Part 3

Everytime I've read the poem or seen one of the movies I always look forward to the scene where Odysseus strings the bow. There's such a build in that moment. All of this time and it leads up to a simple physical action, demonstrating his superior strength and grace. Of all the weapons it's a bow. It seems like a unique choice, a weapon specific to Odysseus, that you don't see him use once in the entire poem. There's also the just absolute awe and then mayhem that occurs after. He's a force of nature through the entire poem. He leaves a wake everywhere he goes. He's so powerful that he is the focus of the greek world as well as the world of the gods. There's also the beauty of the question of the bed. The suggestion of an immovable union between the two of them. And the organic association with their love. Fate plays a huge role in the poem, and Penelope and Odysseus are described as not just perfect together but meant for each other. It's sort of like the original tough love couple.

Part 2

There's so many arguments when Odysseus is first introduced. There's the first one between Athena and Zeus, in which Zeus is confused by Athena's sudden desire to see Odysseus's suffering end since she was the source of it. I guess it demonstrates Athena's affection towards him. Then there's the arugment between Hermes and Circe. There's so much information in that argument. There's the topic of male security and insecurities, the fear of women power, and the question of whether or not the gods are superior or if it's just their super natural powers that make them so. They're personalities she argues are not superior, which means that mentally they're equivalent to if not at times inferior to men. There's many times in the poem where men are challenged by women for a number of reasons but this was definitely one of the more complicated arguments. Then there's the discussion between Circe and Odysseus where he's confused about his freedom. I wonder about what kind of woman would want a man who cries about another woman all day. Odysseus's choice to stay mortal touches on what Circe and Hermes were discussing. In that moment he asserts that mortality is better than immortality. And all of his suffering begins. It begs the question of if he would be as famous if he were a god and not traveled all that way or if he is more famous as a mortal. Maybe it would be the same.

The Odyssey Part 1

There's so much going on in this poem that I'm going to discuss key moments that come to mind. Telemakhos could've been less of a wuss. I know that he's supposedly insecure because he never had a father figure and so he's tormented by these suitors. But he could've gone the other way and in his hatred and resentment of these men worked hard to assert himself. So obviously Homer wanted the sort of coming of age story to exist within the poem. There's a question as to why though. If Odysseus is going to return than it isn't necessary for Telemakhos to find himself before he returns. I know that the situation in Ithaca is supposedly dire, but it isn't such an emergency that anything serious happens before Odysseus returns. It's true that Telemakhos's life is discussed as being in danger but I just wonder about Homer's motivations. The poem is so complicated, I wonder if it would take away from it to simplify it, since a great deal of the information is only apparent upon inspection and at the time it was spoken that was almost impossible. The moments with the birds as symbols is almost irrelevant at this point in time. Maybe in Homer's time it really meant something to his audience to have those moments but they're basically footnotes to us. The meanings behind those animals are lost because of the Judo-Christian traditions that are so common to us now. Telemakhos was really most of the focus for the opening the suspense of that is always sort of fun.

Jane Eyre

Charlotte Bronte and Jane Austen have such a similar style of writing that I get confused between them pretty often. I really liked Bronte's story telling approach though. It's maybe a little more sophisticated than Austen's. The backstory of Jane's childhood was so crucial to who she was as a character, and Austen tends to just summarize.  The moment with Helen when Jane is angry and confused as to why Helen didn't defend herself shows an intelligence uncommon for girls their age to possess. It almost makes the rest of the novel confusing, because that sort of sense of justice and higher level thinking doesn't prevail in a lot of situations. I wasn't convinced that Rochester was such a good choice for her either. He's so messed up and suspicious, and strange. Jane seems worth more than that, and I think she lets her inferior status get in the way of that. Women always seem to be in their own way in these novels. It kind of makes one realize that authors don't see women in the best light. If we're too virtuos we're godlike prudes, and if we're too sexual we're whores. If we're too smart our logic prevents us from seeing the truth or acting quickly, and if we're stupid we're just stupid. It's a little frustrating. The happy marriage ending was sort of uninteresting because I thought Bronte didn't make a strong enough argument that Rochester isn't a schmuck.

