1000 Words of Vomit

I am very pleased with our product. In creating the product throughout the planning stages it forced me to review the stories I’ve previously read to the point where I knew them very well, and listening to my teammates’ portions of the podcast helped me understand stories I did not spend as much time analyzing. I listened to it the morning of the exam and it really helped center and focus me and jog my memory in some cases. I think that was a major success, that the product could be used to aid in studying very easily. A possible shortcorming is how specific it is to the thesis we chose but that was part of the prompt. For example I felt like a had a variety of stories I knew certain details about for different possible prompts and some of those coincided with the prompt and some of those stories did not. But the project helped me in learning between 10-12 stories in total about 3 from each author that I felt very confident in talking about, paraphrasing and describing.

Moving on from the oh so light and lovely topic of murder and perhaps even worse, indifference, let’s talk about Fat. Raymond Carver’s short story Fat is the story of a waitress at a dive type of diner, recounting the story of work that day to her friend and ruminating on the events. The event in question?– She was waiting on a fat man, and as Carver puts it “she means fat.” This story is somewhat indirect in what is good and bad in the concrete, but as the reader we get a larger (pardon the pun) concept of what is right and wrong to the characters. Possibly then what Carver values as a virute. The narrator is inarguably shocked by the size of the man she’s serving. She calls him fat 6 total times in the story. He gets called fat more times by other characters. Clearly it is not good to be fat. Fat to the modern person is the last thing you want to be. In 2013, a national survey revealed Americans would rather be poor than fat. (that is to say rather than be debt free and gain 25 pounds people 72% of Americans would keep the amount of debt they are in). There is not question in what the typical view on good and bad is here. However in this carver story it isn't quite as clear. The narrators coworkers are relentless in their attitude towards the narrator and fat man. They make fun of the narrator for serving him with kindness and patience and generally not being an awful person to him. Her coworkers tease that he's her new boyfriend and Rudy will be jealous. Rudy her current boyfriend and a cool at the diner makes fun of her as well. However the narrator does not let the critiques stop her from being a decent person and treating the fat man kindly. The narrator most likely saw some of herself in him. In the text she describes the size of people fairly often and really focused on people's hands. she describes his as thick and creamy in the beginning of the story but later it just changes to a phrase "God those were hands" or something of the sort, almost praising the thickness and large size of his hands. Of course it could be interpreted as negative but in the end of the story when her boyfriend has sex with her "although she does not want to" she describes him as nearly disappearing. So small that she barely feel him. And after that experience she knew her life was going to change. The only logical explanation is that the narrator obsession with size and encounter with the fat man caused her to realize an unhappiness in her life she wishes to take control of. This is perhaps one of the main themes within the story, control. The fat man has no control over his appetite and his only means of compensating is his over apologetic huffing. However he does not stop. This is portrayed in the piece by carver as disgusting and potentially disturbing. This lack of control is not a good thing to have. The narrator also has no control within her life. As a waiter she must serve others, and when propositioned with sex from her boyfriend she says and does nothing, allowing him to continue although as stated in the text she does not want to. This could be argued as a passive choice however is a passive action really an action? Is letting others walk over you indicative of control over yourself and life? No. The answer is no. I hope you all reached that conclusion with me. Though size is an important factor in this story, and ones perception of others size and their own size the true star of bad vs good portrayal is control. Lack of control is an unwanted descriptor. The story's climax is when the story's narrator feels a change coming, it's stated almost passively as if she won't be the cause of that change but logically as she is the only thing in life she can control must be the cause. Taking control of ones situation is a positive and important change to make in ones life.

Writer's usage of landscape celebration and travel in their works. In Dubliners by James Joyce travel is treated as an escape and a means of bettering a life situation rather than a journey for leisure. In Eveline the main character of Eveline is deciding whether to travel to Buenos Aires or stay put in Dublin. Her inner turmoil arises out of feeling as though traveling and leaving would be abandoning her family and doing the wrong thing by them. However, leaving is her chance to leave the poverty and despair of her family situation. In Little Cloud, Little Chandler's old friend of whom he is jealous, Gallaher left where they used to live. Chandler is envious of his life and his ability to not stay tied down as Chandler is. Carver's work The Bath and Small Good Things which are very similar stories, seeming like former is the edited down bare bones version of the latter, start with the preparation for a boy's birthday. This celebration is cut short because the boy is then sent to the hospital. The cake shop owner who the mother spoke to in the beginning of the story becomes a force of tension and anxiety as he keeps calling but never leaving a message, and when he does speak on the call it's vague and ominous. The celebration that's presented at the start of these stories is a stark contrast the what the rest of the story is, the turmoil of a mother and her husband over their son who entered a coma on his birthday. One does not celebrate a death. Ironically both celebrations and hospitalizations bring people together. In Moons of Jupiter the father who is considering and then prepping for surgery is visited by his daughter. It's an interesting way to view a death as a grim celebration. At the end of A Small Good Thing the mother and father joining the baker and break bread. They eat together and have a small gathering, a little celebration if you will. The death of their son has occurred, but in the "celebration" with the baker they can celebrate and appreciate small good things and its an affirmation of their trial. In Carver's A Serious Talk a divorced family attempts to celebrate the holidays and the ex-husband consistently ruins them. He comes on the day after Christmas on and brings up the past Thanksgiving where he ruined the turkey. He angers the wife and in the entire story there is not a single kind word shared between the two.

