Finally

Happy ending. Just like really nothing we've read this year. Maybe this streak of one will continue with Frankenstein, though I doubt it.

At the beginning of the book I saw McMurphy as the guy that didn't care about the others one bit, he was concerned about himself, his time in the asylum, and how fun his time there would be. But I believe he changed, even though he acts mostly the same all the time. I think that seeing the things he saw in the asylum, how people were considered insane and being constantly demoralized, made him feel sorry for others. That's probably all it took for him to change radically, to feel sorry for someone probably for the first time in his life. With his actions now focused on helping others with defiant acts, he proves to them that nothing is established, they're not insane just by default as the Big Nurse made them believe.

McMurphy: Being a hero or creating multiple?

When we first started reading, I thought that McMurphy was attempting to make himself a hero for the rest of the ward. He showed a glimpse of hope and rebellion that none of the men had seen before. However, after tonight's reading I have reached more of an idea that I think McMurphy is on the ward to make heros out of all of the men, and build them up into confident men who are "man-sized again" (233). He knows that none of these men are truly insane and have simply lost their confidence and aren't willing to take on the real world, so they remain hidden in the ward under a woman who questions their masculinity without any sort of rebuttle. McMurphy however, questions the control that Big Nurse has over them and therefore creates an excitement in all of them which allows them to begin to come out of their shells. Not only did he cause the first words to come out of Chief's mouth since he had been on the ward, but he also taught Billy Bibbit to dance, and introduced him to a woman. He wants for the men to be free but also wants them to be able to do it themselves. I think the struggle lies within the men like Harding who refuse to believe in change and hope.

The Mute Can't Scream: The Chiefs Limitations in Communicating with Himself

I don't know how this "Big Idea" is suppose to work. I felt that was the best possible way to lead this off. The passage I want to focus on, to further develop this self-castration that I was talking about, is only a little into Part II, around when he talks about the meeting room. I found it interesting how he's now deaf and dumb to himself, truly locked in his own mind and without a thick fog. He reacts with fear, contradicting his physical appearance. When he remembers his times in the meetings, before the staff left and he had to clean up some horrific, malicious mess, he is invisible; he's just a "sponge and [a] water bucket floating around" (151). It turns out that he's scared here, too; terrified of their metaphorical dissections of patients "nude one the coffee table in front of them; vulnerable to any fiendish notion they took" (151). But I think he's a bit envious of this. When I read this, I was reminded of a lot of horror movies or games; where the main character is being chased by some killer or monster. Of course they run to some small, constrained space; one one, low visibility, and even less space. Like a locker. There he or she is. Trapped. Only able to gaze out at this bleak, dark, ominous world around them where he or she knows lurks some evil being. It's at this point where I feel like I'd want to give up, to get caught; the point at which so much adrenaline, a hormone to promote liveliness, is surging through me that I'd want to scream or run out or something. Just not be bottled up. And why wouldn't the Chief be feeling the same way? There's sort of this vision of relief in this "undiscovered land" that, in that moment, exists prominently. I think the Chief now just really wants to scream; to separate himself from the bird and the rabbits. All of this worry and anguish was initiated by the realization of him being the one fueling the fog, not some hunk of machinery. Thoughts?

An Intense Power Struggle: McMurphy vs. Big Nurse

So for the past few class days, we have been primarily discussing Chief's role as narrator, distinguishing reality from Chief's perspective, and the symbol/concept of the fog.  However, after reading tonight, I could really see how intense the power struggle is between Big Nurse and McMurphy.  To start, I think that this is a really complicated relationship; I feel that Big Nurse has brainwashed everyone into following her while McMurphy is looking to gain supporters and change the status quo.  This is shown especially during McMurphy's encounter with Harding earlier in the novel, who admits that he is the only person who actually was brave enough to say something about Big Nurse without taking back his words later.
The big battle this last chapter concerned McMurphy wanting to watch the World Series and switch the TV time.  To his expectation, the nurse disallows this because she doesn't want "turmoil by the switch of routines" (118).  While some of the members agree with McMurphy, there are other members who would rather not change routines because: "[Big Nurse] always has the capacity to make things worse for them" (121).  I feel that these members have been in for way too long and are losing their ability to make self-decisions.
Overall, this is a large debate between the Inside and Outside.  Since the nurse has power to work both in the asylum and live outside, she is really experiencing and living life.  However, her desire to keep the Insiders on a strict routine may be good at first, but I think it is overall detrimental to them; much of life revolves around spontaneous actions.  What do you guys think about this power struggle?

Big Idea Post Wednesday 12/4/13

So in the beginning of tonight's reading two particular passages stuck out to me. The first one starts on page 68 (illustrated version) where Chief starts talking about Big Nurse's time control efforts/ability. Now, we've discussed in class about how Chief is similar to Ben in the fact that he seemingly tells the unedited truth. Yet we've seen how Chief often narrates in a form of metaphor. As we discussed today, we don't 'really' have machinery in our heads, but it works similarly to 'machinery'. Chief isn't stretching the truth, he's just describing it in a way most easily understood by himself. Now does Big Nurse really changing the speed of the wall clock? It's unclear. Possible, but unlikely. What's more likely is that Chief is describing her ability to make them feel rushed and overwhelmed, or bored and sluggish. Yet, as he describes it, there's no advantage or increase in efficiency by her making the clock faster or slower. Well then why does she do it? It seems to be just another way she maintains control/power over the inmates. Chief says: "till the Big Nurse sees everybody is right up to the breaking point, and she slacks off on the throttle, eases off the pace on that clock-dial, like some kid been fooling with the moving-picture projection machine and finally got tired watching the film run at ten times its natural speed" (68). We mentioned today in class about how some of the methods in which the administrators maintain power over the inmates could be making them more crazy; do you think Big Nurse is aware of this? It appears that Chief is.

The seconds passage was less-illustrious, yet interested me because it was an interaction between Chief and McMurphy (75) which shines some light on their relationship, which has been a rare-occurrence so far in the novel, even though they appear to be the two main characters. Basically, McMurphy tests Chief by telling him one of the "black boys" is coming and alludes that he'll get in trouble/be punished if he's not in bed when the guy sees him. Chief has described himself to be deaf and dumb. The administrators already think of all the inmates as dumb, so being deaf would just add to him 'dumbness'. We discussed how the bird in the tree sits still for it's own safety; if it could only save itself by taking flight, would it do so? One would think. So McMurphy has already established himself as a manipulative person (especially shown in the blackjack scene) and he seems aware that Chief, in his impeccable observation, has already figured out how McMurphy manipulates. So, to not only test Chief but also to show Chief that he (McMurphy) has him (Chief) figured out as well, McMurphy makes Chief think his livelihood is in danger, and Chief acts, and in doing so reveals how he neither deaf nor dumb: "He stops laughing and whispers, 'Why, you sure did give a jump when I told you that coon was coming, Chief. I thought somebody told me you was deef'" (75). This subtle section of dialogue shines some light on their relationship; they understand one another and the masks that they both wear. For Chief, it's being deaf and dumb so as to be immediately dismissed, for McMurphy, it's the opposite.

Big Idea/Passage unpack

Alright, so my passage is on page 7 in my book so it's probably a little later in the other editions. It's essentially the part in parentheses that starts with "(Papa tells me to keep still, tells me that the dog senses a bird somewheres right close...)" The memory is referring to the moment that Chief is currently in right now. He is trapped in the broom closet, escaping shaving duty before breakfast. The Nurse is the dog in this situation. She can sense fear, and is not like the other nurses, who are "fish-gut eaters and [have] no class a-tall"(7). She is different and more intimidating than the rest. As long as he stays still, Chief can escape the assigned work. He just needs to keep quiet, and other asylum-mates' fear will distract the Nurse and she'll choose them for the work instead of Chief. Finally, when the bird makes a break for it, he gets shot down by Papa's "birdshot"(7).  In this case, the "black boys"(6) are the birdshot and drag him into shaving even though he wasn't assigned to it. Basically, the Nurse is the tyrant in this situation. While her job is to help the asylum-mates survive, she is basically doing the opposite. She creates more fear than there is already. These people are obviously not in the right mental state and the fact that she continues to threaten them with terrible jobs does not help them at all.

The Goal

Although we've only written two papers so far, and we may only be writing four in total, but I've been trying to write about the same topic in each of them. I've been naming in "gender roles," but if I am to be completely honest, I'm trying to write about sex and how it's used as a tool in the novels or in this case vignettes. Unfortunately, I am having some trouble finding examples of that in these stories. And I'm not complaining; though I may seem to be without a paper, I have found a quite fruitful one; not only does Norma showing characteristics of a hero show signs of the cycle of alcoholism and drug dependency, but also that they're fully returning to their culture from 500 years ago. This is not a sign of returning to the hero in the modern sense, where the all-to-general perception is male, but rather to the warrior definition of the Indians/Native Americans/Indian Americans/I don't even know anymore. I had originally seen this as more progressive, in the sense that they were traveling both forward and backward in time simultaneously, but upon further research it seemed like I was wrong. Names are another good topic. Anyway, does anyone have any examples of my original point to hopefully remedy my "problem?"

