I hate Stan pt.2

Stanley wouldn’t consider himself a victim of anything. Thus, he is not a victim, for though we may have different values and expectations, really only an individual can judge themselves a victim, everyone else is just judging. This is what Stella tried to explain to Blanche. Stanley could be characterized as an archetypal Man. He is ‘manly’ in every way that one would classify a ‘man: he is strong, slightly stupid, assertive, stubborn and ignorant, but not all together unaware of it. Like many of the poor, rather than complain, which shows he wants more, he remains stagnant. One could say he is a victim of a culture that praised masculinity, but he would call those people effeminate. Though at the beginning of the story one can sympathize with him, he slowly shows that he is possibly the missing-link, a human who doesn’t utilize what makes him human: compassion and understanding. As soon as he hits Stella we get an understanding of the true Stan. To make up for the lack of control he has in his life, he domineers those around him and doesn’t like those who are subjugated to his will.
To put it simply, he is not a victim but a victimizer.
Stella is a victim of a masculine praising culture. She does not question Stan’s assertiveness or her absolute reliance upon him. She only argues, as long as she can, when Stan strikes her and is forced to come back and accept an apology in the hopes that he indeed means it.
The worst aspect of her plight is that she doesn’t even really how much her life has degenerated. She believes that her husband will take care of her and is blinded to the fact that her lifestyle is almost cemented. She doesn’t appear to be educated, which is another effect of the culture so she will forever have to rely on Stan.
She and Blanche present opposite sides of the overall victimization of women in early culture. The saddest thing is that neither ‘wins’ at the end of the play.

Delusional Stella/ I hate Stan

Stella Kowalski is presented as the Faithful Wife; indeed she has faith that one day Stanley will stop abusing her. However, more than just being submissive to both her sister and ‘manly-retarded’ husband, I believe that she is a broken woman, now trapped in a cycle of lower-class values that she won’t be able to escape.
Through out the story, Stella is presented as being satisfied, even happy with her lifestyle. When Blanche inquires of her feelings about her situation she merely replies, “Why wouldn’t I be happy?” but throughout the story we are given multiple reasons for this non-rhetorical, rhetorical question. Stella explained that she wasn’t “Blinded by all the brass” when she first met Stan, but if she is even a tad bit like her sister, which she indeed is, then the glow of his medals-of-wanton-brutality/honor (with respect to veterans who aren’t rapist/domineering ‘tards) greatly facilitated their merging. Also, with all that ‘brass’, one would assume money would come with it, at the very least the person could sell the medals. Since she left Belle Reve, she probably met Stan in her home town and ‘loved’ him too much to leave when she finally saw her new abode. Stella is much more malleable than Blanche, so it was a bearable house, for the time being; this is illustrated by her belief that Stan has the potential to move up, she didn’t/doesn’t believe that she will reside their for the rest of her dominated life. Her love will carry her through the hard times.
A love she can’t even explain. I personally believe that is not love at all, merely a sustained lust, for animals are capable of mindless-passion (with respect to the intelligent kittens and puppies out there. But, not the pigs, they rape other creatures) and it seems she is simply (my apologizes if this is too profuse) penis-whipped; she enjoys their animal excursions in the sheets and even hints that this may be the only reason. She is a product of her time and they didn’t make them too bright back then. She was groomed to be obedient and to love; it is without question that she never thought love meant getting assaulted by the one you loved. It is also without question that her courtship was quick and simple; impressed by Stan’s brash manner she assumed him to be a suitable protector and husband. Never mind that he is incapable of showing compassion that isn’t in bed.
What are the symptoms of someone who is ‘broken?’ Either complete depression or complete denial. Stella exhibits the latter throughout the entire drama and it is extremely unlikely that she will be able to have an epiphany in time. Having Stan’s child has effectively ensnared her, she has no job, no skills and a child; thank you early society. There is an extreme chance that her baby boy is going to become as head-strong ( as the meat will have coagulated from disuse) as his father and Stella, unlike Blanche, doesn’t seem to posses much intelligence. A horrible testament to the domineering of women.

