Let's Go to the Carnival!

Firstly, I find it amusing and ironic that I get the opportunity to write my "Carnival Post" on the day campus hosted a carnival.
Which I didn't get to attend because I was studying in the library. (end rant)

This last section of literature we have gotten to read has been particularly challenging for my class. I find this interesting considering that all of this section of literature is pretty contemporary. It's our "era" [sort of].  But it's not a style of literature we're accustomed to studying. A theme I've discovered in the blogs of my peers that I find particularly striking is their understanding of the text through the Bible.  So in this Carnival Post, I will review a couple of example of ways in which my peers have been Biblically stimulated.

The following are pieces of my classmate's blogs I found particularly relevant to this theme.

On Mao II:
"Paul really likes to use the body of Christ metaphor in his letters. But that’s an excellent way to explain this. Each person is a part of the body that serves its own function. But the body as a whole depends on each function and each part is necessary. We are individuals serving one purpose and one group. But that does not take away the importance of each person’s individual talents. I resent the idea that “the future belongs to crowds;” partially because I am from Western society, which puts a premium on individuality, but also because God created me as a unique individual. I am important outside of the crowd as well as inside it."
(http://rjsunshine.wordpress.com/2013/05/09/mao-ii-part-3/comment-page-1/#comment-15)

On Lady Lazarus:
"Disciples of the world. If we cannot give up absolutely everything for Jesus... then we do not understand the gospel, nor have we tasted the sweetness of God's love in Jesus. Understand this: Christians die in order to live. I know I've written about this numerous times, but seriously... this is necessary to grasp."
(http://173john.blogspot.com/2013/04/dying-to-death.html?showComment=1368594912773#c987376836532106044)

The voices of my classmates speak loudly of the values of this campus. I am proud to be part of such conversations where we can find Jesus and his messages within every story, even the ones that challenge our beliefs and values. This is God's earth, after all. God's story. 

Good Country People

According to O'Conner's introduction, this was a tale typical of her.

• "A typical Flannery O'Connery story consists at its most vital level of people talking, clucking their endless reiterations of cliches about life, death, and the universe."
• "These completions are usually violent, occurring when the character--in many cases a woman--must confront an experience that she cannot handle by her old trustworthy language and habit-hardened responses."
• "And although the stories are filled with religious parodies and allusions, they do not try to inculcate a doctrine."

Lets talk about the irony of the ending now. I don't know how many people really liked Hulga all that much. She was a little bit of a B-Word. However, I dunno how I would have coped if I was in her shoes either. But you can't help but feel sorry for her when she's left in the second story of that barn, alone and legless and far from home. I don't even want to imagine her trying to crawl back to Mrs. Hopewell. I don't think that's what Flannery would be wanting us to think about anyway.

What I found most striking about this tale was all the discussions between characters about what makes people unique. Pointer seduced Hulga with the words "It's what makes you different. You ain't like anybody else." After he get's her leg away, he adds insult to injury before he leaves by basically saying she isn't special. Hell, he's gotten a glass eye from a lady before. What makes this encounter ironic are Mrs. Hopewell's typical statements: "Besides, we all have different ways of doing, it takes all kinds to make the world go 'round. That's life!"

My favorite part of the story was how Hulga thought she'd be enlightening the boy when all along it was the other way around.

Close Your Eyes to Open Your Soul.

To the question of "Would you rather be blind or deaf?" I have always said blind. Because then I would know true beauty. I mean preferably, I'd be neither, but still. I found it ironic that the husband's internal eyes weren't truly opened until he had closed his external eyes.

Carver's Cathedral was simply amazing. The story of a person opening up to another. Opening up to experiences completely different from any he's ever felt before. Human's are not good at coping with experiences very different from those of our day to day lives. We don't know what to do, what to say. We get anxious. It's a part of our nature to fear an hide that which is different. It's the reason so many people get stuck in their lives, jobs they don't like, relationships that are hurtful, places we've never been, bla bla bla. We're afraid of the unknown--duh. It's how we survive.

