Lena vs. Milkman

Right at the end of part one, we enter a scene where Magdalena called Lena is chastising Milkman for ruining Corinthians' relationship. This is the first time she has ever stood up for herself, or at least it seems to be. We have always seen Lena and Corinthians as quiet background characters, the neutral sisters who spend their days making roses and cleaning the house. However, we finally see Corinthians liberating herself as she finds herself a job and a lover. As soon as that is stripped away from her, Lena also has a moment of liberation where she finally speaks her mind to Milkman. In this scene, I find myself siding with Lena. While we have additional information from Milkman about his intentions, clearly the man Corinthians is seeing is one of the Seven Days, Lena still provides a strong argument saying that Milkman never cared before, so why should he care now? Milkman may have the best of intentions, but what has caused him to change them? Does he really sincerely care about Corinthians' well-being, or does he simply want to see his mother and sisters confined to the house, the way he has always seen them? He's extremely hypocritical in separating Corinthians and her new found lover because said man is part of the Seven Days. His best friend is part of the Days and he has no intention of separating himself from Guitar. In this situation, Milkman's logic and supposed care is extremely flawed.

Another question to be brought up in this scene has to do with Milkman's absorbency. He takes Lena's advice and leaves, but does he actually listen to it? The last few sentences of part one read "Milkman turned and walked across the room. It was good advice, he thought. Why not take it? He closed the door.". This casual attitude he exudes makes me believe that he is only taking the last part of Lena's advice into consideration, not her entire argument. All of her words go in one ear and out the other, and he only hears the "you need to leave" part. So while it may seem like Milkman has the best of intentions Corinthians' for and is taking Lena's advice, he is only thinking of himself and what is best for him.

Open Genre Project

"Where words fail, music speaks." -Hans Christian Anderson

"Music is a moral law. It gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, a charm to sadness, gaiety and life to everything. It is the essence of order, and leads to all that is good, just, and beautiful, of which it is the invisible, but nevertheless dazzling, passionate, and eternal form." -Unknown (attributed to Plato)

For my Open Genre Project, I decided to make playlists for each main character of the books we've discussed in class, reflecting each character's thoughts, emotions, or circumstances. Each compilation has 10 tracks that came to my mind whilst reviewing each book. Enjoy!

The first book we read for this class was The Mezzanine by Nicholson Baker, whose main character, Howie, has an extremely positive and appreciative approach to life. This playlist contains almost obnoxiously happy songs, reflecting Howie's character.

Howie:

The next character we critiqued was Mrs. Dalloway, a British woman stuck in her past between two lovers. Presently, she is married to a member of British Parliament, and plasters a mask of contentment on to hide her nostalgia each day. She just can't forget her past, constantly thinking about the time when she had relative freedom.

Mrs. Dalloway:

This playlist focuses on Jake Barnes' pain as he realizes he can never be with the woman he loves. Jake also pulls a disguise of happiness as he goes about Paris and Spain, partying, having fun, being strung along by Brett, and hiding his suffering.

Jake:

Our next character is Gregor Samsa, a hardworking son-turned-cockroach with family problems. He becomes increasingly more insectoid, losing his humanity, and will eventually die.

Gregor:

In a previous blog post, I had discussed songs written about The Stranger, particularly Bohemian Rhapsody and Killing an Arab. This playlist has songs based off of Camus' book, as well as songs that explore themes of existentialism.

Meursault:

Antoinette Cosway, after a disruptive childhood and marriage, becomes an oppressed madwoman in the attic of her husband, Edward Rochester. This playlist has dark themes of being thrown away, inescapable oppression, and some rebellion.

Antoinette:

Our last character is Milkman Dead, a man who still acts like a teenaged boy. He takes all of the love offered by his family and people around him never reciprocating it. For much of his life, he has never left his hometown, but feels out of place there, despite partying all the time and having some close friends. Even as a thirty year old man, he spends most of his time smoking, drinking, and having sex, activities usually ascribed to a younger man.

