20th Century Song

The Mezzanine:

....*

Mrs Dalloway: 

According to Mrs Dalloway:

(play "proper" theme)

I guess I'll get the flowers. This reminds me of when I was a young girl and I would just daydream by the flowers. Then Peter Walsh would make fun of me and say, "Musing among the flowers are we?" Then I'd say  "Screw you Peter, you have no friends." It's awful cold out. That man over there is looking at me quite peculiarly. Is that a roll of coins in his pants? Ooh, an automobile!...

According to Septimus: 

(play Crazy Train theme) 

THE WORLD IS ON FIRE! AAHHHHHHHHHHHH.........................................! (splat)

The Sun Also Rises:

(play folk theme)

Night time in Paris in a bar made of brick 

There's a man named Jake who is very stoic

Knows a Jew named Cohn who seems like a prick

Jake is a bitter man because he has no... genitalia 

There's a girl named Brett who is a fine lass

Who really gets around but she does it with class

Never too far from her drinking glass

She has curves like a yacht and a really nice... personality

Jake and Brett love each other but they're out of luck 

Because of Jake's condition the two are really stuck

So Brett falls for a count who's got lots of bucks

It's because Jake and Brett can never... fornicate

Everyone in the book is drunk day and night

Especially Bill and that jerk-off Mike

They all went to Spain to see a big bull fight

Tensions arise and Bill calls Cohn a... derrogatory Jewish name

After a while their little fiesta ends

Jake leaves Brett with the Spaniard she weds 

But Brett called for Jake 'cause Jake's a gentleman

Now Brett and Jake are together again

The Metamorphosis:

When Gregor Samsa woke up one morning from unsettling dreams, he found himself changed in his bed into a MONSTROUS VERMIN! (evil laugh)

(play creepy theme)

Once upon a time there was a 

Boy who was named Gregor Samsa 

Who was like a slave because he lived 

With his papa and his mama

One day he woke up and saw that 

He looked like a giant cockroach

But he wanted to work so he 

Made a really slow approach

When his parents saw their Gregor

They were scared so Gregor tried to 

Speak to them but what he said was

Something that sounded like (RAAAH!)

Then Gregor was locked in his room

He spent his days hiding in shame

Then Grete gave him rotten food

Gregor liked it but it was lame

(evil laugh)

Every day he got more bug-like

So he climbed up and down the walls

But that feaked out lots of people

Then Grete didn't come at all

Then one day Gregor acted up 

People thought that he was jacked up

Then Gregor died and everyone

Became happy what a crack up

The Stranger:

(Play The Cure Song)

Standing on the beach 

With a gun in my hand

Staring at the sea

Staring at the sand

Staring down the barrel

At the arab on the ground

I can see his open mouth 

But I can't hear no sound

I'm alive 

I'm dead

I'm the stranger

Killing an arab

 

I can turn 

And walk away

Or I can fire the gun

Staring at the sky

Staring at the sun

Whichever I choose

It amounts to the same

Absolutely nothing

I'm alive 

I'm dead

I'm the stranger

Killing an arab

Wide Sargasso Sea

(play why can't we be friends theme)

**Why can't we be friends

Why can't we be friends

Why can't we be friends

Why can't we be friends

Antoinette lived in Jamaica in harmony

But then her mama had to burn down Coulibri

**

Antoinette and Tia were the best friends in the world

But then Tia got called the N-word

**

Antoinette married a man named Rochester

The man ain't never done nothing good for her

**

Rochester went and slept with Amelie

He's a man whore so there's no harmony

**

Antoinette was taken to England

Why the hell is her name now Bertha Mason

**

Song of Solomon

(play delta blues theme)

***Ooh... gotta fly away

Ooh... gotta fly away

Gotta get away from this house

Ooh... take my blues away

Ooh... gotta drive down south

Ooh... gotta drive down south

All my relatives are crazy

What the hell is that all about?

