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.