Amanda Greenwood's Blog

In Ibsen's "A Dolls House", the final act ends with Nora finally learning the truth behind her marriage, and leaving her husband and family behind. Nora makes many attempts to try and see some leniency or love from her husband but he continually lets her down saying a mans honor is more important than his love for a woman. Nora eventually gets fed up with her husbands actions and words (treating her more as a possession and offering unattainable goals to save the marriage) Nora finally gains a feeling of independence and leaves her husband, slamming the door behind her. This reminded me of the "Take me or Leave me" scene from rent, where Maureen and Joanne get into an argument about Joanne's jealousy problem, and Maureen's flirting problem. It's obvious that Joanne is more serious about the relationship than Maureen, and when they end things at the end of the scene, it's concluded that Joanne needs to find out how to be independent of Maureen, and Maureen needs to learn how to be satisfied with one serious relationship, and stop using her lovers as playthings. Also, at the end of the song both of them storm off, much like Nora stormed off in a fit of independence, after her argument with her husband. What I find interesting about both stories of breakup is that in neither of them no one cries at the end. In personal experiences breakups are typically saddening, and these were even more serious relationships ended, suddenly (an 8 year marriage and an engagement). This shows how the breakups will have a positive impact on those involved.

In Shakespeare's Hamlet, Act 3 scene 1, the "get thee to a nunnery" scene is one in which hamlet is telling his previous love that her beauty will outweigh her goodness and she must go to a nunnery. If she does not he threatens her by saying any marriage she gets into, will fall apart because her husbands will know she will cheat on them. This is very sexist and offensive for Hamlet to say. While its known that Hamlet is sexist and holds double standards for women throughout the play, is it due to his decaying sanity, or because of other actions, such of that of his parents. Ophelia tells the audience that he used to be kind, and have sweet words but now he is sour, which makes me believe that it is more so the first of the two scenarios. The picture I have chosen shows a woman's leg, and as the length of her leg goes down the words change staring off with "asking for it" to "old fashioned". This is supposed to represent dress lengths, and shows how societies standards for how a women dresses will never be positive no matter what she wears, wether it be longer or shorter dress length, showing her shoulders or keeping them hidden, etc. I believe that Ophelia is in the same situation as women today. If she goes to the nunnery as Hamlet says, she is being a prude and will never have a family, but if she marries, she will be unhappy, and if she dates many men she'll be considered a slut. Through this we can see that societies standards for women, although have improved slightly from Shakespeare's time, still isn't as equal as men's. Why isn't hamlet or any of the men in the play told to go to a monastery? Why is it ok for men to be premiscuous but not women?

*disclaimer* this isn't for an assignment just thought you'd find this funny.

“The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson I found to have striking resemblance to The Hunger Games by Susan Collins. Both stories take place in a dystopian society in which every year names are drawn so that those people may be called to their death. I found even more resemblance in the way that the author describes the uneasiness within the crowd of people waiting to have their names drawn, as well as the way that families stood together, taking care of each other. Although in the Hunger Games the dystopian society is taken further, as it is ruled by a totalitarian government, it seems although there is no head of the town “The Lottery” describes, tradition itself may be the actual leader. In both stories the younger generation wants to be the one to end it while younger children simply follow and do as they are told because they haven't seen the real effects of what the lottery causes. The two stories differ in the ways of how their responses to the lotteries take their stories. In “The Lottery” the townsfolk fail to see the evil in their actions, and its obvious that they will continue tradition as always. The Hunger Games seems like that is also what will happen until a small act of rebellion on the television gets blown out of proportion and leads to a rebellion to overtake the dictator. There are also minor details of the story that differ, such as the fact that in the Hunger Games if you are selected there is a slight chance you may survive, also that only children 12-18 are selected in the Hunger games, while in “The Lottery” whole families are selected and then someone is chosen from that family.

The picture above, I chose to show the comparison of the importance of landscape to the story “To Build a Fire”. In the picture, the landscape takes up much more physical space, and the man and the dog are pushed to the side of the photo. In photography we call the center of attention the “subject” and the other aspects the “details”. In this photo, although most photographers, especially traditional ones, wouldn't dare to ever call the background a detail, never the less the subject, but I feel that that is true in this case. The setting plays such a large role in the story, as well as the picture, that it must be the center of attention. While the man and the dog also add to the picture, their effects, much like their effects on the world, are meaningless in comparison to the bigger picture. If the picture was more zoomed out, their effect would be even more insignificant and the settings would increase even more. This then goes back to the symbolism of the dog leaving the narrator and going back to camp when the narrator died. 