However, I've heard it said that people in the arts and especially in theater (who do not participate in destructive activities like drugs, alcohol, etc) live longer then people who are not artistic. It's because artists and actors open themselves up to experiences and characters that they would not experience in their regular day to day lives. They know how to cope. I have also heard this said of people who travel.

Funny, huh?

Also in the Cathedral, I was not sure whether I sympathized more with the wife or the husband. But maybe that wasn't Carver's intention. Maybe he was pulling an Alienation Effect with his simplistic minimalist writing style?

From the Surgical Tower Waiting Room

I made the mistake of reading Ralph Ellison's "Invisible Man" in the waiting room of Sanford Surgical Tower while my dad was in surgery. Take the peaceful spiritual emotions I felt reading "The Waking" and twist them up, snap them in two, and throw them across the equator. That is how this text made me feel. Hopeless, hurt, and alone (not the kind of feelings you want while in a waiting room). I literally got goosebumps and felt like the shit would never end. The depths to which humanity can sink.

One thing I didn't quite catch. This was NOT a true story, right? There was too much symbolism to make it be a true story, right? I just don't think I could cope with that right now if it were true. However, if it was, at least Ellison has the balls to write about it. I couldn't help thinking of Picasso's painting, "Guernica" after reflecting on the reading. It's art like that and "The Invisible Man" that will change the world. I hope.

Wake Up.

So I realize these blog posts are gonna be pretty wishy washy out of order. Don't judge me.



Roethke's poem "The Waking" is one of my all time favorites. It is a poem that everyone can relate to because it's core is an observation of life. All good art is one that holds up a mirror to life for people to see. Things always look different in a mirror then we think they look in reality.

The image of the lowly worm climbing up a winding stair is very striking. It is the only part of the poem I don't have some sort of understanding of. Is he comparing the worm to man and the stair to life? Or is it rather just an observation of how sometimes worms seem to just go and go with no real destination? What does the worm represent?

When I read this poem, I get the impression that I am praying. "The Waking" leaves me with a spiritual connection that feels like meditation and reflection. The repetition of the poem feels ritualistic and reading it feels like it should be a part of my daily wake up rituals. If I ever find another poem or piece of art that makes me feel like this one does, I will be a happier girl. "The Waking" is, in the words of Zora Neale Hurston, "a glimpse from God."

Beat It

I was very inspired by Ginsberg's "Howl." Its actually the first piece of beat poetry I've ever read. It was exciting to read even when I didn't understand all of the references the first time I read through it. However, from a theatrical perspective, I was very disappointed by Ginsberg's reading of it. He was obviously made for the page.

I also enjoyed reading about his life. He was a hippie before it was cool.

A couple of my favorite passages:

"who threw their watches off the roof to cast their ballot for Eternity outside of Time, & alarm clocks fell on their heads every day for the next decade"

"I'm with you in Rockland
where we hug and kiss the United States under our bedsheets the United States that coughs al night and won't let us sleep"

I appreciate that in his poem, he references EVERYthing that he believes to be a cause of the pain of the poets. It's very Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen and La Vie Boheme from RENT.

It's groovy. What can I say?

Mount Kill-a-man-tomorrow

Hemingway's tale is only made more disconcerting by its autobiographical elements. As I was reading, I couldn't help continually repeating that old track in my head, the one that plays in all humans' heads at a some point of trivial enlightenment: "What if I died tomorrow?"

"He had been in it and he had watched it and it was his duty to write of it; but now he never would."

Many people live life recklessly, thinking "YOLO! Gotta take advantage of this world while I can." But as is said, you won't regret the things you did as much as the things you didn't do. The Snows of Kilimanjaro was a bit scary to read with my own life in perspective. Have I done and not done all the things that make me feel best? Hemingway certainly expresses his uniquely Hemingway-blunt outlook for his readers. Its so honest, it cuts right to the core of being human and gives the reader a perspective of himself... whenever this self-reflection happens, there is hope. Though granted Hemingway's character died in the end, he died with hope and leaves us to the promise of our own lives.

