Keeping an Online Journal

I haven't really been a huge fan of doing the reading journals online. I know that there are advantages to being able to read and comment on what my classmates have been observing in the novels, but I've found that in this class (as in English classes that I've taken in the past), there are discussions about the books that we're reading occurring out of class.

I really liked being able to keep a written journal; when I was writing in that, I found that I was thinking more about the content of what I was writing and it was much more personal. I would include a lot more tangents, anecdotes, and doodles that I have trouble incorporating into my online journal. I feel like when I'm writing something (especially when I know that anyone can read it) I try to make it a lot more polished and I end up taking a lot longer to think of something to write about. In previous journals, after doing that day's reading, I would just write down whatever I was thinking about, even if it wasn't totally relevant. I had a lot of fun doing that kind of writing, and I know that keeping a written journal has been an option, but I would always feel guilty because if I had enough free time to do that, I felt like I should be working on my online journal or an upcoming paper instead.

I don't know that getting rid of the online journals altogether would be a good idea, because I think that some people have definitely benefited from them, but I wasn't really a huge fan of them.

Milkman in Part II

At the beginning of part II, we see Milkman by himself, flying to Pilate and Macon's hometown. This is the first time when we really see Milkman acting independently and without his immediate family members or close friends trying to influence him (which is pretty strange, since by now, he's a middle aged man). I thought that his actions in the beginning of this section are very different from how he had been acting in the first section; he goes back to his father's hometown with the intention of looking for the gold that Macon and Pilate had found as children, but while it may seem that he's only travelling there for selfish reasons, he seems very different than he was before.

The change in Milkman's character is hinted at in chapter 10, but in chapter 11 when he is out hunting right before Guitar finds him is where he seems in embrace his changing personality. Because he is so far away from his home in Detroit, he is able to realize how much he relied on his wealth, and he sees the extent to which he took his money and relationships for granted.

Milkman's Relationships

In Song of Solomon, Milkman experiences many different kinds of love from his family members and close friends. Some of the forms of love that he experiences are healthy, while others are not. For example, the kind of love that Ruth feels for Milkman is unhealthy. She has an aggressively possessive type of love for Milkman. An example of this is how she nurses him much longer than most children nurse for; she doesn't want him to grow up because that might mean that he would grow away from her.

The love that Milkman's father has for him is also fairly possessive and controlling. We see Macon and Ruth competing for Milkman's love and loyalty when they tell him vastly different versions of the night that Dr. Foster died, trying to show themselves as respectable and deserving of his love in their respective versions. However, Milkman doesn't seem to love either of them after these incidents, the only emotion that he gets after listening to his father is disgust, and he seems rather apathetic when hearing Ruth's version of the story and her accusations against her husband.

Hagar's love for Milkman is another example of unhealthy love, although it is not nearly as selfish as the love that Milkman's parents have for him. She cares about him much more than he cares about her, and this ends up hurting her so much when he breaks up with her that she decides to try and murder him with an ice pick.

Perhaps the only example of selfless and healthy love that any character has for Milkman, is the love that Pilate has for him. When he first goes to her house as a child, she welcomes him into her house, even though she has a bad relationship with Macon. Pilate's love for Milkman is epitomized in the scene where Milkman and Guitar are in jail after stealing the bag from Pilate's house and instead of getting angry or leaving them in jail, she convinces the police to let the two boys go. This is also one of the few relationships where Milkman reciprocates the love that he is shown.

Pilate and Macon

When Macon tells Milkman the story from when he and Pilate were younger, I wasn't entirely sure what to make of it. After hearing the story about Ruth and her father just after he had died from both Ruth's and Macon's perspectives, I tried to take everything that Macon said with a grain of salt; while there was surely some truth in his story about Ruth, there was also probably some lies. Knowing this, I think that it's impossible to say that Macon is being totally honest with Milkman when he tells him the story about Pilate.

I can't wrap my mind around Macon's accusation, especially since Pilate has been portrayed as a character who cares very little for wealth. I don't know how she would be so comfortable with giving away so many things while secretly holding onto a bag of gold that she stole as a child. This portrayal of Pilate as selfish conflicts with the person that Milkman has gotten to know. The version of Pilate that he knows is strict, but loving, and, according to Ruth, she saved him from his father. Milkman almost seems like a small child in this section because of how easily he's influenced by his father and Guitar.

