M'ama

“I did it for love, didn’t I?”(50). Nora considers these words to herself. It’s a rationalization, but one hidden behind a veil of genuine love. On the surface, Nora seems to be manipulative. While she honestly finds pleasure in telling the lie to Torvald, the reason she’s in her situation is because of “love”. She hides the information from Torvald to protect him. Well. . . this is all fine and dandy, except Nora ends up leaving Torvald. Her reasons behind her actions are revealed through conversation with Rank. Rank, who’s another victim of Nora’s manipulations asks why she leads him on. She replies, “Well, you see, there are some people whom one loves, and others whom it’s almost more fun to be with”(69). It’s sad to think that it isn’t fun to be with someone you love, but it’s important to first analyze Nora’s definition of love. She borrows money because of love. She stays with Torvald and amuses him for love. Love is merely an obligation, a duty. Nora mistakes love for her duties required by her marriage. Love is simple. It isn’t a game to be played between two individuals. Nora believes that love and pleasure seeking are mutually exclusive, but they can go hand-in-hand.This is similar to Archer in The Age of Innocence. He pursues Ellen, when his marriage to May should fulfill his needs for enjoyment with another partner. Archer however is robbed of any confrontation with May. He “loses” and is forced to fantasize about his life with Ellen. Instead, Nora reaches an end when she decides that  “I don’t love you anymore”(101). On the surface, this is one of the most hurtful things one can say to another. It reminds the person that the love they once had, the love that brought them happiness is now absent, and cannot return. This is all controlled by the one word “anymore”. Love needs to be reciprocated. No matter how Torvald still feels towards Nora, their abyss remains unbridged. . . This is aggravating because I’m having trouble assembling gnostic arguments for or against Nora. I’m not going to pretend that I  comprehend what “love” is. Nora - She’s incredibly unlikeable. She knows that everything that she is doing is wrong, and yet she’s able to leave her life with a clear conscious. She thinks that leaving her family behind so that she can work on herself is positive. The problem is that marriage confuses these two characters’ definition of love. To Archer, the worshipped virgin gives him the disillusion that “love” is the chance to teach an innocent girl the wonders of the world. It’s the ability to make a mark on someone else. It’s power. Property. It’s the ability to look at a person and think to oneself “I’ve imposed so much of my own philosophies, characteristics, and physical mark on this human that they are now an extension of me. They belong to me because I’ve created the persona sitting right in front of me”. Torvald is guilty of the same treatment. He often speaks of how he wants his marriage to Nora be like their very first night. He also idolizes virginity. To Nora, love makes people keep secrets and having a hand in the financial stability of the household. Once she exclaims that she doesn’t love Torvald anymore, she has no interest in investing herself in the stability of the life they’ve built. No matter how fake it is, it was still their life. It’s the end of their life. Her reasons for leaving the household can be interchanged with the reason she gives for loaning the money. She’s leaving Torvald for love. Love and respect she has for herself. That’s the only optimistic view I can give to the end of Doll’s House. I take what I said back. Love is extremely complicated, especially when it’s built on something as ephemeral and extreme as emotions.

Evil in Fargo and No Country For Old Men

Today I watched Fargo, and noticed striking similarities between the character Grimsrud in Fargo and Chigurh in No Country For Old Men. I think that the Cohen Brothers use these characters to display their definition of evil. The similarities span farther than the disturbingly silent performances by their actors and awful haircuts. In Fargo, after being caught for seven homicides, Grimsrud sits in the back of the squad car while Marge, the female police officer, tries to comprehend his motives. She says, "And for what?  For a little bit of money. There's more to life than money, you know. Don't you know that?...  And here ya are, and it's a beautiful day". Her words of reason are left on Grimsrud. He doesn’t reply and merely stares blankly ahead with what’s described in the screenplay as “hallow eyes”. I’ll compare this scene with the one in No Country For Old Men. 

ARLA JEAN
You don't have to do this.

CHIGURH
People always say the same thing.

CARLA JEAN What do they say?

CHIGURH
They say “You don't have to do this.”

CARLA JEAN You don't. . .

Chigurh stares at her for a beat.

CHIGURH
This is the best I can do. . .

