April 27

Last Monday of class :( Summer is on the way

When I was in high school, I had this teacher who was obsessed with the "Hero's Journey." We spent 3 months on interpreting the hero's journey in Beowulf and Star Wars. We compared Beowulf and Luke Skywalker's journey's to the traditional journey of the hero. At the end of the semester we had to analyze "Star Wars : A New Hope" and Luke's journey to becoming a hero. Now whenever I watch, see, or hear anybody mention Star Wars I think of that paper I had to write; I think about Luke's perilous journey to becoming the hero- Call to Adventure, Refsal of the Call, Meeting with the Mentor, Crossing the Threshold, Road of Trials, Refusal of the Return, Magic Flight, Master of Two Worlds.

April 24- On Beauty

English Literature wasn't a subject to study until 1833, you would study Classical Literature- literature in Latin. Would reading literature in latin make you feel smarter? Literature is about interpretation and feeling and if reading it in latin is the "classic" way to read, do you get more out of the text? I think that it could lose some of the meaning because text loses something in translation, not everything can be translated exactly the way it is supposed to be written.

Zadie Smith hates the objectification of women and the facts that the left can't talk about it. Howard says he doesn't believe in "beauty" yet the second two beautiful women show him the time of day he drops his pants. The fact that he contradicts his beliefs is what Zadie Smith is trying to show everybody.

April 22- Theory and On Beauty

Literary Theory: varying ways to read and make meaning of a text

New Criticism: 1920's-1950's, way of seeking out contradictions in a text and figuring out how those contradictions unified the text and created meaning
-Looking at just the text itself and trying to figure out what the author meant.
-1960's: cultural revolution in America, England and France

Psychoanalysis, Unconscious: this directs our thoughts and actions; Oedipus complex (desire for father and desire to kill mother). Latent content of dreams in order to understand, reading you as if you are a text to figure out what dreams and thoughts mean.

Feminism: movement for woman's equality and rights in the 1950's, 1960's and 1970's. Where you read texts to discover hidden or not hidden meanings about female desire, empowerment, equality, sexuality, gender politics, and POWER and SUBJECTIVITY. What makes a woman a woman, a man a man? Who cares what the author thought?

Critical Race Theory: how do the depictions of race determine power?

Texts have a larger cultural meaning. With the various theoretical movements the meaning of a "text" changes.
--Texts: poems, novels, plays, films, TV shows, movies, digital images, art, painting, CD's, music, graffiti, clothes, merchandising, advertising, cultural artifact--- anything that can be interpreted.

Queer Theory: gender issues, power, gender depictions, hetero-normative ways of thinking. Analyzing a text for any type of gender issues. How is queer identity constructed in a text?

Theories that look at a text to analyze and attempt to delve deeper: Power, identity, subjectivity, political significance, cultural significance, types of representation.

Deconstruction: French philosophy of Jacques Derrida. Came along in the 1970's and onward. Question meaning, to question stable notions off identity, to question stable notions of what a person is. Questioning how language makes meaning. Challenging the fundamental meanings of Western culture.

Privileged Oppositions

Logos: speech and reason in Greek. Speech is always privileged over reason. Speech and reason are always privileged over textual writing. We grant more authority to speech and reason than to writing and non reason.
Logocentric: we privilege the faculty of reason over all else. In the history of the West, reason has been used to judge what makes a human a human. In literature and philosophy, in political reports or expeditions too far away-lands, non-white peoples are judged to be without reason and therefore not fully human.

Essentialism: What is the essence of the human

April 15- On Beauty

Tax Day! I hope everybody has filed their taxes on time! :)

Should grades matter? I think that they should matter to an extent. In society we put so much pressure on high school students to go to college and get a degree and go to grad school, and potentially get a doctorate. Since there is so much pressure on students to receive a degree beyond high school, those who decide not to get a degree are left behind. They are told that they wont be able to find a good paying job without that degree. Society has made it impossible for someone with just a high school degree to feel adequate. When applying for jobs, most applications ask for what "higher education" the applicant has received and those that haven't received a college degree are looked over simply because of that fact, even if they could be amazing at that job.

