Laura's Weblog

Still I Rise

lauramu — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 04:28:57 +0000

I like how she compares herself to different earthly things to prove she will overcome obstacles. She first compares herself to dirt, because people disrespect her, but then she shows that dust will rise and so will she. She claims she has energy by talking about oil wells, meaning she has energy forming and she won’t give up. She uses the universe to explain she will always be there and will never leave. She shows that she takes the sorrow and turns it into strength she can have to overcome obstacles. I also like how she makes actions and verbs from words and eyes, things that can’t actually act but she personifies them to do so. She compares herself to the ocean, another natural earthly thing, to represent her strength. She takes the struggle that she and her ancestors went through to make herself stronger so she can “rise” above things.

Poetry/Reading Assignments

lauramu — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 18:59:01 +0000

I found the article “The Egg and the Sperm” really awkward. It was like I was back in health class again, except the egg and the sperm were being talked about as if they were real people- using figurative language to get a point across. Though as I read the article, as strange as it was, it made some sense. When they described the characteristics of the egg and the sperm- how the terminology for the egg is words like “carried” and “floated” and the description of the sperm is active and assertive, it makes sense that our gender roles are based on that. The article explained that the egg is dependent on the sperm to become useful, and the old stereotypes of women were that they were dependent on men and not supposed to be assertive themselves. The few things the article brought up about the women being wasteful or not doing much work was interesting when they compared it to the male who “wastes” much more.

“My Last Duchess” was a little confusing. I remember reading it before, but I forget what the meaning of it was. I understand that she’s a painting that the owner is really proud of and wants to show to everyone. But who is the lady in the picture and why was she important enough to be put on a wall?

I liked “Still I Rise.” I took the poem as being from a former slave saying they will always be there and won’t be pushed back because of the past or any hateful things done to them. I liked the figurative language used. Like the first paragraph- The person wasn’t actually trodden in the dirt, but because of the lies that were told, she and her ancestors were treated like it. But she brings it back around saying that dust rises, so shell be back. I like how she takes each paragraph and talks about another characteristic of a person or the world and uses it to get her message across.

I liked how the “Grownup” took a person’s life and compared it to a tree’s life. Each has to endure things throughout it’s lifetime and she compared the beginning and end of a tree’s life to a person’s life.

All of the poems fit the identity theme, whether it is about a person’s life, ancestry or how they see themselves by what they own, or how they identify themselves with what they’ve gone through. Each poem talks about identity in it’s own way.

Fires in the Mirror 2

lauramu — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 04:44:51 +0000

Reading the second half of the book, I started to get accustomed with the way the writing is. I started to understand the jumbled thoughts and the way the writing is set up. Though I still am confused to why the writing is set up like that. While reading the second half of the book, it struck me on how different the 2 stories can be. The Jews prove it was an accident and make the blacks sound irresponsible and drunk by saying they were probably drinking beer as they usually do and by showing how great the Jews were and claiming that the blacks prevented them from helping the boy even though they tried. The side of the blacks sounded like a completely different event, in the fact that the Jews always sped through and that it was their fault the boy died because the driver was drunk. They claimed that the Jews only wanted to help themselves and not the boy. Each story just hit me on how sad it is that people can do such horrible things and claim such horrible things. Each side has a horrific history and the fact that the people can “let history repeat itself” horrifies me. Each side looked to themselves and made the other side look bad but they didn’t think about any other reason of the actions of the other side. All the stories were brutally honest and I think knowing that they came from someone real made it harder to read.

Fires in the Mirror

lauramu — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 04:54:47 +0000

I’m having a hard time reading the book. It’s very choppy, and once again, like As I Lay Dying, it’s very stream of consciousness. If you don’t understand what the speaker is talking about you can easily get lost. I understand it’s supposed to reflect the different people, it’s just hard to follow when you are reading instead of listening. For example it first starts with a lot of “Um” “well” “Uh” “like” and it’s really hard to follow when I read those.

Also the talk about race is hard to grasp. It’s hard for me to understand how someone can be so cruel to another human being. Talking about someone of a different race or religion as if they aren’t equal human beings. For example comparing Jews to babies, saying maybe a baby can do it, or asking whether they can find someone who isn’t a Jew. I also noticed some people accepting their identity and not doing anything about it. That’s how people see them and that’s how life is. The book is very revealing by getting to see many different points of view.

