This weekend I went to Kansas City to visit the Art institute there. It was beautiful. It was weird though because as odd as it sounds I kept thinking about “the Awakening” in sort of a more personal way. For example, when my plane took off I definitely was imagining the same feeling Edna felt when she escaped into the water. Sure, it wasn’t as freeing as water, actually being cramped in the plane was quite the opposite, it was still leaving a town I was so tired of being. Kansas City Art Institute was, to an extent, my sea. With its emerging art and galleries, studio space, shopping, and its power and light district it was defiantly and awakening for me. Edna realized that she didn’t like how everyone in her town just followed the typical relationship between men and women. She experimented with different behaviors and ideas. Her society did not agree so she left. Now, I’m not saying that Alpharetta is not wonderful and a good place to live. But I crave variety and learning from others. So when I walked into Kansas City and saw all the different artists and types of buildings and all of this thriving art I loved it. It was like a form of medicine. I needed that inspiration and now, coming back here, I’ve realized that I love weirdos. You know, those people that Alpharetta people see and automatically think “oh no… don’t talk to them.  They look freaky.”  Those are my people; kind, good-hearted weirdo’s who all have some communal goal.

I feel that Edna’s awakening was the same type of thing. She hated the way Adele just catered to her families every need and how, like every other female, she was expected to have a perfect dinner ready and take care of the kids as the husband just goes out all of the time. It is like how in Alpharetta or just high school in general there is so much pressure to excel in math and science and art is sort of just skipped over. Seeing an art school made me realize that what I do is indeed important and that was extremely comforting. I think Edna was trying to find the comfort or freedom in not being tied down.

Also, on the plane I tried to read Love in the time of cholera. It was terrible, mostly because I do not like ooey- gooey love. Can you suggest a super depressing book please? Something raw or painstakingly heart breaking?

oh right.

So far in the awakening I have noticed a great deal of talk about the sea. It seems that the sea is where Edna ends up when she is longing for freedom. Whenever she needs relief from the reality of the Grand Isles vacation spot and lavish gatherings she looks towards the sea. In chapter six the sea is described as “sensuous, enfolding the body in its soft, close embrace.” Edna feels this way about the ocean and it shows in many instances where she escapes reality.

            In chapter ten, Chopin talks about Edna’s desire to learn how to swim. I think that this is symbolizing that people who can “swim” are happy and people that are not able to swim, like her, are not free. Free meaning happy. Edna later learns to swim and feels so much freer and I think this connects to her obsession with the sea. The moment she stepped foot in the water “A feeling of exultation overtook her, as if some power of significant import had been given her to control the working of her body and her soul. She grew daring and reckless, overestimating her strength. She wanted to swim far out, where no woman had swum before.” Clearly, the sea makes her feel powerful even in such a vast scary place. She even looks back at the shore and thinks of her strength and what she has overcome in being different than society. She then feels a close encounter with death as she keeps her gaze on the people at the shore and how far she is. I think it is important that she notices how far she is and feels that encounter with death after she looks back at the people. I think this is much more than her just looking back at her friends. I think is is representative of her looking back at all the changes she has made and how different she is for wanting to be different and full of free thought. I think it is Edna wondering what people might think of her.

            “The water of the Gulf stretched out before her, gleaming with the million lights of the sun. The voice of the sea is seductive, never ceasing, whispering, clamoring, murmuring, inviting the soul to wander an abysses of solitude. All along the white beach, up and down, there was no living thing in sight. A bird with a broken wing was beating the air above, reeling, fluttering, circling disabled down, down to the water." The bird imagery is ‘setting up s picture that displays a free thing being not so free and failing at the sight of Edna’s freedom. The bird falls down into the terribly large trap. What is the brids trap is also Edna’s freedom.

            Re-reading this book I have noticed soo many more quotes and important things that I didn’t notice the first time I read it. I think I actually kind of like the book the second time around. It is magically tolerable this time around. J

Cinderella, Windows, and Taylor... Oh my!

I never really knew how much work gets put into a piece of art, a play, or a concert. I have always just figured it happened. When I was little my mother took me to a version of Cinderella at the Startime play theater. I loved it. The set was beautiful painted and the actors and actors were amazing. I thought they were the coolest people ever. Looking back on that know I am realizing how much effort the writer must out into a fairytale to make it magical and still have a meaning. Maybe it was not supposed to be magical but actually the opposite. I mean if it were just pretty, it would not mean anything. Maybe it is also meant to be seen from a psychological lense. That way the viewer gets a bigger idea out of the story or play. When you are a child you are charmed with her kindness to the animals and the fairytale love she gets to pursue. When you are a kid you wish your feet could slide into the glass slipper. That is what I always thought. But then, your lit teacher senior year has you read the story and analyze it using psychoanalysis. That magical idea of pumpkin carriges and prince charming is overridden with the idea thst Cinderella probably has a desire for a man in her life because she grew up without one. And that she hopes to be loved because she had such an abusive life. Its ironic really, how she had such a terrible childhood and is still nice to everyone.

