Pigalle and Barbie

Once upon a time, my parents and I traveled to Paris France over the summer.  During our trip we strolled across an infamous district known as Pigalle.  While we were crossing the area, I saw the strangest, dirtiest objects in the world: naked female dolls, condoms, pornographic DVDs, extremely skimpy clothing, and even phallic slippers that were on display in sex shops.  (Pigalle is known for prostitution, sex shops, strip clubs, etc.)  The reason why I mention Pigalle is that Emily Prager's rhetoric in "Our Barbies, Ourselves"  reminded me of what I saw in Pigalle.  Even Prager's reference to how Barbie's "breasts are so out of proportion to the rest of her body" reminded me of the toys in Pigalle that were probably used for masturbation (Prager 353).  Anyways, Prager's use of her sexual references to Barbie's figure is meant to convey how women should not be treated as sex toys.  Personally, I do agree with Prager in how everyone should not perceive women as mere sex dolls; however, I do not think that Prager is trying to say that these portrayals should be illegal everywhere. She especially does not think that forcing women to cover themselves is a sufficient solution to prevent these portrayals.  She implies this when she says "Before Barbie, American dolls...represented the kind of girls who looked perfect in jodhpurs" (Prager 354).  In class, Ms. Valentino showed us a picture of one of these "American dolls", which was virtually covered in clothing.  We discussed how these "dolls" may represent how women in the past were taught not only to be an ideal wife and mother, but also to hide their physical characteristics from men.  Therefore, Prager's reference to the "dolls" symbolizes how she is also against extremely conservative views of women.  However, Prager barely makes any mention of pornography or prostitution.  She only refers to porn by saying "movies and videos are still filled with topless women" (Prager 355).  Unfortunately, I think this virtual neglect of mentioning porn may cause someone to interpret the article to say that porn should be illegal today.  I do not think that pornography should be banned for the reason of preventing Jesus from being dismayed.  I also do not think that people who make videos of humans making love to pink elephants should be punished.  But the thought of anyone interpreting these views against porn from Prager's essay frightens me very much.

Another Personal Analysis of Maus

In last week's post, I analyzed page 41 of the second volume of Maus and elaborated on the reason Spiegelman portrays Jews as mice.  In this post, I would like to analyze the definition of race throughout Maus.  I want to write about race because we had an interesting discussion on the topic the day before this post was made.  

I would like to start with page 51 in volume I of Maus (it is displayed at the top of the post).  The page features a close-up image of an aggressive Nazi soldier in the upper right-hand corner.  The Nazi is portrayed as a monstrous cat with sharp, threatening fangs.  Meanwhile, the Jewish soldiers are seen as timid mice who are afraid to "[say] a word" to the Nazi soldier (Spigelman 51).  These features on the page most likely represent the ethnic stereotypes many Jews and Germans had against each other during World War II.  The Jews were probably afraid of many Germans as if the Germans were monsters that they should avoid.  On the other hand, some Germans may have viewed the Jews as a group of animals that are inferior to the German race.  (I am aware that there were also some Germans that think Jews are a threat that should be eliminated.  However, this perception is not clearly shown in page 51).

Page 51 of Maus I only represents one example of how race is defined in Nzai society.  In fact, Spigelman presents many other examples of the perceptions of race throughout his entire graphic novel.  Since the definition of race can depend on a society (as we had discussed before), Spigelman tries to reflect on his own struggles defining race in Maus.  Spigelman best demonstrates this in page 11 of Maus II.  The page shows Artie trying to decide "What kind of animal" his wife should be (Spigelman 11).  He is struggling with his decision because while Francoise is French, she had converted her religion to Judaism.  This section most likely shows how hard it is for someone to create a perfect definition of race.

My personal analysis of "Maus"

WARNING!: There may be some spoilers of Maus.  I suggest you should read both volumes first before reading this blog.

