Feminism

     It seems almost cliche that I would choose feminist literary criticism as my lens in which I will read Hamlet, being that I am both female and a bit of a feminist.

     Feminist literary criticism is a way of interpreting texts through the ways that women are referenced--what is said about them by male and female characters, what they say, what they do, how they are portrayed in general, and the differences in the treatment of the male and female characters. Though there is much more to this type of criticism, I shall use its unreferencede nuances to further my understanding of the reading and bring a new perspective to my classmates who will read the text through a different light.

     Without much prior knowledge of the generalities of the play, I must say that I am a little worried as to how I will accomplish the task of reading the play through the feminist perspective; there are only two female characters and I already know that one of them dies. I suppose this is where the nuances come into play, yes?

The First Six Week Grading Period

     Some passages of time go quickly, yet others drag on slowly without an end in sight. I have found that entertainment level is a large factor as to the speed of the passing time, yet how can one judge entertainment in life? There are so many instances where boredom is the supreme ruler, only to be dethroned by laughter as an awkward word slips from a teacher's mouth. But what happens when the laughter fades? Is boredom once again king?
     Saddened as I am that school is in session once again, mainly because that means I am no longer free to lounge and must now worry about homework, grades, and college, I find myself almost enjoying school. For me, this is something astounding that I never thought would happen. School as a place of enjoyment and recreation? Completely false. And yet, as I go through my day excited for my next class, I realize there is a bit of happiness in each day.    

     I am taking AP Economics, AP English Literature and Composition, Teacher's Aide for the Career Center, AP Statistics, and Advanced Band. Next semester I will have AP Government in place of the Teacher's Aide position. Along with these classes I have a weekend job, numerous commitments to the school band after and before school and on weekends, taekwondo, training sessions with the explorer program, gym workouts, and meetings with my recruiter for the Corps. I have now also added the school play to my lengthy schedule. Provided I do not need to sleep or spend time with family and friends, this works out nicely.
     And yet, because I have taken all of this under my wing, in the span of a few short weeks (six to be precise) I have gotten sick, sprained my ankle, and been so utterly sleep deprived I have had to take a sick day. I have also been academically accepted into the Citadel, the Military College of South Carolina, started applying for an NROTC scholarship that if I better my physical fitness scores will almost surely receive, and started a few other college applications.

The 4 Rs and Tragedy

1. Slideshow: How Artists See Antigone and Oedipus
     Artists view Antigone and Oedipus to be two characters of great moral stature, though possibly blinded or afflicted in some way, demonstrated by the skin tone or aural color around them. This is an interesting way to portray these two characters, especially when in a tragic story an audience is quick to label a character as a hero or a villain. These pictures take into consideration the possibility of sheer vulnerability, instead of a definite good or bad quality. This will be influential in the writing of my essay definitely.
2. "The Tragic Fallacy," by Joseph Krutch
     This essay is about the misconception that all tragedies are sad. All tragedies are a little tragic, obviously,  but they all have a deeper message of happiness buried beneath; whether the happiness is in the truth of Juliet's love before her suicide or some other way, there is a happiness to the sad storyline. I had not thought of this angle before, and so will try to incorporate this into my paper. It is an interesting point of view that will contrast nicely with the visual representation of tragedy that my class group created.
3. "On Wall Street, Pride Signals a Fall," by Victor Niederhoffer and Laurel Kenner
     Again, another interesting piece on tragedy in real life, though this time it focused on the tragic end of businesses. It seems that those businesses that are so arrogant as to proclaim themselves the best in the world have some kind of coincidental fall from grace, coming in the form of either profit loss, public humilitation of employees, or destruction of business. Hubris playing a large role in the actual downfall of the protagonist will be a large part of my paper I think, so this is very relevant to my thoughts and will be used as a source I'm sure.
4. "Tragedy and the Common Man," Arthur Miller
     Another essay that claims that tragedies are not merely sad pieces, but subtly optimistic so as to teach man a lesson, it also spouts the idea that the protagonist need not be a wealthy, royal man. For instance, Death of a Salesman by the same author was of a common man, or a man that had little money and was by no means godly. This will probably not appear in my essay as much as some of the other ideas will simply because it does not mesh well with the others, but I will not completely rule it out. Miller's Salesman is a good example of out of the box literature.
5. "Notes for the Tragedy of Modern Times," Henrik Ibsen
     This is an interesting essay, as it is more of a snippet of a possibly great essay about tragedy. Though it is written in a general way, certain aspects make it more of a specified tragedy. The bare bones of the essay, about the woman being judged by the man's perspective despite them having completely different moral laws and beliefs, are widely applicable and this will probably be mentioned in tandem with Antigone in my essay.
6. "The Burial at Thebes: Religion and the State," by Mary Stange
     Religion has been taken out of American law, and yet, through the eyes of the people, still exists to influence justice. The difference between moral law and mortal law is available, with many believing that moral law is the law of a higher power or powers and mortal law is the man-made kind. While this belief would be handy with Antigone, I'm not quite sure as of yet how I'd incorporate it into my essay with my other ideas.
7. "Before Law," by Franz Kafka
     To be honest, I'm not quite sure what this means. Perhaps I should revisit this when I'm not so exhausted, but for now I don't think I'll use anything from this. I don't know of anything that I could use.

