More Poems...Because I Can't Decide Which Two I Like Best

yay for long and useless titles!


Stephen Crane, The Black Riders Part IV

God fashioned the ship of the world carefully.
With the infinite skill of an All-Master
Made He the hull and the sails,
Held He the rudder
Ready for adjustment.
Erect stood He, scanning His work proudly.
Then-at fateful time-a wrong called,
And God turned, heeding.
Lo, the ship, at this opportunity,
slipped slyly,
Making cunning noiseless travel down the ways.
So that, forever rudderless, it went upon the seas
Going ridiculous voyages,
Making quaint progress,
Turning as with serious purpose
Before stupid winds.
And there were many in the sky
Who laughed at this thing.

Song of the Powers, David Mason

Mine, said the stone,
mine is the hour.
I crush the scissors,
such is my power.
Stronger than wishes,
my power, alone.


Mine, said the paper,
mine are the words
that smother the stone
with imagined birds,
reams of them, flown
from the mind of the shaper.


Mine, said the scissors,
mine all the knives
gashing through paper’s
ethereal lives;
nothing’s so proper
as tattering wishes.


As stone crushes scissors,
as paper snuffs stone
and scissors cut paper,
all end alone.
So heap up your paper
and scissor your wishes
and uproot the stone
from the top of the hill.
They all end alone
as you will, you will.

Two (out of a long list) of My Favorite Poems

Cat


The fat cat on the mat
may seem to dream
of nice mice that suffice
for him, or cream;
but he free, maybe,
walks in thought
unbowed, proud, where loud
roared and fought
his kin, lean and slim,
or deep in den
in the East feasted on beasts
and tender men.
The giant lion with iron
claw in paw,
and huge ruthless tooth
in gory jaw;
the pard dark-starred,
fleet upon feet,
that oft soft from aloft
leaps upon his meat
where woods loom in gloom --
far now they be,
fierce and free,
and tamed is he;
but fat cat on the mat
kept as a pet
he does not forget.

JRR Tolkien



A Man Said to the Universe


A man said to the universe:
"Sir I exist!"
"However," replied the universe,
"The fact has not created in me
A sense of obligation."

Stephen Crane

Love Engendered

I find it amusing that humans use the flower as a symbol of love. What is so funny about the innocent flower? Exactly that: its innocence! The flower is a seductive lure to all pollinating creatures. Flowers are the sexual organs of plants. Even the Roman goddess Flora, the deity of the vine, fruit, flowers, and grain, symbolized fertility—needless to say, festivals held in her honor were pretty wild. The flower’s sole purpose is to enclose the plant sperm in an attractive casing in the hopes that an animal will be attracted to it and therefore spread its germ to awaiting, neighboring plants—it’s quite ingenious when one thinks about it. The fact that we humans proclaim and demonstrate our love through the giving of sexual organs is hilarious. It would be strange if we used the reproductive organs of any other organism. Let’s say, a fallopian tube? The motif of flowers is used throughout Love in the Time of Cholera. Delving more deeply into the motif, I began to wonder what the different flowers Florentino associated with Fermina Daza meant to him and why.

Flowers clearly symbolize Florentino’s intoxication with Fermina. Three flowers in particular remind him of his ideal love: the gardenia, the camellia, and the rose. Culturally the gardenia represents secret love, joy, and is considered lucky. The camellia represents admiration, perfection and loveliness. The rose symbolizes passion and love (as well as the Virgin Mary) when red; virginity and purity when white. It therefore isn’t too shocking when one realizes that an anagram of rose is eros, the god of love.

Fermina’s floral scent lingers with Florentino even half a century later. His title for her, the crowned goddess, was created when he saw her wearing a crown of flowers on her head. He sends her a white camellia, “a flower of promise”, when he requests her hand in marriage. He consumes flowers to the point of sickness when thinking and waiting for Fermina. He even inscribes poetry on flower petals—an extremely delicate and involved process. Florentino worships Fermina and fabricates a love so ideal that it cannot be real. Despite Florentino’s desperate attempts, the seeds of their love germinate, but they are not ready to blossom—not for another fifty years.

To Florentino, the young Fermina Daza was like a delicate white camellia: beautiful and innocent. However, Fermina was more like a rose: a beauty indeed, but one that came with many thorns. Her independence, level-headedness, and realism directly contrasted Florentino’s dependence, aloofness, and romanticism. Florentino believed that he understood Fermina’s nature, but he was far from right. Later in life, after his 622 plus encounters with women, he believes that he can read, manipulate, and please the female gender. While the latter might be right, Florentino still cannot understand the intricate workings of the female mind and heart.

