Ruth and Hagar's Plight

In Chapter 5, Toni Morrison centers the passage around the individual plights of Ruth and Hagar. Although their struggles with men they love both concern Milkman, they are troubled differently. In an Ironic twist, they both spend an extreme amount of time attempting to gain attention, love, and admiration from Milkman, but ultimately; their attempts only draw them away from the independent lifestyle that they are capable of living. In effect, their plights are to overcome the dependency they have on the men in their lives.

In Hagar's case, her brake-up with Milkman (viewed as her abandonment,) has left her feeling worthless. Through these feelings, she now dependent on Milkman's attention in order to fully function properly and independently of him. She is stuck on reliving their relationship and these thoughts consume any time for personal growth. For Ruth, her love is maternal. She plays the role of the over concerned mother who overcrowds their child in an attempt to protect him from harm. Although her concern for Milkman seems selfless, this role is the one she feels more comfortable in. Without this title, she would feel lost and worthless in her own life, yet this is covered within her outward desire to assist Milkman. Ironically, this level of comfort stifles personal development in any direction other than maternally.

To prove the need for feminine independence from men, Toni Morrison uses Hagar and Ruth as prime examples of weak women whose existence relies on their relationships with men. Although both women's relationships with Milkman come from different directions, neither woman can feel whole without their dependence on a man. Although this message is hidden within the story, this is simply another of Morrison's political statements about the world in which we live.

Process of Reflection

In William Faulkner's The Sound and The Fury, each character who has their own chapter reflects on the past in different manners. Although some of the moments that each character remembers may be the same, each character has a particular weakness that triggers their past to seep into their current thoughts.

For Benjy, whenever nature or trees are mentioned, he remembers how he loved Caddy's natural smell of the outdoors. This takes him back to remembering viewing her "dirty" bottom from the tree, a metaphor for her dirty morals. The unorganized manner of his passage filled with unrelated memories. For Quentin, representations of time are the triggers which remind him of his sister's marriage and promiscuity. The constant force of time is shown through long, complex sentences and the presence of clocks and watches. In contrast to his brothers complex narratives, Jason's passage is short, simple, and swift. The hardened man he has become is illustrated through his negative memories of the past in relation to what he believes is a disastrous future.

Although each narrative represents its character well, Caddy is ultimately the central memory that each brother has in common. Although she is represented differently and the process of reflection is different, Caddy is the cause of each brother's being.

Dirty Underwear

In The Sound and the Fury, one of the most pivotal and representative scenes is repeated many times. After playing in the stream with her brothers, Caddy attempts to listen in on an adult conversation occurring inside the house. She climbs the tall tree next to the window to make the spying easier. As her brothers look on from the base of the tree, they get a full view of Caddy's muddied underwear (a result of playing in the mud.) This is the first moment which foreshadows Caddy's promiscuity and the "dirtying" of the Compson name. In his chapter, Benjy recalls this moment many times, of course never realizing its significance and being completely unaware of Caddy's lost virginity. This is a physical realization of Caddy metaphorically being dirty in the eyes of her brothers. Also, she happens to be standing on a tree which is the trigger for how Benjy remembers this moment-by Caddy's smell. He always mentions how much she loves that she smells of trees-pure, natural, untouched trees.

