Mrs. Breedloves' Theme

Not many people know this about me but I am going to college to study Recording Arts. You must be thinking "uuu! This girl wants to record music" and you are a quarter right. What I really want to do is become both a music supervisor and a folley mixer. A folley mixer records sounds and then adds them into the video medium and a music supervisor picks the music that goes into a scene.

There are moments when you just have that perfect song to describe a moment. Or even a song that becomes a trademark. There is a reason that whenever someone says Titanic, another bust out into an accapella version of "My Heart Will Go On". We associate certain songs with certain scenes. I personally remember some of my favorite scenes in movies and T.V shows because of the song that was selected to play during that scene. From Chuck and Blair's limo scene (With Me by Sum 41) to the instrumental music in The Holiday, these are sound trademarks.

 If I was directing the on screen adaptation of The Bluest Eye, or at least the music supervisor of the movie, Louis Armstrongs' "(What Did I Do To Be So) Black and Blue, would be Mrs. Breedloves' theme. Her truth has finally been revealed and the words I can use to describe her truth is superficial and raw.

Mrs. Breedlove had a good childhood despite her foot and was big on rearranging things to leave them looking perfectly in order. She enjoyed being alone in the house to clean. She really did love Cholly and he loved her. They loved each other enough to move to Lorain together. Things really started going downhill then since Pauline did not have big spaces to clean and she had trouble socializing with the other women.

Yet, what really marks the downhill pathway for her to become such an angry woman is when she became addicted to movies. That is when her perception on movies was completely altered by what she saw on screen. She desired to become like the white women on screen whose men would come home and be gentle while hers' had turned to drinking. Her main focus became keeping not her own home clean, but that of the white family she served. She would put her family in second place and didn't focus much attention on them.

This song is the perfect description of the transformation. When the singer says "I'm white...inside...but, that don't help my case’cause I...can't hide...what is in my face" it describes Mrs. Breedlove want to be part of the white world which she completly embraces but being shut out because of her skin. The song in itself is dark and gloomy, giving you a sense of the feelings that go through Mrs. Breedloves head. It is a slow tempo song that shows the change of pace in her life from hopeful and happy to, dark and imprisoning. It is the truth. Mrs. Breedlove becomes angry and a prisoner  to the ideas of beauty she sees in the movies and in essence becomes the personification of this song.

Beauty Through Attitude

Creativity and randomness is a way to describe my future posts. Apparently the week before AP exams , teachers like to add a little "surprise" to their mix of assignments. In my AP Music Teachers case, it is giving more pointless homework that will only lower my grade in the class rather than help in the exam. In Spanish, it is cramming all the short stories that might be on the test into a few lessons. The only class that sort of adds a little dynamic to this mix is this one. Even though these assignments on the blog are long and I am just angry that AP exams are not being taken into account, this assignment is a surprise I don't mind (much).

In The Bluest Eye, black is ugly. All the reader ever hears about Pecola Breedlove is that she is ugly. Which just makes you think, what is ugly and was she really ugly? The standards of beauty have not changed much since the times of Pecola and now. Except now the color of someones skin doesn't really affect how we see their beauty. At least not here in my country, which is different from the context of the novel.

Beauty in the novel is the blonde hair, blue eyes, ideal of perfection sold to every woman and girl at the time, whether white or black. Either of these physical assets or what they connote in society is what makes beauty. Yet, in the novel we have seen characters that are supposed to be beautiful because their skin is lighter or their eyes are lighter, and they happen to be the nastiest of characters. So it becomes a whole idea of what Morrision actually defines as beauty and what she makes into the hidden true beauty.

Morrision puts Pecola in harsh conditions and challenges her, to prove that her true beauty is her thrive. As cheesy as it sounds, what makes Pecola beautiful is her personality. Not only her but Claudia and Freida as well. Pecola is shown as frail because that is what discrimination has done, but the thing that makes Pecola a strong character is her ability to withstand so much and not lose her innocence about it.