Delusional Stella/ I hate Stan

Stella Kowalski is presented as the Faithful Wife; indeed she has faith that one day Stanley will stop abusing her. However, more than just being submissive to both her sister and ‘manly-retarded’ husband, I believe that she is a broken woman, now trapped in a cycle of lower-class values that she won’t be able to escape.
Through out the story, Stella is presented as being satisfied, even happy with her lifestyle. When Blanche inquires of her feelings about her situation she merely replies, “Why wouldn’t I be happy?” but throughout the story we are given multiple reasons for this non-rhetorical, rhetorical question. Stella explained that she wasn’t “Blinded by all the brass” when she first met Stan, but if she is even a tad bit like her sister, which she indeed is, then the glow of his medals-of-wanton-brutality/honor (with respect to veterans who aren’t rapist/domineering ‘tards) greatly facilitated their merging. Also, with all that ‘brass’, one would assume money would come with it, at the very least the person could sell the medals. Since she left Belle Reve, she probably met Stan in her home town and ‘loved’ him too much to leave when she finally saw her new abode. Stella is much more malleable than Blanche, so it was a bearable house, for the time being; this is illustrated by her belief that Stan has the potential to move up, she didn’t/doesn’t believe that she will reside their for the rest of her dominated life. Her love will carry her through the hard times.
A love she can’t even explain. I personally believe that is not love at all, merely a sustained lust, for animals are capable of mindless-passion (with respect to the intelligent kittens and puppies out there. But, not the pigs, they rape other creatures) and it seems she is simply (my apologizes if this is too profuse) penis-whipped; she enjoys their animal excursions in the sheets and even hints that this may be the only reason. She is a product of her time and they didn’t make them too bright back then. She was groomed to be obedient and to love; it is without question that she never thought love meant getting assaulted by the one you loved. It is also without question that her courtship was quick and simple; impressed by Stan’s brash manner she assumed him to be a suitable protector and husband. Never mind that he is incapable of showing compassion that isn’t in bed.
What are the symptoms of someone who is ‘broken?’ Either complete depression or complete denial. Stella exhibits the latter throughout the entire drama and it is extremely unlikely that she will be able to have an epiphany in time. Having Stan’s child has effectively ensnared her, she has no job, no skills and a child; thank you early society. There is an extreme chance that her baby boy is going to become as head-strong ( as the meat will have coagulated from disuse) as his father and Stella, unlike Blanche, doesn’t seem to posses much intelligence. A horrible testament to the domineering of women.

A Bug's Life

Reality is perception; perception is shaped by an individual’s bias and ironically, what they believe is possible in reality. I must digress to impart an event that has been greatly overlooked: When the Spanish settlers first departed to the Americas, they utilized ships. One day the medicine-man of a tribe saw ripples upon the ocean and knew not what created them so, every day he would stare at the same area of water until one day he saw the ships and immediately alerted his tribesmen to the enigmas who then in turn saw them; they had great respect for the medicine man and trusted him so they believed. This aside illustrates my aforementioned point, but since we do not know what the boundaries are in The Metamorphoses by Kafka we can not say what is reality in the stories universe.
Gregor Samsa spends one third of his life working, the other sleeping and the remainder in contemplation and stress as many unfortunate Americans do. In this respect the story presents itself very grounded in what we view to be reality, a Prufrock like one at that. Everything in the past stems from reality whilst from the onset we are blatantly told that this story transcends our expectations. Nearly everything afterwards breaks from at least my concept of reality, as the household simply lives with a gigantic bug. That may or may not enjoy the taste of brains. Gregor lives, well survives, for many months without even someone daring to take a picture of what he has become. If I were to wake up to such a creature I would make sure that someone of authority knew it at least existed.
Some say that their resistance to alert… anyone lies in the families disgrace of having such an abomination and this transcends reality in a way; that a family would care so much for their sense of respect that they allow their son-turned-bug to fester in the darkness without even trying to restore him to his former being. Respect is such an abstract term that arguably one could command much of it without it really even having an effect and thus any way to know it is there, yet people hold it to so high of a standard that they would die for it, and let die. The abstract terms that people invent to give importance to themselves, thus being able to appear greater than others, such as ‘value’ are a core theme in this story. Yet by almost all measures being abstract they are determined by an individual’s reality, so they themselves are not real, or at least not static.
Gregor himself was abstract, intangible to his family. Had he the characteristics of a bug that went to work none would have been the wiser. Yet when he was impeded by going to work by his physical handicap all took notice. I believe that he actually turned into a bug as it would explain the lack of care he received by both family and an outside party, the repulsion of the chief, the apple sinking into his flesh and most importantly the tracks he left on the ceiling, which was corroborated by his sister’s annoyance as to cleaning it. By Gregor finally assuming what he has felt like all along he forces the family to change from the lazy bugs they were into bitter, slowly-building-up-hate lower-class people. His change was the catalysis for their metamorphosis, his death the birth of a new life for them.
Kudos to family bonding.

