A Culture of Violence

In Don Delillo's piece "Videotape," he describes a recording of a man's death done by a child. The man is depicted as average and "unremarkable" (p.16). Even as the man dies, the narrator states he is "thinking of the girl" recording the video instead the man (p.27). The man is treated lightly, and most of the piece's sympathy goes toward the girl. Part of the reason he is portrayed so blandly is because Delillo is arguing that anyone, at any time, can be killed like the man. But, additionally, Delillo is exposing how violent modern society has become. People are already so overexposed to death and destruction that even when they view violent videos, such as the video tape from the piece, they only feel fascination, rather than horror. The narrator displays this behavior when he comments that the man "gets it" (p.25). 'Gets it' is a crude colloquialism, much more heartless than saying 'passed away' or even 'died,' There is no grief over the man's death, just shock and obsession. The narrator watches the video over and over, never truly comprehending what he was watching. It is similar to the dog video discussed in class. People watch it repetitively without realizing what they are seeing. We are so used to violence that it no longer has an effect on us.

Numbers

Page 28 of V.2

In this section of Maus, Vladek recounts one of his first experiences in Auschwitz. A priest gives him his first glimpse of hope by interpreting the numbers on his arm in Hebrew. By portraying the numbers in an optimistic way, the priest gives Vladek a source of hope to look at anytime he needed one - it was printed right on his arm, after all. In addition, Spiegelman creates a pun with the word life. The priest explains that the numbers add up to eighteen, the "Hebrew number of life." Vladek then says the priest "put another life in [him]." By linking the numbers on Vladek's arm to his religion, the priest gives Vladek the conviction to persevere through Auschwitz. The number tattoo, something meant to dehumanize the Jewish, actually reassured Vladek that he would survive. Furthermore, throughout the Holocaust the Nazis tried to shame the Jewish for their religion, but Vladek's religion ended up giving him the strength to continue. Spiegelman presents these ironies to reveal that in times of crisis, one should look everywhere to find the hope to continue on, even in unexpected places. He also proves that the Nazi's were not successful in dehumanizing the Jewish or shaming their religion.

Today's Hieroglyphics

In his piece 'Show and Tell,' Scott McCloud discusses how words and pictures have separated over time. However, some languages still use pictures and words simultaneously, such as Chinese and Japanese. Although the pictures do not exactly resemble their real-life meanings, they come close. For example, the Japanese character for eye is 目. The top and bottom sections are the white of the eye, while the middle is the pupil, making the character look like an actual eye. More complex characters can be broken down to convey several different meanings, such as the character for fish, 魚. If you break it down into three parts, top, bottom, and middle, you get three separate meanings. The top section means to 'hook,' the middle 'rice field,' and the bottom 'fire.' While spilt apart, each section has no meaning, but together they form 'fish.' Another example is 好. This can be divided into left and right sides. The left means 'woman' while the right means 'child.' Together, they make 'like.' In this way, words and pictures do still cooperate, even though the symbol is not always identical to the real life counterpart. The hieroglyphics McCloud holds a "vague longing" for do succeed in terms of resemblance to their meaning - even so , the closest thing to hieroglyphics in today's society is Japanese, or Chinese. Perhaps through learning one of these languages, McCloud can ease his longing.

Satire

Whenever one looks back to his or her childhood, almost immediately toys come to mind. Men may imagine Hot Wheels and plastic tool sets, while women think of Barbies and Easy Bake ovens. The two types of toys, those for boys and girls, can very easily be differentiated. Boy toys usually involve building, sports, or the color blue. Girl toys are commonly covered in flowers, pink, and sparkly. The gap between each category of toys is widened by advertisements. Has there ever been a commercial featuring a boy playing with a Barbie? No, not ever. Most boys would be ashamed to even be watching a Barbie commercial. Toy companies never seem to want to stray from gendered toys, although they have tried. Nerf has a line of guns for girls titled 'Rebelle' (perhaps the normal spelling of 'rebel' was too much), which features many styles and sizes, all decorated in pink and purple. The names of the toys ranges from 'Pink Crush' to 'Heartbreaker.' Just to compare, many of the boy guns are blue or red and have names like 'Demolisher' and 'Retaliator.' If that isn't gender equality, I don't know what is.
People have a fixation with gendering objects, especially toys, that they refuse to let up on. No other animal does this - in nature, the sexes are the same. Do male tigers play with Spiderman action figures and Legos? Do females dress in pink and play with dolls? Are they shamed for branching away from these norms? Only humans have these ideals.