James Represents Hope, Strength, and Purpose to the Narrator

"Jesus Christ's Half-Brother is Alive and Well on the Spokane Indian Reservation" is written in a first person narrative and is in chronological order.  It seems to me like this is a diary that the narrator uses.  Anyways, I found it interesting how the short story depicts the juxtaposition of the narrator and James.  Despite the fact that James hasn't talked or cried, the narrator believes: "he's waiting for that one moment to cry like it was five hundred years of tears" (115).  I think this quote refers to the eternal cycle we were talking about in class a few days ago.  Also, the narrator later mentions that: "Nobody dreams all the time because it would hurt too much" (117).  I believe these quotes prove the pain that the Indians on the reservation have been suffering through for years has been tremendous.

While the narrator may seem weak by himself (i.e. his drinking problem and his "exploded" leg), he seems to continue to move forward because of James.  With high hopes to hear James speak, the narrator explains: "But maybe [James] said I love you because that's what I wanted him to say" (127).  James finally answers all of the narrator's questions at Christmastime when he really talks to him: "[James] says the world hurts.  He says the first thing he wanted after he was born was a shot of whiskey" (128).  James admits at this point that life has been difficult ever since the beginning.

Nevertheless, the short story ends on a high note when they're at the fair in Spokane and James is regarded as "so smart for an Indian boy" (129).  The narrator then ends by saying James will end up caring for him and loving him when he is old.  This is certainly a promising way to end a sad story.

A shout out!

To Pedro, Greg, Callie, Jack, and Aashish--GREAT Bloggin' last night. You all made really interesting and well evidenced points, and Aashish even commented by disagreeing (and I agree with his disagreement!). Fantastic stuff, all of you. Pedro, you could write a paper about music. Jack you could write a paper about food.

The Importance of Imagination: A Mechanism for Survival

I found this short story, told in a first-person narrative, to have the same sad undertone as the other stories but also a strong sense of hope.  I noticed, particularly when talking about food, that imagination is the best mechanism for survival.  The narrator notes: "My sister saved up a few quarters and bought food coloring.  For weeks we ate red potatoes, green potatoes, blue potatoes" (151).  This seems like a futile attempt to add variety into their diets.  They talk about different food as if it fuels their imagination: "We imagined oranges, Pepsi-Cola, chocolate, deer jerky" (151).  It seems to me that this food fuels hope at the reservation.

For some reason I think someone already said this, but I'll say it anyways.

While I read Imagining the reservation, I thought about John Lennon's Imagine. They both use imagination as "the only weapon"(150) that they can use to escape the world surrounding them. But just like Lennon's song, the solutions they propose are, sadly, utopic and as unlikely to happen as "every Skin in the reservation [becoming] the new lead guitarist for the Rolling Stones[.]"(152)

the not so fun house

Okay, so out of all of the stories this was the only one I really even understood...and I'm not really sure who is telling the story. But I found it interesting that for the first time we see people acting like children... Usually with Victor we have seen kids that are growing up to fast but in the very beginning with the father and the boy laughing together, they are showing a bond between father and son as well as a sense of childhood that we haven't seen yet. Also, near the end of the story, when they aunt is attempting to try on the heavy beaded dress, we see someone actually trying to be a hero. A woman who could hold the weight of the dress on her back is "the one who will save (them) all" (67), and as soon as she could take a step with it on "she knew things were beginning to change" (82).

Paradox of "A Good Story"

So I just noticed that there is an endless paradox loop in this story because it's just a soty within a story within a story and so on because victor is telling the story about the grandpa who is telling the story about victor telling the story and so on. It's just so,etching weird that I noticed but I was also wondering why uncle Moses was so special. Why would Arnold skip seeing a baseball game just to see him. That seems unreasonable.

Imagining the Reservation a.k.a What If...

This story is told in first person by a nameless narrator. It explains the concept of imagination. It explores all the possibilities of what Indian life would be like if things were a little different. He/She even creates a math equation that says that "Survival = Anger x Imagination" (150). This actually caused me to think of change in a different way. I now see how any activism for or against a topic stems from anger. I never thought of it that way. They are so mad at something that they want change. They also have the imagination to create the idea that will change their situation too. But without one or the other, the chance of survival is zero. Relating this to other short stories, there is a common theme of cycles. Once they get into this cycle, there is no more imagination, and therefore no more survival. That is why the Indians stay in this horrible social state. They have lulled themselves (with the aid of the racial taunts from white people) into this state of hopelessness. Nothing is going to change, therefore imagination is gone, and there is no chance for survival.

Trial of Thomas Builds the Fire

This story describes the trial and sentencing of Thomas Builds the Fire to life in prison for premeditated murder. Some obvious injustices against Native Americans are touched upon when the Bureau of Indian Affairs officer says "What charges should we bring him up on?" and the other responds "Well it has to be a felony charge. We don't need his kind around her anymore." Also, regardless of the charge, he was going to be guilty which he seems to already know because "All that was variable on any reservation was how the convicted get punished." Prejudices like this have resulted in prisons full of Native Americans. Thomas's "extreme need to tell the truth" is what turns him in when he blatantly confesses. He knows that any attempts to defend himself would be pointless, as he is going to be convicted no matter what. This encompasses the theme that Native Americans are a defeated group of people who have basically given up.

Parents

Continuing with the discussion we were having at the end of class...I was not able to say that...
 When looking at the paragraph "She sent a letter home with me that told my parents to either cut my braids or keep me home from class. My parents came in the next day and dragged my braids across Betty Towle's desk."We talked about the concept of 'escape' and I think that escaping is hard to obtain because these characters are being raised this way, and this is what they have known their entire lives. Their parents are their oppressors too and are indirectly bringing their own kids down. It is hard to escape these trauma, obstacles and even the way of life that your own parents have taught you.

Change in Character: "Amusements" Exhibits Betrayal

This short story is told in first person and features the narrator, Sadie, and Dirty Joe.  Drunk at the carnival, Dirty Joe is unconscious.  However, the narrator notes that "Dirty Joe was no warrior in the old sense" (54).  He describes him as someone who drinks all the beer at the tavern.
Sadie, too, exhibits qualities of an affected person when described by the narrator.  When he mentions that it would be funny to put Dirty Joe on the roller coaster, the narrator notes: "[Sadie] smiled for the first time in four or five hundred years" (55).  While the idea of putting Dirty Joe on the roller coaster may have seemed funny to the two, all I could think of was betrayal.  Also, they both escape before the guards can get them; this is another cowardly act.  What do you guys think?  Am I reading into a harmless joke too much, or is it actually mean-spirited? 

Names are very relevant

         Thomas Build-the-Fire is Victor's cousin that helps him go get his father's ashes from Phoenix, Arizona. It's curious that Thomas' last name is Build-the-Fire, that Victor's dad was cremated and turned into ashes, and the ashes are in a place called Phoenix, right? Also, during this journey we see that Victor's friendship toward Thomas is "reborn", and he realizes that the only thing that's keeping them from being good friends is Victor's concern about what the other Indians in the reservation might think about him. To finish, Thomas states that Victor's father "will rise"(74). Victor also rises as he begins to see the world with a different perspective, starting with his father and how understands that despite his relationship wit his father wasn't the best, he still "searched his mind for memories of his father, found the good ones, found a few bad ones, added it all up, and smiled"(69).

Indian Education?

This story is told in first person by Victor and is mostly about Victor's life growing up, but includes various less important characters throughout. Although in the previous stories we've read, we see Victor growing up as he started off as a young boy in Every Little Hurricane and from there aged, in this story we get a recap of all of his younger years from an unknown later perspective. He begins as a warrior, but slowly but surely realizes his inevitable future. He not only begins to lose his innocence but losing a connection with his people after kissing the white girl. This story shows more racism and more stereotypes that people put upon Indians such as the assumption that him passing out due to diabetes was him being drunk, or that the white father beating his white daughter must have been Indian. As Victor graduates, keeps a straight face as he thinks about the future. In this moment, I saw this as a little bit of his warrior still being there was he graduated on top of his class. His friends however, graduating with smiles on their faces think about the partying they will take part in. Years later, Victor looks back and wonders what it was all for. While he got pushed around and grew strong, his friends were together and never thought there was anything they could do after high school besides drink and party. He is faced with the truth that although he received an education, in the end he has the same future as the rest of the people on the reservation.

Re-examine All That You Have Experienced, Dismiss What You Don't Like: An Intoxicated Interpretation of Walt Whitman in "Because My Father Always Said He Was The Only Indian Who Saw Jimi Hendrix Play 'The Star-Spangled Banner' At Woodstock"

This story is, again, narrated by Victor. Also having repeated presence is his drunk father. I'm just going to start off saying, as I look at the assignment, that I really don't want to write them in this order, not because of teen angst, but if I do it'll come out even worse than it will now. I'm tired. Basically, his father continuously says "That's how it is," or something of that degree, even though he hasn't the slightest idea what's real and what's fake. Most of the time he's in a drunken stupor, and even when he isn't, he just ignores what he doesn't like, since "all you have to do is change the memories" (34). There's no way he was actually there when Jimi Hendrix was playing. This narrator is as unreliable as a drunk, overly-philosophical Holden Caulfield. One little piece of evidence is that he claimed to be in the "dark" (31) while watching him. He must have meant figuratively, as it was around midday when this happened. Unfortunately, Victor too desperately feels the need to make his father happy, which in this case is to go along with his fantasy, and serves no real purpose other than clarifying the father's unreliability.