The Fourth Week

     Note: Although this blog is being posted on a Sunday at around 4 pm, it was originally written on Friday during 3rd period.
     As the fourth week of school draws to a close, I find myself with little to say. I apologize in advance for the crude language...I can't seem to refine my words right now. There doesn't seem to be much of a point to try to intellectualize and pretty-up a situation where people have lost their houses and lives. Yesterday before 6:24 pm I was bursting with ideas of what I should discuss, but now none of them seem to matter much. I had planned on complaining about PT (physical training) with the Marine Corps recruits on Wednesday, but in the wake of the horrible explosion and subsequent fire in San Bruno a mere sixteen hours ago, this seems so insignificant.
     I suppose that if we were in a fiction novel there would be high school English classes that would analyze the significance of the large smoke cloud hovering over San Bruno; they'd say that it was not only the aftermath of the natural disaster, but that it was also a metaphorical reference to the heavy cloud of dispair that hangs over each Bay Area citizen right now. The mood of the school is heavy. Exhuasted bodies of rescue workers are heavy. Endlessly crying eyes are heavy.
     As of 10:15 am on Friday morning I don't know of anyone at the school that was directly affected by the fire or explosion. I know of a few people that have friends or family that have been affected; I myself have a few friends that live only a few miles from the accident.
     My taekwondo studio is also relatively close to the incident site, and when I went for class at 8:45 that night the amount of displaced people searching for their families and places to stay was astounding.
     Seeing natural disasters on television is one thing; seeing people your age holding each other and crying shifts the whole world into perspective.

     As I bring this rather long post to a close, Jersey Shore plays on a computer near me. Ronnie just asked JWow what she wants to eat for dinner.

     What's the point?

The Third Week

     Wow. Our first at-home essay. Well, I worked hard on it, so I hope that it will live up to the expectations formed from the reading of my summer reading essay. As I write this, after finishing both the revisions to my essay and the critical reading blog about "Bartleby, the Scrivener", my brain is fried and for some reason the only music I can listen to right now is a cheesy romance song called "Because You Live" by Jesse McCartney.

     And no, I don't know why.

     I cannot help but wonder: is this what will happen every time that I am forced to write intelligently and coherently for long periods of time? Will there be more times when I feel like my brain is oozing out of my ears? Will I now be forced to buy Jesse's songs for my iPod in case I get these feelings when I don't have access to my computer?