This song...

is called Black Is Beautiful by The Trinikas. They describe a black woman and the beauty of being beaitiful because you are black.

The song constantly repeats the idea that "black is beautiful" as well that "determination you have to have it". I believe Pecola is a personification of this song. She is not known for being beutiful because of the standards of blonde blue eyed magic. This song doesn't praise that but rather the strong determined attitude of being black. That is what really makes the person beautiful. Some people are quiet about it like Pecola but it does not mean it is not there.

Pervert

Claudia is once again the narrator in this next part of The Bluest Eye. The innocent narration of this section adds a bit of a lighthearted tone to a very dark topic. At the beginning of the section Claudia is simply outside, but she is narrating how she would prefer the whipping of a strap or a hairbrush over the ache of switchings and forsythia. Usually in the spring these plants are welcomed after a long hard winter and praised for their beauty, but Claudia can only associate this with pain and punishment.

When Claudia does decide to go homes, she senses there is something going on. Her mother is singing about trains and Arkansas, had her hat on, and was wearing muddy boots in the house. If this wasn't enough, she finds her sister crying. After understanding it wasn't a whipping the conversation takes on a lighthearted tone in which it is revealed what really happened.

Mr. Henry, the upstairs, neighbor "picked" at Freida. The word "picked" does not mean that at a harvest you got some apples from a tree but rather that Mr. Henry made a obscene action to Freida. The other part of this that caught my attention was the mention of "Soaphead Church". I thought it was a saying or an expression so I put it into le Google. It is not an expression or an idiom at all. SparkNotes came out as the first search option and it said character list. But controlling the inner beast of curiosity, I simply hit the little x button on the tab. I am strong and powerful for not succumbing to the temptation of Sparknotes. I guess Soaphead Church will be explained later on and his/her story will be told.

Despite that, the conversation between the girls keeps going. Claudia asks the wrong questions after she uncovers that Mr. Henry touched her sisters breasts. Questions like "How did it feel?" and " But wasn't it supposed to? Feel good?", are not the kind of questions you want to hear when your private square has been violated. I also found it comical that Claudia picked that moment to point out her lack of breasts.

The seemingly lighthearted approach to this really highlights how easy it is for a child to not understand the reality that surrounds them. In a sense this makes Claudia the narrator naive and therefore the perspective the reader has, a little oblivious

About The Unjustified Psychological and Physiological Damage To A Cat (and Women)

"SEETHECATITGOESMEOWMEOWMEOWCOMEANDPLAYCOMEANDPLAYWITHJANETHEKITTENWILLNOTPLAYPLAYPLAYPLA"

This excerpt above is from Toni Morrisions' novel, The Bluest Eye. It first appeared at the beginning of the novel but it also appears again to introduce a new part of the story. The cat appears in this part of the novel and there had been no prior mention of the cat or the characters in this section before. It is curious that it is this particular excerpt that appears since in a sense it lets you know there will be some relation to the cat, but it doesn't start off that way.

Women. A description of women and how the way they say where they are from is how it starts. It is all about how women from Mobile tilt their head and "you think you've been kissed" or asked where they are from and say Meridian "the sound of it opens the windows of a room like the first four notes of a hymn". Then it dives deeper into the habits of these women and how they work hard but in a sense make the rules for their environment. What really caught my attention about all of this was the special emphasis on the women. Even though there is discrimination around them, they are still showed as strong figures by Morrison.

Sure these women are given housework and childbearing as their main function, but they are the ones that "build their nest sick by stick". The description of sex is prime about this. Morrison describes it as an act that is pleasurable for the man but, shows how the woman is too focused on other things to care what is going on. She cares much more about the curler that falls off her hair and getting her hair damp, than what is actually happening. The highlight of the lack of pleasure is this: "When she senses some spasm about to grip him, she will make rapid movements with her hips, press her fingernails into his back, suck in her breath, and pretend she is having an orgasm." (pg 84) The woman is the one that has complete control. Later on in this same section it goes on to explain how she seeks pleasures outside of what should be giving her a good feeling. Hence, the cat.

