REVISED Reaction

            Jane Eyre was quite the interesting book, although it was not personally my type of book, there were a few things throughout the novel that are noteworthy that represent a fairly good story.  Let me just say before I begin though that if Jane Eyre had been written a year ago in a current and modern fashion (same story and plot details) I most likely would have liked it more, the old English definitely throws me off.  That’s whatever though and overall Jane Eyre had some good.

            I personally liked the rise of Jane Eyre throughout the novel.  It was cool to see a representation of a woman having independence in a time period where women were not equal and treated the same as men and where not quite as independent.  Jane is a headstrong girl who goes after and gets what she wants.  She wanted to go to school as a child; she hated her aunt and felt she needed to change her scenery, so she did.  I feel like most women from that time period would’ve been portrayed as subservient and obedient, granted it wasn’t to a man it was to her aunt, bust still though.  The biggest representation of this independence had to be when Bertha Mason is revealed to Jane and Jane then decides to run away from Rochester.  I believe that Bertha was a metaphor for Jane Eyre.  Bertha represented the constrictiveness of Victorian Era marriage.  One might argue that Bertha being from a different culture was not obedient to Rochester and did not conform to the “Victorian norms” so she was locked up in Rochester making her fit and as a result went psychotic.  Jane isn’t the time of girl to just obey so I think Bertha accurately represented what could have happened to Jane if she had married Rochester at the time.  It was also funny to see how Rochester and Jane only got together after he was in need of her and not vice versa.  Rochester called out her name, blind and crippled, dependent on Jane to help him.  This was the end of Jane being dependent on Rochester for room and board, and his attention, now Rochester was in need of Jane’s room and board, her attention and time and energy.  This essentially set them on an equal footing that allowed their love to blossom into a happy marriage with a kid.  Had Jane married Rochester earlier on, I feel like she would have been doomed to the fate of Bertha Mason. 

            AS I said earlier though, Jane Eyre was not all kicks and giggles for me.  The most annoying thing about Jane Eyre was the ebb and flow of the book, its natural rhythm per say.  Jane Eyre had this monotonous flow of bad to good to bad to good.  First it sucks for Jane as she lives with her cruel aunt Reed and her cousins who practically torture her.  Then it gets better when Jane gets what she wants and goes to school at Lowood.  Then it sucks when everyone dies of typhus while Brocklehurst cheats the school out of its funds.  Then it was sunshine and rainbows when she went to thornfield which promptly dissolved into sadness with a struggle to connect with the aristocracy which led to a happy engagement between between Rochester and Jane that broke with the discovery of Bertha.  Anyways, you get my point.  I understand that most books have a flow but this was just too much, and it continues throughout the whole book.  Honestly, O.K. read, 5/10, would’ve rather read Jane Eyrotica.

Reaction to Paradise Lost

            Paradise Lost, an epic poem by John Milton is quite the tale, or should I say spin on the Bible.  John Milton wrote an exquisite back story on what happened after the fall of Satan.  This I felt was a really cool idea since Lucifer’s fall from grace is only mentioned a few times within the Bible.  All there is in the Bible is that he fell and now he is all things evil and more.  But what happened during that time in between?  What was Lucifer doing when he first fell?  When God created man?  Luckily for me, John Milton answered those questions with his epic poem, Paradise Lost.  Paradise Lost is divided into different sections, or books, twelve books to be exact.  Each chronicles the escapades of Satan and his loyal minions otherwise known as demons. 

                        Look, can I just say two things.  Mind.  Blown.  I mean seriously, John Milton is the man.  He took a well recorded and well written chunk of history and gave it an elaborate back-story.  I mean c’mon but that is really hard to achieve (giving a pre existing story a back-story) without being lame.   I think that John undertook a hard task, being able to give a back-story as good and as elaborate as a story from the Bible itself, the mother of elaborate.   The Bible is an ever present cultural, religious, and social symbol.  You can’t really mess around with that without things going awry, yet Milton did a fantastic job.  I feel like this was a part of the Dead Sea scrolls, a part of the Bible that was meant to be in there.  Lines 240 to 270 of book one are most likely the most recognizable lines from Paradise Lost.  This is due to the famous “Better to reign in hell, than serve in heaven” quote.  During this passage, Lucifer is coming to terms with the fact that he has been cast out of heaven and must now call this place, hell, his home.  He then urges all the other demons to take part with him in ruling in hell and to stay.  Lucifer is depicted as a strong commander in chief who successfully talks his losing army who was thrown out of heaven because of him to stand with him against God in hell since it’s better to be a king in hell than to have to be subservient to God above.  This definitely fits with the modern Christian image of Lucifer as a sort of king in hell.

Speech analysis

My spells are now broken,

I have no magical powers, only my own

Which are weak.  You guys can imprison me on this island,

Or you can release me to Naples.  Please don’t

Imprison me here

With your magic spells.  Release me

So I can return to being Duke

With your help.  Your applause

Will fill wind within my sails.  Without applause,

I have failed to entertain you.

