The Road pg 103-198

McCarthy's style in, The Road, is bare bones.  He does not give big wordy descriptions of scenes or events that happen in the book because he is letting the reader get a feel for the sparse the world is and how father and son are using all their energy to survive.  Father and son do not have the time to just sit and chat and even if they could there is not much to really talk about.  On page 153 as the father wakes from a dream he thinks to himself, "Maybe he understood for the first time that to the boy he was himself an alien.  A being from a planet that no longer existed.  The tales of which were suspect.  He could not construct for the child's pleasure the world he'd lost without constructing the loss as well..."  Memories of father and son are different. The father is aware of how good life was before and the son has no idea of what kind of world his father comes from. Their shared memories are dismal and bleak.  The father shares very basic things with boy regarding the past because of that fact. I think McCarthy is trying to give the readers the feel for how hard it would be in that situation: fighting daily to stay alive, trying not to be seen by the "bad" guys, trying to find shelter, trying to find your way to a safe place.  It is tiring and there is not much time for idle talk and talking about past memories of a better world.  Are the memories really important? Does the boy need to hear any of it?

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The Road

I  think Cormac McCarthy does not tell his readers the exact event that causes the destruction of the United States because the event does not really matter.  It is the reaction of the characters to the event which is the point of the story.  I assume it is a nuclear war on page 52 it says, "A long shear of light and then a series of low concussions." Also, "A dull rose glow in the windowglass." (52) It suggests a nuclear blast also the sun is blocked by clouds and the temperature is always cold even though they are heading south.  But I think the main point of the story is to experience this new existence through the eyes of the man and the boy.  The world is bleak and cold and burnt out and they are trying to remain human and sane in an insane and dangerous world. McCarthy raises some interesting questions like is it good to be a survivor in a world that is so bleak and scary to live in?  Maybe it is better to die and not have to experience grim existence that the man and the boy are living through.

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rough draft 2nd essay

The effects of 9/11 on American literature is interesting to me.  The inability of authors to capture the moment or feeling or event in some definitive way is missing.  Why is it so hard to write about the event in a way that captures the feeling of the country? In this class we have read some poetry and short stories but there is no one author that has been able to write the one novel that  really strikes a cord with all readers.  John Updike's, Varieties of  Religious Experience, gives the reader a glimpse of different perspectives of the tragedy through the eyes of a religious view.  I think is looking for God to answer the question of why.  Is there a God? Is it possible to have such a senseless tragedy if God does in fact exist?  Is everyone's view of God so different that it can somehow justify the tragic events? Is it a collective, cultural religion which we stand under and is our shelter in times of national tragedy- the candles and flags that Updike mentions? Or is 9/11 a senseless tragedy which cannot be defined or pinned down?

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It seems that all modern literature can do is bear witness to the tragic events through stories about individuals.  the events of 9/11 cannot be understood from a sensible aspect. How can Americans understand what other countries think and feel about us and our way of life?  How can we understand the extreme hatred that some people feel towards us?  The writers in this cluster wrote about individuals and how the events of that day impacted them.  But, like DeLillo writes in, In the Ruins of the Future, "For the next fifty years people who were in the area when the attacks occurred will claim to have been there.  In time, some of them will believe it.  Others will claim to have lost friends or relatives, although they did not."(4036)  This is one of the limits of the individual mind to bear witness.  We become caught up in the tragedy and sometimes the events become so real to us we think we are involved in them.  "This is also the counter-narrative, a shadow history of false memories and imagined loss." (4036) The further away we get from 9/11 the more people feel the need to hold onto the stories.  There is a need to remember individual lives and not have them reduced to political rhetoric.

