My Relationship With Grendel

Honestly I feel as if I love Grendel but hate him just as much at the same time.  He began innocent and sweet which made me feel so attached to him, but because of the actions of a few human beings that found him with his leg stuck in a tree and did not trust him, he does not trust the human race.  Yes, I feel bad for him, but he is letting one experience define what happens in his life.  I can see why the men did not trust him in the first place since they stumbled upon a man-beast that was laying on the ground and moaning with cuts and gashes all over his body from the attack of the bull...  Call me crazy, but I would not trust Grendel either.  However, Grendel takes instant offense; he ends up hating the human race because of poor judgement from these characters.  However, at the same time I empathize with Grendel since he was plunged into a dark world where he felt as if he knew nothing.  When he was younger, he clung to his mother and knew barely anything more than the cave he lives in.  I guess he believed that he would be accepted with open arms into a society of people who are smaller, less hairy and just completely different from him.  I believe this to be because of his immaturity at the time-- he does not know any different from being accepted by his mother, so he expects to be accepted by everyone else.  Grendel seems to me to be a misunderstood soul who then turned dark.  After his many trials and errors of joining in to the closeness and community-feel of society, he begins to accept the fact that he will never be trusted; his solution?  Kill everyone, that will show them.  Though this solution is poorly planned, keep in mind that he is a mere monster who has no one but his growling mother to talk to.  He must teach himself the things society naturally knows.  His plan is poorly executed, however, since society defends against him.  He has never seen such a thing before-- how can these people be even more dangerous than him?  With every attack that Grendel launches, the men have a counterattack.  Though Grendel has not yet murdered everyone, he is still trying.  However, later on in the novel I believe that he is learning that killing is not the answer.  He decides public humiliation is worse than death, so he taunts Unferth by throwing apples at him and defiles the queen by grabbing her, spreading her legs apart, then leaving her.  His new forms of attack are more intelligent since he knows that in the Anglo-Saxon society, it is worse to live as a fool than die as a hero.  He will not give these men what they want, he will rip it away from them by destroying their social ranking.  I have to be honest, I do admire Grendel for this since he is becoming more clever and cunning than ever before.

The Hero's Adventure in City of Bones

After watching and taking notes on the speech about “The Hero’s Adventure,” I realized how closely it relates to some of the stories I have read it the past.  In the novel City of Bones by Cassandra Clare.  In it a girl is thrust into becoming a hero when her mother is kidnapped.  Her moral objective is to save her mother.  Later on as the world around her is changing into something she had never seen before (a world of magic), she begins to evolve by getting “marks” on her skin that represents different magical powers that she can possess.  The rest of the magical world had already had these, but now it is her time to get them.  However, through her journey she is faced with a single temptation that distracts her from finding her mother and forces her into falling in love; that temptation’s name is Jace.  She falls in love with him and the world she now lives in.  In other words, she goes through a transformation of consciousness.  He trains her and teaches her how to use her powers then she ends up being stronger than him since she learns of her special ability to draw the “marks” on people and give them temporary new powers.  Jace plays the part of not only the temptation, but also the mentor (though he does not look like an old man, but that’s beside the point).  Another part of this novel is the “departure, fulfillment, return” aspect.  By this I mean that the main character Clary leaves her house and enters this magical world so that she can find her mother, thus fulfilling her quest.  When she finds the mum that had been searched out for many years, there is an evil foe who attempts to keep Clary and Jace from getting the mother back to her home.  They must defeat this foe much like other heroes must defeat the whale or the dragon; she must stay and fight.  This also represents a sacrifice in the fact that she will risk her life in order to save her most beloved family member.  Soon the foe disappears and Clary is left to bring her mother back to their home.  Though there are many complications like the fact that her mother was brainwashed, she still returns home in the end like the same person she used to be, however, now Clary knows the secret powers that her mother has been hiding from her.  The story ended in fulfillment and a transformation.  This journey holds many of the key traits of a hero’s tale.  There are many aspects of this novel that lead me to believe that what we heard in class today is, in fact, true: all hero stories are the same.  This also furthers my belief in what I learnt at the very beginning of the year: all stories are the same; no matter how different they may seem, they are always following the same basic plot structure.  This study of heroes is really interesting in the sense that any hero story can be explained the same way I just explained City of Bones.