April 13- On Beauty

The objectification of beauty, in our culture, has made it difficult for many to see themselves in any way other than the "trophy" aspect of beauty- perfection described as stick skinny, blond, blue eyed, rich. We use the objectification of beauty to describe our relationships. Love gets objectified in the media, literature, movies, and music. Many search for "the one" based on what has been portrayed in the media as the perfect partner. Yet what happens when the perfect partner betrays you? In On Beauty, Howard betrays Kiki by having an affair while on a business trip. Does she leave him or stay? To some people she should leave him as soon as she found out yet to others marriage is a sacrament of love and devotion- for better or for worse. Does love forgive that pain? Should love be able to forgive that betrayal? In Kiki's case she does forgive him until she finds out that it wasn't just a one night stand- it was a month long affair with Clair.

April 8- On Beauty

Zadie Smith's novel On Beauty deals with the politics of beauty. She states in an interview that her novels should be political and moral. If a novel tells you to be moral in a certain way then they it is a bad novel. She states that art is a reflection of morals and a reflection of authors’ morals. Art is a case of attempting to view both sides of the story. "The Culture wars": the political people on the left vs. the political people on the right who deal with the canon, literature, and genres. Left is multi-culturalist and they believe that there is no such thing as great art, while on the Right there are the conservatives who believe that there are only a few great artists. The novel, On Beauty, is about the culture wars on the Left is Howard and his family and on the Right is Jerome and Monty Kipps and his family. Jerome will be the one mediating between the Culture Wars of the two families.

Characters
The Kippes: From the Caribbean, live in England. A very religious family, pro-business.
The Belseys: The family in America: Howard and Kiki, Jerome, Zora and Levi. They live in an old Victorian house. Howard is a professor at Wellington College. They are stunned that Jerome has become a Christian. Kiki is Black and Howard is White.
Monty and Howard are both Renaissance Art professors, both are writing novels and yet Monty's will reach the top of the bestseller list and Howards will not. Howard attacks Monty's analysis of a Rembrandt poem in a scholarly journal- yet Howard had the wrong picture.

Why is Howards son working for Monty?
-He is working for Monty to attempt to get his fathers attention. Yet it is strange to see a character go from a more liberal lifestyle to a conservative lifestyle to gain attention from a parent. In high school the students who wanted attention from their parents attempted to do so by going against the "typical" student life, by becoming more liberal.

April Fools Day!- Art and Lies

Circle time :) - Class Discussion

March 30- Jeanette Winterson "Art and Lies"

Homework: The first Handle and the first Picasso stories of Art and Lies

Wikipedia...I personally think that Wikipedia is an good source for background material on a specific subject. Wikipedia might not be a scholarly website but it does provide good information for helping with the interpretation of a text or gaining new ideas on a topic.

The novel starts in the 18th century followed by the short story in 19th century. Who decides the "canon"? I think that we, as the readers of novels, poetry, and prose, decied the canon. Each person has their own qualifications for the authors of the canon, and thus each person decides for themselves, who and what is great literature.

Art and Lies- Jeanette Winterson
-After reading her introduction to Weight, I found Winterson very interesting as an author. She writes like a collage and that allows for multiple interpretations of the text. The introduction to Weight, has sparked my interest in reading the whole book (which I plan to do over the summer).

March 27- Poetess Archive

"Oh! Happy child in thy fawn-like glee!
What is remembrance or thought to thee?
Fill thy bright locks with those gifts of spring,
O'er thy green pathway their colours fling;
Bind them in chaplet and wild festoon--
What if to droop and to perish soon?
Nature hath mines of such wealth--and thou
Never wilt prize its delights as now!"

The poem, Child with Flowers, can represent the youthfulness of children and the beauty of nature that it is written about. Yet the poem is a suggestion for children to live in the moment, but will children be the ones reading this poem? The audience of the poem is adults who no longer live in the moment, people who focus on the future and what is to come. When delving deeper into the poem, you can see the poet telling the audience to slow down, and enjoy the smaller things in life, like nature.