Because My Father Always Said He Was The Only Indian Who Saw Jimi Hendrix Play "The Star-Spangled Banner "At Woodstock

This story is told in first person by Victor, who has been in all the previous stories we have read. When I read this story, I find that Victor is finally realizing the reason why his father was so obsessed about the Star Spangled Banner played by Jimi Hendrix. His father was passionate about his guitar playing ability. It wasn't so much about how the song sounded, but the way he played the notes. He had a sense of pride for America, and that is why he believes that the song was directed towards him. Since then, Victor has grown, and has realized that the song has "made [him] want to learn to play guitar, not because I wanted to be Jimi Hendrix and not because I thought I'd ever play for anyone. I just wanted to touch the strings, to hold the guitar tight against my body, invent a chord, and come closer to what Jimi knew, to what my father knew"(28). That is what I take away from the story.

Jimi Hendrix and the Traffic Signal

The story "Because My Father Always Said He Was The Only Indian Who Saw Jimi Hendrix Play "The Star Spangled Banner" At Woodstock" is told in the first person by Victor, a character who appears in the other stories as well. Victor describes some of the struggles of living on a reservation, but primarily family issues with his mother and father. The negativity stems from his father, as all of his relationships become strained at some point, either with his son or wife. The line "They fought each other with the kind of graceful anger that only love can create" reminded of the Virgin Suicides and Mrs. Lisbon. She battles her daughters to point of suicide to protect them from the world, apparently out of love. In this story, the characters also participate in unpleasant things that are not usually associated with love. The second story describes the perpetual cycle that I mentioned in my previous post. The characters reminisce their days as athletes in high school. Since then, not much has been accomplished and the days are spent drinking beer and thats pretty much it. Whenever a young kid shows any promise, they know nothing will actually come of it because once that kid starts drinking and embraces a stagnant lifestyle, they aren't going anywhere. Nobody ever leaves and nobody seems to think much of it either. Instead of being proactive and trying to improve, the characters that we see just brood and feel bad for themselves, and scoff at the idea of trying to go to college.

A Drug Called "The Past and/or Future"

So "A Drug Called Tradition" is told in the first person with Victor as the narrator. The main 3 characters in the story are Victor, Junior, and Thomas, who are celebrating a rare payout of money to Thomas. While most of the reservation is partying at Thomas', the three characters take it to the road and decide to do this "good stuff" (13).  However, the main point of this story comes near the end, where the narration switches to second person. This usually signals that the author is speaking to the reader. Basically, it's saying that as long as you live in the present, keep in step with your skeletons, you will survive. If you get too far ahead or too far behind, there will be problems. Sherman Alexie tells us that the Indians are "trapped in the now"(22). Again, this story shares a similar theme of hardship and drugs with Hurricane.

Every Little Hurricane: Nightma(d)re(am)s

If you do not understand the title (haha) I was interested in nightmares and dreams in Every Little Hurricane. During the story, Victor's nightmares are his reality. In the story he has figurative and literal nightmares; "In those nightmares, Victor felt his stomach ache with hunger" (6) I think that Victor may be hungry because of the lack of money for food, but there is also a "hunger" for something else too. I think he has many "ache(s)" in what he says is the nightmare of his life. Victor even refers to his parents as "dream-less" (10) because they are not even capable of having dreams or nightmares because they can no longer differentiate between nightmares and reality. It seems they have given up hope and that dreaming for something would be pointless (in their minds).

Banksy

"A lot of parents will do anything for their kids except let them be themselves."- Banksy

When I saw this quote it reminded me of English class. We have talked about this theme before and mothers who go as far as killing their children to protect them. This is a theme in The Virgin Suicides and Beloved. If you have never heard of him before, Banksy is a famous street/graffiti style artist.

Every Little Hurricane: What's a party?

Throughout this story, Victor is the main character and is a nine year old boy. Throughout the whole story (told in third person), Victor is young and in fear but seems to have an extremely mature and experienced outlook on life. However, it's unfortunate that he, as such a young boy, is forced to see situations such as his uncles beating each other bloody or his parents being drunk and passed out. Clearly the hurricane idea is a metaphor for the struggles of their lives. Each person is a storm cloud caused by their painful memories and emotions, and when they all come together in one place, the "high-pressure and low-pressure fronts" (2) cause a large scale storm. However, everyone at the party ignores it, as if they have been dealing with these storms forever. They all drink and fight and mess around without a shame or a care in the world because they want to feel something else besides the pain of their past. The same idea comes about in A Drug Called Tradition in which the boys attempt escape their world and find "a better world" (14) by using drugs. However, in their situation, there is a realization that they cannot escape the past or their memories because "the past (and) the future, all of it is wrapped up in the now" (22). Both stories show people attempting to escape their past and their lives by drinking till their sick, or taking trippy drugs to see something new. Doesn't sound like a party to me

Every Little Hurricane

This story is told from the third person and describes a party being held at someone's HUD home on a reservation. I looked up what HUD stood for and learned it was "Housing and Urban Development" meaning that home was sold from a foreclosure by the Federal Housing Administration. This relates to the recurring image of poverty Alexie is portraying with Victor's father not being able to afford any Christmas gifts. I also believe that the idea of good and bad parenting is in this story and "A Drug Called Tradition" because of the early age at which the Native American children are exposed to alcohol. I mean, this story is about a nine year wandering around a party full of adults binge drinking, two of which are fighting and no one seems to care. This also seems like a pretty regular occurrence for Victor. Another sad part relating to parenting is the way that Victor finds his parents passed out in a drunken stupor and how he describes the smells on both of them. It seems to be a perpetual cycle that is impossible to escape.

From AJ!

I was looking over some of my quotes; I came upon "where the prince gets lost" (130). It was at that point when I realized I actually had no idea what it was referencing. I searched the internet and I'm pretty sure it is the story "The Grateful Prince." What I really found interesting was that here also there were signs of subtle female dominance. Let me first give a rather short synopsis. A king gets lost in the woods; a creepy, old man helps him out; (skipping over another motif) now, the king owes him his son; he instead gives the old man a peasants daughter, having his real son be fostered in secret with the peasant family; he grows up, learns the truth, and out of guilt tries to seek out the girl; he find the old man in the forest with a maid, presumably the daughter given away; he does tasks for the old man and eventually escapes with the maid; when he arrives home, he find that his real father, the king, has died; the entire town decides that the two should be married and take rule of the kingdom.
Pretty run of the mill stuff. However, males, who are assumed to be dominant, aren't dominant here; the king in the forest has no governance over his direction nor the old man and is thus put into substantial debt with the old man. Also, this secret prince, under the shroud of subordinance, is originally exchanged without question with a girl, equating the two. In doing said tasks, the prince is guided through the old man's tricks by the girl, the same that was traded as a commodity. This creates this later of power, wildly straying from what would be considered the "norm"
When you then apply this to Rebecca, things get even funkier. Who the old man is is still up for debate.

I now realize that I could hasn't just connected things that weren't really connected in the first place, if that makes sense; however, it seems like too much of a coincidence to be untrue. I'm still accounting for my "goggles," but I think I can sleep fine now.

What The

I don't know what emotion to feel about the ending. I don't think I really do feel one towards the ending itself. It seemed like such a huge build up for that. Of course the ending result is a big deal, the author makes it seem like it's not a big deal. While the narrator was coming in and out of sleep you could for some reason feel the tension rising in the book and then it was just over. I don't know.
I've also come to the conclusion that I still hate Maxim. Actually I don't think there is anyone in this book that I enjoyed even a little bit. Anyways, i'm rather curious as to if he had known that instead of being pregnant, she in fact had cancer, if he still would have killed her..
Lastly, Rebecca never fails to win against Maxim even this far after her death. Without Rebecca, there is no Manderley. Originally, it was in the sense that without her Manderley would be unknown and just another home. But now that physically Rebecca truly is gone, so is Manderley.

The End.

1) I found it fitting in a way and good in a way (team Maxim) that Rebecca was not physically able to have children (page 373) because that makes team Max +1 and gives him power over her. The whole situation we read about earlier in the book of the potential of Rebecca having a child that was not Max's  was never even possible. This now makes me think that in the scene before Rebecca is shot, she said that to sort of mess with Maxim because she was the only one that knew the real truth.

2) The fact that Rebecca used a false name when seeing Dr. Baker could maybe signify that a tiny part of her did want to protect Manderlay and she did not want anyone to recognize her name. The de Winter's are practically famous, and this would have started a whole bunch more gossip that Rebecca was already stirring up. So maybe, just maybe, she had a tiny heart?

3) The End..... no Rebecca= no Manderlay
The narrator was describing all the things she was going to do when she got back, which sounded an awfully lot like Rebecca's qualities, (upholding the house, respect from the staff) but we have been shown there can never be another Mrs. de Winter because Manderlay won't allow it. Without Manderlay, all of this is irrelevant and all of these characters are no longer anything! Was proving Max innocent all for nothing?