Is the Ending Happy (Hint: Yes)

A major conflict of interest in our class lately has been a topic relating to “Doll’s House.”  After hearing what my classmates had to say about this, I decided to ask this question to myself: does the play have a happy ending?  The truth is, I can see why someone could argue either way but I do believe that it is a happy end to an extent.  Yes, the kids are now left with no mother and Torvald is left without a wife, but in the context of the play I believe this is better than the alternative version where Nora stays.

Many people are arguing that the children will now be incomplete without their mother, but if you think about what would happen if she stayed, the same argument could be said.  Nora is said to have been “poisoning” her children through her influence.  She still does not trust herself to not poison these kids so she would most likely avoid them anyway in order to keep them as pure as possible.

Another hot topic of this discussion is that Torvald is now left without a wife, too.  This argument should not even be said since they are completely ridiculous.  Not once did I notice Torvald treating Nora as a wife in the slightest way possible.  She was suppressed and used as a simple play-thing or a doll; this brings on the other point that dolls are replaceable.  Yes, Torvald will be upset for a little while, but soon enough Nora will be replaced with another woman who does not mind being suppressed and almost pushed around.  Torvald had lost his wife long before Nora had left and he knew this; he suggested a “brother and sister relationship” for the two of the just to keep her in the house.  His wife was already gone in spirit, all that was left was for her to physically leave.

I believe this play is happy for one main point: Nora needs to find herself.  She could not have taught the children and been a good wife to her husband without finding herself first.  She acted like a child because of this since she did not yet know who she was and where she fit in life.  If she does not know her own identity, then how can she be expected to help her children find who they are?  It only makes sense for Nora to face reality head-on and dive into the world of the unknown in order to come to the surface as a found woman who knows, understands and trusts her place in society.  She is not leaving in order to hurt the family she has developed for eight years, she is leaving in order to save the family from hurting any more than they already are.  Nora believes she is doing the right thing, no matter what her society or our society believes.  This play is about finding individuality through society and doing this by defying social norms.

Nora's Fight For Independence

Though I did enjoy reading Doll’s House in class throughout the past few weeks, I am still angered by this play.  Yes, I understand that this was in a completely different time period when ankles were scandalous and equality was a joke, but as a girl I feel as though I have a reason to be angered by the play.  Don’t get me wrong though, I am not mad at the author; he seemed to push “social norms” and shocked the crowds with his completely crazy idea that women could live their lives without men controlling them.  This play seemed to be more of a feminist play in this sense rather than a play about gaining independence.

Though the argument could be put forth that a woman just happened to be the person gaining independence out of all of the characters, we have learnt in class that this cannot by true.  If there is anything we have learnt while reading this play, it is that Henrik Ibsen never uses an object (or person in this sense) by chance; they all have a special meaning.  After thinking about the importance of every object, I decided to think about what the play would be like if it were a man in Nora’s shoes.  Once you get passed the awkward conversations between Torvald and the new male-form of Nora, it is a simple, boring play.  It would merely describe a man who was in debt and followed the same path that Krogstad did; the end.  However, the fact that it was a woman who forged a signature and withheld some debt from her husband is the reason why this play was an outrage.  After continuously being called pet names such as a “song bird” and a “sky lark” and after following every order from Torvald for eight years, Nora had reached her breaking point.  She defiantly eats macaroons when Torvald is not looking, raises money to move her and Torvald out of the country, gets herself into debt, and leaves her husband.  This defiance shows her true strength and proves that a woman can stand up for her rights and beliefs and put herself before anyone even though Torvald states, “first and foremost, you are a wife and a mother” (82).

