Daddy Issues

 Before I dive into this, I want point out the epigraph that Morrison writes in before she begins the novel: "The fathers my soar and the children may know their names". From this epigraph, we have already been provided with the ideas of flight and fatherhood that will occur throughout the book.

With fatherhood in mind, I'd like to discuss the relationship between Milkman and Macon Jr.
One noticeable thing about the relationship between the two is that there is a chronic strain that is tied to Ruth, Milkman's mother and Macon's wife. Only 15 pages into the book, we are blessed with an example of this as Macon says in response to Milkman's new nickname, "He knew that wherever the name came from, it had something to do with his wife and was, like the emotion he always felt when thinking of her, coated with disgust." Morrison gets straight to the point on how Macon feels about his son in this situation. Something I found really interesting about this was the fact that the nickname mostly bothered him because he knew it was tied to Ruth. Already, to Macon the name sounded "dirty, intimate, and hot". But it was because of Macon's feelings of disgust towards Ruth that he was able to further defile the re-naming of his son. It was because of the image of Ruth and her father that Macon held in his head, that anything Ruth did with Milkman seemed to bother him relentlessly no matter how normal it may appear to anyone else (excluding this situation, it was a bit weird). The thought and possibility that there could be a rerun of what occurred in the doctor's house, made Macon want Ruth as far from Milkman as possible. So he hinders the relationship between mother and son in a sort of tyrannic way if you ask me.

Another example of where this distancing can be found is during the family's "fun" car ride through the town. During the ride, Macon forbids Ruth from carrying Milkman on her lap and taking him out to the use the restroom. He prevents her from doing normal mom duties out of resentment and disgust. We can see that this only further alienates Milkman from his mother because there is no solid foundation or bond time in which they can form an actually relationship. This is what Macon and to ensure this, Macon keeps Milkman by his side.

As the years go by, Milkman has definitely formed a close(er) bond with his father than he has with Ruth. After working under Macon since he was twelve, Milkman is associated with his father throughout the town. But despite the flourishing of their relationship, it still wasn't perfect because although Milkman respected his father, he also feared him, he doesn't necessarily want to be associated with as an exact replica of his father-- mainly because he felt he couldn't never amount to Macon. So he purposefully tries to distance himself from the identity as Macon Dead's son and the any similarities that he could've developed from him. This can be observed on page 43:

"(...) he could never emulate him. So he differed from him as much as he dared. Macon was clean-shaven; Milkman was desperate for a mustache. Macon wore bow ties; Milkman wore four-in-hands. Macon didn’t part his hair; Milkman had a part shaved into his. Macon hated tobacco; Milkman tried to put a cigarette in his mouth every fifteen minutes. Macon hoarded his money; Milkman gave his away. But he couldn’t help sharing with Macon his love of good shoes and fine thin socks."

While all this happening for Milkman, Macon is happy because he was able to influence Milkman into the person he became instead of Ruth. Morrison writes, "Macon was delighted. His son belonged to him now and not to Ruth, and he was relieved at not having to walk all over town like a peddler collecting rents." From these lines you can see that to Macon, his relationship with his son was mainly to take a stab at Ruth by preventing her from starting what Macon seemed to think would be an incestuous relationship with Milkman.


Something else I want to discuss is more related to the epigraph previously stated. As I said earlier, in the epigraph Morrison hints at the themes of flight and fatherhood. One thing that I realized about the book is how well it actually ties in with this. "The fathers may soar, and the children may know their names." Re-reading this, I thought about the death of Macon Dead I and how he was shot five feet into the air (practically flying if you ask me). And after he learns this, Milkman gradually becomes more intrigued in his family name (which is hidden behind the quest for gold). And when he finally finds out that his descendants were the legendary flying Africans, everything kind of ties in together with the epigraph. The recurring theme of flight in the book and self search that Milkman embarks on without realizing, come together to complete the novel with Milkman finally learning the name of his soaring forefathers, which I think helps him fully discover his identity.