Gendered....Pasta?

Multiplicity

A great deal of multiplicity exists within The Hours and between The Hours and Mrs. Dalloway. In The Hours, multiplicity is created through the use of similar props, actions, and dialogue. For example, during the beginning of the movie, each of the protagonists is shown waking up and rising out of bed. Even though they live in different time periods and different home situations, they all have similar ways of getting ready for the day. Additionally, there is multiplicity in how each protagonist experiences Mrs. Dalloway. During the movie, Virginia is writing the novel, Laura is reading it, and Clarissa is living it. Virginia mumbles lines from the novel and Laura is often holding the it and carries it to several places.  Clarissa repeats many lines from the novel and also shares many of similarities with Mrs. Dalloway herself. Both characters are older, upper class, and throw a party. There are other instances of multiplicity between the movie and the book. Richard, from The Hours, and Septimus, from Mrs. Dalloway, share many emotions and experiences. The most prominent one is their suicides - both jumped out of a window. The death of each had almost identical effects on both Clarissas. Before Richard's death, Clarissa Vaughan states that "life is trivial," but after Richard dies she gains an appreciation for life, just as Clarissa Dalloway did after Septimus's death. The multiplicity gives both pieces similarities but also differences.

Virginia, Laura, and Clarissa waking up.

The Garden of Life

"The weight of the day, which beginning with that visit to Clarissa had exhausted him with its heat, its intensity, and the drip, drip, of one impression after another down into that cellar where they stood, deep, dark, and no one would ever know. Partly for that reason, its secrecy, complete and inviolable, he had found life like an unknown garden, full of turns and corners, surprising, yes; really it took one's breath away, these moments; there coming to him by the pillar-box opposite the British Museum one of them, a moment in which things came together; this ambulance; and life and death." (152)

In the beginning of this passage, Peter reflects on the day and thinks that his visit to Clarissa's had worn him out "with its heat." The sun and its heat are a motif throughout the novel, representing the weight of death; similarity Peter mentions "the weight of the day." At this point, Peter is contemplating life, dealth, and the "intensity" of each. This can been seen in his later description of the cellar that he and Clarissa were in, which is "deep, dark"and private. Their impressions of each other are compared to droplets of water through the onomatopoeia of "drip, drip." Water is slippery and fluid, making it able to flow almost anywhere; Woolf uses droplets to reveal just how isolated the visit was from the other events of life - only water could slip through and reach them. The privacy of the visit illustrates how it was just a corner in the "unknown garden" of life. However, even though there are many separate corners, everything in the garden is connected by one path, the "moment in which things came together." The one thing that connects each moment is time, another motif in the novel. In the present, Peter stands and watches the ambulance without a second thought, while Rezia mourns her husband and Clarissa prepares for her party. Each moment is isolated in its own way, but they are all connected by the fact that they are occurring simultaneously.

A Spider's Web

“And they went further and further from her, being attached to her by a thin thread (since they lunched with her) which would stretch and stretch, get thinner and thinner as they walked across London; as if one's friends were attached to one's body, after lunching with them, by a thin thread, which (as she dozed there) became hazy with the sound of bells, striking the hour or ringing to service, as a single spider's thread is blotted with rain-drops, and, burdened, sags down. So she slept. And Richard Dalloway and Hugh Whitbread hesitated at the corner of Conduit Street at the very moment that Millicent Bruton, lying on the sofa, let the thread snap; snored” (Woolf 112)

In this section, Woolf describes the bonds between people as as threads which connect us all. She writes that the threads become "hazy" with bells "striking the hour," meaning that as time goes on, friendships fade. This implies that Hugh and Richard's friendship with Lady Bruton will fade also. Additionally, this parallels how Clarissa's feelings for Peter Walsh have faded as time passed and how Rezia's feelings for Septimus have faded as well. Woolf compares the slow process of bonds diminishing to a "spider's thread...blotted with rain-drops" that ultimately sags under the burden of them. Time is represented through the raindrops, which alone do not seem heavy but accumulated have more force than expected. Through this simile Woolf illustrates that time can easily drag down the thin threads of friendship. 
Woolf uses language related to spiders frequently in this passage, making Lady Bruton herself seem like a spider. She attaches a "thin thread" to each of her friends to form a web of connections, that she can control at will. For example, she "let the thread snap" between her, Hugh, and Richard, breaking off their bond. Her position of control reflects her ancestors, many being generals. Lady Bruton did not follow their legacy, but she still has her own soldiers to command.