Of course, in chapter nine, the real story comes out after Milkman and Guitar are caught and brought to the police station. I wasn't all that surprised when they found that the bag wasn't full of rocks, and instead was filled with rocks and the body of the man that Macon and Pilate has killed. However, since Pilate didn't have the gold, and Macon claimed that it had disappeared when he had searched the cave after a few days, the question of what actually happened to the gold can be added to the long list of questions that Milkman has about his family.

When Guitar and Milkman break into Pilate's house to steal the bag, I was almost hoping that they would get caught so that Pilate could explain her side of the story to Milkman. Pilate is, without any doubt, my favorite character in Song of Solomon, which is obviously giving my perspective here a huge bias, but I just don't see how Macon's story could be totally true.

Guitar and Meursault

I don't know if it's simply because my research project was on Meursault and absurdism, but I can't stop myself from seeing Guitar as a bit of an absurdist. In the section where Guitar tells Milkman about the Seven Men and their doings, he says, "And how I die or when doesn't interest me. What I die for does. It's the same as what I live for" (Morrison 159). I'm not trying to say that Meursault and Guitar are exactly the same; but I think that they definitely have some similar beliefs. The language that Camus uses in Meursault's epiphany in jail is very similar to what Guitar says to Milkman:

“Well, so I’m going to die.” Sooner than other people will, obviously. But everybody knows life isn’t worth living. Deep down I knew perfectly well that it doesn’t much matter whether you die at thirty or at seventy, since in either case other men and women will naturally go on living—and for thousands of years. In fact, nothing could be clearer. Whether it was now or twenty years from now, I would still be the one dying. […] Since we’re all going to die, it’s obvious that when and how don’t matter. (Camus 114)

Both Guitar and Meusault are firm believers in living in the moment and not worrying about what happens, but there is a difference in their philosophies in that, Meursault believes that the world is just going to go on no matter what he does and Guitar believes that he has to change the world. In the passage above, Meursault says "in either case other men and women will naturally go on living--and for thousands of years" (114), Guitar remarks on this topic as well, but he has a different perspective, "It's not about you living longer. It's about how you live and why. It's about whether your children can make other children. It's about trying to make a world where one day white people will think before they lynch" (160).

There is another similarity that I think is important between the two characters. And that is the fact that Meursault shoots an Arab, and Guitar kills white people. Meursault is living in a colony where there are Arabs and French people, and there is definitely a lot of blatant racism; Guitar's self-proclaimed purpose in life revolves around racism. However, a difference that definitely should be noted is that, Meursault and the French abuse the Arab population, while Guitar and the black community is being abused. This difference could tie into the fact that Meursault doesn't shoot the Arab for any particular reason, and Guitar lays out definite reasons for his actions.

Antoinette's Madness

Towards the end of Wide Sargasso Sea, Antoinette 'goes mad'--but, what exactly is the operational definition of madness that we are using? In class discussions, we were saying that madness is determined by how your society sees you. But, the problem with this definition is the fact that towards the end of the novel, Antoinette goes to England, where she is no longer being viewed by her society. The only people in England who have any contact with her, besides Rochester, have no idea what the world that she comes from is like, so it makes sense that they would see her as being mad.

When Rochester first comes to where Antoinette lives, he is seen as an outsider and people don't really know how to understand him. This is similar to how Rochester, and everyone else in England, don't understand Antoinette. But, a difference arises because Rochester isn't considered to be 'mad'; this seems to be because everyone already knew that Antoinette's mother was mad, and it was a ready-made excuse for Rochester to use to explain his wife's behavior.

I think that the solitary confinement that Antoinette faces in part three of the novel definitely drives her mad. But, I think that her madness is very different from what Rochester thinks that it is. Rochester locks her up because he thinks that she is totally incapable of making rational decisions and functioning in society, but she isn't ever really given the chance to be a part of England's society. And, I think that she is able to make rational decisions--when she attacks Mr. Mason, this may seem like a totally irrational thing to do, but not when you think about her reasons for attacking him.

Antoinette's suicide is another example of how she is still able to make rational choices. While suicide may seem like an irrational thing to do, one has to look at what her options are; she can remain confined in an attic for the rest of her life, or she could not. I think that staying in the attic would have been better proof that she was mad than any of the reasons that Rochester used to justify keeping her there. When Antoinette chooses to jump out of the window, she is freeing herself from the life of a madwoman that she had been forced into. However, by jumping she cements the idea that she is crazy in the minds of readers (and, as seen in Jane Eyre, the other characters in the story). I'm a little hesitant to say that she's in a Catch-22, but she definitely is stuck in a situation where she can't win. She is forced to choose between life and freedom, and by jumping out of the window, she chooses freedom--from both her husband and the identity of a madwoman that he has forced on her.