He digs in his pocket for a coin.

CHIGURH . . . Call it.

CARLA JEAN
I knowed you was crazy when I saw you settin there. I knowed exactly what was in store for me.

CHIGURH Call it.

CARLA JEAN
No. I ain't gonna call it.

CHIGURH Call it.

CARLA JEAN
The coin don't have no say. It's just you.

CHIGURH
I got here the same way the coin did.

In both of these encounters, the Cohen Brothers use female characters to show the reasoning and humane nature of woman against the cold murderous rage of man. On the surface, Grimsrud seems to be motivated by 80,000 dollars, but to him, it is only a job. He’s a hired gun. Chigurh is also a hitman. But neither are truly motivated by the money their job brings in. Anton is offered money during one of his jobs, and he turns it down. It’s about seeing a job to its completion. He stands by set principles and rules, and does not falter. Both men are forces of evil that make sure purpose is enacted on a random and meaningless world.  Anton gives Carla Jean a chance to leave her life up to random fate, but she refuses. The coin toss is a random device that has no intentional purpose. This is juxtaposed against Chigurh’s purposeful assassinations. Carla Jean refuses to give her life to chance, and so evil takes her life. Evil in the Cohen Bother’s movies are personified as hollow men who strive to make sure their morals are fulfilled. They have purpose. It’s not chaotic. It may be born out of nihilism, but it’s evil with a purpose. This is in stark contrast with the evil we’ve been analyzing. There isn’t a sympathetic or relatable characteristic in either character. It makes them a terrifying plot device, but also fascinating characters whose absolute dedication to their law make them impossible forces to be reckoned with. There is no moral ambiguity. Perhaps this means the Cohen Brothers are arguing that evil comes from intent purely. Nature is random and has no consciousness, but humans do. Evil is born from striving towards fulfilled purpose. Their films show the dangers of committing to a way of life without remaining flexible or understandable to those who do not agree or fit in with established principles. To the audience, Grimsrud is a cold and empty vessel, but in reality he is a hyper focused man who has no room for outside influence. Both characters who speak to these agents of evil cannot seem to connect with them, and cannot comprehend their actions. To Carla Jean, Chigurh doesn’t have to kill her, but what she doesn’t understand is that in order for Chigurh to live a life full of purpose, he does. Evil’s motives are often mistaken for greed, similarly to how Marge thinks Grimsrud did it all for the money. This shows that once evil takes ahold of its host, they become disconnected and alone. Rebellion is a lonely road, and so is the gathering of knowledge. 

The One Who Couldn't Walk Away

I think that Blake and Gardner stand on the same ground concerning how society operates between the lucky and the poor. This is the same ground where the “Tree of Mystery” Blake speaks of in “The Human Abstract” grows on humility. In the paired Songs of Innocence poem Blake describes “The Divine Image”, an ideal destination achieved when mercy, pity, peace, and love are prayed upon until they meet together in the human form to create delight. Thankfully, Blake shatters this unsupported illusion and, in a slap-to-the-face-to-all-hopeful-optimists, he shuns this belief damning it merely as an Image, something the abstract human can never form to. That was mostly me talking though. I’ll acknowledge that Blake had no preference over either side. Gardner’s Grendel supports many of Blake’s arguments, as Grendel is the unlucky creature that must stand in darkness so the light can be appreciated. Grendel is humanized even if he must represent the darkness, showing respect to both sides. The first lines of “The Human Abstract” speak the purpose of Grendel’s existence. “Poor” (Gardner 174) Grendel must be made “Poor” (Blake 2) and unhappy for pity and mercy to exist. The fear that he brings upon the society of Hrothgar instils a mutual fear among the people, letting peace form. Grendel’s unhappiness allows the Comitatus to exist. Blake claims most of the negativity in the world begins at the point when Cruelty spreads “his baits with care”. This could be read as Cruelty spreading the traps cautiously and carefully, but I truly think Blake means to say that the trap is built WITH care. Man is initially lead towards his downfall by his surrender to care. I think this means that the beginning of Grendel’s real fall is when he approaches the mead hall with the body he finds. At this point, he’s ready to believe everything The Shaper says, and he brings the body back to the town purely out of care. He makes himself completely vulnerable to the town and cries out “Mercy! Peace!”. Sounds familiar? Grendel wants mercy - something Blake believes cannot exist without unhappiness - and Peace - that of which cannot exist without fear. Unexpectedly, Grendel’s wishes are granted as he is shunned, and Grendel fulfills his role and the Poor and the Unaccepted. Blake outlines the progress of this darkness in his poetry. The subject (implied Grendel) falls to the ground and waters the ground with tears of fear. Humility takes root, and mystery grows from this humility. I think that because humility follows vulnerability, a commitment to doubt (mystery) grows so that humility will never be experienced again. Usually care and humility occur when uncertainty is ignored, and uneducated impulse takes over. Still, Mystery is rather paralyzing. Grendel gathers The Dragon’s and The Shaper’s ideas, and battles between them throughout the novel. He lives in mystery and feeds on the fruits of “Deceit”. This could be connected to the tree of knowledge, and how some believe knowledge deceives. Grendel is forced to this limbo of misery so the privileged can experience happiness. I think both Gardner and Blake understood that there has to be an isolated child of Omelas to stand on so that the distant and divine virtues we crave are that much closer in reach.