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Varieties of Religious Experience

All casualties matter, none matter more or less than any other, but each event has a different impact on us individually and as a nation.  The difference with the attacks on 9/11 is that it happened in our country, on our soil. We, as a nation, had to face that fact that we were not invincible.  John Updike's story, Varieties of Religious Experience, gives the reader a glimpse of how the events of 9/11 effected a handful of lives.  Even though the story is fiction, I think Updike gives a good idea of the terror and anguish that some of victims must have experienced in their last moments. I felt pity for victims in the story. Jim Finch and his last phone call to his wife was so sad.  And Carolyn who in her last moments says, "Dear, Lord, have mercy."  Updike makes the victims real people that the reader cares about, not just casualties of some tragic event in history.  The characters in the story represent the real people who died.  They had lives and families and friends. The moment these characters realize they will soon die and for no other reason than being in the wrong place at the wrong time adds to the terror and the shock of the event.  The casualties matter to the families and friends that have been left behind to come to terms with random senseless violence, in a world that at that moment does seem to be Godless.  The number of casualties does not matter.  The heart does not feel more sadness or pity because the casualties are higher. Updike has two of the terrorists stories included does he want the reader to feel sympathy or pity for them?  Why did he include their story?

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Forche

The choice of word hands at the end of the section of The Country between Us, by Carolyn Forche was interesting to me.  The last line in the poem reads, "Tenderness is in the hands." What a true statement.  The government held the power of life and death in their hands and did not seem to show much tenderness.  Both poems depict graphic images of human cruelty and serious human rights violations.  The government of El Salvador had the power in their hands to choose tenderness or brutality.  The word hand is also in the poem The Colonel.  He is holding a human ear,"He took one of them in his hands, shook it in our faces,..."(3725) The colonel does not use his hands for tenderness nor does he use them tenderly. He shakes the ear in their face and he has also ordered to have the ears cut off of human beings. 

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The Red Convertible: Lyman Lamartine

The story has several incidents of magic realism in it.  Lyman's ability to make money so easily and not worrying about being called up for the draft.  But the incident that stood out for me was in the end when Henry drowns.  It starts out in an ordinary way with both of them sitting on the bank.  Then Henry suddenly decides to jump in the river. But the scene unfolds in an otherworldy way as Henry says so calmly, "My boots are filling." (3394) an then, "He says this in a normal voice, like he just noticed and he doesn't know what to think of it." (3394) It all seems to unfold in a very calm peaceful way, almost like a dream.  There does not seem to be any panic or confusion as this tragic event is happening. It make me wonder if Henry was ready to die.  Was the drowning intentional or an accident?  Had he made his peace with the world and as ready to let go? Did he think that his life would never get any better?

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Bless Me, Ultima

Antonio and his friends are afraid to break customs and traditions within the Church because, "I knew that eternity lasted forever, and a soul because of one mistake could spend that eternity in hell." (3313) They learn their catechism by rote and it makes no sense to them as anything meaningful.  It is about obeying rules to stay out of hell for all of eternity.  They all follow the traditions and are excited to make their first confession. They are looking forward to being a more active part of the church.  The way the children pretend to go to confession, with Antonio as the priest, is their way of relieving the anxiety of making their first confession.  But it turns into a violent conflict when Florence says he does not have any sins.  The children act out what they have been taught all their lives.  The Catholic Church is the authority and everyone must agree with it or suffer at her hands. The children have not been taught to feel compassion for one another.  But to judge one another according to what the Church says is true.  After the mock confession the children beg  for Antonia to give him a hard penance.  They get caught up in the frenzy and at one point they shout, "Stone him!" "Beat him!" "Kill him!" (3319) Antonio is the only one who seems to realize the hypocrisy of this and turns to the crowd of children and says, "No!" I shouted, "there will be no punishment, there will be no penance! His sins are forgiven!" (3319) Antonio is compassionate enough to see that Florence is upset with God and needs some leniency. Children should be taught that the Church is there to help guide them spiritually and that all people sin and God is merciful and is forgiving.  Not that God is harsh and punitive.  Waiting to catch you messing up so he can send you to hell for eternity. Children also need to be taught that all people are accepted in God's eyes, not shunned. 

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Rough Draft Essay 1

     In Jack Kerouac's essay entitled, The Vanishing American Hobo, he uses the words hobo and bum but not interchangeably  He has created a hierarchy of hobos to symbolize the difference between individuals who through non-conformity to society remain healthy and spiritually enlightened and individuals who go along with the prevailing beliefs without questioning anything.  The hobo is depicted as healthy.  He lives out of doors, camps under the stars, and he is free to move from town to town.  The skid row bum on the other hand is depicted as sickly and spiritually depleted.  He spends his nights n doorways looking for hand outs and drinks too much.  Kerouac's use of this hierarchy is a metaphor for the effects of blindly following the conventions and norms of society.

