I first have to give major props to Jimmy Wales to have created something as universal as Wikipedia.
While I sometimes question the validity of the articles on Wikipedia I am glad they are all there. Wikipedia gives new meaning to the idea of free information. The great thing about the site is that it is a wonderful starting point for an informational source. Lately it seem that I have a hundred different ideas or topics that interest me and I want to know more about so I always start looking things up on Wikipedia. In a world where need to know knowledge is at your finger tips Wikipedia is the easiest place to begin. The site has its faults, but the creator and his team work hard to keep things correct and above board. I can waste hours just browsing around on pointless topics always learning a little something new. So yes, Wikipedia is one of the greatest inventions ever in my book, (and clearly being in my book counts for a lot!)
Monday, April 18, 2011
Tuesday, April 12, 2011
The end...and then some.
I can see why readers and play goers would have been upset with Pygmalion being called a romance. In ending it did leave me wanted a much nicer wrap so I read on through the sequel hoping I would find it there but what I actually found was more shocking! It never occurred to me that Liza couldn't really read or write. I mean I guess I understood that as a poor gutter girl she wouldn't have had much use for anything other than basic math, but once Higgins got a hold of her I guess I just assumed he fixed everything. When Shaw writes, "Eliza, though she could count money up to eighteen shilling or so, and had acquired a certain familiarity with the language of Milton [...], could not write out a bill without utterly disgracing the establishment" (117) my heart broke for the poor girl. How could Higgins and Pickering be so cruel as to tempt her mind with all these wonderful new thoughts and ideas, and not ensure that the woman could read and write properly! Suddenly the entire injustice of the play made sense to me. How could she go back to the gutter when she had glimpsed the world beyond? But, how could she stay in that world without more education? My inner feminist blood boils at the thought. These two gentlemen take in this poor girl solely for their own amusement and leave her more damaged than she was at the start! To Liza's credit (and some to Pickering...after all he did help her out with the shop,) she managed to find contentment in her life with Freddy and their little shop.
Monday, April 4, 2011
Garn!
Pickering: Does it occur to you, Higgins, that the girl has some feelings?
Higgins: Oh no, I don't think so. Not any feelings we need bother about.
Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion is one my favorite plays ever. The heroine, Eliza Doolittle is just adorably irresistible not too love. She has such a drive to see her dreams come true, even if her dreams are not as lofty and those of Higgins and Pickering.
While this play is a hilarious comedy it is also an interesting critic on the relationship between men and women as well as, the affect of class on language, education, and psychology. Poor sweet ill-speaking Liza is thrust into relations with two men (Higgins and Pickering) who are obviously a part of a higher more educated upper class. Liza must struggle to understand and learn from these men in order to better her social standing, but will learning proper English, or as Higgins claims, "the language of Shakespeare and Milton and The Bible" (18), really help elevate her?
I think in some sense it will. With correct pronunciation Liza could herself a job in a flower shop like she dreams, but will she be able to rise above the misogyny of the rest of the culture. I started off with the above lines because they are wildly funny and horribly sad. Higgins does treat Liza ill and at first you think it is just his nature, that is the only misogynist, but Pickering and even Miss Pearce do little to really correct him. I could almost chalk this all up to a form of snobbery on their behalf, but then you have Liza's father who says, "she' [Liza's] only a woman and dont know how to be happy anyhow" (47). This statement from Mr. Doolittle shows that it is more than just a simple class distinction. In the beginning of our book in the introduction by Nicholas Grene he claims, Shaw has reworked, "the Ovidian legend int a feminist fable" (xvi). I am hopeful by the end of the play I will agree full heartily with that claim, but for now I will stand behind and support Liza for being a good girl.
Higgins: Oh no, I don't think so. Not any feelings we need bother about.
Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion is one my favorite plays ever. The heroine, Eliza Doolittle is just adorably irresistible not too love. She has such a drive to see her dreams come true, even if her dreams are not as lofty and those of Higgins and Pickering.
While this play is a hilarious comedy it is also an interesting critic on the relationship between men and women as well as, the affect of class on language, education, and psychology. Poor sweet ill-speaking Liza is thrust into relations with two men (Higgins and Pickering) who are obviously a part of a higher more educated upper class. Liza must struggle to understand and learn from these men in order to better her social standing, but will learning proper English, or as Higgins claims, "the language of Shakespeare and Milton and The Bible" (18), really help elevate her?