Rochester

The beginning of part two was a little confusing at first, but I quickly figured out that the narrator had switched from Antionette to her new husband. I couldn't understand exactly why or how they got married. Rochester didn't seem too enthusiastic about being married to Antionette. He keeps referring to how she isn't really an English woman, and he has clear doubts about the marriage. Antionette also has her own doubts about Rochester, for a period of time, she refuses to marry him, until he goes to her and talks her back into the marriage.

As Rochester gets further into Antionette's world, he finds himself more and more uncomfortable. Antionette tries to introduce Rochester to Christophine, but he tells her that he doesn't like her because of her language and rough nature. Rochester doesn't actually feel comfortable until he is led to Mr. Mason's old room and is left alone to write a letter to his father. He doesn't like the fact that the privileges that he is so used to having in England are diminishing and being replaced by dislike and distrust from the people that he is encountering.

Antionette and Tia

Growing up, Antionette's identity is a constant source of confusion. She is torn between who she is because of her family, and who she is because of where she is growing up. For most of her childhood, she is able to live in both of her worlds, but as she gets older, it becomes more and more difficult for her to ignore the racial conflicts in her area. Antionette doesn't want to have to choose an identity, but she is constantly being pushed or pulled in one way or another.

When Antionette's house is burned down, she loses the part of her identity that has to do with her family; then as they are fleeing, she tries to reach out to Tia and her family, but is rejected. Instantly, Antionette has gone from being pulled towards different identities, to being pushed away from the places and people she loves. After Tia throws the rock at Antionette, Antionette says that looking at her was like looking through a looking glass. Tia had previously been the tough one who never cried, but when Antionette looks at her with her face covered in blood, Tia is the one crying.

Initial Impressions of Wide Sargasso Sea

When I first started reading Wide Sargasso Sea, I had a lot of trouble following what was going one. Coming to it from The Stranger, which was written in a very simple and fairly straightforward way, the writing style of Wide Sargasso Sea was really hard to follow. To me, it seemed like it was composed of a series of vignettes, each of the short sections didn't seem to be as connected as many other novels that I've read, but they were still coming together to form a story. As I got further along, I became more and more accustomed to Rhys' way of writing. Also helping me was the fact that as Antoinette grew older, her narration became easier to follow and the ideas were more complete and thoroughly explained.

I read Jane Eyre for an English class last year, and I think that that definitely shaped my attitude going into Wide Sargasso Sea. Knowing how the story ends made me want to keep a certain distance from Antoinette. In Jane Eyre, the character that Antoinette becomes isn't a character that is easy to relate to, and since its narrated by Jane Eyre, she isn't a particularly likable character either. However, I almost immediately began to feel sympathetic towards Antoinette. I really like the idea that Rhys had to take a character who isn't really understood and tell their story, after reading only the first section, there are already things that I previously didn't understand, but now see explanations for.

Meursault as Jesus

In one of the panel presentations on Friday, a group presented an article that draws parallels between Meursault's life and the life of Jesus. They also point out a quote from Camus where he says, "I have sometimes said, and always paradoxically, that I have tried to portray in this character [Meursault] the only Christ we deserved." I know that this is the author, himself, comparing the two, but I have trouble seeing Meursault's story as a reiteration of Jesus's.


I think that Jesus is a very archetypal character. I mean, the argument could be made that Gregor's story has parallels to the life of Jesus (they both face persecution while they are trying to help others, and eventually they meet their ends so that the people that they have connections to can go on with their lives). But, that doesn't mean that Gregor is some sort of Jesus.


All of the parallels in the article seem a little forced to me. I think that Camus could have very easily meant that, like Jesus, Meursault has some sort of higher knowledge (the acceptance of absurdism), and that is all. The fact that he claims that Meursault is the only Christ that we deserve may mean that since Camus believes that there is no meaning to life, we don't deserve someone who's entire message revolves around meaning in life and death. Another huge difference is that Meursault is never going out and actively trying to spread the message that absurdism is the gateway to enlightenment, or anything like that. He is just trying to live his life peacefully.