The story goes from the general to the specific when it begins to talk about Geraldine. One such girl from those far away towns that moves to the previous stories setting, Lorain, Ontario with her husband. What really has her adoration and love is her black cat. Even after she gives birth to Junior, it is the cat who always has her attention and adoration. Junior becomes jealous of he cat and begins to torture it when his mother is not around.

There is a part when Pecola comes into this seemingly far off story. Junior invites her to his house to see some kittens and Pecola agrees. Little did she know he was just coaxing her, and finds herself getting the cat thrown at her. Her face gets scratched and Junior, being the violent freak he apparently is, locks her up with the cat. As soon as he notices that Pecola is petting the cat, does he open the door and begin to swing the cat over his head. Pecola gets him to let go of the cat who hits the radiator and dies.

Almost as soon as that happens Geraldine walks in, Pecola is blamed for the whole affair, and she is told to get out.

The cat didn't want to play because he was tortured. Once again Pecola is cast aside because of the color of her skin and seems to be less strong than the women described at the beginning of the section once again. If everyone else is a strong woman, is Pecola the antichrist of feminism? Maybe Morrision is highlighting this about her and that is the reason she is the weakest character in the novel despite being the main one.

Hating Yourself Through Others

As I read The Bluest Eyes, I really got thinking about the narrator in it. It is the view from the girls point of view, more specifically Claudia. Sometimes it does switch to an omniscient narrator though.It does not feel like it is an adult saying his view on a discriminatory world. There is the essence of the innocence of the girl because she doesn't fully understand what it is that makes her "ugly" or what makes her world so dark. Yes. Somehow Morrison manages to turn the innocent experience that is childhood into a dark abyss.

I used to have an arch enemy when I was in pre-k. I know what you are thinking. How can a sweet, blonde, three year old have an arch enemy before her fourth birthday? Well, when I try to make sense of my three year old memories, all I can think of is that I would just pick fights with this girl called Susana. To this day, even though I don't know why I didn't like her, I still get a surge of annoyance thinking about her. Maybe there really is a kid inside all of us.

The girls in this story also seem to have their own version of a Susana. Except her name is Maureen Peal. One would think with this story being highlighting racism as a central topic, that Maureen would be white, but she is actually light skinned African American girl. In the story, the girls say that everyone likes her and praises her. She seems like this sweet nice girl and for lack of a better example, she sounds like a total teachers pet and people pleaser.

The interesting thing is when Maureen appears in the story. She appears right before one of the harshest parts I have read up to now. Some boys were harassing Pecola and screaming bad things at her. Claudia, Maureen, and Freida were walking by and spoke up against the boys causing trouble. Since maureen is such a people pleaser and all the boys like her, she didn't really speak up. There was a part though when Claudia as the narrator mentions the following that really stood out to me:

"That they themselves were black, or that their own fathers had similarly relaxed habits was irrelevant. It was their contempt for their own blackness that gave that first insult its teeth. They seemed to take all of their... exquisitely learned self-hatred, their elaborately designed hopelessness and sucked it all up into a fiery cone of scorn that burned for ages in the hollow of their minds...They danced a macabre ballet around the victim, whom, for their own sake, they were prepared to sacrifice  to the flaming pit." (pg 65)

It is powerful to think like this keeping in mind that the narrator is a child. And those committing this act are children who are basically insulting themselves. The insults being thrown at Pecola are personal and probably part of the boys everyday lives which really makes you think who the real victim is. I think it is also very powerful that they only seem to really stop when Maureen approaches them. It is not the black girls like them that appeases them but the light skinned girl. They acknowledge the hierarchy in their society but instead of ignoring it with themselves, put a special influence on it to harass themselves. It is all about power and control.