I think in some sense it will. With correct pronunciation Liza could herself a job in a flower shop like she dreams, but will she be able to rise above the misogyny of the rest of the culture. I started off with the above lines because they are wildly funny and horribly sad. Higgins does treat Liza ill and at first you think it is just his nature, that is the only misogynist, but Pickering and even Miss Pearce do little to really correct him. I could almost chalk this all up to a form of snobbery on their behalf, but then you have Liza's father who says, "she' [Liza's] only a woman and dont know how to be happy anyhow" (47). This statement from Mr. Doolittle shows that it is more than just a simple class distinction. In the beginning of our book in the introduction by Nicholas Grene he claims, Shaw has reworked, "the Ovidian legend int a feminist fable" (xvi). I am hopeful by the end of the play I will agree full heartily with that claim, but for now I will stand behind and support Liza for being a good girl.
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
Carpe Diem
(So just as an aside before really starting on this post I have to say after reading this poem I had to go watch the Dead Poets Society...and it isn't even the poem from the movie..go figure!)
The whole idea behind this beautiful poem (To His Coy Mistress by Andrew Marvell,) is the idea of Carpe Diem, seize the day. The yooung man writing this to his coquettish lady friend is trying to urge her to seize the day with him and their love. I suppose he is trying to win her heart by reminding her we are all only here for a short while so we have to make the most of every moment, however, I think he goes about it in a poor fashion.
From my personal experience it is never wise to remind a woman that one day her beauty and youth will fade and she's going to end up as worm food. Not the best mode of flattery there Marvell. On the other hand he does seem to be committed to wait things out with her and take it slow in winning her heart as long as there is some form of sexual fulfillment in the end.
In ending the poem after all his "flattery" and promise to "wait" he begs her not to make him wait for either her love or her body, because after all...life is short.
The whole idea behind this beautiful poem (To His Coy Mistress by Andrew Marvell,) is the idea of Carpe Diem, seize the day. The yooung man writing this to his coquettish lady friend is trying to urge her to seize the day with him and their love. I suppose he is trying to win her heart by reminding her we are all only here for a short while so we have to make the most of every moment, however, I think he goes about it in a poor fashion.
From my personal experience it is never wise to remind a woman that one day her beauty and youth will fade and she's going to end up as worm food. Not the best mode of flattery there Marvell. On the other hand he does seem to be committed to wait things out with her and take it slow in winning her heart as long as there is some form of sexual fulfillment in the end.
In ending the poem after all his "flattery" and promise to "wait" he begs her not to make him wait for either her love or her body, because after all...life is short.
Saturday, February 26, 2011
Deciphering the women of Wuthering Heights
But a caged bird stands on the grave of dreams
his shadow shouts on a nightmare scream
his wings are clipped and his feet are tied
so he opens his throat to sing
The caged bird sings
with a fearful trill
of things unknown
but longed for still
and his tune is heard
on the distant hill
for the caged bird
sings of freedom.
~Maya Angelou "I know why the caged bird sings"
I feel like all the women in Wuthering Heights could be described as caged birds because of their social constructed gender restraints. They all have this beating passion to free themselves, but do not seem to know the means of obtaining that freedom. To me the greatest tragedy of the entire story is how stuck everyone seems to be their own social constraints, no matter how hard they try to escape they cannot.
The only people that seem to really make a lasting change for themselves in Hareton and young Catherine. What had me puzzled is the thought that both Catherines seem so similar yet only young Cathy was able to really assert herself, and in the end free herself more so than her mother. Lyn Pykett, the author of the essay, "Changing the Names: The Two Catherines," makes an interesting claim at the end when she says, "Cathy exercises one of the few forms of power available to the powerless--resistance" (476). It is through her resistance of all the negativity and cruelty around her that keeps her strong, and it is her mother's lack of resistance that turns out to be her downfall.
However, I feel that Catherine the elder gets a bad wrap in this essay. She went from being somewhat wild, free, and "un-gendered" to suddenly realizing her need to conform. Pykett says this is exemplified when Catherine says "Heathcliff is more myself than I am " (86). Pykett continues by trying to explain what Catherine may have meant, "[This,] is perhaps as much a statement of her identification with an earlier, pre-gendered version of herself, as it is a declaration of elemental passion" (471). This is to say that Catherine identifies more of her "free" self with Heathcliff. This idea that Catherine was once wild and free and now having to be tamed is what I think turns out to be her undoing within the book. It is much harder to take a free bird and turn them into a caged one, than say freeing a caged bird.
