Gregor vs. Milkman

Reading Song of Solomon, I noticed another set of parallels; those between Gregor and Milkman. Starting out, neither of them have their own identity. Gregor spends years working at a job he hates to pay off his parent’s debt, and the only other hobby he has is making picture frames. Milkman aimlessly drifts through life, still works for his dad, who Milkman’s helped since he was twelve, going from woman to woman, and generally being bored despite having so much money. It’s interesting how similar the two are despite their different economic classes.

  Both Gregor and Milkman’s characters center around their fathers – before the transformation, Gregor’s goal in life is essentially to work for his dad, and do nothing else. Milkman models after his dad for the entirety of Part 1, after which the coming-of-age section begins. Milkman fights the similarity – as he grows up, he tries to do everything the opposite of his father. But at the end of Part 1 he’s been acting and living just like Macon – his main goal is to earn money, he’s entitled and self-centered, and emotionally abuses the women in his life (by ignoring Ruth and Hagar, to the point where she goes crazy).

  Despite the similarities between Gregor and Milkman, the circumstances (and perhaps, genre) of their stories lead their development in different directions. Milkman matures while Gregor declines. One person transforms from man to bug, the other grows from an adolescent into a (flying?) man. These paths are pretty clearly going in opposite directions. But Milkman’s maturation doesn’t go as far in the positive direction as Gregor’s goes in the negative. This is because the novels have different goals, and also because of the twist Song of Solomon puts on the idea of the coming-of-age novel. While he is discovering himself and having epiphanies, Hagar is dying. Milkman returns home triumphantly to be locked in the basement by a grieving Pilate. The hero’s mistakes have real consequences, which he has to deal with. This makes his victorious arc much less glamorous. Speaking of glamour, Milkman doesn’t finish the quest and get rich, or become a god, or end up happily married forever. He is fulfilled by leaping (flying?) off a cliff while fighting his best friend. This is a deviation from how coming-of-age novels usually end, and just as ambiguous as the beginning of the book, leaving us unsure how to judge Milkman in the end.

Septimus and Antoinette: Paralells

        As I was writing my research paper, I was struck by the similarities between Septimus’s mental breakdown in Mrs. Dalloway, and Antoinette’s collapse in Wide Sargasso Sea. Both characters were intensely alienated for most of their lives. Septimus was isolated due to his social awkwardness, and Antoinette was solitary due to her race and family history. The course their respective disintegrations follow reflect the differences in their causes. Septimus breaks down because of a specific event: Evans’s death. He was lonely before, but he had found a true friend for the first time, and then watched him die. Afterwards Septimus was alone again, but he could not move on with his life. This was because he could not take meaning from his experiences by discussing them with someone else, a crucial part of moving past trauma.

         Antoinette’s dramatic breakdown seems to begin when she tells Rochester her life story, after which and he totally disregards her, and shows that he will believe the rumors like everyone else. Unlike Septimus, Rochester is not the first person she’s had a meaningful connection with; there was Christophine, Tia, Sandi, and to an extent the girls at the convent. Nonetheless, he is the only person who, in Antoinette’s words, “made [her] want to live.” It is important that Antoinette’s breakdown, unlike Septimus, is not caused by a singular event she cannot move past. Rather, it is caused by the ever-present isolation and bullying that she suffered from the locals, continued now by her own husband, who she is supposed to live with forever.

          Yet despite these differences, the deaths of Septimus and Antoinette share the key element of a tragedy – they did not have to happen. We can point to places in each story and say “if x was changed, things would have been better.”As we discussed in class, it appears that Antoinette was pushed towards despair and depression by the hardships and isolation she suffered as a child. It was not as though she was a ticking time bomb that would ‘go crazy’ eventually; the expectation of everyone that she would do so led her to irrational behavior, mostly in defense of herself or her reputation. When she was younger she still wanted to interact with people and join society, but over time her efforts just met with pain and failure, so she kind of gave up.

