Nicole Eggen

my school blog

[nicoleeggen]

r e d

I really needed to do a mini post on this symbol because it honestly goes without saying.

This color has been present throughout the course of this whole book. The red uniforms of the Handmaids, the red smile of the people hung on the wall, the red tulips of Serena Joy’s garden, so I did some research on what this means within the book. At the very beginning of the book, Offred describes the color of her uniform as blood. I personally see that as a symbol of the violence and power of their dystopian society. A thought I had while reading a part about the wall was the fact that the hanged man had a blood soaked smile. I read it some what as a “smile through the pain” metaphor. Essentially that is what everyone in this republic is forced to do. They need to act as if everything is okay in order to make it out alive. But after looking up what else the color represents, it also represents fertility, or the menstrual blood. So with these two ideas of blood representing fertility and violence, I think it just coincides with how people view this society. Those who rebel against it and want to fight for what is right, and those who go along with the laws set in place.

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part four-six

Originally what drew my attention was the idea of totalitarianism and the government having complete control of citizen’s actions. Although, after getting further into the book and specifically these parts, I’m just now starting to see why the idea of feminism is so important in this book. Now I obviously knew this was a major theme, but it just clicked of how important this idea is and quite honestly, I’m terrified. In Chapter 13, I remember reading this one line that really stayed with me and made me realized how absolutely brainwashed these women have become under the power of their new government. 

“But whose fault was it? Aunt Helena says.

“Her fault, her fault, her fault.”

This is a society where these women are forced to obey the laws to survive. They began to conform to the rules that were put into place and they honestly start to believe it, which is terrifying because these things exist today. You see it in countries around the globe, specifically in North Korea. But after reading about the country, I realized the brain washing starts very young. The handmaids were brainwashed well into adult age and after years of learning about who they could be and who they are. Imagine that? The government inflicting fear onto their citizens to follow the laws and change who they are entirely. Yeah, fucking terrifying. Specifically this sticks out cause these are women who seemed to have grew up in a time of rebellion, and knows their rights as women. They need to do whatever they can to survive and no they can’t be out of place. 

Now at the moment, this idea of brainwashing the citizens and having absolute power is very intriguing to me and I believe I’m gonna focus more on this portion of the book.

(The article I read on brainwashing: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/for-north-koreas-kims-its-never-too-soon-to-start-brainwashing/2015/01/15/a23871c6-9a67-11e4-86a3-1b56f64925f6_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.edeb239d10f0 )

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part three: night

Night. Again. 

But hey, I now know why these Night sections are so important. Offred explained to her audience that the night time is her time. This is her time to reflect and remember the days when she was free to do what she pleased with her family and friends.

She also refers to her audience as “you”. At the end of the part, Offred says “I’ll pretend you can hear me. But it’s no good, I know you can’t”. I want to figure out who she is speaking to? I know this is in her head but she says it like she is talking to someone in particular. Is it the reader or someone from her past?

(Really short post but this was a really short part.)

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part two: shopping

After reading the second part, one thing is sticking with me. Imagery.

It’s something so simple but when you look at it in the bigger picture, you see why it’s so relevant to this book. It’s Offred remembering every little detail of her past life before Gilead with Luke and her daughter and what the people took for granted. What they had, they can no longer have. This part goes into detail of the roles that people take on in this new society and what is expected of them. 

The political hierarchy has completely restructured their country to Gilead, where everyone has a certain role to take on. Everyone’s freedoms has been stripped of them, especially the women of this society. The handmaid’s, Offred’s role, are assigned to a married couple to give birth. If anyone goes out of line, serious consequences will be given. The Wall is honestly horrifying to me. It’s used as basically a warning what will happen if anyone is out of line with the rules set in place. 

Offred explains her role as a handmaiden and how she is typically looked down upon on most of society for her position. I really want to know what determines someones role? It hasn’t explained why she received this job and not job such a Martha, etc. I don’t know that is just bothering me that I don’t know.

 (Also, the color red just keeps popping up in this book and I’m definitely going to research more into what it means.)

[nicoleeggen]

part one: night

- PSA: I’ve been writing my thoughts in my journal while on my vacation so I’m writing my thoughts for the first couple parts all at the same time.-

The first part of the Handmaiden’s Tale is really short section. I didn’t know much of the book going into it except that it was a dystopian style book. Off the bat, I noticed that in the table of contents, there was a reoccurring title called “Night”, so I assumed that it may be important to keep note what is happening then.

In the first part, the main character, Offred, shares her thoughts with the audience on her past and what is going through her head. My main takeaway from the first part is that obviously nothing is what it used to be. Offred explains that “We tried to sleep, in the army cots that had been set up in rows, with spaces between us so we could not talk. We had flannel sheets, like children’s, and army-issue blankets, old ones that still said U.S.” My thoughts are that obviously this is the work of the government and that Offred’s world is greatly changing because we can see her reflecting on her past and how much more freedom the people used to have.

[nicoleeggen]

Research Project: Choosing The Work

For my research project novel, my goal was to broaden my horizons to something I would never typically choose. For my summer reading, I chose to read Doctor Sleep by Stephen King, very different from the book I chose to read now. Another option for the summer reading was The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood. When I was choosing the book at the time, The Handmaid’s Tale looked very dull from the cover, and since it was a new start of the year I wanted something exciting so I ended up reading a Stephen King novel.