Part2

So I'm going to lump all the women into one, because I think that they sort of played off of each other through the play. Walcott definitely decided that each woman would represent a different type of female archetype. Circe was that image of a femme fatale, I thought. Sort of that Bond girl who tries to kill you before having sex with you. I'm not sure the appeal but I believe that it's there. There's also a guess a lesbian undertone, in that she's a woman living on an island of women who worship her who hate men. So getting to sleep with the queen of female power would be a moment of extreme male domination. Penelope was had this trait as well. But she was more the tamed tough girl. Kind of like a gangster's wife. The kind of woman who could kill you if she needed to but loved you too much to want to ever do it. There was also a lot of sass that tends to be associated with black female culture. A specific type of playful challenge that she gives to all the men around her. If she wasn't so strong I would call her a tease. It's more like a pride that usurps modesty. The women are just as strong as the men in this play, moving as major personalities. Penelope definitely isn't the type of woman to stand behind her husband in company like the Penelope in the poem. She's definitely the type of woman who stands beside her husband.

Walcott's The Odyssey Part 1

I decided to split this post into two because I wanted to talk about the play in terms of the men versus the women, specifically Billy Blue and Odysseus first and then a briefer post on the women.

Billy Blue was one of my favorite characters out of all the books I read this year. He's a perfect mix between a very personalized and stylized character and an example of literary traditions. The images he describes had so much personality to them. You sort of felt like you were seeing the environment through an islander's eyes. Or at least someone who loved the location. He had a very jazz musician vibe, rhythmic, cultural, story teller. I already wrote a paper on what he says, so I'm not going into it, but he gets a lot of the great lines in the play. In Shakespeare's plays I always love the fools, like Puck is my favorite character in a Midsummer's Night Dream. Billy Blue is definitely a sort of fool-like character. Joking and perceptive he's an insider and an outsider at the same time, moving throughout the story as he pleases.

Odysseus is more flawed in Walcott's play, but to a certain extent he's also more realistic. Maybe he's not more realistic but he seems like a more common depiction or a soldier's personality. War supposedly makes men more ruthless more self centered. Which makes sense, so when Walcott immediately introduces his Odysseus as a harder more common man, and less of a super hero I can feel unoffended by it. Odysseus is definitely less of THE MAN in this play and I liked that because I've read the Odyssey four times now, and it was kind of cool to see a new side of him. The scene of the Cyclops was also really cool. It's really an archetype of the poem so I can see why Walcott chose this to be his moment of political comment. It was a little abrupt maybe, but I think it was so interesting that it sort of drew you in.

Wide Sargasso Sea

This post is going to be brief, because I didn't finish the novel, and I really disliked it. So this was like a prequel to Jane Eyre, but it was written after the novel. Not exactly my favorite method of writing. It tends to feel like an author is riding someone else's curtails, especially someone as famous as Charlotte Bronte. Wide Sargasso Sea seemed more of a soap opera or a melodrama than Jane Eyre. Jane Eyre was shocking, but the way the situation was a little less evil twin that Rhys's version. Rochester was a lot more evil in this novel as well. He's a racist, he's inconstant, he's lustful, etc. There isn't a lot to admire. And Antoinette has such a sad story with her brother's death and her mother's madness. It's almost strange that Rochester's first reaction is to fear Antoinette instead of pitying her. He has her money already, there isn't a huge downside. There was a certain element similar to Frankenstein's monster with how Bertha or Antoinette didn't have her own sort of voice on the situation. This novel gives her that voice, but if Bronte didn't think it was necessary than I'm going to argue that it wasn't. It's Bronte's character she has the right to decide Bertha's fate. Maybe it's an irrelevant point but it kind of ruined the novel for me.

Dracula

There will always be a nostalgia with this novel for me, because I’ve probably seen the movie like ten times since I was nine. Bram Stoker’s Dracula is such a power house. There’s so many strange mysteries in this novel. For one why is Dracula so determined to have John Harker? And why does he need him to teach him English? It seemed more like Dracula had Johnathan there so that he could observe him. The scene with the three vampire women and the mysterious love that Dracula once had goes unexplained or developed. Strangely Harker doesn't display guilt or shame of his desire for the women, or for them to bite him, like how Mina does after Dracula forces her to drink from him. Mina and Lucy are essentially polar opposites. Lucy all womanly wiles and lolita like playfulness. Mina is complimented for having a manlike efficiency and intelligence. They're both symbols for lust though, Lucy the whore and Mina the Mary. It's sort of hard to believe that they're friends, but  I guess maybe they admire the qualities the other has that they lack. Also the fact that the novel is all first hand accounts from multiple characters from their diaries or letters was an unexpected twist. It's really nice that it maintains the same time frame the entire novel, because sometimes authors like to jump around from time or location and Stoker doesn't do that. Usually who ever's speaking is the most important voice at that moment. I appreciate that, sometimes when contemporary authors do that it feels like they're waiting for their movie deal.

