On Beauty

From Webster's Dictionary:

Beauty: the quality or aggregate of qualities in a person or thing that gives pleasure to the senses or pleasurably exalts the mind or spirit

So many people have tried to define beauty, what it means to be beautiful or in contrast, to be not beautiful. Zadie Smith's novel On Beauty spends the entirity of the plot contemplating that idea; what is beauty? The end, I think, is where we truly learn what beauty is: it's inexplicable.

Howard spent his entire career trying to tell the world there is no such thing as beauty, that it doesn't exist. What he realized at the end, as he stared at Rembrandt's painting, was beauty was so far beyond the realm of understanding. The painting, and beauty by extension, needed no words, no definition, no ideas thrust upon it. At the end of the day, it was just a piece of canvas with oils and dyes smeared acrossed it in the form of a woman. But Howard saw beauty for the first time, because he saw his wife in that woman. His wife, who he loved, who he cared for, who he betrayed, who he used, and who in the end left him, was there listening to his speech, subtly reminding him of all that he had lost and all that he could have again.

In order to say that something doesn't exist, it must first be defined. Howard, in his attempt to excise beauty from art, had been chasing the idea that beauty can be defined. He never stopped to really look at the art, without reservations, without ideas, without justifications, to just look at it. When he did, he saw all that is beautiful in the world, his wife. In the end, beauty is what we make it to be. It can't be defined, it can't be explained, but it can be acknowledged so long as we take the time to do so.

Notes 4/24

On Beauty continued...

Claire's view of the affair with Howard: she considers herself a masochist, trying to wreck the greatest love she's ever had, Warren. She was the one who instigated the affair. "Why should everyone be mad at me? I'm the victim." Claire is selfish and wanted to ruin one of the greatest marriage on campus - she succeeded in that Howard is now questioning what he is and his marriage.

Romantic poetry, anything about beauty or idealization, is politically suspect. Reification, to turn something back into an object; relationships are not objects and therefore not beautiful. By the end of the novel, beauty has been de-objectified and made relationships beautiful again. Zadie Smith shows her hatred in the objectification of women - Claire is thin, Kiki is fat and that's why Howard sleeps with Claire - but she's also upset that she can't write about or appreciate beauty. Beautifying landscape is wrong because there are laborers working and dying in it and beautifying it is hiding the politics of it. But sometimes it's not about that! Landscape can be beautiful and it has nothing to do with politics! Why can't people just accept that some things are as they appear, that there is no underlying idea or message, that something can be as it is and nothing else. Why do things all have to be politicized?

Carl wanted to come to the university, to get a ticket to the future but he realized that for all their intelligence, they can't see the truth about their own lives. He knows that Howard slept with a student (Victoria, who also slept with Jerome), that Monty Kipps has slept with an intern and is trying to get the non-paying students kicked out to save his career. "You got your college degrees but you don't even live right!"

Zadie Smith is trying to tell her readers that we need morality, be it Christian or otherwise, but we need some guidelines, something that keeps us on the straight and narrow, or something that defines our lives for the better. Nobody in the novel has morals or if they do, they don't have the backbone to follow their morals. Not Howard, not Monty, not Kiki, not any of them.

Notes 4/22

Literary Theory: varying ways to read and make meaning of a text

New Criticism, (1920-1950)-ish, is a way of seeking out contradictions in a text and figuring out how these contradictions unify the text and create meaning. It solely looks at the text itself, studying what the author meant.

Cultural revolution in America, England and France (1960's) brought about numerous literary theories.

Psychoanalytic Theory - psychoanalysis. The unconscious directs our thoughts and actions, such as the idea of the Oedipus complex, a son loving his mother so he kills his father to replace him. Freud came up with the idea in early 20th century. People study latent content of dreams in order to understand out lives. Psychoanalysts are studying us like one would a book, people began to apply this to actual books and began studying books with a freudian lense.

Feminism Theory - Feminism began as a movement for women's equality and rights in the 50,60,70's. People began to read texts to discover hidden or not hidden meanings about female desire, empowerment, equality, sexuality, gender politics and POWER and SUBJECTIVITY. What makes a woman a woman and a man a man?

Critical Race Theory is similar to feminism theory except instead of gender politics, it examines racial politics.

Queer Theory - gender issues, power, gender depictions, heteronormative ways of thinking. It is similar to feminism and critical race theory, but how is queer identity constructed in a text?

There are those that oppose this idea, claiming that we shouldn't be looking for political ideas in texts. It becomes less about what the author meant and more about larger social issues. Books now have larger cultural meanings. With these new movements, people begin to project their ideas onto the text, seeing only the parts that fit with their social understanding instead of reading the book as a whole entity.

Texts Now: poems, novels, plays, films, TV shows, movies, digital images, art, paintings, cd's, music, graffiti, clothes, merchandising, advertising, etc. These are all cultural artifacts. All of these theoretical movements bring politics into the classroom. It's common to read texts for these issues: power, identity, subjectivity, political significance, cultural significance, types of representation, instead of just reading the text for what the story is about. We rip apart the text and scrutinize and label and consider until everything fits into nice little compartments that have been defined. We can't enjoy the text for the beauty of the words or the rhythm; we must define it. It's not good or bad, it simply is.

Deconstructionists (1970's onward) - question meaning, question stable notions of identity, question stable notions of what a person is, etc.

- Privileged Oppositions: Logos (Speech, reason) vs Writing/text. We grant more authority to speech/reason than we do writing/non-reason because it is "closer" to ourselves. Logocentric - we the faculty of reason over all else. In the history of the West, reason has been used to judge what makes a human human.

In literature or philosophy, or in political reports, or expeditions to far away lands, non-white people are judged to be without reason and therefore not human. British imperialism, the slave trade between England and its plantations all over the word utilize this thinking to justify enslavement of a people, in order to not have to deal with the moral ramifications of their actions.

How we make meaning? Is a text a text? What is art? What is a poem? Challenging fundamental assumptions of Western culture is what deconstruction seeks to do. They challenge the use of reason as the defining meaning of being "human". What is reason though? Could it be that different people use different reason? We are all human and we all use reason but it how we use and how we define it that sets us apart. Neither definition is right or wrong, but we will privilege our meaning because its ours. If we simply disregard other definitions, that is wrong; privileging is human nature (we all do it!).

Essentialism - what is the essence of the human? Darwin and the advent of biological adaptation have affected our thinking. Different human developments in various geographic areas that accounts for difference in a non-essentialist way. This lead to the culture wars.

Notes 4/20

On Beauty continued...

Claire's Poem discusses sins, what not to do. They are the beautiful, the ideal while we are the ugly, the nonideal. We commit sins by not being beautiful.

They are the damned. This distances us from them, "not us here, them, they over there"

They are the damned. This a realization, an embodiment of what it means to be damned.

We can't draw the line between beautiful/nonbeautiful. They/we are never specified; we are all beautiful/nonbeautiful. There is no line drawn within ourselves therefore the lines can't be drawn in others.

