Love and Aging

      I feel like TS Eliot's poem "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" gives a decent look into what people begin to feel as they age, especially the more romantic aspects of it. Of course the man in the poem could be seen as young, if there weren't lines referring to his thinning hair, which seems to give that illusion of a man in later years.
       Everyone feels unattractive now and then, and this poem seems to capture those sorts of thoughts of how undesirable we can be, although it doesn't have to be at a later age in our lives. Especially when confronted by people and things (such as the reference to Michelangelo) around us are so beautiful and seem flawless, we feel even more introverted. The evidence of this is furthered by the thoughts that the narrator has to himself as he enters the room and thinks about how long his limbs are, how high his collar is, etc and it all seems to address that self-conscious feeling we get especially around people we don't know or in an environment that we aren't used to.
       The last couple of lines might be a more or less real death but could also be that realization that we aren't as unattractive as we may think, as our mind paints us to be. Those realizations could be most helpful all the time and especially when it comes to confidence.

Intentional and Unintentional Similarities

      In Anne Rice's book Interview with the Vampire and the overall series, The Vampire Chronicles, the main character is Lestat de Lioncourt who in the beginning of the series seems to be the character that is a selfish jerk who only thinks of himself and is killed twice and mysteriously doesn't die. Although he's a vampire, according to common lore, vampires should die when confronted with flames and having their throats cut. Mysteriously, Lestat doesn't.
       However, with this character, I find it incredibly interesting with the similarities between Anne Rice's Lestat character and William Shakespeare's Hamlet. Besides the small fact that they are both misspelled names (Hamlet was supposed to be named for Shakespeare's son and Lestat was supposed to be Lestan for Anne's late husband), but just their general characterizing. Lestat isn't exactly afraid to act on what he wants to like Hamlet, but he does become sort of a tragic hero as Hamlet was. One must read the series to see how exactly Lestat becomes this hero, but it is there (no spoilers up in here).
       One other fun fact with these similarities is that when Lestat gets killed for the second time, the girl that slashes his throat says the line that Horatio says in the play, "good night sweet prince,/ and flights of angels sing thee to thy rest," which resonates with the other similarities within the play and the book. Lestat doesn't quite have a purpose as he kills which is opposite of Hamlet, but I suppose that the basic question is is if Rice purposely put all of this into the novel because of the similarities or if they just so happened to occur.
       I believe it wasn't on purpose in Interview, but in The Vampire Lestat, we learn that Lestat did act in a theater in Paris, so perhaps she noticed the similarities and used it in his character development further down the road, including a small insanity stint.

Dealing With Race

Toni Morrison addresses the issue of race (both protests and issues in schools) in her story Recitatif. This story is overall depressing, but really causes the reader to think and consider the aspect of bullying overall and not just in the racial sense. With Maggie, everyone makes fun of her because of her legs and because she can’t speak. Although people don’t have as painful or upsetting disabilities as this, people may be different in many senses, such as their interests or upbringings. As Twyla experiences with the bigger girls, people don’t care and children can be very cruel in the way they treat others.

Referring again to Charlie Chaplin, in his film The Great Dictator (1940), he deals with the terrible topic of the Holocaust and at the same time, he spoofs Adolf Hitler which everyone considered him crazy for doing. However, at the end of the film, he makes a very important speech that every person should hear. His words prove to be incredibly true, even today though the movie was made over 70 years ago. In short, the speech tells people that there is no reason for people to bow down to a dictator of any sort, even if it is just a small leader such as Roberta was in her protests outside of the school, or a higher up dictator such as Hitler or Mussolini and that we are the dictator of who we are and that we are the only ones who can choose how we treat others. As human beings, we must band together and diminish the hate that exists in the world. I have made a post about being part of the machinations of the modern times, and again, Chaplin refers to this in this speech. 

Why Are Women "Coy"?

Andrew Marvell paints an interesting portrait of a coy woman who doesn’t seem to share the same sort of interests as he does. Women aren’t coy exactly just because of having their virginity or just because they like to toy around with people. Most of the time, they’re “coy” because they really have no interest in whomever is making the advances to them. Of course, in Marvell’s time there is most likely the idea that men are the ones who choose their lovers and that the women really have no choice.

In all reality, however, I think the biggest importance here is that women are now able to decide who they are and aren’t attracted to, no matter what a man says. Of course, there is the possibility that she is just being playful and wanting to see how he reacts to her. Although, telling her that she will eventually be unattractive almost always will ruin a woman’s opinion of you. Making her angry is not the way to get her into bed and it will most likely just cause her to give you a slap across the face. As stated before, the time period may dictate the fact that men will dictate the relationship, so when he says that it is over, it’s over, no matter what the woman says.