Part I of The Stranger

In some ways, the beginning of The Stranger reminded me of The Metamorphosis, because they are both lacking the level of emotion that would be expected in the situations described in the text. I don't know id the relationship between Meursault and his mother was good or bad, but the fact that he is more upset about the weather than the death of his mother and the practical way in which he approaches her death was pretty shocking to me.

Another similarity between Kafka and Camus's stories is that their respective protagonists feel very pressured by their jobs. When Gregor first wakes up, all he can do is stress about missing work; when Meursault has to go to his mother's funeral, he talks a lot about having to go to his boss and explain that it isn't his fault that his mother died and that the funeral is causing him to have a four day long weekend. Meursault almost talks about his mother's funeral as if it was an inconvenience to him.

There are also very distinct similarities to Hemingway's, The Sun Also Rises. Both Hemingway and Camus make the reader do a lot of work, trying to figure out all the details that aren't explicitly in the text, but are implied or suggested. Like Jake, Meursault seems a little detached from the rest of the world. He tells his narrates in a way that makes him seem like a sidekick in his own story.

Something that Jake does a lot and Meursault doesn't do at all, is think about the future. Jake is constantly thinking about the implications and consequences of his injury and how that effects his day to day life. Meursault never thinks about how what he is doing, or what is happening to him, will change or influence his future. When his mother dies, Meursault just accepts it and doesn't really talk about what that's going to do to his life. Also, when he's talking to Marie about marriage, he doesn't really care whether they get married or not, "That evening Marie came by to see me and asked me if I wanted to marry her. I said that is didn't make any difference to me and that we could if she wanted to" (Camus 41).

Although, I think that the most extreme and notable instance where Meursault clearly does not think through his actions at all is when he shoots the Arab at the end of chapter six. He never really offers any strong reason for shooting the man, he just does it. Camus's way of narrating this scene is both infuriating and fascinating. He makes it so hard to pick out a rational reason for Meursault's actions, but at the same time, I don't think that the story would be nearly as interesting if he had given a specific reason. I think that this chapter could really be used as a criticism of violence in general, and if it is ever really justified. It actually reminded me of a scene in a movie, which is fortunately on youtube, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L2bj_baMPZE. In the movie, two men decide to kill a third, not because he had done anything wrong, or because they could benefit from it, but because they could. The lack of reason or sense for their actions isn't exactly the same as Meursault, but they both seem to question whether violence is seen or judged differently if it is given some sort of justification, and how convincing that justification is.

Initial Reactions to The Metamorphosis

When I first started reading The Metamorphosis, I wasn't sure if I would be able to take it seriously. Its such a bizarre concept, but the novel is written in such a serious tone. After the first sentence, I couldn't tell if Kafka was being serious or not, I could have very easily imagined the story turning out very differently than it did.

I think that by adding such a strange aspect to the story, it makes me look at everything else much more seriously. I think that the relationships and personalities that are present in Gregor's world stand out much more to me since I'm actively trying to not think about the fact that the main character is a gigantic cockroach.

Probably the thing that I find strangest about the writing style is how easily the story could be changed if a few words were changed in each sentence. The tone is very serious, but at the same time, it seems bland. I really don't know exactly how to describe the way that Kafka writes, it is definitely nothing like anything that I've written before, and I think that it would be very easy for another writer to try and pastiche Kafka, but totally ruin it. There's a balance between pure strangeness and dark humor in Kafka's writing. Reading The Metamorphosis almost felt like stepping into a piece of Escher's artwork (for example: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/a/a3/Escher's_Relativity.jpg or http://www.mcescher.com/Shopmain/ShopEU/facsprints-uk/data/1000/11%20Waterfall.jpg), there isn't really an up or down, right or wrong, and the harder you look, the less you understand and the more your head hurts.

Final Reflection on The Sun Also Rises

The Sun Also Rises was the first Hemingway novel that I've read so far, so the 'iceberg' style that the novel was written in was a little new to me. It was pretty easy for me to get through the sections, but I often found myself having to go back and reread chapters, and every time I did this, I would notice something new that I had glossed over before. In writing my response paper, I went back and reread a few scenes several times and was amazed at how much I noticed after going back.