Fish Cheeks & Shen Yun

Amy Tan's short essay "Fish Cheeks" conveys an important message about accepting one's culture in a place where it is not the standard. Tan sends this message through dialogue and descriptions. The narrator's mother tells her daughter that "inside [she] must always be Chinese" (Tan 7) while giving her an American-style skirt. These actions reveal that the mother is saying even though the the narrator may look American on the outside, on the inside she is Chinese. This idea is central to the piece, and can be appreciated by many other minorities in America. For example, the Chinese dance troupe Shen Yun performs all across the United States. Their show is not completely Americanized though. Despite their predominately white audience, they maintain many Chinese aspects in their performance. The most obvious example of this is that their costumes and dances are all based off of traditional Chinese ones. Beyond that, the booklet listing each dance is divided in half, with one part in English and the other Chinese. Additionally, before every dance number background information is read in both languages. Through the use of traditional dances and costumes as well as language, Shen Yun is able to be Chinese on the outside as well as on the inside. Their devotion to Chinese culture reinforces Tan's message and provides an example of how to keep in touch with one's heritage.

Disability Today

Nancy Mairs wrote her piece 'Disability' in 1987, but its message about the media's representation of disabled people is still relevant today. Mairs states that television programs "deny the existence of [her] and [her] kind absolutely," meaning almost every show that airs does not include a single disabled person (Mairs 5). This can be seen just by turning on the TV - there are no disabled news casters, athletes, lead actors. A movie about Steven Hawking, a genius who has amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, recently came out in theaters. It has advertisements on every channel, but, interestingly enough, most of them only show Hawking when he is abled. Even films with disabled characters try to cover them up. Mairs argues that hiding disability can hurt the abled as well as the disabled, since disability "may enter anybody's life" (Mairs 5). It is always possible to become disabled, and yet abled people still hold disdain and even repulsion for disabled people. This can be seen in the Pro Infirmis video about creating mannequins based off of the bodies of the disabled. As seen in the video, when the disabled mannequins are put into shop windows, abled passersby shy away from them or look at them with contempt. Without exposure to disability, these people are unable to see disability as a "normal characteristic" (Mairs 7). As Mairs suggests, including disability into the media will help abled people realize it is a normal part of life.

The Pro Infirmis Video

Final Goodbyes

I wave Ruth out of the room and am left standing in the empty apartment alone. The apartment is stripped bare of almost all the furniture, with only the faded floral wallpaper left. I look down at my plant sitting on the table; it is in full bloom, ready to thrive in a lush bed of soil. I have nurtured it for what seems like a lifetime. Looking from those bright, healthy leaves to the tired walls and floors of the apartment, I can imagine my husband coming in after a long day of work, taking off his hat and still managing a smile. This place is adorned with his memory. To be leaving here for good - the thought forces up "a great heaving thing," (Hansberry 151) from my heart, and I suppress it with a fist to the mouth. I take one final glance around the apartment and go on my way, pulling on a coat as I leave. As I reach the staircase outside, I suddenly remember my plant, which is still sitting on the table, and quickly turn back to collect it. Leaving the apartment for the final time, I clutch the plant to my chest, deciding that my husband will always be with us.

