Physical, not Verbal (and other stuff)

I had found Brad Manning's "Arm Wrestling with my Father" quite compelling.  In fact, since Ms. Valentino pointed out some "form meets content" in the essay, I almost believed that Manning did not write the essay as a college freshman.  Since I loved the essay so much, I will write about it in this post.

What I want to point out is the physical relationship between Manning and his father.  I know there was plenty of hard-to-find evidence that was pointed out for this relationship, but I will try to do my best to introduce some new evidence with analysis.  There is some imagery when Manning describes his father's hugs by saying "They made me suck in my breath and struggle for control, and the way he would pound on my back made rumbles in my ears." (Manning 147).  Since the imagery is both tactile and auditory, it further contributes to the idea that "words were physical" (Manning 145).  Manning is claiming that he could feel his father's expressions through his father's hugs.  The onomatopoeia of the word "pound" helps create an analogy with the imagery between verbal words and physical words (Manning 147).

There are even some other examples of "form meets content" that we didn't discuss in class (in terms of what I remember of the discussion).  The way Manning uses a short sentence that is "It was not a long match" (Manning 146) emphasizes how short the arm wrestling match was.  In contrast, Manning uses longer sentences in paragraph 4 to show how the arm wrestling matches seemed longer when Manning was younger.

Discussion of Disabilities

Our discussion on Friday about Nancy Mairs' essay titled "Disability" had strongly reminded me about some disabled students at Troy High.  I will briefly write about one of these disabled students, Ann.*  I do not exactly know what type of disability Ann has, but I can describe what I know about her condition.  She seems to be unable to move most of her limbs, which forces her to ride in a wheelchair.  When she talks, her words are slightly challenging to understand since her mouth is partially paralyzed (which I concluded from my observations, but I don't know for sure).  When I first saw Ann, I thought "Oh dear, what a poor, crippled girl!"  I later regretted saying that statement in my mind.  The reason why is that I wasn't viewing Ann as an ordinary human at the time (even though I thought that I did so at that moment).  I was perceiving Ann as a helpless "cripple" (Mairs 14).  I realized this former perception when I read Mairs' statement of how she is "not... Ms. MS, a walking, talking embodiment of a chronic incurable degenerative disease" (14).  That sentence made me feel that I was amorally discriminating against Ann (and other disabled people) by saying "It must be terrible to live with disabilities!"  Thanks to Mairs, I now know that in order to treat disabled people as ordinary, I will have to behave as if the disabled people I meet have no disabilities.  (I am not saying that I will make a lie that disabled people do not have disabilities).

I know that I could have written a fictional narrative about a person with disabilities instead of mentioning Ann, but I am not qualified to write such a story.  That is because I am not disabled, so I wouldn't completely understand how disabled people would feel.   While it is true that I some idea of disabled people's emotions, I would have to be disabled myself to get the true understanding.  I can find a way to give myself a disability, but I am not willing to do that.

*Names of Troy High School students have been changed, so don't bother looking up any names in the yearbook.

A Red Line in the Sun

When I watched the video about Redlining that Ms. Valentino assigned us, I instantly made a connection to the ending of A Raisin in the Sun.  The reason I made this connection is because Ruth says "the notes ain't but a hundred and twenty-five a month" (Hansberry 140).  This is an obvious reference to the rent they had to pay for the new house, and is roughly similar to the rent the people interviewed in the video had to pay.  (Even though the Younger family did have to pay for a lower fee.)  However, it would suggest a probable ending for the Youngers that does not have them "BOMBED" in "Clybourne Park" (Hansberry 102).  The Youngers may actually get to live in their new home with little violence, but may still suffer from extreme poverty.

I know that Hansberry did intend a white mob to attack the Youngers in the original version of the play, but the ending she did use wasn't quite specific in implying this event.  While Karl Linder did tell the family of how desperate the white people in Clybourne Park wanted to keep black people out of their neighborhood, it does not guarantee that they will kill the Youngers.  There is the possibility of the white people moving out of Clybourne Park.  This would, of course, result in more empty houses, and allow for even more black families to move into the neighborhood.  These families perhaps may need to pay an even higher fee than the Youngers' for their new houses, and eventually suffer from intense poverty.  This does not mean the Youngers are better off, since their landlord could simply increase the fee for renting the house.  As a result, Clybourne Park would become a lot like North Lawrence.  Perhaps Hansberry purposely allows this alternate fate of the Youngers to be interpreted from her play, since segregation is a major theme in A Raisin in the Sun.  After all, redlining is a strong example of segregation.