Goose bump ending

I've read this book a zillion times. I just finished it for the zillionth and one. And it rocks. I'm sitting here in study hall wanting to tell the form 3 kid next to me that this book is brilliant and crazy and fantastic. What an ending. I can't wait to talk about the twists and turns and images and impact of the last three chapters.

ugh maxim

I do not like maxim. I know, sure I should I feel bad for him I guess, like he's never really had love or happiness blah blah blah okay. BUT he is a MURDERER and as much as Rebecca seems like she was a bitch, he is lying to everyone around him and making his new wife (whom he originally treated horribly and paid no attention to) lie as well. He also waited until this crucial moment (being when they discover Rebecca's body) to be honest with his wife. Okay yeah, wait until you're possibly about to be in trouble for murder to be honest with the woman you only married for the purpose of having a wife that you could control and manipulate into constantly putting out love and affection without receiving any in return. I don't know, it's frustrating to me that the way the narrator wrote these past few chapters makes me want to side with Maxim. Because she is biased, she's able to make me feel like I want him to get away with murder.

Assumption

Corresponding to my post about Offending, I have been looking at assumptions throughout the book. What I think is that- when a character assumes something (or takes someones word for something), examples being all the things the narrator assumes and also how during the trial it is not based on hard evidence, it is based on people's word, that that person is not in power any more. (the townspeople make all types of assumptions too) I think that every time an assumption is made, that person has just made themselves inferior. (ps. we as narrators assumed a bunch of things too) I'm sure you can argue my point in many ways but if you think about how assumption makes people loose power, in the end that person ends up in a predicament or as someone who has been controlled/influenced therefore not all knowing which equals the all mighty/powerful.

The Narrator's Reliability (abstract)

So, once again, I'm interested in the concept of the narrator's reliability.  I want to incorporate into my analysis the words the narrator uses to describe herself versus the words other people use to describe her.  Similar to The Virgin Suicides, I am interested in how the narrator gives us bad information, such as her assertion that Maxim had always loved Rebecca.  Her assumptions and flawed information, in turn, makes us become bad readers.
Questions to consider:
-Should we blame the narrator herself or her lack of confidence?
-How does this actually make us bad readers?
-Do we, as readers, ever get firsthand information? (Consider Ben for this.)
-What will happen now that we know the truth about Rebecca?

The Ideal Woman

The image of the ideal woman is different in the eyes of Maxim, Frank, Mrs. Danvers, and the narrator

-What makes the qualities of Rebecca better than the narrator's? Why is Rebecca considered more like the ideal woman when she herself has flaws?
            - Rebecca "should have been a boy" because she had "spirit", courage, strength, control and was "uncaring"
            - the narrator describes herself as a boy (but based on appearance, not personality traits)
- Why does the narrator describe herself as a boy physically, when Mrs. Danvers describes Rebecca a boy based on her qualities?
- Does the ideal woman exist? In a character or if at all
            - we talked about how the ideal man needs an ideal woman, which don't exist, so they make one up
- How could Du Maurier fulfill the two female characters to make them whole? Why is the narrator passive and Rebecca aggressive? Why couldn't the two characters have been combined? What point was Du Maurier trying to prove about the ideal woman?

Max and the narrator

I'm interested in the marriage of Maxim and the narrator. My questions are:

-Why did Max choose her as his new wife?
-Why did she accept?
-Is there love? When? What do the call "love"?
-How is their marriage different from Max's first marriage?
-How do people (Beatrice, Frank, Danvers,...) see their marriage, what are their opinion of that marriage?
-Can we call this relationship a "marriage"?
-How does the knowledge that Max killed Rebecca affect the narrator?
-Is this marriage more successful than the first?

Manipulation

I would like to explore the idea that the novel would lack most of it's unfortunate and rather thrilling events if the narrator wasn't so easily changed and manipulated to say or be what she thinks everyone wants her to be.
Some questions:
who does she let manipulate her?
how does she manipulate herself?
how does this change her?
who does she think wants her to change? how does she think she needs to change for them?
what are her main reasons behind changing?

QUOTES:
Maxim shortly after telling the narrator that he murdered Rebecca, "You don't love me, that's why you did not feel anything. I know. I understand. It's come too late for you, hasn't it." (272) Maxim knows she loves him and knows he can twist anything to make her say it.

Ben is Awesome (Abstract)

Ben is the only reliable narrator in the entire book
     -Lots of irony since he is viewed as an "idiot"

My Questions: (With help from Callie)
-How is he a reliable narrator?
-How is everyone else unreliable?
-What are examples of him being reliable, others being unreliable?
-Why is he the only reliable narrator, what makes him so special?
-How is the only one who makes sense?
-What makes him reliable?
-Who views him as an idiot and why?
-When does it become clear that he is reliable?
-What is he reliable about and why is everyone else unreliable about this?
-How do we know for sure he is reliable?

Some Quotes from Last Night's readings:

"'She's run aground,' I repeated. 'I expect she's got a hole in her bottom.' His face went blank and foolish. 'Aye,' he said, 'she's down there all right. She'll not come back again'"(262).

"'She'll break up bit by bit,' he said, 'she'll not sink like a stone like the little 'un.' He chuckled to himself, picking his nose. I did not say anything. 'The fishes have eaten her up by now, haven't they?' he said. [...] 'Fishes don't eat steamers, Ben,' I said"(263).

First of all, sorry again for being such a spoiler the other day.

So we found out about all of Rebecca's dirty secrets, and the real reasons of everyone's attitude toward her image. Now the narrator knows about everything, her husband killed his first wife. But despite the fact that he is a murderer, she tells him that she loves him despite everything. Maxim was open to her just once, and she claims to love him. I believe that she doesn't really know what love is. She also doesn't understand trully the concept of marriage. She doesn't even want Maxim to love him. "I don't want you to love me. I won't ask for impossible things. I'll be your friend and your companion, a sort of boy"(269). But before that, she claims that she will "... never be a child again."(269). She has good intentions, but she is too childish to understand the situation that Maxim has gone into.

The Narrator is Honest with Herself

So I thought that these last two chapters were full of detail, and I felt there were many good quotes that can be used for the paper.  The narrator seems to finally make sense of her relationship with the narrator; she admits: "Maxim was not in love with me, he had never loved me. [...]  [Maxim] did not belong to me at all, he belonged to Rebecca.  He still thought about Rebecca.  [...]  Rebecca was still mistress of Manderley.  Rebecca was still Mrs. de Winter.  I had come blundering like a poor fool on ground that was preserved" (233).
I found this part very interesting because the narrator finally seems to be enlightened and understand where she stands with Maxim.  It was as if she always knew this, but never wanted to admit it to herself.

Maxim's Point of Emasculation

"I could not forget the white, lost look in Maxim's eyes when we came up the path through the woods, and I could not forget his words, "Oh, god, what a fool I was to come back."  [...]  And although Maxim had recovered, and was himself again, and we lived our lives together, sleeping, eating, walking, writing letters, driving to the village, working hour by hour through our day, I knew there was a barrier between us because of it" (120).

Setting: Maxim previously opened up to the narrator about not wanting to go to the other beach because of all of his bad memories of Rebecca there.  He is portrayed as fragile in this context, mentioning how they should have stayed in Italy longer.

Assertion: Maxim and the narrator have a complicated relationship, and as a result, they are unable to appropriately and effectively communicate with each other.

Yes, Rebecca was popular, full of life, and possibly the most beautiful woman ever seen; however, we get a sense that Rebecca had a flaw when Frank tells the narrator that "kindliness, and sincerity, and if I may say so--modesty--are worth far more to a man, to a husband, than all the wit and beauty in the world"(135). We know from the comments of many people, such as the bishop's wife, that Rebecca put on the magnificent parties/balls/tea parties, each "an attractive original idea"(126), for the crowds of people, but the reader doesn't know how she acted around Maxim.

I thought the narrator's walk down to Happy Valley with Maxim and Jasper and the whole boathouse scene seemed slightly off. Frank's hesitant responses to the narrator's questions about the boathouse weren't helping the situation either. He seemed suspicious, just as Maxim appeared on the walk, like he knew something private about the former deWinter couple. Not that Rebecca and Frank were having an affair, but the fact that Rebecca spent many nights in the boathouse (enough that "nobody knew she had gone"(132) sailing when the accident occurred).

It's possible Maxim didn't want to return to the boathouse, chasing after Jasper, because it reminded him of that suspicious thing we don't know and not because it reminded him of Rebecca's death.

Just a thought.

Offending

A point that I had wanted to make in class was my reaction to what happens in chapter 14 (the night of Rebecca's death/disappearance) but more specifically on pages 173-174. I think that a part of Rebecca's death happened or the fact that she was not found for two months and no one went looking for her on that night is that fact that all these characters don't want to offend one another, and that why they acted how they did. If someone, say Mrs. Danvers, were to just step out of her given role, it would have been different. In this book, so many other bound rues have been crossed already but here they were not able to step out of their roles. How much did they really love her in those moments that they were making up excuses of where she was and what she was doing but didn't exert the energy just to check on her

Area of Interest: Changing

I'm pretty sure mine is rather similar to Alayna's, but I'm more thinking along the lines of the narrators insecurities and other people's opinions causing unnoticed changes in her that when all put together, will basically create a second rebecca.