Throwback To Mrs. Dalloway

Hey peeps, so for my open genre project, I created two found poems on the novel Mrs. Dalloway. I just basically took lines out of the book and rearranged them into poems. So I based my poems off Septimus and Clarissa and the way they depicted/lived their lives throughout the novel. This might be a bit long but, her we go:

Clarissa

Mrs. Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself

Left a priceless book in the punt

Withered-looking plants, reddish chairs and sofas

There was a freshness about them

Stepping out into some garden, she was a flowering tree

Fumble, stumble, and confusion indicated

Roses blooming under glass, lips cut with knife

Star-gazing

She smoked cigars in her bedroom

It was her warmth, her vitality

It was who made her feel, for the first time

The most exquisite moment of her whole life passing a stone urn with flowers in it

The river which says on, on, on; even though, it admits, there may be no goal for us 

Lunch without her made the moment in which she had stood shiver

It is the privilege of loneliness

Like a white shell-sprinkled beach, left bare

Are we not all prisoners?

Books, letters, dressing-gown,

It all seemed useless

But there were so many doors, such unexpected places,

She could not find her way

The rooms were still crowded; people kept on coming

Her look, passing through all that time and that emotion,

Settled on him tearfully; and rose and fluttered away,

 As a bird touches a branch and rises and flutters away

Somehow it was her disaster — her disgrace

Her punishment to see sink and disappear here a man, there a woman

She had thought, it will be a dusky sky, turning away its cheek in beauty

She could crouch like a bird and gradually revive,

Send roaring up that immeasurable delight

Friends without names, songs without words, always the best

She often went into her garden

And got from her flowers a peace which men and women never gave her

The evening seemed ominous, figures still

As if some august fate awaited without fear

“I shall come back”

Her words faded, so a rocket fades

Force of its own luster burns its way through

Surrender to it

This being Mrs. Dalloway

Not even Clarissa anymore

This being Mrs. Richard Dalloway

Septimus

In his shabby overcoat alone, hunched up, staring

Sat smiling at the dead man in the grey suit

Himself could not touch this last relic straying on the edge of the world—

Septimus had been through the war

Messages from the dead:

Miracles, revelations, agonies, loneliness

He compared it to a piston thumping

But felt nothing

Septimus had fought, was brave, he was not Septimus now

Thick red roses grow on my bedroom wall he reminded himself

He started violently

Most dejected of miseries, sing without any voice

Lay like a drowned sailor on the shore of the world,

The death of the soul—

The world raised its whip, where will it descend?

Repeated to himself once you fall, human nature is upon you

They fly screaming into wilderness

Remorseless

They desert the fallen

Clamoring: Kill yourself, kill yourself

Human nature was upon him

Repulsive brute with blood red nostrils…

He descended another step into the pit

Cold and clamminess within

Only chance was to escape

Why should he kill himself for their sakes?

He did not want to die

He found life like an unknown garden

It took one’s breath away

The suns and stars,

Sea pieces with faces laughing out of what might be waves:

The map of the world

But he dared not look

Septimus wrote on a postcard, human nature is on you, Holmes is on you

Dropped his head on his hands

Now he had surrendered

Condemned, deserted— as those who are about to die are alone

The brute with the red nostrils had won

A voice spoke from behind the screen

The dead were with him

He would wait till the very last moment

He would sleep, he shut his eyes…

                                       

Holmes was coming upstairs, Holmes was at the door, Holmes would get him

But no

“I’ll give it you!” he cried and flung himself vigorously,

Violently down on to Mrs. Filmer’s area railings

Septimus had been through the war, he was not Septimus now

Antoinette Used Obeah To Be White? Whaat?!

Okay, during my panel presentation I asked a question regarding a statement made in our article. And it's just been constantly bothering me so I wrote a little thing about it. Here is the statement, just for incite:  

"In a critical essay titled “Race and Caribbean Culture,” author Sandra Drake mentions that “Antoinette wants to use the spell to complete her assimilation to England and to whiteness” (198), thereby at last earning a definite identity for herself." 