The poem is a metacommentary, commenting on poetry and the book itself.

Carlene is living for while Kiki is living with. However, Kiki realizes she's been living for Howard after talking with Carlene.

Iam Forster - On Beauty is an homage to Iam Forster and his works - Howard's End (place, not person)

Victorian England (1890-1940?): It's all about propriety, what society thinks a person should do is what people strive to do. They live by codes and morals. For example, sexual references are repressed. Breast and thigh meat in chicken becomes white and dark meat; ankles are hidden and high-waistlines are the height of fashion. Anything different, abnormal should be avoided at all costs.

On Beauty moves the story to urban, contemporary England and adds the race factor. In the end of Howard's End, both families live "happily ever after", defying all notions of Victorian England - is it the same in On Beauty?

Voice - What kind of voice? How does one have subjectivity? Power?

I think Claire's wrong and right in a way. Carl does have a voice but he doesn't know the language; someone, Zora, should teach him the language so he can speak for himself rather than have someone speak for him. "Give a man a fish and he'll eat for a day; teach a man to fish and he'll eat for a lifetime."

Notes 4/15

On Beauty continued...

Does Zadie Smith disagree with the left? Howard goes to the Rembrandt Appreciation and dismantles the great artist. But as he's talking, he realizes it's boring, always telling the same stories and researching the same actions, dissecting a person's motives who has been dead for hundreds of years. Just because they've been idolized and canonized, does that mean they weren't good artists? Does that mean their works shouldn't be studied or appreciated?

Zora threatens to expose her father's affair in order to get into a creative writing course. In this instance, do universities defend beauty? No. Is Carl a pawn in the game of whether a university defends beauty? He meets the Belsey's at the Mozart concert because he's a musician and wants to better his music by studying the musicians of the past. "It might not be poetry poetry but it's what I do." Carl defines beauty as something outside university - outside grades, outside politics, outside structure. The structure of the university is what holds the students back because they force them to study for grades, not for the simple love of learning.

During Howard's class, he claims the left says beauty is a mask the power wears. I disagree. For example, when he's talking about Rembrandt painting for his patrons, that because he painted it, it's beautiful but in reality, it's just another representation of the power, the money which payed for the painting. I think he's totally wrong. I think people can love and enjoy what they do and get paid for it. I think they can create something beautiful that was bought and paid for by others, simply because he took the time to create it. I can remember writing a paper about learning to write for others and finding peace in it. Just because it's for someone else doesn't mean I can't add my own personal touches and enjoy the topic. I can write a good paper that's beautiful that was written for the "powerful" because I wrote it. "...And that has made all the difference."

Notes 4/13

On Beauty continued...

People function as an omen/object, similar to the albatross being a good-luck object in Rime of the Ancient Mariner. Could you fall in love with a good-luck object? A trophy wife or power couples, are they really in love with each other or just the attention that being with that other person brings? In society, some people believe that being with a certain type of person redeems them.

Beauty is not about seeing an object but rather seeing lines and color. There is a battle between these two ideas of beauty within the novel. When Kiki's breasts are described as sisterly, motherly, etc. rather than sexually. Seeing the beauty of what breasts represent for women rather than what breasts represent for men. Also, when Jerome falls in love with the idea of the family of Kipps rather than Victoria herself. Mrs Belsey's body is anatomized; her daughter said her mother was beautiful when she married her father but let herself go. However, Mrs. Kipps says of the other woman that she carries herself well.

"Each couple is its own vaudeville act."

"What was one night in Michigan set against the idea of love?" Kiki is willing to forgive Howard because she still loves him and doesn't think one night should determine their entire relationship. She later finds out that it was not simply a one-night stand with an unknown woman but an affair with Claire that lasted three weeks.

Claire is more similar to Howard than Kiki in education but Kiki has more wisdom of the world than Claire. She is objectified, the opposite of the Kiki. But does she have any substance or are her looks all she is?

"Define genius." "How was something about that work of art that wasn't genius?" The left vs the right - the multicultural views want to stop valuing the author while the canon views don't. The couple is arguing about Mozart's Requiem. Carl wants to say that the Requiem was finished by other artists after Mozart's death but doesn't. Genius is collective, not individual.

Notes 4/8

On Beauty by Zadie Smith


During an interview, Zadie Smith talks about the greater implications of authors projecting their ideas onto their audience. Vanity and self-perception come into play when people tell political truths in their novels. If writers berate you with an idea, you can't trust them. Novels are political and moral. Iris Murdoch said that art is a case of morals, an analogy of morals. The best art is when the artist is truthful and honest to themselves and to their audience. "Good" artists are able to see the truths of both sides of the story, other perceptions and not simply their own. They are able to extend beyond the "me/us" vs "them" mentality. Similar to the culture war - Shakespeare and the canon vs multicultural works; right conservatism vs left liberalism.


Zadie Smith vs "Zadie Smith" - the quotational Zadie Smith isn't real. She's an idol, set up on a pedestal by reporters, critics, editors. The left has now done the same thing that the right has done, put someone up on a pedestal, made certain people the "good" artist, the must-reads. They've created a new canon. We attack things in people that we don't like about ourselves.


On Beauty can teach us morals and dissolve the lines between "us" vs "them". Caricatures are one-sided, flat, plain, boring. They are always right or always wrong or always something! They aren't real! Characters, on the other hand, are real; they have more emotions and sides. They aren't always right or always wrong or always anything; they simply are.


On the left, we have Howard and his family, sans Jerome; on the right, we have Monty and his family. Jerome is in the center, being pulled in both directions.


The Belsey's - An American family headed by Howard, a college professor, who are extremely free. Jerome is the only child who's Christian and they aren't quite sure how to react to him. The Kipps - A British family headed by Monty, also a college professor, who are very religious, right-wing, conservative, business oriented.


Jerome is trying to get his father's attention and rebel against the lifestyle which he grew up in, particularly now because Howard had an affair. The children may feel betrayed and Jerome could want to get back at his father. He could just be different from his family. He could just want to be religious that has nothing to do with his father or family.


Jerome falls in love with the Kipps. It could be the fact that they are so different from his own and he is so enamored with that idea. "The grass is greener on the other side." He could also enjoy as the Kipps utterly destroyed the ideals or morals of the Belsey family, the ideals that his father used to betray his mother.