Women were always tasked to listen to their husband and obey the commands they were given during this time period, however, when Torvald is trying to have sex with Nora after the party, she refuses.  This shows a true strength that all women can possess that even though she had been acting happy and “cutesy” around him before, if she does not want to do something she will stand her ground.

This play could have possibly made such a scene during the time period due to the men rather than the women.  If women could see just one woman stand up and defy her husband then leave as a happy woman, then there could have been a giant outcry and possibly a rebellion of women who believe in equality.  The problem is the fact that the men were scared that women could have actually attained equality if they all banned together.

Short Short Essay Reflection

After reviewing my essay on the short story “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” I now realize my main problem: my thesis needs to be worked on.  When I write papers, my biggest problem is the thesis since I never know how to phrase what I want to say and include the product of every one of my points that I am going to make throughout my paper in one sentence.  I feel that the thesis sentence of a paper is my achilles heel since that is the major problem I face.  Most of the points made throughout the paper are the facts that I have not linked many things back to my thesis.  What I feel that I should start doing is think of a temporary thesis to create my paper then go back and redo my thesis to fit the work as a whole.  If I start drilling myself on doing this then I feel as if I will be a much more strong and confident writer.  

Another problem I found was that I claimed throughout my paper that Connie is innocent yet I never provide any backup to this claim.  Many notes throughout the paper are that I am claiming that Connie has innocence when I have not yet shown the reader that she is innocent and backed it up with evidence.  If I had made a paragraph asserting Connie’s innocence, then all of my points would have been valid however since I provided no proof, then I seemed to be merely speculating rather than justifying.  By continuously inferring that Connie began with innocence, I weakened my argument because I was then shown to be inferring rather than truly knowing and enforcing the facts and supporting them with claims.

My last main problem seemed to be my “So What?” statement.  This problem actually leads back to my first problem of writing the thesis.  If my thesis covered the main idea of my paper, then my so what statements would have been much more defined and clear.  This proves that many of the key points in a paper create a domino effect.  For instance, if there is not a strong enough thesis, then the back-up points will not fit into the so what statements, which means the argument will then be either weak or invalid.  This fine balance of essay components will then help me move toward getting a higher grade on the next paper that I write.  I feel as though if I focus on meshing these components together into a simple yet strong set of claims, datas and warrants then I will become a much stronger AP writer.

After reading through my paper again and analyzing all of the comments made, I believe that I now understand my main weak points when it comes to writing college-level essays.  Though I am happy with my grade, I am always looking to improve myself and now feel as though I know what to work on a practice in order to receive a higher grade on the next essay.

Willie: The Mirror Image of Mason City’s Society

Last week, we had our first discussion about All The King's Men.  This discussion kept me thinking about the role of Society v. The Individual.  Luckily, I will be looking for it throughout the entire novel and will be able to look at this theme with greater understanding each coming week.  Nonetheless, the first reading assignment (chapters one and two) truly opened my eyes to the role of the individual in Mason City.  My favorite quotation throughout the novel so far is, “the beer came, and the bottle of pop” (25).  Out of context this quotation obviously has no significant meaning to life, but when it is read with the rest of the passage, the realization hits that the beer and bottle of pop are metaphors.  When Willie is out with some men, he decides to order a bottle of pop rather than the beer that everyone else is ordering; he is pressured into ordering the beer yet still sticks to his bottle of pop.  When the drinks are served, it is quite easy to tell who is the black sheep of the group since the pop stands out from the beer.  This scene takes place before Willie had come to power; when he was young, naïve and hopeful.

The same lesson takes part in his decision for Willie’s participation in the election.  He describes what he feels is important in his speeches, yet barely dents the election.  However, later on he conforms to the people and only tells  them what they want to hear rather than what he feels is important and gets higher in the election.  None of the people of Mason City cared about him before he conformed to their beliefs, yet now they fawn over him because he caters to what they want rather than what he feels is necessary to talk about.

