February 25, 2009

Journal: Personal Philosophy's Effect on Reading

Since my personal philosophy can be somewhat hard to fulfill completely in trying to find a book, I often go with more contrasting angles to at least one of the main points of my beliefs. In doing so, I often find out more about how I am unlike the characters of the books I read and I can see more of how other people may choose to live their lives. When I do find a book where the protagonist is quite a bit like myself, I can find myself bored with it because I already know what it is like to live that life and therefore I don't have much to learn from that book. If the protagonist is my polar opposite, I am often much more entertained, as long as it is pulled off well by the author, since it is much more fun to learn about something new in this world than it is to repeat what I already know, especially when I know it because it also applies to myself.

Journal of Sun and Other Image

Sun:

1) "We took a minute to watch the freighters in the harbor, which was ablaze with sunlight" (page 25). The image of the sunlight reflecting on the harbor uses the word "ablaze" rather than something such as "illuminated" to give a sense of Meursault's inner thoughts actually being more emotional rather than the indifferent outside appearance he has most of the time.

Rooms:

1) "He has only one room too, and a little kitchen with no window" (page 28). The symbol of rooms in a person's living area representing the complexity of the individual's mind shows that Raymond's mind is just as simple as Meursault's.

February 24, 2009

Journal: Mariposalism, My Life Philosophy

- Good things happen when a person does good things.

*Why: rather than being a seemingly magic occurrence, I believe that if a person does something good, will inspire someone else who will then pass it on and it will eventually return to the original person.

- Religion is there as a moral base for people, not a thing to live for.

*Why: all religions give unique, yet valuable moral codes to live by, but a person needs to just use that as a base so as to develop their own ideas for their morals. Many cultures in the past have lived and died for their religion which they were unmoving for and such horrible things are not acceptable for just enforcement of one group's beliefs over others'.

- Tolerance of other individuals' ways of life is important for accepting oneself.

*Why: If one's own belief system is the only correct one, then that person is under the impression that they're the only one who should be allowed to exist. As humans are creatures that require community to get by and mentally function correctly, such a belief encouraging solitude is inefficient.

- Wrong doing against another is wrongdoing against all, which is wrongdoing against oneself.

*Why: To do harm towards another human being is damage upon all of the human race as a whole. This damage to the whole as well affects the doer of the actions as they are also a member of the whole. Doing the harm to another person also reflects inside a person and if it does not emotionally distress them, it makes them wickeder and therefore worse off.

- Artistic expression is the best way of releasing stored emotions.

*Why: Rather than using the pent up anger, for example, to hurt someone who may or may not be in some way responsible for it is an inefficient use of energy. Through artistic expression to create something, the person releasing the emotions can get them out, not hurt anyone and have created something that they can be proud of.

- True loss only occurs when an individual loves something more than himself or herself.

*Why: If something does not matter to a person as much as he or she does, then they do not realize the depth of the situation, the person is able to say "I still have myself." If what or whomever they have lost mattered more than himself or herself, the individual does not have himself or herself as a fallback plan, they are hit with the full intensity of the loss.

- To learn more is to provide oneself with the means to lead a happier, more fulfilled life.

*Why: By learning more possibilities for directions in which to take life, a person is able to realize which ones are best for him or her. With an increase of possibilities, a person is not stuck in a place where he or she is unhappy and cannot figure out how to fix the problem.

February 23, 2009

Journal: Meursault's Actions

Through chapter 1, Meursault goes to his mother's funeral, where he keeps vigil over night with the other elderly people who lived in the home with his mother. In the morning, he goes with them to the village about 2 kilometers away for the service and burial. Once his mother is buried, Meursault returns home to Algiers and falls asleep. In chapter 2, he wakes up on the following Saturday and decides to go swimming where he meets up with an old acquaintance whom he decides to take on a date and spend the night with. The next day after she leaves, Meursault is stuck in his apartment spending a bitter Sunday alone, watching the activity of the street from his balcony.

Throughout both chapters, Meursault is constantly taking notice of everything that is happening around him except for his mother being dead, unless that fact happens to slip in with some other detail of the moment. Much of the time, he has a bitter tone as if this is something that he considers a complete waste of his time that he is only going through so that he can appear as a mostly normal person. Meursault's lack of attachment to anything emotional that is going on is able to convey a great message of what the idea of existentialism means to the author. Camus creates this protagonist so that he is able to show what it is like for a person to live with existential beliefs and how they think and feel through their life with its tragedies and joys, which end up not being much different from one another.

February 17, 2009

Journal: Structure

The beginning of the book starts out with Janie coming into town after everything has happened and in the end it finishes by going back to Janie telling her tale to Phoeby. Not only does that coincide, but the structure of a dialogue between two people with no "she said" in there is consistent as well. This lack of breaks in speech keeps the text moving, making it more real since in real life, most times a person doesn't have to stop and realize who it is that has just said what had been spoken, they're able to figure it out just by paying attention to the speaker. The last chapter also digressed from the long story that Janie had been recalling into the situation of the present where Janie is actually with Phoeby, as Hurston had done in the opposite order at the beginning of the book. The structure in chapters as well as the general one of the entire book always returned to the same line of thought as it had been on in the beginning, which caused more emphasis on what had been at the beginning and end since it was not noticeably enough revisited for it to be a motif, but just the right amount so that it stands out to the reader.

What be These "Techniques" You Speak of?