More Than Candy

I am pretty sure everybody has those bad moments. When you simply don't like ourself very much or regret something you did. That icky feeling that puts you in a bad mood and makes you despise everything that surrounds you. It's fine to have those moments sometimes but for Pecola, it seems to happen too often.

It is clear that Pecolas' living situation is not good and that her social life isn't that great either, but I think she has been brainwashed to think the worst of herself. Not only that but her community pushes for her, a child, to not change her mentality. From personal experience, whenever I looked at myself negatively or doubting my abilities, the people that surround me would root for me to change those negative thoughts.

In psychology we learned about reinforcers. There are positive reinforcers and negative reinforcers. A positive reinforcer is that which praises a good action or behavior and pushes the person to keep doing whatever they are doing. A negative reinforcer is that which takes something negative away, like a "sal de frutas lua" removes a stomach ache. As weird as it sounds, Pecolas ways and how she views herself is reinforced by her environment and the people in it.

A clear example of this is when Pecola goes to buy candy. The store keeper acknowledges her presence but not as something he wants there. You kind of notice a hierarchy of superiority since the old man seems to have a negative attitude towards Pecola. It is interesting how Morrision describes Pecolas' view on the mans view on her:

"She looks up at hum and sees the vacuum where curiosity ought to lodge. And something more. The total absence of human recognition- the glazed separateness. She does not know what keeps his glance suspended.... But she has seen interest, disgust, even anger in grown male eyes. Yet this vacuum is not new to her. It has an edge; somewhere in the bottom lid is the distaste. She has seen it lurking in the eyes of all white people. So, the distaste must be for her, her blackness." (pg 49)

A person senses these things, but the fact that there is distaste towards a little girl is confusing to me. I guess that is what makes this story so raw and real. It might sound weird but all these details in what Pecola sees, sets the condemnatory tone of the novel that makes the reader uncomfortable. The way Pecola makes blackness sound like some sort of disease is reinforced because that is what she sees in all the white people that surround her. 

The reason I posted a picture of that candy is because that is what she buys from the funky candy man. These candies are called Mary Janes and once again help reinforce Pecolas' want to be a blue eyed beauty. And probably the most awkward description of eating a candy I have heard since apparently Pecola thinks "three pennies had bought her nine lovely orgasms with Mary Jane." (pg 50). Still, that description once again highlights that mentality of what society wants her to think is beauty and what is correct.

Switch-A-Roo and Furniture

Sometimes, to keep things interesting, authors like to skip around like gazelles out in the middle of nowhere. They like to keep the reader on their toes so they can be accusatory and have an "Aha! So you were paying attention moment". This has happened once again in The Bluest Eyes. The reader can understand that the present is when Claudia is the main focus of the narrator, but when there is a switch to Pecolas' life before she became an outsider, it is the past.

I am sure there is a name for this fancy-pancy switch in time in a story but right now I can't remember what it is. You know, trying to keep it real. I kid. I will google it right now:

Prolepsis: When the author goes forward in the storyline.
Analepsis: When the author goes back in the storyline

BAM! You have been googled.

When writing about Claudia, the narrator does not make it sound like the best of things in the world, but these flashbacks to Pecolas' old life, are even more darker. The descriptions of the characters are abundant as well as their setting. From the descriptions to the setting, Morrison is using a condemnatory tone (yes, I did look at my tone sheet) all the time she describes these characters and their lifestyle. As shown in this part, the simple description on the furniture is dark and well, condemnatory:

"There is nothing more to say about the furnishings. They were anything but describable, having been conceived, manufactured, shipped, and sol in various states of thoughtlessness, greed and indifference. The furniture had aged without ever having become familiar. People had owned it, but never known it." (pg 35)

We are all familiar with our furniture and in a sense the fact that here it is acknowledged as practically invisible says a lot about how the characters are portrayed. Not just that, but the fact that furniture, which is something we humans buy to appease the esthetic perfectionist inside all of us, is given no sense of importance. Pardon the weird thought but it is like an unwanted cat. It's there but gives you no sense of satisfaction with its meowing and hairballs. Same as the furniture, not even its basic uses of a place to sit or lean against is acknowledged.