A quote from chapter three describes exactly what Willie turns into when it is described that, “if there weren’t any people there wouldn’t be any you because what you do, which is what you are, only has meaning in relation to other people” (184).  I believe this describes Willie to a tee since he started out as an individual who created himself, but as he became more and more corrupted he slowly became a person created by society.  He is no longer himself; he is just a mirror image of the people.  Now, if the people disappear, he will no longer be himself and will lose the person who was created by society.  He now lives for the elections, speeches and pretty much the people of Mason City; everything he does is for one of the three.  Without Mason City, Willie no longer exists because Willie is no longer himself; he is now Mason City’s society’s creation.

He began as a nice man who was the black sheep of the town and now we see him as the corrupted part of society that Mason City turned him into; this sad truth will be the reason for Willie’s demise.

Why Cinderella Makes Me Angry...

After reading “Cinderella” through different lenses in class the other day, I realized how sexist it actually is.  Upon my completion of the short story, I saw it through an AP Literature point of view and after that I suddenly understood why we were reading it in our college-level class.  I had always believed the story of “Cinderella” was a magical and wonderful tale of a woman transitioning from a helpless, terrible life into a dream-come-true.  Though this is true, I had not realized how much the author pushes the work of the man (the prince) and the lack of work from the woman (Cinderella).

First of all, Cinderella does absolutely nothing throughout the fairy tale; I mean, I understand that she has been living a hard life for many years, but all she has to do is make a wish and a fairy godmother swoops in and saves the day by waving her wand and sending her to the ball in a fancy carriage.  What does Cinderella do whilst all of this is happening?  She stands there, watches, then complains that she is still in dirty rags.  The godmother then changes her clothes while Cinderella once again does absolutely nothing.

When Cinderella arrives at the ball, the prince falls in love with her beauty; not her charm or intelligence.  As far as we know, she could have absolutely have no personality, yet she is a pretty girl and therefore wins the heart of the prince.  By this point in the story, any reader with common sense would be able to make the assumption that it is a man who wrote this due to the fact that he claims Cinderella to get all of these amazing things, yet she does nothing to get them but make a simple wish.

When Cinderella loses a shoe, the prince picks it up and tries it on every girl in the town to find the perfect match.  This is yet another problem with a man writing a fairytale; he portrays the man to be the one working at the relationship rather than both of them equally putting in effort.  Throughout all of the scenes, Cinderella is never portrayed as intelligent or funny or an all-around good-natured girl; she is objectified as a stunningly beautiful woman.  The objectivity in this tale is very extreme since the reader never truly understands who Cinderella is.  To us, she is merely a pretty girl who is sent to the ball by a magical godmother.  We never learn her personality.

Back when I was younger I thought this was an amazing story but now I understand it for what it is: a man’s ego written into a story.  The author obviously feels as if men do everything and all the girls have to do to get a “happily ever after” is to sit around and wait for their men to do all of the work; this is not a true reality.  As a girl who was once inspired by this tale, I am truly crushed to learn the realities of this sexist story.

The Bible Through Sade's Eyes

On Thursday, I saw “Marat/Sade,” a play about “the persecution and assassination of Jean-Paul Marat as performed by the inmates of the asylum of Charenton under the direction of the Marquis de Sade.”  This play is absolutely insane (much like the characters in it), but I believe it to have a much deeper meaning than a murder acted out by mental patients.

During intermission, all of the AP Literature students collaborated together to try and figure out the hidden meanings of the play--after all, we are AP Literature students!  The general consensus was that the play is a allusion to The Bible.  While there may be many different interpretations, this is the one I find the most believable.

