Blog #8
Matthew Detrick Hybrid Identities: Race, Class and Gender in Postcolonial/Multicultural Britain Hanif Kureishi’s short story “My Son the Fanatic” tells of a Punjab family that immigrated to England. It describes the father’s growing fear of his son’s emerging and growing religious fundamentalism out from what he assumed to be his son assimilating to his new country as he was. The story ends with the father’s fear besting him and causing him to strike his son several times. The son then questions the brutality by asking “So who’s the frantic now?” Immigrants are often pressured to assimilate in the countries they reside. Some immigrants do this and some just repeat the behaviors they had always done. An example of the latter is The Godfather by Mario Puzo, where certain immigrants to America from Sicily repeat the mafia style of governance they had done for centuries, where violence and vengeance had left their old home without fathers. Don Corleone describes his opinion of the American’s voting and democracy over his known method of governance by saying: “I don't trust society to protect us, I have no intention of placing my fate in the hands of men whose only qualification is that they managed to con a block of people to vote for them.”(Puzo, Audiobook). Unlike The Godfather, I Am Malala tells a story of a young girl who is forced to immigrate so she can be saved from evil men in her homeland. Malala openly spoke for education for all Pakistanis, especially women and girls, when the Taliban came in and their brutal interpretation of a religion was used to constrict the rights of all. Malala continued to speak out until she was shot by a man who belonged to the Taliban. With swift thinking, first rate medical work and the power of family and self determination to continue her message, Malala recovered and she continues to spread her message of education and equality from her new English home and reflects the best qualities of immigrants by focusing on her own education rather than personal fame.
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“Punishment” by Seamus Heaney is a poem of a modern man interpreting the fate of a woman long dead, but nearly immaculately preserved in a bog. The author speculates of the woman’s reason to die in such a place and believes it to be of an adulterous nature and a part of a sentence carried out of some unwritten law.
Marital infidelity has been a subject that has both been written extensively, and just as or if not more strongly condemned. The Bible is one of the eldest pieces of literature, and it speaks of what happened to ancient persons who were found guilty of the crime: “If a man commits adultery with the wife of his neighbor, both the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death.” (Leviticus 20:10). We continue to condemn those who travel from what society deems sexually acceptable, in Lolita, the narrator, Humbert, marries a woman with the lewd intention of having his way with his 12-year-old step daughter and ends up captured by the police and sentenced to prison. He tries to justify himself by saying that had his conduct been done in a different time and place, it would be more acceptable: “Among Sicilians sexual relations between a father and his daughter are accepted as a matter of course, and the girl who participates in such relationship is not looked upon with disapproval by the society of which she is part” (Nabokov 150). The novel is given as his confession, of which he is so ashamed of that he asks to have the confession withheld until after his death. Yet another example of what might seem as an ancient time was The Scarlett Letter, which is set in Puritan Massachusetts. The sentence of a woman who gave birth to a fatherless child is to be publicly chastised and then caused to wear a scarlet “A” for adultery. The punishment of the letter was not to brand her for three years or even ten years, but all “the days of the far-off future would toil onward, still with the same burden for her to take up and bear along with her.” (Chapter 5, audiobook) A presumed death, remains found preserved in a bog, possibly stoned to death, a life in prison, or a life free to roam but still branded for acts done mostly for what we are biologically compelled to do. Our passions constantly combat the steel bars and tall stone walls of social expectations, although society punishes swiftly, man has yet to relinquish their desires. Blog #6
Matthew Detrick Unit 6: Constructing the Colonial Subject: “Savage” Men and Silenced Women Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness shows imperialism in its classic tone, which is the ignorant native being ruled by a cruel colonial power that calls the native “the savage”. This example has presented itself throughout history by every empire, from the Akkadian Empire to the Nazi Germany’s attempt at conquering the world of what they deemed to be possessed by less worthy neighbors. This book’s example details the conquering and colonialization of Africa, which the idea of social Darwinism gave the world powers the justification they wanted to enslave and reap the resources owned by what they deemed as “lesser people”. I found that this book had some comparisons to Lord of the Flies in a strange way. The Lord of the Flies shows what author William Golding believed what would happen if adolescent boys would do if they were isolated from authority or rules. What results is truly savage, the boys form tribes, and murder one another for control or survival. Only does this cease when the navy comes ashore and restores order