If I was a chair in this place, I would have been a sad chair. But life made me a human girl with a bunch of work to get done. So the next time you sit on your sofa, think about its meaning to you.

Doll Hater

I was never really into dolls when I was little. I was into Barbies but those are different. When I imagine a doll, I imagine a toy like the one in the picture above. They creep me out. It's as if someone trapped the essence of what it is to be a little girl in this toy and the eyes really creep me out. This picture is okay compared to those really old looking dolls, I can handle it. I am not alone in this discomfort with these dolls though as Claudia, the narrator of Toni Morrisons' The Bluest Eyes, despises these dolls more than I do.

Claudia is a little African American girl that lives with her mother, father and sister. They take in another girl called Pecola while the county decides what they will do. Based on the descriptions given by Morrision, they are part of a low socioeconomic level and don't seem to have very much. The mother is shown as a harsh woman when Claudia is sick but, has her moments of gentleness as well. Her sister Freida and her are very close and welcome Pecola when they realize she isn't there to dominate them and the three of them get along.

Claudia discusses her sister and Pecolas fascination with Shirley Temple, an old child star from their times. Pecola always wants to drink out of the cup with Shirley Temples' face on it and discusses her a lot with Freida. Meanwhile Claudia does not understand the fascination since Shirley is like one of those dolls they sell in the stores. Claudia is not even amused by either the dolls or Shirley Temple.

Claudia looked around and saw that "Adults, older girls, shops, magazines, newspapers, window signs- all the world had agreed that a blue-eyed, yellow-haired,pink-skinned doll was what every girl child treasured." (pg 20) This image to her though, was annoyance and hatred. Claudia couldn't understand why this was what everyone portrayed as beauty and perfection. Everyone would become outraged with her for torturing the dolls.

What made this idea interesting to me is when Claudia says her feelings toward the dolls were easily transferred to the living breathing version, little white girls. She describes it as "The indifference with which i could have axed them was shaken only by my desire to do so."(pg 22) Such thoughts don't really go into a childs' mind unless there is a real hatred. I think this could foreshadow a conflict later on in the novel where either she lashes out on a white girl or on those who praise it so much.

Confusion Through Clear Ideas

There are certain statements that don’t really make much sense. They appear o contradict each other or show the opposite of the first thing that was said, right after it was said. Suddenly you feel confused and try to make sense of said statement. You read it once, twice, three times, trying to make sense of it. As you keep reading you start nodding your head as if you finally understand what is being said but then you read it again and understand nothing. These statements are antithetical statements.

Antithetical statements show a sort of opposite reasoning. It’s as if the meaning of one part will become clearer with the opposite force. It’s confusing huh? To add to the fun, chapters O, P and Q of Reality Hunger were filled with these quirky little statements. Some stood out more to me than others for their antitheticalness (not a real word):

“Great art is clear thinking about mixed feelings” (pg. 136, Shields)

Basically, how can you think clearly about something that is mixed? In art there is an importance for the abstract of a situation and for the obscureness of it. The idea has to be clear about what you are creating whether it is with a painting or a song, before you put the mixed feeling into it. The artist could also understand what seems complex to the rest of the world and creates mixed feelings on the person viewing the art.

“There’s nothing and everything going on.” (pg. 137, Shields)

…Okay? Well, sure we have been in this situation. For example right now as I write this blog. If my dad came in and asked me what’s going on, I would probably say “nothing”. The reality though is that there is a lot going on. I am writing this blog as I listen to music, am trying not to fall off my bed, and thinking about the other homework I have to do. Appearances can be deceiving in this sense that, I might say nothing knowing that there is a whole lot more than nothing going on.