When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer

When I heard the Learn's Astronomer

Walt Whitman

WHEN I heard the learn’d astronomer;
When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me;
When I was shown the charts and the diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them;
When I, sitting, heard the astronomer, where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room,
How soon, unaccountable, I became tired and sick;	5
Till rising and gliding out, I wander’d off by myself,
In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,
Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars.

I enjoy reading Walt Whitman’s "When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer" for the mere feeling it brings me. I haven’t tried to read too far deep into it, fearing that the meaning will not satisfy me, or it will ruin my emotional response. So. . . here goes nothing. The poem seems to be from the point of view of a student, or “lesser” who finds respect in the learn’d astronomer. Through mathematical proofs and displayed data I see that the astronomer is a man in search of answers. However, it is not theoretical or philosophical truths this man searches for. These are physical answers. The astronomer feels the need to share this knowledge and so the speaker is “shown” by the astronomer, graphs that are supposed to prove a point. I’m not sure how I feel about this. The cynic inside of me always feels uneasy at the thought that the only way to learn is to accept the reality from someone else. The speaker is at the complete mercy of the astronomer. While it’s possible that what the astronomer speaks is true, it’s impossible to know for sure, as all knowledge we gain from the world is passed down by those who have experienced it longer. Those who are already shaped by it, and are, even if unintentionally, paired with bias because of it. Still, the astronomer is met with “applause”, showing that despite the possibility that these may be lies, others have joined and collectively decided to agree that this is the truth they are wiling to give their lives over for. This appears to be too much for the speaker, as he is forced to leave. The feeling that he experiences is “unaccountable”. An ironic word, as the speaker is in this environment where everything can be explained and accounted for, the speaker still finds doubt and an inability to understand his reality. Perhaps it’s a cyclical process, as it leaves the speaker “tired and sick”. He ventures out alone. Oh no. See at the beginning of this poem, I found comfort in the message it sent to science, but now the phrase “wandering off by myself” reminds of the Allegory of the Cave. Even though reality is the majority’s perception, that does not mean it is correct. In the Allegory of the Cave, the wall shadows are the reality for most of the prisoners and yet they are incorrect and ignorant of the truth. Only one fortunate soul is able to wander away from the accepted reality and find true enlightenment. Even if the next step is enlightenment, that doesn’t seem to be the focus for the rest of the poem. The speaker becomes sick of overanalyzing and realizes how impossible it is to entirely understand the universe, and so he settles for enjoying nature for what it is - Beauty without reason or purpose. He walks into the “mystical” or inexplicable night-air, and stares that the stars. While he sits in silence, perhaps a nihilistic argument, or disconnection from God, the speaker is still able to appreciate the perfect silence of the stars. There’s no attempt to explain them, as he doesn’t feel pressured to accept another’s idea of reality, the speaker just enjoys the existence of figures in the sky that are far greater than himself. So going into the poem, I just liked the neat language of the charts, columns, and diagrams, and the space imagery that ends in fulfillment. It gave me trust in science. Now, I’m left with with a minor existential crisis. If there’s a message that is to be pulled from the poem, is seems to be along these lines: It’s a waste of time to try and explain the environment around you. Time wasted that could be spent enjoying its existence.