Alrighty, lets discuss this. This is basically saying that Antoinette used obeah to complete her naturalization to the English culture. I mean using a culture's custom in order to distance yourself from said culture, if that's not a mess I don't know what is. And overall, I don't really agree with this statement for several reasons.  The first is that it is super contradicting. It doesn't really make sense for her to attempt to distance herself from the Jamaican culture and into the white culture by using a Jamaican custom. 

Another thing is that the whole reason Antoinette even used obeah was to make Rochester fall in love with her. She was using obeah in attempt to make Rochester fall in love with the Jamaican traits/behaviors that influenced her during her life. And this completely opposes and smacks down the argument that is stated in the article. 

Overall, I just don't think that the statement itself is a reliable way to analyze that scene, Antoinette's subconscious reason for using or if this relates to her racial identity at all. But then there is this:

"When the potion ultimately fails to produce the desired effects, Antoinette is forced to recognize her non-whiteness as well as her non-blackness because as Christophine states to Rochester, “She is not béké like you, but she is béké, and not like us either” (93)."

I'm not sure how to interpret this section of the article. I agree that when the potion fails it kind of destroys her but I'm not completely sure if it actually does have anything to do with race. I mean, it backfires and Rochester still doesn't love her, which breaks her spirit because that was the whole point of using obeah. I'm taking reach here and saying that in terms of race, she doesn't know where she belongs because she can't make Rochester fall in love with her and her Jamaican upbringing. But she also can't make him fall in love with her even if she (attempts to) develop the English culture. 

Then again, does Antoinette want to develop an English culture? Mr. Mitchell brought up the scene where Antoinette was having wine with Rochester, who called her Bertha. And in the scene she initially rejects the name. This kind of shows that she doesn't really want to have an English identity, because she rejected the very European name of Bertha. But who knows. I'm a bit iffy on this. If you guys have any interpretations regarding both or one of the statements, leave a comment below. 

(wow, I sound like a youtuber, oy).

Rochester's Dominance

Starting the Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys was a bit of a tough task. I wasn’t exactly the biggest fan just because there was so much going on that made it hard to understand. But, I am not here to discuss my struggles. So let’s talk about Rochester.

When he was first introduced, I kind of felt for the guy. He wakes up in a foreign land married to the “alien eyed” Antoinette. He  walked into the marriage without knowing anything about her or her family history. Everyone in the town knew about Antoinette’s family history but they kept all the information secret from him. It was kind of like an ongoing joke that the townspeople had about Rochester’s and Antoinette's relationship. And while this is happening, Rochester still trying to fit into being the master of the estate. But he kind of loses the dominance in this role because he is in the dark about so much along with the fact people don’t really take him all that seriously.

Somewhere in the book where this was fairly evident was his conversation with Amelie. In this seen, Rochester has finally figured out that something is amiss.This is somewhere he seeks to find answers, but she is kind of toying with him. She gives him indirect, or incomplete answers. I feel like this is more of an amusement for her, to taunt and mess with his head, knowing he won’t act on what she’s saying. Although, not much he can do about because he’s not aware about the secret. And he can’t really punish her if he doesn’t know whether she spoke the truth or not. In this scene, it can be observed that Amelie is in control of the situation. Even with a servant, we can see that Rochester’s supposed dominate role is lacking.

Plunge into The Stranger

Alright, I’m going to lay it down hard. We recently just started The Stranger by Albert Camus and I am loving it. So, my initial reactions to the first chapter of the book are a bit weird so just bear with me. Camus opens up the novel with the line “Maman died today. Or yesterday maybe, I don’t know.” This was both shocking yet disturbingly funny to me. Yes funny, I laughed a little. But what I found a bit humorous was that he wasn’t sure which day his mother had died; just disputing it in his head which one it was: today or yesterday. But after that first bout of giggles, it got a bit disturbing at how unfazed this man was by his Maman’s death. Something else that I found really funny was when he started smoking during his mom’s vigil. Thinking about it, it’s not really funny at all—kind of disrespectful if you will. But he thought “it didn’t matter.” (8). I guess his lack of emotion mixed with a bit of stunned disbelief is why I found it so funny. Or maybe I just have a really bizarre sense of humor, who knows.