AOI

My current area of interest is things that the narrator does to become like Rebecca. We know that Max does not want her to be another Rebecca, but to me it seems like she is conforming or shaping herself into a Rebecca replica. A lot of this is to blame on the Manderlay staff and the gossip that the narrator is hearing. I believe that she is making a mistake by doing this, but she is so insecure she feels the need to do it.

Area of Interest: The Mrs. de Winters

My area of interest right now is the difference between the narrator as Mrs. de Winter and the original Mrs. de Winter, Rebecca, and how Maxim wants his second wife to be nothing like Rebecca. I guess I understand why he doesn't want to be reminded of her death, but at the same time he had the best time with her (i think), so why wouldn't he want to create the same experiences with a new wife? Basically, I think there has to be a reason why he picked the narrator, like she has to relate to Rebecca somehow, and that relation between the two women is what I'd like to explore.

Reliability of the Narrator

My area of interest concerns the reliability of the narrator.  I feel that we are getting just vague stories and recollections of her ideas.  I'm curious why she describes herself with masculine features, and why she has nervous tendencies like biting her nails.  I guess the best way we can understand her is by listening to the recaps of people around her, despite the fact that she is telling the events.  The unreliable narrators makes us bad readers, like in The Virgin Suicides.

Maxim (AOI)

So my area of interest right now lies in Maxim. Unfortunately, that's as specific as I'll get right now. I'm not sure what it is about his character but it's very unsettling. I have said this before but I think that (Even though Hitchcock has already created a version) Tim Burton would make a great "Rebecca" movie. Just the darkness/mystery/unknown associated with Maxim and Manderley and Rebecca would work well with Tim Burton's style. But anyways, Maxim is my area of interest. More of a "what happened in the past and why does it make him what he is at this moment" focus though.

Disobeying

Our narrator is someone who is subject to other people and does not ever get to act on her own instincts. She is always being controlled by other people and has basically lost her sense of free-will. Although, we have seen her defy specific instructions on a few occasions, and if we look at those times,  those times resulted in the most problems or complications for her.

Examples are when a while back, the narrator was instructed to go change the travel reservations when they were to leave Monte Carlo, and that resulted in the marriage proposal and a doomed, superficial, relationship with an older man. Second, I would mainly like to focus on the instance when the narrator  goes after Jasper even though specifically instructed not to. Even though, in a positive manner, I semi-apprectiate that for one time she is not being insecure and that she does something she feels is right, this leads to the fight between the narrator and Max. Because they never worked out the root of this argument, I think that it is just another thing that will always be lying under the surface. Someday all these hidden problems will come out and blow up in everyone's faces.

Although this may sound terrible, when our narrator does what she thinks is best, it leads her astray and makes things worse when right now her life is less than ideal...


One other idea that I had about the relationship between Rebecca and the narrator is the the letter R. Page 120 says, "The R dwarfed the other letters" and this relates to the narrator because she is "dwarfed" by Rebecca, coming one of the "other letters." Rebecca is a big thundercloud over the narrators head that follows her every move. The rain will eventually pour, because Max and the narrator can not continue coasting through, or acting for the rest of their lives.

not mature enough for manderley

The narrators immaturity really shines through even more so in these next few chapters. For starters, she easily allows herself to feel very awkward and has through the whole book. Even Mrs.Danvers being quite kind and speaking with her in the west wing brought her to feel "vaguely uncomfortable" (93). She also continues to have some sort of idea that their marriage is real, or so it seems. She mentions that when his family came to visit, they had "spoilt" their day, and she felt like a "fool" for slightly disrupting Beatrice's water. She is very hard on herself. In terms of the family, there is an extreme competitive aspect, particularly between Beatrice and Maxim. Maxim rebuts to their comments about his health by mentioning he is "always very fit" and "never had anything wrong" with him in his life(95). To me, this was very strange, I feel like we haven't quite seen that side of Maxim before, that arrogant side and it seems to come out particularly in these two chapters. The siblings argue about extremely catty things and it becomes clear that Beatrice in particular constantly likes to mess with people's heads. Which brings me to my point of her making the narrator feel extremely inferior to Rebecca, and because of her young insecurities, it works. The narrator mentions as Beatrice and she begin talking that there is a "tiny doubt in her voice that made me afraid" (100). She immediately allows Beatrice inside of her head. Then, the comments continue, in reference to her hair, to her clothing, to Maxim changing, and it is very clear that although the Narrator has already changed from the "school boy" (31) we had in the beginning of the book, she still cannot be Rebecca. Beatrice then mentions that Mrs.Danvers dislikes the narrator and resented her being at Manderley because "she simply adored Rebecca" (102) and as the narrator already knew, "you are so very different from Rebecca" (107). After this conversation, when Maxim and the Narrator go to the shore and Maxim refers to her as "my good child" (117) which isn't quite what I would call a romantic name to call your spouse... He clearly begins to feel doubt and regret for bringing the narrator back with him: "We ought never to have come back to Manderley. Oh, God, what a fool I was to come back" (118). Finally, the end of the chapter, we see the tension and the chapter mist off and end with a smile from Maxim. "The smile was my reward. like a pat on the head of Jasper" (120). She compares her relationship with her husband with the relationship of an owner and their dog.
More or less, it is very clear that the narrator is extremely immature still and Beatrice knows how to get inside people's heads. Because of this, the Narrator begins to compare herself to Rebecca even more than she already had, particularly when it comes down to her relationship with Maxim. Finally, although she believes their relationship is real in some parts of the story, she contradicts herself in pointing out that he not only refers to her as "child" but also treats her similarly to the dog.

Kind of Immature

So I noticed a few things during these chapters.
The narrator is a grown up women, but her relationship with Mrs Van Hopper is more the relationship between a 12 year old daughter and her mother. She secretly drives with Max, visits Montecarlo, but when she has to lie to Mrs Van Hopper about it she tells her "...false words, bringing me to panic, even as I spoke,..."(35). Her relationship with Max reminds me of that one of a young girl avoiding her parents to see some other boy just for the sake of doing something foolish, unexpected. In fact, she admits that Max "... was a stranger. I wonder why I was sitting beside him in the car"(39). But despite this, she falls in love with him. To me this is more like a childish crush. It seems like Max is a way to escape from the boring life as a companion of Mrs Van Hopper. But even though Mrs Van Hopper is arrogant and ignorant, I agree with her when she declares the whole point of the marriage is that "He just can't go on living there alone..."(61).
So far, the narrator has got rid of the obstacles that prevented her from returning to her life as a companion, but there is an obstacle that seems impossible for her to overcome, and that is the very alive memory of Rebecca. She is still present in the thoughts of everyone at Manderley, such as Max, and Mrs Danvers. When Mrs Danvers welcomes the narrator, she states that "...she bade me welcome to Manderley, in the name of herself and the staff, a stiff, conventional speech rehearsed for the occasion, spoken in a voice as cold and lifeless as her hand had been"(68).
How was Rebecca? Why did Max chose the narrator as his new wife just a year after her death?

First time I've seen this

Hey guys, I just wanted to share the surprise I felt when I saw Nature depicted as an evil entity. Plants are depicted as "...poor, bastard things that clung about their roots as though conscious of their spurious origin"(2). I've always read of nature usually being a symbol of beauty or peace, but here it is described as ugly and menacing.

The Mysterious Manderley

Before I begin this blog post, I have a different book than everyone else so the page numbers won't correspond correctly.  Sorry.
So, I think it's interesting how Max de Winter behaves.  He is described by the narrator as "silent and detached, the man of yesterday wrapped in his secret self" (29).  The narrator notes "If he loved it all so much why did he seek the superficial froth of Monte Carlo?" (33).   I found that the majority of the information I've recovered from the first couple of chapters is relatable  depicts Mr. Winter to be mysterious.
Some observations I've gathered:
-Mrs. Van Hopper is extremely condescending and controlling of the narrator.
-Max de Winter seems to be playing the same role as the boys, with the exception that he is not narrating the novel.  For instance, I felt that Mr. Winter has an uncanny infatuation with the narrator, like the boys did with the girls in The Virgin Suicides.
-What is the deal with Rebecca?  Why does Mr. Winter not want to talk about her?
-Basically, I feel like the setting is just dark right now and there is a strange tension in the air; I feel we will learn about Manderley's significance as the novel progresses.
Passage I'm going to make assertion about:
"'An empty house can be as lonely as a full hotel,' he said at length.  'The trouble is that it is less impersonal.'  He hesitated, and for a moment I thought he was going to talk about Manderley at last, but something held him back, some phobia that struggled to the surface of his mind and won supremacy, for he blew out his match and his flash of confidence at the same time" (25). 
My assertion:
Mr. Winter is plagued by a past event at Manderley and fears to explain it, thus causing him to be edgy around others.