To have squeezed the universe into a small ball...

This week I returned, once again, as I do almost every other month, to my casual viewing of Apocalypse Now, Francis Ford Coppola’s Vietnam epic that’s essentially the movie adaptation of the novella Heart of Darkness. I’d like to spend my time describing the similarities between the two. What first stands out to me worth discussing is Marlon Brando’s Kurtz, and Joseph Conrad’s vision of the antagonist. In Apocalypse Now,  Kurtz is portrayed as a rouge general, who has gone insane. He beings to fight his own war with the natives against the government’s orders. His physical appearance is meant to mirror his excess of power. His bulk-ness verges on being overweight. Because of the costuming and shadowing it was hard for me to distinguish if Coppola wanted me to view Kurtz as unhealthy overweight or towering strength. Curiously, in the novel, Kurtz is depicted as something skeleton-like. Conrad blatantly compares Kurtz’s head to a skull of ivory. While contextually, Kurtz’s skinny weight can be blamed to his unnamed disease, it’s began apparent to me that Kurtz is shriveled and hollow because of his own excess. This draws an interesting parallel between symbols of excess. Now, realistically the reason why Marlon Brando was so fat was because he showed up to filming obese. He had weight problems. But for the sake of literary merit, Coppola decided that Marlon wouldn’t be sent home. Despite the excess, even if Coppola’s Kurtz appears full, Kurtz is a hollow man. Because of excess, there’s no humanity left, and so there’s only a structural store front that’s supposed to resemble a human. Watching the movie after reading the seventh chapter of Grendel, I spot an interesting comparison to Dennis Hopper’s character, the insane American journalist who decides to stay with Kurtz, and the slightly schizophrenic Grendel. Both obsess over twisted logic in rules that define their worlds. Hopper reveals his true disconnect from reality when he speaks cinema’s craziest dialogue:  “this is dialectics, simple dialectics. It is very simple dialectics: 1 through 9, no maybes, no supposes, no fractions. You can't travel to space. You can not go to space with fractions. What do you land on: on one quarter or 3/8th? What do you do when you go to venus or something. Thats dialectic. Physics. Dialectic logic is: there is only love or hate”. Similarly to Grendel, Grendel speaks of conics and keeping a steady balance of everything. The photojournalist holds to the belief that there are no compromises to the truth. There are only absolutes - there can only be polar outcomes. With two such absolutes, there’s almost a balance established between truth and lies. A line that is drawn straight down through reality, where there’s no complex truth. There’s a balance that’s been set in place, a balance that cannot change despite varying opinions and emotions regarding what the truth should be. Both of these characters seem to crack over their obsession for the truth. For enlightenment. While the journalist claims to have had his “mind expanded” by Kurtz, he’s limited himself because within all humans there is a limit. Grendel has difficulty following the Dragon’s logic - it can’t be helped. Both characters are representative of how incompetent humans are to understanding the entire universe; who can blame them? Instead of swimming in ambiguity, theses two characters have chosen a different path. An oversimplification of the truth. They’ve enclosed their minds in limited options as to what the truth can be. Grendel preaches existence’s meaninglessness. The journalist preaches there are only absolutes. One either loves something, or hates it. Ignoring all of the complications show how the character’s minds are receding back into ignorance. 