I still believe that Florentino's love for Fermina is pure and constant. His tiny falterings are natural and human. But his ability to seek substitute, earthly lovers to control the consuming affects of his love for Fermina make him strong. He knows that he must be patient; he knows he must be mentally faithful; and he knows that love will conquer all. I wonder if Florentino had never been raped by the mysterious woman on the boat, that he would have remained physically loyal to Fermina as well. However, the more important question is if his sexual encounters really relieved him of his overpowering love for Fermina. Freud's theories on repression state that strong emotions need to be expressed through methods that are not harmful, are theraputic, and socially acceptable. Our subconscience houses our deepest desires and emotions--feelings that one finds hard to consciously think about--and Freud believed these powerful feelings needed some form of expression. Florentino finds many outlets for his love for Fermina. He composes love letters for uninspired or unable lovers. He writes poetry and delves into romance novels. But his mental and emotional love is so powerful that he physically needs an outlet. He knows he must wait for Fermina--and so he does, all the while expressing his mental love for Fermina through the physical love of other women. This is not a conventional story of love. Florentino demonstrates that love comes in many forms.

Marquez makes no statement on what love should be or what kind of love is best. He simply narrates what love is and can be.
(743)

Fun Fact: The parrot in many Impressionist paintings symbolized the character of the female subject: that of a prostitute. Gustave Courbet’s Woman with a Parrot was clearly of a nightly escort--as well as Manet’s.

Evolution of Love

Marquez is a master of the minutiae of love. From the first two chapters the readers are given two perspectives of love—both in different stages of life and time. Love between the elderly is different love than between two young hearts and Marquez exquisitely expresses the difference.

Love between the elderly is out of comfort, security, and dependence. Fermina Daza and Dr. Urbino had been married for half a century when he accidentally died. In their elderly years Fermina had to dress Urbino every morning and while “at first she had done it for love,” later she was “obliged to do it” because the Dr. could no longer dress himself. She felt a motherly tenderness towards him instead of the fiery passion of youth’s love. I have seen and experienced that after the initial stages of passion, love evens out to a comfortable, protective form of caring.

The security a long life of love offers is the most reassuring feeling. One’s significant other because a constant in their life, something that should be unchanging. However, lovers can forget the value of this constant. As the saying goes, “You only miss something when it’s gone.” Fermina and Urbino’s epic fight over a bar of soap was their worst argument in fifty years of marriage. This battle almost separated them forever; however when their threats were close to becoming reality Urbino admitted his faults and confessed that “there was soap” at the fear of losing his other half. That confession was all Fermina needed to take him back into her heart.

The most endearing thought Fermina Daza had was after her husband’s death. She lay in bed as she always did with her husband, however this time “the weight of the other body on the other side” was missing. This detail wrenched my heart. The simple presence of a loved one’s existence is enough to send the heart and mind into a frenzy. But the absence of the weight of a loved one can do the same. After feeling Urbino’s weight on the other side of her bed for fifty years, its absence was a physical reminder that he was lost forever.

Although Fermina and Urbino’s love leveled out over the years and became a nuisance rather than a pleasure, Fermina “loved him despite all their doubts” and had an “irresistible longing to begin life with him over again so that they could say what they had left unsaid and do everything right that they had done badly in the past.” The sudden realization that a constant in one’s life is gone is like pulling a crutch from someone with a broken leg. My own experience with love and the loss of love makes this episode very relatable.

The second form of love presented is the love between new, young lovers. Fermina at the tender age of thirteen has no conception of the “love” between a man and a woman. She is endeared that a stranger loves her. The novelty of love is what really attracted her to Florentino. She was naive and easy to persuade, and so Florentino stalked and captured her heart. While Florentino serenaded her with his violin in the velvety darkness of night, her love was too idealized while Florentino’s love was too real. After their separation and anguish, Fermina and Florentino meet again. However at the mere sight of Florentino, a man she loved through letters and casual meetings, she “erased him from her life with a wave of her hand.” She dismissed his love without giving it a real chance. Their long-distance relationship, years of separation, and Fermina Daza’s growth and realization that one can be happy without love broke their relationship piece by piece. Like a crumbling wall, stones were slowly removed, till the entire structure came down with one swift end.

Not to delve too deeply into my personal life, I can say that my experience with love was eerily similar to what I have read so far. I’ve experienced the excitement of the novelty of finding love. I’ve experienced the comfort and security of (somewhat) aged love. And I’ve experienced the gradual loss of love as well as the rapid realization that a constant in my life is gone. Everyone encounters love in their lifetime and Marquez speaks the blunt language of the heart.
(722)

The Missing Link?

Jason taps into the deepest fears of his family members in order to gain control as well as money. Some argue that Jason’s lack of attention as a child is his reason for extorting money. Perhaps his insecurities and desire for attention and love have driven him to the point of swindling his only sister. Jason believes that one should never “promise a woman anything not let her know what I’m going to give her.” “That’s the only way to manage them…If you can’t think of any other way to surprise them, give them a bust in the jaw,” he said. His overruling desire to control—through money, verbal and physical abuse—cracks the fragile bond that holds the family together. While some may defend Jason, I have no sympathy for him.

