Carly's Blog

English 210 - Carly Mangus

[carlymangus]

Wide Sargasso Sea 2

"Bertha is not my name. You are trying to make me into someone else, calling me by another name," (147)

This passage struck me with this whole idea of name as identity. Of course, if someone walked up to you on the street and asked you for your name, and when you gave it, told you they knew what you are, who you are, you would refuse to believe them. How could a name be the essence of something?

A rose by any other name would still smell as sweet, right? But in this book, the name hold much more weight than that. It would be easy to suggest that the reason for this is this subtle magic "obeah" that seems to be pulling the mystical strings of the novel. Sometimes, magics deal in naming, which can alter the identity of the object, if I name a tree a table, that is what it becomes.

On the other hand, there is always the stigma of identity that is attached to the name. If you don't know what someone's name is, you make an assumption sometimes, "oh, he looks like a John." It's in kidding, but it's still a reality. Nicknaming people based on their appearance is another normality that happens every day. The name is used to identify someone, so in some ways, a name really does matter. You think two completely different things if you hear "that red flower" and "rose." The same goes for "Antionetta" and "Bertha." So when Rochester calls her "Bertha," she must get the feeling that he considers her to be like her mother. If he is identifying her that way, then he must be identifying her with her mother, which, in keeping with this logic, would effectively make her into her mother, thus marking her crazy or mad. 

Another thing that strikes me is the use of "trying." "Trying," to me, denotes lack of success. He's trying real hard to turn her into someone else, but at this point its not working. Obviously it works later on, because she loses it completely and becomes Bertha and burns that shit down, but at this point it is still not working. Also, "trying" denotes purpose. Like she's accusing Rochester of purposefully attempting to change her into this lunatic that her mother became. Like the madness is his fault (and it probably is, let's face it, that guy really sucks) and she knows it. 

I also think Rochester calls her Bertha as a way to separate himself from her. If her name is something else, then she is not the woman he married, she is something—someone different, and apart from him. It is what allows him to live as an "unmarried" man later on and get all up on Jane. 

I think the moral of this story is that Rochester is a cruel, closed minded, racist bastard who deserves to be blinded, because as a young man he was completely blind to the beauty of another culture.

[carlymangus]

Wide Sargasso Sea 1

"And if the razor grass cut my legs and arms I would think 'It's better than people.' Black ants or red ones, tall nests swarming with white ants, rain that soaked me to the skin – once I saw a snake. All better than people." (28)

This line really stood out to me for a few reasons. The most obvious being that this girl is saying she would rather be sliced in the legs and arms by grass and see swarming ants than anything "people". That's so crazy! But you know, there is a lot of attention paid to color here.

Black ants, red ants, and white ants can very easily be associated with colors of people as well. The white ants swarming tall nests, the white man living on top. Now, I'm thinking this is a bit of a stretch, since there are very few details in this passage to make this a clear shot, but it's certainly interesting that these ants, that could stand in for people are still better than people. Even in the ants, the white ones inhabit a taller nest than the red and black ones.  

At the same time, the comment about the razor grass is very interesting as well. She talks here and there about how it would be better if she were dead, which makes me wonder if this razor grass slicing her legs and arms is more than just grass. The use of the word "razor" is what leads me here, as a razor is a tool, not only used to shave, but also often equated with suicide. So at this point, Antoinette is thinking about how that would even be better than people. Suicide, snakes, ants, all better than people.  Considering that this is Grace Poole we're talking about here all of this makes a whole lot of sense. She's doomed to be mad from the start, not only because of her mother's genetics, but because of her ultimate fate, which, while having nothing to do with razors, grass, or razor grass, results in suicide. 

Another thing that strikes me about this passage is the fact that she doesn't narrow down what it is about these things that makes them better than people, or what about people they're better than. These general things, just in their existence, makes them better than people. And not just better than people at something or for something, better than all things about all people. She prefers ants to people, and not for any particular reason, it's just that in her mind, ants are greater than people in general. While I can relate (hermit, I am. People, I dislike) this still strikes me as odd.  

