I find Natasha Trethewey’s “White Lies” to be a very interesting poem because it represents what I believe to be the most important parts of literature. I believe rhyme scheme and meter make a poem catchy, however I am not a fan of rigid poetic forms as I view them to be adding no more than a challenge to the written word. However I found “White Lies” to deal with what I enjoy in literature; it deals with personal experiences in the poet’s life along with generalizations about a time period and setting in history, and it uses literary techniques to help its readers feel the message Trethewey is trying to communicate. “White Lies” uses vivid color imagery to paint a picture of racism and moral dilemmas in the South in the later part of the twentieth century as demonstrated though Trethewey’s personal experience.
The first thing that grabbed my attention when reading “White Lies” was the imagery created through the use of colors: “light-bright, near-white, high-yellow, red-boned,” “black place,” “that pink and green shanty-fied shotgun section along the tracks,” “Ivory soap,” even the “Maison Blanche,” which translates to “White House,” and of course, “White Lies.” While the use of these many colors creates an enjoyable reading experience, they also serve a deeper purpose. At this point, it may be of use to note that Threthewey was a child of both African American and Canadian decent whose skin was light enough to “pass for white.” “[L]ight-bright, near-while, high-yellow, red-boned” not only describe Trethewey’s off-white lies, but even she herself, an almost white girl living in a “black place,” or the black part of town. Whiteness seems to have a connection with purity in this poem. The white lifestyle the speaker desires can be considered a false purity since this white society is not pure and it is not really the society the speaker is a part of, whereas the “Ivory soap,” used by her mama “to purify… / and cleanse your lying tongue,” represents the true purity of honesty.
The major question that came to mind after I had read this poem was simply, “What white lies?” Some of these white lies are made obvious just by reading the poem, such as the speaker’s lying about her homemade dresses. The issue of the speaker’s skin color is hinted to by some of her white lies, but not fully explained until one knows the fact that Trethewey was a very light-skinned African American, at which point we come to understand these white lies in their entirety. The speaker is not completely lying in saying that she is white, since Trethewey’s father was white. However she is telling a white lie in that she is hiding her black side. By understanding even more of Trethewey’s history, we can see yet another level of white lies. On her birth certificate, her mother’s race was labeled as “colored,” however her father’s was labeled as “Canadian” instead of “white,” since interracial marriages in Mississippi in the mid-sixties were still illegal. Therefore, another white lie in Trethewey’s past takes place in this short anecdote about her parents. Her father was not lying in saying that he was Canadian, however he was not providing a valid answer either.
Finally, we must consider how Trethewey’s personal experience and her poem reflect the time and place she lived in. As a black child light enough to “pass for white” in Mississippi it must have been very tempting to lie about one’s racial heritage if it meant escape from the racism and hatred directed toward the black community. Also, it must have been terrifying to be half black and half white in a highly racist society for fear of alienation by both sides, a fate that would leave one truly alone. While on the one hand “White Lies” is a very enjoyable read, on the other hand it raises some deep moral questions and records a history not to be forgotten. (672)
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Monday, April 13, 2009
Final Paper Progress Report
For my final paper of the year I have chosen to read and write about none other than the novel All the King’s Men by Robert Penn Warren. I have read the entire novel and am currently in the process of considering outside sources. I have also brainstormed some ideas regarding the concepts of my paper.
I find this novel interesting because it is neither solely a historical nor a fictional piece of literature. On the most rudimentary level it is such because it is both partially historically accurate and partially the creation of Warren’s imagination. However, on a much deeper level, the novel serves to give its readers a real sense of the setting (time period, location, situation, etc.) of Huey Long’s life (along with some historical details as well), which extends their understanding much farther than the bare facts. (145)
I find this novel interesting because it is neither solely a historical nor a fictional piece of literature. On the most rudimentary level it is such because it is both partially historically accurate and partially the creation of Warren’s imagination. However, on a much deeper level, the novel serves to give its readers a real sense of the setting (time period, location, situation, etc.) of Huey Long’s life (along with some historical details as well), which extends their understanding much farther than the bare facts. (145)
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Willy, Biff, and the Meaning of Success
One topic from my recollection of our class discussions of Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman that really caught my interest was that of Willy’s belief that Biff is a failure because of his choice of lifestyle.