Puzzle Paragraph

While others might say it is impossible to relate outer space, the fates, and The Glass Castle to poetry by Langston Hughes, it is actually completely possible. The Glass Castle, a novel by Jeannette Walls, contains a scene that conveys the message of Hughes's poem, 'I, Too', perfectly. The poem asks for equality between black and white people, and this equality is shown when Jeannette goes swimming with her friend Dinitia, who is black. Jeannette explains that "all the black people swam in the morning,"(Walls 190) and is at first nervous, however she is able to fit in right away. She and Dinitia swim all morning, with no racial barriers between them. After getting out of the pool, Jeannette observes that her eyes were "red and stinging from the chlorine," (Walls 192), as if the chemicals, like fire, had burned her; similarly, the experience of swimming with Dinitia in harmony burned away Jeannette's racism.
The fates can also relate to Hughes's poetry, specifically 'The Negro Speaks of Rivers'. The poem's narrator makes allusions to important historical events and places, such as "the Euphrates...the Congo...the Nile...the Mississippi," (Hughes lines 5-8) and also raising the pyramids and the civil war. The fates, who decide the destiny of humanity, have a similar omnipresence, knowing the "ancient, dusky rivers," (Hughes line 12) of time, just like the narrator.
Finally, 'The Weary Blues', another one of Hughes's poems, centers around a "musical fool," (Hughes line 13) who plays the piano as skillfully as Jimi Hendrix plays guitar. The pianist plays until the "stars went out and so did the moon," (Hughes 32), leaving the world dark and hopeless. This hopeless state is reinforced by the reference to objects in outer space - the stars and moon - that are millions of miles away from earth. African Americans believed at this time that racial equality was equally as distant.
In this way, it is in fact possible to relate seemingly random things to Langston Hughes's poetry.

Extra Credit

Question: What is the problem with romanticizing nostalgic memories of the past?

F. Scott Fitzgerald, in his book The Great Gatsby, uses Jay Gatsby as an example of how constantly fantasizing about the past creates only disappointing, hollow results. For instance, when Gatsby is finally able to meet Daisy, his longtime love, after so many years she "tumbled short of his dreams," (Fitzgerald 101). Daisy was the reason for every single one of his actions over the previous five years, but even she did not live up to Gatsby's expectations. By romanticizing the few memories Gatsby had of her, he drew so far away from reality that there would be no way any human being could be the Daisy he wants. He was left with a present world, which was disappointing compared to what he imagined. Additionally, it would be impossible for Daisy to remain the same person she was in the past. Gatsby wants Daisy to admit that she only loved him, no one else, but Daisy is not able to. She says "I can't say I never loved Tom," (Fitzgerald 140), which upsets Gatsby greatly. He is unable to process that she loved both of them, and that she is no longer the same woman she was five years ago. It is impossible to recreate the Daisy of the past because she has been shaped by all the new, different experiences she has had during her years without Gatsby. Romanticizing old memories did not help Gatsby in any way - he just became an empty man searching for something that does not exist.

Luxury

F. Scott Fitzgerald uses many vivid similes and metaphors in his novel The Great Gatsby, especially in the second chapter. One instance of this is when Fitzgerald compares the location of a party to "one slice in a long white cake of apartment houses," (Fitzgerald 32). This image of a pure white cake shows the simple elegance of the wealthy, and the sweetness that the less wealthy imagine comes with having money. Later on in the chapter the color of the sky is compared to the "blue honey of the Mediterranean," (Fitzgerald 38). This gives the image of something rich and exotic, which can also be associated with wealth. By using this kind of language, Fitzgerald shows the desire for wealth and luxury during the 1920s. He includes it in chapter two specifically, during Myrtle's party, to emphasize his point. Since Myrtle and her friends are not rich, even though they pretend to be, Fitzgerald includes extravagant figurative language in the descriptions of their party to show the contrasts between the two. Their gaudy attempts at appearing wealthy, such as crowding the apartment with "tapestried furniture" and an "over-enlarged photograph," (Fitzgerald 33), are the exact opposite of the clean elegance of the white cake and the blue honey previously mentioned. Their endless quest to for wealth only increases their distance from it.

Myrtle's Apartment from the 2013 movie

Punctuation Synthesis

Claim: It is valuable to adhere to the rules of punctuation in today's world since proper punctuation provides meaning and clarity unstructured sentences cannot.

Following the rules of punctuation increases credibility and creates an air of intelligence in literary works. In Ben Dolnick's piece "Semicolons: A Love Story", he explains how he begins to believe the author William James is "intelligent, humane and excitable," (Dolnick 2) just by James's skillful use of semicolons. James, by following the rules of punctuation and using semicolons accurately, is able to appear insightful and credible to readers. Although this seems like the meaningless work of one person, it is in fact crucial for authors sound intelligent in their writing. Lewis Thomas, who wrote the piece "Notes on Punctuation", is an accomplished scientist as well as an author. While he plays with punctuation in this piece, such as when he divides an entire paragraph into different sentences enclosed in parenthesis, in official lab reports and scientific papers, he must use the rules of punctuation. If he strays away from them, he will risk looking uneducated or looking like he is trying to be humorous. Considering that fact that Thomas is trying to be humorous in "Notes on Punctuation", it is fine to use unconventional punctuation, but in academic papers it is a must to follow the proper rules.