Jason is hypocritical. He abuses the young Miss Quentin and accuses her of promiscuity, while he gave a woman forty dollars for her “services.” His constant pressuring of Miss Quentin upset her and eventually led to her running away. I was amazed at how similar Miss Quentin and Caddy are. Even though Quentin has grown up in a home where her mother’s name is never spoken, she inherited many of the feisty characterizes of her mother. Her passion for love, her unwillingness to surrender, and her defy-all attitude are reminiscent of Caddy. One wonders how she became so like her mother? Drawing on my evolutionary knowledge, I’m going to say that it was not just nature, but also nurture. The household and customs of the prestigious Southern family did not allow Caddy to follow her heart. Consequently, her daughter Quentin was raised in the same household. Unfortunately, she was brought up in worse circumstances than Caddy was. The two passionate souls were not welcome into a family of strict tradition and moral uptightness. Well, so much for that lesson on “focus.” Sorry, Raccoon, hopefully the rant was interesting.

Ahem, back to the topic. One of Jason’s worst moments was the way he treated Caddy. When Caddy, a mother who has not seen her daughter grow up, begs Jason to show Quentin to her, he does. However, even though Caddy pays him a hundred dollars, Jason gives Caddy a transient glimpse of her lost daughter. The connection between a mother and child is strong yet easily damaged. Caddy’s tie to Quentin has already been severed, along with her connection to the Bascomb/Comson family. By filling Caddy with false hope and failing to deliver her wish, Jason manipulates Caddy to a point of frustration. This event really touched me. I was surprised as the bitter attitude of Jason to his own “flesh and blood.” For some reason, either his nature or his nurture or both, Jason has become a heartless, money-obsessed man.

Jason’s womanizing, racist, controlling mania is sickening. Although he is the last remaining sibling, in my eyes, he is no longer part of the family. The usual bond of kinship to one’s relatives is not seen in Jason. If one does not love their family, than they are not part of it. So while he may be the last sibling standing, the family is far too fragmented and disjointed to ever be repaired. The missing family members, the banished sibling, the delusional mother, and the power-hungry brother leave no hope for what was a family. (557)

Technique and Story Telling

Faulkner’s use of the stream of consciousness technique enhanced the telling of the Compson family’s tragic tale. The narrating (if steam of consciousness is considered “narrating”) of the family’s destruction is presented through multiple perspectives and through the broken flow of thoughts. The disjointed story telling mirrors the disjointed Compson family. Faulkner forces us to be literary detectives and piece together the fragments of the family puzzle. Faulkner keeps us engaged by planting clues in our scavenger hunt. Through the process of collecting ideas, deciphering clues, and completing the jigsaw puzzle that is The Sound and the Fury, we are given a unique perspective into the family’s demise.

Benjy’s steam of consciousness creates a broken path for the reader to follow. When I started reading the novel my own stream of consciousness kept connecting Benjy to Christopher Boone, the autistic child from The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time. However, further into the novel I realized Benjy was much harder to understand than Boone. Perhaps because we are inside the mind of Benjy, meaning we experience his thoughts in real time--unlike with Chris Boone. Faulkner’s exploration of the human psyche’s leaping thoughts makes the novel more challenging and consequently more compelling. If the Compson family’s struggle were told as a conventional story, the effect would be completely different. Because we are inside Benjy’s mind, we feel his emotions and experience the story on a personal level—a level that could not be achieved through say an omniscient narrator.

A scene that really demonstrated this emotional connection was when Benjy wanted Caddy to wash herself to rid her of the deeds she’s committed (an allusion to Lady Macbeth of course). Benjy pushes Caddy into the bathroom, but instead of washing, Caddy cowers against the wall. She has just lost her virginity, and therefore cannot wash away this action like she had previously done. The violent scene is dramatic with flowing tears and yelling. Through Benjy’s perspective we see his pain as well as Caddy’s. Faulkner gives us enough of the scene to paint a picture in our mind of what happened. However, this picture is abstract—like splatters of a scene against a murky canvas. The rest of the painting is to be painted in later.

Quentin’s narration on June 2nd, 1910 is another great example of how the technique of steam of consciousness enhances the story. Our understanding of Quentin comes from memory fragments and his consciousness on the day of his suicide. Faulkner gives subtle, but later obvious hints, about Quentin’s strange actions. Quentin’s obsession with time, his packing of clothes, and his writing of letters-to-be-mailed-tomorrow are all clear signs that he has decided to commit suicide. Towards the end of this section, all marks of punctuation, grammatical rules, and even spelling are disregarded. This deterioration of logical sentence formation is indicative of Quentin’s state of mind: that of a suicidal man who no longer cares for trivial things or the rational of grammar.

Overall, Faulkner’s use of steam of consciousness may have been unconventional. However, it proves essential to the telling of the Compson’s tale. The coupling of unique perspectives, broken bits of memory, and interconnected thoughts create a fuzzy mental image of what exactly happened. While there are still two more sections to explore, the readers are well on their way to (hopefully) understanding the complete story. Faulkner keeps us attentive and engaged throughout this process.
(573)

Invocation of the Muse

To Wilde, my Muse:




Why post a portrait of Oscar Wilde?