A short recount. Basically, as a youth Willy has high expectations for Biff, expectations that Biff meets up until he is about eighteen years old. However, after his youth, Biff no longer meets Willy’s expectations. Willy’s expectations are based on his belief of what success in life means. Willy believes that success is measured in how much money you make, how high a position you hold, and the name of the company you work for. Try as he might, Willy himself cannot be “successful,” since his life is pretty consistent with that of the average working class American. However when Biff moves out west to work on a farm, and does not obtain the “success” Willy expects of him, Willy comes to view Biff as a failure.
My take. Willy is part of an older generation that came to view success only in one way: money and power. They ignored happiness and relationships created along the way. Biff, on the other hand, finds personal success in the simplicity of farming. It provides him with a living and it keeps him happy. Simple, yes, but something about farming corresponds well with Biff’s mentality. Many of us, like Biff, cannot spend our lives sitting behind $9,600 wooden tables, rambling on about relatively insignificant topics, or working fourteen-hour days at the same computer screen, with no physical activity. Men are nothing more than animals that have had a few lucky breaks, such as opposable thumbs, and come to view themselves as superior. They are animals nonetheless, and cannot truly define success in terms of money and cooperate labels. As he grows older, Biff comes to understand these truths, and finds something that gives him personal success. Now for some, personal success can be found in the “civilized” aspects of human life, however for Biff this success lies in the more simple ones. Willy cannot view success in any terms besides wealth and prestige, and therefore cannot obtain success, both literally and metaphorically speaking; this is a tragedy. And with that, I’m done sitting behind this same computer screen. Peace. (390)
A short recount. Basically, as a youth Willy has high expectations for Biff, expectations that Biff meets up until he is about eighteen years old. However, after his youth, Biff no longer meets Willy’s expectations. Willy’s expectations are based on his belief of what success in life means. Willy believes that success is measured in how much money you make, how high a position you hold, and the name of the company you work for. Try as he might, Willy himself cannot be “successful,” since his life is pretty consistent with that of the average working class American. However when Biff moves out west to work on a farm, and does not obtain the “success” Willy expects of him, Willy comes to view Biff as a failure.
My take. Willy is part of an older generation that came to view success only in one way: money and power. They ignored happiness and relationships created along the way. Biff, on the other hand, finds personal success in the simplicity of farming. It provides him with a living and it keeps him happy. Simple, yes, but something about farming corresponds well with Biff’s mentality. Many of us, like Biff, cannot spend our lives sitting behind $9,600 wooden tables, rambling on about relatively insignificant topics, or working fourteen-hour days at the same computer screen, with no physical activity. Men are nothing more than animals that have had a few lucky breaks, such as opposable thumbs, and come to view themselves as superior. They are animals nonetheless, and cannot truly define success in terms of money and cooperate labels. As he grows older, Biff comes to understand these truths, and finds something that gives him personal success. Now for some, personal success can be found in the “civilized” aspects of human life, however for Biff this success lies in the more simple ones. Willy cannot view success in any terms besides wealth and prestige, and therefore cannot obtain success, both literally and metaphorically speaking; this is a tragedy. And with that, I’m done sitting behind this same computer screen. Peace. (390)
Monday, February 23, 2009
A Doll’s House: Criticizing Through Exaggeration
*My apologies for my late post, my internet was not functioning for some time last night.
The theme of Henrik Ibsen’s play A Doll’s House is simple and has been used many times in literature: to criticize the accepted customs of a time by depicting an exaggerated version of them. Ibsen makes his statement by criticizing the customs of relationship between husband and wife in nineteenth century Norway. And yes, it is exaggerated. Were most wives treated like pets or toys by their husbands? Most likely not. However, through his use of exaggeration, Ibsen is able to convey this sense of inequality between spouses, subordination of wives, and comical misunderstandings of marriage in a mere couple hours, that many women lived through for many years.
In Ibsen’s play, Helmer literally treats Nora like “a doll.” While I seriously doubt most nineteenth century husbands treated their wives like dolls, women of the time had practically no say in marriage or family matters beyond accepting or declining a proposal, and even many proposals were accepted for the wrong reasons (such as money, aristocracy, etc.) as depicted in Ibsen’s work and many others of the time.