***

Ooh... I'm so alone

Ooh, I'm so alone

I have found myself

But I have lost my happy home

*Play a G-note and move on

**repeat chorus

***repeat chorus

Reflection on Blog Posts

I am a fan of the blog assignments. I feel like the blog posts allow for a certain amount of freedom that I don't feel when I write a journal entry. I can write what I want when I want as long as it is (for the most part) relevant. These blog posts are good because they also force me to pace myself and manage my own time. This allows me to finish writing out my thoughts, which I can't usually do with the in-class journal writing. I eventually got to the point where I was able to write a blog post a week. Not to mention there is a nice feeling of accomplishment whenever I finish a blog post. There are just so many things I like about the blog assignments. I hate technology, but I love these blog assignments. I like how they allow me to put pictures and videos on the  blogs so that I can make my work more interesting. The blog posts force me to refine my writing more than I would with a journal, which is annoying, but it makes it a lot easier to convert my posts into response papers later on. There is so much I want to say that it's hard for me to organize my thoughts.

The only thing I don't like about the blog posts is the fact that I have to do them. No matter how much freedom I get with these blog assignments, that still doesn't change the fact that it is a school assignment. As opposed to the journals that we do in class, I end up spending my own free time writing these posts. When I have a classic case of writer's block, the posts take even longer to write. But maybe that's my fault since writing prompts were offered from Mr. Mitchell. Basically, I am just complaining that it is school work.

Overall, these blog posts are much more satisfying to me than journal entries because they are more developed and I feel a sense of pride as a result.

Side notes:
-Song of Solomon is getting weirder, but that is only to be expected from a Toni Morrison novel. Did Macon II kill his father's ghost? Was it a zombie? Why didn't he talk? The funny thing is that when they were talking about barbecue pork during the reading, I thought to myself, "that sounds really good right now. I want some." Next thing I know, my mom says "DINNER!" I walk downstairs and see two bags of some Hickory River (pork included). I was so happy.

-I have decided to write a big song that covers all the books we read during the school year. If all goes well, I will perform it during class (guitar included) this friday. I will turn in the lyrics afterwards. It's gonna be crazy

-I wanna post a random YouTube video I like just because I can. These guys are from all over the world:

Mix Bag Post

Since I am caught right in between finishing a major research paper and reading Song of Solomon, this post is going to be a bit of a mixed up mess. Let's start with Song of Solomon: In the latest reading, I couldn't help but notice so many jabs that Toni Morrison took on slavery. As horrible as it sounds, I actually laughed out loud at some of these jabs. An example would be when Reba says "Negroes don't like water" when the whole Dead family was talking about summer homes by the water. I saw this as a reference to the slave ships that African slaves were brought on. Another example that made me laugh out loud was when Pilate told Guitar and Milkman "You all must be the dumbest unhung Negroes on earth." This of course is a reference to the horrible conditions slaves had to endure. Then there was the pig named General Lee (priceless)! I also thought it was interesting to hear the story of how the Deads got their last name:
"Then he asked him who his father was. Papa said, 'he's dead'".
I think that this is Morrison's way of showing just how African Americans have been labeled with meaningless American surnames that tell them nothing about their heritage.

As for my research paper, I am liking my little experimental strategy. For one thing, it is almost fun (and I say ALMOST) to write what is supposed to be a formal paper in a completely informal tone. Also, this way I have exactly what I want to say on my paper. Most of the work in writing these kind of papers is trying to present it in a formal tongue, which often trips me up and makes my writing unclear. It's sort of like the Elephant Droppings method Mr. Rayburn told me about all the way back in subbie year. I have heard so many times that the hardest part about writing a research paper is staring at that blank piece of paper/word document. I guess what I did was just my version of elephant droppings. Also, it was fun to see my peer editor's reactions to my complete disregard for formality. Sometimes, I add stuff in the rough draft just to mess with my peer editor. Last year in nonfiction writing, I made a reference to 2 girls 1 cup. Long story short, he was not happy about it. I laughed my butt off. Writing papers can be hard, so you have to have fun with it when you can.