Here is my reasoning:
By posting this rather large image of Wilde, my blog will be infused with his enigmatic greatness. I’m hoping that Wilde’s portrait (like the picture of Dorian Gray) will have an opposite, but equal effect on my blog: Wilde's soul will be reflected in my blog. And if not, hopefully it just seasons my writing with a little Wilde spice.

Fun Wilde fact of the week: As the result of a famous trial, he suffered a dramatic downfall and was imprisoned for two years of hard labour after being convicted of the offence of gross indecency. (source Wiki)

Why am I not surprised?

"It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors."

The Picture of Dorian Gray is one of the best novels I have ever read. Unfortunetly, I discovered that it is Oscar Wilde’s only novel. His epigrams and philosophical comments on life are fascinating. I can only imagine how a conversation with Wilde would have been. I imagine the chaos of Flail’s philosophy class nicely organized into beautiful prose. A hard task indeed.

Being an artist myself, I was intrigued most by the preface. Wilde defines art and the artist by telling us what art and who the artist is not. I actually had to reread the last line (“All art is quite useless.”) because I didn’t make the connection to the previous paragraph. Wilde says, “…The only excuse for making a useless thing is that one admires it intensely. All art is quite useless.” I was more comforted after I understood this statement. At first I didn’t understand the importance of the preface. But after reading most of the novel, some of Wilde’s statements really resonate through The Picture of Dorian Gray.
Wilde says, “It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors.” Since the portrait is hidden in a secluded room, Dorian is the only man who can see the portrait changing. In the special case of Dorian, the art literally reflects the spectator’s soul. The premise of the story is that the soul of Dorian Gray is supernaturally emulated in Dorian’s portrait. And through the novel Gray’s sense of morality shrivels and deteriorates. While he remains flawlessly beautiful and angelic on the outside, Dorian’s soul is corrupted and ugly. But Dorian’s portrait does not simply become hideous. It expresses the wickedness of Dorian’s soul. Every ugly, immoral act is reflect in his eyes, his smile, and his face. It is one thing to be ugly on the surface, but another to be ugly within.

Basil Hallward’s masterpiece is the portrait of Dorian. In the beginning, Basil does not want the world to see this portrait because “there is too much of myself in the thing…too much of myself!” (13). Dorian also feels that the portrait is “part of myself” (26). Could it be that Basil’s intense admiration of Dorian actually allowed the artist to capture Gray’s soul in his artwork? Wilde says in the Preface, “Vice and virtue are to the artist materials for an art.” At first Dorian was the embodiment of innocence and virtue. These qualities first attracted Basil to Dorian. However, Basil’s friend Lord Henry Wotton infuses Dorian with the thought that beauty and youth are only ephemeral. The thought that one day he might be old and ugly consumed Dorian and disturbed him. In a moment of despair, Dorian screams, “…If it were I who was to be always young, and the picture that was to grow old! For that--for that--I would give everything…I would give my soul for that!” (25). He did.

My question is what was Wilde trying to convey through this exchange of souls? The portrait contradicts the theory that art and morality are disjointed. The theory, paraphrased, states that if art is intended to have a moral purpose, it is no longer art for art’s sake: It is propaganda for a certain belief. However, the portrait of Dorian Gray, is the reflection of his moral soul. (581)

I still have a lot of exploring to do with this novel. I am thinking about writing my essay on morality and art. Do you have any ideas for it Mr. Coon?

Gray Scale

This week the stories we read transitioned from black and white to gray. Don’t worry, let me explain. They went from darkness and light in “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place”; to the contrast of black and white in “Battle Royal”; to complete monotone grayness—in the form of equality—in “Henry Bergeron”. The dichotomy of opposites is a powerful way to add dynamics and friction to a short story.

Ernest Hemingway’s “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place” is a story about the stages of life—especially old age. The story begins with a stark contrast of darkness and light. It begins with the image of “an old man who sat in the shadow of the leaves of a tree made against the electric light” (1). The aged man is in the shadow of death. His energy for life is depleted, and so he spends his days in the café drinking away his despair. Two waiters, one old and one young, give the readers two different perspectives on the old man’s situation. (Here is another contrast—old and young). The elder of the two sympathizes with the old man. He views the café as a place of refuge for the dejected senior. He stays late in the café “with all those who do not want to go to bed. With all those who need a light for the night” (70). While the younger waiter, who is more materialistic and immature, sarcastically wishes that the old man (who attempted suicide) “should have killed [himself] last week” (18). Although the older waiter is more in tune to the complexities of human emotion, there is another reason behind his empathy. He feels the same way about life as the old man. In his “nada” monologue, the old waiter reveals to us his disinterest in life. It is not only the old man who needs a light for the night, but also waiter himself.