When I started reading the novel, there were a lot of things that I didn't understand about the characters and the way that they interacted with each other. I actually really liked how Hemingway never goes out of his way to explain his characters, so the reader has to work to understand whats going on. I think that any attitude developed early on towards the characters can be encouraged by the happenings in the rest of the novel because of how much is left up to interpretation. Even the ending of the novel can be taken in two very different ways; it could be seen with optimism, or it could be viewed as Brett breaking Jake's heart again.

Cohn Revisited

This was just a passing thought regarding the behavior of Cohn in Spain.

Cohn seems to be really clueless towards social ques in Spain, which might just be the way he is, but I think that sometimes it's easy to forget how much alcohol the characters are drinking. This was definitely a factor in Paris, but in Spain, they seem to take it to a whole new level. There are several references to them drinking absinthe in Spain, which was never mentioned in Paris. ("I took a drink. It tasted of licorice and warmed all the way. I could feel it warming in my stomach." (Hemingway 162) "Bill got Mike started on something else than Cohn. The waiter brought the absinthe glasses." (Hemingway 170))

Most of the characters seem to handle alcohol well. But, I feel like it's worth pointing out that Cohn was described in the very first chapter of the book as a middle-weight. While in that passage the description was referring to boxing, I thought it was interesting that it could be considered applicable in other situations.

Brett and Jake

I think that it's very easy to dislike Brett as the novel progresses. Although Jake rarely blatantly criticizes her, he makes it very clear that he is frustrated with her. This subtle bias can easily be picked up and unquestioned by readers. Jake never seems to speculate on how things are from Brett's position; there are a few times when he mentions some details about her past in passing, but for the most part, he focuses on what she is doing in the present. The few things that we know about Brett's past, when removed from Jake's narrative, show that she is much more complicated character than she may initially appear to be.

I think that if this novel were written from Brett's point of view, we would see Brett with a similar level of sympathy that we have for Jake. Jake's injury from the war caused him to lose Brett, but the war also caused a huge loss in Brett's life, when her true love died. Her behavior in the novel my very well come directly from this loss, but since Jake is so infuriated by the fact that he can't be with Brett, he doesn't try and see the situation from her point of view.

The relationship between Brett and Jake is probably equally painful for both of them. But because we never get to see the relationship through Brett's eyes, it is easy to assume that all the problems in it come from her. Brett fell in love with a man who died, then when she fell in love with Jake, she found out that she would never be able to be with him. Jake is obviously hurt when he sees Brett with other men, but this probably hurts her too. Whenever she's with Jake and someone else in a group, she's probably hurting just as much as him because she knows that whoever she's with isn't someone that she loves. Early in the novel, there is a reference to them trying to work things out, but it ended badly, and they decided to not try again. She remains close friends with Jake, and is constantly reminded that they can never be together.

The Relationship Between Jake and Robert Cohn

In the very first chapter of the novel, Cohn is presented as one of Jake’s best friends. However, among all the details given about his character, veiled insults and criticisms seems to constantly come up. After discussing the idea that Hemingway intended for his prose to be the tip of an iceberg, those insults seems to be more and more significant. The friendship between Jake and Cohn doesn’t seem to be a mutually beneficial relationship; from the way that Jake treats him, it seems as though Cohn is someone that Jake believes he is better than, and being able to constantly put him down makes Jake feel better about himself.

For the first section of the book, Jake seems to beat Cohn in everything—he is well liked, seemingly successful, and witty. But, then Jake finds out that Cohn had gone on a trip with Brett, which is something that Jake is unable to do. After this point, Jake portrays Cohn as more and more inferior. In psychology, we talked about downward social comparison (which basically means that you choose some of your friends in order to feel better about yourself, because you perceive them to not be as good as you), to me, this seems to be the nature of Jake’s relationship to Cohn. Jake chooses to be friends with Cohn, not because he particularly likes or respects him, but because Cohn makes Jake feel superior, despite his injury from the war.

Jake belittles Cohn in many ways; he talks about how he was the champion middle-weight boxer at Princeton (not heavy-weight), about how he went to military school (not the war), and how he is his "tennis friend" (not a real friend, like Bill). And Jake is able to keep his constructed superiority up until the point when Cohn gets involved with Brett. At that point, Jake is forced to see a flaw in his schema (another term from psychology—http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schema_(psychology)). And his construction gives way to reality and his friendship with Cohn seems to deteriorate rapidly from there.

The Hours (part II)

I don't know if I should feel like I knew the ending to The Hours was coming, or not. I had assumed that the stories were connected in some way, but having the connection be the characters of Richard and his mother was not something that I had initially thought of. 