          Septimus was alienated before he went off to the war, but then he meet his best friend, and subsequently watched him blown to pieces. When Septimus returned, not only did he have trouble communicating his feelings, but the doctors Holmes and Bradshaw didn’t try to listen to him, and wanted to impose their ideals of masculinity and normalcy on him. He was struggling, but like Antoinette he wanted to fit in. He had meaningful relationships - to Evans and then Rezia - but they were not enough to save him when no one else understand.

          A source I read for my paper claimed that Holmes and Bradshaw represented British society. Assuming this, both Septimus and Antoinette were pushed towards suicide by the misunderstanding of others; Antoinette is not just pushed by Rochester, but the continual antagonism of the Jamaicans, and on a smaller level Grace Poole. Septimus is pushed by Bradshaw and Holmes. In particular, Holmes’s misunderstanding and malice run so deep that he calls Septimus a coward after he takes his own life. Antoinette’s death is likewise misunderstood. I viewed it as an escape from a terrible situation and an act of revenge towards an equally terrible husband. Everyone else doesn’t seem to understand what’s going on. It’s interesting how many similarities those afflicted by mental illness share in these novels, despite the circumstances that created their problems.

Antoinette and Tia: Frenemies?

            In class we talked about the dynamic of Antoinette and Tia’s friendship. Many people thought it was kind of bullying, but I just think that Antoinette had no previous experience with friends, so she followed whatever Tia did. And it sounds like Antoinette she really admires Tia: “…fires always lit for her, sharp stones did not hurt her bare feet, I never saw her cry” (21).  Their friendship seemed utopian, and the setting resembled Eden: “…Sometimes we left the bathing pool at midday, sometimes we stayed till late afternoon… looking at the pool… The water was so clear that you could see the pebbles at the bottom of the shallow part. Blue and white and striped red” (21).  

            But like the story of Adam and Eve, things can’t stay this way forever and something disrupts Antoinette and Tia’s friendship, namely the fight at the pond. It starts out as a childlike dispute where both sides have a point – Antoinette did a somersault, but the form was bad. Then suddenly Antoinette uses a racial slur and they both start hurling insults at each other, but these are insults they don’t fully understand and that they’ve heard from others. In a way these insults are like the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge. The kids are just trying to insult each other because they’re mad, but then it gets really personal, and it almost seems like they don’t know or realize the full meaning of what they said until afterwards.

            These insults also come from outside influence, just like Eve was tempted by an outside force, the serpent. Antoinette and especially Tia are just parroting what they have heard from their parents and others on the island. Just as we wondered who was right in the original argument, it now makes sense to wonder if the kids are ‘guilty’ in actively choosing to say those things, or if they are ‘innocent’ and just yelling whatever they can find at each other. I think that while Antoinette and Tia might not have understood the full gravity and consequences of what they were saying, they were still trying to hurt each other, and clearly they were knowledgeable enough to know that racial stereotypes and family gossip hurt.

           

            Further evidence of outside influence causing the discord between Antoinette and Tia appears during the scene at Coulibri. Antoinette’s home is burning, and she runs toward Tia, intending to leave her family and live with her, but is nailed in the head by a sharp rock. And yet, this act of violence is described in such a passive way: “When I was close I saw the jagged stone in her hand but I did not see her throw it. I did not feel it either…” (Rhys,40). It’s as though Tia doesn’t realize what she’s done until Antoinette starts bleeding and faints. Oddly, this still reminds me of a kid fight in some ways. It’s like that moment when one is really mad at another and they start fighting, but then one kid hits the other way to hard and they’re seriously hurt, or start wailing. There’s that same feeling here of ‘I wanted to hurt you but not that much.’ On the other hand, Antoinette and Tia aren’t fighting here, it’s the mob against Antoinette’s family. It looks like that same influences that made them throw racial slurs at each other returns to push Tia to throw the rock.

The Role of the Sun in The Stranger

In The Stranger, the sun seems to dictate all of Meursalt’s emotions. Depending on how hot it is he becomes drowsy, irritated or joyful. This is quite the range for Meursalt, who has relatively few emotions throughout the novel. But mostly, the sun’s heat is extremely oppressive and makes Meursalt anxious and agitated. This struck me as weird, since the sun in literature is usually described as comforting and beautiful. On the other hand, I understand how the sun could be mostly a curse in a country whose landscape is largely desert.