The character of Marat is closely associated to Jesus.  He leads the patients to find strength inside themselves and risks everything in his life in order to tell the patients what they need to know: they can be free if they revolt.  In the end of the play (caution, a spoiler alert is coming) the patient who is playing Marat is murdered in his hydrotherapy tub in front of the crowd of followers, much like Marat is murdered in his bathtub; this scene is the reason for the revolt.  The murder is an allusion to the crucifixion of Jesus on the cross.  A cross is typically thought of as a symbol of Jesus, much like the bathtub is a symbol of Marat.

A small allusion that I almost did not catch in the beginning adds fire to the flame of the argument of Marat being Jesus; a crown of leaves is placed upon his head, much like the crown of thorns on Jesus’s head.  The act of placing the crown on the head of Jesus happened before Jesus died on the cross, and the crown of leaves was placed on Marat’s head before the play-inside-the-play began.  This act is foreshadowing of the death of a leader, and at the end of the play, the murder ensues.  Though I did not notice the importance of the crown at first, I now understand it to be one of the most important symbols of the play.  This is the foreshadowing of an on-coming death of a leader and it is the most direct link that connects Marat to Jesus.

A strange happening that took place during this place was when Sade made leading lady Charlotte Corday whip him repeatedly.  This act is very closely related to religious allusions.  I believe the whipping is the cleansing of Sade’s soul since he is confessing all of his sins.  The fact that he made Corday beat him is still confusing to me; I have thought of it from many different angles but I still wonder why he chose the poor girl who was nervous and scared of committing the act.  I was not able to go to the morning discussion, however I do feel that there should be a discussion that takes place  discussing why Corday was chosen to beat Sade and the importance of the beating to the play.

Religion in "The Book of the Grotesque"

The recent discussion in class about which cahpter in Winseburg, Ohio is the most important made me realize just how important “The Book of the Grotesque” really is.  When I first read it, I thought of the chapter as a somewhat random tale about a man writing a book.  However, after I read the rest of the novel I realized how important it truly is.  This chapter covers many religious allusions that further the idea of the novel being an interpretation of The Bible.  The writer is described as having a “white mustache” (3) multiple times in this chapter.  White is a color that is commonly used to describe a holy or christlike being.  The fact that the writer is the one with the white mustache makes him almost the Jesus to the town and characters of Winesburg; he is the one who knows every “truth” and soon claims people as “grotesques” when they “snatch” away a truth.  To Jesus, these people are known as sinners, but in this novel they are known as grotesques.

In this chapter, the writer has his bed heightened by a carpenter.  Typically in literature, a carpenter is an allusion to Jesus and The Bible.  Due to these two christlike figures taking part in a single chapter, one cannot help but think: why did Sherwood Anderson stress the holiness of both figures?  Anderson seems to emphasize that every character has similarities to biblical characters.  For instance, the dozen truths mentioned on page 6 could relate to the twelve disciples.  These “truths” are introduced with the phrase, “In the beginning when the world was young...” (6), which is a direct reference to Genesis and John from The Bible.However, I cannot seem to place what the young pregnant woman inside The Writer represents.  Since almost everything in the chapter relates back to The Bible, she could possibly be someone like God; but I do not think it is as simple as that.  She could possibly be a reference to anything guiding Jesus.  This could also be God.  Since the source of the writer’s inspiration is this pregnant woman, she could be the reason for his importance and, most importantly, the creation of grotesques.  God was the creation of Jesus and the “grotesques” who reside in Winesburg, Ohio are what make up humanity.  If this is not a direct reference to the bible, then I do not know what is.

The descriptions of the grotesques describe the people of the world.  They are described as “not all horrible.  Some were amusing, some almost beautiful” (5).  The general personalities of the common person would be described the same way as the grotesques.  The purpose of the author to stay general in his descriptions is to maintain a level of abstractness to leave the interpretation of the the chapter and the novel as a whole up to the reader.  My interpretation of Winesburg, Ohio is that everything relates back to The Bible and it all connects as a major biblical reference.