Waters Cleared

I know that my lack of insightful comments during class implied that I was not caught up on the reading for Wide Sargasso Sea, but I really did keep up. I simply didn't know what to make of the story. I didn't feel like any comment I could have made would have been insightful, and I felt like anything I could have said was already said by someone else in a more insightful manner. For a while, I just didn't know where Rhys was going with the story. Then I read the ending and then it all became clear to me. Rhys was creating a whole back story for a woman from Jane Eyre who was "crazy". For me, the whole story revolves around the very end. It was sort of like in Beloved how the whole story revolved around the incident where the mother slits her baby's throat to prevent her from becoming a slave. Antoinette's (I refuse to call her Bertha) whole story was just a way to show how someone can be driven crazy and question whether or not they really are crazy or if that is simply a label that is put on people we can't quite understand. I may have burned down that house like Antoinette if my life took a terrible turn like that. It was interesting to see how Antoinette tragically developed to be like her mother and repeated the same actions she did. I haven't read Jane Eyre, but if one of the characters was driven to madness and did the same thing Antoinette did, then that would be cool (it wouldn't be cool in real life) because then it would be like a whole tragic cycle.

Forget the whole Tarzan and Jane analogy I made in my previous blog post because I have a better one. Antoinette is like Lucifer from Paradise Lost and Rochester is like God. All Antoinette wanted was to be safe from people who might try to hurt her because of who her father was, which is analogous to Lucifer wanting to be as powerful as God. Now that think about it, Antoinette's father drove both Antoinette and her mother crazy in a sense, but I digress. Her situation has always been precarious, but Rochester had the power to give her Security in England (analogous to Hell), which is analogous to how God had the power to give Lucifer what he wanted. In the end of the book, we see Antoinette go to England, where she is safe from her situation in Jamaica, but her security comes with a the terrible price. This is like how Lucifer was given all of God's power, but his kingdom was Hell (which was detestable even to Lucifer himself). So like the devil himself, Antoinette gets what she wants in its worst possible form. When she lights the house on fire, the flames may hint at Hell.

(sorry this post is late I thought I posted it Saturday)

Murky Waters

Before I start discussing Wide Sargasso Sea, I would like to express a few things that have been bothering me about the whole writing process I have experienced in this class. Lately I have been feeling like a broken record in the sense that I feel like I keep repeating something that either I said or someone else said in my 20th Century Novel class. One way in which I feel like a broken record is that I tend to base my reflection essays on blog posts; which I don't mind because I believe that is part of the purpose of having this English blog. But other times, I feel like a broken record because I will regurgitate a critical point that either I or someone else has said in class in the form of a blog post, which then turns into a (more or less) polished paper. For example, I did a panel presentation on The Sun Also Rises which talked about Imagism, then I mentioned Imagism in a previous blog post, which then turned into a paper which I had to revise. I know that just sounds like a regular writing process, but I just hate the nagging feeling that I get that says that I am not being original with my content. So therefore, I will try and be original with my content in this blog post.

Throughout part one of the book, Rhys uses a very choppy writing style to disorient the reader. Maybe it's just me, but part two doesn't seem to be nearly as choppy as part one. Everything in part two is much clearer. I think this tells us a lot about Antoinette's psychology compared to Rochester's psychology. Antoinette and Rochester clearly have two different backgrounds. Antoinette grew up in Jamaica in a tense social climate. Antoinette seems to have inherited so many different things that caused her to have a completely understandable identity crisis. She inherited her parents' white skin, her fathers hate among the slaves he owned, and Christophine's songs, stories, and recipies. On the other hand, Rochester was born and raised in England where he didn't have to face any of this kind of tension and confusion. When they marry, they seem to complete each other. I keep getting the idea in my head that Antoinette is like Tarzan and Rochester is like Jane*. Like Tarzan, Antoinette was stranded on a foreign land and adopted certain customs to get by. Like Jane, Rochester is the British denizen who travels to a faraway land and falls in love. They are both polar opposites and they seem to complete each other.

*I would like to take this time to shoot down the elephant in the room. The Tarzan and Jane analogy falls apart when you draw parallels between Tarzan being raised by apes and Antoinette being raised by Christophine (a black woman). I am aware of what this analogy implies, and I do not think or condone the thinking that black people are like primates. I just thought it would still be interesting to share this analogy.