This idea of “light for the night” has many possible meanings. The one that I concluded was a metaphor for death and the afterlife. Darkness has been and will always be connected to death, the great unknown. The old man’s despair and the old waiter’s pessimistic view of life both stem from their disinterest in life. The old waiter states (in reference to life), “It was all a nothing and a man was nothing too” (76). He goes on to recite the Lord’s Prayer, replacing key words with “nada”. It is here that the religious subtext of the story is displayed. When reading this short story I was reminded of a series of paintings by Thomas Cole. His series “The Voyage of Life” is an allegory of the four stages of man’s life: childhood, youth, manhood, and old age. An exerpt from Wikipedia best describes the four paintings

"In childhood, the infant glides from a dark cave into a rich, green landscape. As a youth, the boy takes control of the boat and aims for a shining castle in the sky. The last two pictures reverse the boat's direction. In manhood, the adult relies on prayer and religious faith to sustain him through rough waters and a threatening landscape. Finally, the man becomes old and the angel guides him to heaven across the waters of eternity." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Voyage_of_Life)

Because death is encroaching and the mystery of the afterlife is still well, a mystery, religion is the only way to make death more comfortable. It seems that both men are spiritually lost, and therefore uncomfortable with the possibility of their dismal afterlives. To conclude, the poetic rock band MUSE, in their song “Thoughts of a Dying Atheist”, sang, “Look through a faithless eye/ are you afraid to die? / It scares the hell out of me/ and the end is all I can see…”

In my discussion Ralph Ellison’s “Battle Royal” fits in the middle of my two themes: the dichotomy of black and white (and its various connotations) and that of equality. It is a story that speaks about racial tension as well as racial equality. The story is a struggle of a young black man battling a world dominated by white men. With this story I want to focus on a singular scene. After being battered, the young black man gives a speech. His mouth is being flooded with blood, when he utters the phrase “social responsibility” (69). He tries to speak, but chokes on his blood. He is forced to repeat this phrase and accidentally (or more likely a Freudian slip) he croaks “social…equality” (81). His swallowing the blood that runs through his veins is important. Through this act, he is symbolically swallowing part of himself, his people, his heritage, and therefore his pride. In a time of racial inequality, African Americans explored many different ways to elevate their social standings. Civil disobedience was a reaction to violent attacks from both blacks and whites. This story shows how the protagonist’s subordination may help him survive, but it does not help him win the war. And that racial, gender, and social equality sadly does not come without a price. To steal another line from MUSE, “Why can't we see / that when we bleed we bleed the same.”

Kurt Vonnegut creates a satirical contrast to America in “Henry Bergeron”. He takes us to a time when equality is the norm. In our future, the beneficially competitive atmosphere of our country is gone. Instead, the citizens have created the 211th, 212th, and 213th Amendments to ensure that “they were equal every which way” (1).With our competitive edge handicapped, our nation deteriorated. To steal a line from Darwin, natural selection works only if there is variation within a population. So in order to evolve there needs to be variability. Where there is no evolution, there is no progress. Of course, I am not advocating Social Darwinism. I mentioned this to point out that the laws of evolution no longer apply to this imaginary nation.

Vonnegut makes a strong statement through his satirical approach to the concept of equality: We need inequality. In America today, inequality gives us something to strive for. To take a lesson from the failed social experiment of Soviet Russia, equality creates complacency. In Vonnegut’s world in 2081, the strong were weighted down; the beautiful were masked; and the intelligent were prevented from thinking. Although “equality” is a political buzzword and a happy thought, its far-reaching side effects are often overlooked. If we all looked the same, it would be hard to tell us apart. If we all were the same age, we wouldn’t have the perspective of a child or the experience of the old. If we were all equal, we would have nothing to distinguish us and, most importantly, nothing to strive for.

So what is this week’s lesson, kids? Our differences make us more exciting. It really sounds like something we learnt in kindergarten. But the older I get, the more these basic lessons take on more complex meanings. (1,157)


P.S. Mr. Coon, you can click on the thumbnails to see the enlarged paintings. They're wonderful! Also, the formatting for the block quote didn't work...so I just put the quotation marks instead.

Revelations in the Pig Parlor

“Revelation” is the story of Mrs. Ruby Turpin’s self realization. Flannery O’Connor takes us on Mrs. Turpin’s journey from damnation to possible redemption. Mrs. Turpin represents the sin of pride. Her self-satisfaction and obnoxious sense of superiority are taken to the extreme and eventually crushed by her final, belittling revelation. Through a series of strange events in unexpected places, O’Connor evokes the maxim that God works in mysterious ways.

