Brand Loyalty

Magdalene called Lena tells Milkman that "When you got grown enough to know the difference between a woman and a two-toned Ford, everything in this house stopped for you" (215).  It got me thinking about Macon Dead II especially in light of the story Lena tells Milkman about going to the ice-house.  She sets it up as "You see, he took us there so they could see us, envy us, envy him...And when he talked to the men, he kept glancing at us, us and the car.  The car and us" (216).  What Lena interprets as a being more about making the poor Blacks jealous, I would say is really more about Macon.  He missed that maturation step where he could tell the difference between a woman and a two-toned Ford.  The reason that Macon is so domineering is because to him there is no difference.  Women (and really I would say men too) are just objects that he drives until a newer model comes out and then he either trades them in or leaves them sitting in the garage.  If you will indulge me with this metaphor...look at Ruth.  She was the big name import brand that made all the other guys stand in awe as he paraded around with in.  Soon though, the mouth agape factor wore off, and she needed a a lot more TLC than was expected.  Macon keeps her confined within the home, never really taking her out anymore, forcing her to sit and waste her life away.  Because Macon sees the people around him in near car-like roles, he just fills them up with gas every now and then and thinks they'll be fine.

Like a lot of gearheads, we see Macon try and pass this on to his son.  We see how intent he is that Milkman develop the same feelings towards other people as Macon feels himself.  He is insistent that Milkman work with him at Sonny's shop, even making him the guy to collect all the rents so he experiences that feeling of superiority.  Macon wants for his son to inherit everything, the business, his personality, and with that the "cars."  Where conceivably, are Lena and Corinthians going to live in Macon's mind? Probably in the house, like they have for the first forty five years of their life, making them Milkman's responsibility.  This really is just a spin off of the old slavery rooted idea that people can be property, only for Macon they aren't just generic property they are cars.  Look back throughout the book and there are a lot of cases where cars come into play along with the notion of Macon--and Milkman--being Black on the outside but really with the "heart of a White man" (266).  The literal cars are a status symbol for Macon, by making people into car-like figures he is further classifying them, and then Morrison is showing us then, that this takes on the added level of a racial pride aspect to go with class identification.  This could then be rooted down to "Brand Loyalty."  

The Goddess of Speed

*Note: This comes from a 1928 5th Series 528 Formal Sedan. Though the scene in Song of Solomon occurs sometime around 1936, from 1929-1942 Packard changed their logo to a more chiseled masculine hood ornament.

Toni Morrison doesn't add superfluous details, anything that makes it into the book is something worth noting.  So why then, is the one thing Milkman can see outside of the car this image of a woman shown above?  And then what is the importance of it being in front of him, while looking behind makes him uneasy?  Let's tackle the former first.  The most obvious reading is the freedom she represents.  Her wings allow her to fly away from anything she wants, nothing can hold her down.  This is of course very different from Milkman's life, true he is only six or seven, but even at this young age he recognizes the domineering nature of his father.  Macon Dead II lives his way, and makes sure his entire family does as well.  In the car, the time when Milkman sees this image of the goddess of speed, he is quite physically constrained between his mother and his father.  His father controls everything about Milkman in the car, even something as basic as when he can go to the bathroom.  When Milkman starts squirming his father is reluctant to stop the car, he only does so when Magdalene tells him he could stop (Morrison 33).  Then there is the independence that the goddess having a tire suggests.  Even if a tire ruptures, she can still keep the car moving because she has an extra tire.  It isn't next to her, she isn't standing on it, it is in her outstretched arms ready for use.  Milkman doesn't have anything to give him independence.  It isn't until later that he does anything against his father's wishes (visiting Pilate's house) and only much later that he asserts anything to his father by punching him.  

I would argue though, that it is the action pose the woman has that makes this small thing such an important detail.  Look at her, she's running (or flying).  In the first chapter Milkman doesn't do anything, everything happens to him.  In the start of the second chapter Milkman's first real action that we see is him having to go to the bathroom--notice how we don't actually see him pee on his sister--that is relayed to us back in the confined car.  Like I said earlier, Milkman is physically constrained at the time he sees this image, and I think we can all remember being a 6 year old kid and wanting to do anything rather than sit in the car (moving at a crawl no less!).  Later Guitar and Milkman talk about how Milkman doesn't fit in, he lives on Not Doctor Street, but he hangs around Southside (103).  He wants something to do but the big old house that his grandfather created confines him just as much as his father does.  He can't just go in the backyard or to the park to play, and it isn't like he can throw a ball around with his dad.  Milkman is stuck, physically and emotionally, and this hood ornament is the only "role model" he has for escaping his current state.

That idea of the goddess of speed being his role model I would propose as why that is the only thing he can see out the front.  Milkman can't actually see the wide open expanses of lakes or neighborhoods, but up on the hood the goddess of speed can.  She isn't constrained by anyone or anything, the world literally opens up to her as the car moves, she is the first to see the new land.  By being the first thing anyone sees as the car approaches she is the face of the car.  Contrast this to the scene at Feather's pool hall, where Milkman is denied entrance because of who his father his.  Even though Macon isn't there, his image is strong enough that it projects over that son, casting a shadow that everyone notices.  Out front the goddess is always traversing the new, virgin, frontier.  Macon assumes after Milkman works for him for many years that he will take over, even Milkman says that he kind of assumes it as well (107).  But Milkman from the very beginning wants to be different, he doesn't want to follow his father in to real estate.  It just doesn't interest him because it's what he's always grown up knowing.  Yet, unlike his sisters and mother he won't content himself to living statically, he needs change, and he wants somewhere that his father hasn't touched already, where he could be Macon Dead, not Milkman, and no one would mistake him for his father.  The goddess represents everything Milkman wants, and the fact that she's the one thing he can see out front, in his future, shows his determination to get what she has.

Native Stranger

There is perhaps no more harsh criticism of the society of this country, with a special focus on the societal structures around crimes than Richard Wright's 1940 novel Native Son of a poor Black man who finds himself waiting for the electric chair.  Bigger Thomas is 20 years old and lives in a one room apartment with his mother, brother, and sister.  He is constantly pushed by his mother to get a job to support his family, with the final impetus being their threatened eviction if he does not begin work.  He has a few "friends" that together form a gang, committing muggings and small time robberies, as well as Bessie, a girl that he really only keeps around for sex.  His job is to be the chauffeur for the rich Dalton family.  One night (actually his first night on the job) Mary Dalton, roughly the same age as Bigger, goes out with her boyfriend Jan.  She is so drunk by the end of the night that Bigger must carry her from the driveway up to her room.  As he gets Mary to her room, her blind mother walks in, and to keep Mary quiet he puts a pillow over her face.  She dies accidentally, but Bigger realizing how it will look, hides her body and goes on the run.  Along the way he picks up Bessie to assist in his fake ransom scheme before raping and killing her.  He is subsequently caught and put on trial.