Reading further into chapter, I noticed how little Meursault seemed affected by the death of his mother. He was just focused on other mundane things going on around him.  I mean, the death of a parent is a pretty big deal, but our main character here just kind of swept it under the rug. I feel like he treated the vigil and funeral as an obligation. And if he didn’t do it, then he would be looked down upon or judged or something. So basically, to this ordinary fella, his mother’s funeral was kind of like jury duty.

 At this point in the book, I’m not sure if Meursault's detachment is a personality trait or if he just feels very little about this event. But I’m kind of getting the vibe that this may just be the type of person he is. I think that he is aware that his reaction to this death is an abnormal one; that he is supposed to be sad. I thought of this because Camus writes:

“We put the cover on, but I’m supposed to unscrew the casket so you can see her.”

He was moving toward the casket when I stopped him.

He said, “You don’t want to?” I answered, “No.” He was quiet, and I was

embarrassed because I felt I shouldn’t have said that.

Meursault recognizes that what he said might not have been the right thing to say in this situation. But a couple of lines later, the caretaker replies “I understand”. I interpreted this as if the caretaker thought seeing his mother dead and never to return again would make him more upset (if he is upset at all). But I think that Meursault just wanted to get quickly finish the funeral so he could go back to his life before it.

Although, in class we also discussed that his lack of emotion to this may just be a part of his grievance process. It’s only the first chapter, so we have no background idea on how this character reacts emotionally in other situations. I think it may be a possibility that this may be his process of accepting that his mother is dead. For instance, he says:

But he probably will day after tomorrow, when he sees I’m in mourning. For now, it’s almost as if Maman weren’t dead. After the funeral, though, the case will be closed, and everything will have a more official feel to it. (3)

Here, Meursault states that Maman dying hasn’t really sunk in yet. And it seems as if he is expecting himself to mourn later on, after the funeral is done and over with. But what I wonder is if it would really make a difference in his life. In the chapter he talks about how he never really saw his Maman because the trip was too long and he didn’t have time for it. So he was already accustomed to not seeing Maman regularly; how would it change with the knowledge that she is now dead?

Oh Gregor

The Samsa Stamp of Approval

                Throughout The Metamorphosis we have come to know Gregor pretty well. I thought that it wasn’t really that hard to figure him out in comparison to someone like Jake from The Sun Also Rises. As the book opens, you immediately get the sense that Gregor is a skittish little being that thrives on approval from others and appeasing people.

He doesn’t want people to think of him as some big letdown; which is probably why he was so insistent on going to work in the first chapter of the book. Despite how much he detested his job, he was still paranoid about the results his tardiness would bring. Now, Gregor, this dude was completely committed to this horrible job. And you’d think that waking up in a bug body would give him an incentive to stay home but it doesn’t. He doesn’t even think about how others in his work place may react to his new appearance. But rather, he frets over the fact that his boss will be angry and that it will put a damper on his father’s four course breakfast meals.

        Gregor’s need for approval can also be observed in the next scene where he opens the door and his family sees what he has become. In the moments before this happens, the chief clerk is scolding him through the door for being late to work. Now, how angry must your boss be to go all the way to your house just to yell at you? Upon opening the door, Gregor thinks that although the chief clerk if furious with him, he’ll take pity once he see the situation that he is in. And he imagines that his family will be sympathetic and try to help him. Boy oh boy, poor Gregor was wrong. His new form caused his chief clerk, a large burly man, to flee in terror and his father to push him back with a newspaper. One of my favorite lines from the scene is Gregor’s mother’s reaction to this spectacle, which is:

“His mother was not far away in front of him and seemed, at first, quite engrossed in herself, but then she suddenly jumped up with her arms outstretched and her fingers spread shouting: "Help, for pity's sake, Help!" The way she held her head suggested she wanted to see Gregor better, but the unthinking way she was hurrying backwards showed that she did not.”

        The last sentence of the quote emphasizes how Gregor desperately needed someone to sympathize and help him with something he didn’t even understand. By using the word “unthinkable”, Kaftka accentuates that Gregor didn’t think he’d have these negative reactions from his family. In this moment, the entire household just viewed him as a giant bug a nothing more. I felt this scene to be especially important because the Samsa’s family initial reaction influences the way that Gregor goes about doing things further into the book.  