Ruby, the protagonist, prides herself on being above everyone else. Her superiority complex is most clearly displayed in the doctor’s waiting room. While the waiting room is not the typical place for a spiritual awakening, it is a good location that emphasizes the maxim above. In the room is a collection of people from different socio-economic backgrounds: most notably, Mrs. Turpin, Claud, a pleasant (well-to-do) lady, a fat teenager, named Mary Grace, reading a book entitled Human Development, “white-trash” woman, and for a moment, a black delivery boy. Ruby places the classes of people in her own hierarchy: on the bottom were most “colored people,” then white-trash, then home owners, and then property owners like herself and Claud. She would “dream they were all crammed in together in a box car, being ridden off to be put in a gas oven” (24). In the waiting room, her internal thoughts reflect her constant criticism of her surroundings and company. For example, in reference to the cleanliness of her pigs, she thinks that her pigs are “cleaner by far than that child right there…poor nasty little thing” (44).

Mrs. Turpin’s sarcastic, smug remarks are heard only by the story’s readers. Yet, we get the sense that Mary Grace can also hear Mrs. Turpin’s internal thoughts. Mary’s scowling, smoldering eyes intensify with the mounting pride of Mrs. Turpin. Ruby repetitively praises God for elevating her above so many others. Her judgmental thoughts, coupled with her racist, derogatory commentary make Mrs. Turpin very disagreeable. However, in her own eyes, God gave her a good disposition (101). Blinded by her pride, Mrs. Turpin does not realize her many faults. And therefore she continues her praising of God. At the climax of Mrs. Turpin’s exaltation, she exclaims, “When I think who all I could have been besides myself and what all I got, a little of everything, and a good disposition besides, I just feel like shouting…Oh thank you Jesus, Jesus, thank you!” (101). Right then, Mary Grace hurls Human Development at Mrs. Turpin’s inflated ego. Mrs. Turpin is saved by the violent actions of Mary Grace. Her name is no coincidence, considering that she is the (unlikely) messenger of God’s grace to Ruby. Mary spats, “Go back to hell where you came from, you old wart hog” (113). At that moment, Mary’s intense eyes burned because she knew that “her message had struck its target”—literally and metaphorically (113).

Even after her encounter with Grace, Mrs. Turpin does not immediately realize her sin of pride. She wondered why “she had been singled out for the message, though there was trash in the room to whom it might justly have been applied” (130). Mary’s words echoed in Mrs. Turpin’s mind and disturbed her. Her last resort to understand this message was to ask God Himself.

Mrs. Turpin’s challenging of God is her most consequential display of pride. Her evening of questioning and denial created a whirlwind of anger and frustration within her mind. Ruby marched down to the pig parlor with a “look of a woman going single-handed, weaponless, into battle” (172). She looked to the heavens and—just as Lucifer—confronted God. In her ultimate moment of rage she roared, “Who do you think you are?” (187). The echo returned to her “like an answer from beyond the wood” (188). As if God simultaneously answered her and questioned her, “Who do you think you are?” Mrs. Turpin was utterly dumbfounded, signifying her humbling revelation. Ruby’s narrow sense of place was destroyed in that moment; while her perception of her place among men and God was widened. Mrs. Turpin—just as her fellow swine, illuminated by the sunset—was enlightened by a deeper understanding.

In the pig parlor, another unlikely place for spiritual enlightenment, O’Connor stages the second peak of Mrs. Turpin’s journey. Ruby’s vision of a processional march to heaven reestablished the message in her revelation: she, just as everyone else, must earn her way into heaven’s gates. The order in which they came was the opposite of her hierarchy. First in line were companies of white-trash followed by black people in white robes. Last in the procession were the people like her, known for their “common sense and respectable behavior” (192). However, their shocked and altered faces meant that “their virtues were being burned away” (192). This scene is where Mrs. Turpin’s self-image is transformed. She is last in line, even after the people she looks down upon. Her realization gives us hope that redemption is possible, despite her many mistakes.

In the end, Ruby’s beatitude over comes her as she hears the chirping chorus of crickets as the “voices of the souls climbing upward into the starry field and shouting hallelujah” (193). Although Mrs. Turpin is not an immediately likeable character, her spiritual journey gives her an opportunity for change and betterment. She realizes that she is last in line to heaven. But as she stares “unblinkingly on what lay ahead” she is aware of the necessity for change. At the beginning of “Revelation”, Ruby Turpin is smug and arrogant. But by the end, her newfound humility is a sign of her spiritual growth and hope for her future. (930)



Discussion questions:

1. Do your impressions of Mrs. Turpin change throughout the course of the story?
2. What was your reaction to Mary Grace throwing her book at Mrs. Turpin’s head?
3. Do we believe that Mrs. Turpin is a changed woman?