Art and Lies

I think what I really like about Art and Lies is the dynamic nature of the stories. Every page is filled with something new, some new aspect of society that Jeannette Winterson is forcing us to acknowledge. For example, the three cities. Each city appears to be separate in the story, separate and gruesome in its own way. The first is, in a sense, "the forgotten city", the city that time has let go, the city that people have evolved and broken away from. It's tradition, built on and by tradition. In the modern era, tradition has been shuffled to the side and forgotten. It's monarchy, religion, the old ways. The second city is "the now", what the first city has become. Without tradition, the second city has become analytical. Not too many mansions, not too many slums, mostly apartments; the perfect bell curve. The third city is, as she says, the "invisible city", but it has ties to both. The third city is where the first and the second shuffle those who don't quite fit in their mold, the ones who the first two cities don't want to fit their mold. The thing about the cities though is that they aren't separate. They exist in each other, in our society. And while they show us everything that is not right, they don't show anything that is. So while we can see our own pettiness, our own faults, our own problems, we can't see how to change them. Perhaps, Winterson wants us to first recognize these problems before we can attempt to fix them. That's the interesting thing about her novel; she doesn't preach about what we should do, but rather what we are doing, forcing us to find the answers ourselves, in ourselves. The dynamic fluidity of her stories might be another indication of how we live now. We can't concentrate on one thing for too long; we need to be constantly engaged with something new. Just as the cities were an exaggerated representation of our society, the shortness of her stories could be a social commentary as well. Everything in the novel speaks about us, we just have to take the time to figure out what.

Notes 3/30

Postmodernism

It's collage-like, juxtaposing passages without explaining how and interested in disrupting what is ordinarily thought.

Genre - "kind"; genre fiction - formulaic

-novel 18th century (1700)

-short story Romantic era (1800)

-canon of great literature - selected works of literature. In recent years, the canon has been blown apart - supplanted by cultural studies. People became aware of the politics of reading nothing but canon and started to get away from strictly using it. However, the politics may have gone too far. There is great art! But also explain why! It's too narrowly defined currently that people can't see great art in everything.

By worshipping a "great" artist, it's a form of alienated majesty; people see their own greatness projected in that artist and that is why they believe it's great. "Forms of Attention"

Attention is a limited commodity, and the canon is a way to compartmentalize that commodity. However, it has gotten out of hand which is why people are now trying to escape it. We need to find a steady balance between "great" art and "all" art.

Notes 3/27

The Child and Flowers by Mrs Hemans


The poet is writing to our inner child. An ekphrastistic poem is a poem written about an image. In the poem, the child went to the meadow and brought back some flowers. "Nature hath mines of such wealth--and thou/ Never wilt prize its delights as now!" As we grow, we lose our childlike wonder of nature, even though that wonder never fades. We change, not nature.


Some questions...

Is the meaning 0f the poem the same in all the different versions? Does the format affect the meaning?


The content is the same in all the different versions but the reading experience will be different due to the reader's preference. The format can affect the meaning. With poems, the flow and breaks in poems can be important and if that flow is disrupted or changed the meaning could be altered.


How is the visual image of the poem helpful to understanding?


Some poems are meant to be seen and read, rather than heard and understood. Seeing a poem, how its put together, the way in which it's constructed, all adds to the poem's experience. If we lose the ability to visualize poems, either by digitizing or by putting them in books, we'll lose something about the poems that we won't be able to get back.

Notes 3/23

Frankenstein

Each version has specific words that appear in each of them: friend, creature, noble, misery. We transition from the 1818 version to the Thomas version to the 1831 version, and we can see how she progressed as an author to her final piece. In the earlier edition, it was less emotional and more analytical and the later edition, the scene was more emotional and studied more closely the interactions of individuals.

Did Mary Shelley write three different novels?

I don't think she wrote three entirely different novels, merely three versions of the same novel but the progression from start to finish may appear to be two different novels, in what she has changed, inserted, deleted from her original. Her characters may appear different than when she first wrote them because of that. Each version is slightly different but I don't think its enough to be considered different novels.

How does digitizing these texts help us think about the different versions? (visualization!)

Digitizing the texts allows us to look at the novel in ways that we would otherwise be unable to. For example, tag clouds help us to find what concentration of words are found in each text which enables us to make new correlations between them and about them.

Notes 3/20

Define:

Epic art is art that is over and above the normal, whose context lasts for all generations.

Modern life is life in the now, building on the past but living in the present.

Can there be heros in modern life?

Aurora believes there can be heros in modern life, the everyman who lives and breathes the ideals of that society, or doesn't. Heros are only heros when they're recognized. Even if someone does something great, but no one ever knows, they're not thought to be heros. But putting people, whether they be Alexander or King Arthur or the widow next door, into a poem immortalizes them and makes them heros. Heros of the past were normal people like us: they lived, they grew old and they died - time and literature has made them into something larger than they were. I think Aurora believes that because we are living in the "now" we are unable to see the heros that are amongst us, not enough time has passed; however, they are here if we write poems that reflect our times and not that of the past, whose heros have long since died.

Notes 3/18

Aurora is caught between two ideals of women, her mother (Italy) and her aunt (England). She has to learn that it's okay to be part of both ideals, not completely in one or the other. Her aunt is a caged bird who wants to cage Aurora, who is a wild bird. She thinks she's doing the right thing by her niece but Aurora who has been free doesn't want to be caged.

According to Romney, Aurora cannot be "Christ" and can only be "Madonna"; she can't be the center, the love, the passion; she can only be the one who helps that person. Aurora retorts that he doesn't want a lover but a wife; he wants her for the idea of her but not for herself. She claims his idea is noble and she is not worthy, thus turning things around on their head and getting want she wants, to not marry Romney, and making him believe he didn't just insult her as she leaves.

After rescinding Romney's offer of marriage, Aurora tells her aunt that she would rather die a poet than to marry for money. "At least/ My soul is not a pauper; I can live/ At least my soul's life, without alms from men." When her aunt dies and she has no money, Aurora must write for cyclopedias, magazines, weekly papers in order to hold herself up so that she can write for herself and still be financially supported.

Notes 3/16

Aurora Leigh by Elizabeth Barrett Browning


The rhythm of English poetry combines Germanic rhythm with French rhythm and creates a beautiful rhythm that makes poetry in English best. English poets can pit accent against syllable length, making a rolling type of speech.


Elizabeth Barrett Browning

She published her first book of poetry when she was 22 years old. She was very political, writing a long poet about children in work houses similar to the style of Charles Dickens. Her father cloistered her and she became addicted to morphine; her mother died when she was twenty. In 1846, she eloped with Robert Browning; they lived in Italy in a radical Bohemian lifestyle. She loved and lived with Browning until her death; she wrote some of the most beautiful, intense love poetry for him: "How do I love thee."


Book 1 Aurora Leigh

Her mother died four years after her birth and her father when she was twelve; she goes to live with her restrictive aunt, discovering her father's books on poetry and in that room becomes alive. "To live" has two connotations - to breath physically or to thrive spiritually


When her aunt looks for her mother in her face, she's trying to find the woman who stole her title and wealth when she married her brother (Aurora's father). Everything was passed through the first born son and when there is no heir, then its passed onto the nearest relative. Her father wasn't expected to marry and everything would have passed to his sister. But he meets Aurora's mother, moves to Italy and neglects his role as first born son. Once his wife dies, he puts all his affection on Aurora.