Of course this large, general, central theme of the play is supported by less developed surrounding themes, including women’s rights, the morality of lying and forgery, and conflicting ideas of why and when a woman should marry. However it is very interesting to consider the play’s overall theme with relation to its author. We can gain a sense of Ibsen’s character by considering the fact that he, a man in the nineteenth century, for whom society’s customs benefited, wrote a play criticizing said customs. Therefore we come to understand that Ibsen was a very forward thinking individual. We also come to understand that said customs of inequality in marriage must have been great for a man of the time to find them substantial enough to write a play criticizing them. (307)
The theme of Henrik Ibsen’s play A Doll’s House is simple and has been used many times in literature: to criticize the accepted customs of a time by depicting an exaggerated version of them. Ibsen makes his statement by criticizing the customs of relationship between husband and wife in nineteenth century Norway. And yes, it is exaggerated. Were most wives treated like pets or toys by their husbands? Most likely not. However, through his use of exaggeration, Ibsen is able to convey this sense of inequality between spouses, subordination of wives, and comical misunderstandings of marriage in a mere couple hours, that many women lived through for many years.
In Ibsen’s play, Helmer literally treats Nora like “a doll.” While I seriously doubt most nineteenth century husbands treated their wives like dolls, women of the time had practically no say in marriage or family matters beyond accepting or declining a proposal, and even many proposals were accepted for the wrong reasons (such as money, aristocracy, etc.) as depicted in Ibsen’s work and many others of the time.
Of course this large, general, central theme of the play is supported by less developed surrounding themes, including women’s rights, the morality of lying and forgery, and conflicting ideas of why and when a woman should marry. However it is very interesting to consider the play’s overall theme with relation to its author. We can gain a sense of Ibsen’s character by considering the fact that he, a man in the nineteenth century, for whom society’s customs benefited, wrote a play criticizing said customs. Therefore we come to understand that Ibsen was a very forward thinking individual. We also come to understand that said customs of inequality in marriage must have been great for a man of the time to find them substantial enough to write a play criticizing them. (307)
Sunday, February 1, 2009
Reading Claudius like a Book: Body Language in Hamlet
Hamlet: a play and playwright who need no introduction. In the play Shakespeare consciously discussed many moral issues (issues of the mind if you will), including suicide, religion, adultery, and the afterlife. However there is one issue of the mind that Shakespeare discusses only subconsciously: the issue of psychology, and body language in particular.
When Hamlet finds himself unable to kill Claudius, he devises a plan to prove Claudius’s guiltiness in the murder of Hamlet’s father. Deeply moved by an excerpt from a play about the fall of Troy, Hamlet realizes that the players’ ability to evoke human emotion through acting is far greater than his own, even though his own pain is quite real. Therefore, Hamlet decides that he will write a short “speech of some dozen or sixteen lines” which will closely resemble Claudius’s murder of King Hamlet. When the play is performed the following night, Hamlet will judge his uncle’s reaction to this speech in order to determine his guiltiness. Essentially, Hamlet will read his uncle’s body language to gain the information he needs without directly asking for it.
The concept of body language is a very interesting one that we have been discussing for the past week in Psychology. Non-verbal communication, meaning communication through body language and voice tones, accounts for 93 percent of all human communication. However, the study of modern psychology began after Shakespeare’s death with thinkers such as Descartes, Locke, and Darwin, and human awareness of the importance of body language has only been existent in the past few decades. How, then, does Hamlet know his uncle’s body language will give away his guiltiness?
The answer is simple. It is because we have always had the ability to subconsciously interpret body language. It is and has always been the major form of communication between humans. So although Hamlet does not know that his plan is based off what future generations will call body language, he does know that the knowledge he can gain from observing his uncle’s reaction to a similar reenactment of the murder he committed will tell Hamlet all he needs to know to decide whether or not to murder his uncle. Although this knowledge of body language may have only been subconscious in Shakespeare’s time, it was prevalent enough for Hamlet to decide that “The play’s the thing / Wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the King.” (407)
When Hamlet finds himself unable to kill Claudius, he devises a plan to prove Claudius’s guiltiness in the murder of Hamlet’s father. Deeply moved by an excerpt from a play about the fall of Troy, Hamlet realizes that the players’ ability to evoke human emotion through acting is far greater than his own, even though his own pain is quite real. Therefore, Hamlet decides that he will write a short “speech of some dozen or sixteen lines” which will closely resemble Claudius’s murder of King Hamlet. When the play is performed the following night, Hamlet will judge his uncle’s reaction to this speech in order to determine his guiltiness. Essentially, Hamlet will read his uncle’s body language to gain the information he needs without directly asking for it.