The character of Lynn is an outsider. Or rather she feels like an outsider or outcast because she does not feel or look like everyone else. I think I want to play on people's preconceived notions of the world we live in witht the story. The goal for this coming draft is to make it clear that Lynn and Patti are different sizes throughout. While placing little hints throughout that Lynn feels abnormal and not the right size and perhaps that the shop Patti works in isn't a store she can shop at. I don't know if I want to maybe state it at all, but just have it be something thats clear by the environmental descriptions. Like the man trying to gain weight at the restaurant. Or all the women in shop waddling or shuffling and the clothing in the store being described as billowing large fabric. I don't know what the tension or conflict should be. If I make it her wanting to gain weight for her wedding she loses the effect of being alone, and abnormal because she found a partner for life. The other possible conflict is Lynn struggling with eating more. Like in They're Not Your Husband where the woman is being forced to starve and in Eveline where the conflict was entirely internal with her decidion to go or stay. It would just mean more focusing on thought processes rather than action or observations. I'm still unsure in the direction I want to take it.

The lit team expert group I’m in is trying to focus on the IB question, “"Good's good and bad's bad."  In the light of this statement, examine the ways in which writers explore moral issues, with close reference to two or three works you have studied.”  We became interested in examining what defines characters as good or bad. Why they become sympathetic. Who the author is trying portray as the protagonist or antagonist. We figured the best way to format this is in the form of a podcast where each author is being presented to support an answer to the question: What defines the “good guy” and the “bad guy”? What defines the villain, the vigalantee, the hero, etc.? With Joyce, we’re using An Encounter with the old man because the narrator character mentions how he doesn’t really care for his friend and the old man is creepy and says horrible things and we want to examine that for this question. Another good Joyce story for this is Little Cloud because with that you can argue how both Gallaher and Chandler are bad people, but Chandler is our “protagonist.” Neither are particularly good people but somehow Chandler ends up being a more sympathetic or empathetic character. Examining his good and bad qualities was very interesting and a large topic of discussion for that story individually so it really fits perfectly with this question. There's also Eveline who's struggle in the story is dealing with her decision to stay or go. If she stays she is doing right by her mother and her family who needs her to take care of them because she has a bad cruel father. If she goes she is doing the wrong thing to her family and it made her feel guilty and bad. But was she a bad person? Or a good person in a troubling situation? It's a topic that I think we'll be able to find a lot to say about.

For the story I cannot decide whether I want to have a reveal at the end be shocking and use the fact that the reader will have all these preconceived notions to my benefit or I try to incorporate details about the society until a larger reveal towards the end. I know I want one character to be an outsider. It'd be a two character story for the most part with interactions from people in the day. I want it to feel very mundane and bleak. The setting would be between a diner (where the thin girl works) and a dress shop (where her large friend works). I want to use the idea of mirrors in the dress shop with her to be part of the revelation. I haven't written much of the story, I started in the middle but I really like this section "Full round figures reflected in every direction she looked. She could hear them clouding her mind, how sad, pity, would you look at the size of that one, how can she stand on those little things, why is she here, nothing’s in her size. She wished she could argue. She wished for her tired feet to allow her to leave. She wished the bell would get people to stop looking at her on the way out." I'm trying to use the bell as a conditioned stimulus attached to the state of feeling out of place and inadequate for the thin character, because in psych we learned about that. And a bell ringing in your ear is just a painful uncomfortable experience to begin with.