Milkman:

Bewitched, bothered, and bewildered?

At the beginning of part two in Wide Sargasso Sea, we are introduced to Rochester, Antoinette's fiancee and soon to be husband. He hails from England and participates in this set up marriage, arranged by his father and Antoinette's stepbrother, although during most of the time it is being set up he is feverishly ill. After being married to Antoinette, he begins to receive letters from Daniel Cosway, who says he wants to expose the trap that Rochester has fallen into. After reading a letter and meeting with Daniel, Rochester ends up confused and suspicious. Daniel says that "...the girl is beautiful like her mother was beautiful, and you bewitch with her." He implies that Rochester was enchanted by Antoinette's beauty and thus fell into the trap laid out by her family to inflate her social standings and ensure her well being. He's clearly bothered by this fact, and despite Antoinette's best attempts to explain her situation to him, he becomes more and more distant from her.

Now, at this point, you can feel a little bit of sympathy for Rochester. He's been "bewitched", and definitely feels bothered and bewildered. He agreed to get married while ill, and had no idea about any of Antoinette's life before they met. However, Rochester suddenly becomes malicious and jealous further into his marriage with Antoinette. He ignores Antoinette, and has an affair with a servant girl, Amelie, while Antoinette is in the other room. He blames all his problems on her and his sudden withdrawal of love makes her into the monster he believed she would become, taking after her mother. If this part of the book was written from Antoinette's perspective, we would feel absolutely no sympathy for Rochester. He could completely and fully be the villain, the inciter of Antoinette's so-called madness. From Antoinette's perspective, it might not even be madness, just drunkenness and heartbreak. At this point in the book though, my sympathy and compassion for Rochester has run out. Knowing how the book ends and the plot of Jane Eyre, I take no issue with seeing Rochester as a villain who strips his wife of her identity and money, locking her in the attic. I'm interested to see how terrible his treatment of Antoinette will become, although I can't say I'm excited.

Bohemian Rhapsody and The Stranger

In class last week, during the first few days, we began discussing Meursault's passive approach to life. The phrases "nothing really matters to him" and "he doesn't care at all" kept coming up, and I walked out of class with Bohemian Rhapsody (by Queen, released in the 1975 album A Night at the Opera) stuck in my head. After searching for a reason to have this particular song running through my mind, I realized that the phrase we used to describe Meursault's attitude was a popular lyric in the song stuck in my head. After further thought, I began to realize that Bohemian Rhapsody and The Stranger had many similarities, and after deeper consideration I began to conclude that Bohemian Rhapsody may have been written about Camus' The Stranger, which was published more than thirty years before. Throughout the entire song, there are similarities to The Stranger that you wouldn't expect upon listening to it.

To start off, the ballad (the second part to this song after the intro) begins with the line "Mama, just killed a man; Put a gun against his head; Pulled my trigger, now he's dead" comparable to the scene where Meursault kills the Arab man. The passive voice used to describe this terrible act completely corresponds to Meursault's thoughts and voice in this book, and while the rest of the ballad seems remorseful, the lyrics suggest that the person who has committed this crime only feels regret because "life had just begun, But now [he's] gone and thrown it all away". The lyrics imply that he regrets his actions simply because he'll miss his life and it's pleasures, not because he took the life of another. This parallels Meursault's thought process as he sits in jail, missing his human impulses, craving sex and cigarettes. He thinks of little else, and never of the Arab man he has just killed. This connection opens up the floodgates for the rest of the connections between both revolutionary cultural pieces.