After reading Doctor Sleep, it wasn’t really a book I was able to get into and I heard everyone else in my class chose to read Handmaid’s Tale, and I became very interested. When we got the opportunity to chose our own fiction novel, I asked my friend who had read Handmaid’s Tale how much she would recommend it knowing my interests. She gave me a synopsis of what it is about and only told me that it covers a lot about feminism. My main goal was to broaden my horizons, so I decided that I would give the book a shot. 

[nicoleeggen]

vagabond

The glimmering lights of the inferior heaven

I see them just beyond.

Out of reach,

too far from the breach,

and it begins to dawn.

I’m another one of many,

another hopeless vagabond.

[nicoleeggen]

the perks of being a wallflower

The Perks of Being a Wallflower is considered to be one of the most relevant teen rebellion movies of our generation. Unlike Rebel Without a Cause, it has more realistic scenarios that teenagers may have to deal with at their age. Issues such as sexuality, drugs, and friendships are more common issues that teens deal with that were presented in the movie. Although Rebel demonstrated parental problems that teens could deal with, it was very exaggerated and doesn’t present the problem in a way most people can connect to them. When discussing the film with my group, we believed that the main characters of the film were very relatable in the issues that they faced. Charlie’s biggest issue was trying to fit in amongst his peers, Sam struggled with trying to get into colleges and dealing with rumors, and Bill struggled with people becoming accepting of his sexuality. There was a wide range of problems that the characters in the movie dealt with, which is why I feel like this movie is able to relate so well to modern day teenagers rather than the teenagers in Rebel Without a Cause.

Looking at who the film was aimed toward, I believe that the movies main audience was teenagers. Rebel Without a Cause was able to target both adults and teens since it discussed both the parents of teens and teenagers themselves. The Perks of Being a Wallflower mainly centered at teenagers’ personal issues in a way that adults most likely would not connect with. The writer and director of The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Stephen Chbosky, intended to inform his audience about the struggles that many teenagers may face. The message to his audience shows them that they are not alone when facing these issues and there is always people who can help you.

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rebel without a cause

After watching Rebel Without a Cause, I noticed how many comparisons could be made with Rebel and with modern day movies. Since this is believed by many to be the first teenage angst movie, I believe this establishes many of the stereotypes that we observe in movies today. Keeping in mind that it is still a movie, intended to entertain and captivate it’s audience, everything is dramatized within the movie to some extent.

There is obviously differences between how this movie compares to actual teenagers. They amplify the aspect of bullying throughout the movie and act out extragvagent scenes, such as the “Chicken Run” scene. My group and I discussed how even nowadays, we do not see bullying as much as it is presented within movies. Although these scenes may not represent teenagers accurately, the problems that the teenagers in the movie struggle with may be what some teens struggle with now. A typical issue that many teenagers struggle with is trying to connect with their parents. All of the main characters struggled with issues such as this. Jim wanted his father to start “acting like a man” so he could respect him as a father, Judy wanted more attention from her father, and Plato’s parents abandoned him. Though these issues may be different from what people may deal with now, they all deeply affect their mental stability. I think that this really relates to teens nowadays because many of the issues we face, whether it be parents, school, etc., can lead to many issues such as Anxiety or Depression amongst teens.

When looking at the movie through the rhetorical triangle, I had a difficult time deciding who the speaker of the movie was. Ultimately, I decided that it had to be the director, Nicholas Ray. Ray intended to make this film so that it could be the first film to look at America from the adolescent point of view. It gives his audience a look into the teen rebellion movement that was sweeping across America, and gives them a reason why so many teens were creating a rebellion for themselves. I believe that his intended audience was adults and teenagers. His purpose was to show the reasoning behind why so many teenagers tend to cause a rebellion while at the same time connecting with the teens of America.

[nicoleeggen]

lo-fi

It can be inferred that there is no such thing as an original idea. Many people believe that everything is just a remix of what has come before it. I believe that the idea of “remixing” helps us enhance our previous concepts, which allows us to continue creating such advanced and unique ideas. These remixed items can be so adjusted that they can be considered original.  One thing that people have developed that I believe to be very original is the idea of lo-fi hip-hop.

Lo-fi Hip Hop is a sub-genre of music that is mostly focused on sampling jazz, acoustic or old songs backed up by downtempo drums and poor audio quality (low fidelity). Compared to more popular forms of hip-hop, the biggest differences found in lo-fi centers around the quality and feel of the songs. Typical hip-hop is considered to be fast-paced and upbeat, while the intention of lo-fi is to give off a sense of nostalgia and melancholy. Many of the songs in the genre sample audio clips from movies and TV shows to help create the atmosphere the artist is trying to set with the song. The overall reason why lo-fi is considered to be so “original” is because it takes a whole new spin on what people interpret regular hip-hop to be. It combines music genres such as jazz and other forms of instrumental music and creates them into a smooth and calming form of hip-hop. Lo-fi has reached out to a whole new crowd of people to engage in listening to hip-hop and has many different artists creating music for the genre, such as Tommpabeats and jinsang. Although these songs are remixes, a whole new sub-genre has been created from this style of music, making it original.