 But in the novel the sun goes beyond just being an annoyance -- it actively torments Meursalt and plays a direct role in the Arab’s murder. But the sun’s antagonism came in stages. Initially, Meursalt enjoyed the sun, which made him doze off. But later on he becomes annoyed with it. Meursalt mentions “hot sand underfoot,” indicating his annoyance before murder had ever entered his mind. Meursalt then describes how the sun
was "shining almost directly overhead into the sand," making the temperature unbearable and leading to the irritation that clouds his judgement (such as it is) and makes him feel trapped. More significantly, as the first standoff with the Arabs approaches, Meursalt notices that "the sun looked red to [him] now," foreshadowing the violence to come. The ultimate omen is the "keen blade of light flashing up from the knife, scarring my eyelashes, and gouging into my eyeballs." This directly links the sun to the murder, as an 'active participant' and the only real motive Meursalt has.

Re-examining chapter 6, we find more evidence of the sun's direct antagonism. The sun "beats down on [Meursalt's] bare head," driving him on. It "was starting to burn his cheeks," inflicting actual pain that he wants to avoid, driving his progress along the sand. Lastly, there is the glint off the knife. All these quotes combined give the picture that the sun begins antagonizing Meursalt, then physically pushing Meursalt so much that he kills another person. 

Nonetheless, Meursalt is still to blame. The sun intensifies the background restlessness and anxiety that were already present in him, and its actual control comes from Meursalt's strong responses to the physical world. The extreme discomfort leads Meursalt to act on these negative emotions and his impulses, thus actively pushing him towards violence.

Sassy Samsa

DISCLAIMER: This blog post isn't actually meant for grading, I just found something too good to pass up

Someone on this planet has visualized, created, and modeled a Sexy Gregor Samsa Costume. "Pics or it's not real," the audience cries. Behold:

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DISCLAIMER 2: I searched for the name of the creator to give due credit, but I found nothing. Please let me know if you have better luck.

The Samsa family's metamorphosis as a Rags-to-Riches plotline

DISCLAIMER: This post has a positive tone but I’m not a fan of Gregor’s fam

 

This is definitely going out on a limb, but while I was commenting on Madie’s blog I was struck by a parallel between the Samsa family’s metamorphosis and a rags-to-riches story - sorry, not for Gregor.

Such tales usually start by showing us how terrible the protagonist’s life is, and then narrating an event that changes everything. The Metamorphosis starts differently - we see the event that changes everything, but boy oh boy it isn’t the magical lamp from Aladdin. Working backwards, we can see how much Gregor’s life sucked, but also how shut in his family was - even though many of their constraints were self-imposed.

So, what actually are the hardships of the Samsas before Gregor transforms? He picked an apartment for them which they hate, yet they never mention it to him. They are shut in/stuck in this apartment because their father is ‘too feeble to work’ and they have to take care of him. Poor Grete dreams of going to the violin conservatory, but it will never work out because of her father’s debts, which Gregor is working to pay off. Sounds pretty grim. And THEN Gregor turns into a giant bug.

Now comes the success and working-through-hardship-towards-a-goal montage. Since The Metamorphosis features Gregor, who’s shut in his room for most of the novel, we only learn bits and pieces of the family’s changing life. But it all comes together the second time Gregor leaves his room. We see that Gregor’s father is stronger, more confident, and has a job at a bank, complete with a prestigious (or pretentious) uniform. Gregor’s mother has taken up sewing work, and Grete -- ironically -- is a salesgirl. To everyone’s surprise, the family is getting along perfectly fine without Gregor - they even had money saved up before his transformation.  

The next stage in a rags-to-riches story is the crisis, which I think is most prominent in part III, where Gregor emerges from his room and scares the tenants. At this point, he’s been a bug for months with no sign of changing and no indication that he is still Gregor. The Samsas’ are feeling worked to the bone, are in a bad spot with their tenants, and this horrifying bug is still there. They want to move on with their lives, and Grete makes them come to terms with the fact (empirical from their point of view) that this insect isn’t Gregor. There’s no boss battle where the Samsas prove their worth and show off their independence, but ultimately the challenge (Gregor) disappears.