[carlymangus]

Dorian Gray Blog Things Mark II

All throughout the second half of the book, beauty and ugliness sort of go through this shift. As Dorian becomes more and more corrupt, and realizes it, ugliness becomes what is real, and beauty the fantasy, the mask.  "Ugliness that had once been hateful to him because it made things real, became dear to him now for that very reason. Ugliness was the one reality." (156)

This is so interesting to me, because throughout the novel before this point, beauty is always described in this aura of fantasy. His youth is consistently referenced as a mask, and half of a chapter (chapter eleven) is spent discussing Dorian's wish that the good old days return. The good old days being the times of old in which Gods roamed the Earth and lived in luxury. This reference to mythology further supports that beauty is fake. If this is the beautiful life, then that life does not exist. Ugliness is what is real. As with Dorian himself. He is beautiful, but not really. In keeping with that idea that one's outward appearance should reflect their inner self, Dorian Gray doesn't match up. He's beautiful and youthful no matter how much evil he does. Despite his deeds, people still see him as boyish and innocent, because his portrait is absorbing all of the corruption of his soul. This is why his beauty is a fantasy, a mask. It isn't real, what's real is the physical representation of his corruption in the portrait, the ugly truth, so to speak. What does this mean? Well, if we consider the fact that Dorian is constantly compared to art, basically he is art in this case, it's easy to connect the dots. If his beauty, which is art, is a fantasy, maybe humans cannot be beautiful. Even when they look nice on the outside, their beauty is a mask for the corruption beneath. As Dorian realizes his own corruption and ugliness, he too realizes that his beauty is not real, that beauty in general is not even real. Reality is ugly, and therefore life is ugly.

[carlymangus]

Dorian Gray Blog Things

"All art is quite useless." Now, this preface by Oscar Wilde is super intense, but the most surprising assertion is this idea that "all art is quite useless." Especially considering the fact that this book is about a portrait, and opens with an artist talking about his art as though it is a piece of himself. It seems like Wilde is saying that this art has no value at all. At least, it looks this way at face value. In truth, what he's doing here is establishing an understanding with his audience that art is given value by its viewers. The preface is describing art as a valueless object, assigned meaning by the people who see it. The meaning people get from the art, in this piece, defines them and not the art in question. The man who finds corruption in art where there is none is the corrupt one in the relationship. This is really well defined by the line "the highest as the lowest form of criticism is a mode of autobiography." When someone criticizes a piece, or critiques it, or whatever inane judgment, that judgment defines them, tells the story of their life. I find this concept interesting going into this story about a painting. Here we have this idea that a painting holds Dorian Gray's very youth within it. After Henry Wotton gives Dorian a huge diatribe about the fact that Dorian will one day grow old and decrepit and be ugly and sad and depressed and old. Dorian starts to think that way too, and in seeing this painting, he sees not the masterwork of an artist he has befriended, but something that will cease to be, something he realizes he must hold on to because when it disappears he will be left without anything. The painting literally becomes his youth as he wishes he could sell his soul to remain that way. Eventually, as he decays morally, the portrait begins to decay as well. He sees this portrait of himself and is disgusted by it, hiding it away. His criticism of the painting—the fact that it disgusts him—is a direct result of the fact that in this portrait he sees his own moral decay. He finds corruption in this painting because he himself is corrupt. The portrait becomes his own autobiography, literally, in this case, as he begins to see his own moral decay in it. 

[carlymangus]

Sonnet 130

The speaker in this poem is describing his mistress. Rather than singing her praises, he seems to be tearing her down, comparing her to normal conventions of beauty (coral lips, beautiful eyes, white skin, etc.) but refuting each one. Why would he do this? Perhaps this is an early feminist sonnet. Maybe, Shakespeare's supposed collaborator was actually a woman (Shakespeare in Love anyone?) writing about women being beautiful without following "normal" conventions of beauty. A woman writing as a man, saying that even though his mistress's skin is grey, her hair is wires, and her breath reeks, she is beautiful and he loves her just the same. It's interesting to think that perhaps a woman is writing this. Perhaps she's got a sickly pallor to her flesh, her lips are pale, and her hair coarse, and she wrote this as a sort of love poem for women like her.

