Conrad Racist?

Hey, guys. I'm back and my class and I just finished reading the infamous Heart of Darkness crafted by Joseph Conrad. Now, I know for a fact that my opinion is the unpopular one-I LOVED this novella! Yes there were times when I wanted to give up and stop reading because it made no sense, but I chugged through it and I am glad that I did! This novella is definitely worth the struggle of reading, and the vocabulary became overwhelming at times. But I really think I am starting to get a hang of the analytical and “deeper meaning” aspects of these fiction works, which makes me really happy (Especially when the AP Exam is in 5 short days)!

As this section of Ap Lit has come to an end, of course My teacher gives some reading, and this time, it happens to be Chinua Achebe and his perspective on Heart of Darkness, which I totally disagree on, which will also be the topic of today's blog post.

The biggest thing that really bothered me was the fact that he used so many different examples. Yes, there were many parts in the novella that support his claim about Conrad being racist, but those parts also illuminated the counter argument, which Achebe really did not refute. Since Achebe decided to quote gigantic paragraphs in the novella (I know he really could not get around that since the examples would not be strong enough), I am just going to point out examples instead of quoting them. The first example that really jumped out at me was at the bottom of page 4, when Achebe starts criticizing the language used when the cannibals and natives were talking. Yes, he used different idiosyncrasies to characterize these people, but does he also realize that these men basically grew up in the jungle? They have resorted to cannibalism, which means they have been there for quite some time. Even Marlow justifies it when he reaches these men on the journey to the Inner Station. Also, this demoting status would not correlate to the next section Achebe quoted on page five of his speech, referencing Marlow’s sympathy towards the men dying. It just really does not add up and contradicts itself very harshly.

Now obviously, this is only on opinion. Do I think Conrad’s work is offensive in one way or another? Yes. Do I believe that he meant it to be like that? No. I really think Conrad was trying to portray these men to the best of his ability, and through the example that I chose from Achebe’s article, it includes the dialect of these men. This also correlates to American literature as well, when authors such as Zora Neale Hurston use the same exact dialect in Their Eyes Were Watching God. So, what's the difference? To me, the only difference is location. But, that's just me.

Well, this might not have been most fun to read, but I hope it opened your eyes a little bit more to see the other perspective. PLEASE try and read Heart of Darkness! Hands down one of my favorite books I have ever read! Catch me reading it in five years!

Wuthering Heights? What's That?

Welp, I’m back. My class and I just finished reading the Gothic novel, Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë. I have to say, it was probably one of the most challenging book I have ever read, and I loathed this book at first. I dreaded picking up this book, but I forced myself to read it anyways because it was for class. However, by the end of the book, I have to say that I thoroughly enjoyed this book and that I completely understand (I think) what Brontë is saying. For today’s blog post, I wanted to explore the reasoning behind the family tree that Emily uses. Emily decided that she wanted to utterly confuse her readers and create a family tree that is intertwined literally EVERYWHERE and for everyone to have similar names. Let me show you the family tree:

https://arqshah.files.wordpress.com/2014/04/wuthering-heights-family-tree.png

As you can see, it is very mind-boggling and it relies on the readers’ intellectuality to actually break this down. For me, this was the hardest part in the book-discovering all of the relationships and what they mean symbolically. Well, it’s your lucky day! I am going to give some insight to Brontë’s every move on her character choices, because they actually do have reasoning behind it.

            First is the fact that this whole family tree, starting from the second generation, is basically incest. And this boils down to Brontë wanting to illuminate that people are who their parents are and cannot control that. Back then, it was a common thing and was not frowned upon like it is now, so it honestly just adds to the complexity of the novel. I think it is also there to show the different generations and the combinations of each relationship. For example, usually offspring represent one half of their mother and one half of their father. Brontë illuminates this ideology by creating the intertwined family, showing how the generations changed over time. Let’s take Catherine and Edgar for example. Catherine came from a father who neglected her and lived a care-free childhood. Edgar came from the total opposite, and was always raised as a poised gentleman. Together, they created Cathy, who has the want to go and roam but loves the social status as well. Get it? So, by creating the connected family tree, Brontë shows that children are really products of their parents, which is why as the generations move forward, so do the children. SPOILER ALERT! At the end of the novel, you will see that Cathy and Hareton end up together and they break-free from the “norms” of their family because the parents have partners (Edgar and Frances) that are not from the same family.