The ending is definitely typical of the rags-to-riches genre; Herr Samsa, Frau Samsa and Grete take a day off work (asserting their independence) and head off to the country to relax. Along the way they discuss their jobs, and realize they are “very good and held particularly good promise for the future.” They fantasize about moving to a new and smaller flat, and finding a husband for Grete. Summarily, the Samsas have everything they need and adventures ahead as they literally walk off into the country sun.

Jake and Catholicism

As we were reading The Sun Also Rises, multiple references to Jake’s relationship with the Catholicism came up, and I started wondering why he seemed so ambivalent about it. The Church very important to him, and is one of the ways Jake tries to find meaning in his life. As we discussed in class, Jake’s spirituality is increased in Spain - he actively went to church, not only in the instance where he narrated his prayers, but once again with Brett, and multiple other unspecified times - during the vacation in Spain, there were casual mentions of Jake ‘returning from mass’.

One moment I’d like to examine in particular is the instance where Jake, Brett and the gang try to enter the church during the festival of San Fermin. The text reads: “They were all standing outside the chapel where San Fermin and the dignitaries had passed in, leaving a guard of soldiers.... We started inside and there was a smell of incense and people filing back into the church, but Brett was stopped just inside the door because she had no hat, so we went out again.. “ To me, this illustrates how Brett has been and continues to hold Jake back. Jake is stuck on Brett, and this prevents him from moving forward in his life. Her presence and romantic affairs are a constant reminder of his failure and injury.

Yet despite Jake’s attendance at church, it seems that bullfights serve to give him the meaning and sense of purpose that organized religion aims for. Jake knows everything and everyone in a bullfight, and is even part of the ‘legit’ aficionado club, despite being an American. Jake may not know what he’s working for in life, but he knows the goal of a bull fight and how things ought to happen. His objective during the contest is to judge the bullfighter, the bull, and how well the ideal ritual is carried out.  

Corrida de Toros also lines up with the passage of Ecclesiastes included in the beginning of The Sun Also Rises.  It reads: "One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh; but the earth abideth forever…” The ceremony of bullfighting is the same. A bull dies and is replaced, the torero dies and is replaced, even the audience changes, but the ritual remains. Taking part in this tradition allows Jake to be part of something far larger and far older than himself, a sentiment that religious services also produce.

The movement from Paris to Spain also resembles a religious pilgrimage. It happens at a set time, once every year, for a specific event - the festival of San Fermin, which is a religious event as well as an enormous party. However for Jake, the religious observance is not held in church, but in the streets where the bulls run, and the ring where they fight. The parallels with pilgrimage are also supported by the changes in Jake’s lifestyle; in Spain, everything has a heightened level of religious observance, and the style of his days are more in line with the idealized pastoral life. This is exemplified in Jake’s regular trips to church, and the fishing trip he takes with Bill, where the two of them can, for a moment, talk earnestly and without irony, where they only (ha!) bring two bottles of wine, and where Jake literally works in the soil to find the worms.

However, I find it odd that Jake has such a strong desire for religious experience and tie to the Catholic Church, and yet he doesn’t attend regularly except in Spain, and appears deeply ambivalent towards it. On the one hand, we have quotes about how Aloysius is “a good Catholic name,” and on the other hand there is the scene from the fishing trip, where Bill says: ”’Listen, Jake.... are you really a Catholic?’ ‘Technically.’ ‘What does that mean?’ ‘I don't know.’” As we have seen multiple times throughout the book, Jake does not have an issue with commitment - he has a steady job, reads the bullfighting paper every night and visits Spain every year, and is still caught up on Brett - if he goes to something on and off there’s probably something holding him back.

