Rewriting the Story

This week we're supposed to focus on one of the questions from the e-mail but I am tired, I am sick, and I have probably taken too much cold medicine to form a coherent answer to any of them so I've decided to just spout off some thoughts about last Thursday's class. Professor Hurley asked us where we would intervene in the story of Herculine or Caster if we were given the opportunity. The options that came up in class were either the utopian, happy ending or the sad, hopeless ending. But I was thinking about it after and I think I'd want to intervene by giving them a voice. I'd actually like to know what Caster has to say and her reaction to the accusations. You Magazine gave her a makeover but I wanted to know whether they actually did an interview with her as well. From what I could find it was basically a photospread and a quote that says "I'd like to dress up more often and wear dresses but I never get the chance." She goes on to say that she sees the scandal as a joke and that she's not upset by it. "God made me the way I am and I accept myself. I am who I am and I'm proud of myself." (http://www.mg.co.za/article/2009-09-08-caster-is-a-cover-girl - this is the link to the website I found). Really... that's it? I mean it seems pretty obvious that she is upset about it because she's now on suicide watch. To be honest, I'm kind of angry at You Magazine. I mean they have the opportunity to humanize this poor girl... to show people what she's feeling and how the situation has affected her life and to maybe invoke some sympathy instead of harsh jusgment. Instead, they give her a makeover to make her seem more feminine. I guess it just confuses me because I'm more interested in what she has to say about who she is than what she looks like.

Equality

I am finding myself at a loss for anything to write this week. I also kind of found myself at a loss for anything to say in the discussion we had in class yesterday. Even though I am a female, I haven't found that I am the focus of a lot of inequality... I got into the university I wanted to, I get the jobs I feel I am qualified for (and I will be the first to say that at this point in my education/life the only jobs I am really qualified for are in retail), and I feel like I am treated as an equal among my family, coworkers, friends, etc. I'm also only 21 so my life experience is fairly limited... To put it simply, inequality doesn't really factor into my day-to-day existence and I don't feel like I can speak for people who are the focus of inequality when I don't experience it first hand. Or so I thought... I did find yesterday's debate really interesting. It's always nice to hear other people's points of view and when inequalities other than those focused on gender (ie. race, age, the language you speak, class... etc) began to be brought up it got me thinking that perhaps we are all the aim of some kind of inequality. I, for one, am an arts kid so my programs at the university/buildings I study in do not get the same kind of funding as say a student studying engineering. I am young so people might think I am naive or silly. I am not model pretty so I could never apply for a job at the Cactus Club Cafe and expect to get it (no offense to anybody who works at the Cactus Club Cafe... they seem to only hire very attractive people so I thought I would use it to further my example). So I guess my previous statements that I don't face inequality weren't entirely true. Yet, my inequalities don't hit the same level as inequalities based on sexism or racism. I do the best I can, and until a solution to inequality is found (which I'm thinking, based on our discussion, will be...ummm... never?) isn't that all anybody can do?

Happily-Ever-After

So... this is a tad late this week due to some internet issues I have been having in my apartment. Anyways... I really enjoyed Tuesday's class discussion about how Anne Sexton transforms the fairytales of the Brother's Grimm to reflect a modern day audience. I took a Fairytale and Folklore Comparative Lit class last year and we discussed this in depth. Not specifically Sexton's poetry but how fairy tales have often been used to reflect the time they are written in and both the speaker and the audience's values. It's interesting that Sexton would choose to use the Brothers Grimm versions because they, in fact, manipulated earlier versions to reflect the German bourgeoisie's patriarchal values during the 19th century. They emphasized the importance of the nuclear family and female domesticity. Often, their tales initially showed the dissolution of the nuclear family and the subsequent effects on their protagonist. Take for example "Cinderella". Cinderella's troubles begin with the loss of her mother and the destruction of her family. However, she remains loyal to her mother and plants the tree on her grave, and in return her mother takes care of her; her gifts make it so Cinderella can go to the ball, fall in love with the prince, and be part of an "advantageous" marriage. It's really all about devotion to your family and continuing that tradition through a happily-ever-after marriage. I found Sexton's "Snow White" interesting because she's showing a different side of that argument. Snow White becomes a doll and her marriage appears to trap her in that form; marriage, it seems, is not always advantageous. Ultimately, she's dissolving the idea of nuclear family that figured so prominently in the Grimm fairy tales because the nuclear family appears to be dissolving in modern North American Society.

Thoughts on Wide Sargasso Sea

I have decided, after some internal debate, that I enjoyed Wide Sargasso Sea. It was a difficult book for me to get through. It's a novel that centers around madness and suicide, racism and violence, and ultimately despair and lost hope. Even though it was fairly short, I found that I kept having to put it down just to get out of the characters' heads. In the end though, it's also a novel that touches on a lot of important issues, including those dealing with gender and post-colonialism, and I guess I felt more informed (?) when I finally finished reading it.

One of the things I found most interesting was the theme of being protected, or who or what is protecting Antoinette, and safety that Jean Rhys weaves through her novel. In the first section, Antoinette is just a little girl living in some awfully dangerous and confusing circumstances. Her mother is slipping away from her and she feels threatened by everything around her. Even her home doesn't seem safe. She has to continually tell herself she's safe (10) but does she actually believe it? She is so desperate to feel protected by something that she believes in the safety of her stick. "It was not a stick, but a long narrow piece of wood, with two nails sticking out at the end... I thought I can fight with this, if the worst comes to the worst. ... I believe that no one could harm me when it was near me." (18) I initially found this passage kind of funny and endearing (I remember sleeping with a frying pan when I was little when my parents left me with a babysitter) but then I saw the desperation in it. My parents always came home making home feel safe again but Antoinette has a constant sense of forboding and a shingle to protect her. Does the stick do anything? No. It just gives the illusion of safety. Eventually she outgrows her belief in its protecting power, only to replace it with something else.

In the second section of the novel, Antoinette believes that Rochester has arrived to rescue her and protect her. He recalls when she tells him, "... everything is on our side. ... I used to sleep with a piece of wood by my side so that I could defend myself if I were attacked. That's how afraid I was." (42) Through her marriage to Rochester, Antoinette feels comforted. He makes her feel happiness. She likes to be told by him "you are safe" (56). However, this safety is once again just an illusion. He begins to believe the stories he is told about her family, and he takes away his love, her happiness, and the safety he once provided her with.

In the final section, Antoinette is imprisoned. But it seems she is finally protecting herself instead of relying on something or somebody for her safety. She is violent (118). Is she driven to violence by madness? Sure. But in her final actions, the suicide that is not explicitly stated but we know occurs, she is protecting herself from a life of imprisonment. She takes back her own agency and frees herself from a lifetime of anxiety. Death seems to be the only place where she will find true safety.