I really liked Harrison Bergeron and two of the stories we had to read for the Vonnegut group – Welcome to the Monkey House and Epicac. The alternate societies/ realities are really interesting. Being so extreme about an aspect of society to make everyone equal or censor human expression I think is very effective in getting the reader to analyze and examine what those ideas on a small scale can lead to and how they are harmful. I disagree with what certain members of the class said about his expositions or treating of the societies. He spends a great deal explaining them. They are treated as normal by the characters, but they are not passed over/ not focused on like someone in class suggested. Harrison Bergeron and Welcome to the Monkey House have paragraphs explaining the societies in the very beginning of the story. What I think is most interesting is how the writer achieves doing that, and having characters that treat these extremist worlds so normally. I really like the way in which Carver stories are told, it's very similar to Kitchen Sink drama where things are very real and natural, almost like a "slice of life" just a very grim slice of life. I know I want to write something in the style of Carver, or rather just very influenced from his style, thinking I could possibly emulate it is absurd, but I wonder if it could be possible to create a world like one in Vonnegut, where everything is not what the reader would be accustomed to, and give the description and exposition subtely/ inconspicuously and in a very mundane bleak manner. I don't know. I want to play around with it.

The short stories from Carver that I like the most are Fat and They're Not Your Husband. The similarities between them are interesting and I've really no idea why I like them so much. Fat has the waitress telling the story of a very obese customer to her friend Rita and then the revelation she has in her mind when thinking about that very fat man after being with her partner Rudy. In They're Not Your Husband Doreen's husband visits her at work (a diner/ cafe) and he overhears some men comment on the size of her ass and becomes embarrassed by his wife's size (since she is an object/product) and forces her to lose weight. It's so interesting to me that when he achieves his goal no one else cares and that's upsetting to him. but his rational to his wife about his actions is "They're not Your Husband I'm your husband". It's a really nice juxtoposition/ duality that gives you that dissatisfaction and unsatisfied feeling I've come to know and love from Carver stories. Meanwhile the wife seems unhappy with him but still listens to everything he says. Everything about the story is very bleak and grim without being dystopian and downright dark like Vonnegut's works. I really like the mundane-ness of his style because it makes these situations feel more possible and real because they are treated as dull. For Fat everything felt gross and slimy and disgusting simply because the narrator was displeased with her life and her experiences. She needed and wanted a change, it's the last line of the story actually. Everyone's dissatisfaction comes from their lives and quality of their relationships and perception of themselves compared to others. People may be educated and have fairly decent jobs but they're still a part of Carver's working class desperation. This is because of their feelings of being unhappy that come from within or from relationships. Doreen and her husband are unhappy. She's been starved by him. He treats her as property and barely acts like a husband truly should, until he made it impossible for her to do the things at home she typically would because she has to spend a lot of time in bed resting or asleep. The narrator in Fat is incredibly unhappy with her life, wanting it to change because of an encounter with a severely overweight character. Her relationship with her coworker Rudy is purely physical and not one she seems invested in or happy in. Weight and relationship dissatisfaction are major motifs in these stories and I'm very attracted to the way Carver wrote them. Mundane, Bleak, almost drab. I wanted to explore these elements when writing a short story. I haven't written a story or anything creative in a very long time so I feel like I need to give myself goals and a guideline in order to get started or even just "create" anything.

The Bath and A Small, Good Thing. The two stories are the same story, just told with different amount of detail. The Bath reminded me Hemingway because it had the barest amount of detail, people were only what they needed to be, a mother, a wife, a husband, a birthday boy, a doctor, no names necessary. This was really highlighted in the line in the beginning of the story during the interaction at the bakery “No pleasantries, just this small exchange, the barest information, nothing that was not necessary.” The Bath presents the story from an onloooker perspective, someone who hasn’t any inside knowledge. The end of the Bath to me seemed like it was from the baker, but perhaps it was from the hospital saying Scotty died. I liked the ambiguity in that. A Small Good Thing expands the story, there are details, certain characters opinions and extra information that makes the story a lot clearer and easier to follow. It also seems to change the part about Nelson in The Bath and Nelson has become Franklin and the story continues much further beyond that. The call about Scotty that is ambiguous in the Bath is definitely from the baker in A Small Good Thing. We learn more about Franklin and learn that Scotty dies. The story continues even more and the parents go to the bakery and confront him about how he was cruel, and he becomes saddened by the news and apologizes for what he’s done, explaining that he’s forgotten how to act. He offers them bread and kindness and a distraction. 