Camus the Philosopher

When reading The Stranger, I sometimes find it hard to believe that Meursault is even human. The way he reacts to certain situations just seems to be unreal. Some people in my class have mentioned things like Meursault seems to be autistic in the way that his way with dealing with people is just off. But I think that if he were autistic, there would be some sort of indication that there is something going on beneath his surface; because autistic people are human too. Camus makes no effort to indicate that there is anything under Meursault's apathetic exterior. Whenever I read about him, I feel like he is just a hollow man with no emotion, no passion, no discrepancy (which I somewhat admire), and no deep intellectual thoughts. In fact, the deepest we have gotten so far in Meursault's mind is when he is in his cell and he remembers things (we don't even know what)! He only observes things on a surface level and is tempted by shallow needs. Meursault's whole manner is just wrong. Nothing matters to him.

After learning that Camus was a philosopher in his time, I could suddenly make some sense out of Meursault's character. This is because even though I don't quite understand Meursault, I understand philosophers and what they do. One thing philosophers do is they show people how to think. During this process, philosophers will metaphorically take everything you know, throw it on the ground, and stomp all over it. When a person's way of thinking is challenged as such, the natural reaction is to reject the new way of thinking. They may think something along the lines of "no, that can't be!", or "That's wrong!", or maybe even just the basic "No!". This is exactly the kind of reaction that Meursault generates among readers of The Stranger. Meursault is merely a literary vehicle for Camus' philosophy.

Now that it is obvious that Camus is trying to convey a philosophical message, the obvious question remains. What is the underlying philosophy that Camus is trying to convey? I believe that the philosophy Camus is trying to convey is a very atheistic one. The underlying message seems to be that life is meaningless and humans are so futile that nothing they can do can stop the meaningless cycle (maybe he would have thought a little differently a few years later if he wrote this after the nuclear bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki). Camus even goes as far as to make Meursault shoot and kill a man for no good reason as he thought it didn't make a difference whether or not he pulled the trigger. I also believe that the underlying philosophy is atheistic because of Meursault's encounter with his lawyer, who I believe is Meursault's polar opposite. The lawyer is a passionate, opinionated, borderline hysterical Christian who believes there is some rhyme and reason to life. Their encounter shows how much their philosophies conflict with one another: 

"I was about to tell him he was wrong to dwell on it, because it really didn't matter. But he cut me off and urged me one last time, drawing himself up to his full height and asking me if I believed in God. I said no. He sat down indignantly. He said it was impossible; all men believed in God, even those who turn their backs on him. That was his belief, and if he were ever to doubt it, his life would become meaningless."

On the other hand, instead of trying to make the reader believe this atheistic philosophy, Camus may be using Meursault as a litmus test for the philosophy. Meursault's experiences and thoughts may be Camus' way of saying that this is not what you should believe. But regardless of what Camus is trying to say, there is definitely some underlying message in the story.

NO!

The ending of the Metamorphosis is all messed up and sad. Gregor is the most unfortunate character of any book ever. Before he transformed, all he ever did was work his butt off to pay off his "helpless" family's debt so that they can live a decent lifestyle and this is the thanks he gets. Then when he needs them the most, they lock him up in a room, pretend like he doesn't exist, and starve him to death. Some people may say that such a reaction is understandable since Gregor is a giant cockroach and can't show any human emotions. The sad thing is that Gregor is the most human person in the entire book and his parents are the monsters that exploited his human compassion and forced him to work off their debt so that even as a human, he might as well have been a miserable cockroach. Then it is apparent that Gregor was cheated from his youth since his parents and sister could obviously take care of themselves after Gregor turned into a roach. But then Gregor, this sad, loving creature that felt nothing but love for his monstrous parents, dies. The parents mourn Gregor for two sentences (I would think about five minutes according to logic). Then, after that, the sun comes out, his parents are happy that he is gone, they go for a nice drive out in the country since "they could never do it with Gregor around". They even start thinking about getting a new apartment. I feel so sorry for Gregor. I wish that Gregor would beat up his father when he was human. I wanted to beat up Gregor's father for making Gregor Daddy's little sweatshop worker. It's one thing if the has to work with the father (my dad had to work for his father when he was very young to support the family), but if you are perfectly capable of working and you make your son work for you, you are a despicable worthless human being. The child is supposed to owe the parents a debt that can never be repaid. It should never be the other way around like we see in The Metamorphosis.