Quotes

Hey guys- I'm still struggling with finding quotes for my third paragraph, which deals with how the girls' voices are taken by the boys as narrators.  If you guys have any quotes that may be helpful and concern how the Lisbon girls are described with no individuality, could you let me know? Thanks.

it was weird. the ending wasn't really an answer to any of our questions yet for some reason it felt like closure. it was also really weird to me that they left mary behind. I don't really understand why the author felt Mary played an important role in this last chapter. Obviously a living girl vs. a dead girl is a big deal in the real world, but for some reason in this story's little world, in their small town the people, "spoke of the Lisbon girls in the past tense and if they mentioned Mary at all it was with the veiled wish that she would hurry up and get it over with" (219). She simply played the role for about a month of being the one left behind, which is weird because in comparison to a character like Lux, for most of the story Mary was overlooked. I feel like so many things are still just left without any reasoning or purpose, but with a story like this, maybe thats a good thing.

The Lisbon Girls, as we kind of knew them

So, my favorite part in the reading was the ending and how there is really no clear answer as to why the girls killed themselves.  The boys note that there suicide is: "simple selfishness" (242), yet they are unable to understand why they killed themselves.  The last (and best line, in my opinion) is from the boys, and it says: "we loved  [the Lisbon girls]" and "we will never find the pieces to put them back together" (243).  It seems to me that the entire journey of the boys, including telling the story, leads them back to the painful conclusion that they only know so much.  As badly as they want to, they can't tell the complete, truthful story themselves.  Only the Lisbon girls can, but they've departed.

Significance of the Candles

So I finished the book tonight, but I'll only post about what was in the reading for this weekend.  As Callie or Alayna posted, the boys are so infatuated with the girls because they believe that they could have been the ones to save them.  This post, however, concerns the strange position of the girls while they were living.  Before they died, the girls were stuck in a world where they were half-living and half-dead.  In the house: "The candles were a two-way mirror between worlds: they called Cecilia back, but also called her sisters to join her" (194).  I found this part really interesting.  While there is no clear explanation for the girls' suicides, might it be because of the memory of Cecilia calling them forward?  What do you guys think?  Is there a motive for their suicides, or do they do it from being overprotected by their parents?  There seems like there are a million possibilities, but maybe we will never know because the boys as narrators weren't very reliable.

woah

wow. okay. these 15 pages were a lot but I think that I can kind of make a connection between the fish flies and the death of the girls. On page 203, the narrators describe the fish flies "Inert unless detached, they flapped furiously between our fingers, then flew away to cling again, on anything..." and it could be kind of a stretch but the girls after Cecilia had committed suicide sort of died. Not physically but emotionally a part of the whole family had died and that is represented by them being squashed against the walls. Then they were not all dead though, so desperately they did anything to attempt to reconnect with life, prime examples being Lux's "romances" and weight loss and the girls attending the dance and attempting to convince the boys they just wanted to live. They tried to cling to anything, and soon enough they're parents locked them up unable to cling to anything but their loss of their sister. 

For the first time, the boys actually attempt to help and save these girls. Of course it was too little too late, but i think it's significant that it was this instance where they said "for the first time ever we felt like men". (205)

I really don't know what else to say because it all happened so quickly. They all committed suicide together? Was that the plan? Or did Therese set off Lux and Bonnie who set off Mary? ....Or did Cecilia just set them all off and it really was what was going to happen from the very beginning? 

weird

Okay so I noticed that for the first time, we see that it is not Mr. and Mrs.Lisbon who have all the control, but the city itself running the family as a whole, along with other families in the area. "... it was clear our trees were not ours but the city's, to do with as it wished" (179). This goes along with the fact that their yards and lawns were everything to them yet the city could take it away...Also, the city? who is the city? Like "to do with it as it wished" who is the "it" making these decisions for everyone else?
The word actually is never good with these boys. Particularly in this chapter, I think I hear them attempting to draw conclusions with information that they don't really have and constantly have to go back on themselves and say "well actually" or "the truth is" in that a fair amount of the things we're reading could be completely not true at all and they know it.
One boy refers to the Lisbon girls and says that "They're just memories now" (186). It's SO weird that these boys live across the street from the Lisbon girls, stalk them every single day, think about them every single minute, and can say that while they are still living they are nothing but memories. They also mention that "a year had passed and still we knew nothing" (187). This is interesting because they've narrated a lot of a book so far considering they know nothing... it just makes us as readers question the boys even more and it is very very clear that they are questioning themselves as well... until...
They make a big old assumption and think that because of a late night song swap with the Lisbon girls that they want to run off together and elope after never really speaking before. It also is completely pathetic to me that they're all sitting there around this phone listening desperately to the music these girls are playing and are actually trying to relate it to having real experiences with them like "going to a concert" or being able to hear their heart beat. I don't know this whole scene seems really weird to me.

Trip

After yesterday in class and we talked about lux being the saint of light I went back and re read trip talking about lux and whenever he describes something about her he also was related it to light like the lightning attack in the car or even her emotions and how she looks. If she was always shinning bright, then why would she also be throwing it all away later?

why fire

Once again, we are brought to the idea that fire gets rid of things and leaves everything clean and tidy. First we saw this with the burning of the leaves, Mr.Lisbon attempted to control the leaves as if fire was something controllable. Now, Mrs.Lisbon has a fire going in attempts to control Lux by forcing her to throw her rock records into it. However, it is clear that this isn't just her ideal way of getting rid of them because after it begins to smell, Mrs.Lisbon orders her to stop and throws away the rest of them. What is the significance of the fires?
Lema Crawford highlights the topic of the town being not as much of a luxurious haven as the other folks who live their try to make it seem. "Lovely weather down here. Best thing i ever did was to throw down the old shovel and hoe and get out of that town" (144). This shows that there was a large effort and work with attempting to keep your appearances perfect to be accepted in the town.
Going back to what we talked about in class with the idea of the only thing in life the girls are ever exposed to and able to experience is death, on page 160, the boys talk about how Mr.Lisbon is seeming to now be experiencing that very same feeling. "...his swallow complexion dying in sympathy with them; and his lost look of a man who realized that all this dying was going to be the only life he ever had".

Strangled to Death with Love

Mrs. Lisbon wants the best for her daughters, yet in doing so, she kills them.


Being students at a preparatory school, we've heard a story or two about students who 'cracked' under the pressure. Life is already hard enough, being an A student can only be harder. Much of this pressure is probably self-induced, but one has to look at the roots of those tenancies: the parents. Our tenancies as humans can only derive from two sources...nature or nurture. It's easy to blame the parents....but being a parent is the hardest job out there.....and most aren't qualified for the job.

In the case of the Lisbon girls, the pressure is not to be good students, but to be prim and proper. Mrs. Lisbon wants her daughters to be pure....but in achieving this, she strangles them to death. Of course, no sensible parent would do this purposefully, so she would've had to have done it without intention.

How do you kill 5 teenage girls by accident?

You love them too much. Mrs. Lisbon expresses her love to her daughters by contracting the walls, making it even tighter and 'secure'. For this reason is why she wouldn't accept there to be any lack of love years later: "None of my daughters lacked for any love. We had plenty of love in our house" (84).

Coming home from Homecoming (and having left Lux behind) the girls remark about who's in trouble: "Therese said to her, 'Forget it. We're cooked.' 'Luxie is. Not us.'" (129). They fear their mother's iron fist and that fear has prevented them from living. After one night out, it's apparent that at least Bonnie arrives home a changed person (the interaction between her and Conley's hair that stays "Nearly two decades later" (129)).

And Lux. She may seem like a tramp and a worthless rebel......but every adolescent knows she's a warrior fighting tyranny.

Mrs. Lisbon plays music that sounds like "the music you play when someone dies", drags her daughters to church, has them confirmed, doesn't let them go out, doesn't allow dating/boyfriends, doesn't allow perfume or any sort of individualism (makes the daughters look the same in their dresses for the dance), suppresses adolescence in every form and even breathalyzes her own daughter (and was about to hit her).

Cecilia told the doctor he had no idea what it was like to be a 13 yr old girl. She was feeling immense, uncontrollable changes that everyone around her told her to suppress.....well things can get explosive when suppressed...and thus she 'hurled' herself out of the world.

Therese says "We just want to live. If anyone would let us" (128). I feel like this is the most important line of the novel because it expresses every frustration and miscommunication between the Lisbon girls and the outside world, all while hinting at the friction in the interactions between the Lisbon girls and those that prevent them from living.

"Parkie Denton tooted his horn, a short hopeful blast, but just as the girl put her palm to the glass, the light went out" (135). Put out by Mrs. Lisbon in an attempt to protect her daughters from the harsh outside world. In doing so, she suffocates them from lack of light/oxygen/freedom.

Area of Interest

My area of interest for this novel is based off of "offering." I first got this idea when we looked at the meaning of a votive candle. The girls have never offered themselves to anyone, to anything, in any way. I think that death is the only thing that they know how to offer themselves to and that is exactly what they do. They feel like on Earth they have nothing to offer themselves to or are not aloud to offer themselves or maybe don't even know what they have to offer....therefore they turn to death.

I don't actually know how to summarize this

okay so I noticed a lot of things in this reading so i'm gonna go for it.