            DO NOT get me started on the character names. UGH. It was so hard trying to decipher them because Catherine was also sometimes called Cathy, which is her daughter’s name and etc. Emily Brontë DEFINITELY wanted to confuse her readers on this one (I’m only kidding). But the similar names connect back to illumination of the children being a product of their parents. I think the names symbolize that they will always still have some of their parents, just maybe not some of the same characteristics.

            This must have been very confusing for some of you who have not read the novel yet. But, PLEASE. Go read it!! It’s is worth it.

Until next time.

EG

Ugh

            Dang Elsa, back at it again with the blog post!!  (I hate myself for this). Anyways, ya girl is back and ready to talk even more about satire! No matter how much I resent satire, it is still a requirement and always will be a requirement. However, it is different this time. This time, my class is analyzing a satirical poem. Are you kidding me?! That's when I knew I was in for a tough time. I have always loathed analyzing poetry because I am not quite good at it, no matter how many times I've read. Once satire was introduced to my AP Language and Composition class last year, it has become the thing I hate analyzing. Yes, it can be funny, but not funny enough for me to enjoy it.
            Our class was given "Base Heights" by Siegfried Sassoon (1886-1967). Thinking back to our sonnet lecture and presentations, I remember the word 'base' meaning not just an army base, but also meaning of little to no value. (My group analyzed Sonnet #33 and this form of base was utilized by William Shakespeare). That catch made the rest of the poem more meaningful because of the play on words. For our assignment, we needed to choose one poetic device to convey the speaker's attitude. In order to appeal to the satirical form of this poem, I have chosen to analyze the use of irony. Yes, this may seem basic, but I need to learn how to analyze from a very standard device. 
            The speaker, most likely a fellow soldier, begins this poem off by wishing he was of higher command. The irony automatically starts in line 3 when Sassoon writes, "And speed glum heroes up the line to death." The first thing that popped into my mind was to get the miserable soldiers out of the eat first because they are sad and want to die anyways. Oops. However, I thought more into it and it's very ironic how lines 5, 6, 7, and 8 state, "Guzzling and gulping in the best hotel,/Reading the Roll of Honour. 'Poor young chap,'/ I'd say-"I used to know his father well;/ Yes, we've lost heavily in this last scrap.'" That's when it clicked. These men do not care about the fighting soldiers. They literally could not care less about who these men were that they were sending to fight. Ironically enough, in  conjunction with line 3, they are sending these weak, amateur soldiers out while they are sitting in their hotel room with the most experience in the field. And that is where the criticism arises. Sassoon uses irony as a euphemism to make readers laugh and thinking their own what they laughed about. This irony then conveys the idea that the military does not care about their soldiers and who they are putting on the front line. All they care about is how many more drinks they are going to guzzle down. 
           Even though I am no the best at analyzing, I'd like to think this was an okay first time. We analyzed a bunch of sonnets, but they have a certain structure and form to look for and you will basically be all set. With this kind of poetry, I have no idea what is going on, just 10 lines of Siegfried Sassoon writing eloquently. It was actually kind of fun determining what 
this means. Or maybe I'm just trying to make it sound better to convince myself to push through. Who knows. Until next time!

EG

Concidence? I think not!

            Hey y’all! Seems like I’m breaking records here, this is my third post this month! Sweet! So I finally finished reading 1984 and it was downright AMAZING. And that is a surprising statement from me because the first satire novel that I read, Catch-22, I absolutely loathed reading it. Sorry Mrs. Smith! Anyways, I was surprised that I enjoyed it because it was emphasizing the matter of the government and Communism (Sam you would be proud of me!).

            Like I said before, the basis of the satire in this book is through the government’s (Big Brother, in this case) power over the community. Big Brother used propaganda to post phrases like, “BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU,” and he really was, all of the time. Big Brother and his government constructed televisions with cameras on them so he could literally see society’s every move. There was only one corner where the camera could not reach and that was it (as shown in my last post). To continue this dystopian society, pens were so very rare and it was basically illegal to write in a diary. How crazy is that? This type of ruling makes me think of the terrorist attack on September 11, 2001. Long story short, former President of the United States George W. Bush and Congress passed the Patriot Act in which the government could tap into phone calls, emails, and other personal connections without gaining permission from the user(s). Coincidence that Orwell basically predicted this controlling society?