Epiphanes

In “Eveline” by Joyce the protagonist Eveline realizes that she is helpless to change her fate. She feels she has an obligation to both her community and to her mother to maintain her house and her memories of what transpired in her neighborhood. She believes that it is her duty, but only seconds before she could escape her stifled life. She was paralyzed by the promise she made her late mother to keep the house up as long as possible, the fear that Frank wouldn’t be so kind and would mentally drown her and the fear of what her father would do to the remaining kids at the house. She realizes that she is too conditioned to her lifestyle to possibly imagine assuming another and harbors a far fetched idea that by her leaving she is giving up on the neighborhood.
She stays, keeping her promise to her mother, her fear of her father’s wrath which once again shall be directed unto her and merely gives up the fear of possibility, of change in hopes that she can give longevity to what will never be again. It is inevitable that the house will drain her and as people tend to do, there is a good chance she will settle with someone who is very much like her father.
Gregor Samsa, the protagonist in Kafka’s “The Metamorphoses,” is also very much so paralyzed by what he believes to be his duty, taking care of his family. He does so as much out of obligation as to give himself value, just as Eveline may feel worthless in a new continent, whilst at home she has a role and has appointed herself keeper-of-the- past. Samsa realizes that the only way to spare his family of any more trouble is to disappear and believing it his obligation also to maintain the household he leaves this world. In contrast for Eveline to disappear would mean to sacrifice her past and the two young children in the house. However, the characters from both stories never really had to do anything, they took it upon themselves to give themselves more importance and for that they must sacrifice themselves.

Faith Asundered

“Young Goodman Brown,” by Hawthorne presents a story of lost faith fostered by unattainable purity and bastardization of institutions by their leaders. Goodman Brown is a Puritan who decides to take partake in a walk with the devil under the guise that this will indeed be his last walk. However, as he continues he witnesses members of his congregation also journeying to worship he-who-shall-not-be-named (Voldermort style). Taken aback, in the end he decides to take back his agreement with the fallen angel and wakes up to find himself both untainted and able to persecute others with the keen eye of a true Puritan/ stupid person. The shepherds that he so trusted to guide him to righteousness were none other than Voldermort worshiper all.
Whilst traversing through the forest Brown witnesses the Deacon and the minister on their way to the jolly-hell-bound-orgy/orientation. Those who had led him to his faith in turn, appeared to be faithless which leads Brown to question “What God doth the wizard pray to?” (p. 241). Which also leads to what God does Brown prey to? By the leaders of the Church succumbing to sin it is illustrated that no one could be pure by the strict standards of Puritans; all those who believe themselves to be so just believe that their transgressions are not as severe as others and then must judge those around to feel elevated, which is what Brown does in the end, though he himself had talked with the Devil and may have had communication with him before.
If those who govern the Church are sinners than all those who have followed are sinners. Though Puritans held a façade of innocence which enabled them to brutally chastise those who were visible sinners, Hawthorne knows that no one can be perfect. This formality of purity leads Brown and possibly Hawthorne to question their faith and caused the former to lose his. Seeing the world in what he believes is in true light Brown loses his hope in purity, caused by the duality of good and evil presented in the story, which is exhibited by the clergy; lost he wallows in sadness for the rest of his faithless days, for though the Devil sought him, God did not reach out his hand.

Daddy's Little Girl would like to become your friend

I’m not familiar with Facebook so my terms may not be correct, but I believe myspace is somewhat similar. I imagine a face book for Miss Emily to be quite barren in ornate graphics and photographs. Honestly, she doesn’t seem like she would bother with a face book as it doesn’t seem she cares for friendship or even non-corpse contact, or that she would be technology savvy having refuted my former belief. However, all she has is time on her hands.

I believe her privacy would be set to friends only and that she would not have many of them.
I don’t think she would have any photos up as the process would be overly complicated… but if she could manage, I think she would have just one; It would be the painting of her father and herself.
As for applications I must once again reiterate my opinion that unless the process was greatly facilitated it would be beyond her capability. She does seem like a neopets/ crazy- cat-lady kind of women.

