Monday, November 15, 2010
Holt
The McPherons ran Dwayne off to protect their daughter and granddaughter. The last chapter features all the characters interacting like one big family. Victoria is a mother to the baby, and Maggie could be a mother to Victoria. Maggie could also be in the place of Ella and act as a mother to Ike and Bobby. The new baby represents new beginnings. The McPherons have something more than each other.
Ike and Bobby
The boys begin smoking. They flatten coins and their mother's bracelet. They then bury it. This must be symbolic of their mother emotionally flattening and being as good as dead to them.
Labor
Victoria is more calm than the McPherons. after hours of labor, she gives birth to a healthy baby girl. The McPherons joke about how their "womanfolk" have doubled in population, but they are excited. Like parents, grandparents, or fathers, they thank the doctor and send him fresh meat. That is the way the express gratitude of the highest degree.
more...
Victoria practices nurturing when the boys show up at the McPherons. Mrs. Stearns, a motherly female figure, has died. The are being passed around to different maternal figures.
Victoria admits to the doctor and the McPherons about the substances she has been putting in her body. The baby is going to be fine, but the McPherons do everything in their power to ensure the baby's health.
Victoria admits to the doctor and the McPherons about the substances she has been putting in her body. The baby is going to be fine, but the McPherons do everything in their power to ensure the baby's health.
Beckman hurts Ike and Bobby
Ike and Bobby are teased and tormented by Russ Beckman. It seems as if they are most upset by the fact that the girl did not try hard enough to save them, paralleling her to their mother. I was sickened by Russ' language and worried that something sexually abusive would happen. Guthrie finds out and takes matters into his own hands. He may be a "cold' man, but he stands up for people when he should!
Victoria goes back to the McPherons
She tells them that she is sorry and begins to cry. Like most men, they are uncomfortable with females crying, and they comfort her and tell her that all is going to be fine...just like parents.
Victoria leaves Denver and Dwayne
Yeah! Victoria finds closure and gets herself back to Holt. I admire her strength to leave! Dwayne is not good news.
Elko dies :(
The boys witness death by seeing their horse die. My first thought was that someone poisoned Elko or fed him razorblades. I'm relieved to know that it was only a twisted gut. The scene of the autopsy is very long and graphic, and the fact that the boys don't cry says something about their transition of emotional states from that of children to men. They are hardening and becoming like the McPheron brothers, which I am neither deeming good nor bad.
Victoria...oh my
We learn that the expectant mother is going to parties. At one she drinks alcohol and smokes weed, the rest she cannot remember. She feels guilty and scared afterwards and refuses to attend any more parties. I'm glad she learned, but I am shocked she made the mistake in the first place.
Guthrie fights with Beckman
Guthrie and the Beckmans end up in a quarrel the school board meeting. This chapter is significant because it places Mrs. Beckman in the white trash category with her offensive public language. I think the Beckmans will do something to harm Guthrie.
The McPherons look for Victoria
The two older brothers are worried about Victoria. When they talk to Maggie they realize that she's probably not dead. Safe? Who knows. At the end of the chapter it is unclear if they are talking about Victoria or a cow when they say, "She's young. She's strong and healthy. But you don't ever know what might could happen. you can't tell."
Victoria goes to Denver
I am so upset with Victoria so making the McPherons worry! She gets in the car and drives with Dwayne to Denver without thinking! To be continued...
Guthrie sleeps with Judy
Guthrie sleeps with Judy. Perhaps Haruf included it as to not take away from the intimacy between Guthrie and Maggie by letting us know that he has had a vasectomy. Why is this important? He and Ella decided that they didn't want any more children. Maggie is upset that Guthrie has slept with Judy. Cigarettes are abundant.
Victoria and the McPherons go crib shopping
The McPherons don't know what to do with a pregnant teenager. They call Maggie Jones for advice. The brothers take Victoria in to town to buy a crib for the baby. She is clearly upset by something. Does she want to keep the baby? Is the baby healthy enough to live to use a crib? Does she feel like a sponge accepting help from these two kind men? It is in this chapter that we really see the two brothers acting like protective parents to Victoria rather than simple caretakers. They sooth her, buy her the best crib, and even examine what they are buying. They tell her that she's going to have to be okay with the purchase. I think a little guidance and semi-authority residing over her is just what she needed.
Ike and Bobby in Denver
The boys go to stay with Ella and their aunt in Denver. The aunt is acting like a mother to Ella. The boys try to connect and have fun with their mother, but it is not rainbows and butterflies. The saddest part about all of this is that I can tell that Ella loves her children and she does not have a distorted sense of love. She is simply ridden down with depression. She knows her boys and good children. She never yells at them, and it is even the aunt who corrects them for smashing eggs on the sidewalk. This seems like a kind of closure for the boys, a letting-go, and they are happy when their father comes to get them.
Victoria meets the McPherons
Victoria goes out to live with the two brothers. Things are awkward at first and nobody wants Maggie Jones to leave. When she does they begin to talk about cattle, which I think is very sweet, because Victoria does not care about cattle but the trio needs to feel comfortable with each other. This chapter is filled with hope and is a random act of kindness.
Guthrie, pages 152-158
It sounds to me like Guthrie and the gang are in a bar much like Papa's. Guthrie has left Maggie's faculty Christmas party to go have a drink. At the bar he runs into Judy who is bragging about how young she is...yet she has a daughter in college, leading me to draw the conclusion that she had her baby at a young age just like Victoria. Judy wants to sleep with Guthrie. She makes it happen. Later on we discover that Maggie and Guthrie have a thing of some sort so looking back on this chapter, I feel angry for Maggie that Guthrie left her Christmas party and ended up sleeping with another women. Guthrie and Maggie sleep together later in the book so I think that Maggie was withholding sex to give him time to think clearly about Ella. By sleeping with Judy, she has been given an informal invitation to claim what she wants.
There is a man in the bar who just went through detox. Oh boy!
Plethora of cigarettes!
There is a man in the bar who just went through detox. Oh boy!
Plethora of cigarettes!
Sunday, November 14, 2010
Ike and Bobby, pages 144-152
Mrs. Sterns is an old lady who is missing her child. She sees that the boys need a female figure to take their mind off of things and bring them back to childhood. She entrusts them with a keep and says about her wallet, "you know where it is" suggesting that they are already fmailiar and comfortable with each other. Her hair reminds me of the description of Bone's friend in "Bastard outr of Carloina." Like an older lady, she shows affection through baking. It is a good, warm chapter. I think if the author meant otherwise, he would have done somehting along the lines of spoiling the milk or making it sour. Like a mother breastfeeding, Mrs. Sterns nourishes the boys with glasses of milk.
Victoria
Maggie says about the McPherons that "They're about as good as men can be." Hmm, any females hurt by men in this book?
Victoria's "first view of the McPherons was obscured." This isn't only physical.
On page 130 Raymond says taht he is feeding mother cows and heifers. What Haruf meant was Victoria and her baby.
Victoria's "first view of the McPherons was obscured." This isn't only physical.
On page 130 Raymond says taht he is feeding mother cows and heifers. What Haruf meant was Victoria and her baby.
McPherons page 103-113
We find out that Victoria is only seventeen. The McPherons will take her in, but they don't know anything about babies and young girls. Even their wording is funny. Harold asks who the sire is rather than the identity of the father. Victoria needs them, and they need her to fill in for something they have missed out in life...family? females? babies? being responsible for other people?
Ike and Bobby
"one of the trees with a long weep of sap"
I think the weeping sap represents the desire to cry by the boys and Ella in this chapter. They are trying to please their mother and probably blame themselves, but her depression is not their fault and she knows it, but has no solution.
I think the weeping sap represents the desire to cry by the boys and Ella in this chapter. They are trying to please their mother and probably blame themselves, but her depression is not their fault and she knows it, but has no solution.
Victoria, pages 92-99
Here we learn that the baby's daddy is named "Dwayne." his mother will not let Victoria speak to him. I thought that this was the last time we would seeor hear of Dwayne. Nature images also sprinkle this chapter. There is a mother in the cafe who loses her temper with her daughters, and I thought that it served as a foreshadowing. Maggie's father is going to harm Victoria if she stays there much longer, and I feel bad for the soon-to-be mother for she probably does not feel safe anywhere. How will she protect her baby?
Ike and Bobby pages 86-91
This chapter is full of images of nature. I think this important because of the natural flow of life the boys are following. Their world is being flooded with sex as well as curioity and confusion about the subject.
Guthrie
Tom confronts the boy who upsets Victoria. What's nice is that this is the same troublemaker throughout the text. Beckman is the boy from the sex scene, the one who offers Victoria a ride back to school, who causes Guthrie problems in school, and the one who hurts Ike and Bobby in the end. When I first read this chapter I thought he might also be the father of Victoria's baby.
Victoria
Victoria finds out that her baby is healthy and cries. Yeah! We find out that she wants to keep it. I'm shocked at the way the doctor talks to her...not in a bad way...but it dates the setting just a smidgeon because now it would be inappropriate and subject to a lawsuit. I'm glad Victoria is showing emotion.
McPherons, pages 58-71, Little Heifers
My obsession with cows in this book starts here. Although it is business and many people simply view them as animals, as a vegetarian and animal lover this chapter hits me hard. I don't think less of people who eat meat or who are in the cattle industry, but it was here that I picked up the idea for my final paper. The cows in "Plainsong" are not accessory items, but something much more symbolic. For me, the cows exhibit the idea of proper motherhood and all the emotions that are entailed.
On page 62 Raymond says, "But she was a good mother, you have to say that for her." He is talking about a cow, but the statement could reach across the species barrier to the McPherson' mother, Ella, and Victoria.
The passage that follows rips your heart out if you replace the animals with humans. A mother and her baby are being separated. Perhaps I am too sensitive in this arena (ha, no pun intended!) but I imagine images of government violence and the Holocaust when I think of a mother being denied her child in the eyes of death and torture.
On page 67 Tom is "kneeling at his (Bobby's) head" which to me is another religious symbol.
This is also a chapter in which the boys are taken out on a manly bonding trip/experience with their father and older men.
Harold uses inappropriate and gender-specific language when he becomes angry with the red-legged cow and says to her, "you gd crazy old raw-boned bitch."
Maybe we are seeing the boys slowly lose their innocence.
On page 62 Raymond says, "But she was a good mother, you have to say that for her." He is talking about a cow, but the statement could reach across the species barrier to the McPherson' mother, Ella, and Victoria.
The passage that follows rips your heart out if you replace the animals with humans. A mother and her baby are being separated. Perhaps I am too sensitive in this arena (ha, no pun intended!) but I imagine images of government violence and the Holocaust when I think of a mother being denied her child in the eyes of death and torture.
On page 67 Tom is "kneeling at his (Bobby's) head" which to me is another religious symbol.
This is also a chapter in which the boys are taken out on a manly bonding trip/experience with their father and older men.
Harold uses inappropriate and gender-specific language when he becomes angry with the red-legged cow and says to her, "you gd crazy old raw-boned bitch."
Maybe we are seeing the boys slowly lose their innocence.
Saturday, November 13, 2010
Ike and Bobby, pages 51-57
Religious astoundment, cigarettes, and sex. This chapter is full of imagery and symbolism.