Sound familiar? Camus writes a (relatively) similar story with The Stranger.  In both the trial and punishment phase take on an entire section of the novel.  Each trial is much more an indictment of the ideas Bigger and Meursault represent then the men themselves.  The trials are sensational on both sides, the prosecutors in each play the role of the keeper of righteousness, while the defense lawyers make impassioned speeches detailing the humanity of their clients (Wright spares us no detail in the closing argument of the lawyer, Mr. Max.  The argument lasts roughly 30 pages in total).  Both clients are sentenced to death, and in each we see what prison does to them, with special emphasis paid to their disbelief of religion.

Each author is arguing against the court systems, for they are killing someone just as much as Bigger or Meursault did.  For each of the men, the death by their hand was an accident of sorts, while the all powerful court is very deliberate in its murder.  The outcome seems decided before the trial really begins, with the witnesses serving more as stories for the press than the jury.  Bigger is tormented by everyone around him, Whites hate him for killing Mary Dalton, Blacks hate him for the negative attention he has brought their ghetto.  Meursault of course hopes for the hatred of the masses on the closing page.

Christianity also has a similar role in each novel.  Both Bigger and Meursault violently reject the religion that pervasively dominates their cultures.  For each, it is seen as a giving up of hope for the current life, and is tied very closely to the idea of escaping their prisons (for Bigger this extends earlier into his childhood prison of the Black Belt).  This rejection alienates them from everyone, though this is met with some level of appreciation that they no longer have to try to explain themselves to others.

Both authors are calling for people to start valuing the current life and stop shutting their eyes in prayer for the next one.  Many viewed Wright's story as a call to arms of sorts, to get Blacks up on their feet and push, physically if necessary, for more equal rights.  Camus is writing during the Nazi occupation of France, and as an active member of the Resistance, he too it can be argued is making a similar call to his compatriots.  Their anti-justice system views make sense, as the system only works if it goes along with whatever group is in charge, even if that means bastardizing the principles of its laws, and at that point the justice systems of the U.S. and Vichy France were seriously doing just that.

While certainly the philosophies of existentialism and naturalism that so greatly influenced these two works are different, the approach to a similar end can be to some extent disregarded.  These two novels were published within only a few years of each other, and in relatively similar social environments (though importantly Meursault comes from the ruling side, while Bigger is part of the exploited side) so the use of them in conjunction with each other I find is a compelling one.  That is not to say that they are sister novels, meant intentionally to compliment one another, but I certainly see that it works out that way.

The Sins of the father

In writing my response to The Metamorphosis, I became angry with one character that I had never really focused on.  In Good Night, and Good Luck. Edward R. Murrow's famous line "The sins of the fathers do not belong to the sons so long as we own them." is highlighted.  Of course this line was spoken in a much different climate than that of Gregor Samsa, but the idea remains the same.  Gregor's entire life is altered by having to return to work for the company to pay off his fathers debt to the bank.  This raises the question, is it fair to make Gregor change his life because of the mistake (i.e. sin) of his father?  My answer to this question is no, parents are supposed to be the supportive ones, it is not the role of the child to make up for the mistakes of its parents.  This is not to say that parents don't need support, or that children should not give it, but it should not be required by a third party or by any party for that matter.  

Gregor's father doesn't work while Gregor is working as a travelling salesman, he spends all day reading the papers out loud and enjoying his retirement.  Sure, he is an older man and presumably worked hard all his life, but once Gregor morphs, his father goes back to work.  He was not just living off the success of his son, which would be one thing, but he tied a harness to his son's neck and was forcing him to pull the plow.  It seems Gregor was having a successful career in the army, a rank of lieutenant is a big deal, but because of his father's mistake he is recalled home.  His father is being selfish, by screwing up his business and then forcing his son to work off his debt, he has potentially altered the course of the family.  Gregor could have very well risen up the ranks to become a respected and well paid high ranking officer, making the Samsa name famous.  Instead he is a middling employee who becomes an insect.

The most despicable thing about Gregor's father is that, besides the fact that he doesn't own his sins, he disowns his son instead.  Look at part one where for the majority of the time he believes Gregor to be still human.  He completely throws his son under the bus for being late, he doesn't stall the manager, he doesn't try to defend his son, he just capitulates to the boss.  We see later he defends his wife and daughter from the perceived threat of Gregor, yet he has no inclination whatsoever to defend his son who is keeping him out of debtor's prison and his entire family in a nice apartment.  The only actions that Gregor's father makes, that are described in any sort of depth in the entire novella, are the few times he attacks his son.  The apple assault helps lead to Gregor's death, yet he suffers no grief for his son's death (or at least disappearance if we want to quibble with how much of Gregor was left in his insect body by the end).   Gregor's father is the kind of man that Edward R. Murrow hated most.  He is a weak man who allows injustice to happen in front of him because he doesn't have the nerve to say anything, and relies on others to clean up his own mess.  

Copycat

There is something comforting about enveloping yourself in someone else's style.  People do it all the time with fashion, identifying with a certain group, sports, mimicking a touchdown dance or batting stance mannerisms, and it is really no different in writing.  When you imitate the style of someone else, it is relieving because your writing is less personal.  It isn't really your voice that is on the paper, at least it isn't if you did a good job.  Sure some of you will shine through, but the majority of your work is to make people forget that they aren't reading the author you're imitating.  Pastiches are a relatively new genre for me as a writer, I only discovered them last year in Coming of Age, but in the few that I've written, I've grown rather fond of them.  There is no doubt that they are challenging, some voices are more difficult than others, but they are a perfect mix of creative freedoms in the direction of the essay, while still providing structure of how to write it.  One of the hardest things authors say when you are just beginning to write, is finding your voice.  With a pastiche, that is taken care of, and all you are left to do is internalize the voice and produce a great story.

Looking back at both my  first pastiche, of J.D. Salinger's Holden Caulfield, and the blog post I wrote on it, I realize that not a whole lot has changed in my approach to pastiches.  I often do write a paragraph or so and then delete it, just to get "warmed up" in the voice.  I would say it's nearly impossible to come into a pastiche cold and instantly get the voice and tone right.  Sure there are sentence examples you can use, certain words or phrases that evoke images of a character to include, but it's all the things not on the page that you have to really grasp.  Good books are more than just words on a page, and that has to be the goal in a pastiche of a good book, to get beyond the physical words and get to the next level.

This next level is the elusive part of writing pastiches that is also so enticing.  Sometimes you identify with a character and their voice just comes.  I felt that way about Holden I think, once I realized how to really write a pastiche.  With other voices, it hasn't been so easy.  I wrote a pastiche of Julia Taylor, a character most of you have probably never heard of (she's from Black Swan Green, a book I highly recommend).  She is an 18 year old girl in 1983, and British.  I was none of those things.  Trying to rebuild her voice was a more step by step process.  I had to first capture the British voice, then the female voice, and finally a dated one.  Thirty four pages later I had some parts where I think I really captured her voice, but in between I fear there were points where I only captured pieces of it.