     The hobo in Kerouac's essay signifies the individual who lives in freedom and is spiritually enlightened.  When he describes the hobo he uses language that is positive like,"...the hobo in his idealistic lope to freedom and the hills of holy silence and holy privacy.-There's nothing nobler than to put up with a few inconveniences like snakes and dust for the sake of absolute freedom." (2976)  He is painting a picture of an individual who is free rom convention an is seeking something spiritual.  He also says, "...Poverty is considered a virtue among the monk of civilized nations-..."(2977)  He is telling the reader that the hobo is on a path to enlightenment only obtainable through the freedom of individualism.  A person must be unhampered by the prevailing ideologies that society asks individuals to subscribe to.

     Then there is the skid row bum who Kerouac says, "...sometimes hobos were inconsiderate, but not always, but when they were, they no longer held their pride, they became bums-..." (2979) The bum has no pride in himself and infers an apathetic view toward life.  He is a symbol of man who is part of society who follows all the rules and lives his life as he has ben told to.  The bum has lost his way. "I'm too tired now of everything else, I've had enough, I give up, I quit, I want to go home, take me home..." (2982)  The quote is about the despair that is felt by the bum who symbolizes individuals in society. He is seeking a return to a spiritual home.  A place that is comfortable and warm and familiar-a return to his "roots". Not the alienation of a big city where they are a no body.  The bum as a metaphor for society in general is saying that society has lost its way.

    Another way Kerouac helps create this hierarchy is through his use of examples of people who are hobos and who are bums.  The hobos are people like Jesus and Buddha and Beethoven and Einstein.  The skid row bums are people who are not known they are just common people. "...but Oh the poor bum of the skid row! There he sleeps in the doorway, back to wall, head down..." (2982) Kerouac use of famous people as examples of hobos are those people who thought for themselves and lived in ways that did not necessarily conform to society of their day.  The skid row bum is the common man who blindly accepts what comes to him.   Kerouac wants us to have pity on him for his blind ignorance.

    Kerouac has created the hierarchy of hobos and bums in his essay to let the reader know that giving up individuality for sake of conformity and living in society will inevitably make a person spiritually sick.  Without spirituality and individualism we become sick and alone.  The key to overcoming the illness of society is through the individual seeking enlightenment and non-conformity.

    
    

    

    

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Recitatif

This weeks assignment-to determine the race of each girl-was difficult. I read Recitatif, by Toni Morrison several times to make a determination about who was Black and who was White.  I thought Twyla was Black and Roberta was White.  The first sign of racism was when the girls' mothers met at the shelter.  Roberta's mother, "...looked down at me and the looked down at Mary too." (3545) She grabs Roberta's hand and walks to the back of the line.  The inference to me was Roberts's mother was looking down on them not only because she was so tall but because of Twyla's race. Later, when the girls are older they met at Howard Johnsons were Twyla is a waitress.  Several things in this encounter pointed to race. The first was Roberta was on her way to the coast to see Hendrix, which had a mostly white following.  Twyla is once again in the position of being looked down on, she is snubbed by Roberta.  Roberta  does not seem to want to talk to Twyla.  She laughs about the town Twyla lives in.  She doesn't invite her to sit down with them,"A silence it was her turn to fill up. With introductions, maybe, to her boyfriends or an invitation to sit down and have a Coke." (3546)  Roberta seems to be uncomfortable and embarrassed by Twyla and their friendship.  The next meeting between them is at the gourment grocery store, not the kind of grocery store that Twyla normally shops in.  As they are talking and catching up, Roberta says she lives in Annandale. Twyla wonders to herself how did Roberta go from Hendrix to a,"...neighborhood full of doctors and IBM executives."(3548) Roberta and her husband are probably white because of the neighborhood they live in and he is executive at IBM, there were not many if any Black executives at IBM in the 1970s. Twyla also thinks to herself,"Everything is so easy for them. They think they own the world." (3548) I took that as a reference to living in a world dominated by White people and how they seem to be able to have whatever they want. The next exchange between the two is the picket line where Roberta is opposed to busing and integration. Roberta says, "Well, it is a free country." (3551) Twyla's response is," Not yet, but it will be."(3551).  Twyla does not see the world as free because of racism but she is hopeful that things will change.  The last meeting between the two women at the diner has Roberta asking what happened to Maggie.  Roberta is feeling guilty about her prejudge toward Maggie, who is Black, and that fact she never helped Maggie.  A collective guilt of one race regarding the other race.