to the chaos of the island. Where the similarities begin is what the boys do in Lord of the Flies and what the men did in Heart of Darkness as they have done throughout history. The boys in Lord of the Flies used brutality to enforce a tribal alliance, and the isolation made the younger, more ignorant children to believe in monsters. This too happened in Heart of Darkness, that the Russians in Africa made the African natives do their biddings by threats and the use of violence. This nature seems to be popping up all over, from Heart of Darkness, Lord of the Flies and even The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Perhaps the worst part of it is that: “thinking the Beast was something you could hunt and kill!... You knew, didn’t you? I’m part of you? Close, close, close! I’m the reason why it’s no go? Why things are what they are?” (Golding, Audiobook) Blog #5 Matthew Detrick Modernist Perspectives on Sexuality and Desire In E.M. Forster’s “The Other Boat”, we find a roller coaster of emotions. A war hero who discovers a battle that has secretly raged within him is brought to his attention after a night with a childhood friend. He discovers an affection for his fellow man he had never known in a ships’ cabin. The result of this shattered all of which Captain Lionel’s knowledge of himself. He was a wounded war hero with orders to go to India, he had a promising career ahead of him, he also had a sweetheart, Isabel, awaiting him. Lionel resisted Cocoanut’s advance at first: “A hand touched them, and he thought no harm until it approached their junction, then he became puzzled, scared and disgusted in quick succession” (pg 255. Forster) This is the reaction of a typical heterosexual man, but them looking out from the same porthole gave them enough contact to spark the hidden desires within them and they consummated them: “That night champagne appeared in the cabin, and he was seduced.” (pg 257. Forster) After this, Lionel realizes the cabin’s door was not bolted, allowing anyone to see in and witness the men together. Lionel is highly upset and reflects over the societal consequences of the act he had committed, losing his military post, as well as his social standing. The next attempt of seduction Cocoanut made was his last, when Lionel’s war wound was reopened and, in the confusion, he saw his lover as his enemy and killed him. The pain of killing his lover induced him to throw himself overboard. the scandal of the murder and suicide resulted in what might have been the same if the love affair had been its stead, a negative memory was left of the men, and Lionel’s mother never spoke of her first born again. The story that comes to mind that compliments this for me would be Gone With The Wind by Margaret Mitchell. The story of Scarlett O’Hara’s journey of Antebellum through Appomattox was one filled with Scarlett challenging the social norms, by being a plantation’s daughter, she was expected to act by certain morals and expectations. She did none of these, she owned her own business to fight off hunger, married men for position and personal gain than for love or a quiet family life. Most of all, Scarlett’s path to scandal was paved by her pursuit of Ashley and relationship with Rhett Butler. Ashley was what Scarlett thought of as her ideal love and husband, even though he married another woman. Rhett was a social pariah, not being able to be received by his own family in Charleston, soliciting services of the local whore house, and openly pursuing Scarlet, even though she was a widow at the time. Both these stories focus on an established ideal, and individuals fighting to keep while failing to follow the same social expectations. This can be best described by Rhett: “Until you've lost your reputation, you never realize what a burden it was or what freedom really is.” (Mitchell, Audiobook) Blog #4 Gender, modernism, war
T.S. Eliot’s “The Waste Land” puts war into very eloquent and descriptive manner. Not even the words, but the structure of the poem speaks to the reader, showing through the use of multiple languages that not only one culture or spoken tongue are affected by the ravages of war. Another way Eliot conveys his message is his poetic structure, sometimes showing a clear structure and letting the stanzas go into disarray, an example would be the part about a soldier in the trenches: “My nerves are bad to-night. Yes, bad. Stay with me. Speak to me. Why do you never speak. Speak. What are you thinking of? What thinking? What? I Never know what you are thinking. Think” (Pg. 40 Eliot) This shows the confusion and frantic chaos in the trenches. Ernest Hemingway has a poem called “A Soldier’s Home” which also shows that frantic chaos and gives a great example to the phrase “There are no atheists in foxholes”: “While the bombardment was knocking the trench to pieces at Fossalta, he lay very flat and sweated and prayed oh jesus Christ. Jesus please get me out. Christ please please please Christ. If you’ll only keep me from getting killed, I’ll do anything you say. I believe in you and I’ll tell everyone in the world that you are the only one that matters. Please please dear jesus. The shelling moved further up the line. We went to work on the trench and in the morning the sun came up and the day was hot and muggy and cheerful and quiet. The next night back at Mestre he did not tell the girl he went upstairs with at the Villa Ross about Jesus. And he never told anybody.” (pg. 109 Hemingway) The Hemingway poem also shows a change in morals in Europe from the old century to the new by the young man’s breaking of his sacred promise while staring into the eyes of what must have seemed as certain death. The Europeans had just passed over the Victorian Era, where a strict sense of modesty and was replaced by the Edwardian Era in the late 1900s through the 1910s, which would become the Roaring 20s some ten years later in America. This wave was one of breaking the strict social norms of their parents by having women more out in public, by dances, as well as smoking and drinking. Eliot also notes this cultural change in The Fire Sermon: “She turns and looks a moment in the glass/ Hardly aware of her departed lover/ Her brain allows one half-formed thought to pass: “Well now it’s done; and I’m glad it’s over”” (pg. 44 Eliot). Fin-de-Siècle Masculinities: Monsters, Doubles, and Male Friendships