            Last year when we read A Raisin in the Sun we paid so much attention to detail. I really think we talked about window symbolism for at least thirty minutes. At the time I though it was really weird to spend so much time talking about a window. Set design is so important to the entire meaning to the play, concert, or story. This weekend I went to the Taylor Swift concert. Most concerts I have been to have been just the artist on stage singing their top hits. Taylor changes that. She uses set design to make the song have a greater effect. During one song there were acrobats, another had fireworks, and the best thing was when she flew. During her song love story, a “Romeo and Juliet” type story, a nice caslte balcony starts moving through the arena. Everyone watches in anticipation as this balcony continues to make its way towards the stage. As it lands on the stage, Taylor pops out in a white dress and steps onto the balcony. Two girls on the stage watch her as she flys off into the crowd while singing love story. It was very effective. It makes you think more about what she is trying to say.

Sure, flying into the air does not actually change the meaning of the song, the set design can not overpower the words, and one tree or window won’t make or break the play, but each of these things dramatically changes the way you see it. Any form of art takes time and effort. I just always through plays came easily once they were already written.

WOOHOOO! GREYS ANATOMY

I was watching Grey’s Anatomy yesterday and I could not help but analyze every bit of the episode. I never realized how intentional every single aspect of a t.v show or movie is. The set designers plan every single decoration and placement. The wardrobe people pick clothing and makeup based on   The episode “free falling begins with Meredith waking up to Zola’s cry. She looks over to the person next to her in her bed and it is Christina, Her best friend, instead of her husband, Derek. She and Derek have been fighting due to Meredith screwing up his clinical trial. The bed scene displays the awkwardness of their relationship. Then about twelve minutes later the chief pulls Meredith into the office and fires her. She goes to tell Christina and the others. The scene takes place at the emergency care place where the ambulances rush patients in. There are red flashing lights, screaming people, and a mutilated body just helplessly lying there. I think that the red lights and the screaming people are meant to build on the feeling that Meredith is panicking, lost, and scared. The dead body is how she feels after she has lost what has been her whole life for so long.

Then in the next scene, the surgeons are on location at a huge disaster on the road. There is a giant hole in the road and a couple is dying down there. The husband has to amputate his wife’s own leg. The doctors suggest that the unqualified man cover up his wife’s face while he cuts off her leg, reminding me of how Meredith is losing key parts of her with Derek’s severing of her job. Also, it could be seen as the mad being medicine and the leg being the hospital. What remains is “new Meredith” sans hospital. When the amputation is done. The man is lifted up out of the sinkhole.  

 The cause of all of these traumas is a giant sinkhole. There is a child that fell down into the sinkhole. He ends up buried in the dirt. That to me represents the newly arisen issues Meredith’s adopted baby will have to face. But also, the sinkhole represents everything in Meredith life just slipping away, Her sanity and her family is slipping away.

The director, writer, and the actors all have to work together to create imagery and strength in the symbols and motifs. From this episode of Grey’s Anatomy, I have discovered that no book or movie is simply a plot line. It is not just a funny story or something to entertain. These books and movies that we have come to love are wonderful pieces of artwork. They are full of intention.

How am I going to name all of these?

This week we talked about how hands and sophistication go hand in hand. We discovered that certain words are used continuously throughout the stories to show unity and shifts in the characters feelings and actions. The word “hands” was used a lot as well as woman and man. Alone, death, and dream were used frequently too. In the series of stories, there is definitely the whole gender roles thing taking place in these stores. What I noticed most was that the characters were all so alone. I remember the part where Alice runs naked and freely through the rain. Alice, in this moment, represented the “young” of the stories. She was wild and free. Happy. When she entered the house again she was faced with “the fact that many people must live and die alone, even in Winesburg” In Winesburg, everyone is alone, even with the town of people surrounding them. The whole “city” is secluded. They have all those people but its all to close to change and develop. They are lonely because they have been with the same people forever. It can take a persons entire lifetime to get out. Once they do, they are just like everyone else. Tom talks about how he had seen many Georges “go out of the towns to the big city” By this, he means he has seen many people full of ambition get out but he’s thinking – How many of them actually succeed?

In Sophistication, at the end of the story it says “Man or boy, woman or girl, they had for a moment taken hold of the thing that makes the mature life of men and women in the modern world possible.” I see a shift in the usage of man and boy and woman or girl. There never was man and woman. There was always boy and woman or girl and man. Andrea pointed this out and I just wanted to elaborate because I hadn’t noticed this the first time around. I think here is where men and women are seen completely equal. Like they are just one beautiful thing, not two separates.