Daddy’s Little Girl’s (Her user name) Wall:

Mayor of Yo Mama: Good ‘morrow Miss Emily, I don’t suppose you have gotten around to paying those taxes of yours have you?

Daddy’s Little Girl: I don’t suppose I have.

Mayor of Yo Mama: …. Right ‘O then. Well Miss Emily you take care and see if you can’t just pay those fees. We could even send someone to pick up your payment.

(Emily didn’t bother to respond)

The reader of a Rose for Emily doesn’t get a single verifiable fact about Miss Emily and so could have a wrong picture of her. As Emily is quoted very little we are left to infer about her traits and inevitably stereotype her as a recluse; we don’t know if she secretly goes out every night to raid the local cemetery or even if Toby wasn’t holding her hostage and blackmailed her. Our only source of information is from an unknown narrator who has gathered his/her information from hearsay of others. As verified by the telephone game (I think it is called Operator; a story is told and passed along by generally grade school adolescents and the information is undoubtedly altered at the end) the facts about Emily’s life have inevitably been distorted. It leaves one contemplating if the dramatic end wasn’t simply added on by the townspeople to fabricate an apparently dull life, and thus story.

What would you do for a cask of Amontillado?

"I continued, as was my wont, to smile in his face, and he did not perceive that my smile now was at the thought of his immolation"

My favorite line in the entire piece could have only been spoken by our narrator for The Cask of Amontillado, Montresor. Having been wronged by a man of higher status, Fortunato, he takes him as an enemy and vows revenge. Montresor is a man who values respect and will chastise anyone who dares to transgress his honor; also, he is intelligent and thus, calculating, which is evident in the elaborate scheme he used to inevitably entomb Fortunato. His intelligence combined with his anger and honor rob him of his empathy and sense leaving him vindicated, in his mind, that death is the only way to right the near insurmountable wrong of insult. In short, he is a madman who delights in agony of his perceived enemies for “Nemo me impune lacessit” (no one dare attack me with impunity).

By choosing Montresor as both protagonist and narrator Poe intended to sway the reader towards favoring Montresor; if Fortunato assumed the postion the former had, we would have seen Montresor as a lunatic as it is doubtful that Fortunato would recall what he did to anger him or even have viewed it as insulting. Also by doing so, it simply makes for a more intriguing story as from the first paragraph we learn of Montresor’s hatred and his intention to “make himself felt as such to him who has done the wrong”. By only having access to him the reader is very limited in the reality of the situation; we never learn what the insult was that resulted in death but, are treated to the belittling of Fortunato in all his glory, whilst wearing a jester hat. Had Fortunato been the narrator the ending might have proven to macabre for the audience of his time, however as it is, we are left only with the sound of bells jingling, which I believe to have been a signal for a death in churches long ago, as the fire consumes Fortunato. He never even has a sip of the Amontillado

My most insightful blog yet

After giving a lively picture of a stationary urn in a gradual and smooth-going way, the poet triggers the readers' thinking by the last two lines. By the metaphysical phrase "Beauty is truth, truth beauty", the poem invites the readers to search for a certain kind of beauty, the ultimate truth, on earth or somewhere else. The urn, in other words, begins by quoting Sir Joshua (for Keats and his readers, the world's greatest authority on art of all kinds), implicitly affirms the sufficiency of human intellect, explicitly affirms the equation of beauty and truth, and pronounces this knowledge entirely sufficient to create the elegant geometry of such superb art as the urn.

Because of the uniformity of human minds and passions, moreover, the figures inscribed on the urn (which puzzle the observer at first glance) become intelligible as we relate them to our own experience. The first stanza of the poem is filled with questions; the last, with none. Being art, the urn retains its ability to "speak" to all who observe it, reminding us of our paradoxical dilemma as mortals who exist in finite time.

The urn's characters are frozen in time. The lovers will always love, though they will never consummate their desire. The musicians will always play beneath trees that will never lose their leaves.

The speaker admires this state of existence, but in the end it leaves his "heart high-sorrowful." This is because the urn, while beautiful and seemingly eternal, is not life.