I have no spirits to enslave now,

And I don’t have any spells to cast,

I’ll be depressed,

Unless I’m relieved by prayer,

Which wins over God himself

And forgives all sins.

Just as you’d want to be forgiven,

Forgive me and set me free.

This is quite an interesting speech given by the wizard Prospero at the end of Shakespeare’s The Tempest.  It is the epilogue to end the play, so it sort of wraps the whole story up.  Prospero notes that his powers are gone now that he has broken his staff and decided to return to Milan.  This means that he finally gained some closure with Antonio and is ready too ‘bury the hatchet’.  He has also revealed earlier to Miranda his daughter where she comes from and even allowed her to be with a man.  This symbolizes that Prospero knows that it is time to move on, he can’t stay bitter on that lonely island forever, imprisoning his daughter and himself.  It should also be noted that Prospero breaks the fourth wall which is common in the ending monologues of Shakespearian plays (Midsummer Night’s Dream for example with Puck breaking the fourth wall and addressing the audience directly).  Why Shakespeare does this?  One can only make educated guesses as to the purpose.  Mine would be that Shakespeare does this to give things a nice little bow atop the present, a few sprinkles upon the cupcake, there isn’t a real need for it, but it ties things together nicely and makes it seem more complete.  

Reaction to Brave New World, Revisited

Brave New World Revisited by Aldous Huxley was (to me) a very interesting and thought provoking work of literary genius.  Huxley was able to analyze his previous book and work of fiction, Brave New World and pick it apart, showing how each part of the book relates to real life.  These astonishing comparisons Huxley makes between his science fiction novels and real life, show that we just might be headed towards our version of Brave New World.  Through is many pints and arguments, I felt that at the core of it all, Huxley was a minimalist.  Huxley both advocates against a conglomerate of a government and an actual conglomerate governing the people.  Big government and over organization will cause the death of individualism as will big corporations, should they have a heavy hand in government, pulling the strings as a puppeteer with his puppet.  Huxley advocates against letting a mass group of people become your identity.  He compares how Hitler mesmerized hordes and hordes of German people with his vehemently loud speeches that made the weakest of Germans want to fight, to the hordes of people blindly following each other in Brave New World to the whims of the government and soma.  Huxley says that one can lose their sense of individualism in a crowd, their sense of self being, in a crowd everyone melds together to work towards a common goal.  Now I don’t think Huxley hated big crowds, I just think he was saying that it is important for our well being and future as free people that we retain or sense of individualism and realize that we d have a say, we have opinions, they matter, and they can change the world.  If I had to agree 100% with Aldous Huxley on a point, it’d have to be his avocation for education.  I think that it is vital to our survival that we educate our future generations on the teachings of Huxley as well as other various great minds.  All that Huxley said about big government, big business, and individualism needs to be taught to our youth.  It is imperative we educate them; otherwise they will blindly follow every merchandise candidate who makes empty promises.

Flannery O'Conner

I have some very mixed feelings about Flannery O’Conner’s writings.  But first, let’s get one thing straight, I don’t necessarily dislike Flannery O’Conner’s writings; they’re just not my favorite.  I feel that from what I have read in the Norton book, she’s kind of a depressing writer.  All of her stories in the Norton book end in some sad way.  The woman’s leg is taken, the whole family dies, and the mom dies.  Those were the endings to the three stories.  Granted no one died in the first story, it’s still sad when her leg is taken and she is crying for help.  I honestly do not like this, I mean c’mon like can’t there be one ending that has some happiness?   As much as I don’t like how Flannery O’Conner ends her stories, she is still an amazing writer.  I found myself somehow compelled to read her stories as if they were being read for pleasure, not as some school assignment.  They hooked me and keep the suspense and story going, I felt that there was never a pause from the action, whether it be internal quiet action, or loud/physical action.  Also, I was not expecting those endings at all, which was sorta coolish, I do like twist endings.