Finishing Cat On A Hot Tin Roof

lauramu — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 23:43:56 +0000

Act 3:

Big Daddy storms out of the room and the family gets together to tell Big Mama the truth about Big Daddy’s condition. Big Mama lets on that they’re going to give the house to Brick and Margaret and Mae and Gooper get really upset. Gooper shows his plan for the house and Big Mama won’t accept it. She claims that Gooper never loved Big Daddy. Margaret gives Big Mama affection and she actually lets her, unlike when Mae tries to show affection. Big Daddy comes back in with his birthday presents on and talks about mendacity. Maggie then announces to the family that she’s pregnant even though she’s not. After everyone leaves she locks up Brick’s alcohol and throws away his crutch to force him to have sex so she can have a baby.

Maggie gains her identity throughout the play. In the beginning she’s submissive to Brick. She gets angry but she never does anything about it. By the end of the play she takes matters into her own hands and figures out a way to make what she wants happen. Instead of following what Brick wants and leading her life based on Brick, she makes a situation in which Brick has to follow what she says. She is no longer dependent on Brick at that point because she made her own decision.

Cat On A Hot Tin Roof

lauramu — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 04:19:36 +0000

First Act:

The entire first act takes place in Brick and Margeret’s bedroom. Brick has a broken leg from attempting to jump hurtles the previous night while he was drunk. Margeret talks most of the act, complaining about the 5 children Mae and Gooper had, calling them “no-neck monsters.” She claims they are trying to cut her and Brick out of the inheritance, since Big Daddy is dying of cancer. Maggie claims he’s dying of cancer but the report that Big Mama and Big Daddy received said that it was just a spastic colon. Big Mama doesn’t like Maggie because she sees her as the person who made her son drunk and looks down on her because she isn’t having any children. Maggie tries to make Brick attracted to her again by telling him that other men are attracted to her. Brick is aloof and doesn’t care and says he doesn’t care if she has an affair and keeps reminding Maggie about the 1 condition she agreed to. Maggie goes on a rant talking about Skipper and Brick. Apparently she thinks they loved each other except neither would admit it. We find from this rant that Skipper and Brick were both football players but Skipper became an alcoholic and Brick got a spinal injury. Brick gets mad at Maggie throughout this and threatens to throw a chair and then tries to hurt her with his cast. The Act ends with Maggie yelling at Dixie who comes in shooting her play gun.

Act 2:

Act 2 starts out the same way Act 1 ended. All the family comes in with the Preacher and everyone’s having separate conversations, which makes the dialogue broken up. The dialogue makes it sound very loud with a lot of yelling and italicized writing. Music was turned on and off. Big Mama makes a fuss over Brick and then plays a joke on preacher which gets Big Daddy in a rant. Big Daddy yells at Big Mama for taking over the house and the family leaves the room, leaving Big Mama and Big Daddy yelling. After Big Mama leaves, Big Daddy asks for Brick to talk to him. He talks about his sickness and how relieved he felt when he wasn’t sick. Brick gets restless and wants to drink and claims that their “talks” never go anywhere. Big Daddy finally gets Brick to break and Brick explains why he’s frustrated- he talks about mendacity and finally reveals that Skipper had declared his love for him and he hadn’t said anything and that was the last conversation before he died. The Act ends with Brick yelling and Big Daddy finding out that the “report” back from the clinic was false and that everyone was lying to him.

Discussion:

The title Cat on a Hot Tin Roof comes up many times throughout the first 2 acts. Maggie mentions it a lot in the first act, mostly saying she’s frustrated and wants to leave but can’t. She’s compared to a cat a lot and she and Mae both are compared to cats when Brick and Big Daddy are talking. Though I’m not completely sure what it means. I know they’re saying that someone’s frustrated or hurting but other than that, what’s the meaning?