Aurora Leigh was the third greatest epic poem - Paradise Lost was the first (justify God to man); Wordsworth's The Prelude (growth of a poet) was the second. Aurora Leigh is also about the growth of a poet but also the growth of a woman. This poem is a papyrus, which was animal hide that was used as paper. Words were written, read then scraped off and reused. We are a papyrus: television, music, pop culture, literature, history has shaped us, words were written before us, scraped off and new ones added that created the layer of who we are today.


"traveling inland" a culturation; "the outer Infinite" the divine, God, whatever you want to call it; Children and babies have this look, this understanding but adults slowly lose it. Aurora has not yet lost this understanding. She hungers for the love of a mother, the comfort only a mother can give.


"They know a simple, merry, tender knack
Of tying sashes, fitting baby-shoes,
And stringing pretty words that make no sense,
And kissing full sense into empty words"



Mothers can communicate with and understand their children. Nursery rhymes are pretty words that make no sense but they sound good. It's not about what is said but how it is said.

Notes 3/6

Latimer claims to be able to read Alfred's mind and he says his brother doesn't have doubt or fears, but nobody is completely free from doubt and fear. Latimer doesn't really know his brother but he thinks he does.

The narrator, Latimer, is unreliable and his words can't be taken as fact. He claims that there is no evil in store for Alfred and if he didn't marry Bertha it was because someone better had come along. But Alfred dies that very day. Evil does befall him and he doesn't get a chance to marry Bertha or refuse her.

"The fear of poison is feeble against the sense of thirst": The need, the want of a relationship overcomes the intuition telling a person that the other is bad for them.

"Bertha that is not your real feeling": Latimer is projecting his own emotions onto Bertha - he doesn't want her to marry someone she doesn't love, and he knows they're going to be married, he wants her to love him!

"The easiest way to deceive a poet is to tell him the truth." She is feeling exactly what she's portraying but Latimer is purposefully misinterpreting her because of what he wants her to feel. Latimer doesn't have supernatural powers but rather an overactive imagination with the ability to project his own emotions and wants onto other people. When Latimer loves Bertha, she's portrayed as an amazing wonderful person; but when he doesn't lover her, she becomes a horrible monster. In both cases, the Bertha he "knows" is a projection, first an idealization and secondly a demonization. But he doesn't actually know her at all.

Does Latimer really love Bertha? No, he loves her for what he thinks she should be, for his inner portrayal, his fantasy, of her.

Did Latimer kill his brother? Did he want to marry Bertha so badly, was him "seeing" her married to him so overwhelming, that he killed his brother? Maybe.

Is judging realism? In order to escape your own pettiness, you judge other people's pettiness. Judgement raises a person above others, so when Latimer talks of Bertha's negativity and Alfred's shallowness, he's really seeing those things in himself but not accepting them so he finds those faults in others.

Latimer realized that he didn't love Bertha after his father died, he didn't need her anymore - nobody to compete with, nobody to prove himself to. The need for the relationship was gone.

Victor and Latimer

Does Latimer resemble Victor?

In many ways, I think Latimer resembles Victor; both had mothers who died when they were young, they both for a time lived in Geneva, both had childhoods that were happy and without want, except for want of a mother. But most importantly, both Latimer and Victor hold themselves in high regard. Victor believed he not only had the intelligence, the drive, the will to create human life but also the right. He didn't care who he hurt or who he pushed away; he was going to fulfill his dream because he wanted to. Latimer also believes himself to be above average, with greater mental capabilities. Not only does Latimer follow Victor's example in perhaps over-exaggerating his mental abilites but he believes them to be a curse just as Victor did. Fate cursed them both and neither can break free from her grip and think for themselves. They blame fate rather than taking responsibility for their actions. In this sense Latimer highly resembles Victor.

Notes 3/4

"okay, smile, not too much, just a little uplift of the lips, remember look at the camera, don't look away at other things, wonder what's taking so long, why am i doing this again, oh right my editor, there they're done..." stream of conscious of JK Rowling

The Lifted Veil by George Elliot

Evidence that Latimer actually has supernatural visions:

His vision of Prague. After his first disease and he realized that he had the ability to read minds/visions, Latimer went to Prague to see if the vision was true and it was. But the bridge he sees, is the most painted, photographed bridge in Prague. He might have seen it before.

Why can't he read Bertha's mind? It would take the fun out of his visions. Latimer is projecting his desire for what he wants her to be onto Bertha. She is a great "screen" because of her sarcasm, cynicism, sneering attitude that he believes someone can move her to emotion and he hopes it can be him.

In Latimer's youth, his mother worshipped him then died. He wants to get back to that all-embracing love from a woman and he's projecting that onto Bertha, who he thinks is worthy of that position his mother once held. He believes he's exceptional: "cursed, destined to be special".

He's more alone than a poet because he can't express his emotions and have others read his work; he talks of Rousseau who wrote "Confessions", an autobiography. Latimer is egotistical and self-absorbed but he's also romantic.

Notes 2/27

"I will be with thee on thy wedding night": Victor thinks he'll be killed by the monster on his wedding night, not Elizabeth. He was so self-involved that he doesn't realize the monster could have killed him already and that he was attacking Victor's loved ones rather than going after him.

What if they're the same person? Could the monster and Victor just be two different personas of the same person?

Nobody but Victor sees the monster until the very end. Only his loved ones are killed because they won't be able to hurt him the way his mother hurt him when she died. Both the monster and Victor use "wretch" to describe both each other and themselves; it seems wretch and all variations thereof stand for something bad in the novel. "I murdered her. William, Justine, and Henry - they all died by my hands." Victor puts the monster's crimes in his own hands. Hegel's theory, the idea of the relationship between master and slave, states that the master needs the slave so much that the roles switch and the master becomes the slave and the slave the master; a mirror of his own powerfulness: a wretch (Victor) looks in the mirror and sees a wretch (the monster) or vice versa. "I would rather reign in hell than serve in heaven." Paradise Lost

Victor wants to be the One, the One to create and destroy life. Is there any reason a person would want to be completely alone in the world?

Notes 2/25

The monster could represent art; "And now, once again, I bid my hideous progeny go forth and prosper". Shelley's novel could be representative of the monster.

Locke's Association of Ideas says that children are brought up to create a better world. Thomas Day decided to adopt two young girls and told them nothing; he allowed them to learn for themselves - let them burn themselves to realize fire burns. Later, the girls became schizophrenic.

Mary Shelley's father, William Godwin, said that the peasants who took over during the French Revolution had learned from the aristocrats who tortured and executed their enemies.

The monster is similar to a poor child; Victor rejected his child. In order to get Victor's attention, the monster used violence; it's all he's ever known through his interactions with other people. In the ever growing argument of nature versus nurture, neither are totally the controlling factor but they both add to shaping individuals. Victor proved something to himself through creating the monster; he didn't do it for the monster's well being.

When the monster first saw William, he wanted to befriend him, have a companion, but William treated him as everyone else had. The monster was good but circumstances made him bad. Every time someone looked upon him, they treated him bad so he became bad. It takes effort to form a bond between parents and children, and Victor doesn't put any into it - he runs away.