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevens is an excellent example of the duality of mankind, one side embarks to satisfy their curiosities, seeking to discover, contribute positively to himself and his society. In contrast, there lies a part of man who through his baseness seeks to harm and destroy himself and society. This story describes Dr. Jekyll as the good, and Hyde as the bad, Jekyll is a sophisticated English gentleman while Hyde is described as “hardly human! Something troglodytic” (pg. 775, Stevens), or appearing apelike. Many other stories express this divide within man, such as Bram Stoker’s Dracula, an animated corpse that exhibits the qualities of a gentleman, which seduces his victims with his outwardly good behavior, as well as a diseased ferocious animal that spreads his undead plague. Another is the legend of wolfmen, men who are attacked by a wolf, and must suffer a nightly fate of becoming a wolf themselves and engaging in savage acts of murder to their loved ones. The Werewolf Of Paris by Guy Endore describes this duality quite well by saying: “werewolves that have but one body, in which the soul of man and of beast are at war. Then whatever weakens the human soul, either sin or darkness, solitude or cold, brings the wolf to the fore. And whatever weakens the beastly soul, either virtue or daylight, warmth or the companionship of man, raises up the human soul. For it is known that the wolf shrinks from that which invites the man.” (Endore, audiobook) The latter is often thought to be the source material for Steven’s Jekyll and Hyde. The duality of man is an intriguing subject in psychology and psychiatry. How can the same creature create, give and love as well as destroy, take and hate? This has been a central question, Sigmund Freud’s concept of the three egos might attempt to give us some understanding. The three egos constantly battle for control over one’s actions, and the winner of control is only clear by one’s character. Jekyll and Hyde attempts to show that this battle rages in each of us, from the time where we first encounter Hyde do we see the Hydes within all who see him as a beast. Although the crowd that surrounded Hyde as he was accosted wanted a sociable financial reconciliation while “there was something about the lot of us that meant mischief” (pg. 769, Stevens), and the wise and calm doctor “turned sick with white with the desire to kill him.” (pg. 769, Stevens). We often experience a brashness in emotion within us when a news story comes out of a child or animal being abused, we want the abuser to suffer as he has caused other’s suffering. Hyde hides within us all and if we let him slip out once too often, we might not be able to recapture him. 5/22 Blog
Unit 2 Maids, not to you mind doth change This poem expresses a hidden world within our world. The time period was held with a firm grasp of a heterosexual culture. Within this, Cooper and Bradley express themselves adequately, they speak of defying, alluring, and astringing themselves from men right from the start of the poem. The rest of the poem details of a world of healing they feel when they express their love with another woman. as if their relationship has a healing quality, so they might flee the pains of the norm they are estranging themselves from. This work for me, reminds me of a polar opposite of this reading, a very masculine tale which is a Louis L’amour western. The Man from the Broken Hills. In the novel, the protagonist, Milo Talon, is wounded by several obstacles as he fights a range war for peace. This includes a cattle thief that shoots Milo, leaving him to rely on his own strengths, mostly his wits and his physical constitution to pull him out of his weakened condition. His fellow man also strengthens Milo by taking him from being a drifter to a fellow cow hand that they learn to trust and respect. It all starts after a confrontation, Milo sticks by the men who helped him by saying: "I ate of your salt, and I'll ride for the brand if they'll take me on." "What's that mean?" Danny asked. "That about the salt? "Some folks think if you eat of somebody's bread and salt it leaves you in debt . . . or something like that," said Hinge. (pg. 6, L’amour) A similar sort of unity is shown by Bradley and Cooper, who rely on each other, saying that “Between us is no thought of pain/ peril, satiety” and “When injuries my spirit bruise/ Allaying virtue ye infuse” (Lines 13- 14, Field). The love between these women may not look the same as the bond between men who fight for each other, but I would argue that both are the same strong love, both healing, and resisting a larger force that threatens them whether it may be cattle rustlers or oppressive heterosexuality. Matthew Detrick
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