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.