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Gorey Gashlycrumb Tinies

The story this week, "The Gashlycrumb Tinies", was creepy, but I enjoyed it.  I liked how Gorey takes the traditional themed childrens book and made it macabre. Even with the first panel where Death is standing behind the children, the children look so sweet and angelic.  It seemed to me that it would have been very shocking in 1963 to have this published, but maybe Gorey was making a statement about the children of the time.   Gorey seems to be making fun of the ways that parents scare their young kids into behaving properly.  The actual violence is never shown just the implication of what is come.  Just as parents always seem to be overprotective and worried about all kinds of things that could happen, but usually don't.

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Entropy

This weeks story, Entropy, by Thomas Pynchon was very difficult for me to understand.  There is so much going on throughout the story.  One theme that was constant was that of chaos and order.  In Meatball Mulligan's apartment is the chaos of the party.  There is Duke, Vincent, Krinkles and Paco listening to music another group are in the kitchen playing a game a woman in the bathroom sink, passed out.  Then Saul comes in through the window.  Meatball has utter chaos that he has to deal with, "So he decided to try and keep his lease-breaking party from deteriorating into total chaos:..." (Pynchon 3031) And he sets about doing that. The feeling I get, even in the midst of all the chaos and noise of the party, is dynamic and vibrant and alive.  The direct contrast is the apartment above which is Callisto and Aubade's , "Hermetically sealed, it was a tiny enclave of regularity in the city's chaos,..." (Pynchon 3023).  They are so integral to the world they have created they can no longer leave it.  Both of them live in the past and have ceased to create anything new.  Callisto "envisioned a heatdeath for his culture in which ideas, like heat-energy, would no longer be transferred, since each point in it would ultimately have the same quantity of energy; and intellectual motion would,accordingly, cease." (Pynchon 3026)  Callisto seems to be at that point where his world is coming to an end.  He is trapped in the past instead of living in the present and being part of world around him.  Callisto has created his own "heatdeath" by sealing himself off and not being apart of the energy and noise and chaos in the world.

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Prewrting 1-3

As I read and reread Jack Kerouac's, The Vanishing American Hobo, I wondered about the use of his hierarchy of hobos.  He uses the word hobo and bum but interchangeably. He carefully delineates the two.  Hobos are described in positive terms and he uses for example a wide variety of notable historical figures. When he is writing about the bums his words are negative and the examples of bums are unknown men off the street.  His repeated use of the word freedom in connection with the idea of a hobo jumped out at me while reading this story.  The two things seem in contrast to one another.  His references to Buddhism and enlightenment also seem to be in contrast with the hobos life. Is Kerouac's use of the hierarchy of hobos meant as a symbol of the freedom of the individual who does not conform to the mainstream culture and its prefabricated way of thinking? A more enlightened way of life? And is the skid row bum the symbol for the worn- out, spiritually bankrupt individual who blindly follows society's norms?