Perspectives and Reader Response

Perspectives

All the presenters thus far have explored the topic of perspective. We all know that the same event can have numerous interpretations depending on who the speaker is. This week in class I got a chance to explore the various reasons why the authors chose the specific view points for their stories. For instance, how different would "Teenage Wasteland" have been had it been told through Daisy's eyes? The choice of perspective is a key factor in determining the atmosphere, opinions, and even events in a story. While different characters may be interconnected, each character has its own history and unique view of the world. "Teenage Wasteland" was of particular interest to me. I questioned why we the readers were not told of Donny's struggles through his eyes. Instead, we saw his deterioration and eventual disappearance through the struggle of his mother Daisy. Upon further thought, I realized that by understanding Daisy's point of view we in turn saw Donny's journey through a dirty lens. Many aspects of his psyche are not clear to us. We only have the views of Cal, his teachers, and Daisy to formulate our opinions on. Often in the case of misunderstood, lost teenagers, adults and outsiders do not fully understand what the child is going through. Anne Tyler's approach was more natural with its spikes of highs and extreme lows. As Piper stated, we are lifted by the glimpses of hope that Tyler lures us with. Only to be crushed in the end by a very tragic ending. By the end of the story, we are left with more questions than answers about Donny. And perhaps Tyler wanted to leave the case open for further inspection.

"A Rose for Emily" was told through the eyes of an anonymous town member. In this case, William Faulkner wanted us to embark on the journey with the unknowing townspeople and learn the haunting facts about Miss Emily Grierson as they did. We see her life as an outsider would have seen it. Once again, we cannot confirm the motives behind her actions. We can only speculate. What is also interesting is how Faulkner completely changes our view of Ms. Emily with the very last three paragraphs of the story. Here we learn of Ms. Emily's murdering of her love interest Homer Barron and the strange details of the room he was kept in. Our emotions naturally mirror the emotions of the townspeople, because it is the only way we see the story. Throughout the story I found myself thinking "poor Emily," if only this had happened and so and so had not left. While in truth, Ms. Emily had many problems that the citizens and we were not aware of. It showed me how easily the reader accepts the narrator's ideas. However, when I reread the story I was able to piece together the clues and see different sides of Miss Emily that were hidden underneath the townspeople's impressions.

Alice Walker's short story "Everyday Use" benefits from having Mama tell the story. Mama, a level-headed mother of two daughters directs us through the family conflict. We respect Mama for her realistic attitude and acceptance of her daughters, despite their differences. Mama says, "I am a large, big-boned woman with rough, man-working hands," and explains how her fantasies of appearing on TV include her being "a hundred pounds lighter" (5). I think the reader gains her trust at this point. We all have fantasies and dreams, but Mama tells it like it is. Her internal thoughts give us insight into her true feelings towards her daughters. For example, when their old house was burnt down, Mama wanted to ask Dee, "Why don't you do a dance around the ashes?" (10). Mama is able divulge enough information about Maggie and Dee while still retaining important facts and letting Dee and Maggie express them.


The Interpreter of Maladies

Today in class we discussed “The Interpreter of Maladies”. I could relate to this story because I’ve witnessed the difference between Indians and Indian Americans. I found myself disliking Mrs. Das. Her uncaring manner and lack of interest in her family really struck me as surprising. Her portrayal went against all the conventional depictions of mothers. However, I found her inner turmoil to be very interesting. She had a son with her husband’s business partner and kept it a secret from her current husband. We can see her pent up pressure when she releases it to Mr. Kapasi. She has the unrealistic expectation that Mr. Kapasi can solve her problem or give her some reassuring advice. However, Mr. Kapasi was more interested in the possibility of a relationship and not her trivial personal secret. However that interest slowly dies as he learns of Mrs. Das’s secret. Lauren explored the topic of Mrs. Das and Mr. Kapasi’s evolution and destruction of their brief relationship. (813)

To Err is Human

To err is human. Although Homo sapiens prize themselves for being wise, logical creatures, humans have the universal trait of being flawed. It is the imperfections of an individual that makes him more human. The most intriguing characters in literature are not the “perfect” ones. Readers more often identify with a character whose defects mirror their own. For this reason, authors often show the complexity of human emotion through their characters’ flaws. Through his interpretation and display of human flaws and human emotions, Mark Haddon has captured two key elements of the delicate human psyche in his novel the curious incident of the dog in the night-time.

Christopher John Francis Boone is not the typical protagonist: he is an autistic savant. He struggles to understand anything past the basic set of human emotions (happiness, sadness, and anger): a task most people would find intuitive. And yet he is a mathematical mastermind at the age of fifteen. Christopher can only see the world through logic and the formulas he created to rationalize life’s unpredictability. The use of Christopher is a unique way to portray a fundamentally human trait by emphasizing the fact that Christopher does not have it: the ability to communicate and understand emotion.

While it is not fair to say that Christopher is flawed, his autism is a handicap. Communication is difficult for him unless it is purely logical. He learns social norms and guidelines from his teacher Siobhan. Christopher claims that he “finds people confusing” (Haddon 14). He explains to the readers in the beginning of his narrative that Siobhan drew for him a set of faces expressing different emotions. He was only able to understand sad and happy faces: no others (Haddon 3). Because he does not have certain emotions, he cannot understand them. Through Christopher’s struggle, one can deduce just how vital the communication of different emotions is between people.

