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

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