Yellow Wallpaper

Invisible Man

2005-04-18T11:22:00.000-07:00

The wonderful part about Invisible Man is that it has current applications even though it is decades old. The most prevalent issue in the novel is the race issue. Underlying issues include self-identity, group-identity, group membership, and the forming of one ideology between many individuals. The narrator explains his relationship to #1 his "Brotherhood", then his race within and out of the brotherhood, and his class and status in and again out of the brotherhood (encluding the way he is used and abused in his brotherhood).

The overwhelming concept the brotherhood taught about was "history", identity (or lack there of), and the idea of a greater good and common goal. The problem with their idea of history is that they use the word mysteriously in meaning they are currently shaping "todays history", with the objective of changing the future. This meaning allows us to re-examine the way we act and live, as we all do, pertaining to the future. His identity is clearly very different from the beginging than compared to the end, and the idea that most of his identity is so changed that his "past identity", or who he is, is no longer clear to him. Is he black? Is he a black brother leader? Is he being used by the brotherhood and therefore not a leader but "just a pupet in a play"(Bob Dylan)? Why is his identity changed when he joins? What is the Common goal and how does the narrators goals fit in to the grand scheme of the brotherhood?

To read into the many suggestions brought up by Ellison we have to read in to the differences of the brotherhood. The Harlem branch of the Brotherhood is the narrators main concentration, mostly because he is black. When his fellow black brothers question his group identity saying that he is out to solve his personal ideas of right and wrong. Here we see a clash of not only his own race, but taking it a step further and proclaiming if he is so concerned about "his Harlem", then he is ruining the big picture for the brotherhood. When Brother Clifton is killed the brotherhood changes its mind on the importance of the black community, they give up on the blacks, but the narrator cannot simply do this, and so he becomes outcast like the Harlem district.

The basic structures on group and ethnic identity in the book hold the same as they would today. In fact, much of the preaching that the narrator does is blind, so we are able to impose our own views of what is going on. At first we get a true sense that the brotherhood is blind to race and identity, but we find that that is not the case. The brotherhood is simply suppressing self-identities and the overwhelming race issues of the times. Although many race issues have been seemingly dissolved through the Civil Rights Movement and Affirmative Action it is merely a sign that we need these things to dissolve the remaining biggitry, which is even now still prevalant where ever there is differences. I feel that race still is very much an issue of controvercy and it is constantly a topic in the media thanks to our racist athletes and comedian ect...

Blood Wedding

2005-02-15T13:58:00.000-08:00

The History of Blood Wedding is that it was written in Spain around the 1930's and begins with a very small town, and studies the relationships of townspersons, when two families come together in a wedding. The story is dotted with presidential of events, by setting up hints, including the title of the play.

One of the major themes we visited in class was the application of subjectivity to the main characters. We determined that much of what the bride and groom did were in order to fit into their respective "jobs/lots in life". While we debated Leonardo's' true subjectivity. I determined that the groom acted as he was supposed to, when he finally chased his bride and her lover Leo. The bride choose marriage because it was expected at her age, and even Leonardo had a family and kids filling in his roles in life. The groom was chasing after his "fate", which in this story finally beating his family rivals. He follows the path of the family rivalry, and as promised with the presidential of his father and brothers deaths, he dies by the hands of Leonardo, but unlike his father and brother he finally kills his rival though.

The story tells a story that will not be applicable for a long time because it takes place prior to the feminist movement and much of the land, money, and marital status' have and will change to not be as important as they once were. The story is outdated.

The Awakening by Kate Chopin

2005-02-01T10:41:00.000-08:00

The Awakening is a short novel that embodied the life of a young woman who never found her nitch in life. Her very existance was one of wondermant and let downs which surmounted to end her life much before her time.

Edna never knew what she wanted in life, but she knew she did not have it. Her husband Leonce Pontlier was some type of esteemed stock broker who spent much of his time away from home to provide the living for Edna and their two sons. Because he was away so much and provided mearly money to Edna she began to doubt that money and security was all that she needed in life, so she began to search for more, she wondered what her lot in life would be. Her married life had bored her so she sought a romance with Robert for most of the novel but she found no matter what man she would cling to, she did not want to be some mans possesion, so she had lost her will to love. Her other searches for meaning in her life went no where. The author of the novel lets us know Edna is not keen on motherhood and that in fact she never wanted kids (Pg.18). She tried having Al romance her but to no avail. She loved music and she enjoyed to paint but neither of those enterprises seemed to give her the meaning or being that she needed to enjoy her life. Throughout a dramatic series of events she slowly creeped out of her marriage, out of her motherhood and duties, away from her intimate relations with boyfreinds, and out of her civil duties; and she eventually have given up the search for meaning gave her soal to the ocean.

The predominant theme that prevails over any other is the idea of the sea being a metaphore for the life that she was searching for. Throughout the book the sea was mentioned in great detail and with descriptive langauge in order to make the reader aware of the seas livlieness and its being alive or part of Ednas life search.

Yellow Wallpaper

2005-02-01T10:26:00.000-08:00

The Yellow Wallpaper was an interesting story which was supposed to be a model to stop the treatment of psychological diseases by means of not allowing the subject to do tedious activities.

The short story is supposed to be a journal of a young woman who is persecuted by her husband, a doctor, who beleived she was just physically sick, while in fact she was crazy. The story is written from the first person perspective of the young girl looking into herself and observing her newly rented home and she becomes obsessed with visions in her wallpaper. The story took place in the late 18 or early 1900's. This young woman seemed from the begining to suffer from "nervousness", as she and her husband described, but it was more obious to me that she suffered from some mental defect which worsened as she wrote in her journal. Her husband didn't like her writing because he and another doctor beleived it to have ill effects upon her. As the story rolled on we found that the girl was having trouble sleeping at night because she was imagining people in the wallpaper. Ultimately, the woman in the wallpaper escaped and could be veiwed by the author throughout their house and out among their garden.

In the finally of the story the girl has gone completely mad, she has pulled of the wallpaper and is stumbling around the room in circles, over her passed out husband. With the ending we are supposed to think that all her treatments and health syrums are not the problem, her problem was severe paranoia and moderate depression due to lonliness. The story unfolde very quickly and with quite a bit of ranting and raving from the author. Not my favorite short story.