Is text a visual experience or an auditory experience?
-I think that a text can be both a visual and auditory experience. You read a novel but some times read it out loud to get the full affect of the authors intentions. When reading poetry, you read it out loud to hear the patterns yet visualize the images the poet described.

March 23- Juxta and Frankenstein

Homework for Friday:
- On BB go to Poetess Archive folder under course documents
- Look at 3 versions of the Bijou poem
1- Page image
2- HTML version
3- TEL encoded version
- Task: do a close reading of the poem in the HTML version
- Question 1: is the poem the same in these 3 versions?
- Question 2: What difference will digitizing make to our understanding of the poems?


Three Versions of Frankenstein:
- When comparing the three different variations of Frankenstein I noticed the difference of emphasis from friend to creature, in the 1831 edition.
Questions:
1-Did Mary Shelly write three different novles?
2-The stranger agrees to different things, why does the change matter?
3-Why does visualizing the text matter?
Answers:
1- I think that Mary Shelly didn't write three novels. I think that she just revised the first one and had it republished. She found that there were something that needed to be changed or added and decided to republish the book.
3-Visualizing helps with the understanding of a text and helps with a close reading of passages.

March 20- Aurora Leigh

Laura is gone traveling the world.... so Kirstyn is teaching us today and next week!

"Never flinch,
But still, unscrupulously* epic, catch -daring
Upon a burning lava of a song*, -not purely of the imagination
The full-veined, heaving, double-breasted Age:
That, when the next shall come, the men of that
May touch the impress with reverent hand, and say
'Behold,–behold the paps we all have sucked!
That bosom seems to beat still, or at least
It sets ours beating. This is living art,
Which thus presents, and thus records true life."
-- This stanza represents the personification of poetry and its gradual movement to the next generation of poets. The language of the stanza complicates the reader's understanding of the stanza because it does not directly reference poetry. The poet as a living historian, using the past and the present to form new ideas.

Question 2: Can there be heroes in modern life? According to the poem? According to you?
--I think that there can be heroes in modern life. People who choose to help others with out thought or how it might affect them. I think that people in the military are heroes because, at the drop of a hat, give up their lives to defend our freedom and country. According to the poem, I think that Elizabeth Barrett Browning thinks that there can be modern heroes just in literature and as authors and poets.

March 18- Aurora Leigh

Auroras' mother and Italy are embodied as one while the Aunt and England are embodied as another figure. Aurora Leigh is stuck between the Englishness that her aunt forces upon her and the Italian culture her mother comes from. She learns to be her own person in the end of the poem/novel, not following either the English or Italian cultures.

Quote 1: Book I, 304-312
-Aurora views her aunt as confined yet the aunt doesn't see herself that way because she doesn't know anything different

Quote 2: Book II, 218-225
-Literature is a great comfort for Aurora

Quote 3: Book II, 400-406
-What you want to accomplish is not a bad thing. She says she is not worthy of these things (love, wife, mistress)

Quote 4: Book II, 671-684
-Her aunt is trying to force Aurora to marry Romney; She afraid that Aurora wont be able to support herself financially if she doesn't get married.

Quote 5: Book III, 302-312
-Working for booksellers in order to support her art (poetry)
-She gave up the security of marriage to be an artist, much like Elizabeth Barrett Browning
-Attempting to keep up her reputation

March 16- Aurora Leigh

<---Elizabeth Barrett Browning (EBB) born in 1806 and died in 1861. Her mother died when she was 20. EBB published her first book of poetry when she was 22 (1828). In 1844 she met Robert Browning via letter and eloped with him in 1845.