The Harrison Bergeron short film was very moving to me. Watching the ballerinas highlighted the state of mediocrity and the crushing of artistic beauty, excellence and innovation. It was so painful to hear Hazel comment on the pretty ballerina dance when after seeing it, I know it was clumsy and improper but would have been so much better if it were not for the handicaps. Why can’t the handicaps be excused just for the sake of entertainment and art? Because that upsets those of average intelligence, and average skill. But when everyone is the same and completely equal, everyone is equally mediocre. If the society boosted people to be at an equal higher level of everything the society would seem much less depressing, but they have to bring down people, not help people improve and exceed.  That’s what happens in communist totalitarian regimes, everyone is equally poor and equally uneducated, and equally suffering. (Except for those in the government). The only case where someone was improved was when the anchor’s stutter was removed, but Hazel couldn’t recognize how bad it was, she thought he should get a raise, just because he tried. What really moved me about the short film version was the audience agape at what uncensored and interrupted art looks like. A ballerina dancing properly and a beautiful cello without the rest of the subpar orchestra. Then switching the end to have George unable to remember that he saw his extremely extraordinary son killed by the leader of their equal nation, where everyone should be equally happy. Clearly, those with the handicaps are not. It frustrates me that innovation and brilliance will be stunted to ease those of lesser ability. Equality in attitudes towards people should not mean that people must be equal in all capacities. It just really frustrates me, because the road to hell is always paved with good intentions, but the people who went down that road will excuse their state of hell because of the good intentions.

Joyce seems to play with the idea of control, escape, choice, and paralysis. It's been very prominent in Eveline and An Encounter. Also in both is this possiblity to change your life- in Eveline it's a huge decision to leave the life she knows and all the certainties that come with it, for the chance of a wonderful life far from anyone else she knows with Frank in Buenos Aires. And while it seems like an exciting opportunity when the moment finally comes she is paralyzed and the action is violent. She is seized and unwilling. The perceived loss outweighs the potential gain. In An Encounter the boys change up their daily routine and meet a character of dubious morals and sanity. It makes you wonder if you really should stay to the life you know just for the safety of it. Not all experiences are good ones.

Also when reveiwing for the IBOCaD I feel like I suddenly became aware of all the slight mentions of religion in Kunit’z work and how he doesn’t seem to fully preach and love and value a certain religion or fully denounce it. Like it closes with the question “Who can understand the ways/ of the Great Worm in the Sky?”.  This questions forces the reader to draw a parallel between hornworms and humans, seeing as each have a being of similar likeness in sky (or heavens) as a God. From polytheistic religions such as Greek Mythology to “modern” monotheistic religions like Christianity, gods have often resided in a world above human’s corporeal one. They are somewhere in the sky or heavens. The Great Worm is most aligned with the Abrahamic God– the singular God of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, in which case any reference to Him is capitalized. This is the conclusion drawn from “Great Worm” and even “Sky” being capitalized in the poem. It is also notable that the phrase “Great Hornworm in the Sky” is almost laughable. It is absurd and preposterous to humans that a hornworm is the shape of the creator of all life. However, when the creator is more human, it is a much more rational and palatable belief. Another direct religious reference in the poem is the “angel of death/ or of mercy, which the hornworm addresses the human with the red clippers, as having the possibility to be. The interesting choice and imagery of the angel of death or of mercy is the almost oxymoronic element of an angel of death. Mercy is commonly taught in Abrahamic religions; God grants mercy and angels are benign chosen ones. However, in his phrasing Kunitz highlights the angel of death, because that is surely the more likely of the two for the man with the clippers to be. The poem as whole is a hornworm’s reflection of its own life. His tone, as suggested in the titular “lamentation,” reads as frustrated and defeated. The hornworm has no control over its life. It is acted upon. It mentions how its “dearest faith” is that the cruelty and unkindness of the world is but a trial. This is very similar to the common preaching, “the Lord only gives of what we can handle” or the phrase “trial of faith.” This conflicts the philosophy that if you work hard and live a good, honest life you will be rewarded. The hornworm clearly has these same frustrations saying, “It is not so:”  referring to the hopes for a kind world, and that it was simply a trial; it continues, “there may be nectar/ in those cups, but not for me./ All day, all night, I carry on my back/ embedded in my flesh…” going on to describe what has been leaving an painful impression on the its back. The hornworm has its fate, that it cannot control itself. The lack of nectar was predetermined by an outside force. All the hornworm could do was its arduous job day and night, and hope it would provide itself something better in the future. Predetermination, from a higher controlling being, is a Calvinist idea. (Calvinism is a branch of Protestant Christianity, directly contending with Catholicism’s ideals at the time. All of it pulled together neither shows admiration for religion or distaste. And it’s hard to understand or figure out exactly what his doctrine is. Doesn’t mean I wouldn’t like to try.