     So many questions, none of which I can answer at the moment because of my lack of thinking organ.
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     Change of topic!
     How about them Google Docs? That was one experience that I enjoyed greatly, I must say. Reading Clay Schubiner's essay while Molly Barry and Michael Thornton were "editing" (and by editing I mean bickering over certain aspects of the essay) was interesting enough without all the pretty colors and good advice that we received from our peers. That was one peer editing tool that I would like to use again, simply because it saves time from using the tried-but-too-slow method of editing one hard copy, one editor at a time. Technology is a wonder, but when your computer in the lab can't even run the internet fast enough, much less open the document in question, it kind of sucks. One would think that a school's computer system would be usable and would work when needed.

     I suppose that usability is another victim of budget cuts.

Perspective- A Critical Response

     In Herman Melville's short story "Bartleby, the Scrivener", the reader's perspective plays a huge role in the characterization of Bartleby. The character of Bartleby is so complex that each reader will have a different opinion when speaking of his identity; these could be that Bartleby is simply a lazy bum who allows life to happen to him or that he is a victim of his circumstances and he is a creature to be pitied. Either way, one can say that the story is essentially at the mercy of the reader's beliefs about Bartleby. When I read this story, I pictured Bartleby as a lazy man who simply did not want to adapt to life and was too apathetic to change anything he disliked. Because of this image of the antagonist, I was unsympathetic when the protagonist, the lawyer, steadily lost everything in his quest to aid Bartleby by any means necessary. When I was forced to reread the story from a different perspective, that is, from a perspective that was kinder to Bartleby and simply viewed him as a fractured soul that was constantly tortured by the loss of his dead letter job and seeming lack of a niche, I was able to pity both men. I pitied Bartleby simply because he had no place to go and was so traumatized by the loss of his previous job that he was unable to comprehend doing anything; I pitied the lawyer because he attempted to help a broken man and was rewarded with the loss of his business. After the second read through, I looked back upon my early notes about the story and was happily surprised to see the difference a mere perspective change could have on my understanding of the story.
     Despite the fact that each reader will not necessarily experience the story the same way that I did, it can still be said that different perspectives will cause for a deeper understanding of the story. When on the surface I simply claimed Bartleby to be a lazy man, I read over and unconsciously and mistakenly ignored the parts of the story where it told the reader that he had lost his job as a dead letter worker. I read the story from the perspective of someone who already knew what Bartleby was like, so why bother with trivial details that add nothing to the story? The truth was that these details enhanced my understanding of the story after my second reading, and without the perspective change, I would have been completely unaware of the significant details that I missed. Perspectives color the way that a person reads a story; small details can be hugely important, and yet passed over completely by a reader simply because it is deemed inconsequential.

Narration- A Critical Response

     In Joyce Carol Oates' story Three Girls, the narrator is developed through the first person narration of the story. The setting in which the story takes place is immediately revealed to the reader, though it takes the entirety of the story to properly develop the narrator. The narrator is described as an "NYU girl-poet", meaning a female college student most likely majoring in English, though the reader is able to construct a better picture of the narrator not through the facts that are directly stated, but instead by the heavy use of voice and tone (Oates 77). Because this story is written in the first person, the narrator is able to convey her experiences in a manner that forbids the absence of bias and emotions, as shown by the changing tone as the narrator addresses a new topic or aspect of that "one snowy March early evening in 1956" (Oates 77). Using such phrases as "always on these romantic evenings at the Strand" and prefacing it with "in an agony of unspoken young love I watched you", the reader is able to assume that the narrator is in love with her female friend and therefore lesbian.
     Furthermore, the use of parenthetical interruptions allows the reader to paint a better picture of the narrator. From these interruptions we find that the narrator is "tall for a girl, in 1956", has "male contempt for the merely 'conventional female'", and learns new facts that shed light on the experience with Marilyn Monroe (Oates 78). The information, however many words in which it is relayed, contained in these parentheses allows for a deeper bond between the reader and the narrator; the insight into the narrator's character becomes more refined and complex as the story continues. This information betters the reader's understanding of the events that occur as well, until the final sentence pulls the emotional and tonal range of the story together when the narrator "kiss[es her friend] for the first time" (Oates 83). The lack of dialogue in the story is not a weak point, as the reader can characterize the narrator through the voice, tone, and language of the story.