Lit Circles Live Discussion Director Response

As the Discussion Director of my group, I was given the task to think of discussion questions.  This showed me that I have more questions than I originally thought.  The most important question,however, is why did Alice wait so long for a boy she loved when she was younger?  She goes completely insane over this boy throughout her entire life and constantly refers to him as her “lover,”even through the late stages of her life.  Here is my response to my question:

Due to her love for Ned, Alice goes insane; she loses her mind over the boy who once loved her.  At one point, “she arranged a blanket so that in the darkness it looked like a form lying between the sheets and, kneeling beside the bed, she caressed it, whispering words over and over, like a refrain” (110).  The word “caressed” has many sexual connotations to it; it is something someone would do to their lover, not their pillow.  Therefore, Alice is convincing herself that Ned is laying on the bed and she is “caressing” him.  The word “kneeling” in this context gives out a sense of religiousness.  When people pray they typically kneel and the fact that Alice is kneeling next to the pile of pillows that she believes is Ned shows that Alice thinks of him as a religious figure; she worships him even when he has moved on and is not actually there beside her.  The “refrain” mentioned at the end is a powerful finish to the sentence.  A refrain is a song or part of a song sung on repeat.  Not only is Alice singing the refrain to Ned as a way to worship him, she is also symbolizing her time standing still.

She waits for Ned by remaining in Winesburg and working at a dry goods store, where “weeks ran into months and months into years as Alice waited and dreamed of her lover’s return” (107).  Time is still turning, but she remains the same and so does the dry goods store.  This represents the failure of Winesburg to keep up with the times; it is the place where people can live the same way for the rest of their lives since nothing changes except age in the town.

When “fear of age and ineffectuality took possession of her” (108), she learns that time has been passing by while she waisted her life waiting for Ned.  However, she is not angry at herself or Ned for all of this trouble; instead, she is mad at time for ruining her looks and she becomes scared that Ned will not take her back.  However, she does not understand that Ned has already moved on and “forgot Alice in Winesburg” (105).  Ned’s relationship to Alice shows a deep contrast from Alice’s relationship to Ned since Ned thinks of Alice as a girl he once loved when he was younger and Alice thinks of Ned as the perfect man who is destined to be with her and will one day return and swoop her off her feet.  While Ned dates other girls, Alice refuses to so much as walk with other men in fear that she would betray the lover who does not love her back.  This sad irony of this novel proves that Alice is in fact mentally unstable for waiting for--and fantasizing over--Ned for such a long time.

The Insanity of Winesburg, Ohio

Winesburg, Ohio is a novel about a small town and the interesting characters that live in it.  Each character is important because they are all given their own unique personalities, however they are all connected through a few different threads.  The first connection is the most obvious; every character is from the small town of Winesburg, Ohio.  However, perhaps the most interesting fact is a link between all of the personalities.  This link is the mental insanity of every character.  Each person from this novel is to a certain degree of craziness that adds a distinct flavor to the novel.

Reverend Curtis Hartman is a strong example of the mental insanity of the natives of Winesburg.  He started out as a pure man preaching the word of God, but when he was faced with temptation he was led to insanity.  Curtis witnessed Kate Swift as she was laying in bed, but only saw her shoulders and “white” neck.  This white symbolizes the purity that she beholds.  This symbol is actually ironic in the context that it is in since Curtis is experiencing his first taste of temptation and the person who has tempted him is described as “white.”  Through his temptation and lust, he renounces God believing that he has failed the Holy Being for giving in to temptation.  The reason why this proves that Curtis Hartman is, in fact, insane is because of his overreaction and complete obsession with the event that transpired.  After he saw Kate in her bed, he lost his faith and soon not only gave in to temptation, but also fueled it.  He went to the window where he could spy on Kate every night and fantasized about her whenever she was not in his sight.  He was far beyond an obsessive nature and had reached the point of becoming a stalker.