"Aurora Leigh"
-- Her mother dies when she is 4 and her father takes care of her till his death. Her father is a man of property and money in England. Since her father didn't get married after Aurora's mothers death the money passes to her aunt, taking away Aurora's right to be called "Lady."
Palmsest- a piece of parchment 0r paper that has many different layers of writing on it- this is what EBB/AL thinks our minds are like. Unlike tabula rasa, where your a mind is a blank slate yet everything you do and encounter makes an impresssion and shapes decisions.
Aurora Leigh is looking for the deep unconditonal love that a mother gives her child, she was "cheated" out of it when her mother died:

"My mother was a Florentine,
Whose rare blue eyes were shut from seeing me
When scarcely I was four years old; my life,
A poor spark snatched up from a failing lamp
Which went out therefore. She was weak and frail;
She could not bear the joy of giving life–
The mother's rapture slew her. If her kiss
Had left a longer weight upon my lips,
It might have steadied the uneasy breath,
And reconciled and fraternised my soul
With the new order. As it was, indeed,
I felt a mother-want about the world,
And still went seeking, like a bleating lamb
Left out at night, in shutting up the fold,–
As restless as a nest-deserted bird
Grown chill through something being away, though what
It knows not."

Aurora's mother died when she was four, not giving Aurora enough time to get to know her. Aurora wanted to "[feel] a mother," she wanted to know a mothers love and devotion, yet was unable to find something to fill that void left behind.

March 5- The Lifted Veil

The one on on the right (J.K.Rowling) is thinking about Harry Potter and how much money its going to make her. She is thinking about where Harry's story is going to take him and how it will turn out. She is wanting all the stalkers to go away and leave her alone. She is wanting people to leave her alone and let her write in peace and not be bugging her to finish a novel a year and have it ready for the pubic before she believes it is ready.

Does Latimer have the supernatural powers he says he does?
-He bases his supernatural ability on his vision of Prague. He uses the light in a shape of a star as proof that his vision was real. Yet he could have just seen pictures of Prague and resurfaced in his subconscious. He says he can read everyones mind but Berthas because it's more fun that way. Latimer is projecting his desires onto the one he wants. Latimer's mother worshiped him, just like Victor's mother. "I am cursed..." just like Victor. He has a poets sensibility without the poet's voice.  

March 2- end of Frankenstein

Free indirect discourse was invented by Jane Austen.
Novels have free indirect discourse while, movies use voice overs, close- ups, images, juxtapositions, cuts as ways for expressing the interior monologue of a character on screen.

---End of Frankenstein--
Does Victor learn his lesson at the end of the novel?- The evidence in the novel proves that he doesn't. He tries to get the crew to search for his creation. Is Victor a hero? The choice between being with loved ones and doing work.

Feb. 27- Frankenstein cont.

The monster asks for a female companion and Victor does create this female monster yet he retaliates and destroys her because he doesn't want them to procreate. So the monster tells Victor that he will be him on his wedding night. Victor takes this to mean that the monster will kill him that night. Yet the monster has has many opportunities to kill Victor and hasn't done so. He wants to watch him suffer, watch his loved ones die causes Victor more pain than anything the monster could do when attempting to killing him.

Could Victor and the monster be the same person?? Are Victor and the monster one and the same person?? If they are one and the same, they why does Victor want to kill his loved ones??
-- Victor is the only person who actually sees the monster, hallucinations? Victor creates the monster because he is attempting to find a way to save his loved ones from death. He didn't want to live without them, so I think that in a way he could have possibly killed his family in order to save them from pain of death. In the beginning of the novel, Victor is the dominant character yet their positions switch towards the end. The monster becomes the 'master' and Victor becomes the 'slave' in their relationship. It is a "Master/Slave" relationship between Victor and the monster. Is this "wretchedness" that Victor achieves driving his actions??

Feb. 25- Frankenstein cont.

Mary Shelly wrote Frankenstein in the summer of 1816 and it was first published in 1818 and then re-published in 1831. Mary Shelly wrote Frankenstein when she was 19 years old. Mary Shelly equates her novel to the monster that Victor creates in her introduction to the 1831 edition of the novel.

