playing the part of a double v

When stories are told now a days, there seems to be a common theme.  There tends to always be a victim in one character, and a villain in another.  All of the super hero movies coming out now are like that.  Even in all the Harry Potter films, there was a good guy (Harry and friends), and a bad guy (Voldemort and friends).  This week in class we discussed if Dorian Gray himself was a villain or victim.  While there are many reasons for why and why not he is a one thing and not the other, why are we forced to choose between the two?  I myself believe that he not one of the options, but rather both.  I feel that Dorian was an innocent person until Lord Henry started teaching him of desires.  I feel that Lord Henry used Dorian Gray as a puppet.  This is when I believe that Dorian is just a victim.  When Dorian gives into these desires, even when he knows that they are bad, he shoves them aside and pretends it doesn’t happen.  When Dorian realizes that his actions are ruining the painting of himself, Dorian knows that this is a new portrait of the person he is becoming.  This is when I feel Dorian is the villain in the book.  He may not be a villain to others, but he is a villain to himself.  At the same moment, being a villain to himself also makes him a victim to himself.

The Awakening

Honestly I was pretty surprised with the whole plot of the awakening, not to mention the ending. During the 19^th century, like the book shows, the typical role of a woman was to give birth and take care of the kids; not to mention adultery was a huge scandal. So for a woman writer of that time to explore that aspect of a women’s self seems very scandalous and brave to do. I think it’s good of Edna to want to develop herself more and, especially in this day and age, it is stressed to figure out who you are as a person. Having said that, I do believe she acted very selfishly in respect to her children. I personally believe that since she was the one who brought them into this world, she should want to take better care of them. I understand that she did love them but the fact that she, so easily, was able to leave them to explore herself is pretty selfish. It no doubt would affect the kids in one way or another, even if they were wealthy enough to have caregivers for them.  Then, the fact that she committed suicide seems the most selfish act of all. Maybe it’s just a personal opinion, and I know how tragic and tricky the subject of suicides are; the fact that a person feels so hopeless and depressed that they see suicide as their only way out is beyond tragic. However, to abandon her children at such young ages and in such a dramatic way is pretty unfair to them.  It sort of reminds me of the classic situation of those rich mothers who are so concerned with material wealth, men’s affection, and appearance that they forget about their children. I mean, I get it, that in that time period it was a lot more complicated for a women to explore her own identity then it is now, but I just don’t get why should couldn’t have attempted to stick it out, at least a little while longer, for the children’s sake.

stick to your name

Why do authors switch up their names?  Why do authors sometimes even leave out their name from the public?  Everyone has their own reasons; some I understand, some I do not.  Mary Shelley, author of Frankenstein, left out her name from first publication.  She did this so people did not know it was written by a woman.  Later she added her name.  When leaving out your name in cases like this, I can completely understand the reasoning behind it.  The author, Theodor Seuss Giesel, known more predominantly by the name Dr. Seuss, changed his name to hide from writers in college.  He decided to keep the name when he wrote his children’s books.  I am okay with this because it gives it a more fun way for kids and also makes it easier for kids to relate.  We all had a few Dr. Seuss books during our childhood.  The author Stephen King, who we all have also heard of, originally did not change his name.  Later, he decided to write a few novels with a different name, Richard Bachman.  He also added a different photo to the back of the book.  The reasoning behind this was that Stephen King wanted to play with the reading society.  He wanted to see if there was a difference because of the names.   It was his own personal little game.  I find that to be utterly pointless.  Just stick with you original name.  You do not have a reason to change it.  Another person that I do not understand why they changed their name was Joanne Rowling.  Her pen name is J.K. Rowling.  If she is trying to be creative and give her name a catch to the reader, it’s unnecessary.  The readers like your writing for the stories, not your pen name.  Pretty much what I am trying to say through this is that writers, unless having an issue within society, or getting to the appropriate age of the readers, should not change their name.  Be proud of the name your mother gave you.