SO:

First off, when they mention on page 117 the difficulties of having a parent on faculty at your school, I can kinda relate obviously, but they talk about how it makes them feel like a "charity case" and that's interesting because i've actually never thought about it like that at all, so that kind of just shows the way the girls see things a little bit. Next, pretty typical how Mrs.Lisbon randomly returns from the depths of their home when it comes to having control over them again... All she needed to bring her out was to be able to make her daughters look just the way she wanted them to once again. However, the girls were really happy through this whole dance experience nonetheless. Except I also notice that the story gets constantly broken up by the reminders of Cecilia's death that come out of nowhere. It's almost like in the narration of this whole story, the boys were trying to convey that the girls could never be happy. Which also connects with on page 132 Therese saying, "Cecilia was weird, but we're not. We just want to live. If anyone would let us." Everyone always brings them down and it's interesting because it makes me wonder what happens within the next part of the book that their want to live disappears. I have a feeling that Lux's suicide will have something to do with the way Trip and her ended up, with him not caring how she got home and then being sick of her...like where did that even come from.

Um okay on another note, is the fact that "It was the kinda of music they play when you die" (135) a sign about Lux? Why did Cecilia get the flag at half mast while Laura White has a statue? I'm assuming it wasn't just a coincidence that this idea of girl's committing suicide came up as they were looking for their sister who would soon get in trouble. 

"Don't let it die a virgin" in reference to the smoke ring seemed significant to me for reasons i cannot explain so i don't really know about that one

 

Mom, you're crazy

I mostly noticed this:

* Mrs Lisbon is someone I can't understand at all. The book mentions the type of music that she was listening in the house and is described as "what you listen when someone dies". During homecoming, Therese talks about Cecilia for a moment. She claims the rest of the sisters are not like her, they only want to live if anyone would let them. All these references about life and death make me think that the Lisbon family is far from getting over what happened to Cecilia.

* Why did everyone think it was so obvious that Trip and Lux were going to be King and Queen of Homecoming? Specially when people thought they were crazy, as Therese mentions at some point.

Privacy

What I realized at the end of the last class about privacy is that after Cecilia's first suicide attempt, even though privacy is supposed to be very important (page 42) she has even less of it. Her very first moment of privacy since the incident was during the party when she was allowed to leave the basement and walk upstairs by herself. It may be normal for all of us to be able to walk up stairs in our own home alone, with no supervision, but it's not normal in this household. What I find interesting is that the first time she has privacy (maybe she can't stand it?) she kills herself....

No Truth/ Lux is Next/ 13?

It's frustrating to me that still now that we are past page 100, we still have no more solid information than we did on page 1. I feel like there are two sides to every story, one from one unreliable source and one from another unreliable source. It seems like the girls are very up and down in how they are feeling about Cecilia. However the boys are particularly focusing on Lux in the past chapter or so and I'm wondering if that's because Lux might be next? I'm not sure, but it also seems as though when things started looking up for the girls a little bit, everyone was successful in their efforts except Lux because of the drama with Mr.Oliphant and Eugie Kent, which ultimately left Lux as "the chorus girl whose absence no one noticed" (111). So i'm feeling like Lux might be the next one to commit suicide, but i'm also noticing that we're a little bit less than half way through the book and still the only one who has died is Cecilia so maybe it will happen for a few of them pretty much all at once, like a chain reaction. 

Another thing I noticed is still this whole number 13 thing, it continues to come up almost every single time that numbers are brought into the text... "the photo was taken on October 13.." (89) and "first Channel 2, then Channel 4, then finally Channel 7." (97) [2+4+7=13]. I might be over analyzing that part but it just seems way too repeated to not mean something.

From Jack

I can't create a new post so I guess I'll make one here. First off, I agree with Jessica and AJ. I was convinced that the narrators were the same age as the girls, but as AJ said, they may be just a couple of years older than Cecilia. Also, the idea that they all have their own vivid memories relates back to the topic we were talking about in class today. Maybe each of the boys have their own assumptions, or what they call "vivid memories" and believe is real. As readers, we are now struggling with the main question: What is the truth?
Now, since I can't create a new post, I'll write here about what I found interesting in the reading tonight. I observed (and found interesting) that the boys were so infatuated with Trip. Maybe, they're obsessed because he's a womanizer or because they want to figure out his connection with Lux. What do you guys think? Does Trip possess truthful knowledge?
Second, I noticed the narrator using words like: "reliable" and sentences like: "we imagined" when talking about what they "knew" about Trip. Do you guys think the boys are creating a whole new story, full of hypotheses? Is any information here valuable?

The sisters are the same

Page 39-
In Cecilia's diary she describes the sisters as the same thing just like the boys do. The boys say "Cecilia writes if her sisters and herself as a single entity"(39). Even though they realized that they weren't the same thing Cecilia had the same feelings. They say its hard to tell which sister she's talking about.

• alllottt of detail about Trip and his background...
• what's so special about Lux that attracts Trip?
• what comes over Lux suddenly that causes the "attack"?
• what's up with the girls and not looking at people when they talk to them? it's weird that everyone saw them as such angels because they're actually pretty rude
• this chapter shows a side of Lux that makes her seem weirder and less put together than i previously thought she was
• why are there animal/creature references being used through this book? what's the connection?
• Why did Willard crumple a dead leaf in Lux's hair? Nature reference?

So my observations this time are:

* I was surprised when I found out that Lux was related to someone like Trip Fontaine. I think that her parents found out about this, and they grounded her badly. This might have led her to suicide. Or maybe I'm being a bit exaggerated...

* Mr Lisbon is obsessed with having her daughters under control to a point that they seem like strangers to everyone else. But when he finds out about Lux and Trip (he probably found out about this) maybe he feels that he failed as a father, and he tries to fix this becoming more strict.

* I know this has few to do with this reading, but where did the boys come with the idea that all the Lisbon girls were like Lux?

So it's the boys' point of view, but at the very end of page 36 the narrator says, "Though she had spoken only rarely and had no real friends, everybody possessed his own vivid memories of Cecilia. Some of us had held her for five minutes as a baby while Mrs. Lisbon ran back into the house to get her purse."

Why is it that "everybody possessed HIS own vivid memories"?
and who is "some of us"? Because these boys that are narrating seem to be too young to have been there, holding Cecilia, when she was a baby.

Cecilia

An observation that I noticed from last nights reading was that at the beginning of the chapter, the narrators state: "we didn't understand why Cecilia had killed herself the first time and we understood even less when she did it twice" (29). I was wondering why would they phrase it like this. "She killed herself the first time" like she never was saved. Why do you guys think that they phrased it like this instead of saying attempted suicide to tried to commit suicide and act like she succeeded.

Questions and observations

So my observations are:

* The mother seems to be too concerned about the cemetery of her child. And this leads my questions: why is he so concerned about this?

* The narrators are definitely boys, and mostly the same age as the Lisbon brothers.

* Some of the sisters don't seem to be too concerned about Cecilia's state after attempting suicide. Lux, for example, says that Cecilia's fine in the bath, but she is stinking the house with bath salts.

* Why do the kids think that everyone is not used to loosing someone, when most of them have parents that fought in the war?

Observations

- The family seems so detached from each other. It doesn't seem like there is any unity that usually exists in a family

- Something is missing from the book because it is being told from the boys' point of view, but I can't really explain it.

- Mr. and Mrs. Lisbon do not seem to be aware of the state of mind of their daughters

Observations

So my number one observation for this chapter was the word choice that Eugenides uses. He has a ton of strange word choices that make very little sense, but still brings a tone across the reading. For example, he uses "porcelain throat" on page 57 to describe the toilet as Mr. Lisbon is flushing down a retainer. It sets a more serious tone then toilet would. It makes the book a little more interesting

observations and questions

• Mr and Mrs Lisbon and the girls are all losing it, but don't know how to come together to get through it
• The narrators are actually starting to show some concern for the girls and interest in how they are feeling as apposed to just being creepy and obsessed with them
• they're all dealing with the grief in different ways
• to the outside world, the girls are trying to make it seem as though they aren't affected by what has happened
• a theme of seeing things is starting to come up, between the supposed suitcase as well as Cecilia's ghost
• Where is Mrs. Lisbon?
• Could the parents lack of ability to try and make their daughters feel better be a cause for their later suicides?
• Why is it that even after Cecilia's death, the one thing that Mrs.Lisbon acknowledges during the funeral is her bitten nails?
• Could the sweeping away of the fish flies be representing an attempt to get Cecilia out of everyone's minds? and then the return of the "crickets" not being seen but being heard be Cecilia's memory?

FROM JACK

Area of Interest:
1. I'm still interested in the concept of these suicides being routine.
Why?

Observations:
1. Cecilia said to the doctor that: [he's] never been a thirteen-year old girl" (5) and that: "[Cecilia's] not old enough to know how bad life gets" (5).  What happened?
2. On pg.12, there is a reference to the Virgin Mary.  This relates to the world "immaculate" (1) that we saw in the first paragraph while reading.
3.  Cecilia deep fascination with Dominic is interesting.  Why?