The concept of body language is a very interesting one that we have been discussing for the past week in Psychology. Non-verbal communication, meaning communication through body language and voice tones, accounts for 93 percent of all human communication. However, the study of modern psychology began after Shakespeare’s death with thinkers such as Descartes, Locke, and Darwin, and human awareness of the importance of body language has only been existent in the past few decades. How, then, does Hamlet know his uncle’s body language will give away his guiltiness?
The answer is simple. It is because we have always had the ability to subconsciously interpret body language. It is and has always been the major form of communication between humans. So although Hamlet does not know that his plan is based off what future generations will call body language, he does know that the knowledge he can gain from observing his uncle’s reaction to a similar reenactment of the murder he committed will tell Hamlet all he needs to know to decide whether or not to murder his uncle. Although this knowledge of body language may have only been subconscious in Shakespeare’s time, it was prevalent enough for Hamlet to decide that “The play’s the thing / Wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the King.” (407)
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Fate or Chance?
There are two ways to view the future with regards to one’s life. One of these ways is fate, the belief that the events that comprise one’s life are predetermined and can occur in only one way. The other way is chance, the belief that one can control the events in their life through choice as they encounter them. This concept of fate versus chance was one that fascinated the ancient Greeks. They believed strongly in fate over chance, and the three Moirae (fates), Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos, controlled the lives of all humans on Earth through metaphorical threads. Staying true to his Greek beliefs, Sophocles depicts the triumph of fate over chance in his play Oedipus the King.
Oedipus recounts that at the shrine at Delphi the priestess “prophesied that [he] should kill Polybos, / Kill [his] own father,” and marry and sleep with his mother. Try as he might to evade this prophecy, Oedipus cannot. It was he who killed his father and Oedipus did in fact marry his own mother. In the play, all who believe in chance and reject fate are ruined. Oedipus carries out his horrid fate unbeknownst to him and blinds himself in the end. Iocastê, Oedipus’s wife and mother who regards all prophets as phonies, is married to her own son and takes her own life. According to Greek beliefs, as demonstrated in Sophocles’s play, any attempt to escape one’s fate is futile.
Perhaps the real reason why the concept of fate versus chance is so controversial is because neither one can be ruled out as being entirely incorrect by simple logic, and they can both be considered correct given different viewpoints. For example, say I walk into a 7-Eleven and decide to buy a soda. I can buy a Coke, a Sprite, or a Fanta. Chance: I choose to buy a Coke. Fate: However, in the end, I did choose a Coke, and not a Sprite or a Fanta; the event could only take place in one specific way. And thus we are left with the same dilemma faced by the ancient Greeks. If neither fate nor chance appear to be entirely incorrect, which one in fact exists? The ancient Greeks answered this question in the same manner we humans answer most questions we cannot answer: they created a higher being, the Moirae.
The way I perceive it, fate and chance are just two different vantage points from which to look at the events in our lives. From the chance vantage point, we have the ability to make decisions entirely out of our own free will, and thus we have the ability to control our own lives. However, from the fate vantage point, in the end the events in our lives can and will turn out in only one specific way. (472)
Oedipus recounts that at the shrine at Delphi the priestess “prophesied that [he] should kill Polybos, / Kill [his] own father,” and marry and sleep with his mother. Try as he might to evade this prophecy, Oedipus cannot. It was he who killed his father and Oedipus did in fact marry his own mother. In the play, all who believe in chance and reject fate are ruined. Oedipus carries out his horrid fate unbeknownst to him and blinds himself in the end. Iocastê, Oedipus’s wife and mother who regards all prophets as phonies, is married to her own son and takes her own life. According to Greek beliefs, as demonstrated in Sophocles’s play, any attempt to escape one’s fate is futile.
Perhaps the real reason why the concept of fate versus chance is so controversial is because neither one can be ruled out as being entirely incorrect by simple logic, and they can both be considered correct given different viewpoints. For example, say I walk into a 7-Eleven and decide to buy a soda. I can buy a Coke, a Sprite, or a Fanta. Chance: I choose to buy a Coke. Fate: However, in the end, I did choose a Coke, and not a Sprite or a Fanta; the event could only take place in one specific way. And thus we are left with the same dilemma faced by the ancient Greeks. If neither fate nor chance appear to be entirely incorrect, which one in fact exists? The ancient Greeks answered this question in the same manner we humans answer most questions we cannot answer: they created a higher being, the Moirae.