In the operatic section of Bohemian Rhapsody, Mercury uses the lyrics "I'm just a poor boy nobody loves me; He's just a poor boy from a poor family; Spare him his life from this monstrosity". It is briefly mentioned by Meursault that his father died before he could even remember him. Many people believe that this missing piece in his life may have caused Meursault to have resulting emotional damage from an absent father figure (thus, nobody loves him). It can be assumed that Meursault comes from a poor family because his father died so early and his mother had to work her entire life to provide for them. Before her death, Meursault puts his mother in a nursing home because he cannot provide for her, but she seems to find happiness there. Nevertheless, Meursault comes from a poor family. The last portion of this lyric seems to reflect the attitudes of the court in Meursault's trial, who really don't want to convict him of murder, but are still appalled by his actions at his mother's funeral. Meursault could have a way out but instead must "leave [his friends] behind and face the truth", a lyric from the earlier ballad section.  The most obscure connection between Bohemian Rhapsody and The Stranger comes at the end of the operatic section, where Mercury uses the word "bismallah" in a debate whether or not to "let him (the character) go". Bismallah is defined as an exclamation in the name of Allah, a Muslim invocation used at the beginning of any undertaking. The use of this word draws a connection to the Arab man who Meursault has killed, although it is in a strange position, juxtaposed between arguments to potentially let the character (Meursault) go.

Both Meursault and the character in Bohemian Rhapsody seem to share the same indifferent approach to life. Throughout the entire song, a similar line keeps appearing: "Any way the wind blows, doesn't really matter to me", "Carry on, as if nothing really matters", "Nothing really matters, anyone can see, nothing really matters to me.". These lines have a strong flavor of Meursault's way of life. He's an extremely passive character, particularly when he interacts with those around him, and goes along with nearly everything. The only act of activeness occurs when Meursault doesn't want to die by guillotine. He racks his brain for any other options, and would even prefer being shot while running away than to be decapitated. This is similar to the lyrics "I don't want to die". "Let me go", and "Just got to get outta here", all of which are repeated multiple times. While Meursault seems ultimately resigned to his fate and the Bohemian Rhapsody character just doesn't want to die, both have rebellious attitudes to their approaching demises.

I could continue on with nit-picking similarities between The Stranger and Bohemian Rhapsody, but it is evident to me that Bohemian Rhapsody is based on The Stranger. Freddie Mercury never gave an explicit reasoning behind this song, but he certainly wouldn't be the only person to draw on literary inspiration from The Stranger to write music. Robert Smith of The Cure once said in an interview that their song "Killing an Arab", released in 1980, was based on Camus' The Stranger, and lyrics from the song clearly describe the scene in which Meursault kills the Arab man. In the end, I find the strange number of similarities between The Stranger and Bohemian Rhapsody too many to be just coincidence,  Queen must have written their most popular song based on this novel.

Lions and tigers and vermin! Oh my!

We've been reading The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka in the last few weeks, and every time I open the book or discuss it, I can't help but wonder how different the story would be if Kafka had chosen some other animal for Gregor to transform into.While never explicitly stating what kind of insect Gregor is, Kafka implies that he is some sort of cockroach or beetle. Gregor's tendency to eat spoiled food though, makes me think that he is a cockroach. Nevertheless, Kafka intends for Gregor to be some sort of verminous insect, the lowest of the low.

I believe he purposely chose an insect whose thoughts/actions/abilities we never consider, in order to create drama in the story. Only we, the readers, know Gregor's thoughts and last bits of humanity. The rest of his family sees him as a disgusting creature, and I'm sure we would think so also if we saw such an insect in real life. It seems like a creature from a bad science fiction movie, a giant hissing cockroach that chases people around.

Now imagine if Gregor was, say, a more palatable kind of vermin like a mouse. While a mouse in the house is still somewhat appalling, it is much cuter than an encroaching roach. It's still alarming, yes, to find one of your family members an insect or animal, but a mouse is much higher up on our hierarchy of vermin than a cockroach is, and I'm sure his family would have a different reaction. For instance, we could look at the scene where Gregor is pleading for his manager to let him go on working, but all the manager hears is a sub-human hissing. Let's replace in this instance, the cockroach with a mouse. The soft squeaking of a mouse is much less threatening than the hissing of a cockroach, and it's appearance is less foreboding.  While probably still being very alarmed, the manager and Gregor's family would not be as terrified, so much as bewildered.