The Darkness of War

Heart of Darkness and "Apocalypse Now"can be compared in many ways. By examining their endings and the character of Kurtz, the meaning of the darkness in each piece becomes clear. In the novel the horror reflects Kurtz tragedy of transforming into a ruthless being whereas in the film the horror has more of a definite meaning, reflecting the war and the barbaric nature of war.
Conrad’s Heart of Darkness is the account of Marlow, a man journeying up the Congo River and finally into the jungle. Marlow is commissioned as an ivory agent and is sent to ivory stations along the river. Marlow is told that when he arrives deep within the jungle, he is to bring back information about Kurtz. As Marlow proceeds away to the inner station “to the heart of the mighty big river…. resembling an immense snake uncoiled, with its head in the sea, its body at rest curving afar over a vast country and its tail lost in the depths of the land” (Conrad 303), he hears rumors of Kurtz’s killing of the natives. He is tempted by the idea of this, especially when sees it first hand: “and there it was black, dried, sunken, with closed eyelids- a head that seemed to sleep at the top of that pole, and with the shrunken dry lips showing a narrow white line of the teeth, was smiling too, smiling continuously at some endless and jocose dream of that eternal slumber”(Conrad 57). These heads are evidence of Kurtz’s animal like behavior. At the end of the book, Kurtz is “gradually engulfing the atrocities of the other agents in his own immense horror”(Conrad 303). On his deathbed, Kurtz sputters “The Horror! The Horror!’, words which reflects the tragedy of Kurtz's inhuman nature.
Although "Apocalypse Now" is similarly structured to the novel, it takes on many different meanings. The movie takes place during the Vietnam War. The narrator is Captain Willard, who is given a mission to locate and kill Colonel Kurtz. Kurtz is said to be in Cambodia killing the natives. This is a parallel to the movie. Willard journeys up the river to find Kurtz, and eventually kill him. Kurtz’s words “The Horror!, The Horror!” in the film have a different meaning from the novel. Although these words are the same, their meanings differ as the character of Kurtz changes between mediums.
When Captain Willard, from Apocalypse Now, and Marlow from Heart of Darkness, meet up with their different Kurtzes, the two media break off from their similar structure and start to develop differently. The Kurtz in Conrad’s novel is told to be a genius of civilization. Kurtz becomes a symbol of hope for Marlow. Searching for him amid much heat, bugs, natives and immense fog makes reaching Kurtz even more meaningful. Marlow approaches Kurtz’s place of refuge, described as a shack surrounded by posts, holding high the severed heads of rebels. From these words we can see that Kurtz is no ordinary man. In the movie however, Kurtz is a figure of fear for the natives, as well as a figure of honor. They treat him as their king in a way.
Although the portrayal of Kurtz may differ from medium to medium, the character instills the same hope and awe in the Willard/Marlow character.

Blog #4

In Everything That Rises Must Converge, there are many vivid descriptions of random material objects. By helping the reader easily paint a picture of the scene in their minds, Flannery O'Connor succeeds in making it feel more like a painting than a short story. In particular, the description of the floppy, purple hat to draw attention to the hostility between Julian and his mother, as well as Julian's mother and the woman wearing the identical hat.

Using material objects as symbols and describing them thoroughly, must have been a welcome challenge to O'Connor. This descriptive art was most likely difficult to create. Pick the wrong objects, and the wrong picture would be painted in the reader's mind. The proper dress hat in a bright color spoke to the position of value which Julian's mother thought that she stood. Although the story used a fair amount of description, O'Connor still manages to leave much of the meaning up for interpretation, only adding to the creativity of the piece.

Blog #3- The shift from religion to war

When we first meet Iago, we are immediately aware of his less than virtuous intentions. He was taking Roderigo's money to woo Desdemona and using it for other purposes. In his first scene with Othello, Iago makes it seem that Othello's reputation as a war hero should be looked upon highly, and admired. In a way, he seems to treat Othello as the God of war and that the city is full of his grateful servants. Unbeknown to the audience, this deceiving behavior was a front for Iago's true feelings of jealousy and spite.
In an attempt to prove Harold Goddard's theory true, textual evidence of Iago's changing behavior toward Othello would need to be found. Also, evidence of Iago's manipulation of all the characters would point toward the shift from religion to game. There is plenty of textual evidence to show that Iago is a "moral pyromaniac." One of the best examples of this is when he asks Emilia to retrieve Desdemona's handkerchief. He has so few moral standards that he will ask his wife to assist in his evil plan (and ask her on numerous occasions.) This story doesn't play out much like a game of dominos, push one over, and they all fall down. Ironically, this can also be said for the way in which a fire spreads.

Post 1- I love every part of this blog

This is a quote from my favorite book, "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn."

• "She was made up of all of these good and these bad things...She was the books she read in the library...Part of her life was made from the tree growing rankly in the yard. She was the bitter quarrels she had with her brother whom she loved dearly. She was Katie's secret, despairing weeping. She was the shame of her father staggering home drunk...She was all of these things and of something more...It was something that had been born into her and her only."

My favorite, most inspirational quote (Which happens to be in my senior ad...)-

• "Shoot for the moon, even if you miss you'll land among the stars." -Les Brown

A picture of my favorite place in the entire world and also where I'll be living next year!-

Post #2- Hmmm. I'll have to think on it...

After reading Oedipus, I was shocked to find that the story was still so easy to relate to everyday life, even after these many years. Our basic emotions have not changed, and I am doubtful they will. Although the everyday situations that we are in may have changed drastically, we all love and hate. Though we may not all believe in fate (including myself,) we are all aware of human connections and the fact that we are given the willpower to choose with whom these connections will be made.
Outside of the story, I was more shocked to see the differences in beliefs among the class. When discussing whether we would wish to know our fate if we were able to, It surprised me how people who have gone to the same school together since they were six, and live in the same small town can have such different view points. This made me question why I personally don't believe in fate, yet would wish to know mine if it did exist. I'm still thinking about why my personality has formed like that, and that's in a large part due to Oedipus Rex.