[nicoleeggen]

Secondary Source #6

https://parenting.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/24/fighting-in-front-of-the-kids/?mtrref=www.google.com&gwh=E8AA65776F67D768163686A312974515&gwt=pay

This article tells more about how fighting can affect families. The article talks about how the author and her spouse fighting can negatively affect their children. In my primary work, Sheff and his ex-wife Vicki have fought in front of Nic many times. He touches on the topic of divorce in his book a couple times and how it had an effect on both Nic and Nic’s step-siblings. I thought including divorce in my research would be an interesting thing to include and how a divorced family and non-divorced family differs. Sheff also includes many sources in his book on divorce that may also be good as secondary sources.

[nicoleeggen]

Secondary Source #5

http://www.developmentalscience.com/blog/2014/04/30/what-happens-to-children-when-parents-fight

My fifth secondary source is an article written by Diana Divecha, Ph. D. In the article, she discusses how parents fighting with their children can affect their relationships and the children. She also lists ways on how these problems can be resolved between the parents and children. I thought this would be a good source so that I can get a deeper insight into how families are affected by this and what the outcome is.

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Secondary Source #4

http://kalw.org/post/san-quentin-radio-rebuilding-family-relationships-inside-prison-walls#stream/0

The podcast I chose for my secondary source tells the audience about inmate Cleo Cloman and how he was able to reconnect with his father after doing time in jail for murder. I thought this would make a good secondary source because in my primary work, it tells about a father and son trying to rebuild their relationship, which is similar to this one. 

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Secondary Source: The Wall of Love Outside a Jail By Annie Correal

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/31/nyregion/metropolitan-detention-center-brooklyn-jail-signs.html?rref=collection%2Ftimestopic%2FFamilies%20and%20Family%20Life&action=click&contentCollection=timestopics®ion=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=13&pgtype=collection

I choose this as a secondary source because this adds more support to how families should always have each other back. This article is about a warehouse across the street from a jail that has been filled up with messages from the families of the inmates. This connects with my primary work because even though Nic was using drugs, Sheff never gave up on him. With this article, the families of the inmates don’t leave them behind, even after the crimes they committed. I thought this would be good evidence to other situations where families still support each other. 

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Secondary Source: Tweak By Nic Sheff

http://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Tweak/Nic-Sheff/9781416913627

My primary work, Beautiful Boy by David Sheff, discusses the author's son and his path through his road to recovery from drugs. I thought this would make a good secondary source because I can have the point of view of the father during this journey, and now the point of view of the son and how he felt during his journey. As I was reading the description of the book, Nic Sheff made mention of how his family guided him down the road to recovery. Although the book revolves around how others can get help with addiction, I thought it could be of good insight into how families are affected during this as well.

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Visit Original Link

After listening to this song, I thought this would be a perfect secondary source. The song is about being there for each other. In the song, the artist is asking their close one if they are still able to trust their love, which makes me think they already have had a hard time. I feel like this would be a good secondary source because, in my primary work, a reoccurring theme is about standing by your family through thick and thin. This is also the primary theme in this song, which states that even in your darkest moments, you can always count on family. 

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Reading #5 (Thoughts)

In the final part of the book, Sheff discusses how he managed to deal with Nic and how he coped with his emotions. Sheff mentioned that throughout Nic’s addiction, many other parents have told him that they pray for Nic and his family. Sheff never has prayed before he heard this, but while Nic was in his final relapse, he found himself praying. He states, “Please God heal Nic. It’s my plea to whatever higher power there is, they-they in the endless rehabs, the endless meetings-the one they promise is out there listening. I repeat it inside my head sometimes without even knowing I am saying it: Please God heal Nic”. Throughout the book, he mentions how Nic has always questioned the concept of God and why they do not attend church. For Sheff, he grew up never believing in God. Now as we reach the end of the book, we see how he has found a way to cope with his thoughts by confiding in “the higher power”.

As I finished the book, I was amazed at what Sheff had to go through and how he was able to get through it. No matter how angry or frustrated Sheff found himself, he gave up everything for Nic. While still acting as a father to two other children, Sheff had to make time for Al-Anon meetings (meetings for the family members of addicts), his own work as a journalist, and flights back and forth to visit with Nic in the rehab center. Even after Nic would constantly rob Sheff’s  household during his relapses, Sheff would still support Nic and give him money to stay steady. This was one of Sheff’s biggest challenges, having to decide whether to continue to stand by Nic or leave him for his own. As a parent, you know you have to do whatever is best for your children, but sometimes the best may not actually be what you think. I’m having trouble thinking of a way to put this so here, Sheff knew that giving Nic money would just lead to him purchasing more drugs, but Sheff didn’t want the point to come where Nic would actually be in trouble. Sheff always told himself that things would get better and wants to believe that Nic is trying to get better, but he never knew when to believe him after all of his relapses. Yet, throughout all his doubts that Nic may never get better, Nic eventually overcome his addiction and was able to rebuild his life.