The monster

How did the monster's tale make you feel about the monster?

The monster's tale made me pity him and all that he never had. For his entire existence, people have only feared him because of his grotesque appearance, but they've never actually known him. The monster has all these emotions inside him (rage, jealousy, appreciation, envy) but he's never been taught how to express these emotions. Not only induce his first interactions with humans shame and horror, but Victor left him. He left the monster in his time of need. The monster had to learn on his own how to interact with people, and he obviously found them wanting. The monster just wanted a companion who wouldn't fear or hate him, that would simply accept him, like no human ever could. The monster is like a child starved of attention; he learned to make his own attention. I know that killing those people and framing Justine is wrong but does he? I don't think he does. People have always reacted violently to him, therefore I believe he thinks violence is a natural course of action. In the end, Victor is the monster for depriving his creation of a chance at true life (not survival!) and the monster is the victim.

Notes 2/23

Why does Victor want to create life?

He could want to obtain divine power or because his mother died, he could want to never die - only live. Never loving another, never having children keeps people safe - you can't be hurt by what you never had. But! Its better to have love and lost than to have never loved at all.

Poems relating to Frankenstein

-Prometheus Unbound

-Rime of the Ancient Mariner

The story begins at a wedding as an old mariner tells a wedding guest his tale. During a sea voyage, he killed an albatross, after which bad things begean to happen; he was forced to watch his friends die and in the end, he wore his guilt, the dead albatross, around his neck. One night, as the moon rose, he saw the beauty of the evil surrounding him. Afterwards, he was finally able to leave but forced to retell his story. The mariner killed the bird because of his love for the bird. True, deep love is scary, making a person want to flee. It can't hurt you if it's dead, so people kill things before it can hurt them. When you love someobody, you're completely bound to them, regardless of what they feel; they have the potential to hurt you.

-Alastor

The poet "spurned nature's choicest gifts" in that he didn't acknowledge the maiden when he had the chance. Perhaps he didn't want his dream to become real because the maiden could be short of perfection or be taken from him

Victor doesn't go out in nature, which had brought him great joy; he ignores his friends and family, even his betrothed Elizabeth. He too "spurned nature's choicest gifts." What made him neglect nature and ignore his friends?

His creation finally comes alive, and he sees how horrible the monster was; he used all the most beautiful parts but together they're ugly. He's horrified by the monster and flees the apartment, locking the monster in. Poor monster! He created the monster in order to bring back his mother or keep Elizabeth, a substitute for his mother, from dying. Victor is not afraid of losing her, but rather afraid of living in a world without her.

Victor fell ill and Clerval, his friend, nursed him back to health. "I became as cheerful as before I was attacked by the fatal passion." This is passive voice. Active voice would be: "Fate attacked me." He's an innocent bystander that fate took advantage of.

Just as before, he should have stood up for Justine instead of excusing himself. He didn't even try to help, even though he said he wanted to. "Anguish and despair had penetrated into the core of my heart; I bore a hell within me, which nothing could extinguish." He only thinks of his pain, that he doesn't see other's pain, like Elizabeth's. He quotes Satan from Paradise Lost, the greatest sufferer in his fall from heaven.

Victor and Walton

Is Victor like or unlike Walton? Explain.

Victor and Walton are very similar in that they both want to be known: Walton attempts to be a great poet and searchs for a passage through the North Pole, and Victor has god-like aspirations when he created the monster. Neither consider the consequences of their actions and what it would take to achieve their goals, how much of themselves they'd have to give up. However, Victor is dissimilar from Walton in that Walton has someone to tell him to stop. Victor pushed everyone away and kept himself locked up; Walton not only has his crew for guidance if he chooses to listen to them, but also Victor. He knows what happened to Victor and therefore what could potentially happen to him. Victor and Walton are similar in that they started on the same road towards similar destinations but dissimilar in that Walton has the chance to take a different path while Victor has no such choice. He had his opportunities but chose to ignore them while Walton still has them.

Notes 2/20

According to Victor, he is an artist rather than a scientist. Walton and Victor are both artists in that they want to be great and are ambitious. Victor stands in for the great Romantic artist, and Shelley critiques him, saying "This is what is wrong with that attitude." The novel is an analysis of why people are driven to ambition, what they get out from it and the consequences of it.

The 1831 edition adds in Victor's obsession of secrets, and how he was fated. Victor believes that he was fated; it is his way to justify his actions. Shelley doesn't let him off the hook though, he lets himself off the hook. Fate is a way to exonerate yourself. Victor is being too easy on himself.

The novel is like a game in which the reader decides what the author believes to be true and what the characters believes to be true.

Alchemy was the search for the philosopher's stone, if used, it was thought to create the elixir of life, and turn any metal into gold. It was more magic than science. Before modern science, they believed in the Man's theories; Aristole said "this" and it was believed unequivocally to be true, without checking the facts. Waldman transfered the fame of the alchemists to the modern scientists. Victor says reading about "the alchemist" is what lead to his ruin.

What is Victor like when he creates the monster? Is it affected by his desire to be great?

He let it take over his life, thinking only of his eventual success rather than going about in a scientific manner. He was exalted by his first success that he pushed himself on to the brink of insanity. He still tried to justify his actions.

His emotions were obsessive, compulsive; he had a god-complex and wanted to control the relationship between his creations and himself. There would be no disagreement, no argument.

In order to give life, life had to be taken (Victor's health, his "life", for the creation's), similar to mothers during pregnancy. Something must be given in order to get something else in return. He doesn't care about anything else but his own feelings; he's on a high! He never considers the consequences. Victor never asks whether he should but whether he can.

We shouldn't work through the ego for the ego. "I am great, I can do no wrong!" Romantic literature in general, and women's literature in specific, doesn't allow for this. Romantic literature wants you to let go of your ego. Creating art is working around the ego in order create a masterpiece.

Specialization was coming into existence in Shelley's lifetime. She was critiquing this attitude.

Victor is taken over by the need to finish, to prove that he can. However, this proves that he doesn't take into consideration what will happen when he's finished, only that he is finished. If he slowed down, he might have actually seen what he was doing, what he was creating. If he had spoken to his family, they might have stopped him from what he was doing, made him question himself.

Notes 2/18

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

Who is Walton? Walton is a British explorer, who wants to find a passage through the North Pole to the Pacific Ocean. He wants to be remembered: the person who was idolized has the control.

After being nursed back to the health, Victor tells his story to Walton - he wants to teach him a lesson. "Unhappy man, do you share my madness?" Victor wanted to create something, bring something to life; unfortunately once he did, Victor couldn't handle his creation. Both wanted knowledge to control others, without regards for the costs. Victor wants him to realize that there are consequences to the quest for madness.

Between the two different editions, 1818 and 1831, there are slight differences. Percy may have helped Mary with the first edition and she altered things slightly after his death, republishing in 1831.