I loved it.

Getting Frosty

"But he is far less affirmative about the universe then [the Transcendentalists]; for where they, looking at nature, discerned a benign creator, he saw 'no expression, nothing to express.'"

Now Robert, what is that supposed to mean?

For your education, here's what Spark Notes has to say about The Road Not Taken:

"The speaker stands in the woods, considering a fork in the road. Both ways are equally worn and equally overlaid with un-trodden leaves. The speaker chooses one, telling himself that he will take the other another day. Yet he knows it is unlikely that he will have the opportunity to do so. And he admits that someday in the future he will recreate the scene with a slight twist: He will claim that he took the less-traveled road."

That's an interesting take, wouldn't you say? Especially considering that most people consider this poem to be a story of a man who didn't conform. I remember hearing in a class at some point that this poem is often misunderstood, but I can never remember what it's actual jist is supposed to be. The writer of this particular Spark Notes page feels very strongly about it:

"Cursed with a perfect marriage of form and content, arresting phrase wrought from simple words, and resonant metaphor, it seems as if “The Road Not Taken” gets memorized without really being read. For this it has died the cliché’s un-death of trivial immortality."

I appreciate this enlightenment, though I will miss the bliss of ignorance in my former interpretation of Frost.

Wallace Stevens

For some reason, I've been struggling with Steven's poetry. I mean, everything i read sounds very beautiful. I just struggle to piece a meaning out of it. However, I certainly appreciate what I read about Steven's literary theories in his introduction. According to Stevens, "poetry [exists] to illuminate the world's surfaces as well as its depths" and the reality depends on the human observer...the sense of an inescapable subjectivity in everything we know [demonstrates that] Stevens clearly shared a modernist ideology."

The Emperor of Ice-Cream
When I read this poem, I imagine a small town in the summertime. Everyone has their role and every role provides something beautiful for the town. However, the most important role is played by the ice cream man. I'm not sure whats going on in the second stanza, but I think its supposed to be sad.

If anyone can elaborate, that would be cool.

Sunday Morning
This poem is very beautiful and intriguing. The real meaning of the poem is clearly hit upon in the fifth and sixth stanzas, particularly in the following lines:
"Death is the mother of beauty; hence from her,
Alone shall come fulfillment to our dreams"
The speaker claims that the fact that we will not live forever gives our lives meaning. She wonders whether nothing changes in heaven and if that is the case, whats beautiful about that? I take notes in my textbook, and next to these stanzas, i simply wrote "wow."

Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird
I think this is the poem I was the most lost on. I thought it offered very pretty observations and imagery, but I wonder if the blackbird is supposed to symbolize something deeper then pretty pictures. Either way, I liked it still.

Crane and London

I loved loved loved these readings. They both captured, in the span of a day, the brunt of survival and everything that might go through a human's mind in such circumstances.

Both readings also carried a lot of obvious symbolism, which as we know, I like. For example, the fire represents man. It is born as a weak flame, with so much potential to grow and to help or hurt. However the fire is still very fragile, like man. And of course all fires will go out.

Both pieces were realist and naturalist in nature; very Man vs. Nature. In theater, the rule is that a play is never about moments in time that are ordinary and I think that rule goes for books too and these readings were definately about extrodinary instances in time and how the characters respond to their environments. (If only Dreiser had followed it. Carrie's opening moments=ordinary to the point of dull.)

In Crane's piece, I also observed that it appeared as though the characters were going through stages of grief.

Denial:
There's a house of refuge just north of the Mosquito Inlet Light, and as soon as they see us, they'll come off in their boat and pick us up.

Anger:
I'd like to catch the chump who waved the coat. I feel like socking him one, just for luck.