The Holocaust is considered to be one of the most horrific events in history.  In fact, the event was so horrific, that it is very hard to make art portraying the Holocaust.  Maus is an example of a comic book that portrays the Holocaust very powerfully.  Because of its powerful portrayal, Maus has become one of my favorite comic books.  I will not make this blog merely about what I liked about the graphic novel.  Instead, I will analyze two different components I noticed in the book.  (I am only analyzing two details because I do not have any time to examine everything in Maus.)

I would like to first mention a scene at the beginning of Chapter 2 of the second volume.  In this section, Spiegelman (as a human wearing a mouse mask) states how "the first part of MAUS...was a critical and commercial success", yet he has "been feeling depressed" (Spiegelman 41).  Spiegelman even creates a large picture of himself sitting on top of dead Jews.  (This image is shown below under the paragraph).  Spiegelman includes this section in the graphic novel because he notices how he is getting praise for his story.  However, he actually feels guilt for receiving the credit because he did not create the story of Maus.  He knows the story is a true tale of his father's experience in the Holocaust.  He knows that if the Holocaust never happened, he would've never made Maus.  In other words, Spiegelman feels as if he is making a profit from the people who have died in the Holocaust.  He emphasizes this in page 42 of Maus II when he gets interviewed by various people.  It is clearly shown in his responses, such as "I-I never thought of reducing it to a message" (Spiegelman 42), that he does not want to receive all of the credit for his father's story.

Another detail I would like to refer to is why Spiegelman portrays Jews as mice.  I know that in class, we have already discussed the reasons.  We deduced that Spiegelman Portrays Jews as mice and Nazis as cats because cats prey on mice.  Therefore, most of us agreed that Spiegelman wanted to symbolize how the Nazis "preyed" on the Jews.  I would actually like to point out another possible reason for the symbolism of mice.  If you look at page 109 of Volume 1, you see 3 frames revealing a close-up of Tosha's facial expressions.  (I know the image below says page 111 and is in a foreign language, but the section is really in page 109 in our English copy of Maus).  While there is some noticeable change in her facial expressions among the panels, each expression still looks very similar to each other.  So if Spiegelman were to only use pictures in Maus, then many readers would not feel any emotion from the story. In fact, these similar facial expressions are used in every single Jewish character in the book.  Also, the faces of the characters drawn as mice were so similarly, that I had a hard time distinguishing between these characters at various parts of the comic book.  Spiegelman uses the face of a mouse for some of his characters because there aren't many facial expression to be made with a mouse's face.  Spiegelman could have portrayed the Jews as humans and add in the facial expressions (as he did with the brief comic known as "Prisoner on the Hell Planet").  But he instead uses a mouse's face simply because he couldn't find a way to demonstrate how it felt to be in the Holocaust.  He could not find this way because he didn't witness the Holocaust, his father did.  So he portrays Jews as mice to not only symbolize how they were hunted by the Nazis, but also to demonstrate that people would never truly know the horrors of the Holocaust (unless they witnessed it themselves).

My Self-centered self (and Wallace's speech)

As I was reading "This is Water" by David Foster Wallace, I found myself making connections to the"natural, basic self-centeredness" (Wallace 233).  I had realized how I am a self-centered person myself.  As a result, I will attempt make this blog about how Wallace establishes these connections of self-centeredness (and occasionally write about how I am self-centered).

Wallace perhaps establishes the connections of "self-centeredness" by his use of hypothetical situations.  He uses examples such as "let's say it's an average day...and at the end of the day you're tired, and you're stressed out" (Wallace 234), and "the checkout line is incredibly long" (Wallace 235).  These examples help the audience make connections to their own lives.  Even I was reminded of how I had to wait in line to buy lunch in school.  I especially have selfish thoughts when I am starving, thinking only about getting the food and wishing all the people standing in front of me would get out of my way.  I had never realized that selfish thoughts as these part of a "natural, hard-wired default-setting" (Wallace 233) until I read "This is Water".

Wallace also suggests that we should be "able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them, over and over, in myriad petty little unsexy ways, every day" (Wallace 237).  What he means by this statement is that people should focus more on their surroundings rather than inside their minds.  He isn't denouncing self-centered thought as a "sin" since he says "if I choose to think this way, fine, lots of us do" (Wallace 236).  He is rather encouraging us to try to resist being too "self-centered".  This would be an "unimaginably hard" task to do for most people, even myself, but we can at least try to do so (Wallace 238).