        After the overwhelming response of disgust from his family, Gregor doesn’t want to cause them anymore trouble. His father was furious with the fact that he just had to turn into a giant bug and would no longer be able to work. Gregor’s job, which allowed him to pay off his father’s debt, gained him a certain approval from his father. He was fervently working so that dear old dad, didn’t have to. Making all the family money so that dad could have his kingly breakfasts.  Gregor felt like he was doing something correctly with the job, that its results were important to the family. Therefore, he was important to the family. But he lost that. And now, the only way he could somewhat gain their approval and appease his family was by staying out of their way. The Samsas didn’t need a constant remind of what dreadful thing he had become, so he hid.

        Gregor’s method kind of worked, at least for a while. He was considerate of where and when he hid so that he didn’t make them feel any discomfort. But in part two, Gregor rushes to stand atop the picture of the woman in the fur as his sister and mother attempt rid his room of furniture. The sudden visual of Gregor gave his mother a fright, and caused her to faint. And the situation worsens when his father comes home from work only to throw apples into his back. But whoa! Father Samsa is working now, who would have thought? The one thing Gregor felt he was good (having a job and providing for his family) had been filled by his father. The one thing that guaranteed the family’s appreciation towards Gregor had been stripped from him as a result of his metamorphosis. Gregor still feels the need to feel please his family because that’s just who he is. But what’s a bug to do?

Brett's Manipulative Ways

In response to the comments on my previous post, I do agree that Brett does have feelings towards Jake. We have established that the two could never be in a relationship for several reasons, and due to this, they have settled on being friends instead. But I think that in this so called friendship – Brett manipulates Jake for her own motives and desires. For instance, the scene where she talks with Jake about how she wants Romero. She uses Jake to help her “hook-up” with Romero. At some points in the conversation, Jake didn’t really want her to go through with it, which can be observed when they say:  

“I’m a goner. I’m mad about the Romero boy. I’m in love with him, I think.”

“I wouldn’t be if I were you.”

“I can’t help it. I’ve never been able to help anything.”

“You ought to stop it.”

“How can I stop it? I can’t stop things. Feel that?" (187)

Despite this resistance from Jake, Brett blatantly states that she can't help her ways; and what Brett wants, Brett gets. She makes it seem as if her desire for Romero (and men in general) is some force of nature that is completely out of her control. And she uses this excuse against Jake, sort of insisting that she and Romero must happen and it can only done with his help.  

Brett also talks bad about herself, saying that she’s “never felt such a bitch.” And after this statement, Jake just gives into what she wants him to do. I think Brett called herself a bitch because she knows he doesn’t want her to think erroneously of herself. And by saying that, Jake would do what she asked in order to please her and make her feel better about herself.

So overall, I have a concept that maybe Brett does all the things she does with other men to fill a void that Jake can't fill. And you can see during some vulnerable conversations between Jake and Brett (such as the one above) – Brett has an emotional tether to Jake, but nothing beyond that can happen. So Brett uses these emotions between them to her advantage when it comes to other men and to getting what she wants from him. And in this scene especially, you can see how evident Brett’s manipulation towards Jake can be. 

The Love of Brett and Jake

So far into the book, we established that the relationship between Brett and Jake is fairly intimate. There are several moments scattered throughout the book that shines a light on just how close the pair is. One of the biggest things is that Brett is one of the few people who knows about Jake’s war wound; and she is the only one who knows what his injury actually is — not just the "accident" he tells everyone.  Despite this injury being a cruel misfortune, Jake is actually (more or less) willing to openly “talk” or “joke” around about his injury with Brett. And this is where the conflict between the two rests. It has already been established by their declaration of love on page 34, I feel that Brett isn’t as in love with Jake as she claims to be. For instance, the conversation between Brett and Jake which states —

“When I think of the hell I’ve put chaps through. I’m paying for it for it all now.”

“Don’t talk like a fool” I said.

