1/31/16

After reading parts one and two of Native Son, along with some of the final part, I have come to realize that the characters in the novel are extremely complex, and that they are all driven by different factors. These factors can partially explain why some of the characters do the shocking things they do, or even say. We can start with one of the more obvious factors that drives Bigger, and that is fear. His violent tendencies are all rooted from the fear he has had his entire life, and this is because he was born into fear. He was born into oppression, so the fear that was caused by his oppression almost became a part of Bigger. This fear led him to being an overall violent person, whether it was physically fighting his friends or getting in trouble with the law in the past. The reasons that fear led to violence were unclear in the beginning of the novel, but they get clearer and clearer as I read on. Bigger figures that the only way to deal with his fear is to physically fight it, and this leads to the murder of two people. The first one being out of fear from getting caught by Mrs. Dalton, or getting fired from his job, but the second one being out of fear from getting caught by the police, or death (although another reason for the rape and murder of Bessie was dominance and control). Although it’s true that fear is the psychological reason for these occurrences, it doesn’t make the murders any more reasonable. His actions were still extremely irrational, and that may conclude that Bigger has the tendencies of a sociopath. Along with fear, his oppression and the society that he lives in directly affects Bigger’s actions. Due to his oppression, he strives to be above his oppressors, and this may be why he kills Mary – to get a glimpse of the white world, even if it means killing an innocent girl. We also see how society’s beliefs and expectations of black people manifest itself into reality in Bigger’s life. He is accused of intentionally raping and murdering Mary, which is untrue (if you call that murder accidental), but this turns into a truth when he intentionally rapes and murders Bessie. His motives are very complex and almost confusing, but his actions were so impulsive and violent that they need some type of explanation. Along with Bigger, Jan’s character is also fairly complex. Although he does not play a huge role in this book, I noticed his genuineness when he visited Bigger in jail. In the beginning of the novel, I thought he was extremely fake because I assumed he was being nice to Bigger just to help the Communist party. Part of me still believes this, but when he spoke to Bigger in the beginning of part three, I saw the good in him. It was almost unrealistic, because Jan forgave Bigger for killing the girl he loved. His authenticity is hard to believe, but it is there when Jan says he wants to help Bigger. Jan’s motives also come from oppression. Not his own, but the oppression of black people. Jan sees how Bigger falls into the equation of racism at the time, and he believes that helping Bigger may help the cause for an end to the inequalities. Also, Jan’s motives were partially selfish, but not in the negative sense. Jan is doing what he is doing to make him feel better about himself, which is completely reasonable. I’m not sure how the book will conclude, but I do know that the character’s complex motives may have something to do with what will happen in this final part.  

11/30/15

In the book The Art of Hearing Heartbeats, the thing I find the most interesting is this struggle inside Julia between conforming to the different natures of her mom and her dad. In most children, they carry traits from both parents, and for Julia, this is difficult because both of her parents are so different. Judith, a fast-paced New Yorker, is basically the product of the city – she wants things immediately, and she lives her life through a busy schedule where her expectations run high. Julia’s father, on the other hand, is the opposite – a Burmese gentleman who takes things slowly and expects things as they come, and he learns to live life simply, while Judith’s life and feelings are extremely complex. With both of these contrasting natures, Julia finds herself stuck in the middle. She follows her mother’s path when she longs for the busy nature of New York when she is in Burma searching for her father, and she desires immediate answers, like her mother would. However, a part of her is just like her dad. The fact that she comes all the way to Burma in search of her father and listens to a stranger for hours about her father’s childhood, which provides no answers, proves that a part of her is just like Tin Win. The book shows some evidence that she has always been closer to her father, like how she always loved to listen to his fantasy stories when she was younger. However, the traits in her mother always come back to her. For example, her immediate desire is to find her father, not to hear his entire life story from U Ba, is something her mother would want. Her life was formed in New York City, where a selfish and impatient nature would come from. But her life was also formed by a father who was raised in Burma, where life’s simplicities are the biggest worry. These two clashing natures collide in Julia, and this creates an inner conflict inside the narrator. Because we have only just started the book, I cannot explain fully who Julia is more like. Throughout the novel, we discover more of this mystery of her father that can later help us figure out if Julia is more like her selfish yet passionate mother or her simple and loving father. However, I don’t want Judith to seem like a hated character. I actually feel for her the most because all she wanted was to be consumed by love, and Tin Win’s selfless nature could never give her that love. This duality of nature is definitely evident in Julia, and maybe we will find out that she is just an exact product of the two parents. This conflicting personality may lead to negative consequences, but I do believe that it will create her true persona. And we might even find out that Tin Win isn’t the amazing man we see him as right now (he did marry Judith, whom he really did not love…). Julia may completely change her feelings towards her father once she finds out more of the truth, and this may change her desire to conform to his Burmese nature. Either way, I’m excited to see how her conflict plays out throughout the novel.