Reaction to The Sun Also Rises

The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway was an easy to read/manned up version of any Jane Austen book.  I felt that Hemingway like Austen wrote about meaningless things in a very deep way.  Really, The Sun Also Rises, was all about the between all of the characters like every other Jane Austen book.  Everything in The Sun Also Rises is about the characters, how Jake keeps falling in love with Brett and how she keeps leading him on, or how the group (Jake, Brett, Mike, Bill, and Cohn) uses Cohn as the scapegoat for all of their troubles, taking them out on him.  The Sun Also Rises spends the book building up (or tearing down) the characters.  Very similar to Jane Austen, the difference being that instead of wallowing in sadness, Hemingway’s characters suppress their feelings to come out in violent bursts of alcoholism and self loathing.  Austen’s character’s whine about boys, Hemingway’s character’s whine about the absence of scotch.  But the link between the two remains that both write books about characters that involve conflict, not books about conflict with characters.  Also, Hemingway was really easy to read because it was written in the not too long ago twentieth century, Austen however, writing from the Victorian Era feels like another language.  I relied on SparkNotes to help me out with Sense and Sensibility, due to this I found myself reading The Sun Also Rises at some points in time more for pleasure than necessarily school.  Overall though The Sun Also Rises was a really well written book, the characters weren’t really all that likeable, yet I still wanted to read.  Jake and everyone else is a huge jerk to Cohn.  Yeah Cohn can be annoying but we all have friends like that, we don’t treat them as if they’re not friends though, at least to the pint of cruelty.  I mean a get a jab here and there, but seriously, these guys just bully Cohn into submissiveness.  Individually, still not that great.  Brett doesn’t know apparently how to close her legs, and she keeps leading Jake on, but refuses to go out with him.  Brett finds much pleasure in psychologically screwing with Jake, going out with guys just to spite Jake (or at least it seems like that).  Mike is a huge drunk, and the biggest bully.  He never misses the chance to call Cohn a moron, most likely insecure with himself and how he hasn’t amounted to anything besides Brett’s rich boy toy.  Jake, refuses to tell his war stories, suppressing them to come out in alcoholism and self loathing.  He is always drunk and/or depressed.  He’s also a little too hapless, constantly falling for Brett’s tricks.  Bill, Bill isn’t half bad actually, huge jerk to Cohn but at least other times he provides a bit of comedic relief.  Last but not least is Cohn, who is a little annoying.  Despite these things, The Sun Also Rises was a really good book and ten out of ten, would read another Hemingway book.   

The Fantastic Case of: I'm Innocent

Herman Mildew.  Yes, yes I know the name…unfortunately.  He was my “editor”, and yes, I do mean “editor”.  As in “ed”-“itor”.  “Editor”.  Well you see he liked to think of himself as an editor, but I mean, come on, I’m fairly sure he does not have his B.S. in editing!  How can one call himself an editor, AND NOT HAVE A B.S. IN EDITING?  I’ll tell you what that wretched man DID have, a BS in editing.  Oh, just the thought of his snarky attitude as “edited” my works, eating, getting disgusting food stains all over my work, you know I’m also fairly, no scratch that, one hundred percent sure that Herman Mildew hated man in the office!  He was a no good, berating, lying, two bit, no good, pompous, arrogant, no good, horrible, sack of monkey excrement! Did I mention he was absolutely no good?  I swear, the thought of casually placing banana peels around his office door in the hopes that he’ll slip on one and fall down hurting his back so that he has to go to the hospital thus causing him to take that horrible six o clock traffic from the downtown hospital back to his house, I mean he’d be in an absolute fit, he’d be sore all over between the fall, and the long drive, and the hospital bill, he would pace and pace around that disgusting house of his (fit for a disgusting man!)  that he’d forget to pay his bills, soon he’d be evicted because he forgot to pay his mortgage and he’d have to live on the streets, from there he would join an underground homeless fighting ring in order to build his street cred so he wouldn’t look like an easy target but there he would win and become king of the hoboes, but then he would be a horrible king, super power crazy and constantly imposing unfair taxes upon his fair homeless subjects that there would be a coup de etat, the rebel faction of hoboes would overtake the unfair king Mildew thus ejecting him from the hobo underground kingdom for good, then while wondering the woods he’d be hungry (I don’t know how he got to the woods, minor details…) so he’d eat some berries, but, oh no, they’re mama bear’s berries, being chased by mama bear he would trip suddenly on a stone and fall down the mountain breaking every bone imaginable, from there he would die a horribly slow and incredibly painful death.  Whats that officer?  He’s dead! Well, isn’t that just a uh, huge uh, coincidence…oh, you really mean he did slip on a banana peel…no kidding, I had no clue he was actually evicted…now, can you really prove that those taxes were unfair…wow, I mean every bone?  Man, talk about ironic, yes I agree it’s not funny; it’s a horrible thing, what happened to Herman Mildew.  You mean I’m a suspect!?  Well I couldn’t have done it!  You see officer, I am terribly allergic to bananas, and so I could’ve never placed those banana peels outside of his office otherwise…why was I eating a banana before this interrogation?  What?! I’m not allergic to bananas anymore?! Well isn’t that just the uh, grandest thing, to uh, this really isn’t looking too good for me huh officer?  Ok, ok, but I still could not have killed Herman Mildew because he gives me fifty percent off of my dental work.  Yes, yes it’s true, his brother is a well known dentist, and Herman got his brother to give me fifty percent off on all dental work, claiming I was a really great guy.  You know officer, Herman Mildew isn’t too bad, it’s just I pretend to hate him otherwise I’ll miss all the cool parties John Green has.  Let me tell you, John Green really hates Mildew, last week, I saw him at the supermarket buying a crate of bananas, just saying…oh and officer, please don’t tell Jon Scieszka about John Green’s parties, we usually don’t invite him.