Alice Hindman was driven to insanity through love.  She was smitten with Ned Currie and they had intentions to marry, however, Ned moves out of Winesburg, which leads to Alice’s downfall.  Alice and Ned had made a promise to each other that they would marry when Ned returned from the city.  Alice waited in Winesburg for Ned, but he never returned.  They wrote each other letters for a number of months, but soon dwindled off when Ned’s big-city life got in the way.  He moved on and lusted after other women, but Alice’s life remained the same.  She had been waiting in limbo, with every aspect of her life never changing, except her youth was the only thing to prove to her that time was still turning.  She refers to Ned as her “lover” rather than his actual name after he moves, which shows her insanity.  She still believes that Ned is her lover and will not accept any different; she has created her own reality in her mind to shelter herself from the actual reality.  To her it is better to know that Ned will someday return and they will be married, but in actuality he will never return and he has already forgotten about her.  She holds on to her reality, which strips her mind away from the truth.  She strips her clothes off of her body while running after the old man in the street, which is a metaphor for her mind ridding itself of the truth she has created; her mind is becoming clear.  After her “episode” on the street, she runs inside and cries.  This is to symbolize the reality hitting her after the fake-reality has been stripped away from her mind and now she can clearly see that Ned is no longer a part of her.

Isolation and Independence in "Hairball"

In the short story “Hairball,” the main character Katherine slowly progresses from her true self to a creation of herself; these transitions are represented through her many name changes.  When Katherine is a child, she calls herself by her full name, which symbolizes herself at her most true form: she is not changed by society or altered yet.  However, as she grows up, she starts to change and in turn changes her name to Kathy.  This transition represents herself changing already, even though she is only a young teenager.  She has stopped her mother from dressing her up in frilly clothes and is finally thinking for herself.  This makes Kathy the newly changed Katherine.  Soon enough, she changes her name again to Kath when she moves to University.  Not only is Kath no longer letting her mother boss her around by dressing her up, but she will not let anyone be the boss of her and is now aggressively independent.  She furthered her independence when she changed her name to Kat and moved to England by herself.

This series of name changes could mean a number of things.  She is slowly gaining her independence with each transition and could be representing herself growing up, but it could also symbolize her moral corruption as she grows older.  When she is younger, she is pure and has not had the harshness of the world shown to her yet, therefore she cannot be corrupt.  She is a naïve child who believes in the good of humanity, but when she turns older she realizes that society does not truly have the best intentions, so she shields herself away by trying to prove her independence.  First she pushed her mother away by making her own outfit decisions, then she pushed her friends away by taking “no-bullshit” and finally she pushed the every other person in her life away through her move to England.  Some may call these changes in her life a part of growing up, but it is actually a way to isolate herself from those who love her.

In an effort to feel closer to her love interest, Kat changes Gerald’s name.  This way he can be a creation of Kat, just as she is a creation of herself.  She shortens his name to “Ger” which is three letters long, as her name is.  The reason for the same amount of letters in both of their names is an effort of Kat to have a bond with him that Ger’s wife does not have.  Ger’s wife is described to have all of the qualities that Kat does not have, so having the same amount of letters in Ger’s and Kat’s names is an effort to win Ger over through the similarities that they share--forged or not.  What she soon realizes, though, is that Ger does not actually have true feelings for Kat, so she begins to call him Gerald again out of an act of defiance.  She thinks of “Ger” as one of her creations who she is romantically involved and of “Gerald” as a married man.  The only time Kat says Ger’s full name is when she is demeaning him, since the full name is “a negation of him, an abolishment of him, like ripping a medal off his chest” (3).  Once she changes his name back, he is no longer the man she created.