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Where Are You Going

Connie's shallow, superficial and vain personality seems to conjure up this devil who manifests as Arnold Friend.  He plays on her vanity to try to seduce her in to coming with him willingly by telling her she's cute. He is dressed in a way that appeals to her, "Connie liked the way he was dressed, which was the way al of them dressed:..." (Oates 3127).  He speaks in, "a simple lilting voice,..." (Oates 3128). And his smile makes her feel as though everything is fine.  He has drawn her in through all the shallow, simple, immature ways that she values.  As the interaction between Connie and Friend progresses, she begins to see he is not what he appears to be. His manipulation turns into forcefulness and psychological terror.  At the point where Connie asks how old he is, she is beginning to realize that all is not right.  She is no longer in an innocent game of flirtation but now in an adult world of violence and sex.  She is powerless and no longer in control.  She is the victim of this man.  Friend says to her, "Be nice to me , be sweet like you can because what else is there for a girl like you but to be sweet and pretty and give in?-..." (Oates 3134).  Connie has lost everything, her innocence her life at the hands of this " devil" in disguise.  Is this a cautionary tale for women who think that their only power lies in how their looks are perceived by males?

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"Kill the Body, and Head wil Die"

I enjoyed reading, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, by Hunter S Thompson.  I have read parts of it before and was not thrilled by it.  The background on the literary style helped me to appreciate it this time.  Thompson's candid style of recording all of his experiences was refreshing.  It felt like he wrote without an audience in mind.  But from his own passion about the loss of the American dream. His drug use in the story is over the top which suggests to me that its not about consciousness expanding but escape.  He does not want to expand his mind but escape from the reality of world as he views it.  He says, "Not that we needed all that for the trip, but once you get locked into a serious drug collection, the tendency is to push it as far as you can." (Thompson 1)  He is disillusioned by the loss of the ideas of the 1960's.  The new decade seems to hold no promise for him.  He writes about the sixties in a very forlorn way, "...But that was some other era, burned out and long gone from the brutish realities of this foul year of Our Lord, Nineteen Hundred and Seventy One.  A lot of things had changed in those years." (Thompson 12)  Thompson's view of the American dream seems to have vanished in the haze.  Was the dream gone? Why go to Las Vegas to look for the American dream when it is the city of make believe?

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Joyce Johnson Minor Characters

The Beat movement may have been apolitical but the female writers of this movement-whether intentional or unintentional-helped to fuel the desire for change for women.  To be able to contribute a female voice to a male-dominated style of writing-the Beat movement, Johnson knew she would need to share in the same experiences.  She would need to live on her own and go on the road with all that that implies, drugs, unmarried sex, alcohol.  Most of those ideas do not seem so radical now. But, as Johnson writes in, Minor Characters, about living on her own, "Everyone knew in the 1950s why a girl from a nice family left home.  The meaning of her theft of herself from her parents was clear to all-as well as what she'd be up to in that room of her own."  Her need to write from a new female perspective had her living like her male counterparts from the Beat movement and not one of "good" girl who lived at home until she marries and the living under her husband's roof and obeying him.  She lives a unconventional life for a woman in the 1950s and shares those experiences through published writings.  She, as well as other female writers of the Beat movement, gave women of the time a new way of living their lives. 

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The Vanishing American Hobo

"The hobo is born of pride, having nothing to do with a community but with himself...." (Kerouac, 2978)  So states Jack Kerouac in The Vanishing American Hobo. Kerouac's essay is about the loss of Americans' personal freedoms and individuality.  The hobo is not a conformist, but an individual-someone who does not appear to be like the rest of society.  That difference can lie in their way of thinking, living, or spirituality.  He gives examples of people he considers hoboes like Beethoven, Einstein, Jesus, Buddha and many other well-known people.  These people were not hoboes in a traditional sense but in their ability to speak freely and think in ways that are typical of most people. 

The vanishing  hobo symbolizes a loss of individuality in society that has traded it for social protection.  The hobo becomes the marginalized of society and not respected for the contribution that he can make.  The desire for social protection and  conformity has demanded the increase in the need for police protection-  another threat to the hobo and his non-conformity.  Kerouac states several times in his essay about the police harassing the hobo. I wonder if the bum on skid row is the middle class American who has given up their freedom and individuality in exchange for the social protection of the police state.