This is the first time the boys have seen people having sex, and what an odd situation! They see the girl have sex with two boys, one for pleasure, the other to satisfy another. The boys emit strong feelings for the girl as they realize that she has been disrespected in some way by the redheaded boy. I had a feeling that the alpha male was Beckman.
This is the first time the boys have seen people having sex, and what an odd situation! They see the girl have sex with two boys, one for pleasure, the other to satisfy another. The boys emit strong feelings for the girl as they realize that she has been disrespected in some way by the redheaded boy. I had a feeling that the alpha male was Beckman.
Victoria, pages 48-50
In a few short pages, Victoria finds out she is pregnant. The reader has the idea that she is anyhow, but if the reader is a female who has peed on many a stick, the chapter brings with it a sickening feeling. If the reader is male, perhaps it brings anxiety.
Mrs. Stearns
She's just an old lonely lady who needs someone in her life. The boys also need an elderly female figure. I predicted that they would go back and visit her. She too is a smoker.
Intermission
I really like this style of writing! It is surprisingly easy to read even without the presence of quotation marks. I am predicting that all of these lives will converge. Nick Hornby's "A Long Way Down" all over again!
Victoria
This chapter is significant because it is the picture of a mother abandoning her child. Ella does the same to Ike and Bobby, but it is less distinct than the clear cut made by Victoria's mother.
Ike and Bobby, pages 28-30
I think Haruf was careful about where and how much he dropped religious images. In this chapter, a manger and a barn are mentioned which makes me think that there may be sybolism regarding birth or new beginnings.
Victoria, pages 23-27
Vienna sausages. ew. but sometimes this is all that people can afford to eat, so to each his own! Could this be a class indicator?
The boy who says something to her is driving a Ford Mustang (very American).
The women at the cash register makes me laugh when she says that the teenagers should be getting sleep, and sleeping in their own beds.
"Is it that time of the month?" I think Victoria wishes that she was PMS rather than pregnancy! Makes me think about how much we moan about Aunt Flow until there is a possibility that we can be pregnant, then we beg for that time of the month to roll around.
The boy who says something to her is driving a Ford Mustang (very American).
The women at the cash register makes me laugh when she says that the teenagers should be getting sleep, and sleeping in their own beds.
"Is it that time of the month?" I think Victoria wishes that she was PMS rather than pregnancy! Makes me think about how much we moan about Aunt Flow until there is a possibility that we can be pregnant, then we beg for that time of the month to roll around.
Guthrie, pages 17-22
Tom's problems are presented here:
He is sexually frustrated, he is at odds with a problematic student, and he has some kind of affection for Maggie Jones.
I picked up that he is a good man who means well. He defends, not disrespects, women.
He reaches for the cigarettes, indicating that he is stressed while also leading the reader to make an assumption about the class to which he belongs.
He is sexually frustrated, he is at odds with a problematic student, and he has some kind of affection for Maggie Jones.
I picked up that he is a good man who means well. He defends, not disrespects, women.
He reaches for the cigarettes, indicating that he is stressed while also leading the reader to make an assumption about the class to which he belongs.
Ike and Bobby, pages 12-16
The boys' mother, Ella, is not functional. I initially thought that she was down with a physical illness, but after revisiting the pages I with the knowledge that she is depressed, it is clear that the boys need a mother than cannot be there for them.
Victoria pages 8-11
Victoria Roubideaux. What a wordly name for a character that is supposed to be plucked from white trash! "Victoria" is a classy and elegant female name. "Roubideaux" is French.
The first paragraph features a sick girl, but I think it is interesting to not ethat she is in the praying position.
Her mother is angry, disrespectful, and degrading. Her choice of words labels the class she belongs to-"little miss, you knocked yourself up,slut"-
Cigarettes make their debut in the book.
Victoria only has a few clothes to alternate between and I feel bad for her. She goes to school after she is sick, probably in clothes that smell like smoke.
The red purse is symbolic of something, but what of I am not sure just yet!
The first paragraph features a sick girl, but I think it is interesting to not ethat she is in the praying position.
Her mother is angry, disrespectful, and degrading. Her choice of words labels the class she belongs to-"little miss, you knocked yourself up,slut"-
Cigarettes make their debut in the book.
Victoria only has a few clothes to alternate between and I feel bad for her. She goes to school after she is sick, probably in clothes that smell like smoke.
The red purse is symbolic of something, but what of I am not sure just yet!
Plainsong pages 1-7
Guthrie
First introduced to Tom Gutherie. By the end of the first chapter I drew the conclusion that he is a father, a husband, and a school teacher. There are many words dealing with school (such as pencils, paper, playground, and chalk) that are dropped in the chapter. At page seven I am left with the feeling of staring into an intense, sharp, and painful light.
First introduced to Tom Gutherie. By the end of the first chapter I drew the conclusion that he is a father, a husband, and a school teacher. There are many words dealing with school (such as pencils, paper, playground, and chalk) that are dropped in the chapter. At page seven I am left with the feeling of staring into an intense, sharp, and painful light.
Monday, November 1, 2010
Bastard Out of Carolina, Final Post
So Anney chooses her lover over her child. I nearly hate her. What happens to Reece, I wonder? The end of the novel is hopeful because although Bone has lost her mother, she had gained safety and the love of her aunt. I think Anney is selfish and does not actually love Bone like she says, or maybe she doesn’t, and that's why she leaves her with Ray because Ray can give her a better life. I'm so happy my mother didn't choose a man over me.
Anney knowingly remains in the dark about the abuse. She is a poor excuse for a mother, and in my opinion she is just as guilty as Glen because she did not step in and end it. What is wrong with her? Her actions go against nature. Bone is lucky she did not die because Anney would not have stopped it in time.
I was wrong about Anney. I was wrong about Glen for I didn't think he would be this violent. Also, I am disappointed that the family did not step in sooner because it seems blatantly obvious that the child is being abused.
Excellent novel, however, and one that should be read by everyone if only to educate them on the true nature of some people and the role they play in child abuse.
Anney knowingly remains in the dark about the abuse. She is a poor excuse for a mother, and in my opinion she is just as guilty as Glen because she did not step in and end it. What is wrong with her? Her actions go against nature. Bone is lucky she did not die because Anney would not have stopped it in time.
I was wrong about Anney. I was wrong about Glen for I didn't think he would be this violent. Also, I am disappointed that the family did not step in sooner because it seems blatantly obvious that the child is being abused.
Excellent novel, however, and one that should be read by everyone if only to educate them on the true nature of some people and the role they play in child abuse.
Bastard Out of Carolina, Chapter 5
Yuck. My mom has been married three times now, and I don't blame her or think it is bad, but I've grown up with a daddy "issue." By the age of eight I began to detach myself from paternal figures because as far as I was concerned, they weren't my daddy, and even he was not permanent. I started loathing men, actually, except for my uncles and grandpa. However, I was jealous when my friends loved all over their daddies. I wanted that, but was unwilling to force a bond that I felt could be broken over a single argument. Also, I developed a sixth sense for men and their true intentions. My momma grew up in the "ideal" 1980s family: 5 kids, three girls, two boys, all popular and well dressed, all drove nice cars and went to Southside High School. Nobody ever suffered from a want of anything. It wasn't until all the children were out of the house that my grandparents separated, but that's a different blog post. My point is that my mom didn't need to have a daddy for me because she was essentially my mother and father all wrapped into one, but she felt guilty that I didn't have the "regular" experience and wanted for me to have a daddy I could call my own. The man I call "dad" today didn't come into my life until I was a teenager, but that's okay! You cannot plan love.
I remember feeling like Bone, not being able to naturally call Jack my "daddy" without feeling awkward and like I was giving in to being inferior to him. Actually, although I loved him dearly I was happy the day my mother left except for the fact that we had to move out of our brand new house and move into an old rent house. As a kid I missed my house more than I missed him. He wasn't a dad to me, but a competitor like Daddy Glen but on a much more innocent scale...or so I think...to be quite honest I blocked many things out because they were too painful to think about, but one thing is for certain and it is that he and I were like tectonic plates bumping and scratching each other all the time. Then he would attempt to turn me against my mother. For a while it worked because I liked being hugged and defended when she was legitimately mad about something I had done wrong. In addition, he and I were physically closer than we should have been, but I didn't know what to say or how to say it. Moreover, I loved the presents he would buy me after we fought. My mom made a point not to spoil me as a child, and he did it with dangerous consequences.
So there we were...mom and I at Wal-Mart...the new card machine for Father's Day that would let you watch while it printed a card with a Rugrat on it. This was before personal printers were popular so I was very excited. Yuck, she encouraged me to write "I'm ready to call you Dad" on it...and I did because she was pressuring me, trying to force our family trio...and I hated glorifying him by calling him "Dad." I knew he was not the fatherly figure he was supposed to be- my grandfather hated him as well as my uncles, and I loved them, but he tore me back to him.
"shiny as mica on in sunlight"...I just like this because it has my name in it. My real father, when he talked to my mother after I was born, jokingly asked why she had named me after a rock.
Bone confuses sex for love. She also hates moving from house to house. Ringworm is mentioned on page 65, but everyone knows it is only a mark of filthy quarters, and not something that challenges human life.
"In one year I went from compliant and quiet to loud and insistent....wished we could complain for not reason but the pleasure of bitching." Word!
"ANGER hit me like a baseball coming hard and fast off a new bat." Did I write this book?
Bone starts lying. I did too. When I went to a new school I took pleasure in convincing all the kids that I was a supermodel that modeled in Limited Too Magazines and they absolutely bought it. "Suckers," I thought. I remember feeling intelligent, like a politician or CIA agent or car saleswoman that could lie through my teeth. Rather than feeling embarrassed about the truth coming out, I had the best day ever at school! This was right after my mom left Jack, and I was to transfer to my little cousin's school, my little cousin who is more or less my sister. She was in the third grade and before I went to school for the first day, I sent her with photocopies of a collage of supermodel body parts that we had put together. The cutest boy in the fifth grade messaged me on AOL and was excited that I was coming to his school. Their faces were priceless when I walked in on the first day, the furthest thing from magazine beauty! Somehow I made friends? And a LOT of them!
Daddy Glen tells Anney to "shut up." I hate these words more than any other in the English language.
I remember feeling like Bone, not being able to naturally call Jack my "daddy" without feeling awkward and like I was giving in to being inferior to him. Actually, although I loved him dearly I was happy the day my mother left except for the fact that we had to move out of our brand new house and move into an old rent house. As a kid I missed my house more than I missed him. He wasn't a dad to me, but a competitor like Daddy Glen but on a much more innocent scale...or so I think...to be quite honest I blocked many things out because they were too painful to think about, but one thing is for certain and it is that he and I were like tectonic plates bumping and scratching each other all the time. Then he would attempt to turn me against my mother. For a while it worked because I liked being hugged and defended when she was legitimately mad about something I had done wrong. In addition, he and I were physically closer than we should have been, but I didn't know what to say or how to say it. Moreover, I loved the presents he would buy me after we fought. My mom made a point not to spoil me as a child, and he did it with dangerous consequences.
So there we were...mom and I at Wal-Mart...the new card machine for Father's Day that would let you watch while it printed a card with a Rugrat on it. This was before personal printers were popular so I was very excited. Yuck, she encouraged me to write "I'm ready to call you Dad" on it...and I did because she was pressuring me, trying to force our family trio...and I hated glorifying him by calling him "Dad." I knew he was not the fatherly figure he was supposed to be- my grandfather hated him as well as my uncles, and I loved them, but he tore me back to him.