“We’re only certain (“certain only”) about what we don’t understand.” (pg. 138, Shields)

This one is a little easier to understand. Sometimes we run into that person who just won’t accept they are wrong. Even in the topics they have no idea about ,they have an opinion and simply babble on about whatever is being discussed. On another hand, we know the things we don’t understand. We always have doubts about those things we do understand or are trying to add to them. Yet, with those things we are certain of we are more vulnerable. Instead when we are sure we are uncertain about something there is not much to go on. I am pretty sure I don’t understand the curtain industry. I know I don’t know anything about it and that is something I am absolutely certain about.

These antithetical statements are tied with reality. Reality can be paradoxical because there are just so many of them. My reality is very different to those who read this. It’s as if reality is what you make it and there is not one certain way to view it. I feel this quote from the book summarizes it pretty well:

“- the chronic American belief that there exists an opposition between reality and mind and one must enlist oneself in the party of reality” (pg. 146, Shields)

There's not one sole party for reality and the mind, rather your mind shapes your reality, and that is a private party.

Social Creatures

Ok fine. I admit it. I (the owner of this blog,) watch reality T.V. I know it might come as a bit of a shock to those of you who think I am half deity and to those that think I don’t own a T.V. But alas, it’s true. I enjoy watching Keeping Up With The Kardashians and Americas Next Top Model. I will also admit to not changing the channel when Jersey Shore is on a number of times. There is just something that is appealing about the “reality of others. Even if it is through a memoir, T.V, or even an essay, it draws you in.

In the essay, Brief Lives by Kate Salter, she explains how Michael Kimball writes the story of peoples’ lives on the back of postcards. One could think of Kimball as an autobiographer, who highlights one moment in a persons’ life. He gets regular requests from people all over the world, asking for him to write a postcard for them. People write to Kimball telling them about themselves and there is “Something about email communication, and the fact that he is a stranger, makes them very open.” (Brief Lives, Salter)

People enjoy sharing their stories with others as the article about Kimball proves. In Reality Hunger they also talk about this. Memoirs are mentioned as well as essays. I think that in all of these forms of writing there is a sense of capturing a moment how you want it to be captured.

In an essay there is less freedom for the imagination because it is generally associated with non - fiction writing. Still it is not that different to what Kimball does with his post cards. The postcards themselves could be thought of as essays about real events and real people. He is an autobiographer to all these strangers. Those that write essays are “ a specie of metaphysician: they’re inquisitive and analytic about the least grain of being.” ( pg. 133, Shields) This is true because there is a fair amount of research that goes into essays unless you are completely writing a fantasy essay, which I don’t even know if it exists (My teacher is probably reading this so there’s a question for him to answer in class). Even the postcard guy has to find out more information from the people he writes to.

Kimball writes other people stories and has to find out about them. These people must not know about memoirs or they just like sharing their story. In a sense that is what Kimball is doing, he is writing a memoir for other people. Yes, I know it is not a memoir if someone else writes it. A memoir could be anonymous and the thrill of that might be great, but as is explained in the article: “what I'm doing is very public - full names, photographs. A lot of the people who are participating are claiming - or reclaiming - themselves.” (Brief Lives, Salter) In a memoir there is the same sense of self exploring, but these postcards are just another excuse to be egocentric and talk about yourself to someone who is not only willing to listen.

Shields writes that “a conversational dynamic – the desire for contact – is ingrained in the form” (pg. 133, Shields) No matter what form is being employed whether essay, memoir, or a script for reality T.V, it is that human want that pushes us to communicate. Humans are social creatures that want to get their point across no matter what. 

Collage

Reality and Genre

Reality Hunger uses aphorisms to add to the collage that Shields has created. There are allusions, direct facts, and aphorisms mixed up in each chapter but they all have to do wit a single idea. The aphorisms I chose had to do with ideas of reality. How we accept certain things to be true or influence the actual facts to match up with the reality we wish was there.