Bargaining:
It is, perhaps, plausible that a man in this situation, impressed with the unconcern of the universe, should see the innumerable flaws of his life and have them taste wickedly in his mind and wish for another chance.

Depression:
If I am going to be drowned, why, in the name of the seven mad gods who rule the sea, was I allowed to come this far and contemplate sand and trees?

Acceptance:
It's merely occur to him that if he should drown it would be a shame.

What's in a Story?

For me, it's all about the characters and the symbolism. And when a story fails to satisfy one of these, I am simply appalled with boredom. So then of course, I have to dig. Otherewise, what was the point in reading the stupid piece of literature in the first place? And obviously, I'm made to read this literature for class so it can't actually all be stupid. However, this is how I felt about Dreiser's piece.

So, not only did the characters in "Sister Carrie" suck, but the story did too! We'll assume that Dreiser is simply trying to make some Naturalist remark on society and it's ways, but God how depressing! It's like Carrie had no real purpose. The only point I felt any sort of drive in the novel was when we were introduced to that asshole Drouet. But I am grateful that Drieser manage to evoke any sort of emotion out of me other then appalled boredom, even though the reading went down from there. He also managed to fit in some very honest observations about humanity. I just wish that if that were his purpose, he wouldn't have wasted our time with petty little girls and douche bags.
The following is one example of an honest observation.... though I hate to admit it.

"There is an indescribably faint line in the matter of man's apparel which somehow divides for her those who are worth glancing at and those who are not." 
^^I'll tell you why this is true. Within the inherent psychology of Man and Woman, we have caveman instincts which explain the laws of attraction. Men are instinctually attracted to women who have a baby-making figure. Female's cave man instincts dictate that they be attracted to men who appear successful, financially or otherwise, and could fulfill the role as provider.

Dreiser and London

True Art Speaks Plainly
I now fully understand the meaning of realism. According to Theodore, from what I gather, art is not art unless its tells the truth exactly as life is. that is why many people argued against the ending of Huckleberry Finn. "The sum and substance of literary as well as social morality maybe expressed in three words--tell the truth." However, I don't exactly agree as to what his definition of truth is. True art tells the truth of the human spirit, even if the tale is unrealistic. I do sincerely appreciate what Dreiser had to say about "the mental virtue of the reader." Anyone who is ready The Kite Runner should agree.

What Life Means to Me
Well, London certainly speaks his truth and is highly effective in defending his beliefs about society. And holy cow. I do feel bad for the guy, but what an excellent writer he has become through his struggles. Not only a socialist but a rhetorician as well. He definitely presents a unique perspective of society that gets the reader thinking.

At this point I realize I have read the wrong texts. Screw it. I'm publishing these anyway.

King and Duke?

More like Knave and Douche!

"After all this long journey, and after all we'd done for them scoundrels, here was all come to nothing, everything all busted up and ruined, because they could have the heart to serve Jim such a trick as that, and make him a slave again all his life, and amongst strangers, too, for forty dirty dollars."

Congrats Twain. Your pen has done its job. My emotions have been evoked. Prepare yourself.

Adults do tend to screw things up for Huck. He escaped pap, he's managed his freedom for this long, his plans are generally logical and he's never out to harm anyone. And then the two douchey douchebag frauds come along and mess up everything.

It does make me sad how honest Twain's portrayal is of men like the "Duke" and the "King."

What does this say about humanity? Adulthood? Of course a person isn't actually required to be mature to be an adult. Kind of like horrible people don't have to be tested to be allowed to have children. But still, it does make me frustrated. But there will always be bad guys, there will always be sellouts, there will always be horrible parents, and a child's dreams will always get interrupted by douchebags at some point in time. And yes, I KNOW that Twain told me not to go moral hunting.... but come on. Obviously we're supposed to learn something here.

I guess I just need still to figure out where in the novel the hope for society is. Because obviously we all can't just fake our deaths and go floating around a river for the rest of our lives. And even then, we can't avoid the crazies.