If we just raise our children properly society would be okay... Does Victor follow this philosophy?
--To be a parent, Victor would have to have stuck around to raise it yet he abandoned his creation. When the monster tried to reach out to Victor he rejects it by running away. Tabula Rasa... when we all start as a blank slate each experience effects a person differently while in the monsters case his experiences were filtered through new eyes without the guidance of a parents. My parents divorced when I was one. I haven't spoken to my father since I was 8 and he found me online and started to talk to me again. He tried to get information out of me about my mother and how she was doing in life (she got remarried when I was 7). He also tried to tell me things about my mother's life that I knew weren't true. He was trying to get me mad at her and accept him as my father. He had no role in my upbringing so he is not my father. I see my relationship with my biological father as one that mirrors the relationship between Victor and his monster. Victor chose to create the monster yet chose not to take responsibility like a parent or creator should.

"Oh! My creator, make me happy; let me feel gratitude towards you for one benefit! Let me see that I excite the sympathy of some existing thing; do not deny me my request!"
-- I think that a parent should provide the framework for happiness yet doesn't always happen that way. My mother works with the learning challenged in elementary school and there is this girl who is the third youngest of 10 and her parents are still having more. I think that a parent who chooses to have children has the responsibility to care for them and nurture their happiness. When the monster asks for his happiness from Victor, he is a child asking for his framework to be set.

Feb. 23- Frankenstein

To love something to deeply that you would rather die than live with out it, is absolutely terrifying to me, yet I would still choose to love that person unconditionally.

Victor defies nature by making the monster. To give something life that originally never had life is against the laws of nature. When the monster comes alive, Victor realizes his mistake- he shouldn't have given such a thing life. The monster looks like death- but alive. His reasons for building the monster were to potentially bring back his mother or prevent Elizabeth from hurting him in the future or just afraid of a world without her.

"I became as cheerful as before I was attacked by that fatal passion" (41)... Its fate intervening, he doesn't choose to take responsibility for his actions in creating the monster. I think that he should have taken responsibility for what he did, he chose to create and tried to defy death.

Feb. 20- Frankenstein

Walton wants to be a poet yet he only gives himself one year to do so, so he becomes a discoverer. Victor is a scientist and both he and Walton are artists and with these characters Shelly is critiquing the Romantic Artist. 1831 addition adds in a greater sense of his obsession with natures' secrets. Fate driving Victor or "I was fate"- With that quote it implies that Victor lets himself off the hook for his actions. Does he really let himself off the hook? Does he believe that what he did was wrong, or is he trying to justify he actions to the reader?

Victor's childhood was full of love, people, education, and friends, "No creature could have tender parents than mine" (19). Victor transfers his desires to create something great via Mr. Waldman. Is Victor's desire for fame cause his creation to become a monster? I think that his desire to become famous causes him to try to finish his 'project' as fast as possible, not allowing for mistakes and the need to fix them. Even though he doubts creating the 'being' he still did so he could become famous. It supports his self-confidence that he believes he could do something so remarkable as create a human-like creature. His imagination is clouding his vision of reality. He be comes obsessive and compulsive about his creation and his reach for fame. He believes he is the creations 'father,' so that he can control the relationship between him and the creature.

Victor believes that in creating life, he is killing himself. Everything that Victor is doing is for his EGO. Yet when creating art you need to be creating through the ego which the writer needs to be androgynous. Victor creates the monster so large because he wants to finish sooner. He thinks of only himself and the fame he will achieve.

Feb. 18- Wuthering Heights (end)

Wuthering Heights:
Master Linton marries Catherine because Heathcliff forces him too; Does he have a choice in the matter? Heathcliff keeps Catherine and Nelly trapped in the house, never letting them leave. How could someone treat the people he cares about trapped in a place that even he can't enjoy. Hearton, a force a nature who was raised by Heathcliff who enforces all the bad habits of the child.

Wuthering Heights, is it great art? I believe it is, to create something out of the imagination and let the characters 'take' over the story. The writer/creator has control over what they write to certain aspect, but there is a point where the writer becomes so immersed in the writing/creation that it just takes over.