            On top of that, Orwell wrote 1984 only 4 years after World War II, or more specifically, Nazi Germany. To add onto the increasing number of coincidences, in the film adaptation of this satire, Big Brother looks like a replica of Hitler. Anyways, Orwell basically inferred the corruption of the government and quite frankly, he was basically correct (for the American government anyways). Too many Americans are very skeptical of the government and how many secrets are being held by them. Orwell was criticizing this government control and how it was going to become real in 1984. It may not be 1984, but it sure is real.

            To add onto the Communism topic, many people believe places like Russia and North Korea are the correct representation of Communism. In reality, Communism is to make all of society equal, not just the citizens, but the government as well. Putin and Un (respectively) are horrible at representing this concept. And who knows…will America become Communist? Is that why they want to tax the rich more than the poor to make everyone “equal?” I guess we will see.

            This post was not as fun as they usually are, but that is alright. I felt like being a little more insightful today and we were talking about Communism. The fact that Orwell’s prediction of the government’s control is slightly true scares me a little bit because everyone needs their privacy. Will America be the next Communist country? Will Orwell’s dystopian future become fully true? Tune in next week to find out! (Just kidding I don’t know when it will happen if it even does). Catch ya later!!

EG 

INGSOC?

Hey y’all! Long time, no blog. Actually, I think this is the shortest time span from this blog to the previous one. Sweet! New record! But in all seriousness, it’s time to talk literature. Yeah, I know, it sounds boring, but I hope to make it as enjoyable as possible.  Every term, our teacher has us choose an independent reading book for us to read based on what we are learning in class. Last term, I chose Euripides by Medea (personally, I don’t remember what we were studying, but I think she had us choose any book we wanted). This term, I chose 1984 by George Orwell because we are about to begin studying satirical writing. I know, it is a famous book, but I was really interested in reading it because I read his other great satire in eighth grade, Animal Farm. I read the first half of the book and all I can say is: wow.

I know this may come off as very narrow-minded since the first half of the book was filled with information, but I really want to focus on the impact of the first few pages. First, we have to talk about the structure of the satire. Orwell arranged his novel into three parts: One, Two and Three (so original), or Books One, Two and Three. Within these books are sub-chapters titled with roman numerals. Anyways, back to the story. The opening line of the novel goes, “It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen” (1). Immediately, you notice that something is off: Why did Orwell use thirteen instead of one o’clock? That was my question anyways. I also immediately went to military time, because the military uses a 24-hour clock instead of a 12-hour clock, like most do. Red flags went up because I knew that this had to be about war of some sort, because what else does the military do?

I continued reading and noticed the first word of the second sentence was the first name of a Winston Smith. Now I don’t know why, but it immediately made me think of Winston Churchill. And just as I typed in George Orwell into the handy-dandy Google search engine, I learned that he was born and raised in London. Coincidence? I think not! (shout out to my sophomore Honors Chemistry teacher Mrs. Derocher for that). Anyways, I made the connections! Winston Churchill led England during World War II and guess what? 1984 was written in 1949, only four years after World War II. Another coincidence? You can finish that phrase!

I know this post probably wasn’t very insightful, but I really just wanted to focus on these connections (whether true or not) that I made within the first 15(!!!!!!!) words of the novel. Wow. I’m actually surprised that I made these connections because usually just blow right past them until another classmate mentions the allusion or indirect connection, and then I feel really dumb. But now, I see myself making progress, even if this connection was small. Either way, I’m growing. And that’s the most important part of schooling.

Until next time,

EG

The Blame Game

Hey y’all, I am back. I have been busy with all of this schoolwork! College is very stressing as well and I just turned in applications! Ahhh! Anyways, my class and I started and finished reading Othello by William Shakespeare. Honestly, it was one of the better plays that I have read, which is very minimal to begin with. In addition, I really do not like reading poetry or analyzing it so knowing that his plays are big poems was a hard start to the play. I pushed through it! Moreover, I actually understood most of it so that was great too. Big thanks to my teacher, classmates, and Spark Notes (I really did not use this a lot, really!). Anyways, the tragic hero Othello committed some pretty heinous acts, including murdering his wife, Desdemona. However, he did this based off of lies told by his bff and ancient, Iago. The question is: Who’s to blame?