The parallels between the movie and the book were strong enough that I assumed there would be some sort of death; but I assumed that it would be the mother, who we later find out to be Richard's mother. While I didn't particularly like her character, I thought that she was really interesting. Her husband had gone to war (like Septimus) but, she seemed to be the one with mental health problems. I took her to be an interesting combination of Rezia and Septimus. One one hand, she displays serious signs of mental illness, and fleeting bisexual tendencies (like how there were vague hints at Septimus and Evans in the war). But, she also played the part of Rezia, by trying to be responsible for her family and not really fitting in with her community.

The Hours

Since I was sick on Wednesday, watching the movie, The Hours, in class today was rather perplexing. From what I gathered from my classmates, the movie was already pretty complicated, and starting to watch it about thirty minutes into the story surely made it even odder.

But, I'm not saying that I don't like it so far.

Despite the fact that I'm really not too sure about what's going on, it seems to be a really clever way of doing a movie version of Mrs. Dalloway. Seeing the chronologically most recent set of characters was especially interesting to me, especially after the many conversations in class about who Clarissa should or shouldn't have married. Seeing a version of the story where she ends up with Sally was really strange to me; it was remarkable how similar Clarissa's situation was in the movie to her situation in the book. By that, I mean how she's still giving parties and trying to be the perfect hostess, while having constant doubts about herself.

Clarissa's Party

In the final section of Mrs. Dalloway, the dinner party, that Clarissa has spent all day preparing for, is described. One of the very first things that I noticed about the party itself are the differences between how the servants experience the party and how Clarissa and her guests experience it. The servants are rushed and stressed as they run around, trying to get everything done at the right time and to the proper standards. Meanwhile, Clarissa flits around the room making conversation with her guests, but at the same time she worries that her party isn't going to be a success, despite all of her preparations.


The arrival of Sally Seton or Lady Rosseter, as she is now know, was another thing that really stuck out to me at the party. I was really curious to see how the interaction between her and Clarissa would be after reading the previous mentions of her, and I also was wondering how she would behave as an adult, or a maturer adult than she had been when she had last seen Clarissa. I was really hoping that getting married and having children wouldn't have changed her very much, even though she hadn't been actively in the novel until this point, the picture that had been painted of her character seemed much more interesting and dynamic than the other people in Clarissa's life. At first, she appears to not be the same at all, but then once she starts to interact with Clarissa, it becomes clear that her personality really hasn't changed much.

Something that really surprised me in this section was the appearance of the Bradshaws. I didn't expect the novel to have any sort of direct connection to Septimus after his death, and I thought that it was really interesting how he was yet again tied into Clarissa's story. For most of this novel, I've looked at Clarissa as being a rather superficial and shallow character--mainly because of how she was constantly being put next to Septimus, who was dealing with much deeper issues than guest lists and flowers. When Clarissa goes off on her own and reflects on Septimus's death, I felt like she was starting to agree with me, which really made me change my mind about her. Before I had thought of her as naive and oblivious, I hadn't really blamed her for worrying about seemingly trivial things, but I also didn't sympathize with her. When she was presented with Septimus's death, I wasn't sure how she would respond, but the way that she actually cared so much about a person who she had never met caused me to finish the book with a very positive opinion of her.

Septimus and Rezia

In the section of Mrs. Dalloway that we read for yesterday, Septimus and Rezia were shown in their home away from the chaos of London. It was the first present tense instance where Septimus was functioning normally (although, normal seems to be a very subjective and descriptive word). If the narrative had just jumped to him for the first time, I don't think that any readers would have been able to tell that he had gone through so many traumatic experiences in WWI.

The idea that on his own, or at least almost on his own, Septimus is a very different person, reminded me of the first time that I saw Mrs. Dalloway on her own. When she was out and about, she didn't seem to be anyone other than a content, upper class, woman planning a dinner party; but when she got home and went up to the room where she had been spending her time when she was sick, a different person seemed to emerge. She sunk into a deeply reflective state and all the assumptions that I had made about her on the surface were challenged, and I had to rethink my initial impression of her.

During this last section with Septimus, I found myself doing the same thing. I had thought that I had a good understanding of his character, but after seeing him alone with Rezia, I started to see him a little differently. Before this section, I felt really bad for him; he went through a war and watched one of his close friends die, which would have been bad enough, without the scars of those experiences affecting his present state of mind. Seeing him as he would have probably been, had he not gone to war, almost made me more sympathetic towards his character; it was easy for me to think that he had been deeply affected by a traumatic experience, but this section showing how things could have been for him made the fact that they weren't almost worse than it already was.