Maybe, it's comedy. Just by examining a few of the lines, for example: "coral is far more red than her lips' red;," "if snow be white, why then her breasts are dun," and "and in some perfumes is there more delight / Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks" and "I love to hear her speak, yet well I know / That music hath a far more pleasing sound,"; one can easily transcribe "Sonnet 130" into a modern-day comedy bit: "My woman, well, what can I say? Her breath stinks, her breasts are less than pleasing and when I try to touch her hair I feel like all my skin is going to be sanded off! Sometimes, when she talks to me, just the sound of her voice makes me want to put my head through a wall! But what can you do, right? I love her anyway." It's like bad stand-up. It makes sense though. Using previous Shakespeare works as a guide, this is clearly of the comedic tone he takes in his lighter plays. At the same time, this sonnet kind of mocks the conventions of sonnets in general.

Sonnets are typically written as tributes of love dripping in flowery language and compliments and comparisons to a summer's day. This one, however, is different. All the flowery language is there, but the comparison is different. Taking that sort of formula, Shakespeare is essentially creating a sonnet that has the speaker depicting his mistress realistically rather than putting her on some pedestal of feminine perfection.  

Satire or not, this poem is definitely comedic. The sweet-sounding words keep the tone light (dun, coral, lips, sun, delight, etc.), no matter how they're being used in comparison, and the sonnet style in general lends well to a friendly-sounding poem. This poem contrasts other poems of the time, creating a light nudge to the audience, almost suggesting: "let's get back to reality here, not every woman is a vision of perfection, in fact, most of them aren't! Sonnets are not only cheesy, but also inaccurate most of the time." It's a polite reminder to the audience that love poems are ridiculous, but it's also a bit of fun and a laugh.  

[carlymangus]

"In a Station of the Metro"

The title makes the setting clear, we're in a metro station. So, to consider this poem accurately, I picture myself standing in this station of the metro and the apparition of faces in the crowd is the quick glances I get at people's faces as they file around me, going about their busy days. So this is what's happening, but what does it mean to the poem? Next I look at the words being used. "Apparition". Usually, I'd equate this with a ghost or spectre, something you see for a moment in the corner of your view, but you cannot touch it and it is not there for long. That idea of what is there and gone is what struck me here. If I'm standing in this metro station, and the faces in the crowd are the apparitions, that would make sense. These are people I'll never see again, or if I do, I won't recognize them. They basically only exist to me in that moment as they pass, and after that their lives are completely separate from mine.

Moving on from there to line two, "Petals on a wet, black, bough", I have to decide what the petals are standing in for, and what the bough is standing in for. This line is a metaphor describing the first line. Grammatically speaking, the petals are directly relative to the faces here, and connotatively speaking, petals are beautiful pieces of a flower. Now, the petals only separate from the flower near the end of the flower's bloom, so easily, Pound could be saying that the petals falling are the fleeting beauty of human youth, falling away as these people go about their daily life, riding the metro to their 9-5, or their shopping trip, or their visit to grandmother's house, and as the petals pass he sees their beauty and watches it fall onto a dank black tree branch. Or, perhaps their beauty is only passing because they exist so fleetingly to him, it's not that their beauty is degrading, but simply that the "apparitions" fade away quickly and fall around him.

Before I can make a decision either way, I have to decide what the tree branch means. Easily, the tree branch could be referring to the metro station itself. These people are petals falling into the station, they are a fleeting beauty in a dank environment. Perhaps these people are the only signs of life and beauty in a society that is growing industrially and away from what is natural. Is nature beauty here? As people fall further and further into the unnatural abyss of technology is their beauty fleeting like that of a petal, waiting to soak into the dank, black bough of progress? Or maybe, it is not the station that is the bough, but rather the crowd. Maybe this poem argues that individuality is what is beautiful and fleeting as people fall into crowds and lose themselves to the pressure to be like their peers. The petals are beautiful when you see them fall around you, but then, when they fall into the wet bough, they soak the dampness in and become dirty, and flaccid, and their beauty and bright color is lost to the dankness of the branch on which they fall; a person's individuality is lost as he assimilates into the crowd around him.