In “The Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar Allen Poe, Poe uses an unreliable narrator to tell the story. We can see that the narrator is an unreliable one due to the fact that he admits to having a disease “...but why will you say that I am mad? The disease had sharpened my senses-not destroyed-not dulled them.... I heard all the things in the heaven and in the earth. I heard many things in hell.” In addition the narrator has delusions that his neighbor has an “evil eye” and wants to, and proceeds to sneak into his house every night at midnight to get rid of the evil eye, and proceeds to kill the old man. He also hears sounds others cannot hear, such as the heart beat of the old man, even after he has died. While the narrator admits he has a disease, he doesn't believe that he is crazy. To defend himself the narrator states that “You fancy me mad. Madmen know nothing. But you should have seen me. You should have seen how wisely I proceeded-with what caution-with what foresight-with what dissimulation I went to work!” The narrator also has a tendency to repeat words, if not due to his disease, for dramatic effect, such as “open-wide,wide open” and “hark! louder! louder! louder! louder! louder!-” I suspect through my knowledge of psychology that the narrator suffers from schizophrenia, and possibly other diseases. Typically people with schizophrenia aren't harmful, albeit for themselves sometimes. This was seen in the film “A Beautiful Mind”, where the main character John Nash has schizophrenia, and almost drowns his child, due to his delusions and hallucinations that there was another person in the room taking care of the baby in the bath tub. In the end the narrator descends into a sort of an attack where his hallucinations become so severe that he begins to have the delusion the policemen know about what he has done and are pretending not to because they think it’s amusing to see him suffer. The narrator then confesses to the policemen that he has done the crime. I find this interesting because it is possible that the “sane” portion of the narrator may had been using this opportunity to try and get help, if he wasn't given the death penalty for killing the old man. The context in which the time period this story was written then becomes important, because in the mid- 17th century mental health practices were not near what they are today and it is possible you would have to do something truly insane to become noticed, and perhaps even too scared to get help. Possibly, because treatment would be worse than being sick.

Everything is free.

“Yertle the turtle” is a classic tale created by Dr. Seuss. Many kids of this generation know him for his children’s books filled with bright pictures and his always rhyming words, however a lesser known fact is that he also published many political cartoons in newspapers. These cartoons where often made as parodies to political strife and even of Hitler’s rise to power. “Yertle the turtle” is quite similar to his cartoons, it takes a power hungry ruler who keeps wanting more and more while literally stepping on all of his subordinates and puts it into a context which young children can understand. In other words, “Yertle the Turtle” is an allegory of how a corrupt ruler can be destroyed if he forgets to acknowledge his subordinates. The video that I have chosen is the red hot chili peppers singing the poem “Yertle the Turtle” with guitars and drums providing background music. This to me is a great tribute to Dr. Seuss’s original poem because the original poem was an allegory and any well-made allegory is supposed to be able to be relatable across time periods or situations. The Red Hot Chili Peppers’ tribute shows that although the poem was written many years ago the message of the poem still rings clear and that there are still these sorts of problems in the modern day. I would even go so far as to say that we even have these problems today, people still face hardships from bad employers, corrupt politicians or even radical groups who forget that their power stems from the power that the people give them and without the support of the people then they might as well be kings of the mud.

The poem starts out with the lines “The piercing chill I feel:” This line could mean many things, from how he may feel an actual chilling sensation as his foot hits the comb of his dead wife, or this can mean more of an emotional pain which he may feel once he realizes what he stepped on and who it belonged to. Either way this shows a strong and vivid sense of imagery for in either scenario you could imagine how it may cause a deep and piercing chill although the chill would be different in each scenario. If the chill simply came from him stepping on the comb then the sense of a chill would come up through the leg and stop as it reaches the spine, however if it came after he noticed what it was and who’s it was then it would start at his shoulders and travel down his spine until it envelops around his body. Although it is also highly likely that he had felt both chills of stepping on the comb and realizing who’s comb it was. The next line of the poem is “my dead wife’s comb, in our bed room,” this is what provides us with the detail that it was his dead wife’s comb as well as gives us the setting as to where he is in his house witch in its self gives more imagery as to how the man is feeling after stepping on his dead wife’s comb. The fact that he is in his bed room increases the idea that he is in emotional pain for he is not only reminded by the comb but he is also reminded for this was probably the bead room where he and his wife slept. The last line of the poem is “under my heel . . .” which means he most likely broke the comb because the heel of a foot holds the most pressure meaning that he has even furthered his emotional pain for he broke one of the last remaining parts of his dead wife.

The only thing that let me know you were once here was the moist ground form my tears, the dried dead cherry blossoms we collected, the cinders from all of the unsent letters witch I burned and the memories of the fairies dancing, dancing their beautiful dance for although you are away the fairies will continue their beautiful dance.

#PowerCanBeFatal #Don’tBeStupid