Lara's English Class Blog

For my final English class blog, I thought I would go off the deep end and talk about something pretty ridiculous. Every time I took out Libra during class, I saw Oswald's white shirt on the cover.  Before I get into his shirt, it's no secret that I think Oswald is pretty stupid. His attitude is beyond dumb, his God complex is off the charts, and his whole personality and morals need an upgrade. He tries to come off as mysterious and smarter than everyone around him, but it's total bullshit. Plus his little "smirk" -- or whatever you want to call it -- is just the cherry on top of his stupidity. So what's the connection to his shirt? When I think of the color white I connect it to two different motifs: pureness and surrender. When Oswald shot JFK, he was wearing a white shirt and many of his most famous pictures are of him in that shirt. Like an angel that wears white, Oswald thinks his actions are all just and he is the most righteous and amazing person in th...

Kevin is a vital support system for Dana throughout the book. She constantly mentions him and wishes she could be with him -- not only for comfort but for protection too. When Dana and Kevin are separated and Kevin is left behind in 1819 with no way of getting home, we barely get any insight into how five years away from his home time affected him. I simply don't think the book focused on his experience enough. Five years is not a measly time to be (unwillingly) separated from everything you know. I know Dana is the main protagonist and the narrator of the book, but we got a total of three pages to see how Kevin changed. Spending five years as a white man during slavery is certainly not the worst position to be in, but it's still a drastic change for Kevin to experience completely alone. Plus, Dana voiced her concerns about Kevin getting stuck without her so I'm surprised that Dana didn't show more concern for him or try to understand what happened. Given the support Ke...

I didn't particularly enjoy the writing style of Mumbo Jumbo, but I can certainly appreciate Reed's intentional stylistic choices throughout the book. As we mentioned many times in class, his choices (while hard to decpiher) were certainly intentional to some degree. Putting two chapters numbered 52, not using quotation marks for dialogue, making chapters arbitrary(?) lengths, and placing the first chapter before the publishing pages are all examples of writing choices we wouldn't expect in a traditional novel.  As we worked through the book, we also talked about why Jes Grew is such an effective "plague". In my opinion, Jes Grew's key quality is its unpredictability. Like Papa LaBas said in his speech, you never know where and how Jes Grew will spring up again.  I see a lot of similarities between Reed's depiction of Jes Grew and his writing style. The unpredictability and strangness is what makes it stick in people's minds (or bodies in the case of J...

 Although I enjoyed many of the characters in Ragtime, Mother stood out to me as an exceptionally written character. Ragtime takes place at the turn of the 20th century and a big theme of the time -- and, of course, the book -- is the idea of change. Doctorow hits on various key societal changes through many characters: we see Emma Goldman publicly trying to fight for a better society, Younger Brother joins Coalhouse and later goes to Mexico to continue his fight for justice, and Coalhouse himself is a good example of a fight for racial changes. The list goes on, but the character who I'd most like to focus on is Mother. Throughout the book, Mother's personality goes through major changes and, by the end, she discovers an entirely new existence for herself. Unlike Father, who is unable to keep up with the changes around him and eventually becomes depressed, Mother thrives in her new environment. During Father's excursion to the North Pole, Mother becomes self-reliant. She ...

 Up until this point in the book, Doctorow has hit on a lot of themes that have interwoven through multiple characters, but I think the most striking to me is each characters' quest for meaning. With each person, we've seen an internal struggle, whether explicit or implicit, to discover themselves. The first clear example to me is Evelyn. Doctorow spends much of the first part of the book focusing on her character -- especially in relation to Tateh and The Little Girl. In class, we discussed whether we thought that Evelyn had good intentions during her interactions with Tateh or if she was being selfish. In my opinion, Evelyn's acts, though debately in poor taste, were good intentioned. Throughout her life, Evelyn was viewed as a sexual object rather than a person. She was manipulated by Thaw and White from an early age and forced to make a name for herself using her sexual appeal. Her entire life resides under the public eye and she is constantly being scrutinized, but whe...

     My favorite moment of Sag Harbor is without a doubt when Benji describes being at the U.T.F.O concert when the bass is about to drop. I felt it was perfect scene because, even if it was just for a night, Benji could finally stop thinking about his father's abuse, his struggles fitting in, and the challenge of discovering himself. He could relax and enjoy.     At home, Benji clearly has a difficult time relaxing because of his father. In fact, he would rather take extra shifts at the ice cream shop to avoid seeing his dad on the weekends. In Manhattan, both Benji and Reggie struggle making friends at school. Benji is painfully aware that they don't fit in with their white classmates and even the surrounding community makes it clear to them. The lack of friends at school made Benji and Reggie dependent on each other for company which gave Benji a lot of anxiety surrounding discovering his true self.     Benji's struggles all culminate to the mo...