The same can be said for my pastiches from this year, I believe I had flashes of brilliance in the pastiche, but stretches that many readers would find slightly off.  Of course my goal has always been, and will always be, to write perfect pastiches.  I would never create a dialogue with the intention of ruining narrative flow, but sometimes as the author, the tone in my head doesn't match with the tone on the page.  As a kind of added challenge to myself this year, and also to make a good study of the differences of authors' voices, I've decided that through all my pastiches I'm going to write "chapters" of the same story.  The final pastiche I do this year will end my story, and then I will put them all together and read them sequentially, in all the different voices.  It will be curious to see how much is consistent throughout them all, that would be my voice, and at that far removed point how much I associate each chapter with the influencing author.  This distance I will gain from my work will be important in the maturation of my writing, because I hope it will allow me to find my voice, ironically enough by reading my best imitations of other, more famous, voices.  I suppose ideally I won't find my voice through this exercise at all, though I do suspect my plan will work, but only time will tell.

The Best Fisherman

Brett is one of those characters, at least for me, that are so frustrating to look at because your opinion of them is so complicated.  I suppose most of the characters in The Sun Also Rises are like that (with the exception maybe of Mike).  Brett is first introduced to us very physically, "She was built with curves like the hull of a racing yacht" (30).  Throughout a lot of the scenes with Brett she is depicted very sexually, especially by Mike calling her things like "a lovely piece" (85).  She also lusts quite strongly, and more importantly openly, towards Romero.  Brett is about as promiscuous as they come, and in a sense I don't have a problem with it, but it's the men she chooses that I don't like as much.  She tells Jake that she didn't think Cohn would be like what he turns into-- that is, a mopey guy doggedly following Brett around-- but at least from our perspective filtered through Jake's, it seems pretty obvious that he would be so clingy.  With her fling with Romero, she seems surprised that Romero wants her to look more feminine and wants to actually marry her.  Though, as has been brought up multiple times in class, the man is the epitome of tradition in his dedication to the art of his craft, so it makes sense that he would want a traditional relationship.

It seems to me that Brett is looking for special notches in her belt.  It isn't satisfying for her just to say she's been with some number of guys, but that she's broken their hearts.  Notice how the only guy she doesn't pursue is Bill, probably the one guy who could have a casual relationship.  He wouldn't fall in love with her, so he really isn't interesting to Brett.  She is trying to play the masculine role in all her relationships.  Look at how Jake mocks Cohn for him being dominated by his two previous women, essentially that he isn't being masculine enough.  Men are expected to control relationships, so part of Brett's identity, as well as looking masculine (though maybe androgynous is a better descriptor) is to also "be the man" in the relationship.  It's not that I don't approve of Brett because she is upsetting traditional relationship roles, it is that she goes to the extreme end of the spectrum, hurting a lot of men in the process.

The one relationship that I don't really feel Brett does anything wrong with is her one with Jake.  They talk about how his injury keep them apart, but it is the only thing that brought them together.  They met in a hospital in London, so if he hadn't been injured specifically in that way they never would have even met. While maybe Brett takes Jake's devotion to her for granted, she clearly cares for him.  She's more emotionally vulnerable with him than any other character, and with the little we learn about her past, that is really hard for her.  I can't expect her to be with Jake and remain celibate, if their fortunes were reversed I don't see Jake giving up sex to be with Brett.

The first time we met Brett I described her as intoxicating, unknowingly ironic as she drives so many men to drink, but that description of her still fits even to the last page.  Maybe some of this is part of her subconscious character, maybe some of it is an act she puts on.  No matter what the split is, even knowing her behavior as well as we do, I still want to meet her, not to yell at her, certainly not with a blank slate, but she is still intoxicating to me, even living on the page.  As I'm writing this I'm saying to myself, "You don't really like her, why do you want to meet her so badly?"  The answer is that I don't know why, like I said at the beginning my feelings towards her are complicated, I can't condone who she is but I also can't condemn her, kind of like Jake I suppose, she ties me into knots.  

In The Beginning

The Hours is a very good film.  I really was engaged by it, so much so that my mood afterwords was acutely altered for the next half an hour or so.  The most interesting thing about the film from a stylistic sense for me was by opening with Virginia Woolf's suicide.  It is much in the tradition of Greek drama, telling the audience from the outset what the ending will be.  Yet it is such a dark mood for the film to take from the first seconds, here is the author of Mrs. Dalloway which gives birth to the "main" setting in New York, ending her life before the title placard has even come up.  It's not as if audiences would enter the film expecting to see a happy film, but such a beginning seems an odd choice all the same.  It shocks the viewer before they have even settled in their seat, so why did Stephen Daldry choose to do it this way?

I think the answer lies in the three heroines themselves.  The three of them know what is going on with themselves, and yet others don't accept that they know themselves.  This is most clearly shown with Virginia and Leonard at the train station.  It's clear that Leonard cares for his wife, and honestly wants the best for her, but he is convinced that the doctors know best, that Virginia is forgetting the bad times she went through.  Clarissa Vaughan finds herself to be the only one who can understand Richard, and also the only one who has a vision for the party and its guests.  Sally seems doubtful of everything coming together, and she clearly seems to resent Clarissa's near obsession with Richard.  Louis seems to make light of Clarissa's breakdown much like Leonard, again not out of a place of spite but more from taking things at face value, Clarissa said she's okay after a few minutes, so she's just okay in his mind.  Laura is confined to housewife status, clearly something she neither wants nor excels at, but everything around her is screaming that not only does she need to do it (housewife life) but that anyone can do it--the cake is very emblematic of this.

So by showing us that Virginia kills herself right away, and telling us that it isn't until 1941, viewers are stuck in the same place the heroines are.  We know what is going to happen, so when the other characters don't seem to recognize the severity of the matter it is frustrating to us.  Suicide for many viewers is probably a relatively foreign concept in that they themselves haven't seriously considered it.  This shared frustration helps viewers identity with Virginia and through her the other two main women.  And this connection is what ultimately drives the film, you don't want Clarissa's party to be spoiled, you want Laura to have a great birthday party for Dan, and probably most of all, you want to see Virginia happy.  Even though from the beginning it seems clear that nothing is really going to go well for any of them, you're still cheering for them because a piece of you deep inside probably has felt or feels like them.

Loving to Feel Hatred

Who do we want in life, friends or enemies?  Enemies inspire you to defeat them, friends support you when you need them.  Enemies are the antithesis to your life, friends are people to model.  Perhaps for those of us lucky enough to be able to motivate ourselves to action without an antagonist, an enemy isn't necessary.  For Clarissa Dalloway, it is.  "She hated her: she loved her" (170).  That her is Miss Doris Kilman, and her reasoning is simple, "Hot, hypocritical, corrupt; with all that power; Elizabeth's seducer; the woman who had crept in to steal and defile" (170).  Clearly the feeling is mutual, Miss Kilman certainly is no fan of Clarissa, which is unsurprising as they are both after the attention and affection of Elizabeth.  Maybe even more so is to leave an impression on Elizabeth, as they both fixate on whom Elizabeth's behavior resembles (or doesn't resemble).