The Hands of "Fiesta"

"Fiesta, 1980" is a short story about a kid named Yunior growing up in the Bronx with an abusive father.  This short story focusses mainly on the concept of hands.  This motif is used to describe women’s personalities.  Yunior mentions, “one thing about Mami, even when she was nervous, her palms never sweated” (173).  This quote shows Mami’s personality; she is good at hiding her feelings.  A natural reaction to nervousness is sweaty palms, which Mami never seems to have.  She hides her true feelings from Papí in order to stay on his good side.  She acts this way because she knows her children will be beaten if she show anger or fear towards Papí.  However, later on when Yunior is describing the picture of Mami, he realizes how happy she must have been without Papí in her life.  He describes how “you can’t see her hands but I imagined they’re knotting a straw or a bit of thread” (179).  This thought about Mami’s hands prior to meeting Papí symbolizes freedom.  Her hands are able to do whatever they want without the oppressive nature of Papí.  She is able to do something as care-free as knot string and has no one in her way to stop her.  After Mami met Papí, she was never again described as having something of that nature in her hands which means that she is officially ruled by Papí and no longer has her own freedom.  Mami’s “hands adjusted the buckle of her belt over and over again” (171) when she is with Papí, showing more anxiousness in Mami’s nature while she is with her husband.  Repetition of a single action shows nervousness, so the adjusting of the belt leads the reader to believe that she is now an anxious person because of Papí.

Papí is having an affair with the Puerto Rican woman throughout the short story;  Yunior knows about this affair and has met the woman.  He says that she has, “dry papery hands” (176), which show the weakness that she holds.  Paper is a weak object that does not last long amounts of time and there are millions of pieces of paper in the world.  The “papery hands” is a symbol for how replaceable the Puerto Rican woman is.  She will not last long and will soon be replaced by another woman.  She is too weak to have Papí leave Mami for good and too replaceable to even bring up the conversation of it.  If the Puerto Rican woman gets on Papí’s bad side, she know she will be replaced.

**I won the allusion assignment and therefore have to write 400 words**

Summer Reading

Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden captures a whirlwind of emotions for the reader.  This book makes the reader laugh, cry and feel the pain of the lead character Sayuri.  As a child transitioning from a normal life to the slave-like imprisonment of a geisha, I was not truly able to personally relate with the novel.  However, Golden makes Sayuri seem so real that I feel pain every time she is sabotaged or manipulated.  She makes me think of myself when I was younger.  She is full of wonder and amazement.  However, much unlike myself, she loses her childhood quickly when she is turned into a geisha.  This made me feel so much sorrow for her, since everything was against her will and most parts of the novel left me squirming in my chair.
      Though Sayuri and I are living two completely different lives, I still felt the same emotions she felt.  We are dealing with the same emotions of adolescence, though they are caused by different reasons.  While Sayuri is scared from the torment of Hatsumomo, I am scared of choosing my future and relinquishing my childhood. This connection to her made me feel as if I were in the book.  When Sayuri found joy in the small things such as the kindness of the Chairman and the shaved ice he bought her, I felt a warmth in my heart and a genuine sincerity for her pleasure.  Her happiness created my happiness while flipping through the pages of the novel.  The words seemed to wrap around my mind and and tug at my emotions; I was entranced. Literary merit is something that makes the novel stand out.
      It’s Kind of a Funny Story receives its literary merit from the clever dialogue.  Words are not simply spoken by the characters, they are clumped together but flow easily.  The reader can practically hear the teens bantering back and forth, since the dialogue is exactly how teenagers talk; many words are shortened into slang and other words are italicized to show how melodramatic the teens are.  For instance, when Nia asks Craig what is wrong she asks, “Are you okay?” which shows how much she is concerned and adds to the overdramatized dialogue.
  Memoirs of a Geisha shows literary merit in a very different way.  The merit comes from the narration of the novel, rather than how the novel is written.  This novel is centered around the mind of a child being thrown into maturity.  The narrating is from a child’s perspective as she tries to comprehend what is happening to her. For instance, when she sees Hatsumomo being romantic with a man, she does not understand what is happening because she is too young to understand what is going on.  This type of narration creates a child-like approach to something that would usually be spoken by an adult.  The literary merit is earned by the approach of the unreliable narrator; the confusion and lack of understanding of young Sayuri makes this book stand out and gives it literary merit.