Frankenstein:
Walton, an explorer who is looking for a path to the North Pole that will make him extremely rich.

What happens to Walton and the crew and how does Victor intervene?
---The ship becomes stuck in the ice and they see the monster (Victor) and invite him on board. Victor decides to tell him his story. He shares his story because he wanted to teach Walton and the crew a lesson.Victor wanted greatness, like Walton, he is telling his story to change Walton's mind about being famous.

Published in two editions: (finished writing in 1816) 1819 and 1831- different authors? There are significant changes in the editions. Percy Bysshe Shelly- a great poet- husband of Mary Shelly; "some" believe that he wrote Frankenstein. Great poet- sucks at novel writing.

Wuthering Heights

Wuthering Heights, by Emily Bronte, Catherine Ernshaw and Heathcliff's love is monumental in such a way that nothing seems to come between them. Even when Catherine marries another and Heathcliff moves away- their love brings them back to each other- though not in a way that the reader would expect. The death of the two main characters brings them together, finally, as lovers and as soul mates. Yet upon reading and watching the movie version of this novel, it is hard to come to terms with the fact that death is what brings the lovers together.

Catherine states that she and Heathcliff are one and the same, "whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same, and [Edgar's] is as different as a moonbeam from lightning, or frost from fire," yet if that was true why she would have married another is a question that I think the movie does a better job of answering than the novel. While Heathcliff left and abandoned her after overhearing part of her conversation, Catherine was the one that decided to move on. She promised to never love another when Edgar asked her to marry, yet in the movie you can see in her facial expressions that she is still in love with Heathcliff.

Another scene that depicts her passionate love for Heathcliff, is “Oh, Edgar, Edgar!” she panted, flinging her arms round his neck. “Oh, Edgar darling! Heathcliff's come back—he is!”...But the lady's glowed with another feeling when her friend appeared at the door: she sprang forward, took both his hands And she tightened her embrace to a squeeze," I found that, while the novel did an excellent job of describing the interactions between characters, the actors in the movie portrayed such emotion through their facial expressions and body language that as a reader you came to understand how much pain Catherine was in now that Heathcliff had returned. She was married to Edgar yet was in love with Heathcliff, and now that he had returned her marriage was in jeopardy. Catherine has to decide wether or not to stay with her husband or to leave him for her "true love."

Both the novel and the movie portray Heathcliff and Catherine’s romance in their own way yet the movie allows for a better interpretation of their emotions.

Feb. 16-- Wuthering Heights

Academia... When one is in academia, it seems that they are only talking to others who are in the same field or generally understands the content of one another. They don't seem to want to "dumb it down" for those who don't understand, should they write it in plain English for those who don't have that vocabulary or should it stay within academia and it's language?

Feb. 9- Wuthering Heights cont.

When Edgar said "I am not your husband" I think that he means he never really felt that he was her husband. Edgar knew she was in love with Heathcliff and never with him. Edgar had been with both Heathcliff and Catherine since they were younger and had seen how much they were in love. He knew that he could marry Catherine but her heart would always belong to Heathcliff.

Is Catherine and Heathcliff's love the greatest love story?
--I don't think that Catherine and Heathcliff have the greatest love story. The only way they could be together was in death and that is not exactly a "happy" ending. He tortures her family to get revenge on those who have hurt him and in the process, hurts her- how is that love? I believe that while Catherine believes that she and Heathcliff are soul mates, she doesn't understand the concept. They grew up together are the best of friends- he was he only one who would tell her the truth no matter what and so she believes that he is her soul mate. I don't think that equates soul mate material. A soul mate is someone who loves you despite your faults and gets along with your family- both Heathcliff are not.