Mother Courage and Her Children

The focus for this play was the idea of profiting from war. Or better profiting from death. Mother Courage is that sort of swindler business woman. The kind of woman who could sell you your own shoe. Her voice is so distinct in the play. The way that she talks is aggressive, she’s constantly asserting her presence. It’s possible that her greatest flaw is her inability to be invisible. She’s just too visible. Mother Courage fights against the idea that women become invisible or second to men in times of war. She has a certain shamelessness  At times this comes across as fearlessness, and others a crude character trait. Her daughter contrasts her in two ways, one that she is silent and two that she is compassionate. The scene where she saves the children at the cost of her own life both gives her importance in the play as a hero but also that she highlights all of the things that Mother Courage isn’t. The sons ultimately acts as lessons for Mother Courage. They prove that she is neither immune or above the cost of war. Though she profits from it, she also has to feel the cost of it’s occurrence. She’s a very ugly character that Brecht never tries to redeem. He let’s her tireless pursuit of money be her folly.

Haroun and The Sea of Stories

This was easily my favorite novel that we read. The story itself had so many fun elements, and whimsy. It's also unusual for me to read a "children's" story set in India. There were certain traditions in the story as well that either diverged from traditional western traditions or paralleled them. The importance of names of places for one follows the western tradition, but a lack of focus on the character's name or a lack of a "true" name for them was a diverge. There was more of a Roald Dahl quality, I thought, than Dr. Seuss. The sort of silly names for places, or simplisitic explanations for settings, etc. The sort of experimentation that Rushdie did with playing with the adult tones in the novel were really interesting and sometimes shocking. Moments like the play on words with the graffiti were well thought out. The scene with the attempted bombing was disturbing to me, because it was obvious that the politics of that scene could easily be over looked. There were a lot of political moments in this novel. Mr. Snooty Buttoo was a sort of general attack on Democracy. I actually recommended this book to my mom and she thought it was boring. Most adult fiction is very vivid, and since this one intentionally leans toward the childish I guess she didn't find it as interesting. I still liked it, but then again I like to read a lot of children's fiction, especially Roald Dahl.

Dante's Paradiso

(This is for my Death and the Afterlife in Literature course) There was definitely a departure from the other readings in this poem. And absolutely a departure from the first two sections of the three epic poems by Dante. Paradiso was sort of boring in comparison. Actually it was really boring. It was almost like Dante gave up on his original agenda of criticizing his peers in this poem. It was all glory of god. I like how it's structure, much like inferno was. The rose is really interesting, and how all the planets correlate (including the moon) to different areas of heaven. Heaven mirrors hell in a lot of ways. The placement of those who ascended are ranked just like those condemned. The first planet (the moon) is for those were  forced to break their vows, so it was all women were nuns. I like the idea of a sort of fairness towards those who had been forced to sin or break their "vows" with god. Most of the poem though is like "Beatrice is so beautiful!" "There's so much music!" etc. It wasn't really inspiring, especially to an atheist. Beatrice was also an insignificant guide. Virgil wasn't just a respected and important figure of his time, but his manner and insights were way more interesting. Beatrice is really more a personal thing for Dante, she has no historical significance to the reader. Paradiso was just kind of bland.

The Mysteries of Udolpho

This book could've been about 200 pages shorter if they edited ninety percent of the "sublime" images and scenery from it. The protagonist Emily is kind of a prude as well. She's too exaggerated. Everything is grace, and prudence, and propriety. She almost doesn't have a personality. Oh and there's too much crying in this novel. Men are weeping openly almost every ten pages, and none of them seem emasculated by it. I would argue that Emily easily contributed to probably half of her misfortunes in the novel. She never stands up for herself or anyone else in the novel. Decorum is always restraining her. Her father supposedly made her in to this ideal woman, but that ultimately injures her. She's slow to act, if she does at all. It takes until the end of the novel (which I'm sure was Radcliffe's plan) to mary Valancourt, which would've happened much earlier if she had prevented her aunt from stealing her wedding. I was pretty disapointed when all of the supernatural stuff was explained at the end of the novel. It kind of takes the fun out of the story. Some of the explanations were a bit of a stretch too. The whole Pirates store treasure in the abandoned part of the house deal was a bit too much. The one interesting note is that the only man Emily has any control of is Valancourt, and that's because his womanliness (crying, neediness) exceeds hers. A ton of male domination in this novel. It's basically about one woman constantly being subjected to domineering men.

Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey

I'm a big Jane Austen fan. I read Pride and Prejudice in seventh or eighth grade and like all women fell in love with Mr. Darcy. So reading Northanger Abbey I basically ready to enjoy myself. This novel is supposedly sort of reactionary to Austen's contemporaries like Ann Radcliffe, because there's a lot of "The Mysteries of Udolpho" in the novel. Austen sort of makes it a point to make Catherine (her protagonist) not just common, but a little bit awkward. She's sort of simple I guess, that very classic naivite.  It's one of Austen's least romantic novels, compared to "Pride and Prejudice" or "Persuasion" at least. There's always a focus on reading or education in Austen's books. It makes sense though, since that was one of the number one ways of getting an education or entertaining yourself when you were a woman at the time. Anyway, I wasn't so impressed by Henry. He's kind of a weirdo. You can't tell sometimes if he's being condescending or trying to be charming. It's likely that it's a mix of both. It feels like Catherine is pursuing him more than he is her in this novel too, which is unusual. She at least seems to demonstrate more of an interest than him initially.  When she finally visits Northanger Abbey Catherine proves herself to be incredibly silly. The episode with the drawer seems to be foreshadowing for her inevitable embarrassment. There's also a strange tensions between General Tilney and his children. It's never explained and it makes more sense that that's what made Catherine suspicious in the first place. It's kind of one of those scary traditional families. Regardless I enjoyed it when Henry finally asserted some masculinity, and stood up to his father.

Mary Shelley's Frankenstei

There was a lot in this novel that I wasn't expecting. After reading the novel, I'm sort of curious to find how the archetypal image of Frankenstein's monster (green, bolts in the neck, etc) came about. Shelley's seems to be a more realistic depiction. Although there's some confusion, I don't know how taking different parts of people would create a 7 ft man. There were a lot of questions that this novel posed, where goodness exists in this novel is uncertain. Frankenstein is definitely immoral on so many levels. He never acknowledges his guilt or responsibility, not even at the end. His piousness rivals a hubris. It doesn't make me very sympathetic to him. Even stranger is that he claims that he's on a quest sent to him by god, but if anything it would make more sense that there's an absence of god in the story. If Frankenstein can create life, which is meant to be an ability exclusive to god it would disprove god's superiority to a certain extent. The monster's confession is also surprising. The story itself is almost Count of Montecristo like in the clever and malicious rivalry of these two characters. The one sided narrative makes how eloquent and intelligent the monster is shocking and abrupt. There's a paradise lost element to the novel, the vision of either the monster or Frankenstein as Lucifer. It's sort of ambiguous, the reader has to decide for themselves who is who.

Novalis's Hymns To The Night

I'm going to start with books from other classes only because The Odyssey is so long, and I really wanted to discuss other books first, before doing multiples posts on one.

As far as German Romantic Poetry goes I really enjoyed Novalis. His images are so beautiful "As life's inner soul it's breathed by the giant-world of restless stars, and swims dancing in its blue tide--the glittering, ever-peaceful stone breathes it, the sensuous sucking plant, the wild and burning so many formed beast--but above all that splendid stranger with sense-filled eyes, with gliding gait and gently-closed, rich-toned lips." The poems are mostly in paragraph form. This initially made them difficult to read because they're language is so rich and condensed, but in hindsight I really like the casualness of the form. It makes me think that they were written in a passion, like they were written with all disregard for rigidity. I also misunderstood his intentions for writing at first. His subject seemed to me to be god, but later I was told that it was his lost love Sophie which made more sense. The poems are rich with light and dark and celestial images. Novalis fixates on death, he describes his longing for it because of his desire to be with his love Sophie who's deceased. The poems are both sad and filled with words of glory. Novalis imagines a great deal of death and the peace that he believes it will bring him, as well as his belief in the immortality of love. The sentimentality of his poetry leaves and impression. He grieves with such loss and beauty. The Night is death in the poems and so it's seen as a friend or a realm that he desires to enter. And while Light (it's interesting that he contrasts night and light, instead of day) is praised for it's beauty it's also criticized for the absence of Sophie.