"shiny as mica on in sunlight"...I just like this because it has my name in it. My real father, when he talked to my mother after I was born, jokingly asked why she had named me after a rock.
Bone confuses sex for love. She also hates moving from house to house. Ringworm is mentioned on page 65, but everyone knows it is only a mark of filthy quarters, and not something that challenges human life.
"In one year I went from compliant and quiet to loud and insistent....wished we could complain for not reason but the pleasure of bitching." Word!
"ANGER hit me like a baseball coming hard and fast off a new bat." Did I write this book?
Bone starts lying. I did too. When I went to a new school I took pleasure in convincing all the kids that I was a supermodel that modeled in Limited Too Magazines and they absolutely bought it. "Suckers," I thought. I remember feeling intelligent, like a politician or CIA agent or car saleswoman that could lie through my teeth. Rather than feeling embarrassed about the truth coming out, I had the best day ever at school! This was right after my mom left Jack, and I was to transfer to my little cousin's school, my little cousin who is more or less my sister. She was in the third grade and before I went to school for the first day, I sent her with photocopies of a collage of supermodel body parts that we had put together. The cutest boy in the fifth grade messaged me on AOL and was excited that I was coming to his school. Their faces were priceless when I walked in on the first day, the furthest thing from magazine beauty! Somehow I made friends? And a LOT of them!
Daddy Glen tells Anney to "shut up." I hate these words more than any other in the English language.
Bastard Out of Carolina, Chapter 4, Part Deux
Another thing I noticed was the gender role reversal we find when Bone is the ring bearer. Interesting.
My mom was married to a crazy man named Jack, and he reminds me of Daddy Glen when on page 43 he says, "Come on, girls." He is loud and impatient for no apparent reason. He seems agitated with them because he already has a superior being on his way as Anney is pregnant with Glen's baby boy. He treats these girls like they are inferior and in the way of his happiness.
Daddy Glen is now eating cornbread and pinto beans on the regular, an inverse situation from chapter two? in which he ate "lower class" Southern food for the first time. He is branching out far beyond his upper class roots, and the roots are starting to take hold as the reader can see.
"Beau didn't like Glen much at all, couldn't, he admitted, since he never trusted a man who didn't drink." Hahahahaha. My love-hate relationship with white trash comedienne Chelsea Handler goes a little something like this. In one of her books she writes that there are two kinds of people she cannot trust, those who do not drink and those who collect stickers. I practice both of these regularly! There is something strange though about those that do not drink...sometimes...I don't drink but a few glasses of wine a year, but it is for health reasons. I've found that most people who don't drink have some strange air about them.
"Mama thought it was unlucky to choose a name for a baby till it was born." Mama chose Ruth Ann's name before she was born.
Daddy Glen touches Bone and I don't know what to write about this yet except that it is not uncommon. Uncomfortable to read, but reality is uncomfortable and I applaud Allison for being able to write about it.
Fortunately not everyone endures an older male who takes advantage of a younger female. However, when I was ten years old I was cornered by a thirteen year old friend of my cousin. It was when that huge ice storm came through in 2000 and we were out of school all week. While every single one of my relatives was taking refuge in/on my family's estate, I was on the same property becoming familiarized with things that were not cushioned by time or age. I understand what Bone feels...confused...hurt...does this mean that he likes me?...ashamed that someone would find out...guilty...like it was my fault...dirty. Although my experience did not involve a father figure, it was a male that I trusted. I completely understand what Allison was trying to convey through Bone. I too had seen my cousins naked, but seeing it in a not so jovial situation made my stomach turn.
My mom was married to a crazy man named Jack, and he reminds me of Daddy Glen when on page 43 he says, "Come on, girls." He is loud and impatient for no apparent reason. He seems agitated with them because he already has a superior being on his way as Anney is pregnant with Glen's baby boy. He treats these girls like they are inferior and in the way of his happiness.
Daddy Glen is now eating cornbread and pinto beans on the regular, an inverse situation from chapter two? in which he ate "lower class" Southern food for the first time. He is branching out far beyond his upper class roots, and the roots are starting to take hold as the reader can see.
"Beau didn't like Glen much at all, couldn't, he admitted, since he never trusted a man who didn't drink." Hahahahaha. My love-hate relationship with white trash comedienne Chelsea Handler goes a little something like this. In one of her books she writes that there are two kinds of people she cannot trust, those who do not drink and those who collect stickers. I practice both of these regularly! There is something strange though about those that do not drink...sometimes...I don't drink but a few glasses of wine a year, but it is for health reasons. I've found that most people who don't drink have some strange air about them.
"Mama thought it was unlucky to choose a name for a baby till it was born." Mama chose Ruth Ann's name before she was born.
Daddy Glen touches Bone and I don't know what to write about this yet except that it is not uncommon. Uncomfortable to read, but reality is uncomfortable and I applaud Allison for being able to write about it.
Fortunately not everyone endures an older male who takes advantage of a younger female. However, when I was ten years old I was cornered by a thirteen year old friend of my cousin. It was when that huge ice storm came through in 2000 and we were out of school all week. While every single one of my relatives was taking refuge in/on my family's estate, I was on the same property becoming familiarized with things that were not cushioned by time or age. I understand what Bone feels...confused...hurt...does this mean that he likes me?...ashamed that someone would find out...guilty...like it was my fault...dirty. Although my experience did not involve a father figure, it was a male that I trusted. I completely understand what Allison was trying to convey through Bone. I too had seen my cousins naked, but seeing it in a not so jovial situation made my stomach turn.
Bastard Out of Carolina, Chapter 4
"Yeah, Glen loves Anney. He loves her like a gambler loves a fast racehorse or a desperate man loves whiskey. That kind of love eats a man up. I don't trust that boy, don't want our Anney marrying him."
The definition of love is skewed from Bone throughout the novel. As a retrospective narrator, I believe the adult Bone knows what love is, but the child Bone had a distorted sense of the meaning. Why do we call a table a table? For the simple fact that we've been told that this object with four legs is a table is defined as such, and we've been told it our entire lives. My point is that I'm not at all surprised by the sheer number of people who have an unhealthy notion of the meaning of love. "Love" can be obsession, hurt, greed, or selfishness in sheep’s' clothing. Daddy Glen probably thinks that what he feels for Anney is love because that's what he was taught. The Bible says that love isn't jealous, and love is kind. I believe that. However, love IS protective. Daddy Glen takes it to the extreme by becoming jealous of Anney's child, greedy in the raw. He does not understand that there are different kinds of love. He wants Anney's undivided attention. He has never had a child of his own, so perhaps he is missing some paternal understanding that is said to come the second your first child is born. I speak not out of experience, but out of a projected idea. What I do know is that Daddy Glen isn't healthy in the heart or in the head, both in the perpetual and literal senses.
The lines I've lifted from the text turn my stomach into knots. I have been "loved" by someone whose actions and emotions reminded me of those of a gambler or an alcoholic. More often than not they are also alcoholics and gamblers, too. What's difficult is when you love one of these people in return, thinking you are both on the same page. Unfortunately, my young heart was hurt most when I caught on to their attraction being motivated by pride, a sense of ownership over something/someone that couldn't be bought with money, and domination. There I was, thinking about beautiful souls and they were simply name dropping. How people treat each other behind closed doors says a lot about the health of their relationship. When a boy is annoyingly all over a girl in public, and then chills to a cold touch when nobody is looking, something isn't right. People abuse and misuse their significant others, grow angry out of fear of that person leaving, and then in turn attempt to oppress then to keep them from leaving. Being in a relationship is a privilege, not a right, but it seems that people lose touch with that fact. Rather than lifting their partner up they try to keep them down, keep them second-guessing themselves, keep them thinking that they are lucky to be with the abuser. I use the term "abuse" lightly and quite liberally here, but it can range from small words to mind games to actual physical abuse.
A gambler seeks thrills through risking everything. A gambler can only keep a high for so long.
Alcoholics are addicted to a substance. Misguided lovers use this substance to mask their own flaws and insecurities, tend to ignore what cannot be kept at bay, and end up hiding from the confrontation of reality.
This kind of love is not stable. Much like a free radical in the body that is not stable, this kind of love can lead to destruction.
An interesting documentary to add to your "must watch" list is titled, "The woman who loves a psychopath"...I think...a highly regarded program which I found fascinating. You have the right one if it is about a European couple.
The definition of love is skewed from Bone throughout the novel. As a retrospective narrator, I believe the adult Bone knows what love is, but the child Bone had a distorted sense of the meaning. Why do we call a table a table? For the simple fact that we've been told that this object with four legs is a table is defined as such, and we've been told it our entire lives. My point is that I'm not at all surprised by the sheer number of people who have an unhealthy notion of the meaning of love. "Love" can be obsession, hurt, greed, or selfishness in sheep’s' clothing. Daddy Glen probably thinks that what he feels for Anney is love because that's what he was taught. The Bible says that love isn't jealous, and love is kind. I believe that. However, love IS protective. Daddy Glen takes it to the extreme by becoming jealous of Anney's child, greedy in the raw. He does not understand that there are different kinds of love. He wants Anney's undivided attention. He has never had a child of his own, so perhaps he is missing some paternal understanding that is said to come the second your first child is born. I speak not out of experience, but out of a projected idea. What I do know is that Daddy Glen isn't healthy in the heart or in the head, both in the perpetual and literal senses.
The lines I've lifted from the text turn my stomach into knots. I have been "loved" by someone whose actions and emotions reminded me of those of a gambler or an alcoholic. More often than not they are also alcoholics and gamblers, too. What's difficult is when you love one of these people in return, thinking you are both on the same page. Unfortunately, my young heart was hurt most when I caught on to their attraction being motivated by pride, a sense of ownership over something/someone that couldn't be bought with money, and domination. There I was, thinking about beautiful souls and they were simply name dropping. How people treat each other behind closed doors says a lot about the health of their relationship. When a boy is annoyingly all over a girl in public, and then chills to a cold touch when nobody is looking, something isn't right. People abuse and misuse their significant others, grow angry out of fear of that person leaving, and then in turn attempt to oppress then to keep them from leaving. Being in a relationship is a privilege, not a right, but it seems that people lose touch with that fact. Rather than lifting their partner up they try to keep them down, keep them second-guessing themselves, keep them thinking that they are lucky to be with the abuser. I use the term "abuse" lightly and quite liberally here, but it can range from small words to mind games to actual physical abuse.
A gambler seeks thrills through risking everything. A gambler can only keep a high for so long.
Alcoholics are addicted to a substance. Misguided lovers use this substance to mask their own flaws and insecurities, tend to ignore what cannot be kept at bay, and end up hiding from the confrontation of reality.
This kind of love is not stable. Much like a free radical in the body that is not stable, this kind of love can lead to destruction.
An interesting documentary to add to your "must watch" list is titled, "The woman who loves a psychopath"...I think...a highly regarded program which I found fascinating. You have the right one if it is about a European couple.
Monday, October 25, 2010
Bastard Out of Carolina, Chapter 3
Hello, Glen Waddell! I knew in chapter three that there was something wrong with you!
At first, the reader is torn between trusting Glen and not being able to peg that certain something that is off about him. Glen and Mama date for two years. He is hard working, or so it seems. On page 34 he is described while loading cases of cola into a truck. Perhaps my mind was in the gutter, but it was at this defining moment at which I decided he was going to be a sexual predator with the way Allison depicts his masculine hands, force, strain, narrow hips, and grunting.