Okay time for even more kunitz love (just nonstop). Lets talk about the Round, starting with its structure, two stanza's, one twenty six lines long the other four lines, and the title being named the Round is analogous of the first stanza's supposed repetition and the prominent uses of repetition throughout the poem. Also at around line thirteen in the first stanza, the tone completely changes. So lets start with the first half of the of the first stanza. This half is chock full of more positive imagery, denoting happiness and beauty, almost awe inspiring. However, most of the imagery used can also be seen as having negative hurtful aspect to it, "Blue spiked" "roses". At this point i would like to note the lines that mark a turning point in this poem lines eleven and twelve "flushed with their brandy./ A curious gladness shook me." It changes the entire tone of the previous lines, making the happiness seem like a drunk almost euphoric feeling, eliminating its genuine nature. Why else would a "gladness" shake or scare a man? The pome the falls into a lot of dank and dark imagery describing a disgusting scene of him at his desk, reading the poem he had just written, being the one the reader is reading. This transition and then repetition of the stanza talks about the anxiety of moving into the outside world. The author finds himself in the cycle of being terrified of a fake world and being disgusted by his current world. Being to scared to venture out, but feeling almost suffocated about being in the same place. This theme is really brought home with the final stanza "I can scarcely wait till tomorrow/ when a new life begins for me,/ as it does each day,/ as it does each day." It shows exhaustion in his words, being tired of the next day to come, and then the final repetition of the last line showing what's left of his thoughts

The Hamlet clips we watched in class were really interesting to see. The first seemed to just try to set everything accurately in the period in which the play originally was written. But it didn't read very well, the wealth of HAmlet's family didn't read as the castle looked very bare bones, and the dialogue wasn't used quite as much as it could have, which in my opinion lent itself to more confusion. One of the other versions, the one with David Tennant, , (even though you reffered to it as the director's to be kind to him I believe) was set in a more contemporary time. The fight was a fencing match, security cameras were capturing the family's every move and a number of 'guards' stood in the back, dressed in all black observing and not doing anything as the royal family tore itself apart. There are a few things I really like about this version. The first, is that the language nearly never stops, they are constantly using the classical language and though some may feel that it's weird or odd considering hwo they have modernized the setting, I find that it helps justify it and makes everything clearer. Another thing I love about this version is the portrayal of Gertrude, she seems like less of a pawn that Claudius can use and like more of her own person. It was really interesting to see how the different Gertrude's were played but I am pretty sure that I prefer a knowledgable Gertrude than one who is surrounded by all this death and completely unaware. I also believe that the first is just more realistic to how a Queen really would behave considering the state of her kingdom and her personal affairs. Then, I really love how Hamlet's death is treated. It is treated very seriously and gravely, which personally I think is the way his death should be treated. Horatio was bent on the ground in agonizing pain holding him and crying and the film ends with Horatios speech containing the famous line "goodnight my sweet prince." There was something very human about ending the play/ movie in that manner. When you end after the invasion, it makes Hamlet's death seem less important and tragic. Shakespeare tries to wrap every plot and subplot up neatly in the last 10 mimuntes of the play, in the process ignoring how much more impactfule really taking the time process and deal with the death of Hamlet would have been. This version doesn't contain much of the political element of the play at the end (they kinda cut it entirely) but something about the direction of the movie evokes a dark political turmoil in the feelings. Perhaps it's the security cameras or all the extras closely related to the sleek modern Sir Patrick Stewart as King at some private event it seemed the last seen was taking place, but not upset when their King and Queen and prince all die before them. It's very cold.

Angela and I were looking at My tattoo by Doty for our other IB oral commentary poem. One of the ideas about tattoos that I just bring with me is that people either do them spur of the moment, like completely on whim, or they really diligently think about something they want to have on/with them forever. It’s such a conscious choice and decision, and they try to make it so meaningful, and nothing will persuade them. And then Doty in his poem is somewhere in between. He goes wanting the sacred heart, but then enters and changes his mind, and wavers constantly until deciding solidly on something there, something that means something to him, but was more impulsive than his original “well-though out” tattoo plan. we just foind that interesting and funny considering how in the poem all his thoughts are so clearly worried about marking the skin qith something forever. And then now having this symbol on his body, he'll never be naked again. One part of him will always be covered, and you can't see the natural skin. That's a huge commitment. One I'm unsure he really made decisively to bear a mark that expressed him, or if it was just to get the tattoo.