It seems strange that Clarissa would ever say she loves Doris, really it seems strange for Clarissa to say she loves anyone, even Elizabeth or Richard (of course Richard can't say it at all).  But maybe that's just it, she makes Clarissa feel something—feel something in a way that her mind doesn't have to tell her how to feel, like when she straightens up as the car passes to feel more dignified, or when she feels her party isn't quite right because there isn't dancing.  This is an intense feeling, and really the only one I notice ever being described by Clarissa.  Put in this way this seems like a stark similarity to Septimus to follow from one of the panel presentations from my section today.  Septimus can't feel and he tries anything to feel, marrying Lucrezia hoping she can make him feel again.

So now comes the question: if Clarissa could, would she get rid of Doris, even though she "loves" her because she makes her feel something?  I would say the answer is no, because as Elizabeth is not independent, Clarissa really could stop Elizabeth from seeing her.  I think she chooses to allow her to stay, so as they can continue to have this war over Elizabeth.  To some extent I buy that the fear that if ever forced to choose, Elizabeth would pick Doris over Clarissa, does play a role in allowing Doris to stay.  Still though, I believe that Clarissa will do anything to keep the one feeling she has, even if it is hatred.

What Time is it?

Mrs. Dalloway takes place on one day in June 1923.  It is a character-centric novel, not a plot based one, so that short time frame works perfectly well.  Yet surprisingly, there is a common focus on time.  Often times Woolf stops her characters in the middle of thoughts to give us the time.  It is only on the second page that we first hear mention of Big Ben, by far the loudest clock Clarissa would hear in Westminster.  She says, "One feels even in the midst of traffic, or waking at night, Clarissa was positive, a particular hush, or solemnity; an indescribable pause; a suspense...before Big Ben strikes" (4).  It is a consciously understood that people pause when they feel the time has reached a significant milestone.  Clarissa doesn't elaborate on this behavior, indeed characters don't seem to pause before the impending "leaden circles" dissolve in the future, but I find it interesting that so early on, in fact in the same sentence we learn where Clarissa lives, time (a very important part of plot based stories) is mentioned.

For Woolf, it makes more sense structurally to keep bringing up time.  It gives readers a sense of proportion (one Sir William would no doubt approve of) as to how long different thoughts or conversations take place.  Peter and Clarissa's conversation is almost exactly thirty minutes, Clarissa questions who would interrupt her at eleven in the morning (39) while Peter steps onto the street from Clarissa house as the leaden circles dissolve after the half hour chimes (47).  It also allows her to swap between character's points of view very quickly, all while maintaining a linear line of movement in the story.  After we see Septimus and Lucrezia leave Sir William's office and read of Lucrezia's dislike of the man, it is the chiming of clocks that switches us to Hugh and Richard (100).  It is a quick and easy way to create a more traditional element to her story without compromising her intentions to make this about the people.

Then of course there is the idea of physical passing of time.  A lot of the characters think back to a different point in time in their life.  Clarissa and Peter (and Richard to some degree) think incessantly of what once was at Bourton.  Septimus and Lucrezia think back to their time in Italy, for Lucrezia the Septimus she fell in love with then, and for Septimus Evans and his ability to feel.  Time is something they all wish they can control, and can have more of, but of course time is constantly moving at a consistent rate.  I have no doubt time will continue to play a role in the remainder of the novel, especially at the party when the characters will probably spent most of the time reminiscing, though in general I still find it interesting that it has a large place in the novel at all.   

The Name Game

Howie fixates on a lot of little details.  That's what makes Howie Howie.  From the modernist design of staplers to the inefficiencies of air dryers in bathrooms, no object or task is too small for lengthy discourse. Yet there is something seemingly large and important that is almost completely ignored by our observant protagonist of The Mezzanine: the names of people.  It would seem appropriate to discuss names in The Mezzanine, after all, a few letters are often all that represent us on the written page, people judge us for what our name is and how we spell it.  Names have deep roots in culture, reflecting a family history as well as contemporary culture.  It's no coincidence that generations will often have a lot of...Johns or Alices or Stephens...names are shown to go in trends, the more people hear about a name becoming popular the more they use it or a variant.  So why is it that Howie doesn't discuss names, and goes so far as to almost completely ignore them?

Let's take the case of his own name.  Howie, the diminutive form of Howard, is a pretty average name, at least in my own head it doesn't evoke any strong images, if anything the only thing that stands out is how unremarkable it is, neither common nor rare, not specifically from any given culture or time period.  Perhaps Howie doesn't mention his name because it is just that--his name, since it's his story he doesn't need to remind himself of his main character.  I normally don't think of myself in the third person, and if this were a stream of consciousness style book I would have no quibble with only seeing his name once (in the bathroom of all places).  Looking at a different example of a book with a similarly styled first person narration from a somewhat removed version of the narrator who is authoring the story, The Catcher in the Rye, Holden Caulfield manages to slip his name into the narrative often.  Granted, Holden is more specifically writing to the reader, though Howie clearly talks to us through his footnotes (something Salinger chose never to deploy). Think about how many times in conversation (either in real time or revisiting in your memory) someone says your name.  Maybe not as much as "you" but my bet is that it comes up every now and then, enough that if you were to write to the detail that Howie did, it would probably be included many times.  This would lend to the idea that Howie is intentionally editing out his name in his depiction of his lunch hour.

The other person's name that stands out to me would be L.  In class people brought up that we never really get a description of L., what she looks like, who she is, what she does, we see only fleeting glimpses of her in relation to one of Howie's observatory stories.  Forgive me for going to a different novel for comparison, but I immediately saw the connection to E.C. of A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.  In that, she is the romantic interest of the protagonist Stephen Dedalus.  E.C. who the reader later finds out is named Emma, has minimal contact with Stephen, with little more actually taking place between the two of them than glances during different scenes.  Emma is one of the key pieces that Stephen fails at during his maturation that ultimately drives him from his native shores of Ireland to seek a new country to achieve his potential.  We don't quite see the same thing from Howie and L., they seem to be in a long term relationship.  Though she is a seemingly large part of his life, perhaps Howie's reluctance to name L. derives from her importance in his mind that ultimately does not fully fit with her place in reality.

So now I will finally attempt an answer to my question initially posed above.  I suggest that it is in response to Aurelius that Howie chooses to ignore names.  "Observe, in short, how transient and trivial is all mortal life; yesterday a drop of semen, tomorrow a handful of spices and ashes."  If we do not live meaningful lives as Aurelius argues, then what in death are we remembered by if not our actions and mannerisms?  Our names.  For millenia humans have carved the names of the dead onto rocks so that if nothing else, that singular description will survive.  Is there any way Howie could have refuted Aurelius more, then by focusing on all the trivialness of mortal life, while ignoring the one thing of relative permanence?    

Here Lies

Here lies the end of my coming of age, and the beginning of my journey in the 20th century.