I will argue that Ezra Pound, while in a station of the metro, felt a profound lonliness as these beautiful faces passed him by, continuing on with their lives around him. He saw their beauty as he looked at these faces, but he couldn't look for long, since these apparition faces were on their way and out of his view before he could even fully appreciate their existence. If he turns to follow them, they are gone completely, filing in to the crowd, become another coat-clad back or hat-covered head. Even though he was surrounded by these beautiful faces, these petals falling around him, they soon stuck to the wet bough, and no longer shone with the individuality they had in that one moment in which he could see their faces.

[carlymangus]

Andrey: "The present is repulsive, but when I think of the future how wonderful things become! There's a feeling of ease, of space; and in the distance there's a glimmer of the dawn, I see freedom, I see myself and my children freed from idleness, from kvass, from goose with cabbage, from a nap after dinner, from the ignoble life of a parasite..."( Three Sisters 273)

After reading "Three Sisters", I decided to look at Andrey's monologue at the end of the play where he explicitly expresses his dissatisfaction with the present, calling it "repulsive". The reason the present is so "repulsive" to them is because they live in this vision of the "future" they have created around their dreams of Moscow, and because of all that, their lives pass them by as they remain trapped in the present. The point of their folly, of course, is to illustrate that a happy future cannot be achieved without hard work.

Because they convince themselves the future is so bright, when in fact they are making "future" interchangeable with "dreams", they have created for themselves a dissatisfaction with the now. They are idle because they keep planning their lives around this "future" in Moscow that they'll never have, so Andrey gambles, and they all work jobs they're too smart for. Rather than working hard at fixing their life now, they sit in this "idleness" caused by their being trapped in dreams of the future in Moscow.

I also found it interesting that he starts listing routine daily things when he talks about wanting "freedom from idleness". Now, it seems to me that Andrey could easily get off his ass and change something about his life, but because he's so focused on how much he hates this routine, he can't shake it. Focusing on hating it is actually causing him to follow it day in and day out. It's notable, too, that he wishes for "freedom from idleness", but rather than actually freeing himself from it, he waits around for this amazing vision of the future to do it for him. But, because he's just waiting, he's perpetuating this idleness that he so loathes.

The "feeling of ease, of space" that Andrey gets from the "future" he and his sisters dream of is interesting as well. Even though they're feeling idle and trapped, Andrey feels a sense of "ease" from the future that he dreams of. When they dream of the future, they feel "ease" and "space", as if their whole life is ahead of them, when really it's passing. That's why the word "ease" strikes me so much here, it's like dreaming is easy, so they spend all their time at it, but because living and working in the present toward their future goal is hard and painful, they let themselves remain trapped in the "ease" of dreaming about it.

Anything in life that the sisters and Andrey find "repulsive" is their own doing. Because they're so focused on their dreams of a future they hope will simply come to pass, their lives go by them as they live in idleness. Because they don't work for a change, they don't get one, and the cycle of their misery continues. Dreaming of a life where their intelligence will be put to use, where they'll be among scholarly people in a better place is easy, but it's just dreaming. They'll never come out of their rut if they don't dig themselves out.

[carlymangus]

Blog Post 2 - Winesburg, Ohio; On Hands

The first chapter of Winesburg, Ohio sets the stage of the book with this idea of "Hands". By referring to hands as "the hands" instead of "his hands", the author separates hands with this strange, impersonal wording. Rather than calling Biddlebaum's hands "his hands", he separates them with "the", creating a rift between the character and his hands. 