Hard times with Hard Times

            So this week (and I guess technically last week too) we read Hard Times by Charles Dickens. I have of course heard of this book before, as well as others by Charles Dickens (i.e. Tale of Two Cities), that I have been interested in reading. However, Hard Times definitely was not how I expected it to be and gave me a hard time reading it. I guess I have encountered this before, older novels usually are a little bit more complex and difficult to read than today’s average young adult novel, but even the plot and contents were a little more depressing than I imagined.

            The book is a realistic view on the world and society, I still like reading books with happy endings though. Starting off, I just felt sorry for the majority of the characters. Louisa, Sissy, and Stephen all just had such bad situations going. Lousia was forced to grow up too fast and never even experienced a childhood because of her father’s extreme obsession with facts. I can’t possibly imagine a child being so serious and never even imagining anything at all. Both of my younger cousins talk non-stop about only things they imagine, especially the younger of the two. My youngest cousin is only 6 so definitely younger than Louisa, but all he does is tell made-up stories and talk about what he dreamt about as well as make up random games. So the imagine of a little girl doing only homework and fact drills at that age is definitely sad. Also, one of the other depressing things about Louisa that really hit me was how unemotional and casually she decided to marry Bounderby. She just looked at the facts about the situation and did not consider her romantic feelings at all and in turn this lead to an unhappy marriage. Even after she eventually manages to find feelings for another man and leave Bounderby, she never does remarry or have kids.

            Then with Sissy, it was terribly sad that her father abandoned her like that. Just like how close she is to her father, I am really close with my mother who also raised me as a single parent. I can’t even imagine my mother leaving me like that so it is just really sad to think that Sissy had to go through something like that. Then after that to be told that she is not smart enough to continue through school, that her nickname “Sissy” is not suitable, and practically be treated as a maid just makes it all that much worse. The fact that she ends up getting married in the end and has a large happy family is a little bit of a silver lining; after all, Sissy was probably the most innocent and sweet character of the novel.

            Finally there was Stephen Blackpool who is only a “hand” at Bounderby’s factory and is in love with Rachel yet married to a horrible drunkard hag who only comes back into his life on occasion to collect more money from him and steal his belongings. I feel his circumstances were the most miserable of all because from the beginning he was just such a pitiful character, than he was told he could never get a divorce because he was too poor and finally ended up dying after being falsely accused as a bank robber. That situation was probably the worst because Tom was just a selfish crook who took advantage of Stephens situation and framed the poor guy.

            Other than these three examples the fact that Bounderby banned his own mother from ever seeing him and that she still checked in once a year was sad. As well was that Tom died alone away from his family once he saw the error of his ways, and that Mrs. Sparsit, who was just trying to help, gets fired for accidentally bringing Bounderby’s mother to him. I don’t know why but I wasn’t expecting this book to be so depressing but almost all the characters got the short end of the stick it seemed.

importance of classic editions

For this blog I have decided to take a different approach.  Instead of talking about something that we have read, I want to talk about today’s class period.  Today we went to the MASC section of the library.  I previously never had been to this part of the school here.  I wasn’t expecting much, but when I got there I realized I was in a truly special place.

Yes, there was just a bunch of old books laid out on a table, but to me that is a very important thing.  It’s one thing to talk about historic greats in literature and all, but it is important to have examples of things of the past.  For me, if I have a standard new releasing of a Charles Dickens novel, I’m really not going to be all excited for it.  On the other hand, if I see the same novel just one hundred years older, I am going to be more interested.  Even if I can’t actually keep the older editions, which is fine with me because I am afraid of damaging them, I still feel a little more connected with the work.

This is an important tradition to keep up.  While classics are nice to read, to be able to see an actual classic version of it adds a little something extra for the student….at least I think so.  Right now I read books that have just came out.  The last thought in my mind is always, “is this going to be taught as a classical novel one day?”  The fact is we never know.  I think it would be good to always have a stock of novels just in case they become classics in later years.  In my experience I’ve noticed that more times than not a novel becomes popular after sometime, rather than later.

With the cinematic world taking over popular novels, most people will remember films over books.  I feel that as long as we keep classics and take good care of them, it will help them be remembered for a long time to come.