In the seminar we were talking about Wing being a molester vs. Wing as a Christ figure. I feel that he is more of a Christ figure because of that passage where he is picking up crumbs and kneeling near the light. I do not think that when he touches people’s heads it is meant to be uncomfortable, I think he means it to be quite the opposite. I think it is supposed to bring forth a sense of security and comfort.  He’s a teacher just like Jesus. He tells kids to prosper and that it is too late for him but it is not too late for them. He wants the best for the kids. Indexing has really helped me see how carefully writers choose their words. It compels me to experiment with it some in poetry and short story.

                                                                                                   

Song!

So, this week I felt like talking about a song. This is a strange song so I must tell you I’m not crazy first. It’s a song called “9 crimes” by Damien Rice.

“Leave me out with the waste,

 This is not what I do
It's the wrong kind of place

To be thinking of you

It's the wrong time

 For somebody new
It's a small crime

And I got no excuse”

When she says “leave me out with the waste” she is saying she’s not worth the relationship. Then she continues on with the idea that he doesn’t usually act this way. She feels that it’s the “wrong kind of place” to be thinking of him, But that it is also the “wrong time for somebody new”. I think this is her saying that it is right but it isn’t at the same time. I think her ideas and feelings are conflicted. Also, she is questioning everything.  Because in the next verse she says

 “And is that all right, yeah?

 give my gun away when it's loaded
Is that all right, yeah?
If you don't shoot it how am I supposed to hold it?”

Here she is questioning what is right. She asks if it is okay if he gives her “gun away when it's loaded”. I do not think he means that in a literal way. I think this part of the song begs the question “is it okay to give something up when it carries that much weight in each others lives.” He is wondering how he is supposed to feel and make it work if she does not even attempt to try. Their relationship is like a loaded gun, it’s full of power but at the pull of a trigger it could be all over. I also think the last part could mean that maybe she doesn’t want to be the one that ruins the relationship so he is like is that alright if I “give my gun away when it is loaded” like give away the thought and power to ruin it but not actually ruin it. Leave that for someone else. I think they are both questioning the relationship.

            The next part of the song is his voice and it says the same thing except instead of “thinking of you” it says “cheating on you”. I think here they are still questioning each other. He says it’s the wrong time to be cheating on her and she says it’s the wrong time to be thinking of him. I think they are both full of doubt. Then the song continues on to say.

“It's the wrong time she's pulling me through
It's a small crime and I got no excuse
And is that all right?

If I give my gun away when it's loaded
Is that all right, yeah?”

Here he is saying she is helping him through it. And he feels that what he did is a small crime. I think he means that compared to their powerful relationship the other girl meant nothing. The rest of the song is all of their voices and questions all combined together. The song ends full of question. In the video, the girls face is in pieces and he looks at her in awe, as if he hoped it wouldn’t end.

This week we focused on close readings. I learned that authors deliberately place words and quotations where they are for specific reasons. For example, in the novel “Paper Towns” by John Green there is a quote that I absolutely love that says "Here's what's not beautiful about it: from here, you can't see the rust or the cracked paint or whatever, but you can tell what the place really is. You can see how fake it all is. It's not even hard enough to be made out of plastic. It's a paper town. I mean, look at it, Q: look at all those culs-de-sac, those streets that turn in on themselves, all the houses that were built to fall apart. All those paper people living in their paper houses, burning the future to stay warm. All the paper kids drinking beer some bum bought for them at the paper convenience store. Everyone demented with the mania of owning things. All the things paper-thin and paper-frail. And all the people, too. I've lived here for eighteen years and I have never once in my life come across anyone who cares about anything that matters." You can not even begin to pick just one this to love about this passage. It’s all beautiful- from the paper towns to everything that matters. Now, how he can describe how a place is un-beautiful in such a beautiful way is beyond me. But, the way he points out all the ugly things being beautiful is, to me, the most interesting thing. By using short sentences and repetition John green captures the mood that Margo and Quinton are feeling that all of this is so obvious and urgent to be noticed. Most of the emotions I felt in the novel weren’t felt through the plot but through the poetic wording and phrasing. When he says “All those paper people living in their paper houses, burning the future to stay warm.”  He is saying that everything is a system, a mold, everywhere; everything's enslaved by time, by deadlines, by concrete goals, and by tradition. Its normalcy, status quo,  and cookie cutter people. They think “don't-screw-up-or-try-anything-different, everything's-been-laid-out-and-that's-how-it-is-and-should-be” It's so stiff. When he says “all those paper people living in their paper houses” its his way of saying that everyone in the town is the same and they all live in these seemingly perfect houses with perfect families that are actually ready to crumble. “I've lived here for eighteen years and I have never once in my life come across anyone who cares about anything that matters." Basically that quote sums up the entire book  John green is really really good at saying what he means indirectly and straightforward at the same time. I think it is truly amazing how a writer can be so cautious and deliberate of what they say. It like every single word and period is deeply thought about. I really like close readings but mostly because I’m obsessed with words. Oh yea, and books. Books are wonderful.