The bird born in her cage is young Catherine. She was born into a stricter social structure and I does not experiences the freedom that her mother had as a child. In many ways I would argue that this structure has helped young Cathy become more experienced at what it means to be a woman within her time than her mother. While Cathy was naive in the world and thus easily tricked by Heathcliff and Linton she has a greater understanding of how a woman can exert her influences and power successfully. She is therefore able to find peace and a balance with her "true" self and the self that society has created for her, and that is what makes young Cathy a free bird.
his shadow shouts on a nightmare scream
his wings are clipped and his feet are tied
so he opens his throat to sing
The caged bird sings
with a fearful trill
of things unknown
but longed for still
and his tune is heard
on the distant hill
for the caged bird
sings of freedom.
~Maya Angelou "I know why the caged bird sings"
I feel like all the women in Wuthering Heights could be described as caged birds because of their social constructed gender restraints. They all have this beating passion to free themselves, but do not seem to know the means of obtaining that freedom. To me the greatest tragedy of the entire story is how stuck everyone seems to be their own social constraints, no matter how hard they try to escape they cannot.
The only people that seem to really make a lasting change for themselves in Hareton and young Catherine. What had me puzzled is the thought that both Catherines seem so similar yet only young Cathy was able to really assert herself, and in the end free herself more so than her mother. Lyn Pykett, the author of the essay, "Changing the Names: The Two Catherines," makes an interesting claim at the end when she says, "Cathy exercises one of the few forms of power available to the powerless--resistance" (476). It is through her resistance of all the negativity and cruelty around her that keeps her strong, and it is her mother's lack of resistance that turns out to be her downfall.
However, I feel that Catherine the elder gets a bad wrap in this essay. She went from being somewhat wild, free, and "un-gendered" to suddenly realizing her need to conform. Pykett says this is exemplified when Catherine says "Heathcliff is more myself than I am " (86). Pykett continues by trying to explain what Catherine may have meant, "[This,] is perhaps as much a statement of her identification with an earlier, pre-gendered version of herself, as it is a declaration of elemental passion" (471). This is to say that Catherine identifies more of her "free" self with Heathcliff. This idea that Catherine was once wild and free and now having to be tamed is what I think turns out to be her undoing within the book. It is much harder to take a free bird and turn them into a caged one, than say freeing a caged bird.
The bird born in her cage is young Catherine. She was born into a stricter social structure and I does not experiences the freedom that her mother had as a child. In many ways I would argue that this structure has helped young Cathy become more experienced at what it means to be a woman within her time than her mother. While Cathy was naive in the world and thus easily tricked by Heathcliff and Linton she has a greater understanding of how a woman can exert her influences and power successfully. She is therefore able to find peace and a balance with her "true" self and the self that society has created for her, and that is what makes young Cathy a free bird.
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
It's all ambiguious
When I heard the title Wuthering Hieghts, I dont' think Communism and I was glad the paper didn't lead us too deeply down that idea. Definitely an interesting essay and not an idea I would have easily pulled from the book on my own reading, but after reading the marxist critic I can easily see how the idea was cultivated.
The part of the critic that caught my interest is on page 404 toards the end where the aurthor Terry Eagleton is discussing the differing viewpoints on who actually wins out in the end of the book. Eagleton asserts, (through the help of T. K. Meier,) that , "the victory [is] of tradition over innovation." (404). Of course that makes perfect sense. Despite all of Heathcliff's planning and manipulating Haerton and young Cathrine will rightfully inheirt Wurthering Hieghts and Thrushcross Grange after his death. The legal sense of tradition has pervailed!
However, Eagleton doesn't stop there but brings to light another opinion that maybe, "the old world has yeilded to the new," (404). There is the assertion that Hareton and young Catherine are now inheriting a new world that through his own sheer will power of normal deviation Heathcliff has created for them.
I think it is easy to see Heathcliff's struggle throughout the text as the struggle of the proletarian. Despite his evil nature at times he is still a under dog fighting the powers that be in a struggle for revenge...or perhaps justice depending on how you look at things.
In the end the man thing I gathered from this critic is that it is all rather ambiguious.
The part of the critic that caught my interest is on page 404 toards the end where the aurthor Terry Eagleton is discussing the differing viewpoints on who actually wins out in the end of the book. Eagleton asserts, (through the help of T. K. Meier,) that , "the victory [is] of tradition over innovation." (404). Of course that makes perfect sense. Despite all of Heathcliff's planning and manipulating Haerton and young Cathrine will rightfully inheirt Wurthering Hieghts and Thrushcross Grange after his death. The legal sense of tradition has pervailed!