The Coming of a Writer

I figure since all the seniors seem to be reflecting on their time in individual classes and at Uni as a whole that I can spend one blog post reflecting.  Of course I'm not leaving this school, but it is the end of the year after all.  For all the books that I've read this year in AA Lit and now Coming of Age, the amount of allusions, allegories, social commentary, and a whole host of other literary elements found in the books we've read has been amazing.  Last semester I remember wondering if Ralph Ellison intended everything that we (and professional literary critics) were able to see in his words.  Surely, I thought to myself, it would be impossible for Ellison to finish a novel of Invisible Man's complexity and intentionally add in all that he did.

This curiosity of mine was reinvigorated when I began writing the semester project.  There was so much I wanted to say, I wanted to continue the story lines of Holden and Jane, have Julia meet new people, make social commentary, all while trying to make a just plain interesting story at the surface level.  In the end, my semester project turned into a long, roughly thirty page short story that really did hit almost everything I wanted to cover.  At times though, I sacrificed brevity to make sure everything was fleshed out.  Sure, it made the paper more accessible to an average reader who hadn't read the books it was based on, nor was versed in reading between the lines, but did that make it better or worse?  Is it the author's responsibility to make it possible for nearly any reader to understand their work, or as the author is it okay to make the reader work for it a little bit?

In the end, I realize that maybe it isn't always best to spell everything out so much.  That may be where the genius of someone like Ralph Ellison lies, he puts in just enough that an astute reader (or group of readers) can get an inkling as to his point, and from there notice it recurring and being supported later in the novel.  James Joyce didn't write Portrait with all the notes that we had the benefit of in the back of the book.  That was a publishing decision, and one which I imagine he wouldn't have chosen.  Those notes certainly made the already complicated novel more understandable for modern readers, and in turn more popular (because an average reader doesn't like books it doesn't understand).  That is what a publisher's job is then: to sell the most books possible.

That was Salinger's greatest success, maintaining control over the physical book, not just the story.  He's famous for not including a picture of himself in his bio, not allowing the cover of the book to be fancy, and to control all the information from cover to cover.  Take that in comparison to another book from a few years earlier in The Great Gatsby.  That book is known for it's cover, with the faceless eyes and lips, and the stylized version of the New York skyline.  Fitzgerald was even quoted as saying once that the cover art came first (without the artist having read the manuscript) and he, F. Scott Fitzgerald, then incorporated images into the book that could be related to the cover.

Of course my "Re-Illusion off Oxford" will never be a world famous work.  There won't be movie deals or famous cover art, but I can still, in some small sense, relate to the struggles of authors to maintain ownership over their own work.  In my case I fought with myself, over giving my work a more accessible level of detail, or keeping it more below the surface in an elusive attempt to create art.  The reader friendly version won out, though even the struggle between the two roads diverging was important for me, both as a writer, and as a reader relating to the authors I've begun reading more and more.

Do we need it to be fresher?

When I read over Mr. Mitchell's blog post the other day about the teacher who found that Black Swan Green was more relatable to her students than Catcher in the Rye, I was somewhat surprised, though not entirely.  I wrote earlier about how coming into Catcher I didn't like that everyone told me it was the book that would change my life.  When I would tell assorted family members at different Hanukah parties during winter break that I was taking a class on coming of age novels, with few exceptions everyone would ask, "Are you going to read Catcher in the Rye?  You just have too."  I was then often treated to their personal take on the book, its role in their life and their guess as to how it may change my life.  Like Mr. Mitchell said in his post, discovering a book (or telling yourself you've discovered it) can make a book really appealing.  I would never get a book that's sitting at the front table of Barnes and Noble, with posters and flyers advertising it, I like to go and find books that I've never heard of.  Catcher was certainly not that kind of experience.

I did enjoy the book in large part because I related to Holden though.  Maybe because I thought his struggle to remain a childlike teenager in a society that told him that as a rich white man he should relish in his ascension to the pinnacle of 1950s American society mirrored my similar struggle with going to a school and having friends college plans are a given so the focus is on career outlook and things of that nature.  Though he was from a different time, and many of the images a contemporary of Holden's would understand I didn't, translating from that time to this time wasn't that much of a stretch.  The things expected of you, the phoniness of some of the people around you, those things haven't really changed.  It's not to say that the students in Roake's article live in some alternate universe where the aforementioned behavior doesn't exist, or that somehow they aren't astute enough to be able to translate Holden into something more relatable to them, maybe the complex voice of Stephen Dedalus made Holden's more real-world oriented banter seem much closer to current life.

That isn't to say that I couldn't relate to Jason Taylor because I related to Holden, his many struggles were very familiar, either things that I went through or saw others have to overcome.  It was nice to start reading Black Swan Green and have no one who saw me read it know what it was about.  It was nice to feel that feeling (though probably untrue) that I was connecting something from the text that hadn't been though of before.  It was a similar feeling to when I read White Boy Shuffle by Paul Beatty last semester.  It's also relatively new, by a largely unnoticed author in the prose world (though Beatty is a known poet).

Jessica Roake's point in her Slate article, that English departments should replace Catcher with Black Swan Green, on the surface I suppose makes sense, if you can only do one coming of age novel you might as well go with the more modern one.  But it doesn't seem right to just swap out one book for another to fill the spot deemed "young boy coming of age and struggling with his society."  I really didn't like on the back of Black Swan Green's cover when it had a quote reading that it was Britain's Catcher in the Rye.  I believe that there are elements that Mitchell probably picked up from Salinger, and traits of Jason that may trace back to Holden, but with a new book to say that it is only a translated version of an old classic seems sacrilegious for a literary critic and an author.  No one would ever say that Don Quixote is a Spanish version of Canterbury Tales (perhaps because the plots are distinctly different), but both these novels serve the same purpose as the beginning of each nation's literary tradition.  Both Catcher and Black Swan Green say that being independent is okay, that you don't have to follow every whim of the society around you, so why would anyone who likes these two books, let alone wrote them or about them define them in terms of each other.  In the end I think each book stands on its own as an important member of the larger coming of age genre, and while I disagree with Roake's position that Black Swan Green is the new Catcher in the Rye, I don't envy her for having to make the decision between a classic in the genre and what may well be a future classic.

My Sag Harbor

When I began reading Benji's account of life at Sag Harbor, and then heard Mr. Mitchell's personal experience growing up on the Jersey Shore, I found a lot of similarities and interesting contrasts with the beach I like to call my own.  My beach is Marco Island, Florida.  It used to be this really small fishing village about an hour south of Fort Myers but now it has become a grossly overcrowded tourist spot.  Ever since my dad was born my grandparents have been going down there during December.  A guy who my grandpa met through his advertising work in the 60s had a place down in Marco and would invite them down to stay with them.  Verlin, the guy who my grandpa knew moved into real estate, and soon the properties that Verlin would rent throughout the year became the houses my grandparents would stay in during their time there.  Years later I came into the picture, but sadly the all day fishing trips with good old Dennis and the morning bait fish expeditions off Verlin's dock were over.  Verlin had died, and my grandparents were too old to be out on the water all day.