My number one pet peeve is lying and people who lie. I lose so much respect for people who have the audacity to lie to me. I really do not see a reason in lying because people always find out the truth, especially my nosey self. From that reason alone, I blame Iago more than I blame Othello. From the beginning, Iago has done this all for himself. He sacrificed his best friend Roderigo, his marriage to Emilia, and his government position all to wreak havoc on Othello because he was jealous. He was jealous because he THOUGHT that Othello slept with his wife. He was also jealous that Othello chose Michael Cassio to be lieutenant instead of him. I think these are awful reasons to lie to someone to be honest.  So yes, I am blaming this all on Iago. Yes, I think Othello should have believed his wife more than his ancient, but Iago initiated these lies on RUMORS and ACCUSATIONS. There was no logical reason for Iago not to confront Othello and ask him why he did not choose him to be his lieutenant. This whole debacle is just outrageous! It made me so mad reading the play because I did not see how everyone could just believe Iago without finding out some truth! Before everyone died and killed themselves! Baffling.

That’s my rant for today. You all should read this play, I really enjoyed it and I usually don’t enjoy these types of genres. Shakespeare, you’ve done good. (Yes, I know that is grammatically incorrect so please do not hate me). I am still angry that Iago actually committed these acts of cruelty and that everyone believed him! Maybe I feel this way because I knew everything as the reader. I knew Iago’s whole plan from the beginning and I knew that he felt nothing towards the lives of his friends and family. He betrayed everyone. He betrayed me too! I had faith that he was going to turn around, tell everyone his plan, and save so many lives. But nope. That didn’t happen. Oh well. Until next time, my readers!

EG

            

Colliding Cultures: What is Identity?

Hey y’all, I’m back. I know it has been a little while, but I’m here now! My class just spent about a month reading and analyzing the famous Native Son by Richard Wright. (I have to say, it was a GREAT book. 9/10, would recommend. I won’t share details though, just read it for yourself!) Anyways, our class also researched five essential questions. I’m not going to tell you about the other four because they aren’t the topic of this post. I would like to focus on the real question- What is Identity?

            You may think that this is the easier one (sorry, Mrs. Smith), but I actually enjoyed this question more than the other four. I think identity is one of the hardest things to find when growing up, which is exactly what Bigger Thomas struggles with as well. Bigger Thomas is the main protagonist in Wright’s novel, Native Son. Throughout the book, Bigger is a black man growing up in Chicago in the 1930s, a tough time for the black community. Segregation and racism are prominent flaws to society at the time and Wright represents that through the setting and atmosphere of the novel. Anyways, that isn’t the point of this post.  To get straight to the point, Bigger found his identity through killing a young white debutante named Mary Dalton. From that point on, Bigger was free, even when he was arrested.

            Why was he free? Well, he freed his own mind and his own personality. He didn’t let society force him to become someone he isn’t. An example of this would be the attempt of murdering his girlfriend, Bessie. He bludgeoned her to almost death, but that made him feel like a person. Society would have shamed for killing a second time, but he went against that. He went against what everyone was telling him and followed what he thought was the best, not everyone else.

            This still holds true to society today, as finding your identity is still a struggle within teenagers going through high school (for the most part). Society drastically changes the minds of the vulnerable- teenagers. Teenagers tend to follow the “norm” so they can “fit in,” but that isn’t what a true identity is. A true identity is found within one’s self, and can be found in any way.

            Let me tell you a story. I know I have digressed a little bit from Native Son, but it will connect in the end! (Hopefully). This isn’t a story about someone finding his or her identity through killing, but a story about a different way of finding an identity. My neighbor and I used to play softball together ever since we knew how to hold a ball. She has two sisters, one older and one younger and she was isolated from her sisters and considered the “weird” and “nerdy” one. By the time she reached high school though, she found herself and her own group of friends that accepted her for the person she was. However, her sisters crushed the relationship between them so badly that they might never become close, like sisters should do.

            I didn’t mean to make that saddening but I wanted to add in a real-world experience because most people aren’t killers like Bigger. I wanted to get the point across that I got from Native Son: No matter where your identity comes from, it’s there. It’s in you and it’s waiting to come out. You just need to go find it.

Thanks for reading. Catch you later!

EG