The rational Christopher acts as a foil to his emotional father Ed Boone. Through Christopher’s investigation a darker history of Ed and his mother Judy Boone is revealed. The readers learn that Ed is very sensitive. He reacts strongly to stressful and complicated situations, usually in the form of anger, violence, or irrational actions. For example, when Christopher’s mother left him, Ed lied to his son for years, claiming that she had died of a heart attack at the age of 38. When Christopher learns of the lie, he looses all trust in father, causing him mental and physical pain. Some of the most moving parts of the novel are the scenes in which Ed tries to regain the trust of his son. Ed, a compassionate, caring father, epitomizes the most potent human trait: the ability to love.

Of course, Christopher also has many fundamentally human traits. Two of his most prominent are his curiosity and ability to dream. His desire to discover Wellington’s murderer was the catalyst for his amazing adventure. Christopher’s final words in the novel are, “And I know I can do this [become a scientist] because I went to London on my own, and because I solved the mystery of Who Killed Wellington? And I found my mother and I was brave and I wrote a book and that means I can do anything” (Haddon 221). One of the most fascinating aspects of humanity is our imagination and willingness to go beyond reality and into the realm of possibility. In reality, we are flawed. But there is always the prospect of change.


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A Little Information About Me

Dear Mr. Coon,

This was a fun way for me to think about my personality as a reader and writer. So because I am probably going to exceed the word count, I’m going to make the introduction very short.

I will start off with what I like to read. I’m an avid reader of magazines. Reading quick, witty, and informative articles is one of my favorite ways of relaxing while simultaneously learning. I enjoy reading Smithsonian, Popular Science, Discover, and Time. I browse the internet, reading articles on whatever I happen to fancy at that moment. For example, this week I have been researching the praying mantis. I also love poetry. Like the praying mantis, poetry may appear plain and simple to the unobservant eye; but to those who look closer, there is so much beauty to uncover. I enjoy strange, modern works like William Carlos William’s “This is Just to Say.” But my favorite poet is Stephen Crane, whose subject matter is often more philosophical. Of course, I love the classics of Tennyson and Robert Frost as well. Lastly, novels are my favorite form of literature. I think that they offer more material for a hungry mind. I read mystery and thriller novels for fun. But my favorite novels are The Picture of Dorian Grey and Frankenstein.

The qualities I look for in anything that I am reading are a clever wit, interesting situations, knowledge, vivid descriptions, something thought provoking, and hopefully a pun or two. I love literature that paints a scene with words. Being an artist and musician, I am always on the look out for the aesthetics in literature. Lines of poetry from the Bard like, “Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks/ Within his bending sickle's compass come,” resonate nicely in my ears and remain in my memory. Something quirky that I love is etymology, the history of words. Something I discovered was that character Hester Prynne’s name comes directly from hysteria, originally meaning “of the womb”, and phryne, meaning prostitute. I like symbols and clues hidden within a text that blend in, yet upon deeper introspection are blaringly conspicuous. I dislike emotional rants and I have a hard time reading a book if I do not like the narrator or main character. (I really hated Holden Caulfield, but he grew on me towards the end of The Catcher in the Rye)

A huge change in my reading habits occurred last year in Mr. Thommen’s class. We spent weeks learning about different types of criticism. It taught me that a single work can be read and interpreted through many varying view points. I now try to look at literature from as many angles as I can.

Since this is already past 400 words, I am going to make the rest of this quick. I read as often as I can. I don’t usually have a lot of time for long novels during the school year. But over summer break I plow through the stack of books that I have accumulated through the year. I read articles and poetry whenever I have the free time and even do so with my friends. I honestly read to learn and to just explore things that I have not experienced in my life so far. I read because I love new perspectives on things and because I love a good story.

I don’t write on a regular basis, but when I do it is usually in the form of poetry. I love attempting to capture a single image, emotion, or concept in a few short, nicely written lines. I always have poetry concepts running through my mind; but when it comes to composing a piece, it takes time. My greatest writing achievements have been works of poetry and research papers that I have done at PCDS. My favorite paper is on the history of peanuts (a.k.a. the goober pea) in America, which I wrote for Mr. Martin last year.

I think that writing is one of humanities greatest creations. The ability to symbolize thought into a universal code and stretch the boundaries of reality and imagination is fascinating. Writing to me is a form of communication and recording of thoughts of events. I also love persuasive essays.

Lastly, here are my strengths and weaknesses as a writer. I am a horrible speller and I tend to phrase things in complicated ways. A strength of mine is that I write well under pressure and can think of ideas in a stressful situation. But after years of writing research papers, I now have a hard time just writing for fun. Writing dialogue is also very difficult for me. I enjoy writing, but it is not one of my past times. However, I always carry around a notebook so I can write down any ideas that pop into my mind.

So although this letter was long, I hope it gave you a good idea of who I am as a reader and writer right now. I hope to improve my reading and analyzing skills this year as well as read some interesting literature.

Sincerely,
Deepa Rao

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