So, upon realizing this, I started looking at hands as a separate object. Something more than just an appendage at the end of human arms. What are hands used for? They're human tools for holding, moving, binding, covering, waving, communicating, building, breaking, etc. After reading "Hands", in which Biddlebaum's hands are a restrictive element, constantly reminding him of his terrible ordeal, I decided to consider the hands in the rest of the reading this way too. Anderson uses this idea of hands not as the evolutionary mastery the differentiates humanity from lower lifeforms, but instead as a symbol of this "stuckness" we're kind of focusing on in class.

Now, Biddlebaum's hands are known for their dexterity and "reckless activity". To me, these seem like very freeing ideas. Good dexterity is a trait that allows for more skill at using the hands, I feel like if I had famous dexterity, I would be far more skilled at small tasks like the piano and drawing, or even building things or any sort of hand-related task. That's why I find it so interesting that this man was so focused on separating himself from "the hands" he had. In their very skill they bound him. Because he used them so much and so well, they created problems with his previous town, and effectively bound him to seclusion when he escaped to Winesburg. It seems counter-intuitive that skilled hands would actually be a restriction, but the idea comes up later too, though not as prominently, in later parts of the book. In "Paper Pills", for example, the most vividly described hands belong to the doctor, whom the woman eventually marries. While this seems like a freeing aspect, it is described almost like an addiction. Analogized to "twisted apples", his remarkably large knuckles are meant to be like a fruit that looks ugly and is thrown away, but in reality is sweeter than the good-looking fruit. She finds herself unable to "get her mind fixed" off from him. It's almost like this freeing element, this man who is sweeter than the others, though his hands are not pretty like the jeweler's long, white hands, basically has her bound to him until she eventually dies. She is happy, but restricted again.  The idea that something can be restrictive in their freeingness is very intriguing to me. Because these hands are skilled or sweet, they cause the people around or attached to them to be bound by that skill or sweetness. Something that should give them freedom or happiness is also what restricts them. It makes sense though, that something that does or did you so much good would cause you to become dependent. In general we fancy ourselves, as humans, to be marvels of evolution, when without these hands we're so proud of, we're very limited. In a way, we're bound by hands as much as the characters in this book seem to be. 

[carlymangus]

Blog Post 1 - La Jetee

"The violent scene that upset him and whose meaning he was only to grasp years later...."

This quote sets the film movie up very much like a cycle. By starting with a scene and coming back to it in the end, creator Chris Marker totally traps his characters and his audience in a circular storyline. Falling in with our overall theme of "stuckness", the man lives to adulthood in a decimated post-WWIII planet focusing on a scene from his past. A scene that will also be a part of his future.

I chose to focus on the second instance of this scene in the film, the ending. As he returns to the observation deck at Orly, the man, while focusing on the woman he is trying to find, vaguely realizes that his childhood self must be there somewhere, watching the planes. It is only when he recognizes the man from the camp that everything falls into place: "that moment he'd been granted to see as a child, and that had obsessed him forever after was the moment of his own death."

Cinematographically, this scene illustrates this futility very clearly. In the few seconds he spends running to the woman, there are fifteen frames of him running to her, only interrupted by frames of her face. As he's running, the only sound in the background is the sound of planes taking off, like in the beginning of the film. Finally, just before reaching her, a frame of the man from the camp is shown as the man is shot to death before her. It's like the movie's creator is saying "fate is fate. Resistance is futile, and this is why." He wrapped the entire story of this character around one event that occurs simultaneously at the beginning and end of the character's life.

It's actually rather eerie. The man's life totally revolves around the moment of his own death. It's very easily an assertion on thh idea that most people are stuck in the past, chained by it in one way or another. So this man, who is so obsessed with an image from his past finally moves forward in his life and ultimately dies at the moment that obsessed him. He is so taken by his past that it becomes his future. An extreme case, but the point is, nevertheless, made. The man is so trapped in the past that it causes him to time travel there, and after meeting the woman whose face he'd remembered since his childhood, he chooses his past over the future, where the humans of tomorrow offer him a haven from the men at the camp. Then he comes full circle, creating the moment that would obsess him for years to come, furthering the cycle. It is only as he is dying that he realized that the image that plagued him so was his own death, his own future in the past.

-Carly Mangus