“Besides, what happened to me is supposed to be funny. I never think about it.”(34)

“It’s funny,” I said. “It’s very funny. And it it’s lots of fun, too, to be in love.”

“Do you think so?” her eyes looked flat again.

“I don’t mean fun in that ways. In a way it’s an enjoyable feeling.”

"No, " she said. “ I think its hell on earth.” (35)

 Reading this part of the book, I seems to me that Brett feels as if Jake’s injury is like a punishment from god. That she has finally found a man that she genuinely cares for, but can’t do anything sexual with him (which seems to be important to her). And she feels like all the wrong she had done to men before has come back to bite her in the butt. Following this, when Jake says that being in love is fun, she clearly doesn’t agree. There is evidence in Jake’s statement that she was thinking about sexual relations when he mentioned it because he quickly corrects himself by saying, “I don’t mean fun in that ways. In a way it’s an enjoyable feeling.” And her negative reaction to it hints to it that she’s not really interested in having a relationship with Jake because of his injury; which supports that Brett isn’t as “jelly-melting” for Jake as she claims to be. 

The Thriving Characters of Mrs. Dalloway

Jumping into the book Mrs. Dalloway, I wasn’t really sure what to expect because I’ve never read one of Virginia Woolf’s works before and also because reading books from the twentieth century didn’t really appeal to me until now. I thought the book would just have a mundane plot line about the life of this Mrs. Dalloway. I thought we’d be focused solely on her, her hopes, dreams, regrets, insecurities etc.  But I was happily surprised to see that the focus didn't remain on her but that the narration shifts from character to character; whose stories end up being intertwined in some way.

On a normal occurrence, books with multiple character narrations don’t really appeal to me. From my own experience, I find that these types of narrations simply add a bit of messiness and confusion to the book. But for some weird, unexplainable reason, I actually really like the way that Woolf veers between characters and especially the transitions she used to do.

One of my favorite character transitions in the book is the first deviation we see from Clarissa, to strangers in the street, to Septimus. I love the way she brought everyone together and used their focus on the fancy car and modernistic sky writer to switch perspectives from character to character. While reading this specific part of the book, I imagine seeing a cloud of smoke (or something, I don’t really know) flowing in and out of the characters. Moving down the line, gathering different point of views until it finally settles into Septimus, in which it remains for a while before flowing away once more. But there are times when you don’t know for sure whose head you’re in, or if it’s the narrator simple telling you how this character feels, which is another aspect of Woolf’s writing style that I really appreciate. How she puts so much reflection, detail and effort into her characters.

In class, we read the article Woolf wrote in which she expresses that characters are the most important part of book. She states that to make the book more enjoyable and intriguing, the characters need to be more realistically human and have to be thoroughly focused on. Their thoughts and emotions have to be expressed deeply so that the reader is able to connect with them. And I feel this is exactly what Woolf has done in Mrs. Dalloway. 

I don’t really think of myself as a 52 year old woman or as a traumatized war veteran, but the way she constructs both Clarissa and Septimus thoughts and feelings sort of resonate with my own.  I’m not really sure that I feel or perceive the world as intensely as Septimus does. Maybe a mini breakdown over a math test or something. But at points, I’m mostly like Clarissa; wondering if I made the right choice in a certain situation. Like what would my day or life look like if I choose C instead of A on that physics quiz. Would the change be so drastic? Sometimes we all can’t help but wonder “what if”, even if we are completely satisfied with the life we are living. At this point in her life, she has been Mrs. Dalloway for so long, that she has sort of forgotten what it feels like to be Clarissa. In Mrs. Dalloway’s case, she lost the fun-loving and carefree spirit she once had when she younger. She had to adjust, “improve” herself to take on the name Dalloway. She had to change things about herself in order to secure others’ opinions about her and her husband. Clarissa recognizes this change but it may be a little too late to act upon it now. You spend a large amount (basically your whole life) being influenced by other’s opinions and thoughts, which intertwine with your own; and this path either helps you discover your true self or turns you into someone else. There are points where we all feel like Clarissa does at some point; you ask yourself the question, who is the real me? But does anyone really know?