The problem with Keats's Beauty and Truth statement arises out of the reader's inability to distinguish between the poet, his reflections on the urn, and any possible statement made by the urn. He concludes that Keats fails to provide his poet with enough characterization to be able to speak for the urn, a flaw that he considers to be corrected by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in his portrayal of Sherlock Holmes[29].Bennetts idea is that "the audience is always already figured by narrative, then the intrusion of the 'otherness' of narrative into the self-identical lyric form of the ode necessarily produces an audience-effect" [31].

I'd Just Like to Mention

I have wasted
your time
that was once
so precious

with prose
that has been
masked
as poetry

However I
will never read
your words
so I laugh

This is exactly how I felt after I had read ‘I Would Just Like to Say’ by William. For someone to be so prolific that their account of Plum thievery is considered poetry is beyond me. My parody of his piece captures the humor of the original and also, what I believe, would have been/ was the reaction of Williams once his note became instilled in an anthology of major poetic works. The irony is that after reading his piece a few more times I actually found it humorous.
I have kept the exact form of the original, almost down to the exact syllables per line. I feel that in the original, the form was used add emphasis to each line as the intended plum less reader would pause at every line, letting the revelation sink in. I have conveyed this exact sentiment to you, the reader who will never get back their… well one minuet. Your minuet of life is mine, forever.

Forever Scorned

T.S Eliot's 'The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock' presents a man who has watched his life fade before his eyes. He has watched himself as he watched the countless possibilities presented in life curtail in response to his own indecision, inside of his head countless times; forever scorned by his own mind. The image presented is the cover of the Forever Scorned EP from It Dies Today; the effigy bound in a forgotten field is a perfect compliment to the poem.
The figure, reduced to shreds by time and the elements, is forced to stare eternally forward as the world passes it by. A dense fog permeates the area causing one to second guess even the most familiar of sights. Just as Prufrock could never be assertive, so are we left to not be sure of our interpretations of anything that surrounds the forgotten wraith. Just as Prufrock believes that one would only take a second glance at him from his sheer ghastliness and then talk of all his short comings, so are we almost forced to look into the empty eyes of that doll and talk of its decay.It's almost like Prufrock would have painted it himself, his own effigy.
Eliot paints a bleak picture of not just Prufrock's view of himself, but of how Prufrock views the world. He uses the yellow fog to convey Prufrock's own alienation from the world; everything outside of his house is a mystery and filled with countless ramifications and possibilities. Eliot then gives multiple examples of Prufrock's dissatisfaction with himself and also his maddening awareness of his self ostracising ways. The entire work is narrated by Prufrock as he recalls the opportunities he missed 'Till human voices wake us, and we drown'.
Eliot uses Prufrock as a symbol, an effigy, for all those who's introverted and overly analytical ways have resulted in them being alone. Alone and cursed to constantly replay past events to see what more could have been done, what more could have been said; yet so stunned by an opportunity that they let it slip by. He could also be used as a warning to not just the aforementioned recluses but to everyone; live life to the fullest because one day it will be too late and you'll spend the rest of your days haunted by what could have been.

And all things will end.

This thou perceiv'st, which makes thy love more strong/ To love that well which thou must leave ere long.

Nothing can last forever and we all know this; so cherish every moment as they are all leading to your last. By changing the diction of the couplet the entire effect of the poem is lost. Instead of ending gracefully as yellowing leaves do, falling silently to the ground, the prose version screeches to a halt. The entire effect of the poem is lost by a renegade sentence. However, akin to the dying leaves, whose exuberant end is more celebrated than their entire being, the sonnet ends with it's most powerful lines, turning the entire work from mundane into something beautiful. This heroic couplet blatantly give the theme of the poem and empathises with those lovers of aesthetics who witnessed the once raging fire's gluttony consume itself, and watched as the crimson sky faded into interminable blackness.

All the examples serve to give credence to this final message, so maybe in Shakespear's era it wasn't such common ideology. Yet, now that I think about it, it really isn't in our time either, for by extending the theme it could be interpreted as 'since all things will end, only love what you care for', why waste what's left of your time together hating?

Blllllaaaaahhhhhg:

It's a funny word, blog. BLOG. bbbblluuuuuaaaahhhhhhhg. At least if it was vlog it could stand for virtual-logging, however as it is, it only invokes memories of a Tolkien monster. Balrog. rogbal. balogR. Maybe it's a conspiracy.