Winesburg, Ohio and The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

There lies a close parallel between the character of George Willard in Winesburg, Ohio, and J. Alfred Prufrock in “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”. Both male characters face sexual frustration, and disconnect from those around them. In order to describe the disconnect, they both seem to stem from the feeling that they cannot be understood, or they wish to touch or be touched by a woman in some way that communicates intimacy, a need they don’t get from exclusively communicating verbally. At Winesburg, Ohio’s peak, “Sophistication” correctly describes in words what this need exactly is. George wants to “be touched by the hand of another. . . he believes that a woman will be gentle, that she will understand. He wants, most of all, understanding” (Anderson 217). In contrast to the loud, industrious city George's dream wit take him next, George wants a gentler feeling. A more soothing one that comes from a female. Just speculating, the reason as to why he’d think that it would be more accessible coming from a female is the tender motherly feeling females are able to provide. I don’t have a lot of evidence to support that, but generally, woman have been shown in literature to be more in touch with their emotions that man are. Being able to fill the need for something and making it more comfortable to exist in a jarring world leads to understanding. Being able to locate that need, empathizing over how it feels, and being able to fix it is complete understanding. Alfred Prufrock meets the same roadblock of communication when he exclaims that what he has said in an attempt to connect and receive comfort is “not what I meant at all”(Eliot 97). Prufrock, having similar needs and the lack of a leading female role in his life, pushes him to reach out and ask for help. Disconnect follows as he isn’t able to articulate the feeling. This failure of verbal communication shows how touch is the most important mode of understanding, as words fail for both characters when they attempt to get what they want. This leads Prufrock to worry about social pressures, such as his appearance and his manner of speech at parties. George feels awkward around Helen when they converse. With the lack of physical touch, both characters face a difficultly of connection. Since physical touch involves actions, rather than words, it’s hard to understand why it wells up positive feelings like comfort. Both characters rely too heavily on words to communicate what they are feeling. The poem is titled as a love song for some intended. Prufrock is limiting himself from the beginning, as he can explain only as much as his capacity for forming the lyrics will allow. George Willard is a reporter and makes his living off of using words to communicate, and yet he fails at getting what he wants. In “Teacher”, Kate Swift advises that George must learn what people are thinking about, as to what they verbally say (Anderson 145). Because of these two character’s heavy reliance on speech, they are paralyzed from acting out their physical needs. Without engaging people physically, the characters cannot access the primal need for understanding that cannot be understood.  

Regarding "Vagueness" - Guilty as Charged

I think that every month I need to release a rant from my body about what’s on my mind concerning themes and literary analysis. Don’t get me wrong, I love analyzing literature, but my mindset is constantly changing regarding what I enjoy about it. I’ve been noticing what I like more and more when it comes to what I read and watch. It’s even been affecting my writing. I prefer it when a story is extremely specific and narrows the themes it’s trying to get across to the audience. It conveys more developed and interesting ideas than vague literature does. I’m going to be using that term a lot. Vague literature is a story that chooses broad narrative structures just for the sake of encasing hundreds of possible themes to remain relevant. For the sake of elaboration, in its simplest/dumbest form, vague literature looks like this: This is the story of a man (Oh he represents mankind as a whole) and this man, who’s name is withheld, (his name isn’t important because his true identity is mankind and his fear of the unknown is because of his need to control his own fate) does a literal biblical action or a forced allusion to one of Shakespeare's work to complete the story. Being a huge fan of Winesburg, Ohio, I was disappointed when I discovered some vague details regarding the Garden of Eden. Many characters sit under trees. Well I guess that that means Anderson was comparing them to Adam and Eve, and the tree houses the fruit of knowledge. The problem that I see in this is that it limits the possibilities that an author can say. I’ve spoken with peers who share this same concern. It’s as if we develop a logical pathway from the garden of eden, to a universal theme that’s kind of hackneyed “I’m looking at you, sin in the pursuit of knowledge” and as soon as we stumble upon an image that just barely resembles the allusion we’re trying to force the text to connect to, all deep thinking stops, and we immediately parrot the “universal truth” we’ve agreed on before hand. I’m guilty of doing this myself. I’m writing about this because I’m upset that I’ve done this myself. It’s lazy analysis, and I leave unfulfilled from a text. Specific stories have so many concrete details that they make it harder for a vague “truth” to finish the puzzle. This may limit some of the possible interpretations, but perhaps it’s for the better. Instead of getting a general society this and society that, I get specific themes that I may not have considered before. That is after all, the purpose of literature. To convey different truths and perspectives, not to repeat the same universal themes in altered ways. Personally, the most enjoyment I’ve received from analyzing literature comes from stories that are more developed and less vague. When an author has gone out of their way to make their work specific, they usually have more to say.