"Genre is a minimum security prison" chapter G

Genre is not the final say. A person might classify a book as a mystery while another might consider it a thriller. I agree with the quote because By relating genre to a minimum security prison, it is understood why it might be of little importance at times. The genre of anything can jump from one to another depending on the perspective of the person. Each perspective is different but accepting when it becomes aare of something decided before hand. For example, if told by my teacher that the book we are reading is a mystery, I accept it is a mystery. If I did not have this knowledge before hand, I would classify the novel based on my own perspective. Sometimes our own perspective and the given language might combine and this is how we notice how genre has minimum security. There might be rules or ideas how to classify something but in the end, they are not mandatory to follow. 




"Our culture is obsessed with real events because we experience hardly any" chapter H

I think it is not exactly that what we experience isn't real, but rather that it is not the real events we want. The media and TV shows make the most random events seem like something that we should be experiencing on a daily basis. The obsession describes in this aphorism could explain our fascination with reality TV  The realities presented in Jersey Shore or The Kardashian's, seem to be way more interesting than our own realities and so people attempt to mimic these realities and these are the fake realities. I blame this for making people feel disappointed with their lives and not really experiencing reality.

"In our hunger for all things true, we make the facts irrelevant" chapter I

It does seem this way. When we want something to be true we disregard even the most obvious facts. In a sense this aphorism could describe ignorance. We rather believe what we want than actually acknowledge the facts that prove that it isn't this way. For example, a bad relationship. Maybe the guy is very subtle in the way he hurts the girl and it takes her some time to realize the truth behind what the guy said. She realizes he is hurting her and that she is not happy in the relationship but instead of acknowledging the facts, she turns them into something with no importance. In the girls hunger for something true, in this case love and acceptance, she makes the facts that point out how bad the relationship really is, irrelevant.

Imposter?

The reality of Reality Hunger is that it is all plagirized. David Shields got a bunch of text that is not his, organized it in a crafty way, and then makes it all stream. If you read this book, you will find that the chapters are by letters and in each chapter there is a bit of historical information. There are sections which explain how a form of writing came to be and then it switches to something someone said about it or even a definition about what is being discussed. It kind of feels like a book filled with facts for you to discover.

Such said facts are in the book for a reason. It is not simply a crazy guy trying to trick the system but rather, someone who is trying to prove a point through others proving the point for him. For this reason, the author uses allusion throughout the book. One second a movie is being mentioned and then there is a bit of text explaining how the Bible and Odyssy came to be so reprinted. It is a bit ironic that the writer writes about the creation of copyright when he himself is breaking it from every angle possible. All this. All these jumbles of seeming disorganized information are bits and pieces that make up allusions to the different texts.

There is a mention of James Frey in chapter D. What caught my attention and made me want to investigate who he was, was the following:

"I mean, I knew I'd never be the football star or the student council president and, you know, once people started saying I was the bad kid, I was like, "All right, they think I'm the bad kid. I'll show them how bad I can be."

Looking up where this passage came from, it was James Frey who said it. So I wanted to know who he was and why Shields was making him such an important part of this chapter. Along with this google search, came mug shots that only seemed to affirm what Shields put in his book. Yet, it was about memoirs in the end.

It turns out that the books written by Frey are memoirs. One especially, A Million Little Pieces, told the story of Frey spending eighty-seven days in prison. The story itself was well like but this "memoir" was surrounded with controversy. Frey has admitted to making up parts of this memoir and saying he only wanted it to flow and have a little more action. Oprah interviewed him and got him to admit to the truth in this controversy. After it all blew over, Frey continues to write and gets both good and bad reviews.

Chapter D in Shields book is about memoirs. It is interesting that he would choose a fake memoir writer to open the topic. Maybe Shields believes that its ok to embellish your writing a little bit and add something else into this genre. He might also just be criticizing Frey for having done what he did. The fact that this particular memoirist was mentioned and not any other, just seems odd and can be looked at from many perspectives. 

