Hipster Parrot Being An Angry Bird Before It Was Mainstream

As the story progresses, there is a special weekend where a sort of party is held for the husbands that had come back from work. This meeting, arranged by Madame Leburn, mostly consisted of the families of the husbands having their children stay up past their bed times. This meeting ends up being more like a talent show than anything else as the children start doing their recitations and playing the piano. Of the children, some honorable mentions are the Farival twins who "were girls of fourteen, always clad in the Virgin's colors, blue and white, having been dedicated to the Blessed Virgin at their baptism" (52). They played a couple of duets in the piano probably making their parents proud, but what mostly stood out about their presentation was the interruption of the parrot shouting "Allez vous-en! Sapristi!" Phrase which, through the courtesy of Google Translate, translates to "Go Away! Damnit!" This parrot has said this before with little relevance and context but here must have a meaning or else it wouldn't be a reason to include it. The parrot seems to be bothered by these twins. Must be by how their fate was decided by their parents when they were still young. Their free will is oppressed by their parent's imposition of future as a nun. The twins grow up worrying more about becoming like the virgin rather than developing their own character. This sort of imprisonment made by their parents becomes apparent when everyone dances but the twins because they could not be convinced to separate as one dances with a man. They've become mechanical in a way. Only capable of what they've been taught to do.

Later on in the party, after the children had been sent to bed, there was some sort of piano concert held in the house. The one to play was Mademoiselle Reisz, a short tempered, older woman. Mrs. Pontellier, being used to listening to Madame Ratignolle practice in the mornings, was getting ready for the way she normally reacts to Ratignolle's piano playing, which is an image that symbolizes the feeling of the song. One of these images is that of a naked man standing next to the sore, staring out in a resigned way to a bird that flew away. This, combined with the title of the song "Solitude," makes an impression of someone giving in, letting go of everything, and accepting the cold embrace of solitude. Mrs. Pontellier, expecting the habitual, is shocked as she feels a surge of pure emotions that make tears fall from her eyes. This sort of awakening that brought to her attention an option of something other than the common and more beautiful adds to Mrs. Pontellier's strange behavior and keeps the story moving in interesting ways.

Run Forrest Run!

As the story continues, the importance of the sea that is near where all the characters live is being shown more often. Not only that, but Mrs. Pontellier also starts going more into her past and what events were key in the shaping of her current position. The point where this glass breaks is when Mrs. Pontellier tells Madame Ratignolle of how the sea reminds her of when she was younger in Kentucky and would traverse a field of tall grass that was like an ocean to her. 

Note: This picture is hardly relevant

This small anecdote then gathers great importance when Pontellier mentions that she was “running away from prayers” (40). This gives a sort of reason for her actions of swimming from the grass, actions which Pontellier later defines as done “idly, aimlessly, unthinking and unguided” (41). It might sound like she is contradicting herself, but when one thinks about it she is making complete sense. Isn’t a big aspect of religion being a guide to how you should live your life? The Bible is filled with rules that the church imposes you with. Then it makes sense that, by running away from religion, Pontellier is being aimless, unthinking, and unguided. The grass field in Kentucky is basically a symbolization of escaping oppression. This is probably why Pontellier is now longing for that same feeling. She is in need of running away from oppression. Oppression that is no longer caused by religion but by being a woman or by her kids. Pontellier wants to be free again. Desire that explains her strange recent attitude.

Mooooom

So, starting with Kate Chopin’s The Awakening you think it’s a pretty cool book. Not really sure about what is the premise and BAM! your main character gets a foil, the main character being Mrs. Pontellier and the foil being her friend Madame Ratignolle. Chopin, when introducing Madame Ratignolle, makes her seem like what is supposed to be perceived as the ideal woman: charming and focused on her children. However, Chopin, being a woman herself, is trying to make fun of this point of view and achieves in doing so by taking these characteristics and taking them to the point where it is absurd. A point where this is apparent is how Madame Ratignolle has her children clad in Eskimo-like apparel to protect them from “treacherous drafts coming down the chimneys and insidious currents of deadly cold finding their way through key-holes” (27). These kids are basically prepared for an arctic expedition only to stay at home probably drinking chocolate milk and playing the equivalent of a Nintendo in those days.

The entire absurdity makes one question whether this “ideal woman” is really what is best. This is where Mrs. Pontellier comes in. Is Madame Ratignolle’s spoiling really what is best for the children? Isn’t it better for their growth to learn to “pick themselves up, wipe the water out of their eyes and the sand out of their mouth, and go on playing” (25)? They can’t be dependent of their parents for much longer. Nevertheless, Mr. Pontellier insists that this is the wrong way to take care of children settling the positions of the characters that will last for the rest of the novella.

Who Am I?

One of the things that make Hamlet such an interesting character is how his story is so ambiguous. Is he acting or is he really insane? Well, that's a little to big for this blog post. That's why I will focus on another ambiguous detail about Hamlet: his lack of backstory. In the first act we have a bunch of events that had recently happened thrown at our faces and it takes a while to really get what is going on. It's kind of interesting how the fist act is basically a retelling of what had happened in the past. However, how much this actually shows us is really minimal. We are only told that the king has been murdered and her wife married his brother. This leaves all of Hamlet's life all the way up to his awkward teen years in the air. The number of possible interpretations are endless and each one changes the theme of the play completely. This creates a huge responsibility on who is the lucky guy chosen to be Hamlet.

Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe writes about this in his essay. Wilhelm Meister, chosen to act Hamlet, shows his interpretation of Hamlet as a young man who's life was a dream until his uncle took it all away from him. This is an interesting interpretation as it explains why Hamlet has this random hatred towards his uncle in the beginning, but I personally find this very unlikely. I seriously doubt that one can just spontaneously hate everyone. The hatred he has towards his mother is way to strong to have originated in one afternoon. He has serious personal issues that date further back than a couple of weeks ago. There has to be a reason behind Hamlet fascination with talking to himself and his fear of acting. As shown, I don't really agree with this idea, but I have to accept that it is just an opinion. People differ in opinion about everything. If you don't believe me, read the comments in any Youtube video.

Nevertheless, I can't help but admire this fellow. Being an actor myself, I am intrigued by how he would pull off this Hamlet and how it would change the meaning of the play. Figuring out just who is Hamlet is for one is a huge feat and Wilhelm has been able to do so. He knows what he has to do, and knowing is half the battle.

Nightmare Fuel

So I was reading through Coming Through Slaughter by Michael Ondaatje looking something more interesting to talk about other than just rambling on about poo when I came across with something that really caught my attention. Buddy Bolden, the protagonist, has a wife called Nora Bass, ex-prostitute, and they have children, unimportant to the story. This all appears trivial to the story, which it probably is, and then they mention the sandman. Now, I don't really know that much about the story behind this but I know it has to do with scaring children into bed, STRANGER DANGER, and just being overall really creepy. So then I decided to find a picture for this post and...


Oh God!!! What the hell is that!!! STRANGER DANGER!!! ...it kind of looks like a hobo.

So this hobo is going to come into your house and rape you... And people wonder why kids now are so messed up. Don't worry. I'm getting somewhere with this. This relates to the book when Nora tell the children of the sandman while putting them in bed. Now, what really interested me is that Buddy was marveled by the fact that "she, for instance, believed in the sandman when putting the children to bed whereas even the children didn't." (15) Now this can be taken two ways. One, this shows Nora's lack of education and immaturity due to this. Her intelligence is sub par and thus the image of a slum in New Orleans is enhanced. Two, this represents how the kids have stopped wondering and the "magic" of stories has ended. However, this would be comparing it to society nowadays which is a far fetch since this book is set so long ago, but it is a fairly recent book so one never knows.

Party Time!

Well in the book The Great Gatsby there is an aspect that can't be ignored and that is Gatsby's parties. He likes to party... HARD. I mean he holds these big-[butt] parties. Nick is just flabbergasted by the largeness of these parties. At one point he even thinks that his freaking house is on fire. At least he is able to attend the parties and enjoy them. Of course Fitzgerald never mentions the poor neighbor of the other side of Gatsby's...

Anyways, back to the parties, I personally think that these are held by Gatsby as a way for him to escape from his troubled life. It's kind of hard to be depressed if you are surrounded by a bunch of drunk partying people. Not only that but, like parties nowadays, the music is probably too loud for Gatsby to hear his own thoughts. I mean when Nick first goes to one of Gatsby’s parties there’s  “a hole pitiful of oboes and trombones and saxophones and viols and cornets and piccolos and low and high drums.” (p. 40) Although it's hard to compare an orchestra to let's say Party Rock Anthem, back then this was what people partied to. So, for his time, Gatsby was the symbol of a controversial and outrageous partier. And if you compare that to now, well...

How the times have changed...

Toilet Humor...

"Yeah ... got it once before. If you don't eat you see you finally stop shitting, naturally. And then about two weeks after that you have this fantastic shit, it comes out like a tornado. It's all the crap right at the bottom of your bowel, all the packed in stuff that never comes out, that always gets left behind." (p. 30)

Um... yeah...

Now you might be wondering why in the world I would pick this precise quote instead of any of the other millions of quotes that are possibly more appropriate. Well, to put it frankly, it was because this part just really stood out to me. Not only because of its grotesqueness but because it just seemed so out of place that I knew it had to mean something. I mean, a respectable writer doesn't go around writing about excrement just because it amuses his inner 8 year old (poop... heh heh)

So then I started to dig deeper (oh god) and tried to relate this to the essence of Buddy's life. In the beginning, his life just seems to trail along. It was just drinking, sleeping, scaring customer [poop]less, and playing his loud jazz melodies. Then, BAM! The [poop] hits the fan (no pun intended(just kidding it totally was. (Woah! This is a parenthesis inside a parenthesis inside a parenthesis... Englisheption...))) and he disappears. This same abruptness can be related to the sudden tornado of [poop].

                                              WHAT THE FUUUUUUUUUU...

All jokes aside, I really do think there is a deeper meaning about this passage. It can't just be Crawley being like, "Oh hey. I like to poop." Wow, this has become one quality blog post. English teachers must just love it when they see how their students use the skills they learn in class to ramble on about poop.