"Glen Waddell turned Mama from a harried, worried mother into a giggling, hopeful girl." Great. We are doomed. Love, or at least imitations of it, is masked in laughter. Mama won't leave him.
Glen gets emotional and forceful when he asks Anney to marry him. She's unsure herself, but it seems like what is best because she thinks that Glen loves Bone and Reese, too. The family knows that something is wrong with him. Uncle Earle isn't very fond of the fact that Glen doesn't defend his own family when Earle gets to joking. The chapter ends with a family photo which I suspect will turn up later in the book. What's more is that we see the contrast between healthy, real love showered on the girls by their Uncle Earle and the coldness of Daddy Glen.
At first, the reader is torn between trusting Glen and not being able to peg that certain something that is off about him. Glen and Mama date for two years. He is hard working, or so it seems. On page 34 he is described while loading cases of cola into a truck. Perhaps my mind was in the gutter, but it was at this defining moment at which I decided he was going to be a sexual predator with the way Allison depicts his masculine hands, force, strain, narrow hips, and grunting.
"Glen Waddell turned Mama from a harried, worried mother into a giggling, hopeful girl." Great. We are doomed. Love, or at least imitations of it, is masked in laughter. Mama won't leave him.
Glen gets emotional and forceful when he asks Anney to marry him. She's unsure herself, but it seems like what is best because she thinks that Glen loves Bone and Reese, too. The family knows that something is wrong with him. Uncle Earle isn't very fond of the fact that Glen doesn't defend his own family when Earle gets to joking. The chapter ends with a family photo which I suspect will turn up later in the book. What's more is that we see the contrast between healthy, real love showered on the girls by their Uncle Earle and the coldness of Daddy Glen.
Bastard Out of Carolina, Chapter 2
Chapter two is a classic example of writing coming out of the South. The entire first paragraph is devoted to doting over the countryside's beauty. Interestingly, it is followed up by a grandmother teasing her human grandchildren by telling them how ugly they are. Bone is cuddled up next to her granny, and this may be the only time in the novel in which out narrator both feels safe and is in a literal safe place away from physical harm.
Bone expresses her desire to be a boy. I wonder if all little girls go through this phase? I too wanted to be a boy. I liked to explore outside, play in dirt, find and pet wild animals, and make up stories of adventure. My cousins were my siblings. The boy was three years older, and the girl just two years younger. I was wild with him, and when forced to play "babies" with my female cousin(s), it was me who was toting around the male baby doll indicated by his blue pajamas. Cleaning and cooking were for the birds! My Easy Bake Oven groomed my most advanced culinary skills.
"That Earle's got the magic. Man is just a magnet to women. Breaks their hearts and makes them like it." Oh vomit. These are the men who raised me, and just the kind of men I can spot coming a million miles away. I don't hate men, but when I have my spells of cursing the male species, Earle is who I think of! Moreover, I hate seeing my friends wallop in the addictive heartbreak brought on by these wild types. Uhhh gag. "That's what Earle is, a hurt little boy with just enough meanness in him to keep a woman interested." <---A story as old as time!
Bone pees on her father. Ha!
On page 28, the obsession of women with their hair color is all over the text. Everyone claims to be a natural [insert here] and swears up and down that every family member is headed down the same follicle path.
Like Bone, I feel like I don't resemble anyone in my family. She smiles, not really believing what her Mama and Aunt Alma are saying, but wanting to believe them that she'll be a beauty. I think it is a common habit to believe what you want although you know that it is highly probable that the person flattering you is wrong.
Bone's Mama drags the brush through her hair and is blaming Bone for moving. I can't count how many times my mom's therapy was dragging a hairbrush over my scalp.
Bone expresses her desire to be a boy. I wonder if all little girls go through this phase? I too wanted to be a boy. I liked to explore outside, play in dirt, find and pet wild animals, and make up stories of adventure. My cousins were my siblings. The boy was three years older, and the girl just two years younger. I was wild with him, and when forced to play "babies" with my female cousin(s), it was me who was toting around the male baby doll indicated by his blue pajamas. Cleaning and cooking were for the birds! My Easy Bake Oven groomed my most advanced culinary skills.
"That Earle's got the magic. Man is just a magnet to women. Breaks their hearts and makes them like it." Oh vomit. These are the men who raised me, and just the kind of men I can spot coming a million miles away. I don't hate men, but when I have my spells of cursing the male species, Earle is who I think of! Moreover, I hate seeing my friends wallop in the addictive heartbreak brought on by these wild types. Uhhh gag. "That's what Earle is, a hurt little boy with just enough meanness in him to keep a woman interested." <---A story as old as time!
Bone pees on her father. Ha!
On page 28, the obsession of women with their hair color is all over the text. Everyone claims to be a natural [insert here] and swears up and down that every family member is headed down the same follicle path.
Like Bone, I feel like I don't resemble anyone in my family. She smiles, not really believing what her Mama and Aunt Alma are saying, but wanting to believe them that she'll be a beauty. I think it is a common habit to believe what you want although you know that it is highly probable that the person flattering you is wrong.
Bone's Mama drags the brush through her hair and is blaming Bone for moving. I can't count how many times my mom's therapy was dragging a hairbrush over my scalp.
Monday, October 18, 2010
Bastard Out of Carolina, Chapter 1
I like how Allison paints Anne's character. She's a hardworking, young, attractive woman who has two babies to take care of...although she could probably use any extra money she could earn, Anne takes pride in herself. She laughs and charms the men, but she firmly declines any opportunities to make money by laying on her back. Shortly after Allison paints this picture, she introduces a lawyer who is an honest man who gives Anne back all of her money when he sees that he cannot possibly help her.
Anne's family is close and is more than willing to help her out in any way they possibly can. She doesn't take handouts and she doesn't slack on personal responsibility. More than anything though, she wants a man who will love her with the same passion she has for her daughters. Who hasn't felt that way before? Who felt that at nineteen after raising two children and losing a man she loved dearly? I believe it is more common that what is generally thought...
Glen reminds me of someone, but I cannot put my finger on it. There something pitiful in the man. He seems nice enough, but I don't think his intentions are products of true love, but perhaps those of mere curiosity and desire to shake people and win the favor of others. I do like that Glen became real man when he ate the collard greens and sipped the iced tea. His mama may have been well-educated, but wasn't she Southern? Maybe she was a Yankee and didn't understand the value of sweet tea and buttermilk buscuits.
I don't have a child, but I can imagine that when a single person has a child that he or she is keenly aware of the parenting quality of those the he or she dates. What I don't like is that Allison has pushed Anne into the sterotype of the hardworking single mom who is looking for a daddy. Maybe I am being too harsh on Allison. It may be that in the back of every single mother's mind that she wouldn't mind having a stable male figure in the life of her children.
Glen is determined to have Anne. In the following paragraph, the audience is made aware that Anne may not try to resist if only because she wants/needs financial and emotional stability.
Anne smells her own sweat (eww, but I'm guilty too!) and she's mnot sure if she's scared or turned on by the idea of having a working husband.
The preacher says, "Your shame is between you and God, Sister Anne. No need to let it mark the child." Isn't that the truth? Yet, I love the magnitude in which the lioness defends her family by saying, "I go no shame and I don't need no man to tell me jackshit about my child." You go girl.
There is a lingering sadness in Anne's demeanor as she copes and grieves for Lyle. Easy banter rises from the deepest place inside her. Isn't that the loneliest place to be? When you can pretend to be happy all day long, but you are never really saying anything that you care about?
Anne is trying to convince herself that Earle will be a good daddy, and if anything that's enough for her.
The courthouse burns down, and so does any record belonging to or never existing for Ruth Anne :)
Anne's family is close and is more than willing to help her out in any way they possibly can. She doesn't take handouts and she doesn't slack on personal responsibility. More than anything though, she wants a man who will love her with the same passion she has for her daughters. Who hasn't felt that way before? Who felt that at nineteen after raising two children and losing a man she loved dearly? I believe it is more common that what is generally thought...
Glen reminds me of someone, but I cannot put my finger on it. There something pitiful in the man. He seems nice enough, but I don't think his intentions are products of true love, but perhaps those of mere curiosity and desire to shake people and win the favor of others. I do like that Glen became real man when he ate the collard greens and sipped the iced tea. His mama may have been well-educated, but wasn't she Southern? Maybe she was a Yankee and didn't understand the value of sweet tea and buttermilk buscuits.
I don't have a child, but I can imagine that when a single person has a child that he or she is keenly aware of the parenting quality of those the he or she dates. What I don't like is that Allison has pushed Anne into the sterotype of the hardworking single mom who is looking for a daddy. Maybe I am being too harsh on Allison. It may be that in the back of every single mother's mind that she wouldn't mind having a stable male figure in the life of her children.
Glen is determined to have Anne. In the following paragraph, the audience is made aware that Anne may not try to resist if only because she wants/needs financial and emotional stability.
Anne smells her own sweat (eww, but I'm guilty too!) and she's mnot sure if she's scared or turned on by the idea of having a working husband.
The preacher says, "Your shame is between you and God, Sister Anne. No need to let it mark the child." Isn't that the truth? Yet, I love the magnitude in which the lioness defends her family by saying, "I go no shame and I don't need no man to tell me jackshit about my child." You go girl.
There is a lingering sadness in Anne's demeanor as she copes and grieves for Lyle. Easy banter rises from the deepest place inside her. Isn't that the loneliest place to be? When you can pretend to be happy all day long, but you are never really saying anything that you care about?
Anne is trying to convince herself that Earle will be a good daddy, and if anything that's enough for her.
The courthouse burns down, and so does any record belonging to or never existing for Ruth Anne :)
Bastard Out of Mississippi...I mean Carolina, Chapter One
Okay...as if Dorothy Allison's title didn't excite me enough...I was not prepared to fall in love with a new text this semester. Let's get one thing straight: I don't throw the word "love" around like the liberal, free spirit, tree hugging self that I am! We all have a weakness, and the more something tugs at the core of who we are, the harder is it to resist falling. Why can't this happen with men rather than books? Oh well, within the latter is where I rustle my most pleasure!
Ruth Anne is Michaela Jester...but Ruth probably has breasts. What has gotten in to me today I'll never know :)
Let's lis the parallels between the narrator and me, shall we?
I was named by my oldest aunt. My momma didn't stress out about my middle name. As long as it was fluid with Michaela, she didn't mind letting my aunt live vicariously through me by dubbing me "Danielle."
Like Ruth, I was raised with a handful of tight-knit aunts, uncles, and cousins. Ruth does have a sister, but she runs with the adults. As an only child who's mamma couldn't afford preschool, I bonded with and learned from the adults who were key in my life before I even knew that other children existed outside of the Discovery Channel.
My mom wasn't sixteen when she became pregnant, but a twenty year old girl is still a child in my opinion.
My father's name is absent from my birth certificate, mainly because my mom didn't think he deserved to be on it. Hmmm...similarities between Anne and Dee? Perhaps. "and there I was-certified an air force brat bastard by the state of Mississippi." However, neither my mother nor I have actually felt like I am illegitimate or that one of us should be walking around Hester Primm style with a big letter A on the breast.