Notes 2/16

Are scholarly articles going by the wayside?

Scholarly articles aren't written for the average person; they're written for the people in the know. Within their own field, scholarly articles aren't going to fade from view of academia but they were never in the view of the general population.

If scholarly articles were interpreted for everybody in laymen's terms, would people look deeper into the original text? If simplified, are they any longer scholarly articles?

In the 1992 film, the same actress, Juliette Binoche, played both Catherine Earnshaw and Catherine Linton. In this fashion, Heathcliff can unload his frustration and anger on the daughter like he never could with Cathy; he loved her too much that he couldn't hate her, even though he did. He hated the woman she had been turned into by her brother and the Lintons, the woman who was reserved, proper, everything he wasn't. Heathcliff has the power to destroy that which he hated about Cathy in her daughter and he does.

The 1939 film lacked the portrayal of the second volume of the novel. The audience never gets to see the evolution of Heathcliff's anger into the second generation; therefore it is not as dark as the novel. It becomes a tale of a love interrupted.

Why darken romance? It makes romance more real for girls. It's not just about one love; it is possible to love more than one person but in different ways. There is empirical love, Cathy's love of Linton, and transcendental love, her love for Heathcliff. Empirical love is a practical love, a love of convenience whereas transcendental love exceeds anything and everything that may arise between the lovers. Bronte possible identified with Catherine in wanting two different men for different reasons.

Wuthering Heights assignment

What does the movie Wuthering Heights do to help people better understand the scene between Heathcliff and Cathy before her death?

Cathy and Heathcliff's love was turbulent and volatile, destroying everything in its wake, including in the end themselves. Yet, it was steady, through all the times of separation and harsh words that they themselves threw. The last scene of them together before her death shows this quite well. After three years of separation, Heathcliff had finally returned to his home, a man changed in appearance but not in heart. His cold, calculating demeanor was the same as ever. In order to exact his revenge on those who had wronged him in his youth, Heathclif began a cruel campaign, first against Hindley, then against the Lintons, deciding to bring them down together. Using Isabella's apparent love for him, he whisked her away. Cathy, in despair over losing her friend and her sister in law to that very same friend, fell into madness. Upon his return, Heathcliff hurried to her bedside, after hearing of her condition. The main plot points are the same in both the movie and the book, but their presentation is what allows the audience to see a different perspective of their relationship that is no less intense than it is in the book.

The 1992 version of Wuthering Heights stayed as true to the book as possible, allowing for time and audiences' attention span. More often than not, scenes were cut down in length, keeping only the most important lines, attempting to convey an entire spectrum of emotion in a few words. Important lines, such as each begging and giving forgiveness in their own cruel way, are kept, however in the book, there is more emotion when they are spoken. Catherine alternated between anger and sadness, regret and forgiveness while Heathcliff's mask was broken, showing him to be passionate in his anger and turmoil in losing the one he loves.

While it is important to consider what is in the film, it is even more important to consider what was left out. Not only were lines cut and emotions portrayed differently but an entire section was left on the editing room floor. As Heathcliff was not entirely friends with Linton, he was not supposed to be in his house, in his wife's bedroom. Nelly tried to persuade the man to leave and he tried, but in the end both Heathcliff and Cathy refused to leave the side of the other. When Heathcliff brings up the topic of leaving, Cathy clung to him tighter and pleaded with him to stay. Knowing he could never say "no" to Cathy, Heathcliff stayed. This was an important scenerio that never was shown in the film. Heathcliff stayed. When it truly mattered, when Cathy was dying, when they would get no second chances, Heathcliff stayed. For all the times he'd left before, Heathcliff stayed. It's hard to imagine how meaningful the gesture was, until you don't see it in the film. There is nothing pressuring him to leave in the movie. No Linton returning from service, no Nelly fearful of getting caught. Heathcliff doesn't need to leave in the movie, not that the audience ever sees; in the book, he must go but chooses to stay.

The last consideration a person must make is what was added to the scene. Just before we hear of Cathy's death, the pair kiss passionately, as if they need the contact just one last time for they shall be forever ripped apart if they separate. The seexual tension in the film is palpable. The audience feels the sense of urgency in their kisses, in their attempts to be closer, because they know it will be their last time together, doing anything, kissing or otherwise. In the book, we are never specifically told if they shared one last kiss. We know they embraced, drawing srength from the nearness of the other, hiding their faces from the world except their own. But the audience never feels the sense of urgency in the form of sexual tension. Like before, one doesn't understand the completeness of their love until one views it in another light. By witnessing a different expression of urgency, the audience is able to understand that Cathy and Heathcliff in the book don't need that type of urgency. Their love ran deeper: simply being there, clinging to each other as though that alone could save them, was enough to express their urgency at her passing. As readers we don't see the lack of sexual tension until we watch the film and it is played out in front of us.

All these parts, what is and is not in the film, how its presented, the emotion that's evoked, they all add to our overall understanding of the love Cathy and Heathcliff share. No matter how harsh they are with one another, no matter how much they are separated, no matter how anyone tries to keep them apart, they belong together. We're able to see that more fully when all the pieces fall into place. Not by looking at the similarities between the book and the film does one understand, but by searching for their differences. The way in which lines are spoken and the emotion that each character expresses; the actions that are added or deleted - those are how we as listeners of the story come to a better understanding of what it means for these two people to be in love and to lose that love, forever parted by death.

Notes 2/6

Wuthering Heights (continued)

"He's more myself than I am." Catherine and Heathcliff are able to be themselves around each other without checking their emotions. When they're apart they are expected to act in certain ways that they are no longer themselves. In growing up together, their identities became so intertwined with one another's that they need each other to be whole.

Is this the ideal relationship? Is it possible? Two people who are so completely compatible, that they're almost the same person, can be a hinderance to the relationship, no ability to grow through hardship and disagreement. I don't think its even possible to find this relationship; at the end of the day, they're two different people.

Bronte created characters that were so real, with faults and defects, that we understand them and it's hard to settle on who's the "good guy" and who's the "bad guy".

Heathcliff tells Catherine that if he were to marry Isabella, he'd beat her ("turning blue eyes black") because she resembled her brother; however, he asked about the inheritance ("who gets the money?") He came back after three years absence rich and dressed as a gentlemen while Hindley is gambling away Wuthering Heights to Heathcliff.

Mrs. Dean comes to a fork in the road, leading to Thrushcross Grange, Wuthering Heights, the moors and Gimmerton. These represent different paths a spirit could take (pretentious society, aristocratic vice, wild freedom and community) Except for the community, Catherine's spirit has gone in all the directions.

Heathcliff

Describe Heathcliff in one paragraph.

