Blog Essay Reflection

Let me begin by saying, thank you all for your thoughtful and constructive comments. I really enjoyed this format, afterall, this is the year 2009, we would be remiss to not utilize all the technology available to us. If I had to make a critique of this blog I would say that we were all a little too easy on eachother. We're all adults here, I would've been pleased to see a lot more scathing critiques. That being said, let me now focus on the positives. I noticed that a lot of comments to my blog posts dealt with peoples' personal connections to the text. I think that a personal connection is always a good way to appreciate a text. When you can relate to the story or a certain character you have a great starting point from which to dive into deeper analysis. I also notice, looking back on the comments to my blog posts that many times my classmates directed my attention to aspects of the story that I had not given much attention to. For instance, in Greasy Lake, I did not really focus my attention on the symbolism of the lake and the dead body, I let them just be details in the overall story. Upon closer reading I realised that the lake was an important focal point and symbol for corruption and decadence. And the dead body was definately a symbol for the loss of innocence. One of the main advantages to this blog format was that I was able to see the humor and irony in stories that I hadn't noticed. I have this curse where when I read a story I assume it has a dismal, poignant message, sometimes a writer is just being clever and wants the reader to laugh out loud. I really value learning from other people that a story can be fun, and humorous. This helps make the unbearable heaviness of literature more bearable. Way to go gang, neato! This concludes my reflection essay.

Essay Draft

So, I'm going to write my paper about the story "Cold-Hearted" in my last post I covered the character development of Genius. And the plot structure. I would also like to spend some time talking about conflict and tone in this story. The main conflict seems to be between Lawrence and his father, Genius. One of the reasons for this seems to be food. Lawrence thinks that his father is too ethnic, and that his food reflects this. Lawrence seems to want a "normal" American life, his appreciation of TV dinners shows this. Lawrence seems to be a little embarassed by his father, at the same time he is constantly seeking, but not expecting, his approval. There are several times in the story when this conflict takes a hiatus, for instance, when Genius lets his son smoke a cigarette with him, as a kind of celebration of the fridge. But for the most part Lawrence has a difficult relationship with his father. You can see this when he comments on the fact that he will inheret his father's only suit, "as long as the man doesn't come with it." Also, it's clear that Genius sees his son as a useful set of hands, more useful than his first three daughters, Genius is very old school in this sense.
The tone of this story changes, at times Lawrence is simply annoyed and frustrated at his parents. At other times he is attempting to find redeeming qualities in them. Lawrence, for the most part, quietly observes.
Another aspect of this story that I appreciate is the stylish language. Here's a few examples of my favorite lines: "a won-at cards slant-eyed prize, garbage-picker special, tethered to the car like Gregory Peck on the back of the Great White Whale;" and "Hey, goong hee faht toy. He chuckled. This way New Year start off in very good style." and "I don't want people to say, Oh look at that big shot, he mus have won that nice refridgerator." The dialog really stuck out to me, it was usually in contrast to the narration.

Cold-Hearted Assignment

I would like to focus on the story “Cold Hearted” by David Wong. One of the reasons is that I really like the father’s character, he seems pretty stern, but he’s got a style of his own. I would like to focus on the character development of Genius, the father. Often times it is Genius’ silence which conveys his feelings. He is able to communicate with his son without speaking. And when he does speak it is usually something pretty entertaining and insightful. One of my favorite quotes from Genius is, “I have two kit, I feed two mouth. I have four kit, I feed four mouth.” He has a very concise way of speaking, this can partially be credited to his difficulty with the English language. I would also like to focus on the plot structure, I admire the way Wong tells this story, which seems to be going nowhere but then it ends in this epiphany. This seems to be a very pedestrian story about a quirky father who brings his son on a seemingly ridiculous mission to obtain a discarded refrigerator. It shows how you don’t have to be a monk on top of a mountain to experience a moment of enlightenment. On the contrary, everyday life can yield profound moments.

A Coin

In this short story the writer seems to have two different lines of narration. On the one hand she is sending letters to Aida in Sarajevo and on the other hand she is writing for herself and the reader. It is sometimes hard to tell which is which, and I don't think that the italics can necessarily be used to differentiate. I like how Hemon experiments with time. The narrator mentions that it takes a very long time for her letters to reach Aida. Because of this, "they're obselete, they're rendering someone other than myself, someone saner-" It seems that in the extreme conditions that the narrator is in, time moves much faster, in a way she is aging faster as well. She is also reminded of the passing time by the smell of her deceased aunt in the other room.
I also liked how Hemon used the metaphor of the cockroach to represent the people trying to get from point A to point B. Placing the narrator in the position of the sniper, as the one playing God.

Greasy Lake

This story in some ways reminds me of the movie "Dazed and Confused" and the book "The Outsiders." The narrator opens this short story with descriptions of Greasy Lake itself and the narrators two friends Jeff and Digby, the "bad" dudes. We learn that Digby and Jeff are supposedly tough and dangerous as evidenced by their ability to roll joints while driving at high speed and wear their sunglasses at night among other things. This sets up the narrator as somewhat of a tag-along who looks up to his two friends. But then when they start fighting the "greasy character" it is the narrator who ultimately brings the fight to an end.
When the narrator is explaining why he and his friends tried to rape the girl from the car he mentions "Virgin Spring" which was a movie from 1960. In the film a Swedish girl is raped and killed by three shepherds.
I think that by the end of the story the narrator has gotten a dose of reality. He realizes that being "bad" isn't clean and glorious like he thought. This is evident when the wasted girl calls them "bad characters" and the narrator almost starts crying.

Fiesta!

I would like to talk about the short story "Fiesta 1980" by Junot Diaz. I thought it was "dope" how the narrator had the dialect of a boy from the 80's. He refers to the fiesta as a "dope idea." Thankfully the word "dope" has fallen out of popularity in recent years. Parts of this story are funny, but mostly there is a sense of real tension between all the members of the family. The only relatively drama-free interaction is between the mother and her sons. But later in the story even this relationship is a source of conflict as Yunior and Rafa must conceal thier father's indiscretions. I would argue that the brothers have a strong bond, even though they pick on eachother, they also rely on eachother for comfort and support from time to time. For instance, when Yunior frequently looks to measure his brother's expression, looking for aknowledgement. Of course I would be remiss if I didn't talk about the uncontrolled vomitting that Yunior and his family must endure. On a literal level this vomitting could be mere car-sickness. But it's repetition in the story leads me to believe that there is more to this puking. Allow me to drop a mouse into this story and see what I can learn. I'm going to assume that the car-sickness could be better described as "country-sickness." Yunior and his family who are Dominican immigrants are out of their element in the United States. In the background information for Diaz we learn that he personally felt a sense of bewilderment when he first arrived in this country. Perhaps Yunior's sickness is a physical representation of the feelings that some immigrants may have, that this country is like a fast car that smells funny and makes you lose your lunch.

The first thing I noticed when I read Catastrophe was that it seemed to be dealing with race. There is a repetition of black and white and ash. The first time I read this I thought it was describing a director critiquing a person of color. But after looking into this script more I think its message is meant to be much broader than race. And then once I watched the film version I was sure it had to do with something other than race. The script version is similar to the film version. One difference is that in the film you get to see the old man’s last expression of disgust. This brings home the idea that the human body has been objectified. You really get the sense that this man on stage is being treated like a prop.