Mr. Dalloway

So far, I haven't had strongly disliked any of the characters, but I haven't found myself drawn to any of them either. That is, until Richard Dalloway came into the story.

He seems to be one of the few characters that's more or less content with life. He does reflect on the past, but his reflections have a much different tone than Clarissa's do. While Clarissa dwells on missed opportunities and regrets (although that might be too strong of a word), Richard thinks back fondly on his youth. He also flashes back momentarily to a time when he bought Clarissa a bracelet, that she now never wears. While he wasn't angry about this, he was definitely disappointed. His emotions regarding that incident weren't conveyed very strongly and I found myself wishing that I could step in and stand up for him.

I was actually expecting to really dislike him. From the way that Clarissa portrayed him, I was under the impression that he would be one of the distant husbands that only cares about work and his important, high-class friends. But, I was pleasantly surprised when he was introduced as a fairly laid-back and amiable person.

There was only one section in last night's reading that made me a little irritated with Richard. And that was when he couldn't say "I love you" to Clarissa. I'm sure that she knows that he loves her, but I don't understand why he froze up. That passage definitely stood out to me, but I'm still not quite sure how to interpret it.

Are we allowed to judge Mrs. Dalloway?

One of the questions that was brought up in class last week was, should we be allowed to judge Clarissa based on her thoughts recorded in Mrs. Dalloway? I know that sometimes the things that Clarissa thinks might misrepresent her personality, but I think that it is fair to form an opinion about her as a character solely based on her thoughts. I think that knowing her most private thoughts gives a more honest picture of her than seeing her just on the surface would have. I'm sure that no one wants all of their thoughts to be public, but I think that if you're judging a person based on what they want you to see, you aren't going to get anything close to an accurate picture of them. I actually really like how Virginia Woolf doesn't censor anything, I think that it makes Clarissa seem more real than she would if Mrs. Dalloway had been written in a different style.

First Impressions of Mrs. Dalloway

The first night that I spent reading (although, "attempting to read" seems to be a more appropriate description of my venture into Virginia Woolf) Mrs. Dalloway, I had a lot of trouble figuring out what was going on. The way that the narrative uses free indirect discourse with Clarissa made it hard for me to follow, then when it began flitting from person to person, it took me several readings of each paragraph to be sure of what was happening.

However, once I got more familiar with Woolf's writing style, I started to enjoy the various perspectives that melted together to form a complete picture of each scene. It actually reminds me a little of the household deer from the novel, Girl in Landscape, that I read last year in English. In that book, there were small creatures that ran all over the place and could be inhabited by different peoples' consciousnesses. The mental image that I began forming after connecting Girl in Landscape with Mrs. Dalloway was rather strange, although Woolf's narrative does seem to me a little like it could be the account of one of those quasi-invisible creatures running around London. Now, my analogy doesn't work perfectly because in Girl in Landscape, the creatures can't actually hear the thoughts of the people that they follow or observe. But, the quick transitions and the lack of censorship or privacy of thoughts and actions, feels very similar to me in the two different novels.

The Mezzanine - Class Prompt

As I was reading it, it came as no surprise to me that Howie was angered at Marcus Aurelius' opinion on the "transient and trivial" nature of life. All 135 pages of The Mezzanine argue the point that the triviality of life is one of the greatest and most meaningful things about it, strange as it may seem to someone who has not read The Mezzanine. Howie seems to not care about the deep or profound ideas proclaimed by Aurelius, he seems content in marveling at the beauty of everyday life and people.

However,while reading this section, something highly ironic occurred to me. Howie decided to buy the novel, Meditations, after reading a single sentence and assuming that the rest of the novel would have the same poetic flow of words. Unfortunately for him, shortly after beginning to read the novel, Howie realized that it was not at all what he was hoping for. Now, I almost feel as though Marcus Aurelius would have the exact same experience with The Mezzanine, if through some bizarre and far-fetched series of circumstances he happened to wander into a Barnes and Noble, pick up a novel by Nicholson Baker, and read a single sentence. While the subjects and the actions in The Mezzanine are rather mundane, they're presented with an elegance that I feel Aurelius would appreciate.