Heathcliff is a very complex character. He's a man who's been hurt, betrayed, loved, accepted, guarded. He's probably felt the entire range of emotions, and yet he chooses to hoard his emotions, letting only the ones that would serve his purpose out. To me, Heathcliff seems like the type of person to feel with all their heart or not at all. So for people like Cathy, he loves her unconditionally and eternally. But for others, like Hindley or Edgar, he couldn't care less and actually goes as far as to hate them. For still others, like Mrs Dean and Mr Earnshaw, who both took him/took care of him, he shows little emotion unless it has to do with those who he feels particularly strongly about. Heathcliff keeps people at a distance unless they've gained a place in his heart, and even then, he rarely shows open emotion. For example when he went away or when Cathy went to live with the Lintons, I don't think he ever stopped loving her, he simply kept his emotions in better hidden. However, Cathy being who she was, probably understood him better than anyone, emotions or not.

Notes 2/4

Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte

Emily Bronte, sister to Charlotte Bronte (author of Jane Eyre, which I personally hated) and another sister, Anne. All three sisters were writers who excelled in literature. They wrote together as a family, then later under individual male-interpreted pen names. Several considered her the "female Shakespeare." Was she the female-Shakespeare? Could she have been? How do we decide?

Bronte set the atmosphere of the first few chapters using her characters. The butler is dark, depressive and yet, humorous. Mr. Lockwood, a misanthrope (a hatred of people), is secluded and yet enjoyed making Heathcliff uncomfortable. He had secretly liked a woman who openly liked him back; his love turned to hate and she, convinced that she'd made a mistake, fled with her mother. He humiliated her. Some might ask why. It's a mode of self protection; if nobody loves you, nobody can hurt you.

Heathcliff, the main male protagonist, could be considered an anti-hero. He's selfish; his deceased son's wife hates him; he treats his dogs harshly, kicking one, saying "she's not kept as a pet." This is similar to how he treats people.

Mr Lockwood pushed Heathcliff into maxillary convulsions, a condition when someone grinds their teeth in anger to keep from crying, after Heathcliff found him in the room where Catherine's books were after her ghost scares Mr Lockwood into a nightmare.

Notes 2/2

"Rape in Cyberspace" by Julilan Dibbell

There are numerous differences and similarities between real rape and cyber-rape. Both violate the mind and trust that had earlier been established as well as being a traumatizing encounter with the human capacity for monstosity. However, they are different in that there is no real victim in cyber-rape. There is an emotional investment in watching the character victimized, but no victim. Following that idea, it is easier for someone to say, "something happened to my character" as opposed to "something happened to me."

Notes 1/29

A Room of One's Own by Virginia Woolf


Why has there been no woman-Shakespeare? Virginia Woolf asks us this same question and she believes she has the answer. Women were not given the same education as men. Women were prepped for the being mothers and wives, not for being professionals. In the medium of creation, women created the home environment, the children, society, etc, and in that sense, these were the only acceptable genres for women for a time. Only men were allowed on stage until 1660 and the Restoration Theatre. Even then, they were considered whores, who only wanted to be around men. They were not taken seriously. Society made writing so indecent for women that they often would burn their works, some of which was later recovered by feminists recovery projects.

Woolf thinks women shouldn't write like women but men also shouldn't write like men. Both sexes should write like intellectuals. Men, feeling insecure due to the women's movement, often will write bad fiction! Both sexes should write like a soul.

Shakespeare was neither a man or a woman but both, in the way that he wrote. That's why he was such a great writer and no one has been able to compare to him; nobody has left their gender identity behind enough to be an intellectual like he has.

Rape Cyberspace

Did Bungle commit rape?

This question is extremely difficult to answer and indeed, probably has no real answer at all due to the ambiguity of it. What is rape? Who is Bungle? Could he have commited rape? All these must first be answered in order to answer the greater question. Firstly, in a biological sense, rape is the physical sexual violation of one person's body by another person without the other person's consent. However is cyber-rape rape? Technically, no real bodies came into contact with one another, nobody was really forced to do anything. By the same token, Bungle is also not real in that he has no physical being, his heart does not beat, his lungs do not breath, he does not feel. He is merely words on a page, or computer commands.

However if one were to look at this as a kind of story unfolding, not physically happening, it is possible for characters to rape other characters in a story. Bungle could rape other players' representations in the game. It does say, that he commited these acts without the players' consent and therefore without their creations' consent. So, yes Bungle commited rape.

The only problem with this answer is how we see Bungle. I see him as a character in a story, but others might see him as an extension of the person sitting at the computer and in doing so, say that that person commited rape. But that is physically impossible. Yes, the players' emotions, the trust in the MOO was violated, but was that person physically raped, no. In that sense, Bungle did not commit rape and could not commit rape.

So to answer, your question, maybe. In the sense that Bungle is merely words as are his victims, then yes, Bungle commited rape. However, in the other sense that Bungle represented the person who created him, then no, Bungle did not commit rape.

Notes 1/26

Vindication of the Rights of Woman by Mary Wollstonecraft

Mary Wollstonecraft's homelife growing up was horrible; she had to deal with a drunk and abusive father while taking care of her siblings and mother. She decided to try writing in December of 1789, in response to Edmund Burke's writing on the French Revolution (Nov 1789) called Vindication of the Rights of Men. Many originally thought it was written by a man. Wollstonecraft attacked Burke by attacking his masculinity, calling him effeminate and unmanly. In that day and age, masculinity was synonymous with virtue and rationality. She claimed it was irrational to distinguish between the classes, in turn defending the Republic.


Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792), identifies 'woman' as a class of persons treated the same, whereas 'men' means a number of classes or all human beings. In the introduction, Wollstonecraft claims sexism is systematic and structural. Society, through education, trains women to not be virtuous, rational or manly, thus making them immoral and irrational. By trying to exert power in the ways allowed to them, their sexuality, women are undermining themselves and giving into the system.

In the first chapter, she says that professions with subordination induce immorality, such as teaching. Teachers have to give grades to students as an indication of their progress in class, this leads to students cheating because they are desperate to get better grades. Our society views cheating as immoral, thus teaching leads to immorality.

Wollstonecraft discusses the idea of no standing army in the second chapter. In the military, soldiers have to take orders. Both women and soldiers blindly commint to authority; in that way, women are equal to soldiers. They have both been educated into subordination; if we educate men the same way as we do women, they will be like women. Women are nurtured to be inferior, not naturally inferior. This is a social causation.

The third chapter berates woman for their role in their own oppression, claiming they aggrevate the situation. If we were to liberate women, they would have less power, but it would be real power. By playing on the weakness of men, women have more power. When women use their sexual power, they are idealized and fawned over by men, who in turn give them what they want so they will continue to please them. This gives them power and because they have little to begin with, most women aren't keen on relinquishing this imagined power so readily.

"It is time to effect a revolution in female manners." Wollstonecraft is saying that it's time for women to work for their equality. This was the first time a plan was proposed for social reform of both sexes, rather than just women or just men. Virtue equates to honesty and transparency for Wollstonecraft. Her word is gold; she will do as she said she would.