It might also just be the call for acceptance of writing without really labeling it. Is genre something absolutely necessary when it comes down to it? It is because we put such an emphasis on it that "scandals" like the one Frey faced occurred. Shields might be wanting a middle ground. Where all genres can meet and no sort of scandal need occur for damage to writing itself to be taken in such a way.

Manifest...OH!

People have this urge to express how they feel about a topic and have an inexplicable longing for others to side with them. It sounds bad but most of the times people are trying to get others to side with them on the negative aspects of a topic. There is a certain urging to this that can incite some sort of movement or change someone’s way of thinking. Opinion is something powerful and in the Cartagena Manifesto and Reality Hunger, the opinion of the two authors incites those who read them, to express something.

 

When I read the title Reality Hunger, I assumed the book was going to be about being hungry. But it was of course not abut that. I am not going to lie. Reading those first three pages left me confused and having to re-read them over and over. The author puts many movies and T.V shows into a list and explains a little bit about them. Some of them feel as if he is describing them in a mocking tone like The Bachelor ("tells us more about the state of unions than any romantic comedy could dream of telling us." (pg 4)) So bring all these medias together and writing out what they are about, is his manifest that we should hate them?

 

The Cartagena manifesto might be a little clearer, even though it was written when everyone who reads this was a very negative number. In it, Simon Bolivar is expressing his views on Venezuela. According to him Venezuela's political ways have doomed the country and it is why he escaped. He is expressing is discontent with the killing in a town called Coro and how the government is simply being close minded. Bolivar is not pointing to Venezuela as the enemy. He actually blames the Spaniards and it is them he wishes to get people to agree with him on:

 

"They were shamelessly committed by the malcontents, and particularly by our born and implacable enemies, the European Spaniards, who had schemingly remained in our country in order to keep it in continual turmoil and to foster whatever conspiracies our judges permitted them to organize, by always acquitting them even when their misdeeds were of such enormity as to endanger public welfare.” (Cartagena Manifesto)

 

From what I understand from Bolivar, a manifesto is inciting fervor in others to agree with something you are saying is happening. He is expressing how he feels about something and saying it with topics that might make the others agree with him. 

 

Then there is Reality Hunger. From what I understand, his manifesto is more towards arts. An artistic movement that takes into account the times we are living in. The author gives all these examples of the modern way people are viewing the media.It also feels like the author is mixing everything together like a collage. Thats why it is confusing to understand since it is just a bunch of ideas put together.

 

Manifesto from what I have gathered, is a form of writing in which the author wants to express an idea through different examples and get others to agree with him. The author manifests their views to everyone else but hopes to get support in return. 

English = Power

“One language to rule them all, One language to find them, One language to bring them all and in the darkness bind them”

Not exactly in the words of J.R.R Tolkien, this is what English could be thought as. Granted, it did not bind anyone to darkness (or is hat relative?) and did not involve any hobbits. English has had its hand in ruling over different people, it has been shackles to some as well as liberation to others. English has a power: The power to take control.

India was conquered by the English. By using English as a tool, they made everyone in India learn to speak it. Soon enough everyone could communicate through English and there was no longer a language barrier among the Indian people. Little did they know that while it could be wielded to control the people, it could also unite the people to fight back. Gandhi published his pamphlet disagreeing with the government so that everyone could understand it.

English also had its effect with the slave trade. The people in charge of plantations spoke it and therefore created an impact on the African people they brought. Soon enough the languages were intermingling and communication began to flow between the two worlds. This is how Black American English got its roots. From a mix of western African language and the English of those who brought them here.

It is also interesting to see how language can decide a whole classes fate. How just by hearing how someone speaks you can determine what social circle they are a part of. In Australia those that spoke the slang and tried to make the language modern were considered of the low class. Then those who spoke standard English or queens English were from the aristocracy. If you think about it even today in Colombia a person from Rosales does not speak the same way as a person who lives in Ciudad Bolivar.