9/28/15

Before getting into Winesburg, Ohio, I was a bit nervous that I would not understand the book at all. A compilation of short stories that have strange and peculiar plots and that somehow all relate to each other scared me at first, but as I read about half the book, even before understanding that the book was a coming of age novel about George, I understood that the short stories were more like a novel. The plots may have been completely different from each other, but what I noticed is that the characters are all extremely similar. Of course, they all live in the small, almost depressing town of Winesburg, and this “small town life” really affected all of these unique but similar characters. Each one had a similar struggle, and the small town restricted these interesting characters from solving this struggle. Throughout the novel, the biggest struggle was loneliness, which is also a repeated word throughout the book. They are all lonely in their own ways, but overall, these similar feelings connected to prove something about human nature – that the inability to communicate and express oneself may lead to loneliness. In the chapter titled Adventure, a young woman named Alice had a typical case of loneliness – the love of her life left and forgot about her, and this led to Alice waiting for him for almost a decade, and not just for this specific person, but for the general feeling of being loved. Her almost unexplainable desire (although many of us can relate to her) led her to being a tragic and lonely character. Loneliness is also represented in the chapter titled Loneliness (of course), where a young man named Enoch escapes to the city to study art, but cannot express his ideas to other humans, so he makes up his own characters in his mind because he knows that they will understand him. His inability to communicate with others makes him a lonely character because he would rather be alone than with others, even if his time “alone” is with people from his mind. Every single character goes through situations where they felt misunderstood, which ultimately leads to loneliness. Even George, the one who hears all the stories from the rest of the characters, feels this loneliness because while he is listening to others, he never takes the time to express himself. Ultimately, his transition into adulthood was partially caused by him realizing that being understood is important. However, although this novel is mainly about George Willard, I don’t believe that he is necessary to one of the themes, which is: oftentimes, the inability to communicate and be understood can lead to a sense of loneliness. I can prove through every character that this statement is correct, and I don’t need to bring up George’s coming of age story to prove my point. And that’s what I realized from Winesburg, Ohio – that not all of the plots have to be connected to make a compilation of short stories a novel. The setting and theme were the two things that definitely joined the chapters into one.

--Natalie Geisel, period 6

8/30

The biggest thing I took away from the few weeks of discussion we’ve had on A Streetcar Named Desire, The Bonesetter’s Daughter, and the few poems that we read is gender roles. Of course, gender roles can be relevant in any situation regarding literature, but what specifically stood out to me was the reversal of gender roles. This was especially relevant in A Streetcar Named Desire and the poem titled “Amoretti” by Edmund Spencer. Both have a message stating that if women take on the roles of males, they may be deemed manipulative, evil, or even crazy. In A Streetcar Named Desire, Blanche definitely took on some masculine traits, like her promiscuity (especially for the time period), her previous job (even if it was a teaching job, which was more common for females, she still had a job in the first place), and the affair she had with her student (when has the female teacher ever done this? It’s always the males, at least back then). Even though the males in the play carried these traits with even more intensity, like violence and brutality, they would be able to get away with these things due to the fact that they are males. Because Blanche is a woman, her more masculine traits that go against societal standards make her seem like a terrible person. Her gender-role-reversal also indirectly made the other characters send her to a mental asylum. Blanche probably was mentally ill, but her masculinity made matters worse because it would not let her fit into society, which is a huge portion of the perception of mental illnesses. To sum things up, Blanche’s mannerisms that fit into a male gender role allowed people to assume that she is simply an “evil” and “manipulative” character, even though she has more depth than that (for example, the tragic backstory of her childhood/adolescence). The poem “Amoretti” states an extremely similar theme. The poem is about a beautiful woman with golden hair that ends up manipulating men because she “traps them” with her beauty. The poem gives this woman masculine traits, like power and money (symbolized through the gold motif) and the ability to control others (in this case, men). However, her masculine traits make her sound like a villain. The men see her as this manipulative, “black widow”-like creature that only leads men into her “traps”. Just because she has power, she is assumed to be a terrible person whose only goal is to hurt men. Men could get away with these traits, but because she’s a woman who takes on masculine traits, she must be evil. These two examples always bring me to this question: What would it be like if the roles were reversed? What if Blanche was a man, doing the exact same things that she was doing? Would the character be treated as crazy, or would he just be a typical, rowdy man who is praised for being overly sexual? The same goes for the poem: If the girl in the poem was a man of power and good looks, manipulating women, would he just be considered a “player” who is still worshipped by men (and even some women)? It’s ironic: when men do things that are typical of them based on gender roles, they are praised. But even in a patriarchal society where the behavior of men is “better” than women’s, women still get shamed by falling into masculine positions. Even though these two examples were written longer ago when the gender division was larger, these things still happen today.

-- Natalie Geisel, period 6