The Second Week

Buddies Day! 

     Though it greatly limited the amount of time I actually spent in class, it seemed to be a huge success for all those involved. The freshmen were welcomed officially to Burlingame High School and shown that they will have strong moral support for any endeavor they choose throughout their four years as a panther. They also learned that the Buddies, though we are made up of "frightening" upperclassmen and sophomores, were relatable to them in more ways than just being panthers. The guest speaker, Keith Hawkins, had we Buddies stand up if certain life events applied to us; namely if we had a broken family, financial problems, or even had to leave home because our home lives "got too bad."

     I know that I was not the only one surprised to see so many others affected by these issues; we live in a society today where we tend to believe that we are the only one in the entire world that is struggling this way and that there cannot possibly be anyone else that can empathize.

Clearly, we are wrong.

     This issue brings me around to "Richard Cory", the poem we read in class about a man who seemingly has everything that anyone has ever wanted, and yet commits suicide in the last line. The townspeople's ability to see the reality beneath the facade is nonexistent, oftentimes like how so many can attend school each day and not even know that their best friend is suffering. One must look beneath the surface of the smile, clothes, and demeanor to see the goings on of the world around us, or we risk losing mentors, friends, and perfect strangers.

"I want so much to open your eyes, 'cuz I need you to look into mine." Snow Patrol, Open Your Eyes

The First Week

Ah, the joys of school.
I have to be honest, I expected a heavy work load this year...only really from AP English Literature. Deciding last year that I was going to be taking this course felt like I was signing my life away to a future of nonstop essay writing, and indeed it felt as if my grave was being dug by simply thinking of taking other classes. So far there has not been so much work, but I feel the work just around the corner, watching like a demon in the shadows. With the most recent school loop post hinting at an essay next week (which is merely the second week of school), I know now that the past year's seniors were right; I'm going to get my butt kicked.
Surprisingly, I'm completely fine with that.

As long as I can still sleep, that is.

Musings on the Academic and Intellectual Evaluation

Now I know.
I am blissfully unaware of the extent of the things that I do not fully understand. If that does not make sense, I apologize. What I mean to say is that I cannot make a judgment on what kind of writer I am when the aspects of writing which with I am not as strong are unknown to me. Simply put: I don't know what I don't know. Which stinks.

It is nice to know though, that your greatest weakness can still not put a dent in your greatest strength, especially when the two are directly connected.

Relief.

Musings about The Handmaid's Tale

The Handmaid's Tale, a novel by Margaret Atwood, was a story that intrigued me quite a bit more than 1984, as it was able to pull me into the plot and force me to continue along its journey. Unlike 1984, The Handmaid's Tale created more of a connection to me in the beginning with its female perspective and more believable background. As the story progressed and the reader became more aware of how the Republic of Gilead came to be, I found that it being the product of a religious coup d'etat in our modern society was far more realistic than just "the Party always existed." The fact that there was an end goal set for the main character, Offred, also gave the reader hope that the story would actually "go somewhere", even though the pregnancy never truly occurred. An encapsulating story that had me clenching the pages with anticipation, this book was a truly enjoyable read, despite the over flowery language.

Musings about 1984

George Orwell's novel 1984, though seemingly a good read from the impressive summary and praise assigned to it, was, in my opinion, surprisingly dry. With it's barely existent plot and repetitive ideas, I felt as if it was more a story based on Winston's monotonous stream of consciousness. Not much about the story shocked me, as I feel a good read needs to do at least once or twice in order to keep the reader engaged, and from the beginning there was not much motivation for me to continue reading the novel. I was disappointed that I was unable to enjoy this novel more, as I had heard rave reviews about it and was greatly looking forward to falling in love with it.