Near the beginning of the book, Jake is alone in his  bedroom pondering his wound. At one point he thinks:  “The Catholic Church had an awfully good way of handling all that. Good advice, anyway. Not to think about it. Oh, it was swell advice. Try and take it sometime. Try and take it.” Perhaps Jake blames the Church for not being able to help him when he needed it most, after the war when he was wounded and suffering. But I also think there’s a social component to Jake’s lapses of observance in Paris. In the modern, cynical, apathetic West Bank culture, it seems that religion is another old-world value that is ignored or slightly mocked. Take Cohn, for example, whose older principles set him apart from the others and earn their annoyance. Jake is already deeply insecure about his wound, and this manifests in his overcompensation in various ways to fit in with the group, nevertheless. Like all of us, Jake decides certain aspects of his identity to present and suppress, and among people in the West Bank he suppresses his religious identity to avoid mockery. Yet in Spain, people are more religious and different rules apply than in Paris, so Jake can freely go to church. There is also the simple physical problem of having to cut social obligations to attend church, which can alienate people.        

  

Peter and the Knife

           One thing that intrigued me in Mrs. Dalloway was Peter’s habit of playing with his pocket knife, especially when he is uncomfortable, excited, or generally feeling strong emotions. I was puzzled as to why playing with a knife became his fidgeting habit, and I wondered if, although it seems slightly threatening to us, the practice was more accepted in 1920’s England. From this quote, it appears that people view it as a strange habit but not inherently menacing, as we would see it today: “That was his old trick, opening a pocket-knife, thought Sally, always opening and shutting a knife when he got excited.”

        While the knife is not considered menacing, taking it out is seen to be extremely strange, as mentioned by Clarissa: “and he took out his knife quite openly… and clenched his fist upon it. What an extraordinary habit that was, Clarissa thought; always playing with a knife. Always making one feel, too, frivolous; empty-minded; a mere silly chatterbox, as he used. For Heaven’s sake, leave your knife alone! she cried to herself in irrepressible irritation; it was his silly unconventionality, his weakness; his lack of the ghost of a notion what any one else was feeling that annoyed her…” It appears that Peter’s knife fiddling is a physical representation of his social failures or mistakes, the grandest example being Clarissa’s rejection of his marriage proposal. Peter’s habit is linked to when he is feeling strong emotions, which is often, and it appears that their strength is off-putting to those around him. These emotions also, in the opinions of the day, undermined his masculinity – men were not supposed to cry as he did, when Clarissa rejected him. Maybe, in Peter’s eyes, his knife fiddling is not a social weakness, but an attempt to reclaim his masculinity. And yet, I wonder why Woolf, who critiques the ideals of masculinity through Septimus, chose to have Peter “fail” in his life because he does not fit the ideal with his excessive emotions?

Blending Conventions

As mentioned by Emily in class, The Mezzanine appears to be a book filled with what people are not supposed to write about, subject matter deemed “inappropriate” and “uninteresting.” The book dedicates an entire chapter to a trip to the bathroom and the social encounters there, and contains page-long footnotes focusing on mundane topics such as ice cube trays.

But despite all this, I found The Mezzanine to be, as Howie might say, a very “interesting” book. I believe that part of its success is due to the blending of the two literary conventions discussed in Virginia Woolf’s essays “Mr. Bennett and Mrs. Brown” and “Modern Fiction.” The Mezzanine is a very materialistic novel, and at first glance appears to be following what Woolf called the “Edwardian” style of the 19th century. But contrary to “Edwardian” convention, the objects discussed are not emblematic of the character.

The literary conventions of the 19th century were materialistic insofar as they described in detail information that was related to a person in some way, such as the style of their house. As mentioned in “Mr. Bennet and Mrs. Brown,” this was done to “ hypnotize us into the belief that because he has made a house, there must be a person living there.” However in The Mezzanine, the items discussed seem completely unrelated to Howie; they tell us nothing about him.

The explanation for this conundrum is found in the new literary conventions discussed by Virginia Woolf, and summed up in this quote from Mr. Bennett: “The foundation of good fiction is character-creating and nothing else.” The doorknobs and garbage trucks of The Mezzanine tell us nothing about Howie’s life, but his musings about them reveal to us his character, the exploration of which is the purpose of fiction, according to Virginia Woolf.