The Nobel Prize

Throughout her novel The Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison uses beautiful language to describe the story, even when it comes to discussing the most horrible events. Her ability to show things exactly as they are, without censorship, was what led to her receiving the Nobel Prize for her novel. In one section of The Bluest Eye, Morrison relates styles of whipping to winter and spring. The "firm but honest" (Morrison 97) winter whippings were preferred to the "nervous meanness" (Morrison 97) of the spring whippings by the narrator. In this passage, Morrison is able to show the differences between something natural and beautiful, like the changing seasons, and something unnatural and cruel, like whipping. She describes the beatings without sugarcoating them, which is something she does throughout the novel. By revealing many traumatizing events outright, Morrison provides a catharsis for readers. The reason Morrison won the Nobel Prize was because she gave "life to an essential aspect of American reality" (nobelprize.org). When people read her novel who have gone through the experiences described, they are able to feel a sense of relief. In a way, they can feel a sense of peace because stories similar to theirs were released to the world and did not have to be hidden anymore. Her ability to use language to  depict events not usually told to the public helps victims of the problems she displays.

Morrison receiving the Nobel Prize

The Spectrum of Seasons

In class, we discussed how there is a color spectrum of skin color, and how black people whose skin is lighter are treated with more respect while those who have darker skin are considered unruly and wild. The spectrum is similar to the seasons, with spring representing the lightest skin and winter representing the darkest skin. Spring is full of bright, fresh colors and growth of new things. Many people enjoy spring because the cold weather and snow finally disappear - winter disappears. Not as many people like winter since it is usually extremely cold and bleak.
The imagery in The Bluest Eye reveals the relationship between seasons and skin color. Maureen, a girl who falls on the lightest side of the color spectrum, is described used vivid colors, and she even has "a hint of spring," in her eyes (Morrison 62). Her colorful dress and pretty face make her seem like a blooming flower in the spring, set apart from the rest of the black children at her school. On the other side of the spectrum there are the other darker skinned children, in whose yards "grass wouldn't grow," (Morrison 92). This absence of life and growth is just like the cold harshness of winter weather. Pecola, who is also at this end of the spectrum, is miserable and frozen in her fate, unable to break free from her awful home situation. She tries to deny her race and prays to look like a white girl every night, but it is no use. In the novel, Pecola "held her head down against the cold," (Morrison 93) but it isn't enough, since she still sees snowflakes falling. No matter how much she wishes to be on the lighter part of the spectrum, she is still stuck in wintery reality.

Dollhouse

The first prologue of The Bluest Eye has its own distinct atmosphere and impact. It is similar to the song "Dollhouse" by Melanie Martinez because both set up the image of a perfect household but move on to destroy that image through mood. In The Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison describes a family and the house they live in, beginning with "Here is the house. It is green and white...It is very pretty," (Morrison 1). The family in the book, a traditional four person unit, are all happy and smiling. Martinez, in her song, also portrays a 'perfect' family through dolls living in a dollhouse. As the song goes on, she ruins the family's flawless image by revealing its dark problems, unseen by the outside world. She uses these shocking, unpredicted confessions in combination with childlike yet haunting background music to create a sinister atmosphere similar to the one created by Morrison. Morrison uses sight, instead of sound, to produce her mood. Her passage gradually loses punctuation, capitalization, and spaces as it nears the end. The sight of this huge clump of text on the page gives the reader chills, and the peaceful image of the family is complete gone. Martinez is also able to use sight in the music video for "Dollhouse", using dark, dim lighting throughout the video to continue the eerie mood of the song - even the more cheerful rooms of the house have a dismal tint. Each writer uses the different senses available to them to influence the atmosphere of their pieces and dismantle the illusion of a perfect family.


                                                         

If you are interested, here is the "Dollhouse" music video.