Feb 6.- Wuthering Heights -- Heathcliff

I think that everybody has that "person" that brings out someone's true self. We all act a certain way in public than when we are alone. We need to be able to be ourselves at some point in our lives, whether it be with a best friend or a partner or a lover. I think that to have someone who is EXACTLY like you then what is there to discover in the relationship? Why does it always seem that the long lost love returns in the picture when everything is content in the other persons' life- it happens so often in romance novels that the plot has become almost an everyday occurrence.

Heathcliff... A horrible man??

The first time we meet Heathcliff he is a cruel man, he treats others with disrespect and annoyance. Yet as we look into his past we get a chance to see that maybe he is not such a horrible man underneath his rough exterior. He was orphaned as a child and the family that he lived with treated him like a servant. He never had any real family until Catherine, and even then she rejected him for a life of luxury and money. I think Heathcliff is only reacting to his upbringing, he wasn't treated well as a child so he knows no other way.

Feb 4. - Wuthering Heights

Emily Bronte and sister Charlotte Bronte- author of Jane Eyre grew up to be very talented writers. Wuthering Heights is Emily's only novel, first published in 1847. Emily was described as a "female Shakespeare," yet the novel got mixed reviews because of its stark depictions of mental and physical cruelty. Loving someone who doesn't love you back, means you can't get hurt. Yet you can, when you love someone who doesn't love you will eventually get hurt because in the end the need for the love is what we are searching for.

Heathcliff seemed to be very harsh, he doesn't treat people with respect or kindness. He acts upon his on accord- his own agenda. He doesn't care who he hurts or what problems he causes. Why do men act so tough, like nothing can touch them emotionally or physically? They seem to think that the tougher they are the more appealing they will be. Power and money- Attractive? Maybe but I would rather have someone who lives a simple life and is my age then date someone who is older than my father....ICK.

Feb 2-Rape in Cyberspace

Mr. Bungle did commit rape, while it was not physical rape, it was rape. He emotionally scarred the other people that he was talking to. While it was not in a real place, you do get invested in what you do online. When a pedophile looks at pictures online the police consider it illegal. People pretend to be others online all the time, we never really know who someone is when they are online. After all the things that I have heard about chat rooms, I have never gone to a chat room. Where is the line drawn between reality and fantasy? I don't think that people realize how much their writing can and will affect people.


When I was 7-8, I would watch the X-Files with my Mom and Dad (I would be reading or sleeping- I just wanted to spend time with them), but one episode that I was awake for was the "Fiji Mermaid." There was a man who had a growth on his side that had a 'thing' inside. It would come out of the host and kill people to survive. It freaked me out sooooo much that I still can't sleep without some sort of light on and I can't seep with my back to the wall. I have to be able to see my entire room at all times.

Jan 30- A Room of One's Own

Are women human? That is basically what man is stating when he says that women are not legally people once they are married. Society gave more rights to animals than they did to women. Women were not allowed to keep anything, property and money, they were given- they had to give it to the man of the house.
While there has never been an female Shakespeare, there were female playwrights during the time of Shakespeare. In my 450 Renaissance Drama class we are reading two plays written by women in that time, they were famous playwrights during the Renaissance yet Shakespeare became so popular that every other playwright got overshadowed by his "greatness." Women writers were frowned upon; anything that allowed women access to the outside life was frowned upon. Access would corrupt their views and and would cause them to run sexually wild. Men were afraid that they wouldn't have control over their women anymore. It was all about control...

Jan 26- Vindication of the Rights of Woman

Mary Wollstonecraft grew up with an alcoholic father and she took care of her family because her father could not do so. She wrote one of the first responses to a piece by Burke (a Whig) on the reflections of the revolution in France- in 1789 and she wrote her first piece in 1789 titled "The Vindication of the Rights of Men" anonymously. She writes it as if she was a man and readers believe that the author was a man. Manly= virtuous and rational. Mary defends democracy and the republic. In 1792 she writes "Vindication of the Rights of Woman"- singular, implying the individual not society. She fell in love with Gilbert, they professed love to each other (to her it was married) and had his child out of wedlock. She believed it was marriage- he did not, he thought they were just lovers since it was not legal.