However, I think my mom may have been defensive for my sake in regard to what other people would wisper or scream about her having a child out of wedlock. If she did she didn't talk about it in front of me. A couple of times, though, I heard a conversation between her and her parents that was similar to the bickering between Granny and Anne.
My mom was also a hard working woman (and still is!) As a young girl I remember her taking on three jobs just so I could have the best of what she could offer.
My mom has also been married more than once.
"Family is family, but even love can't keep people from eating at eachother. Mama's pride, Granny's resentment that there should even be anything to consider shameful, my aunts' fear and bitter humor, my uncles' hard mouthed contempt for anything that could not be handled with a shotgun or a two-by-four- all combined to grow my mama up fast and painfully." This family is a carbon copy of my own.
My uncles also have a gift for charming any creature.
Ruth Anne is Michaela Jester...but Ruth probably has breasts. What has gotten in to me today I'll never know :)
Let's lis the parallels between the narrator and me, shall we?
I was named by my oldest aunt. My momma didn't stress out about my middle name. As long as it was fluid with Michaela, she didn't mind letting my aunt live vicariously through me by dubbing me "Danielle."
Like Ruth, I was raised with a handful of tight-knit aunts, uncles, and cousins. Ruth does have a sister, but she runs with the adults. As an only child who's mamma couldn't afford preschool, I bonded with and learned from the adults who were key in my life before I even knew that other children existed outside of the Discovery Channel.
My mom wasn't sixteen when she became pregnant, but a twenty year old girl is still a child in my opinion.
My father's name is absent from my birth certificate, mainly because my mom didn't think he deserved to be on it. Hmmm...similarities between Anne and Dee? Perhaps. "and there I was-certified an air force brat bastard by the state of Mississippi." However, neither my mother nor I have actually felt like I am illegitimate or that one of us should be walking around Hester Primm style with a big letter A on the breast.
However, I think my mom may have been defensive for my sake in regard to what other people would wisper or scream about her having a child out of wedlock. If she did she didn't talk about it in front of me. A couple of times, though, I heard a conversation between her and her parents that was similar to the bickering between Granny and Anne.
My mom was also a hard working woman (and still is!) As a young girl I remember her taking on three jobs just so I could have the best of what she could offer.
My mom has also been married more than once.
"Family is family, but even love can't keep people from eating at eachother. Mama's pride, Granny's resentment that there should even be anything to consider shameful, my aunts' fear and bitter humor, my uncles' hard mouthed contempt for anything that could not be handled with a shotgun or a two-by-four- all combined to grow my mama up fast and painfully." This family is a carbon copy of my own.
My uncles also have a gift for charming any creature.
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
Wise Blood, Chapter 4
At the beginning of chapter four there are a few things that we know about Hazel. He is always looking for signs. Much of the problem with his youth appears to be the disconnect between his own world and the changing world. He is looking for a home, somewhere to belong. His father was a sinner, grandfather a fervent self-loathing revivalist, mother was strict, and his brothers have both passed away at different times. To him, Jesus is a “gotcha” God who swings around in the tress of your mind much like Tarzan. In the chapter specifically, there are images of metal, tin, shining things, machinery, and sharp light. The colors mentioned are ones that convey dullness or filth: rat-colored, dust-colored, yellow, black, and green. There are references to the devil as well as a set of chameleon’s eyes. In contrast to the devil there are number drops, such as the Biblical reference to the book of Numbers. Hazel is still looking for signs.
Monday, October 11, 2010
Wise Blood, Chapter 3
Chapter three’s theme is faces. I counted at least five different faces that are descibed throughout this section. Here we are symbolism of a potato (brown, dirty) being peeled (white, pure) but one must question if that potato is really clean or if it is the same darn vegetable. Religion, Jesus, is the actual potato peeler. The soul is the potato. This is also the first time that Enoch Emery is introduced in the text. Looking back at the book after having read it in its entirety, I now see that Sabbith Hawks makes her debut simultaniously with Enoch. The way she is handing out leaftlets and accompying her father, the way she is dressed, her facial features…it all reminds me of how I envision the early days of French singer Edith Piaf…the Little Sparrow. It is interesting to me that the crowd gathers just like Jesus attracted crowds although the potato peeler is anything but a Jesus lover. Here we get a description of Enoch, were he came from, and what happened to him as a boy. At first I thought he was an African-American boy because his father traded him, but I was wrong. It seems odd to me that white children were being traded to keep middle aged women happy…perhaps the woman he was staying with was trying to do good in the world. Her being so strick on Enoch was her equivalent of Haze’s desired to wear rocks in his shoes for all the sinning he had done. Enoch is obsees with dirt and disorder, yet he is dirty and disorderly himself. His attire is offwhite. He describes the woman he lived with as, “This woman was hard to get along with-she wasn’t old. I reckon she was forty year old-but she so was ugly. She had theseyer brown glasses and her hair was so thin it looke dlike gravy trickling iver her skull.” Obviously, this character is walks slightly on the rude side…although I love the gravy imagery. We also meet Asa Hawks. There is symbolism in his name, for hawks are keen hunters due to their outstanding sight. He is supposed to be a blind preacher, but as we find out later, he is not blind at all. In this chapter he says, “I can see more than you! You got eyes and see not, ears and hear not, but you’ll have to see some time.” Knowing what I know now, this is a case of double irony. Later the crowd leaves and it is writen as, “ It was like a large spread raveling and the separate threads disappeared down the dark streets,” which to me was symbolic of souls and their unravelings. Enoch, like Hazel, only wants a friend and makes every effort to hang out with Haze. Haze, however, doesn’t genuinely like Enoch and is much more obessed with the Hawkes. Haze has a flashback of when he was ten and saw his first naked woman and the shame he felt. His mother could sense what was happening, and young Haze was a smartass by remarking that he never asked Jesus to die for his sins. The woman he saw reminds me of Marilyn Monroe with O’Connor’s inclusion of the mole on her lip. Furthermore, we are now well aware the Haze looks for signs although he tried hard not to have spiritual beliefs.
Wise Blood, Chapter 2
“Peanuts, Western Union, Ajax, Taxi, Hotel, Candy” gives the time period is which Hazel is living with away. When I read across these lines, I immediately thought of a bustling economy. Our main character is a lonely man and he’s reaching out there to connect with someone, anyone but Jesus. If Hazel Motes had facebook I would suspect that he would be someone with a sad and lonely facebook status. He has seen the horroes of war, although they are not talked about, yet he is naïve. When he sees Mrs. Watts’ name written on the bathroom wall (a sense of defilement already) he is eager to meet the woman with the friendliest bed in town. When Hazel rides in the taxi cab to her house he is trying to assure the driver that he isn’t a preacher. The driver thinks that Hazel is a preacher, but that all men sin, that Hazel would understand what he was lecturing on if he knew the sin himself. Hazel gets out and searches for Mrs. Watts’ room. “ The door to the left bwas cracked and let out a narrow shaft of light. He moved into the light and looked through the crack.” To me this is symbolic of a choice that is dark being disguished by light. Mrs. Watt’s is a prostitute although O’Connor never includes exchange of money. Perhaps as suggested in class she is a bad business woman. She’s described with words such as “white” and “pink” so I know something is up with the reversal of light and dark, good and evil. I think she smokes. Everything around he is yellowed, which leads me to think of aging and cigarette smoke. She’s too cheap to buy a piar of propper toenail clippers. There is a lack of hygene for she keeps cutting her nails when Hazel comes in and O’Connor fails to mention where Mrs. Watts is placing her clippings. “He drew a long draught of air through one side of his nose and began to run his hand carefully along the sheet.” This brings to mind images of cocaine and drug use. Mrs. Watt’s licks her lips in slow motion with her pink tounge. Her tounge is pink background set behind her pointed and speckled teeth. Mrs. Watts must not brush her teeth…or she is a crack whore. It is evident at the end of the chapter that Mrs. Watts reprsents temptation in the flesh. She is seductive and is very skilled at the game. I am not sure how old she is, but she’s seducing a young man. Something about the comment, “ That’s okay son, Momma don’t mind if you ain’t a preacher” makes me a little sick to my stomach.
Wise Blood, Chapter 1
The first thing I noticed about Flannery O’Connor in chapter one is that this author loves to use color. Each page is peppered with different words of colors. This is the first time that we meet the main character, Hazel Motes. I ask “What does his name mean?” Apparently most scholars associate his name with his hazy religious perspective. I, however, associate his name with the color we describe as “hazel.” What is hazel? It is a color in between colors. It isn’t white, black, brown, green, or blue, but rather a mixture. I guess it leads back to what the scholars were saying! The introductory paragraph leads me to think that Hazel Motes is a desperate man-child. When the train is rolling by I questioned if O’Connor was intentionally dropping the idea of suicide or not. Mrs. Wally B Hitchcock is annoying, and I hope that her physical description is not a mirroring of my own in the years to come. I hope my legs are not short and pudgy and dangle to reach the ground when sitting on a seat. I hope my face is not flushed and pink. I pray that I do not annoy the hell out of people by my nosy nature! She uses the price tag of Hazel’s blazer to try to identify him…which lends support to the idea that impressions and the way one is dressed is significant in placing a person when one undergoes natural assessment by another individual. Writing this long after I have finished the book, I have noticed that O’Connor has themes in each chapter. Chapter one I believe to be about eyes; Hazel’s, Mrs. Hitchcock’s, the porter’s. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to like Hazel or not right off the bat. He most certainly annoys the heck out of the porter. If the porter doesn’t want to claim Eastrod, don’t make him! Who cares? Moreover, was Hazel or the porter correct? Where was the porter really from? O’Connor has no problem using the word “nigger” in her literature, but then again it is literature! The three women that he meets in the dining hall seem to annoy Hazel. O’Connor mentions their “poisonous” Eastern accents and compares them to parrots. I simply think that Hazel is easily upset and angered. He is constantly losing his cool. What are spotted eggs? Was a plate with spotted eggs washed down with coffee and expensive meal?
We learn about Hazel’s upbringing. He has been gone in the army for four years now and is going back to his hometown. The town and the inhabitants that he left are long gone by the time he arrives home. He left when he was eighteen years old so that must put him around twenty-two years old at this point. It is hard to imagine that he’s just a year older than I am in this book. He seems so old, yet so naïve! It’s the saddest forecast if I have ever seen one! He was raised in a family who’s patriarch was a brimstone and fire preacher who despised young Hazel for he was a spitting image of him, the grandfather. He preached and used Hazel as an example. If God can love that boy, anybody is worthy of God’s love. I find it interetsing that the only thing that Hazel has read is the Bible. Knowing that Hazel rebels against the religious state-of-mind into which he was involuntarily ploped down into, I ask myself “Isn’t this common? Usually don’t people who were forced into a particular believ rebel with a vengence?” Hazel’s behavior thus far is not shocking to me.
It is obvious that he didn’t bond well with his comrades in the army. They attended brothels while he clinged to his Bible and his mother’s silver-rimmed glasses. He was lonely in the service, but he brought the loneliness from home. The isolation is compounded when he arrives back to his home town and nobody he knew was there. He finds his mother’s chifforobe and is surprise to see that nobody has stolen it. He leaves a note in the event that anyone has thoughts about stealing it. It appears that Hazel will stay, but almost immediately he leaves. Hazel is an individual that thinks and acts on impulses as we find out later in the book with the purchase of a car and the decision to move to a new city.
