Lara's English Class Blog

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...