However, Eagleton doesn't stop there but brings to light another opinion that maybe, "the old world has yeilded to the new," (404). There is the assertion that Hareton and young Catherine are now inheriting a new world that through his own sheer will power of normal deviation Heathcliff has created for them.
I think it is easy to see Heathcliff's struggle throughout the text as the struggle of the proletarian. Despite his evil nature at times he is still a under dog fighting the powers that be in a struggle for revenge...or perhaps justice depending on how you look at things.
In the end the man thing I gathered from this critic is that it is all rather ambiguious.
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
Eternal Love and Inner Peace?
I knew by the end of this book my heart go out to the elder Cathrine and Heathcliff and that was the last thing I wanted. That's right, I didn't want to give in and let the two wicked people be the ones tugging at my heart strings! There, had to get that out first and foremost, but enough of the emotions!
Getting back to the actual text I felt as though up until the end I was entertaining some form of British soap opera with all the revenge and planning and manipulating. However, by the end it was as though I was stuck watching the decent of a mad-man. In thinking of Heathcliff as a man lost in insanity I began going back through the rest of the text and found that everyone is a little mad. Suddenly I was feeling like Alice in wonderland speaking to my Bronte-cat and informing her that I did not want to hang out with mad people, I could feel her smile grow as she taunted me back saying that everyone was mad here and even I was mad, why else would I be here.
All of the characters who slip into madness seem to do so in connection with their own self despair. This despairing madness can be seen first on page 74 with Hindley when his wife passes and him giving "himself up for reckless dissipation". Hindley's madness only increases as time goes on, (due to in part the effect of all his drinking,) and it seems to come to a head in chapter 13 on page 134 when he confesses his desire to murder Heathcliff because, "some devil urges him." However, Hindley is not alone in his madness. Catherine faces similar types of madness when it comes to the issue of Heathcliff. When Heathcliff is courting Isabella, (which you might even call her utter blinding devoting a kind of madness,) Catherine has her own fit of madness in chapter 11 after a fight between Edgar and Heathcliff. Catherine's decline is steady from this moment onward and in the next chapter we see just how far her sanity has fallen and that recovery is unlikely. Like the elder Catherine I found Cathy to be filled with her own type of madness for example at the end of chapter 28 when she reveals how she threw a fit in order to frighten Linton so he would release her. I don't want to make to big of a medical dispute on the subject of clinical madness with these characters but a sister, brother, and daughter...maybe there is something to form of heredity madness.
On the other hand, all this madness could be purely emotional. In talking with a friend of mine who absolutely loves this book and hails it as the greatest tragic romance since Romeo and Juliet she said is inclined to believe that all the character's madness are just another form of eternal love. In a way that makes a lot of sense. Hindley doesn't go mad until the death of his wife. Catherine doesn't have her first fit until she realizes she is losing Heathcliff. Cathy starts to slip when she hears of her father's impending death. Even Heathcliff's blinding madness can easily be seen as his own pledge of everlasting love to Catherine. In thinking about all of this with the idea of eternal love I could feel this twisted sense of passion in such passages as: Catherine telling Nelly that her and Heathcliff are one (88), and Heathcliff's mad confession to Nelly and Cathy that there is one who doesn't shrink from him and one who is always with him (285). Is the tragedy of Heathcliff and Cathrine really the tragedy of all great lovers in that their paths are set and destined to never full entwine? Or, is the tragedy that two self-centered selfish creatures such as Catherine and Heathcliff could never obtain true love without destroying each other regardless of their circumstances?
I find myself with more questions than answers at this point and one of my biggest being, how did Bronte view the relationships between men and women? One of my favorite points in the book is when Heathcliff is telling Nelly his funeral arrangements and how he is happy his end his near. "No minister need some; nor need anything be said over me -- I tell you, I have nearly attained my heaven; and that of others is altogether unvalued and uncovered by me!" (284). The Heights is described so bleakly, barren,gloomy, and completely uninviting (much similar to the description of the characters) in the first chapter of the book and yet by the end Mr. Lockwood is giving a almost complete reversal description of the place speaking of the flowers that covered the wall and the gates were open. Not only are the gates open but so is communication. When Lockwood first arrived no one wished to speak to him nor to anyone else and this time Lockwood stumbles upon Cathy and Hareton reading and engaging each other in conversation. Heathcliff in the above mentioned quote says that he was near his heaven and that was because at this point he has been in communication (or at least he feels he has been in communication,) with the spirit of Catherine. Taking the romance out of the equation for a moment it made me think that heaven, being a state of supreme happiness and peace, can be found in simple socialization and communication. Could it be the way to find true inner peace and happiness is by taking focus off the self and learning to live and function with others? Maybe this wasn't Bronte's main purpose for writing this novel, but it has gotten me to thinking more.