Finishing Cloud 9

lauramu — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 02:32:54 +0000

Something that I was thinking about while I was reading this past assignment was how the characters didn’t really know themselves. Some of them like Lin seemed really confident with her beliefs and thoughts but later she was confessing to Victoria how she didn’t understand why she had to dress all manly, and how she was trying to raise Cathy but Cathy was going against everything she said. Edward was confused because he knew he wasn’t like other men in that he was interested in girls but by the end he realized he didn’t like men either and he was trying to figure that out. Even Victoria, who in the beginning seems to be contently married, questions herself at the end. It seemed like the characters didn’t know how to “identify” themselves and were trying to look for a label for themselves but they couldn’t find one. This relates to our course theme of identity. Everyone is looking in society to be excepted but ends up having to look in themselves to figure out themselves that way. The ending was really cool, when the other Betty comes back on stage because it shows the transformation of Betty, how Betty’s identity has changed from the beginning. She started as someone who defined herself by her husband and ended as someone who was trying to be open to new things and divorced from her husband.

Cloud 9 response

lauramu — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 03:57:37 +0000

This last reading confused me a bit. I understood why Clive told Harry to marry Ellen, though I thought it was a little strange that Ellen was so willing to marry him. I have to remind myself it’s set in a different time period and that things that aren’t acceptable now were acceptable then. I also found it strange that Joshua was so loyal to Clive and at the end of the chapter he shoots him. I never completely understood whether he died or not. From the way Churchill ended the first act, it seems as if he is but then Betty talks about divorcing her husband. Is this the same husband? I also found it very shocking how loosely they were raising their kids. Using cuss words in front of them, encouraging them to draw violent pictures and to play with imaginary guns and to let the child take from Betty. Edward hasn’t come out even though Victoria’s friend thinks he is. He gets very defensive and tells her to never make assumptions again. Victoria questions her friends’ sexuality. Overall it was a little confusing and a lot of it surprises me.

Cloud 9

lauramu — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 20:58:01 +0000

The subject matter of Cloud 9 took a while to get used to. Subjects like masculine superiority, slavery, African warfare, sexual orientation and adultery are all subjects that are usually kept quiet. Carol Churchill though braved the public and wrote a play about it. So far we have met the family: Clive; his wife, Betty; his son, Edward; his daughter, Victoria; the governess, Ellen; the mother in-law, Maud; a neighbor, Caroline Saunders; and a family friend Harry Bagly. We have also seen the conflicts within the play. Clive is attracted to Mrs. Saunders, while Betty is attracted to Harry. We have seen the hidden fact of Harry being homosexual and it is hinted that Edward has girlish tendencies, like playing with dolls. Edward seems to have these girlish tendencies but then feel guilty about them. For example after getting yelled at and smacked by his mother he goes to his father and confesses and says he’s sorry and that he loves his father and won’t do it again. We have also been told that on a previous visit Harry sexually abused Edward. It was told through the conversation between Edward and Harry when the family was playing hide and seek. There’s also a hint of Ellen being homosexual, when Betty tells her about her attraction to Harry, Ellen acts it out and confesses her love to Betty. It seems to be a very complicated plot, but still easy to follow. Since it’s dialogue you have to put in your own inflection and sometimes the background isn’t very clear for a few lines.

Matrix Post 2

lauramu — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 06:27:11 +0000

The Matrix, Alice in Wonderland and As I lay Dying all make you think about identity and how people look at themselves and the world. In the Matrix, they question reality and in the world that Neo is pulled out of, nothing is real. Everything is computer generated and they make people believe it. The spoon analogy was helpful- the boy said something along the lines of, “don’t try to bend the spoon, because that’s impossible but remember that the spoon isn’t real and it’s more of bending yourself.” Later Neo tells himself “the spoon isn’t really there” to remind himself that it wasn’t really reality. Then what is reality? If the whole world around him isn’t real, then what is the real world? The real world is what you make it to be. Within the Matrix, the computer makes a false reality and makes you think of the world as something that it’s really not, but outside the Matrix, people think for themselves. They also talk about Neo is who he believes he is. This is proved by the end when he finally becomes “the one” because he believed he was and he received powers to kill the agent. Before then Neo had been seeing himself through the eyes of others, just as the reader gets in As I Lay Dying. For Neo, he asks a lot of questions to figure himself out, whereas in As I Lay Dying, the reader gets descriptions of people through other people’s eyes. Eyes is a major part of the book, which represents the revealing of characters through other people’s perspectives. We then learn in the end, the character we had been trusting the most, is insane, or so it appears. This tells us, just as the Matrix does, that the true identity of someone is through their own eyes, not through others.