As I began to get older, my uncle and I became a lot closer because he still wanted to fish all day and no one else besides him and I did, so we have had many adventures over the years.  There was the time we were fishing off the narrow sea wall at the farthest tip of the island and I jumped down onto the rocks to try and grab the black drum (that's a species of fish) that had gotten off my line in the rocks but couldn't get back into the water.  We only realized as we were walking back--sans fish--that I was bleeding all over the place from a gash in my thigh.  There was the time the stingray was going through the water right next to us as we were walking to Hideaway Beach near low tide.  When it was time to fillet the fish, I would dutifully stand next to him and throw all the pieces of the carcass to the swarm of pelicans around our dock, and then a few years ago he taught me how to fillet, and allowed me to butcher my first few dozen fillets until I could finally get a full one without any bones.

That point where I dove in after the fish has now been blocked off by the condo association above it.  Hideaway Beach has become even more difficult to get to as the mega-mansions built along its edge have continued to encroach, breaking mariner law and trying to privatize land below the high tide line (which we dutifully ignore and walk through anyway).  The boat that we've fished from my entire life, the Little Brat is starting to show its age, and the dock is slowly come apart.  The invading tourists have taken their toll too, normal public beaches are practically not fishable now, and the good fishing spots are being over fished to the point of nonexistence.  Manatees and dolphins, previously normal sights out on the water, have become scarcer in response to the increased boat traffic and decreased food.

Even though I'm not a townie, I only go down for a week or ten days every year, I still feel like a true member of Marco Island kind of like Benji.  I know the best restaurant in town (Snook Inn) that literally has charter captains come to the dock the restaurant owns and throw in fresh fish.  The chefs even go so far as to cook anything an unknown customer brings in.  Sue's Garden is the go to place to get carry out on Christmas Eve and Christmas day when everything else is closed.  Walker's Coon Key Marina has the best live shrimp in the area though Calussa has the cheaper bait and gas.  If you have the time Cape Romano is always a guaranteed success in the fishing department, Coon Key is a bit of a gamble but the trout and whiting available make it worth the risk.  

For me the "going out" issues that Benji presents is the questions my uncle and I always ask each other at Thanksgiving-What's the weather look like for December, and more importantly what's the water temperature like?  Have any hurricanes blown through and hit Marco?  Are there any red tide warning or beach re-nourishment projects?  When we get there the first day is always spent sorting out the rods, checking which parts we need to replace, and what fishing spots are gone and which news ones have popped up.

My experience year to year in Marco defines me.  I know when I've gotten stronger because pulling in the anchor is easier, or when I've gotten taller after noticing that I can see more over the console at the helm than I could the year before.  Coming of age for me in that part of my life was when my uncle got me my own fillet knife, the same type my grandpa bought him forty years ago.  In Marco I'm more in tune with nature, and I'm more confidant in my physical skills, whether it be navigating through the maze of identical mangroves, or sensing a storm when the water gets cloudier and the current starts running.  Marco is where I feel most alive, and my countdown towards when we will go there usually starts in July, also about the time I start checking hurricane forecasts and praying that they will miss Marco and instead push the fish from out in the gulf more towards the west coast of Florida.  Marco runs within my family, and no flock of tourists or greedy homeowner can ever take away my Sag Harbor, because Marco will always be my home.

Big Bad Michael

Today near the end of class Mr. Mitchell asked us if we like Michael Taylor.  My first instinct was to say no, almost that he is a character created for us not to like.  Reading the "Souvenirs" chapter my opinion of him was compounded by his behavior.  Up to that chapter he had always seemed to me to be an arrogant, self centered man.  I didn't like his smugness when Moby gets taken by a crane, or his passive aggressive way of verbally fighting with everyone (mostly Helena and Brian) at dinner.  I thought it was a character flaw that he couldn't at least hide his displeasure at Jason's stammer a little better, because after all it's not like Jason chooses to have it.  I took his actions in "Souvenirs" to be a continuation of his poor character.  He passed Jason along to his trainee Danny, didn't call Jason about being tied up with a seminar, and then made Jason apologize to Craig for getting elbowed in the face.  I did think the scene with the kite was nice, but it seemed more like an outlier of his personality, that everyone has one of those days where they're exceptionally nice and attentive yet they go back to the same old curmudgeon the next day.

As I thought about Michael more after class though, I began to not really be angry or annoyed with Michael so much as feel sorry for him.  He's a middle level person in every sense of his life, he's a middle manager at work, middle class socially, and of middle intelligence.  I don't get the sense from Jason's description that he's very attractive (though I don't know how much any of us see would describe our parents as being attractive), he's clearly not funny, and his one talent is apparently identifying fossils.  But I'm sure when he was a teenager he had dreams of being somebody, or changing world.  Instead he's a manager at Greenland.  He was probably picked on by the previous incarnations of Ross Wilcox and hoped to escape his tormentor once he was a professional.  In a sense he did, I don't think Craig Salt would be described as a hard man like Ross is a hard kid, but Michael still has to quietly follow everything Craig says and does.  Jason says that his dad wouldn't meet his eyes when he tells Jason to agree with Craig's incorrect identification of the fossil.  He's clearly ashamed by the whole situation, though he probably finds more value in advancing up the food chain at Greenland than Jason's momentary respect.

Taken in this light, a lot of Michael's behavior can be explained.  His weird rule about not going into his office which Jason breaks in the first chapter is clearly more about control than hiding anything in his office.  At work he is only a mouthpiece for Craig, so to have people listen to his personal commands at home is a big deal. Pretty much all of the other stuff he does seems related to this thirst for some small level of control over his life.  I think his issue in life is one many of us fear, or at least I do.  I don't want to live my life as a middle man who passes on my boss' ideas to my subordinates without ever getting to use my ideas.  Michael lives the life none of us want to live, so it's easier for us to overlook him with a simple judgement of his personality without bothering to look at why he is who is, because deep down we fear becoming him.

Destruction in the Rocks

In the "Rocks" chapter, Jason watches from the sidelines two wars over a pile of rocks, The Falklands War (between Great Britain and Argentina) and the rockery (between Helena and Michael).  By the end of the chapter Jason reflects on how the result of neither war stirs up any joy for him.  When I first read this over I believed that the death of Tom Yew and the open fighting between his parents essentially killed his childhood, marking the point where he changed from a naive boy to a more world weary young man.  To some degree I think this is a proper characterization of how these events changed Jason: he goes from the boy keeping a scrapbook of the war and ranking his parents' fight by a number of stars, to writing the word "bloody" six times in one sentence.