We learn about Hazel’s upbringing. He has been gone in the army for four years now and is going back to his hometown. The town and the inhabitants that he left are long gone by the time he arrives home. He left when he was eighteen years old so that must put him around twenty-two years old at this point. It is hard to imagine that he’s just a year older than I am in this book. He seems so old, yet so naïve! It’s the saddest forecast if I have ever seen one! He was raised in a family who’s patriarch was a brimstone and fire preacher who despised young Hazel for he was a spitting image of him, the grandfather. He preached and used Hazel as an example. If God can love that boy, anybody is worthy of God’s love. I find it interetsing that the only thing that Hazel has read is the Bible. Knowing that Hazel rebels against the religious state-of-mind into which he was involuntarily ploped down into, I ask myself “Isn’t this common? Usually don’t people who were forced into a particular believ rebel with a vengence?” Hazel’s behavior thus far is not shocking to me.
It is obvious that he didn’t bond well with his comrades in the army. They attended brothels while he clinged to his Bible and his mother’s silver-rimmed glasses. He was lonely in the service, but he brought the loneliness from home. The isolation is compounded when he arrives back to his home town and nobody he knew was there. He finds his mother’s chifforobe and is surprise to see that nobody has stolen it. He leaves a note in the event that anyone has thoughts about stealing it. It appears that Hazel will stay, but almost immediately he leaves. Hazel is an individual that thinks and acts on impulses as we find out later in the book with the purchase of a car and the decision to move to a new city.
Sunday, September 19, 2010
The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter Nine
This is a very sad chapter and I can feel what the families are feeling. They are desperate. They are selling everything and for anything because something is better than nothing. They are scared and want a new start, but fear they cannot ever really start over...but that perhaps they will always be missing a part of their identity. They have not chosen this destiny, but are being forced to move only for the survival of their families. The chapter is full of tangible anxiety.
The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter Eight
Summed up in one very short statement: This chapter is about warm fuzzy feelings shared between family members that you don't know how to deal with in any other fashion than awkwardness.
The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter Seven, The Jesters
I come from a family of used car salesmen, and I hate to think that they are like the saleman in this chapter. However, I know things that other people do not know. As a child I was taught things about men and about people that would have otherwise taken me an entire lifetime to accumulate and analyze. I was taught to bullshit. I was taught how to play on the psychology of people. I was taught how to outsmart men while simultaneously keeping them thinking that they are the ones making all the decisions. I love my family and I hate to think of them in the light of the salesman in the chapter. What is cool is that I knew every single car he was talking about!
The Grapes of Warth, Chapter Six
There is a heafty weight of significance in chapter six, but since this is my blog I've decided to pick and chose what I will talk about:
Pigs. Eating children. Terrible image, yet real. I was sickened. Then my mind, which is currently floating around the universe, wondered if this is how pigs react to us turning their piglets into bacon. Something to think about! Later in the chapter there is a detailed description on how the men skinned the rabbit. I can take blood and guts and horrid images of just about anything until it transfers to the mouth. What's wrong with me, I don't know. My case for vegetarianism only strenthened.
Grandpa is pissy about his pillow. Aren't older people always obsessed with one single object? Hahaha this makes me laugh.
Is hominy southern? Ooops! I didn't know that!
For the second time in the novel, blood of another family is mentioned. I wonder if this is also a southern thing, the breeding of powers and tempers, because I'm constantly reminded by my grandparents of the ancestors I didn't know and how much alike we are- when I do something good, one line of blood is congratulated. When I'm in a foul mood, another is blamed. When I'm bouncing off the walls as usual, everyone gets to blaming eachother.
Casy says something I agree with: that men should talk. Getting feelings and ideas out of your mind and off your chest does not make a man less masculine. It is okay to bond with people and let them help you with coping.
Joad talks about how reading a particular type of book will drive you crazy. I love to read, but I think all books teach you to not trust the government and inspire crazy ideas. Oh well!
Pigs. Eating children. Terrible image, yet real. I was sickened. Then my mind, which is currently floating around the universe, wondered if this is how pigs react to us turning their piglets into bacon. Something to think about! Later in the chapter there is a detailed description on how the men skinned the rabbit. I can take blood and guts and horrid images of just about anything until it transfers to the mouth. What's wrong with me, I don't know. My case for vegetarianism only strenthened.
Grandpa is pissy about his pillow. Aren't older people always obsessed with one single object? Hahaha this makes me laugh.
Is hominy southern? Ooops! I didn't know that!
For the second time in the novel, blood of another family is mentioned. I wonder if this is also a southern thing, the breeding of powers and tempers, because I'm constantly reminded by my grandparents of the ancestors I didn't know and how much alike we are- when I do something good, one line of blood is congratulated. When I'm in a foul mood, another is blamed. When I'm bouncing off the walls as usual, everyone gets to blaming eachother.
Casy says something I agree with: that men should talk. Getting feelings and ideas out of your mind and off your chest does not make a man less masculine. It is okay to bond with people and let them help you with coping.
Joad talks about how reading a particular type of book will drive you crazy. I love to read, but I think all books teach you to not trust the government and inspire crazy ideas. Oh well!
The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter Five, Starbucks and Ethiopian Coffee Farmers
I hate this chapter. Okay, hate is a strong word. I hate this chapter for reminding me about the hearts that are wrong in this world. Perhaps I'm jumping ahead of myself in blogging about the chapter in numerical order, but I'd like to focus on, "but for your three dollar a day fifteen or twenty families can't eat at all. Nearly a hundred people have to go out and wander on the roads for your three dollars a day. Is that right?" This fills me with rage and pain. I'm reminded of a documentary titled "Black Gold" in which I learned about what corporations like Starbucks do financially to people such as the Ethiopian Coffee farmers. The best coffee in the world, the indigenous peoples' only trade, and Starbucks comes in and forces them to work for less than $0.11 a day. They are starving, cannot build schools, and are resorting to farming drug plants because they turn out much more profit and more frequently than coffee plants. Yet, do our drinks get any cheaper? No, coffee prices are on the rise. How greedy can someone be? Is it right to have an endless supply of money while a parent has fallen ill, is contemplaying suicide, all because they cannot make the $0.11 a day to buy their family bread. Just because we cannot see it doesn't mean it isn't real. It also does not mean that it isn't our problem...this is my beef with big companies that have greedy people at the top that nobody knows how to contact, or even who they are, just like the people controlling the banks in TGOW. The danger here isthat "They breathe profit (not air); they eat the interest on money (not side-meat)."
The word "iron" is in this chapter atleast eight times. It represents a "revolution" which is actually the takeover of manual labor by machienes.
There is a struggle between the warm-hearted and those that are forced to be cold. The lunch of the man driving the tractor is made up of Spam and packaged pie rather than something prepared by his wife or his mother. He does this job because he also has to feed his children.
There are sexual images of the tractor raping the land repeatedly. Steinbeck chose the words carefully and associated them with scientific terms rather than slang to suggest how mindless and thoughtless the actions are...
My favorite quote from this chapter is, "We were born on it, and we got killed on it, died on it. Even if it's no good it's still ours. That's what makes it ours-being born on it, working it, dying on it. That makes ownership, not a paper with numbers on it." I laugh and apply it to my loyalty to the Arkansas Razorbacks football team.
The word "iron" is in this chapter atleast eight times. It represents a "revolution" which is actually the takeover of manual labor by machienes.
There is a struggle between the warm-hearted and those that are forced to be cold. The lunch of the man driving the tractor is made up of Spam and packaged pie rather than something prepared by his wife or his mother. He does this job because he also has to feed his children.
There are sexual images of the tractor raping the land repeatedly. Steinbeck chose the words carefully and associated them with scientific terms rather than slang to suggest how mindless and thoughtless the actions are...
My favorite quote from this chapter is, "We were born on it, and we got killed on it, died on it. Even if it's no good it's still ours. That's what makes it ours-being born on it, working it, dying on it. That makes ownership, not a paper with numbers on it." I laugh and apply it to my loyalty to the Arkansas Razorbacks football team.
The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter Four
All I can think about is that poor turtle and when he will show bvack up in the text. Luckily he crawls into this chapter and I can breathe for a moment and focus on other bullets of significance. The author goes to greath lengths to describe Jim Casy's stringy and muscular neck, protruding eyeballs, thin and sunbeated skin, and large forehead. I like when Casy relates every kid having a turtle to the Holy Spirit that he feels he can't keep forever. Maybe the turtle will come to symbolize hope, faith, and progression. It seems as if the turtle has been disrupted along his journey, but when I started thinking more about it it dawned on me that Joad had actually given the turtle a lift and thus saved him time and energy on his journey.
Steinbeck is blunt. Once you start nodding off he throws something in there to wake you and shake you. For me it started with, "He always said you got too long a pecker for a preacher." Then it followed through with the details of Uncle John eating a shoat and I was reminded why I am a vegetarian. Uncle John just took it a little too far in my opinion.
I laughed at the joke about breeding the houses together to get a whole litter of crap houses.
I know all too well about mucus in the nose drying to a crust, especially between times of high humidity and dry air.
Also, Joad's brother is named Noah and I wonder if that'll come to be representative of something else later in the novel.
Steinbeck is blunt. Once you start nodding off he throws something in there to wake you and shake you. For me it started with, "He always said you got too long a pecker for a preacher." Then it followed through with the details of Uncle John eating a shoat and I was reminded why I am a vegetarian. Uncle John just took it a little too far in my opinion.
I laughed at the joke about breeding the houses together to get a whole litter of crap houses.
I know all too well about mucus in the nose drying to a crust, especially between times of high humidity and dry air.
Also, Joad's brother is named Noah and I wonder if that'll come to be representative of something else later in the novel.
The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter Three
As biology is my first major, I was absolutely wrapped up in the seed dispersal in the first paragraph of chapter three. I love that Steinbeck knew how important animals, and the wind, are to the continuation of plant species. The turtle is representative of something, but I can't quite put my finger on it. He struggles, but he never gives up. The author doesn't include emotions, just actions. In a way I think the turtle parallels to the tenants traveling west to California. Some people will go out of their way to help you, like the car that dodged the creature, and some will go out of their way to harm you for a cheap thrill(perhaps the banks), like the car that clipped the turtle's shell.
The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter Two
The imagery in chapter two sticks with me because I know it better than the back of my hand. Right off the bat we know that we as engaged readers are placed somewhere near central Oklahoma. To be honest, I don't know that I would have had such an easy time iwth this book had it not been placed somewhere I was nearly indigenous to- Oklahoma is close enough for me to say "I fully connect with these people because it is my homeland" yet at the same time I'm given distance when it comes to my advantage or benefit because I'm really a girl who was born in Mississippi and raised from my second year of life in the Arkansas River Valley. I can comment on how bad the drivers from Oklahoma are, and laugh, because I have the ability to disassociate. *no offense to those of you from Oklahoma!*
"And the flies buzzed excitedly about the doors and windows, butting the screens," this is a timeless occurance that seems to e. It never occured to me that people from other parts of the country may be new to this image that happens during the hottest months of the year down here in the South, although Oklahoma quickly melts into the classification of Central U.S. territory. The man is a truck driver, sitting in a diner, flirting with the waitress while washing down pie with coffee.
Joads attire is confusing, and I believe Steinbeck includes it so that he may bring closure to the reader at the end of the chapter when we learn that he was recently released from prison. Thank goodness that is cleared up because I was going a little bit crazy trying to figure out from where Joad hailed.