The way I perceive it, fate and chance are just two different vantage points from which to look at the events in our lives. From the chance vantage point, we have the ability to make decisions entirely out of our own free will, and thus we have the ability to control our own lives. However, from the fate vantage point, in the end the events in our lives can and will turn out in only one specific way. (472)
Monday, January 12, 2009
Shock and Wasted Life in Tolstoy’s The Death of Ivan Ilych
Leo Tolstoy’s The Death of Ivan Ilych deals with the slow realization of a dying man that he has essentially wasted his life, and want and he may, he will never get another chance to live it. The story’s second chapter begins, “Ivan Ilych’s life had been most simple and most ordinary and therefore most terrible.” While for some this first sentence may have created some literary tension, or even oxymoron, it did not faze me at all, and I in fact passed over it without notice until it was brought up in class discussion. This sentence did not faze me because it made complete sense to me. Whether or not you believe in an afterlife, you only get one chance at life itself, and aside from living a corrupt and evil life, nothing could be more terrible than a simple and ordinary one.
I went to sleep immediately after reading the first two chapters of Tolstoy’s story the other night and I had a dream. I had a dream that I was dying; I was dying at seventeen years old. All I could think about was that I was too young to die. Statistically speaking, I’ve probably already lived somewhere between one-fourth and one-fifth of my life, but what bothered me in my dream was knowing that I would die without doing so many of the things I’ve wanted to do with my life.
Perhaps Ilych felt the same way as he lay on his deathbed. He had lived his entire life after childhood by his own golden rule of doing whatever others (society) thought to be appropriate, and repressing his desires to do what he wanted to do. Although Ilych may not have become consciously aware that he had “not spent his life as he should have done” until mere days before his death, this knowledge of his wasted life may have been in his subconscious for quite some time. Ilych groaned, and in the end screamed, in agony as he slowly died, and it is mentioned many times in the story that Ilych’s agony was more of a mental nature than a physical one. It would seem the most logical explanation for this mental agony is that Ilych could sense something disturbingly wrong, more than just the fear of death, even if he did not know what this wrong was at the time.
This wrong is the fear of a wasted life, which lay in Ilych’s subconscious until he became aware of it in his final days, as evidenced simply by his rejection of his impulses to do what he wanted if these impulses went against society’s standards. Perhaps during your life you have experience the shock of driving down a road in the wrong direction for a couple of hours, or losing a term paper when your computer crashed, because you knew (all at once) that you had “wasted” that short bit of your life. Essentially, this shock is the same one that Ilych is dealing with on a grand scale, realizing all at once that he has wasted his entire life, and that he would have no chance to live again. And it is this shock that sent him into screaming “so terrible that one could not hear it through two closed doors without horror.” (562)
I went to sleep immediately after reading the first two chapters of Tolstoy’s story the other night and I had a dream. I had a dream that I was dying; I was dying at seventeen years old. All I could think about was that I was too young to die. Statistically speaking, I’ve probably already lived somewhere between one-fourth and one-fifth of my life, but what bothered me in my dream was knowing that I would die without doing so many of the things I’ve wanted to do with my life.
Perhaps Ilych felt the same way as he lay on his deathbed. He had lived his entire life after childhood by his own golden rule of doing whatever others (society) thought to be appropriate, and repressing his desires to do what he wanted to do. Although Ilych may not have become consciously aware that he had “not spent his life as he should have done” until mere days before his death, this knowledge of his wasted life may have been in his subconscious for quite some time. Ilych groaned, and in the end screamed, in agony as he slowly died, and it is mentioned many times in the story that Ilych’s agony was more of a mental nature than a physical one. It would seem the most logical explanation for this mental agony is that Ilych could sense something disturbingly wrong, more than just the fear of death, even if he did not know what this wrong was at the time.
This wrong is the fear of a wasted life, which lay in Ilych’s subconscious until he became aware of it in his final days, as evidenced simply by his rejection of his impulses to do what he wanted if these impulses went against society’s standards. Perhaps during your life you have experience the shock of driving down a road in the wrong direction for a couple of hours, or losing a term paper when your computer crashed, because you knew (all at once) that you had “wasted” that short bit of your life. Essentially, this shock is the same one that Ilych is dealing with on a grand scale, realizing all at once that he has wasted his entire life, and that he would have no chance to live again. And it is this shock that sent him into screaming “so terrible that one could not hear it through two closed doors without horror.” (562)
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