I'm getting ahead of myself. It's not like this is a tale about all the bad people Huck has met. There are the Mary Janes of the novel too. And the Grangerfords. Though they definitely still fit the crazy category.

However, it's all just a story. A commentary on society and an artistic approach to regionalism.

Where bad things happen to my Good Buddy Huck.

Time to read on!

Huck's Hiatus

People are crazy. I can't get over how many illogical, ignorant and violent tendencies people in large groups can have. Groups of people are an intriguing animal. Twain holds up a critical mirror to society in that respect several times throughout the novel, especially after the Duke and King show up. People in groups get weird.

Examples of these Occurrences:

• Jim's Hat
• when a couple people believe Jim's superstitious tales, the word spreads quickly and several people follow lead, despite the fact that he truly makes it up
• Tom Sawyer's Gang
• innocent boys plan to become murderers and robbers... for no other reason then to be doing it together
• Sheperdsons vs. Grangerfords
• families murder each other for reasons no one can remember
• Col. Sherbern's Lynch Mob
• people decide to lynch a man in broad daylight and HE convinces them to scatter
• The Royal Nonesuch
• audience members decide to lie to their friends so they aren't singled out as stupid

Perhaps that's where Twain decided to take the novel after his three year hiatus--to give a social commentary on man's lack of ability to think for himself. I also think humans have a tendency to feel entitled and to look for reasons to prove their entitlements. And they might find that opportunity anywhere, whether its by lynching a man to honking their horns in traffic. This illustrative mirror of human tendencies is an example of how this novel is realist.

Twain pulls an "Alice and Mad Hatter" tactic in his story telling. For you can't tell how crazy society can be unless there is a character who the reader can sharply contrast it with. From the outside of "civilization" and on his raft, Huck observes how messed up people are on land. He tries to shed their ways like he sheds his clothes. This is also apparent in the way Huck makes moral decisions. They are never based on societal rules, but rather spiritual questions of right and wrong (another reason why I love him). And because he is not man but rather a boy on a raft in a river, he thinks for himself.

My Good Buddy Huck

I never thought I would like a character so much as Lizzie Bennett or Peter Pan. However, this sad failure of an English major (I say this because I am probably the only major who hasn't) had never met Huckleberry Finn. I find myself becoming distracted at times because I can't stop wondering how Mr. Samuel Langhorne Clemens Mark Twain created such a boy. It's as though along with his two names, Twain carried two full minds, two sets of experiences. Its rare in a novel, even in one that's in first person, when the reader can easily understand and still be delightfully surprised by a character's thoughts, ideas and actions.
Something that makes me a little sad however is that I'm a little hesitant to look for symbolism. Perhaps I took Twain's warnings at the beginning of the novel a little too seriously. 
On second thought, perhaps its symbolism in itself. My Good Buddy Huck is like the river he's ridden on. And it's obvious why.

Fancy for Fiction

How much could we accomplish if we gave up watching television shows for an extra hour of work? Or gave up reading stories to our children and instead read them textbooks and biographies? Or if instead of supporting theater, we attended science conventions every weekend. Something would be missing. 

From the very first "Once Upon a Time" humans have illustrated an inkling for made up stories, folklore and tales--a fancy for fiction. But why is this? Why do we feel compelled to the network comedies, featured films, and best seller books? The answer is not to attempt escape from reality. And it certainly isn't because reality is boring. But if we look back to the Realist Age of Literature, we find that fiction is tool for exploring inner truths. (page 11)

Humans have a fancy for fiction because we find ourselves in it, as a people. Even when I read a tale of someone as different from me as Huckleberry Finn, I'm looking for a new understanding of myself in God's world. Next time you think to yourself that your fictitious fancies might be a waste of time, think again. The discoveries made through stories will doubtlessly lead to some of your own. Read, react, respond. Endlessly.