On another level this chapter shows the death of Jason's future, or at least the one he seems to have been planning on.  Ever since the first few pages of Chapter 1, Tom Yew had been the man Jason idealized, his proverbial lighthouse if you will.  He says on page nine that Tom was a minor legend in Black Swan Green, and when he shares his opinion on anything everyone instantly changes theirs to match his.  Jason's first understanding of love and sex is from Tom, albeit accidentally, when Jason's up in the tree watching Tom and Debbie have sex.  Jason always imagines fighting for Britain, shooting down MIGs and refusing medals from Margaret Thatcher, and Tom serves in the Navy and is treated like a hero for it around town.  Jason wants to be Tom Yew in a few years, the cool care free guy who can say anything he wants, both because people won't mock him and he doesn't have to worry about a stammer.  When Tom dies the path Jason was wanting to follow abruptly vanishes, he almost becomes a moving ship without a rudder to keep the theme around sailing going.  This lack of control against the social current is probably a lot of what pushes Jason towards the spooks.  He wants something he can work towards, and he wants to find another Tom Yew, hoping he'll find it as a spook.  The closest guy to Tom in the group would probably be Pluto Noak, but unlike with Tom, Jason seems to realize that Pluto charts a course just a little too far of f normal life routes.

More alike than different

I know it's kind of late to be talking about Housekeeping but as I was looking back over my notes to try and find something to write a reflective response on I stumbled back upon a note that I had underlined about Sylvie and Lucille.  I didn't work this into my paper but I still think it's an interesting point to bring up here.  All that being said, here I go:

Lucille makes her feelings towards Sylvie pretty clear to everyone with her leaving the house to go live with her Home-Ec teacher.  She then tries to go back for Ruth, to save her from the path she eventually ends up going in life.  Sylvie to her credit seems to take Lucille's utter contempt of her in stride, telling Ruth that, "Well, we'll be better friends" (Robinson 142).  While much of this mellow reaction can be credited to her general nature, I propose that it's because of her actions at Lucille's age that she so calmly accepts what happens.  Sylvia, Ruth's grandmother seems to have been a very orderly person, keeping a clean and tidy house while her daughters were growing up.  When Sylvie leaves her mom, only being a few years older than  Lucille when she leaves, she almost completely abandons the way she was raised.  She becomes a transient, never settling in a place long enough to make a house her own and have to bother keeping it orderly.

People in class brought up the similarity between Sylvie and Ruth, or the near copycat personality Ruth develops to match Sylvie.  The one thing that Ruth lacks in this comparison is a strong independent spirit.  Ruth isn't about to go against the mother figure in her life, she won't really go against anyone for that matter.  Sure she tells us when she disagreed with something, but in the moment she just accepts pretty much everything thrown her way.  Sylvie couldn't have done that when she was younger, or else she never would have left Fingerbone or had the gall to take a nap on the bench in the park as an adult.  This independence is what really defines Sylvie in every sense of her life, and it's what defines Lucille too, even if her independence is leading her into the main stream she still has to break away from the norm that she grew up in (i.e. Sylvie's way of living).  I hesitate to completely say that Lucille is more like Sylvie than Ruth is, but I do think that in terms of instinctive personality Sylvie and Lucille are two peas in a pod, whereas Ruth has to morph her personality to align with Sylvie.

Changing Alone

So far through the first eleven chapters in Bell Jar Esther hasn't done anything productive.  She has pretty much realized that writing in a magazine may not be her future, as it seems she didn't end things with Jay Cee too well and gets turned down for the writing course (Plath 114).  She starts writing a book but then there's the whole issue with her not sleeping for weeks and being sent to a psych clinic.  But there's one more key area where Esther seems to be floundering: relationships.  There's Buddy, Doreen, Betsy, and then  Jody.  With Doreen and Betsy there's the obvious reason why Esther left them, because their one month adventure in New York was up.  Buddy not only unzips his pants in the middle of a conversation, later he sends Esther a letter saying he is in love with a nurse but, "If I came along with her, he might well find his feeling for the nurse was a mere infatuation" (Plath 119).  Jody, the friend Esther was supposed to live with while they are all in summer programs at Harvard, would probably be too hard for Esther to see on a daily basis as she has succeeded in doing what Esther couldn't.  On the surface all of these failed relationships seem to make sense, but I think there's something inside Esther which is at least contributing to the failed relationships.

It's pretty obvious that Esther doesn't want to be a typical housewife.  She doesn't want to just wait around until someone comes to marry her.  She doesn't want to be the typical 1950s woman.  Unfortunately for Esther though, it seems everyone around her is content with the status quo.  Buddy wants a wife who will only raise their kids and not have a career, so Esther comes up with other reasons to tell herself she should forget Buddy.  Doreen, who is wild now, at 19 or 20, doesn't seem to want to work, after all, "The only thing Doreen ever bawled me out about was bothering to get my assignments in by a deadline" (Plath 5).  In a few years she'll probably settle down with someone who can support the way she likes to live.  Betsy, as Esther tells us on page 6, was brought straight out of a cornfield, about as all-american as you can get, so in all likelihood she's going to end up becoming a housewife.  Jody, the girl who Esther met at college, the girl that out of all the characters could think most like Esther, doesn't.  She's working in Cambridge and taking a sociology class.  Esther doesn't seem to find anything wrong with that, but at the same time Jody is going to be living in an apartment with three girls, working and going to school.  It's not that I think Esther is consciously deciding that these people will not be different, therefore she shouldn't be with them, it seems more like Esther uses other characteristics or situations to hide herself from why she really doesn't want to stay with them, which is their conservative view on life.

Imitating a Legend

I think we can all agree that Holden Caulfield's narration of his week around Christmas is one of the most famous weeks for a teenager in literary history.  His voice is also very distinctive.  This weekend I've been working on the extra assignment trying to write a reflective response to Portrait in Holden's voice.  At first I was leaning towards doing just a standard plain voice and throw in lots of "and all" "goddam" and "that depressed me."  Until I started writing I hadn't looked to much into the voice-sure I knew it sounded different, a little older and slightly more elevated voice than Gunnar Kaufman's, but that what made it different was the words he loved to use.  I wrote two sentences, two sentences, before I realized that it's the whole way Holden looks at things, like how he doesn't mind digression, or he repeats an idea when he gets really excited by the idea that makes his voice so distinctive.

Then as I started writing and I was forced to make another decision.  As Mr. Mitchell said in class we had to decide which style of speech we wanted Holden to be speaking in.  I didn't want him to speak in such a conversational tone as in Catcher, it's supposed to be a school essay and all.  I read over the scene with Mr. Antolini, and in it they are witty and speak to each other more in a peer way than a student to teacher dynamic.  I decided to go with a semi-conversational tone for Holden because while he wouldn't be one to follow every guideline as to appropriate essay writing, he also is doing it for a grade for a teacher he cares about.  Once I started writing in his voice, it became easier to write in his voice, I almost didn't have to think about writing in a different voice than my own because it was a very natural voice.  It really just flowed, and once it did, it was really enjoyable to write in his voice.