Two different consciences

While I was reading On the Duty of Civil Disobedience, I noticed that Thoreau had stated that "Must the citizen ever for a moment, or in the least degree, resign his conscience to the legislator?" (Thoreau 1017).  The basic message of this rhetorical question is that when a citizen thinks the government is committing amoral actions, then that citizen should be able to follow his or her conscience to be able to resist the government.  Thoreau even elaborates on this message throughout the rest of his essay.  He mentions of how he strongly disapproves of the Mexican-American War and slavery, yet both of them had strong support from many Americans during his lifetime.  He is basically following his own conscience not only by expressing his disapproval of the Mexican-American War, but by "[paying] no poll tax for six years" (Thoreau 1025).  However, there are some flaws when Thoreau's concept of "right and wrong" is applied to certain situations, especially the 2016 election (Thoreau 1017).

Speaking of flaws, I do not mean that Thoreau's concept of "conscience" is flawed, I mean that there is some complexities when his ideals are applied to the 2016 election.  Most of the Democrats, for example, passionately support Hillary Clinton.  They support her because she advocates LGBT rights, gun control, and even abortion.  They support her because her policies would likely change the country for the better.  They are following their conscience as they support her.  On the other hand, many of Trump's supporters are actively against LGBT rights, abortion, etc.  That's because many of them are Christian fundamentalists.  They believe that if they support Trump, they would "make America great again" and correctly follow the ideals in the Bible.  They are actually following their own "conscience".  Many liberals (such as me) would denounce the Trump supporters' "conscience" as bigotry (and vice versa).  So when the debates happen between Trump and Clinton, they sort of represent the Democrats' "conscience" clashing with that of the Republicans.  They represent two different mindsets willing to fight each other for almost eternity.  But if Trump gets elected as president, does that mean the liberals should follow their "conscience" by refusing to pay their own taxes just as Thoreau did?  Or if Clinton gets elected, should the conservatives use their own method of civil disobedience?

Note: Please do not get the impression that I am a Trump supporter, I actually dislike Trump very much.

My Reaction to Vowell's essay

While I was reading Sarah Vowell's essay, The Partly Cloudy Patriot, I appreciated how she used sarcasm to make her essay a bit light-hearted.  Even though the essay was about serious topics.  I ended up finding the essay very enjoyable to read.  However, it was not only the sarcastic tone alone that made it so enjoyable, it actually made me think about the history, the current events, and the politics of not only this country, but the entire world.

In this blog, there is actually only one particular section in the essay that I am willing to write about.  That section is when Vowell has a conversation with "the record collectors of Bosnia" (Vowell 1061).  When I read this brief narrative, I realized Vowell included it in order to prove some point.  That point is that there is actually a fine line between patriotism created from appreciating culture and patriotism that leads "to exclusion, hate, and murder" (Vowell 1062).  The Bosnian record collectors seem to denounce any sign of nationalism as being evil.  They do this because they had (possibly) witnessed a civil war in Yugoslavia.  When Vowell tells the record collectors of her thoughts of Memphis, she seems to say that nationalism does not always can lead to horrible violence.  She even says that when she thinks about the musicians "who had walked its streets", she "was proud to feel...patriotic" (Vowell 1062).  As I read her feelings of Memphis, I realized that Vowell is trying to say that nationalism can exist without violence.

Showdown!: Tim O'Brien vs. Jeannette Walls!!!!

On Tuesday (which was September 13th), we were discussing how The Things They Carried blurs the line between fact and fiction.  Our discussion had actually reminded me of my own thoughts of a different book we have discussed in class.  If you haven't already guessed what that book is (by just reading the title of this post), I shall tell you it is The Glass Castle.  The reason why I mention the memoir is because I have been questioning the verisimilitude of that book since our discussion on Tuesday.