Why does Fitzgerald Include Racism in his novels?

John, from The Diamond As Big As The Ritz, was put into "a state of terror" when he found out that Braddock murdered his guests (Fitzgerald 99).  What I find that is very irritating is the John did not feel this when he first saw the "negroes" as slaves (Fitzgerald 79).  In fact, it may prove that John could be a racist, or at least indifferent to blacks.  Unfortunately, I cannot find enough textual evidence to prove this theory.  So instead of pondering on if Fitzgerald or John is a racist, I will try my best to explain why F. Scott Fitzgerald includes these indirect references to racism.

 It is important to remember that there was plenty of racists that existed in the Roaring 20's.  There was even a famous racist organization that had gained a lot of power during this decade, which is, of course, the Klu Klux Klan.  While Fitzgerald did try to focus both The Great Gatsby and The Diamond As Big As The Ritz (which was actually written for Fitzgerald's pleasure) on social class, it seems he couldn't avoid including racism simply because it was a big issue at the time.  I actually think Fitzgerald was tempted to write a story that addresses racism, but he just was probably afraid of getting assassinated by the Klu Klux Klan or by a racist (or anti-racist) mob.  So he vaguely includes racism in his novels as a result.  (To be clear, I do not know for sure if this is true.)

Overall, I do not think that it matters if Fitzgerald is a racist or not.  Racism does not seem to be the main point of his novels. (I am referring to The Great Gatsby and The Diamond As Big As The Ritz).  As I stated before, Fitzgerald's main purpose in his two stories involved social classes.  So I think that issue would be more vital (and easier) in analyzing some of Fitzgerald's texts.

My Favorite passage from The Great Gatsby

Note: The following post uses the author's opinions.

The following passage is from page 88 of The Great Gatsby:

"I walked out the back way-just as Gatsby had when he had made his nervous circuit of the house half an hour before-and ran for a huge black knotted tree, whose massed leaves made a fabric against the rain.  Once more it was pouring, and my irregular lawn, well-shaved by Gatsby's gardener, abounded in small muddy swamps and prehistoric marshes.  There was nothing to look at from under the tree except Gatsby's enormous house, so I stared at it, like Kant at his church steeple, for half an hour.  A brewer had built it early in the "period" craze a decade before, and there was a story that he'd agreed to pay five years' taxes on all the neighboring cottages if the owners would have their roofs thatched with straw.  Perhaps their refusal took the heart out of his plan to Found a Family-he went into an immediate decline.  His children sold his house with the black wreath still on the door.  Americans, while occasionally willing to be serfs, have always been obstinate about being peasantry." (Fitzgerald 88)

 Nick is obviously thinking about how Gatsby's house was built in the 1910s (since he mentioned "a decade before").  What I want to point out though is that the house was built by a "brewer" rather than anyone else.  At first, I thought the brewer was a cook who just made soup to sell to his neighbors.  I later realized that the brewer could have actually created alcoholic drinks because "he went into an immediate decline".  This "decline" could have probably resulted from the 18th Amendment which started Prohibition.  It could also be inferred that the brewer was wealthy because he wanted "all the neighboring cottages...have their roofs thatched with straw."  Although the brewer "agreed to pay five years' taxes" for his neighbors, the "straw" is a symbol of poverty for the neighbors and how the brewer is richer, explaining why they refused the brewer's offer.  There is also noticeable similarities between Gatsby and the brewer because they are both wealthy and made money from alcohol.  The similarities perhaps reveal how Gatsby's mindset is stuck in the past.  (Just to clarify, the brewer is not the same person as Gatsby because the brewer had children while Gatsby didn't).  Nick had actually compared himself to "Kant" (a famous philosopher from the Enlightenment) because he makes a generalization of "Americans" at the end of the passage.  This generalization could be referring to Tom and Daisy, who planed to stay at East Egg like "serfs", but moved out at the end of the book as "peasantry."  (In case you didn't know, the difference between peasants and serfs is that peasants are allowed to move away from their land while serfs are forced by their lords to stay on their land.  Also, I am not saying that Tom and Daisy are poor because I referred to them as peasants, they are obviously wealthy.)

Making America like the Roaring 20's

The 1920s was a period of excellent economic growth for the United States.  The nation had just victoriously finished fighting in World War I, which had allowed increased industrial production.  Many American residents had just begun to buy products on credit.  Even a lot of big corporations, such as GM, gained huge profits from speculation.  Americans also enjoyed plenty of entertainment from movies and radios.  Meanwhile, the U.S. government tried to not interfere with the economy since they had embraced the concept of supply-side economics* (as advised by Secretary of Treasury Andrew W. Mellon).  But the lack of government intervention didn't seem to matter because the 1920s had arguably the image of an "American Golden Age".  It is this "Golden Age" that many conservative Republicans today, especially Donald Trump, strive to go back to.  But F. Scott Fitzgerald had noticed that the economic boom had come at a huge cost: poverty among the working class.