As we see throughout the book, Jason goes through the full spectrum of popularity.  In the beginning, he's not quite an outsider, but he's certainly not the most popular either. When we see him get tested by the Spooks, he finally gets the chance to join the elite group of popular boys which we know he has wanted for some time. Of course, as we see, Jason doesn't become a Spook and he instead falls even lower on the popularity spectrum when the boys find out about his stammer.  When I was reading this book, I found Jason's wide range of popularity to be quite interesting. We could easily see that Jason was very aware of where he stood in the popularity rankings at the beginning of the book. I think that a lot of people his age can relate to his descriptions and his wishes to be popular. Many teens change their personalities to try and fit in with the 'popular crowd', but Jason doesn't. Throughout the book, although he almost wavers sometimes, he stays true t...

One of the very first things I noticed when I started reading Fun Home was Bechdel's grey and blue tone color palette. I was quite curious why she made the choice to draw her book in such a limited color scheme. Especially when she was describing her childhood home that her father decorated, she depicted all the rich colors he chose, but never showed us. It seemed to me that using color would have been the perfect way to "show not tell" what her home and childhood looked like.  When I reached chapter 5 and read through the scene where Bechdel's dad colors her coloring book because he thinks she is coloring it wrong (pages 130 and 131), it became much clearer as to why she doesn't use color. All through the book we saw the clear contrasting dynamic between Alison and her father. Alison is the hero; her father is the anti-hero. As Alison herself puts it, she's the butch to his nelly, utilitarian to his aesthete. They've always clashed with each other and now...

 Throughout The Bell Jar , I noticed that Esther always thought she knew what to expect in the real world based on how society dictates she should experience it, yet Esther always ended up experiencing it very differently. At the time this book was written, women were expected to be quiet, cheerful, and put together constantly which is a sharp contrast from the detachment, dreariness, and over-all misery Esther feels on a daily basis. Her nonchalant accounts of multiple suicide attempts is not a topic we, as readers, expect to read about in such an informal tone. It sounds like she's simply telling us what she was thinking about eating for lunch when, in reality, the topic is dark and a typically taboo topic.  More examples come from her time in New York where Esther feels like she should be happy in such a vibrant environment, yet she once again feels out of place and finds it depressing. In addition, her struggle between trying to choose whether to pursue writing (as her hea...

 Throughout The Catcher in the Rye,  Holden constantly says that people who do certain things, say certain phrases, or act in certain ways are "phony". Honestly, I think it's definitely favorite word. However, I've noticed that a lot of the time, the things he says are phony, are characteristics which apply to him. The example that brought my attention to this hypocrisy is when he is in the restaurant with the nuns. He goes on a monologue about how people who dress up fancily and go eat lunch at fancy restaurants are phony and he doesn't like them. Yet, Holden and his family are quite well off and Holden isn't reserved at all when it comes to spending his money. He'll pay for cabs when he could easily walk, he buys countless drinks, and he gave the nuns 10 dollars completely unprompted and even tried to pay for their order on top of that donation. It's quite hypocritical that the very class of wealth Holden is from is the one he finds most phony. Anoth...

  In the very beginning of The Grand Budapest Hotel , there are three flashbacks which lead up to the main storyline. The first scene takes place in a cemetery during present day where the viewer sees a statue of an author who, it soon becomes evident, is the author of a book title “The Grand Budapest Hotel”. The first flashback then transports the viewer to 1985 where this same author is now alive and discussing the story which is about to take place. The second flashback goes to 1968 where a younger version of this author is now in The Grand Budapest Hotel and meets the owner of the hotel: Zero. Up until this point, the story is being narrated by the author, who remains unnamed, but now Zero takes over and begins to tell the story of The Grand Budapest Hotel. This is when the third and final flashback takes place to 1932. The viewer is now introduced to M. Gustave and a young Zero. Zero becomes Gustave’s pupil and Gustave begins to teach him the ins and outs of hotel management. ...