Before I write about how our discussion on The Things They Carried changed my views on The Glass Castle, I would want to mention how I felt about both books when I first read them.  I had initially thought The Glass Castle was an excellent memoir.  I was appalled to see Jeannette and her siblings suffer from the consequences of their parents' actions.  I was also impressed by Walls's writing style merely because helped me understand the unique plot clearly (even though it was painful to read).  As for The Things They Carried, I initially thought the book was only a fictional portrayal of Tim O'Brien's experiences in the Vietnam War.  In other words, I thought that the book was mainly about the terrors of war. (I managed to enjoy it anyway).  However, since our discussion on O'Brien's novel, my perceptions of both books changed.  I began to think negatively of The Glass Castle and view The Things They Carried more than just a war story.

Our discussion on Tuesday had opened my mind to how people can tell a story that is claimed to be true, but could have a little bit of fiction in it.  It also made me think that Tim O'Brien probably managed to add some truth of himself in The Things They Carried.  The reason why I thought this was because of a particular chapter in the book called "The Ghost Soldiers".  In the chapter, Tim (the character) describes how he "wanted to hurt Bobby Jorgenson the way he hurt me" (O'Brien 191).  Tim actually admits he had a grudge against Bobby for improperly treating his wound.  Tim claims that he had entered the war as "a quiet thoughtful sort of person" (O'Brien 190).  He then tells that after "seven months in the [war]...[he had] turned mean inside" (O'Brien 190).  Tim admits that the war had changed him from being a reasonable man to someone "capable of evil" (O'Brien 191).  He is admitting his own flaws as he narrates the chapter.  This made me wonder if O'Brien (the author) had added a bit of his own flaws into the narrator.  I had this thought because the flaws of Tim O'Brien (the character) made him seem more realistic and believable.  In other words, he seemed more human.  In fact, if I never knew The Things They Carried was fictional, I would've thought it was a memoir simply because the narrator admits his flaws.  As a result, I had considered the possibility that O'Brien (the author) added some truth of his own personality in the book by making it the narrator's own personality.  (I could be wrong though).

As for The Glass Castle, I began to realise (after the discussion on Tuesday) that Jeannette Walls probably did not tell the entire truth in the memoir.  This realization sprung from the observation that Walls presents too few flaws of herself.  In fact, she rarely commits anything that is evil (except stealing a watch, but she does return it).  I also noticed that Walls mentions of how she got good grades in school, escort a poor boy to his home, and get a successful career in journalism.  In other words, Walls seems to only include her accomplishments rather than her flaws.  That made her seem like a robot to me.  She just seemed less human than Tim O'Brien (the character) was.  This concept had made me question the verisimilitude of the memoir.  I wondered if Walls had simply left out her flaws because she was too embarrassed to write about them.  I am not implying that Jeannette Walls is a narcissist.  I just think Walls was perhaps either too afraid about revealing her own flaws or just failed to find any flaws in herself.  Whatever the reason for the exclusion of flaws, I now find it hard to think The Glass Castle as a completely accurate autobiography.    I find it hard to believe Jeannette Walls is human (not literally of course).  I find it hard to not think about how Walls could have created fictional facts in the memoir.  (This does not mean I excessively hate The Glass Castle.  I still manage to appreciate Walls's concise writing style.  I also appreciate how there are complex, thought-provoking themes revolving around some of the other people mentioned in the book, especially the mother and father).

Ever since our discussion on The Things They Carried, I began to think about what exactly makes a story believable.  I now think that the answer to that problem is that in order to make a believable story, the author will have to admit flaws in the main protagonist.  This especially applies to autobiographies because the author would have to admit his or her own flaws to make their novel seem truthful to the reader.  However, even if an author does make a story realistic, it does not mean that story is true (and vice versa).  For instance, I would've believed The Things They Carried was a true story because the narrator's flaws made him seem so realistic.    Also, if I never knew The Glass Castle was a memoir, I probably would have thought it was fictional because Jeannette seemed to be too perfect.  Regardless of how true a story seems to be, there always is a chance that fictional facts are included in that story.