Fitzgerald had described this poverty as "a valley of ashes" in The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald 23).  He uses this metaphor to create an image of a filthy area.  Since the area was so dirty, many "men" living in this area, such as George B. Wilson, are assumed to be of the lower class (Fitzgerald 23).  Fitzgerald even includes a description of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg having "a pair of enormous yellow spectacles" to demonstrate how rich the man is because "yellow" looks very similar to gold (Fitzgerald 23).  The fact that Eckleburg's portrait is above the "grey land" conveys the massive gap between the working class and upper class (Fitzgerald 23).  Fitzgerald even seems to convey that the gap represents how only the upper class (and perhaps a bit of the middle class) were benefitting from the economic boom of the 1920s while the working class barely got any benefits at all.  It is even very possible that some members of the working class desire to enjoy the pleasures of the upper class.  Fitzgerald demonstrates this through Myrtle Wilson, who had claimed she "made a mistake" marrying Mr. Wilson (Fitzgerald 35).  She is unsatisfied with Wilson because he wasn't wealthy.  So she tries to be "Tom Buchanan's mistress" because she thinks Tom is her golden ticket to the wealthy class (Fitzgerald 24).  Ironically, while Tom lets Myrtle be his mistress, they would not "get a divorce and get married to each other right away" (Fitzgerald 33).  This perhaps shows that Tom does not want a lower class women to move into the upper class.  Tom even "broke [Myrtle's] nose" at the end of chapter 2 (Fitzgerald 37).

Donald Trump had promised that he would "make America great again."  He was referring to the excellent economy of the 1920s and how it was a "Golden Age".  However, even if Trump succeeds in promoting a similar economic boom as the Roaring 20's, he would, according to Fitzgerald, be isolating the lower class.  That's because many conservatives today in this country have the mindset of creating economic stability by using supply-side economics, which would mean practicing laissez-faire economics that mainly benefit the upper class.  This concept would actually lead to a wider gap between the rich and the poor rather than a narrower one.

*Supply-side economics is a theory in which money from the upper class would gradually "trickle down" to the lower classes as the people of the upper class spend their money.

My Final Impressions of The Bluest Eye

When I finished reading The Bluest Eye, I had mixed feelings about the book.  On one perspective, I appreciate Toni Morrison's lyrical prose.  She uses words such as "softly, purringly," and "lovingly" to create beautiful symbolic imagery (Morrison 58).  There are even so many symbols Morrison uses, that it would take an entire year to decipher all of their meanings.  I even loved how Morrison conveys how racism is more complex than it seems, and can affect society in unnoticable ways.  On the other perspective, I would not recommend The Bluest Eye to anybody for leisure.  Nor would I want to read the book again.  I am even dissuaded from reading Morrison's other novels, including Song of Solomon.  My reasons do not just include the disturbing incest scene, but also the ambiguous ending.

I will not go into detail about Pecola's rape because it is too sensitive of a topic for me to write about.  Instead, I will criticize the ending dialogue for being too ambiguous.  It is ambiguous because their is absolutely no way to know for sure that Pecola was talking to an imaginary friend.  Morrison never even directly states that the friend was imagined by Pecola.  I know that there are some people who may argue that the italicized words prove that the friend was part of Pecola's thoughts.  My rebuttal is this: even though the friend's dialogue is italicized, it does not prove at all that he or she is imaginary.  (I do not even know the friend's gender).  Even Ms. Valentino's confirmation of the friend being made-up by Pecola is not enough.  She had not written the book, Morrison did.  Even if Morrison herself claims the friend was part of Pecola's mind, I would firmly ask her "Can you use textual evidence from the novel to prove your point?"  Maybe she would admit the ending was flawed in its clarity, or maybe she would say the ending was ambiguous on purpose.  If she replies with the former option, I would feel annoyed about how she made an obvious flaw.  If she replies with the latter, I would automatically ponder on the ambiguity's meaning in an exhausting way.  Regardless of which choice is correct, just thinking about it stresses me out.  I prefer to read a book that actually provides a relaxing escape from my stressful life.  The Bluest Eye just does the exact opposite.

Note:   If you disagree with me, do not be afraid to comment.  I won't delete it.