A Sister's Influence

Towards the end of The Catcher in the Rye, Phoebe pretty much dominates Holden's thoughts.  There is the scene with Mr. Antolini, and the scene with the two little kids at the museum (looking for the toons) but the rest of the last few chapters are devoted to Holden's interactions with Phoebe.  Even before we ever meet her Holden tells us about her.  He obviously cares a lot about his family, he brings up Allie and D.B. a lot and he seems to not want to distress his mother, but he really focuses on Phoebe.  At first it seemed a little strange to me, a six year age difference at that point in his life is a big deal.  We see how his age ostracizes him from the kids at the playground when he goes to look for her.  He knows he's too old to really hang out with them, and they definitely know it, but with Phoebe it's just different.  When he breaks down in her room, the way he describes it makes her almost appear to be the older sibling, she's comforting him on the edge of the bed as he struggles to control himself.

People in class threw around the idea that she represents the aspects of childhood that Holden wants to keep a hold of in his attempt to avoid the phoniness he equates with being an adult.  While I agree that Holden wants to keep alive his childhood by being with her, I think her personality has a large part to do with it.  If you look throughout his week that Catcher covers, almost all of his complaints are about the different traits of people in his life.  Holden is annoyed by Stradlater because he is a secret slob as he puts it (27), the girls at the club because only one of them can really dance (74), and then Sally and Sunny because they aren't good conversationalists (96,128).  Then, when it seems like Holden can't find anyone who matches all his criteria, we meet Phoebe.  He tells us she's really smart, a great dancer, can lie through her teeth, and she can clearly keep up with him in any conversation (165,175,177).  Phoebe is the opposite of practically everything Holden dislikes in other people.  By spending time with her, he can reaffirm to himself that not only is childhood more real than adulthood, but that there are people out there who are everything he's looking for in another person.

Let down yourself or your parents?

Perhaps the hardest thing for a teenager to do is not what there parents don't want them to do, but refusing to do what their parents want them to do.  So we see Stephen at the end of Chapter four.  He has rejected the director's offer to join the Order of the Jesuits, and instead has decided to attend university.  Most of us probably applauded him when we read this scene, for not allowing other's expectation to push him away from what we ultimately assume will be his profession: art.  I was certainly one of those people cheering him on, I could see that he'd matured beyond trying to be the one everyone looks up to and says "That Stephen Dedalus, I wish I could be more like him."  So far it seems to work out great for him, in the end of the chapter Stephen finally feels an emotion for another human being.  At the start of Chapter five he has friends at school, and while he seems to not be loving taking his classes he does seem content where he is.

Yet looking back at his family's reaction to his decision not to join the Order, it doesn't seem like such a good one.  When he come's home from being summoned by the director to see all of his little siblings alone in the house with dregs of tea, it is because his parents are "Goneboro toboro lookboro atboro aboro houseboro" (177).  Later his sister tells him it's because the landlord is kicking them out, and Stephen sees how "Even before they set out on life's journey they seemed weary already of the way" (177).  Clearly his family has continued to fall on harder and harder times financially, but Mr. Dedalus keeps Stephen in a very nice Jesuit school.  Stephen's siblings will never be able to get the level of education he got which they all seem to accept, but most of his family don't seem to think he's using that education in the best way.  His mother really doesn't like the idea, with Stephen picking up that "Yes, his mother was hostile to the idea, as he had read from her listless tone" (178).  Though maybe Stephen's decision to go to university will lead to more money further in his life, it seems that for his family the honor they would've had, had Stephen decided to join the Order, would've made all the sacrifices the family made for him worth it-and somehow by him refusing-he has to some degree rejected all that his family has done for him.  I still believe Stephen made the right decision for him personally, but I guess I no longer think he would have been making solely a selfish decision by choosing to join the Order.  

Narcissism or Insecurity?

In third hour yesterday we were discussing the scene were Stephen writes his first poem (pages 73 and 74), and it seemed like the general consensus of the class was that it was an illustration of the narcissism of the artist.  The more I pondered this scene though, the more the narcissism designation seemed improper.  I concluded later that I think this scene shows us that Stephen, and the new artist in general, is very insecure about his work.  Stephen is portrayed as being insecure during his year at Clongowes, but by Chapter 2 he is the more confident leader of a gang.  But then there's this scene with him trying to write a poem about this girl he met at a party whom he rode home with but without working up the courage to kiss her.

Mr. Mitchell said in class that Byron's convention of titling a poem about a women with only her initials was to protect the identity of the married women Byron was having affairs with.  Stephen, nor this mystery girl (who we later learn is Emma), would be married at this point and it wasn't like anything happened-he didn't even kiss her.  Though it could be Stephen was only trying to emulate his literary hero, this style of title also conveniently served the purpose of keeping his personal relation to her hidden.  To anyone reading his poem, E----C---- could just be a figment of his imagination, much in the way Mercedes is in his head after reading The Count of Monte Cristo.  He also drops all the sensory details, something which he had focused on in the past, in favor of telling of "the night and the balmy breeze and the maiden lustre of the moon" (Joyce 74). He practically takes all details about the inspirational moment of his ride with Emma out, leaving only a general love poem to hide his emotions about the event.

Not only does Stephen lose almost all detail in the poem, the physical way that he writes the poem makes him appear insecure.  He sits in his room for hours, long after most of the people in the house would have left for the day.  Then, as soon as he finishes it, he hides the book (74).  Instead of looking over the poem he has just composed, he flees to his mother's bedroom to watch himself.  This is the first poem he's ever finished, so for someone who values his intellectual prowess, you would think he would want to show it off so it's strange that he wants to act like it never even happened. 

Coming of Age: A New Beginning

A few days ago in class we had a writing prompt to talk about what coming of age meant to us.  Growing up in a large extended Jewish family, coming of age is a defined moment.  For a Jewish boy the Bar Mitzvah is the key event that represents his ascension into adulthood.  There are lots of religious things that come along with being an adult but I won't go into that.  But the thing about coming of age in Jewish religion and culture, is that from the moment you are born people are talking about it and preparing you for it.  You don't really get to pick when it is, it just happens at one Sabbath when you are thirteen.  And once its over, BOOM, its like you're part of a whole different club.  People look at you different and you're expected to do things you've never had to do before.  It can be stressful with all the new found responsibilities, but its also really exciting.

Stephen Dedalus, in Portrait I suppose isn't as lucky as I was (or depending on how you look at it maybe he had it better).  In his life so far, there hasn't been one day where he's come of age in the eyes of the world.  For his parents, it seems that once he returned from boarding school and was allowed to sit at the Christmas dinner table for the first time, he has come of age.  He's expected to sit and eat politely, yet when he tries to act like he understands all the political rhetoric being thrown around the table his father turns to him and says, "What are you laughing at, you little puppy, you?" (27)  Stephen takes another step towards coming of age when he leads a gang of boys over the summer, but I still couldn't say he's come of age.  I have a feeling that throughout the book there will never be a point where the reader can say "This is the moment where Stephen has come of age," instead it will be a gradual change that will be hard to notice until the end, when all of a sudden we see a matured Stephen who has certainly come of age and are forced to wonder when we missed it.