why is Gregor working at a job he hates to pay off his parents' debt? Shouldn't they pay it off themselves? We don't really find out.
We do learn, however, that Gregor has already been working at his job for 5 years, so his parents' debt must be quite large, indeed. The question of why he's living with his parents is therefore answered, because obviously if all the money he makes is going towards paying off this debt, then there wouldn't be any for him to save to buy his own apartment.
Gregor mentions taking the train to work every morning. Taking the train costs money. This is probably the first sign we get that the Samsas are not so poor that they are living on the streets or some other extreme case like that. It is possible that the company pays for him to take the train, but if Gregor's family owes the company money then I don't think they'd extend that courtesy.
Another telling sign is that Gregor and his sister each have their own rooms. If the family was scraping to get by, one would think that they would've downsized to a smaller apartment and that Gregor and his sister would share a room. But they seem to have plenty of living space so, again, why is Gregor working to pay off this debt? Why does the debt exist in the first place?
The family also has a maid, where generally poor, indebted families, don't splurge on a luxury such as that. They also are perfectly willing to call a blacksmith and a doctor when Gregor won't come out of his room, where poorer people would be more careful about such expenses. One gets the feeling that Mr. and Mrs. Samsa aren't really doing their best to get this debt paid off as soon as possible. If they wanted the debt paid off fast so that Gregor didn't have to keep at this job for so long, they could have cut their costs by a lot and would therefore be able to put much more of Gregor's paycheck towards the debt. This would have saved Gregor a lot of trouble, but Gregor's parents don't seem to think of his well-being very much, especially since they're making him pay the debt instead of doing it themselves. This is not what I would call good parenting.
Sunday, September 29, 2013
Tracing Septimus through "The Hours"
The film The Hours makes a lot of ties with the book Mrs. Dalloway. But, even though there are similar themes and characters, those in the movie don't exactly match up with those in the book.
An example would be that many characters in The Hours have Septimus-like tendencies/actions. Virginia Woolf drew upon her own experiences to write Septimus's character, so it makes sense that she would have similar behavior to Septimus as well. Like Septimus's spouse, Virginia's spouse worries about her and wants to do what the doctors say. Both Rezia and Mr. Woolf don't exactly understand what is wrong which seems to irritate their perspective spouses. Virginia and Septimus share a sort of distance from the rest of the world. They don't always respond to those around them, and tend to get buried deep in their own thoughts. They both, of course, end up taking their own lives.
Laura Brown's story also mirrors that of Septimus. Although one major difference is that Laura's husband doesn't realize that anything is troubling her, while Rezia is constantly worrying over Septimus. Laura and Septimus both share somewhat depressive tendencies, and while Laura never actually ends up killing herself, she comes very close and leaves her family to start a new life after her second child is born because she "can't bear" to go on living like that. On a sidenote, I can't really bring myself to forgive Laura for leaving her family. I understand that she wasn't completely well and that she must've felt trapped in her housewife role, feeling like she had to please her husband who went through the war, but it seems so selfish to just run away from the people who love and who depend on you, especially after you've just added another member to that group. Her husband must've been so devastated, it's a wonder that he didn't kill himself. This also emotionally scarred her son, Richard, who as we find out in the third story of The Hours also turns out to have parallels with Septimus.
We see that Richard has grown up to be a poet and a writer who is very successful and has won an award. But he doesn't seem to care about his success. He is somewhat unstable and experiences similar things to Septimus, such as animals speaking in Greek to him, and voices inside his head. Richard, however has an added layer of difficulties because he also suffers with AIDs, and is barely keeping himself alive for Clarissa's sake. He, just like Virginia and Septimus also takes his life because he doesn't feel satisfied with living the way he is, and it's the only way for him to end it.
An example would be that many characters in The Hours have Septimus-like tendencies/actions. Virginia Woolf drew upon her own experiences to write Septimus's character, so it makes sense that she would have similar behavior to Septimus as well. Like Septimus's spouse, Virginia's spouse worries about her and wants to do what the doctors say. Both Rezia and Mr. Woolf don't exactly understand what is wrong which seems to irritate their perspective spouses. Virginia and Septimus share a sort of distance from the rest of the world. They don't always respond to those around them, and tend to get buried deep in their own thoughts. They both, of course, end up taking their own lives.
Laura Brown's story also mirrors that of Septimus. Although one major difference is that Laura's husband doesn't realize that anything is troubling her, while Rezia is constantly worrying over Septimus. Laura and Septimus both share somewhat depressive tendencies, and while Laura never actually ends up killing herself, she comes very close and leaves her family to start a new life after her second child is born because she "can't bear" to go on living like that. On a sidenote, I can't really bring myself to forgive Laura for leaving her family. I understand that she wasn't completely well and that she must've felt trapped in her housewife role, feeling like she had to please her husband who went through the war, but it seems so selfish to just run away from the people who love and who depend on you, especially after you've just added another member to that group. Her husband must've been so devastated, it's a wonder that he didn't kill himself. This also emotionally scarred her son, Richard, who as we find out in the third story of The Hours also turns out to have parallels with Septimus.
We see that Richard has grown up to be a poet and a writer who is very successful and has won an award. But he doesn't seem to care about his success. He is somewhat unstable and experiences similar things to Septimus, such as animals speaking in Greek to him, and voices inside his head. Richard, however has an added layer of difficulties because he also suffers with AIDs, and is barely keeping himself alive for Clarissa's sake. He, just like Virginia and Septimus also takes his life because he doesn't feel satisfied with living the way he is, and it's the only way for him to end it.
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