Getting back to the actual text I felt as though up until the end I was entertaining some form of British soap opera with all the revenge and planning and manipulating. However, by the end it was as though I was stuck watching the decent of a mad-man. In thinking of Heathcliff as a man lost in insanity I began going back through the rest of the text and found that everyone is a little mad. Suddenly I was feeling like Alice in wonderland speaking to my Bronte-cat and informing her that I did not want to hang out with mad people, I could feel her smile grow as she taunted me back saying that everyone was mad here and even I was mad, why else would I be here.
All of the characters who slip into madness seem to do so in connection with their own self despair. This despairing madness can be seen first on page 74 with Hindley when his wife passes and him giving "himself up for reckless dissipation". Hindley's madness only increases as time goes on, (due to in part the effect of all his drinking,) and it seems to come to a head in chapter 13 on page 134 when he confesses his desire to murder Heathcliff because, "some devil urges him." However, Hindley is not alone in his madness. Catherine faces similar types of madness when it comes to the issue of Heathcliff. When Heathcliff is courting Isabella, (which you might even call her utter blinding devoting a kind of madness,) Catherine has her own fit of madness in chapter 11 after a fight between Edgar and Heathcliff. Catherine's decline is steady from this moment onward and in the next chapter we see just how far her sanity has fallen and that recovery is unlikely. Like the elder Catherine I found Cathy to be filled with her own type of madness for example at the end of chapter 28 when she reveals how she threw a fit in order to frighten Linton so he would release her. I don't want to make to big of a medical dispute on the subject of clinical madness with these characters but a sister, brother, and daughter...maybe there is something to form of heredity madness.
On the other hand, all this madness could be purely emotional. In talking with a friend of mine who absolutely loves this book and hails it as the greatest tragic romance since Romeo and Juliet she said is inclined to believe that all the character's madness are just another form of eternal love. In a way that makes a lot of sense. Hindley doesn't go mad until the death of his wife. Catherine doesn't have her first fit until she realizes she is losing Heathcliff. Cathy starts to slip when she hears of her father's impending death. Even Heathcliff's blinding madness can easily be seen as his own pledge of everlasting love to Catherine. In thinking about all of this with the idea of eternal love I could feel this twisted sense of passion in such passages as: Catherine telling Nelly that her and Heathcliff are one (88), and Heathcliff's mad confession to Nelly and Cathy that there is one who doesn't shrink from him and one who is always with him (285). Is the tragedy of Heathcliff and Cathrine really the tragedy of all great lovers in that their paths are set and destined to never full entwine? Or, is the tragedy that two self-centered selfish creatures such as Catherine and Heathcliff could never obtain true love without destroying each other regardless of their circumstances?
I find myself with more questions than answers at this point and one of my biggest being, how did Bronte view the relationships between men and women? One of my favorite points in the book is when Heathcliff is telling Nelly his funeral arrangements and how he is happy his end his near. "No minister need some; nor need anything be said over me -- I tell you, I have nearly attained my heaven; and that of others is altogether unvalued and uncovered by me!" (284). The Heights is described so bleakly, barren,gloomy, and completely uninviting (much similar to the description of the characters) in the first chapter of the book and yet by the end Mr. Lockwood is giving a almost complete reversal description of the place speaking of the flowers that covered the wall and the gates were open. Not only are the gates open but so is communication. When Lockwood first arrived no one wished to speak to him nor to anyone else and this time Lockwood stumbles upon Cathy and Hareton reading and engaging each other in conversation. Heathcliff in the above mentioned quote says that he was near his heaven and that was because at this point he has been in communication (or at least he feels he has been in communication,) with the spirit of Catherine. Taking the romance out of the equation for a moment it made me think that heaven, being a state of supreme happiness and peace, can be found in simple socialization and communication. Could it be the way to find true inner peace and happiness is by taking focus off the self and learning to live and function with others? Maybe this wasn't Bronte's main purpose for writing this novel, but it has gotten me to thinking more.
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