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Gwendolyn Brooks A Bronzeville Mother Loiters in Mississippi. Meanwhile, a Mississippi Mother Burns Bacon

I chose this poem by Gwendolyn Brooks because I found it fascinating that she would write from the perspective of a white southern woman.  I initially thought she felt sympathy for Carolyn Bryant.  But as I did some research into the background of the Emmett Till case and the history of Mississippis' extreme racial views, I read the poem as a condemnation of the southern white womans' compliance in the evils of racism. The line in the poem that states, "It was good to be a "maid mild." (Brooks 11) refers how the white southern woman was viewed, as a maiden who needed to be saved from the "evil" black man, who wanted only to rape white women.  As the poem progresses, it is clear to see that the woman is disturbed by the events that occurred. She seems to be feeling guilty even, "...she could not remember now what that foe had done Against her, or if anything had been done." (Brooks, 51-52) and she feels as though "a red ooze" was spreading from her husband's hands onto her.  At the end of the poem she says "a hatred for him burst into glorious flower,"  she cannot stand to be near him or touched by him after what has happened.  I believe she aware of her role in the murder of the young boy and feels guilty but she will not do anything to correct it or change the status quo of her prejudiced world.  Is the woman in the poem equally guilty for the death of the boy because she did not stand up to evils of the society she belongs to? 

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Theodore Roethke Elegy

I chose this poem because of Roethke's no-nonsense tribute to Aunt Tilly. His poem clearly conveys the admiration and respect people felt toward her by the amount of flowers at her funeral, "and enough flowers for an alderman," (Roethke, pg 2711).  The amount of flowers indicates that many people cared about Aunt Tilly.  He portrays her as a very good person who is disciplined and selfless.  He says in line 5, "Between the spirit and the flesh, -what war? She never knew;"  Which I took to mean a reference to Matthew 26:41, "...the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak." She does not seem to deal with the battle of wanting to do good and actually doing it. She just does good.  She sits with the dead, feeds the poor,  cares for the sick and insane, and accepts her impeding death with a "hash rasp of a laugh,". She saves the best peaches for pickling to give away to the poor and keeps the misshapen for herself.  He also states,"And yet she died in agony," ( Roethke, pg 2712)  Perhaps, suggesting because she was so good of a person she should not have had to suffer at the end of her life.  The end of the poem is a very nice way of seeing Aunt Tilly.  She is in heaven doing her shopping.  She is serenely picking out produce yet, "Bearing down, with two steady eyes, On the quaking butcher." (Roethke, pg 2712)  Is Roethke suggesting that because we do good here on earth that maybe God should take our suffering from us? Or maybe Aunt Tilly was "saintly" because she accepted all that was given to her without complaint?

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The grandmother-Violence as the vehicle of Grace

As the story, A Good Man is Hard to Find, by Flannery O'Conner opens the character of the grandmother has a very immature understanding of her Christian principles.  Her idea of who and what are "good" is childish.  Starting with idea that clothes identify who you are, she dresses a certain way to car trip because as she says, " In case of an accident, anyone seeing her dead on the highway would know at once that she was a lady."  Later, as the family are in the car she tells her grandchildren about Mr Teagarden.  She says she should have married him because he was a gentleman and he ended up being very wealthy. She believes that manners and money make a person good.  Then, as the family sits in the Tower restaurant the grandmother and Red Sammy have a discussion about how terrible the world is today.  Both look at the world in a shallow and superficial way. The grandmother says," People are certainly not nice like they used to be."  Her judgement about her fellow man directly contradicts her Christian principles.  As they leave the restaurant, and continue on their journey the grandmother talks her son into making the fateful detour to see the plantation. Once again it is for a very childish reason-she wants to get her way. And she uses that lie about hidden treasure to con them into going.  After the car accident the grandmother initially is trying to plead for her life by saying to the misfit, "Listen," the grandmother almost screamed, "I know you're a good man.  You don't look a bit like you have common blood. I know you must come from nice people."  She is still of the belief that good and bad are defined by bloodline and family.  It is not until moments before her death that she receives the grace to see the misfit as he is seen by God. She has an epiphany, "...the grandmother's head cleared for an instant."  At that moment, staring directly into the face of evil, she is able to see the humanness in everyone. All humanity are God's children.  The last words she utters are, "Why you're one of my babies.  You're one of my own children!"  Is the only way to know who and what we are truly made of through a dramatic or violent situation?  Does God's grace come to us in more subtle ways?

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