       As I was reading through  The Plague , I noticed that many of the characters had very different philosophies and I wonder how Camus being an atheist affected the ideologies throughout the book. As an atheist, Camus thought that life, death, and pain had no profound and rational meaning. But, I think he believed that people could still give meaning to their lives, especially through one principal way: choosing to fight against suffering.      When the plague first began, people disregarded it because unless they had been personally affected, they did not see protecting others as important. When they finally realized months later that the plague was still there, they made the effort to stay home, effectively fighting against death. This act of joining together in that effort painted them as heroes because Camus believed this gave meaning to their lives.     In addition, Rieux and Tarrou (along with the rest of their colleagues) are ...

     When I read the final line of The Sun Also Rises I immediately understood it as Jake dismissing Brett's comment on their possible relationship. Without realizing it as I was reading through the first time, as I looked back through the last few pages of the book, I think there were multiple hints that lead me to draw that conclusion instead of regarding his words in a different tone.      The first hint I came across was that Jake was visibly annoyed that Brett called him to Madrid and he said "Well, that meant San Sebastian all shot to hell". This was a reaction we hadn't previously seen from Jake. Any other time when Brett had asked for his help, he had always assisted her with no hesitation and no angry feelings. This time, he was less excited to drop everything to help Brett. It's really telling that he wasn't so wrapped around her finger anymore and even though he still went, this was the first step to eventually not giving in to her every wis...

 Although Jake likes to claim he is some sort of big macho man, many events in the book make it clear that he is in fact, the opposite. The loss of his uh, manhood, has left him not only physically, but also psychologically damaged. In a way that he feels the need to make up for. One of the ways this insecurity makes itself clear is through Jake's treatment of Robert Cohn. A man who he seems to look down upon, but still is insanely jealous of.  Cohn is Jewish and considered a sort of outsider in the group. He is old-fashioned and serious in a way the other members of the group dislike. So, they seize on him as an opportunity to release their own insecurities. He tries to win Brett, much like the other men in the group, but the manner in which he does it (differently, and old-fashioned) makes him the object of mockery for the characters as a whole.  Jake in particular is very resentful of Cohn, calling his trip with Brett "charity" on her part. He seems incredibly angry th...

  Since we met Richard in Mrs. Dalloway I’ve been considering whether he truly loves Clarissa or not, and it’s become quite clear to me now that Richard definitely does love Clarissa.  The clearest piece of evidence I have is simply considering the values during the time Mrs. Dalloway is set in. In the 1920s, many husbands not only didn’t respect their wives, they abused them physically and emotionally because they thought they were completely entitled to that. Even then, when it wasn’t very frowned upon, husbands beating and abusing their wives was not out of love. It was purely about exerting their control over women. Richard is a breath of fresh air compared to these types of husbands. From all that we’ve seen, Richard does not think of Clarissa as his possession or an object. In reality, it’s the exact opposite. Richard feels grateful and lucky to be married to Clarissa and he thinks his life is great because of his relationship with her.  The other main reason I thi...

  Virginia Woolf’s technique of using every character’s perspective gives us a chance to create a complete sense of each character throughout Mrs. Dalloway. While in most other books (that at least I’ve read) we only mainly view the world through one character’s perspective, in Mrs. Dalloway Woolf is able to create a better overall picture of the characters through her switch of perspective. In The Mezzanine , for example, the only perspective we’re introduced to is Howie’s and we remain with him for the duration of the book. While this doesn’t make The Mezzanine an incomplete or inferior book, we never truly get a sense of how other people view Howie or think about him -- we can only infer what they might think. In Mrs. Dalloway we not only get to listen to the thoughts and emotions of a character (for example Clarissa) but we also get to see how everyone around views her from the outside.  When the reader is introduced to a character’s thoughts it immediately gives them a...

In The Mezzanine Nicholson Baker introduces the reader to the same, ordinary world we live in yet illustrates it from a completely new detailed perspective. Throughout their day most people don’t give much thought to their interactions beyond a minimal practical analysis yet Baker goes a step further scrutinizing every small detail, even of the most seemingly insignificant items and experiences. He goes beyond just the simple description of his life finding every encounter to be fascinating. In this regard, Baker reconstructs the world around us and gives the reader a new perspective to explore. On the surface there is nothing intrinsically special about a stapler or a sandwich with sliced olives yet Baker is able to introduce a whole new set of thoughts related to those items. His perspective is not only exceptionally detailed but vividly artistic as well. He is able to talk about the most random objects around him for pages without losing the reader’s interest. Baker’s ability to ...