The waitress is fingering a lump. Is it cancerous, a zit, or neither? An inflamed lymph node? My pre-medical mind lingered on this inclusion, and if she was going to have it looked at- she probably should.
She said crossly, "Don't let the flies in. Either go out or come in." Once again, I thought this was something everyone heard as children regardless of where they lived...but now I'm beginning to have a little bit more reflection upon my childhood and her geographical specifics.
"Why, I'm thinkin' of takin' one of them correspondence school courses. Mechanical engineering. It's easy." hahahhahahah yeahhhh, what does he know?
I grew up licking my finger to find the breeze. Joad does this in chapter two.
Although I've left out much of what I had highlighted, I would like to end this post by noting that chapter two ends the same way it began by talking about the vertical exhaust pipe and its barely visible blue smoke.
"And the flies buzzed excitedly about the doors and windows, butting the screens," this is a timeless occurance that seems to e. It never occured to me that people from other parts of the country may be new to this image that happens during the hottest months of the year down here in the South, although Oklahoma quickly melts into the classification of Central U.S. territory. The man is a truck driver, sitting in a diner, flirting with the waitress while washing down pie with coffee.
Joads attire is confusing, and I believe Steinbeck includes it so that he may bring closure to the reader at the end of the chapter when we learn that he was recently released from prison. Thank goodness that is cleared up because I was going a little bit crazy trying to figure out from where Joad hailed.
The waitress is fingering a lump. Is it cancerous, a zit, or neither? An inflamed lymph node? My pre-medical mind lingered on this inclusion, and if she was going to have it looked at- she probably should.
She said crossly, "Don't let the flies in. Either go out or come in." Once again, I thought this was something everyone heard as children regardless of where they lived...but now I'm beginning to have a little bit more reflection upon my childhood and her geographical specifics.
"Why, I'm thinkin' of takin' one of them correspondence school courses. Mechanical engineering. It's easy." hahahhahahah yeahhhh, what does he know?
I grew up licking my finger to find the breeze. Joad does this in chapter two.
Although I've left out much of what I had highlighted, I would like to end this post by noting that chapter two ends the same way it began by talking about the vertical exhaust pipe and its barely visible blue smoke.
The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter One
The introductory chapter primarily functions as anchoring a setting. Steinbeck lets us know where we should be in the imagination, but he takes the opportunity to load the text with much more significant and subtle meaning. For instance, I noted in my boko that in the first paragraph of the novel there are clashing images of life flourishing and life coming to an end, or the process of dying. In the second paragraph, I lifted out the action of weeping with "the water-cut gullies the earth dusted down in dry little streams" when compliomented with "the leaves of the young corn became less stiff and erect; they ent in a curve at first, and then, as the dentral irbs of strength grew weak, each leaf tilted downward." I think the author is setting the tone of the book, probably chosen to match the reality of the emotion spectrum experienced by those living in Oklahoma during the Dust Bowl and the Great Depression. A few paragraphs later I noted that the the gentle wind that pushed the clouds northward was personifing a mother who ushers her curious children along although the children want to stay and play longer. The author includes how dust found its way into everything. When I was in Korea I had a similar experience myself. Yellow dust was picked up by a jet stream originating in China and brought it down to Korea. I have never been sick with allergies, never had to wear a mask outside...although it is probably nothing in coparison to the dust bowl, I wouldn't ever want to sit through a season of yellow dust again.
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
Tomato Red
This short piece has some great imagery. It is about a crank addict who wants friends and so he breaks into a mansion to steal drugs after he read that the family is somewhere off in France. I would simply like to list the phrases I liked the most:
"her teeth are the siz of shoe-peg corn and look like maybe they'd taste sort of sour"
"a dry peck on the lips"
"but the bricks were the type that's nigger than house bricks, more like the shape of bread loves, which I think classes them as cobblestones of something"
"lamppost in the yard that made a hepatitis-yellow glow"
"rigamorole of jewel-theif piss elegance"
"and that glass thankfully was of a typical lower oder and flew to pieces"
"the glass shatter seemed like a sincere burst of applause"
"and friendship is this slow awkward process you've got to angle through"
"the mist felyt like a tounge I kept walking into, and my skin and clothes seemed slobbered on"
"smelled sweeter than my ex-wife's hair"
"this mansion smelled of bug achievements and handbags from Rome and unkown treats, which were better scents than I was used to. The walls even seemed special, kind of, as my fingertips skipped along them feeling how fine and costly they felt. My mind, I'd say, stumbled along two or three steps behind my body. More like a waiter than a chef"
"but it seemed like I'd undergone interplanetary travel"
"like a rubbernecking crowd peeking in on a private moment"
"blond wood from Oriental lands"
"Peanut butter is the prescribed unger medicine for poor folks, and there's always a scraping or so left in the bottom of the jar, somewhere way back in the cupboard"
"her teeth are the siz of shoe-peg corn and look like maybe they'd taste sort of sour"
"a dry peck on the lips"
"but the bricks were the type that's nigger than house bricks, more like the shape of bread loves, which I think classes them as cobblestones of something"
"lamppost in the yard that made a hepatitis-yellow glow"
"rigamorole of jewel-theif piss elegance"
"and that glass thankfully was of a typical lower oder and flew to pieces"
"the glass shatter seemed like a sincere burst of applause"
"and friendship is this slow awkward process you've got to angle through"
"the mist felyt like a tounge I kept walking into, and my skin and clothes seemed slobbered on"
"smelled sweeter than my ex-wife's hair"
"this mansion smelled of bug achievements and handbags from Rome and unkown treats, which were better scents than I was used to. The walls even seemed special, kind of, as my fingertips skipped along them feeling how fine and costly they felt. My mind, I'd say, stumbled along two or three steps behind my body. More like a waiter than a chef"
"but it seemed like I'd undergone interplanetary travel"
"like a rubbernecking crowd peeking in on a private moment"
"blond wood from Oriental lands"
"Peanut butter is the prescribed unger medicine for poor folks, and there's always a scraping or so left in the bottom of the jar, somewhere way back in the cupboard"
A man who buys books because tey're pretty (part four)
I admire Bragg's brutal honesty about not knowing if he responded to a dying man's cry for attention or just wanted the present. I have also had anger about men in my life and what they have done to my mother and my family. Bragg drops in Hardee's parking lot fights to remind the reader of the setting of the story. He goes on to say that if his "daddy" had a favorite it must have been him. I've also felt this way. The more you display actions, thoughts, and manners that your relatives have taught you first hand, the more they like you. They want something to be proud of...I think the following sentence speaks worlds of truth: When you see that person's life red on their lips and know that you will never see them beyond this day, you lisetn close, even if what you want most of all is to run away. Bragg could have taken the opportunity to unload on his father but what was the point? "Life had kicked his ass pretty good." As he is writing about the last few hours with his father he says something I identify with all too well, "For the next few hours-unless I was mistaken, having never had one before-he tried to be my father." It is a strange feeling not to know what to do with a figure that is traditionally supposed to be there, all your friends have one, but that you've grown accustomed to not having. I suppose it is much like being born without a big toe! You would understand how one works if you had one. He goes on to say that his heart should have broken when his father gave him books, and maybe it did a little bit. He is still trapped somewhere between his hatred and what might have been forgiveness. It wasn't until the last moments that he had insight to his father and I feel emotional reading about such a topic. All in all, I enjoyed this passage!
A man who buys books because they're pretty (part three)
Bragg's mother is jaded by his father. There is something in the wrapping of the telephone cord around her hands that carries sadness in a time before cordless phones. He mentions that he lived in a house with his fammily on behalf of his aunt Nita and uncle Ed...doesn't every Southerner have a wealthy aunt and uncle? Bragg's description of his father reminds me of my grandfather, my Bobo, although he would never beat a man up in front of a little girl. However, a common phrase that comes out of his mouth is "son of a bitch." Those words, when spoken, paint me a picture of where I think that person is from, how they vote, and their general opinion on everything. He also comes from a time when to be afraid was to be shameful. I've had personal experiences with the young alcoholic familiy memeber who is drinking themselves to death and has no other treatment but The Cross. My favorite passage from this chapter is, "I guess it is what you do if you grow up with warnings of damnation ringing from every church door and radio station and family reunion, in a place where total strangers will walk up to you at the Piggly Wiggly and ask if you are Saved. Even if you deny that faith, rebuke it, you still carry it around with you like some half-forgotten Indian head penny you keep in your pocket for luck. I wonder sometimes if I will be the same, if when I see my life coming to and end I will drop to my knees and search my soul for old sins and my memory for forgotten prayers. I reckon so." Wow. This is an on-going voice in the back of young Bible-belters' heads. He says that his second-hand motorcycle and his first real kiss ranked above his father in terms of relevance and importance. I felt guilt when I read it because as loving as a person as I think myself to be, I have felt the same way with my own biological father. Like Bragg's brother, I sometimes feel as if I was hatched, by my mother alone, into this world.
A man who buys bookss because they're pretty, part two
"It was as if God made them pay for the loveliness of their scenery by demanding everything else." I couldn't have said it better myself. In one paragraph he talks about the church scene, babies, mothers, potato salad, sweet tea, bbq, and the gospel and mirrors it with talks of bars, strip clubs, lost love, and betrayal. He then goes on to say that it was the backdrop and sound track of his life. This strikes a chord with me because as a child I felt as if I lived in a picture perfect Southern, Christian family by day and in a world of secrets by night. Bragg witnessed the takeover of the countryside by corporate America, and I too feel as if I have been living in the same time, although one can never really escape the ties with the country. He goes on to say "while I was never ashamed to be a Southerned there was always a feeling, a need, to explain myself." Everywhere I go, but especially in cities like Boston, I feel a need to prove myself educated and cultured, that people from the south are different from how they are characterized in the cinema and television. He also says that Southerness has become a fashion and I agree 100%. Men and women wear camouflage as if they have just stepped out of the woods. Girls bump their hair to great heights. Yet, I remember my grandfather as Bragg does, in clean overalls and a spotless white shirt buttoned to the neck...but when do you see people wearing that at the mall? He states that only religion held. He is in part correct, although God has evolved with the times. Bragg highlights an interesting point when mentioning that Baptists now beat drums and the Church of Christ allows coed swimming. Piano players started going to school for the skill, much different than in the old days when they simply learned at home. My ex boyfriend of six years is now in his final year as a composition major at Berklee College of Music.