Notes 1/23

Pretty Woman

The Cinderella complex: the idea that women have to be pretty, thin, tall, destitute and in need of being saved while men have to be handsome, rich and capable of giving her the world in order to find true love. This is unrealistic. Men/women are under so much pressure to fit this mold that often women are tempted to fail just to be Cinderella.

Stories of Cinderella pervade our popular culture and propagate the idealized version of who society thinks we need to be. Although we live in a relatively free and open culture, we still cling to the idea of needing to be saved or needing to save, even if that's not who we are.

Cinderella in Art

After googling and searching through numerous websites and images, I finally found one I wanted to write about. We've been inundated with stories, films and pictures about Cinderella that understanding the background isn't hard. But the more I looked at the piece, the more I questioned what it was saying about the fairy tale. The girl is staring at the glass slipper, studying it, her face wistful yet guarded. Unable to see her eyes, the viewer is left to wonder what's she's thinking. Does she want the fairy tale life with the fairy tale man or just the shoes that go with it? In Disney's version of events, the one we're most familiar with, the castle is white with an inner glow. It exudes peace and hopefullness. This castle draws you in on a whole other level. It's mysterious, dark, dangerous unknown, and that's what makes your eye always return to it. The difference between this Cinderella story and the one we all know and love, is that the viewer doesn't know how the story ends. We're left to wonder. And that's the beauty of it, the mystery. In a story that's become cliche, its nice to see a representation that makes a person think rather than tonelessly follow along, until "...and they all lived happily ever after."

The Glass Slipper by David Delamare (www.fairiesworld.com/gallery/)

Notes 1/16

The Cinderella Complex

The question was asked whether or not the author of this piece was sick. That's not an easy question to answer, one must take into consideration numerous variables: her love, her self-appreciation, her goals, her ambitions and how much she was willing to give up for those things. It is not for us to decide if one is sick if they believe in fairy tales but if you believe in fairy tales and how they change you.

My parents have always let me do what I wanted, never telling me that I couldn't do something because I was too small, too young, too delicate, so I've been more independent than some of my other friends and yet, I still want someone to take care of me. I think it has to do with being the youngest and only girl in the family, the baby, the one who was always taken care of.

Parents often unconsciously alter the views of their children through speech, sayings, actions, etc while not even realizing it.

In order to be Cinderella, you can't be yourself - you must lose part of yourself; "amputations"

Turning to quiz: In the artistic retelling of fairy tales, does art help counteract ideology (being wounded by wishes)?

I think that art can counteract the ideology of the old fairy tale when it is retold, if they allow it to fit our frame of reference. If the story is retold the same way it has been told for hundreds of years, the message could be outdated, or not needed any longer. So instead of simply retelling the story of Atlas, the author delves deeper into it, questioning Atlas' emotions, his motives for doing what he's doing and in the end, its no longer the same exact story. The ideology has been shifted with the retelling, and subsequent altering, of the story.

Angela Carter's "Ashputtle"

In Ashputtle, the mother sacrificed herself for her daughter in order to help her become independent but did the daughter learn her lesson? As readers, our own experiences shape how we interpret the end of the story, reading differently whether or not she learned what her mother was willing to teach her.

Thoughts on Re-telling a story

When I first read the introduction to Weight, my first thought was that the author was right, it is important to keep these stories alive, to keep them from falling into decay from misuse or misunderstanding. If we don't retell them, then they will be forgotten, their message lost in the frabic of time. But at the same time, we need to ask ourselves, is their message the same? Is it valid anymore? Is it right to keep it alive? I think by altering the story slightly, by digging deeper into the story, by questioning the characters, their motives, their emotions, we can better understand the story and in time a new meaning will appear, one that fits the era. Our world is changing around us, we need to adapt these stories to fit the times, so their message is not completely lost but rather renewed.



The Mother's Ghost does that for the reader; it alters the original story slightly so we gain new insight into the characters and into ourselves. Before reading it, I thought Cinderella was passive, didn't do anything for herself but let these things happen to her, and let other people clean up her messes. But after reading Ghost, I've realized that sometimes people need help, that they can't do it all themselves sometimes. The burned girl drained the cow, the cat and the bird, but maybe next time she won't have to. Or maybe she will. We as readers don't know how the story truly ends, we don't know if she's learned her lesson, that we all have to stand on her own two feet. We can only speculate which allows us to question ourselves: could we stand or would we drain the cow, the cat and the bird?

Cinderella Word Descriptions

Grimms' Ashputtle

pious - can be both genuine and false devotion or spirituality - gains something in return for piety; is Cinderella being truly pious or does she do as she's told in order to get things from the hazel tree?

goose - mostly animal, but also insult for someone who is silly; found "Duck Duck Goose", to be a goose in the game is to be undesirable, to do something silly

smock - used to protect clothing or was used as an undergarment; could the smock reference be that it is protecting her true self, hiding it under ambiguity until time to take it off and underneath she is clean, or is she really that underneath it all?

lentils - seed, rich in protein; black/brown/gray/green on the outside but yellow/orange on the inside - another reference to something appearing different on the outside than the inside

thicket - dense/tangled undergrowth of trees/bushes

whirring - continuous humming or buzzing

swarming - large mass moving either with purpose or disorderly; later apparent that the birds moved with purpose, like bees, however a swarm of bees has a negative connotation so why use it when another word could produce the same description without the connotation?

lit - reveal something, illuminate; what is revealed? the sisters' deed, Cinderella's true nature, the father's absence?

pitch - method of persuasion; tar-thickened, cobbler's wax - used for? once set, remains hard enough to stay put yet malleable enough to manipulate; who's being manipulated, the prince or Cinderella?

rook di goo - couldn't find anywhere else except in references to Grimms' fairy tales, pretty sure it was made up by them, unsure of its meaning

Sexton's Cinderella

Irish Sweepstakes - lottery established in order to finance hospitals - only legal in Ireland but US/UK were where most of the winners came from and where most of the money was raised

homogenized - give milk or cream even consistency; to be homogenous - the milkman was like everyone else before, now he's not; and yet his story is similar to so many others

Bonwit Teller - department store on Fifth Avenue

Al Jolson - American entertainer, enjoyed performing in blackface but also fought discrimination - contradiction? Was Cinderella merely an entertainer playing a part until her prince came only to wipe it off at the end of the night?

gussying up - informal; to dress fancy/decorate elaborately

jiffy - shortest amount of time possible

amputations - to cut off appendages, surgical (precise); the sisters were precise in their actions, surgical strike in order to get what they wanted

curry favor - to seek/gain favor by flattery *from Old French "correier fauvel" - to curry a fallow-colored horse, to be hypicritical (fallow horses were a medieval symbol of deceit)

middle-aged spread - excess fat around the waist during middle age

Bobbsey Twins - two sets of mixed gender fraternal twins in a children's series, always children but the times changed around the stories but they never have problems - no WWI/II, no Depression - nothing; unrealistic, Cinderella's fairy tale life is just that a fairy tale.