Synthesis

The relationship between the persecutor and the persecuted bears no positive effects on society; instead the heavy tension between the two parties leads the dehumanization of each.

Despite the more powerful status of the persecutor, their mistreatment of the persecuted can affect them in a degrading way. In Sherman Alexie's piece "The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven", Alexie describes the tension between the Native American narrator and a white cashier in a local store. The narrator reports that the cashier "knew this dark skin and long, black hair of mine was dangerous," (Alexie 183), implying that while the narrator has not done anything particularly suspicious, the white cashier already suspects him of criminal activity just by his skin color. This classic example of an oppressor blatantly racial profiling on of the oppressed. From the oppressor's viewpoint, Native Americans are no longer people, they are simply burglars, or thieves. "Indian Education", another piece written by Sherman Alexie, provides an example of how the persecutors can also be dehumanized. In elementary school, the narrator was called "Cries-Like-a-White-Boy" (Alexie 172), which reveals that on the reservation, white people were not taken seriously, and being compared to one was an insult. So, white was no longer a race, but an jibe, a rude thing to be called.

Deborah Tannen also explores the relationship  between the oppressor and the oppressed in her essay "There Is No Unmarked Women". She analyzes how women are judged immediately by their way of dressing and how it is impossible to judge a man based on his way of dressing. In this situation, women are the persecuted, while men and women and the persecutors, since both genders are inclined to discriminate based on looks. Tannen herself is a persecutor in the piece, dehumanizing the women she describes to the reader by addressing them as "No.1...No.2...No.3," (Tannen 389) instead of using names. Since women can be both the persecuted and the persecutors, the cycle of dehumanization is endless.

Then and Now

After completing The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, one cannot help but notice how written language has changed from the 1800s to today. Understanding the novel can seem difficult at first, since Hawthorne uses many antiquated phrases and unfamiliar words, but it is actually very rewarding and can give a new appreciation of literature to whoever reads it.

The novels of today, especially those written for young adults, lack the elegant, detailed, and vivid style of writing that can be observed in older works. For example, in the popular book Divergent by Veronica Roth, the protagonist's mother is described as having "high cheekbones and long eyelashes, and when she lets her hair down at night, it hangs in waves over her shoulders," (Roth 2). This is all the reader gets in terms of imagery - a sentence that does not even reveal the mother's hair color. In contrast, Hester Prynne, the heroine of The Scarlet Letter, is depicted in much more detail. Hawthorne writes that Hester has "dark and abundant hair, so glossy that it threw off the sunshine with a gleam," (Hawthorne 51) and continues to describe Hester's face and demeanor. The language used is rich with meaningful, vivid words that help the reader picture Hester perfectly, while the the language used in Divergent is more simplistic. Additionally, most of the imagery Roth includes is short, usually condensed into a few sentences, whereas Hawthorne will illustrate certain objects and people for pages.

These differences in language go beyond imagery, but young adult fiction similar to Roth's novel still sell. This is because while the style is not as developed, the plot is compelling and understandable. So, even though language has changed from the 1800s to now, this does not necessarily make today's literature inferior when compared to novels like The Scarlet Letter. 

The Effect of Clothing

Picture from Career Girl Network

Deborah Tannen, in her piece "There Is No Unmarked Women", talks about how women can be 'marked' by their appearance. She points out that when dealing with formal, business dress, women cannot help but be marked, but men "have the option of being unmarked" (Tannen 3). This means that men have the ability to choose clothing that will not allow people to judge them based on their outward appearance.

While this seems to be true, when dealing with casual dress, the situation is a lot different. Casual dress is commonly seen at school everyday. It is nothing fancy - basically the opposite of  casual dress. When discussing casual dress, men and women both do not have a choice in whether they are marked or not. If a girl wears a floral skirt with a nice blouse to school she will be considered very feminine, if she wears a mismatched, messy outfit she may be labeled as lazy or strange. If a boy wears a button up shirt and khakis to school he will be considered preppy, if he wears athletic shorts and Nike t-shirts he will be labeled as sporty. There are many different outfits to describe and many different assumptions to go along with them, but the point is that with so many options of casual dress to buy, there is no way to go unmarked, regardless of gender. This is especially true in a school setting, where students are constantly scrutinizing each other based on looks and clothing style. So, even though business dress allows men to choose their marked status, casual dress does not.