A man who buys books because they're pretty (part 1)
I absolutely adore Rick Braggs writing style. Perhaps it is because I can relate all too well with his subject matter. His passage from "All Over But The Shouting" was a nice break from the rather dry, yet interesting, material from last week. Within the first few lines I was overwhelmed with emotions of excitement and anxiety for I knew what Bragg was going to say...and I knew the romance would be sickeningly interrupted. Sometimes I don't want to be reminded about the dark side of my roots (and I'm not talking about my "white trash" blond hair with weedish dark roots!) The author is a talented writer who taps deep into imagery and the senses to drive his piece home. The first paragraph lays out an undeniable country setting: hounds, the color green, possums, overalls, domestic women, peaches, biscuits, religion, piano, Buicks, whiskey, clay roads, hog hunting, panthers, violent children, cotton, and wagons. In the second paragraph he does something typical of someone from a small Southern town by listing how many miles the town was from the nearest better-known urban communities with an airport (120 miles west of Atlanta, 100 miles east of Birmingham). He uses phrases in the Southern lexicon such as "mean as a damn snake." He transitions into a darker story by stating that this town was a million miles away from the Old South known for images and smells of jasmine-scented verandas (an exaggeration obviously, but what's more important is that he listed exact distances to the nearest cities but wanted the reader to know he was nowhere near what we think of as the romantic Old South.) Catholics are given Christian names, but ironically Bragg's ancestors drank to the point of forgetting those names. Here things begin to get interesting. The third paragraph is a stark contrast to the first. Life is gloomy, full of hardship, and lacking laughter. People work for pennies, lose limbs doing dangerous jobs, grow crops in unsatisfactory soil, tornados splinter homes, women work themselves to death, children die...but every Sunday they are reminded that the soul of man never dies. In the fourth paragraph he mentions something that I still encounter every day of my life. My family and others brought up in what I consider a liberal Southern family feel like they owe some generations-old debt to their black neighbors because their great-great-grandfather owned their great-great-grandfather. What is even more upsetting is that I still find people of color who feel as if they are owed. Afterwards, Bragg alludes to the KKK and how they had some twisted interpretation of the Bible, and kicked the living shit out of anyone who thought it should be different. As a Southerner, I am not proud of this.
Friday, September 10, 2010
Week 2, Daisy
Daisy has her own set of problems, but I am not sure what’s going on inside her head. Does she feel like she married the wrong man? Does she cry during the clothing scene because she is happy or because she is taking pity on Gatsby? Does she even want to leave her husband? Not all women of the upper class are like Daisy, but she is quite passive. Could this be the difference between marrying into money and inheriting it?
Week 2, Tom Buchanan
Tom has a serious problem with infidelity. It comes across to me as if he has always had everything he has wanted. Tom has never been told “no” by anyone. In university he was an athlete. Although he married Nick’s second cousin, Tom and Nick were not plans in their university days. Tom is the classic case of a person who hops from affair to affair to keep up the excitement in his or her life. What else will he do all day? Moreover, does he have a power complex? He does not have relations with women with greater edges like Daisy, but with the lower classes in which there is a material domination that he leads. He only seems concerned about Daisy and Gatsby because it creates exciting drama for him. Also, I doubt that he has ever felt threatened by other men in the face of women, especially his own wife.
Week 2, Myrtle Wilson
This week we have delved into The Great Gatsby. I’ve formulated new opinions of the characters. To begin, Myrtle Wilson is striking in her class climbing. She cannot share a child with Tom so she demands a puppy that she probably will neglect. At the party the guests pass around the puppy like it is a baby. When she’s complimented on her attire she scoffs and lacks the grace of accepting the compliment. She speaks of the garment as if it is only slightly better than rags. When speaking about her husband, Myrtle claims that she is the victim for she thought he was a man of higher wealth. She’s a case for a psychological study. Mrs. Wilson talks about the first time she saw Tom, that she knew he was a “real” gentleman because of the way he is dressed. She obviously thinks of class as only defined by monetary status. Like a woman of the lower to middle class, she is outspoken and cannot hold her liquor. Like a broken record she repeats the name “Daisy” and it indicates that she has no sense and/or filter of appropriateness.I cannot blame Myrtle, but I lack just as much respect for her as I do Tom because of where her true intentions seem to lay.
Thursday, September 9, 2010
Week One, Part Two
Our first piece to tackle in Dr. Sublette’s course is The Great Gatsby. Although I’ve read it many times before there are things, as always, that I didn’t pick up the last time I visited the novel. To round out the rest of this first week’s blog, I would like to discuss Nick. I’m not sure about this guy. I think he wants to be a person who doesn’t pass judgment on people because he thinks it sounds good, but I don’t honestly believe he is 100% whole wheat in regard to his composition. Perhaps his father meant well in instilling core values in his son, but is it possible that even if one is not spoilt, it is impossible to be honest and genuine when one has not personally endured hardship? Within the first few pages he is already using terms that hint to his real state-of-mind. He name drops the town in which he attended a prestigious university as if blaze about accidentally touting his own horn. Throughout the novel Nick acts like an invisible bystander whose only purpose is to record the happenings of the elite pool in which he is swimming. However, just like an ice cream taste tester, it is hard for me to believe that he is unbiased and separated from the situation and is only there to do work, not enjoy himself.
Week One, 20th Century American Literature
I'm behind on publishing my posts, but here's an attempt to catch up! This is the first week of school and I'm the utmost excited about this semester in particular. When I'm fit to be tied with my biology courses I walk into an English class. When I've had it up to my neck in thinking and reflection, you know the whole artsy aspect of my education, I sit down in a science course and bullet facts for a few hours. One of the best decisions I've made in my recent life was to double major in Biology and English. What I have created is a get-credit-by-default-when-distracted system. Genetics, physics, and ecology are all wonderful courses that hold my attention, but I need to discuss "white trash" and Shakespeare a few hours a day. School doesn't feel so much like school as it does fun...and that's how I know I'm right where I am meant to be positioned. I'm heavily anticipating the tidal wave of school work, RA duties, Greek life responsibilities, and the reduction of my social life. In order to prevent a catastrophic storm such as this nightmare, I'm most certainly set on working well ahead of time. I plan on completing all papers and projects before mid-term if possible. So far so good! I can see the light at the end of the tunnel and I'm finally starting to really enjoy my time at college as I've learned the tricks of the trade.
Sunday, March 28, 2010
I'm just a girl, standing in front of a boy, thinking about freckles
Dear bloggers and the Director of All Things Good:
What is wrong with me?
Friday, March 26
Approximately 6:03 P.M....but who is keeping time anyhow?
Starbucks, Ulsan, South Korea
The lights were dimmed to a low glow (great for the complexion), Norah Jones was mercilessly charming the moods of even the most hostile of creatures, and I was unselfconsciously nursing my soy latte as I gazed into the plates that John Doe had in place of eyes. Picture perfect ambiance for the opportunity to seize and shake out a desperately-needed-in-shortage-of-meaningful-conversation, n'est pas?
Au contraire! Cut! Stop! Take 84,000! ::Snap::...This may be the reason why I've never starred in a Chick Flick or romantic made for T.V. movie- (see Attention Deficit Disorder) (post latte see +Hyperactivity, commonly known as AD/HD or what I suspect *neuroses)
50 seconds in to this "conversation" I'm already thinking in depth about freckles. Why? Because it dawned on me during that very minute that I never gave them a thought past concealer and although John Doe was presenting an arguably interesting new perspective on claymation (see Team America) I couldn't neglect the beauty marks any longer! Knew JD wouldn't understand so I set my "uh huh, wow, REALLY?!, right" response on loop, forwarded calls to my voicemail, and embarked upon my journey of distraction.
"What's in a name?" Nothing if you know anything. Juliet was saying that she was in love with a boy by the name of Montague, but the name Montague meant nothing as we all must have a marker that distinguishes us from the other 6.8 billion friends on the planet. Words pack a lot of power (music even more so) and thus your mama can select your label and brand you based upon her own ideas, but a name does not define a person. Names only sound better than numbers and serve as one of many redeeming factors of birthing a child. However, we could all be reduced to numbers (see SSN) as a means of identification...so what really defines a person?
Call me a biased biologist, but what about DNA? Fast forward all the scientific talk to the fact that our birth marks are mapped out in our genes. Stay with me now...
Have you ever thought about birthmarks? Aside from personality, THEY are what make us more unique than snowflakes. What if the answers people have been scouring for have been on our very own skin this whole time? This could be a crazy thought, but what if there is some validity to my inquiry? This is what I came up with between all the auditory recognition:
What if our skin not only protects our vital organs but also serves as a literal map to life? Perhaps the number of years you will live, the number of children you will have, your profession, life events, your friends and lovers, personality type, winning lottery numbers, the cure for cancer-all of this plus more- directly corresponds with the number, location, size, and color of your freckle map? Whole societies have studied and mapped the stars, but what about what about our own burning bodies? It just strengthens the notion that we as a race try to understand the rest of the universe when there is so much we still don't know about ourselves! Sure, it sounds strange, but what do you think the Union and the Feds would have thought about the technological advancement to cellular phones?
Although humans have come a long way in terms of obtaining knowledge, the balance will never tip in our favor when we are competing with the beauty and compatibility that is nature. I could very well be wrong about the freckle map, but there is just as great a chance that I could be correct! Don't say I didn't tell you so!
Just something to think about ;)
What is wrong with me?
Friday, March 26
Approximately 6:03 P.M....but who is keeping time anyhow?
Starbucks, Ulsan, South Korea
The lights were dimmed to a low glow (great for the complexion), Norah Jones was mercilessly charming the moods of even the most hostile of creatures, and I was unselfconsciously nursing my soy latte as I gazed into the plates that John Doe had in place of eyes. Picture perfect ambiance for the opportunity to seize and shake out a desperately-needed-in-shortage-of-meaningful-conversation, n'est pas?
Au contraire! Cut! Stop! Take 84,000! ::Snap::...This may be the reason why I've never starred in a Chick Flick or romantic made for T.V. movie- (see Attention Deficit Disorder) (post latte see +Hyperactivity, commonly known as AD/HD or what I suspect *neuroses)
50 seconds in to this "conversation" I'm already thinking in depth about freckles. Why? Because it dawned on me during that very minute that I never gave them a thought past concealer and although John Doe was presenting an arguably interesting new perspective on claymation (see Team America) I couldn't neglect the beauty marks any longer! Knew JD wouldn't understand so I set my "uh huh, wow, REALLY?!, right" response on loop, forwarded calls to my voicemail, and embarked upon my journey of distraction.
"What's in a name?" Nothing if you know anything. Juliet was saying that she was in love with a boy by the name of Montague, but the name Montague meant nothing as we all must have a marker that distinguishes us from the other 6.8 billion friends on the planet. Words pack a lot of power (music even more so) and thus your mama can select your label and brand you based upon her own ideas, but a name does not define a person. Names only sound better than numbers and serve as one of many redeeming factors of birthing a child. However, we could all be reduced to numbers (see SSN) as a means of identification...so what really defines a person?
Call me a biased biologist, but what about DNA? Fast forward all the scientific talk to the fact that our birth marks are mapped out in our genes. Stay with me now...
Have you ever thought about birthmarks? Aside from personality, THEY are what make us more unique than snowflakes. What if the answers people have been scouring for have been on our very own skin this whole time? This could be a crazy thought, but what if there is some validity to my inquiry? This is what I came up with between all the auditory recognition:
What if our skin not only protects our vital organs but also serves as a literal map to life? Perhaps the number of years you will live, the number of children you will have, your profession, life events, your friends and lovers, personality type, winning lottery numbers, the cure for cancer-all of this plus more- directly corresponds with the number, location, size, and color of your freckle map? Whole societies have studied and mapped the stars, but what about what about our own burning bodies? It just strengthens the notion that we as a race try to understand the rest of the universe when there is so much we still don't know about ourselves! Sure, it sounds strange, but what do you think the Union and the Feds would have thought about the technological advancement to cellular phones?
Although humans have come a long way in terms of obtaining knowledge, the balance will never tip in our favor when we are competing with the beauty and compatibility that is nature. I could very well be wrong about the freckle map, but there is just as great a chance that I could be correct! Don't say I didn't tell you so!
Just something to think about ;)
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