When we use the word men people assume that we are talking about the public, the society as a whole. Yet we never use the word "woman" to refer to society as a whole or when we describe the populous.

Chapters 2-5: Her argument in chapter 2 is that women are being degraded because their education that they are given is taught to make them sexually alluring to man. Soldiers are like women because they do as they are told, to be moved up in rank/socially they have to behave a certain way socially. Soldiers are educated to behave a certain way as are women- proving women are not naturally inferior? Are women educated to be "weak" now? Are we grooming women to be dependent and not independent?

Jan. 23--- Cinderella

Extreme Makeover Home Edition is a great representation of the Cinderella story, the rags to riches. The family situation is such a horrible one and yet they still try to make other peoples life better all while trying to survive. Yet they never show how they will afford this house after it is built. They built this extravagant house for this family who couldn't afford a new house... how will they afford this new better house? Again they never show what happens after the happily ever after....

The music, movies, books etc that tells us that fairy tales are the way to live our lives and dictate our choices because of the way we feel about our lives. They show us that the only way to get a man is to be a "perfect princess." We need to realize that we have our own choices to make and no one can make them for us.

Cinderella Fairy Tale

The "Cinderella Fairy Tale" is a popular one in today's society--lots of people are pulling themselves up by their boot straps and making something out of nothing. One instance of this is in writing novels. My cousin is a writer and she has been struggling to get her novel published for many months now. She sends it out to many publishing companies each week and waits for that one letter that says its the one. Each time she gets disappointed, she doesn't give up instead she moves ahead to the next publishing company in hopes of her dream coming true. When novels first come out authors are not heard of until someone reads their book and tells others about it, they have to be shared for it to become popular. For example, J.K Rowling was turned down by many publishing companies until Scholastic decided that Harry Potter would make a good series. Yet to make it well a known story they had to spread the word. Scholastic did and she became an overnight sensation- a rags to riches story.

Jan. 21- Fairy Tales

"The Courtship of Mr. Lyon"
--This version is very different from Disney's version of Beauty and the Beast. In Sexton's version the reader does not see the reason for the Beast's appearance yet they can see that he still has some human qualities; he cares for Beauty yet he is aware of his masculinity. His claws repulse her while his otherness attracts her. His otherness is what drives her away and brings back to him. Love changes him into a "real" man. Is that saying that to be a real person you have to be in love? Fairy Tales have given society a false sense what life is supposed to be like, they show the "perfect" courtship, the "perfect" marriage and that's it. They show none of the problems or how to work through the problems of a marriage.

Jan 16- Fairy Tales and Weight by Jeannett Winterson

As a culture we idealize perfection and in doing so the strive for perfection can lead to a change for the better yet it can also lead to pain and self sacrifice. For example, A princess or the "ideal woman" seems to be representative of how women would like to know themselves, we as a gender are forced into a submissiveness where we sit back and wait for things to happen, unlike men who are taught to take control. This stereotyping is slowly changing yet still in place. We see women in the workplace who are trying to achieve status in the business world yet when they meet a person who they could potentially marry, they are expected to stop working and stay at home for the family and to keep the house.

Fairy Tales.....they teach children that its okay to be submissive and change yourself for the man you love. In Beauty and the Beast, Belle falls in love with the Beast even though he verbally abuses her and degrades her as a woman. This shows children that it is okay to be in an abusive relationship because the man MAY change into a 'human'. In the Little Mermaid, Ariel has to change who she is to be with the man she loves. She has to give up her family and the life she has known to become human for the man. This teaches children that the female is the one who is supposed to change for the man .

Weight by Jeannett Winterson

In the artistic retelling of fairy tales does art help counteract ideology?

--Winterson states in her introduction to Weight, that the retelling of fairy tales allows for new material to be interjected into the existing text which allows for a new emphasis or bias on the key elements in the story and with the retelling it allows for a different perspective to be told which then allows for different interpretations of the story (xvi). I think that it does help counteract the ideology because of the different perspectives given and the new material interjected into the fairy tales.