So, in choosing for Gregor to transform into a cockroach instead of any other animal, I believe that Kafka used the disgust Gregor received from his surroundings to create more sympathy in the reader. Gregor's family has a logical reaction to an enormous cockroach replacing their son, and I don't believe that we would have had the same level of disgust and drama to drive the plot if Gregor had been another animal.

Cougars and Bulls: Brett and Romero's Relationship

In the second half of the book The Sun Also Rises, we were introduced to the character Romero, a young and successful Spanish bullfighter (with extreme emphasis on young). Later on, Romero catches Brett's attention, and he becomes one of her many lovers. While I had no objections to Brett's previous lovers and marriages, I did have an objection to her chasing after Romero. Before Brett meets Romero, we are introduced to him through Jake, who meets him before a bullfight and remarks on that Romero is the "best looking boy he had ever seen" (page 167). He is indeed still a boy, at the age of nineteen, and both Montoya and Jake refer to him as "boy" and "kid". My issue with Romero and Brett's relationship is the significant age difference. Romero is still a teenager, and Brett is a middle-aged woman in her mid-thirties. In anyone's terms, this seems pretty creepy. While we don't normally consider this age difference because Brett desperately tries too seem younger than she actually is, you can't deny that Brett is "robbing the cradle". While Jake, Mike, and Bill seem to have no issue with Romero and Brett, all of the aficionados clearly disapprove of this relationship. They cut out Jake from their inner circle because he introduced Brett to Romero. While the reason for their disgust goes unnamed, they clearly think Brett is awful for Romero and will ruin him. While the relationship between the two of them was very short-lived and didn't work out well, I can't deny the fact that even starting it was very strange. In today's terms, Brett would be referred to as a "cougar" for chasing after men much younger than her. This age difference would not be as significant if both were older, say Romero was 25 and Brett 46, but Romero is still a teenager, no matter how old he may seem or how young Brett seems. In discussion with a classmate about this, it was brought up that it would be even stranger if the genders were reversed, and instead of an older woman and a younger man, it was an older man and a younger woman. Both are very strange indeed, but the latter is almost preying. In conclusion, I found Brett and Romero's relationship very disconcerting, and was relieved when it only lasted a few days.

Reflections on Mrs. Dalloway

Recently, we finished reading Mrs. Dalloway, a fascinating book that explored many issues and ideas surrounding the end of World War I. While I thoroughly enjoyed the book, I did not like the ending at all. I'm the kind of person who likes a conclusive ending. I don't like cliffhangers unless there is a sequel, I want to know every little detail of what is to become of each character. While the abrupt ending was presumably a literary device applied by Woolf to provoke extra thought, I finished the book crestfallen, stuck in Peter's excitement as he sees Clarissa walk back into the room. This ending was ambiguous, and I found myself wanting closure to the story. There were innumerable paths the end of this story could take; Clarissa could realize she loves Peter and leave Richard, Richard could finally say "I love you" to Clarissa and they could live to a ripe old age and die, Peter could confess his love to Clarissa and be turned down, Clarissa and Sally Seton could have a surreptitious love relationship with each other (unbeknownst to their husbands, or maybe even known), Elizabeth and Clarissa could get in a large argument over their opposing beliefs and Clarissa could become alienated from her daughter, Sir William Bradshaw could receive a firm talking-to from Clarissa about how he was wrong in his treatment of Septimus, and really the list could go on and on. There is absolutely no indication from Virginia Woolf as to what happens to her characters, she leaves them "stuck in a moment that they can't get out of" (as said by the band U2 in their 2000 album, All That You Can't Leave Behind). So as we move on to Hemingway's  The Sun Also Rises, I can't help but feel trace amounts of resentment towards Virginia Woolf for such an abrupt ending to such an interesting book.