Questions:
1. Who, really, is this "we"?
2. How reliable is Paul Baldino?  Is his story of how he found Cecilia reliable?
3. Are the Lisbons very religious?  Something to consider:
Mr. Lisbon: "We baptized her, we confirmed her, and now she believes this crap" (12).
4. I have the same question many people posted about: Why does Cecilia insist on wearing a wedding dress opposed to the hospital gown? Pg. 13
5. Is Dr. Hornicker right?  Did Cecilia really not want to kill herself?
6. Is allowing the males to come inside at the Lisbon house going to have a positive or negative effect?

Observations

-The EMS seems routine, like they have done this multiple times before
Why?
Why do they seem nonchalant about it?
Do they know anything?

-"Thirteen months earlier when the trouble began"
What is the trouble?
What does it have to do with the girls?
Who caused the trouble?

-"The last Lisbon Daughter took her turn at suicide"
Why are they committing suicide?
Why are they doing it in order?
Why is Cecilia wearing a wedding dress?

-"Obviously Doctor, you've never been a 13 year old girl"
What does that have to do with anything?
Why does being 13 make you kill yourself?
What stresses would she be going through?

-Dominic Palazzolo
Does Cecilia get the initial idea from him?
Was she jealous?
What is going through Dominic's mind?

Chapter 1 Observations:

• I've gathered that the narrater's use of "our" is referencing him and his childhood friends, who all seem to be young, adolescent boys that enjoy spying on the Lisbon sisters.

1. If they spend so much time watching the Lisbon sisters, how could they not tell that each sister is completely different, until they see the girls at the party?
2. Are there any other girls in town? What makes the Lisbon sisters so fascinating?
3. How does finding Cecilia in the tub effect Paul Baldino?

• If the Virgin Mary photograph Cecilia was holding in the tub only served as a religious purpose, she would have been holding Jesus instead. She's somehow connecting herself to the Virgin Mary

1. What is the significance of the Virgin Mary photo she's holding?
2. Why do the boys say they have a "photocopy" of the picture here? Where is here? Where are these boys writing or telling the story from?
3. Does the wedding dress Cecilia wears link back to the Virgin Mary in any way?

• Cecilia tells the psychiatrist that trying to kill herself in the tub was only a mistake

1. If it was a mistake, why make the same mistake twice and jump out of your house?
2. Why did it take a near tragedy to make the house change?
3. What were her thoughts before she jumped off the top of the house?

• The phrase "Cecilia was out of danger" is repeated more than once

1. Is the psychiatrist right? did she really not mean to kill herself?
2. If it was a cry for help, what help did she need, from who, and why??
3. Was the psychiatrist right by telling the parents to relax their household rules? And if the father didn't agree with his wife's strictness, why did he put up with it?

• The Lisbon's house is not what Peter Sissen described

1. Does the tidy and dry-looking place represent the Lisbon family?
2. Why is it not a "heavy atmosphere of feminine chaos"? 
3. Is there anything about the Lisbon's house that makes them stand out from the rest of the street?

My Observations...for lack of a more creative title

Observations:
1. Very dismal wording in the first paragraph on page 4 with lots of references to fire
2. Also the mention of the picture of the Virgin Mary on Cecilia's chest when she was found--back to what we found out in class--Also, SHE SURVIVED...for now...so my misreading of the first line-ish of the book was actually right
3. Mr. Lisbon is portrayed as very feminine, Mrs. Lisbon as very stern and strict "Brutally cut steel-wood hair.
4. Paul Baldino, found Cecilia, saved her life...unintentionally
5. Dominic loves Diana Porter, but Cecilia is fascinated by his passion (a.k.a jumping off a house)


Questions:

1. Why does Mr. Lisbon, "follow-(ed) in the station wagon, observing the speed limit"? It's very unlike someone who just experienced the attempted suicide of one of his daughters..
2.Who is the "we" and "our" narrator(s)?
3.Why does Cecilia insist on wearing the wedding dress?

All of these questions and observations were written by page 18...so it is very possible that some questions and observations could be proven wrong in the next few pages.

Chapter 1 observations and questions

So mine are:

* The narrators are probably boys, since the mention that they talk about baseball.
* Cecilia has traumatic experiences related to being a 13-year old girl, maybe because of the strict rules of her parents. She also looks like she never had a true childhood. when she is asked about the fish flies, she replies that they die in 24 hours, they only reproduce, the don't even eat.
* The narrators are used to the idea of the Lisbon daughters attempting suicide. many times they mention this very casually.
* Cecilia's mom is not to delicate with her after attempting suicide. When Cecilia asks her if she can leave the party, her mother responds "Fine, we'll have fun without you".
* Everyone in the neighborhood seems to be very interested in these girls, despite all the weird stuff going on in the Lisbon family.

My questions are:

* What could go so wrong that all the daughters want to commit suicide?
* What's so horrible about being a 13- year old girl according to Cecilia?
* Who are these narrators and why do they know so much about the Lisbon daughters?

Chapter 1

Observations

1. I have noticed some references to religion, the main one being the reoccurring theme of the Virgin Mary. 
2. I think that the narrators are multiple boys because the text says "In blue blazers, with khaki trousers and clip-on neckties, WE walked along..." (22)
3. The wedding dress is important...
1. I think that weddings/Virgins/Virgin Mary/love are all going to come together in some way
4. The author writes a lot of detail about the color of things in the novel. (red/yellow/etc)
5. I found the word "calamity" on page 15

Questions

1. Why is their society so sad? (page 16)
2. Why did Cecilia say "It was a mistake"
3. WHY!!!!-What is so awful?

Chapter 1 Observations and Questions

So for my five observations, I noticed that:

• The only person who shows any sort of emotion to the suicide attempts is Mrs.Lisbon.
• The lack of emotion towards any of the events in the story emphasizes the fact that Mrs.Lisbon is emotional.
• Instead of at all addressing what was going on with Cecilia, Mr. and Mrs.Lisbon keep a close eye on her, loosen the home rules a little bit, and act like it never happened. They also do not talk about it with anyone which not only shows a lack of ability to interact and help their own daughter but also shows that they are ashamed.
• Considering the other girls' reactions to Cecilia's first suicide attempt, they're attempts to spend time with her after the fact, and they're general attitudes in comparison to Cecilia's make it particularly hard to believe that the other four have the same emotional troubles to the extent where they would attempt suicide (unless there is a sudden random and extreme change in each of their lives).
• The fact that Mr. and Mrs. Lisbon chose to throw a party "for" Cecilia shows not only poor parenting with Cecilia in particular because they should have been able to see that their daughter does not succeed well in these social situations, but bad parenting in general that their way to try to "fix her" was throwing her a party with a bunch of people they use to be too strict to let the girls interact with. 

My questions are:

• What is the big importance with the number 13?
• Why do Mr. and Mrs. Lisbon more or less keep their daughters on lock down their whole life and then suddenly decide to allow all sorts of strangers in their home?
• Why is everyone so aggressively intrigued with the lives of the Lisbons?(To a creepy extent)

Hey there,

So, this has relatively nothing to do with the book, but i did have to make a post, so I thought i'd share an idea i had about a possible thesis topic. I liked the discussion we had in class on Friday about survival, false realities and literature, and it got me thinking about movies and their innate ability of mesmerizing and portraying an ideal and beautiful reality that, for 2 hours+, a viewer can believe is true. Books can provide a very accessible escape, but today, movies are vastly popular, the most they have ever been, and i'm curious as to why (beyond just short attention spans). It's apparent that visuals are aesthetically pleasing and easier for a viewer to follow, but it's difficult for simple visuals to convince a viewer to the point of empathy, and i think this moment is where music comes into play. I recently read about a study done where people were convinced of a terrible calamity about to happen to themselves, then separately convinced of this same calamity inflicted upon a close relative or friend, and finally convinced of the event inflicted upon a complete stranger. Obviously, the persons felt little for the complete stranger, but the interesting part is that these peoples' brain activities were monitored and it showed similar (visual) reactions when convinced of self injury or the same thing for a close relative or friend. This is basically a visual display of empathy. Yet, how then, do teenage girls cry during 'The Notebook' and boys feel the drama of 'Platoon'; such actions would be signs of empathy for complete strangers. I would like to prove that music is one of the main tools in which movies evoke empathy for complete strangers.

An idea about Blue

Hi guys

I just wanted to share an idea I had about Blue. I think that she wants her story not to be a failure, and to do that she does what her father expects from her, even though he abandoned her after all those traumatic experiences. She tries not to fail her father because he is the only person she knows completely, therefore she knows what he would consider a failure or a success. When he abandons her she realizes that she doesn't even know her own father, but she doesn't know any better than what her father taught her.

Questions

Hi guys!
I have some questions from the book that I was not able to answer. Even if no one has an answer I think just some feedback would be helpful...Thanks.

• Why would one want to avoid real experience?...
• I think that corresponds with having a fear of something and then I asked myself what is Blue's Dad so afraid of??? and I really have no answer for that one. 
• Why did he raise Blue this way?
• Does "Take all the time you need" refer to Blue or to her Dad?

Welcome to Survival

This blog is your own space to discuss the complicated ideas and words and texts and stories we're going to be exploring this semester. This is not a place to stress about grammar or spelling or appropriate language--it is a place for your voices to be heard by each other and for you to practice expressing your interesting selves in writing. Make it your own--leave the first post!