Machine Within the Machine

Within our society, we have become almost machines in what people consider to be “the machine”. Many of us try to reject the ideas that are put on us by family or even friends but usually at some point we find ourselves succumbing to the expectations of the society, such as working menial jobs or going to school even if we can’t afford it and we further get ourselves into debt when not even a year ago we had to ask if we could use the restroom.

As in his story Bartleby, the Scrivener, Herman Melville seems to cover this topic loosely with the character of Bartleby. Whether the psychology becomes distant from society for whatever reason, he rejects what is expected by his boss, as well as his coworkers. He doesn’t seem to be doing this to make a statement, but either way, it furthers what has been said about people being stuck in the machine.

In his films, Charlie Chaplin used to deal with ideas in society that he felt needed to be dealt with and with a very stiff spine. The movie that most explicitly deals with this topic is Modern Times (1936). The movie itself not only deals with the topic of Communism, but also with the changing times and that we are expected to go with the times. In this scene, The Tramp literally becomes a part of the machine, a statement that Chaplin purposely made representing what people have become, similar to Bartleby and has a nervous breakdown as a result.

Belief of Fate

Many people believe in the concept of fate, or that everything happens for a reason. I wave on my own personal belief of this, but I do believe in karma; whatever you do in your life will be reflected later. In his story "The Grasshopper and the Bell Cricket", Yasunari Kawabata seems to use this idea of fate, but not exactly in the karmic sense.

By using their creativity, the children are drawn together while searching for insects. One boy finds what be believes to be a grasshopper and after giving it to Kiyoko, she tells him and the others that it is actually a bell cricket. Kawabata asks the questions if we'd be satisfied or disappointed to be told we have a grasshopper when we do indeed actually only have a bell cricket.

The aspect of fate is brought up by the appearance of the names on one another's kimonos; Kiyoko's on Fujio's, and vice versa on one another's breasts. Are they meant to be together, or was it simply coincidence? That is for the reader to decide, though the narrator seems to think that it was indeed karma that brought them together, based on his observations.

Love or Obsession?

In Faulkner's tale A Rose for Emily or even James Joyce's Araby, there is this seemingly common thread between one feeling infatuation (what they perhaps perceive as love) border lining perhaps, obsession.  Because of the points of view of the stories, both being from the first person, it gives the audience a sort of intimacy with the narrator and that we could perhaps understand their feelings and motivations behind actions.

However, Emily is the views of the people looking in. Emily seemed to have this obsession with not wanting to be alone. Why? We may never know. But as humans, we all have that fear that we will be alone because we need to be social in order to feel safe and she may have had that thought that "if I kill him, then he can never leave me," which as been the motivation to crimes like that in the past. In Araby, the love/obsession is with the narrator and another girl. The girl doesn't seem to show the same sort of affection but he tries to go on a sort of quest to perhaps change that sort of feeling from her toward him and in the process learns that not only does everything not go your way, but we must always be prepared for the letdowns that life repeatedly gives out.

Dictating Popularity

Who is to say what's popular or cool? Everyone has different opinions about what and who is considered cool, but why can't we be able to dictate it ourselves? When it comes to creative writing, or really anything considered creative, this is the perfect time for people to talk about what they think is cool, or even what's not cool.

Although Gwendolyn Brooks's poem We Real Cool seems to highlight the major things that are considered "cool", such as skipping school. stay out late, etc., that's her own opinion. On the contrary, I seem to believe that Dean Martin is the King of Cool and not many people would agree with me nowadays, but turning that into something cool into art isn't always too easy, but we can try as much as we wish.

The Effects of Poetry

Literature will always have an effect on people, whether ti reaches to the deepest parts of their heart and touch them in ways that they never quite expected, or if it makes them laugh. In a similar respect, some people treat reading both poetry and any other sort of literature, such as fiction, as a task instead of leisure as most do.

Randall Jarrell wrote a poem entitled The Death of a Ball Turret Gunner about a young man in World War 2 as a gunner in a B-17 or B-24 airplane. The poem starts as simple as leaving home and going into the war, but by the final line of the poem, the disturbing line of "When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose", which creates a very disturbing image for anyone.

If someone who has never done background research on World War 2 may be taken a bit by surprise by this and though everyone is aware of how violent it was, they may not expect such an abrupt end. I've done plenty of research on World War 2, so this came as no surprise but it always creates a sort of curiosity.

Cathedral by Raymond Carver

Raymond Carver writes an interesting narrative that, in a way, seems to be a summary of how we all feel when we are around someone with a disability or illness. There are people who are secure in being around people like this, but most feel some sort of discomfort. The narrator immediately seems to feel that discomfort while his wife's only concern is for the blind man that she has come to know and care about like he was indeed a part of their family.

Although it isn't exactly the same,  I've had more than my share of family members who were either very sick or friends that had some sort of disability that made it difficult to visit with them. In the story, the narrator and Robert begin to draw a cathedral together, and this is a perfect example that just because there's something different about them, they really aren't that different, and small things such as drawing and art can create very important bonds.