Journal: 3 technique usages & why

Page Number: 116

Technique: Personification

Quote: "The train beat on itself and danced on the shiny steel rails mile after mile."

Why: This personification gives the train to Jacksonville the positive human aspect of dancing to accentuate the feelings that Janie was experiencing as she boarded it. At the time, she was on her way to meet Tea Cake in Jacksonville to wed and as yet, it was the happiest moment of her life and even the train was joyful for her occasion.

Page Number: 134

Technique: Motif

Quote: "The men held big arguments here like they used to do on the store porch."

Why: This sentence continues the motif of community supported by the porch, where in Eatonville it was the store porch, now in the Everglades, it's Tea Cake's and Janie's house porch. This motif is continued to show that Janie is able to fit in to whatever place she has ended up in for a few months and the community tends to gravitate to wherever she is staying or working.

Page Number: 133

Technique: Situational Irony

Quote: "So the very next morning Janie got ready to pick beans along with Tea Cake."

Why: In past relationships, Janie had had to work because the husbands had made her work for them. In this case, Janie was actually choosing to go out to the fields and work with Tea Cake not because he made her do it, he had actually said that he only wanted them to spend money that he himself had made and none of hers, but because she wanted to spend the day out in the fields with him so that neither would be lonely. This development was unexpected because of the past work that she had had to do and because Tea Cake had promised her that she wouldn't have to work as long as they were married, that he would be the sole income provider so she could rest at home all day.

February 11, 2009

Journal: Janie's motivation & change

For these two chapters, Janie is motivated by having to prove that she and Tea Cake truly like, if not love, one another. In chapter 11, she has to prove to herself that he only likes her and doesn't have another woman he fancies. Through chapter 12, Janie is proving to Phoeby that she and Tea Cake are in a situation where marrying is alright since they are in love and that he isn't just after her for the money left to her after Jody's death. For both instances, she has to fight determined resistance: first it was herself trying to be convinced that she did not in fact like Tea Cake enough to care that he might have something going on on the side; second it was Phoeby's determination that a 12 year age gap could only be possible if one or both were after something unrelated to love, such as monetary gain.

Janie has clearly changed from the beginning of the tale, where she had to bend to the will of her slave-days grandmother and marry Logan. She has yet again rushed into another relationship with a man and wants to marry him, but it's different since Tea Cake didn't just pull her in with words as Jody had, he used concrete actions to prove that he wanted the best for her instead of just wanting to control her. With Tea Cake, Janie only takes directions from him involving the colors of her clothes, whereas that seemed to be the only instruction that Jody didn't consistently give her while he was alive.

What is This Blasphemy?! Oh, my Mistake, it's Just Mimicry.

Journal #4

Then Frieda learned to revel in Life. Life, the fickle entity with discriminatory tendrils who reached across oceans and plains. The shapeless mass who rents a tenement in every being's heart, though always keeping his belongings packed. Where does Life recede to upon its exit? He listens like a labored lackey that has been worked hard for days. Listens to no man's pleas with his withdrawal at the ready, attentive for his rent to expire in one of his servants. Has listened vigorously with his skillful attentiveness. She had been wanting to come across a vine from the elusive creature's reaches hidden in her garden with a moment's notice. She became joyful yet bitter. Unfortunate Diego! He vuz having to lay in zehr sans his compatriots. Frieda fretted for Hector forayed in to request a moment of happiness, though Diego decided against. The townsfolk vere incompetent in matters of dead life, though they connected with this instance of Diego. He could find what he was looking for once the ferryman had pushed off without him. He would continue his push through life. This is where they all had their minds. Though Hector recited a different tune, and she grasped the situation. As well had he not, upon her return she could have discerned, as villagers wanted to pay respect in the courtyard of red bricks and contrasting marble pillars. Individuals who could not have dreamt to congregate among the bricks and pillars until now swept through and did not venture towards the dwelling. Simply brushed and leaned against the pillars and glanced. Melancholy, that branch-free shade-tree, had shown light upon the folk.

P.S.: In sentence 2, the phrase "who lived way in the West" was an allusion to the Egyptian god Osiris traveling across the sky with the sun and going down to the land of the dead at sunset which is in the West.

February 5th, 2009

Journal Entry #3: Literary Terms

1) Page Number: 27

Technique: symbolism 

Quote: "Janie said nothing except, 'Ah'll cut de p'taters fuh yuh. When yuh comin' back?'"

Why: The "p'taters" as it is said in the dialect are a symbol of the busywork that the women of that day were left at home to do while the men went off on their own business. The use of the p'tater symbol is to better develop the atmosphere between the characters with the woman doing the domestic work while the man is off doing business as it seems it should be done. With that atmosphere, the understanding of the characters is increased giving the reader a better sense of the era's gender roles.

2)Page Number: 29

Technique: Figurative Language

Quote: "He did not represent sun-up and pollen and blooming trees, but he spoke for far horizon."

Why: This description of Joe is used to show the man's great importance he has to Janie and the thrill that he brings her when he is with her. He is also a representation of what lies beyond the area of land and life that Janie knows which has a sense of mystery to it as well as the great importance.

3)Page Number: 30

Technique: Personification

Quote: "The thought put a terrible ache in Logan's body"

Why: At that moment, the thought is personified as putting an ache into Logan's body in order to convey just how heavy it had been to him. If it had been of lesser importance, it could have been said as "with that thought, Logan's body began to ache" but instead it was written as it was which showed that it is a key piece.

4)Page Number: 31

Technique: Simile

Quote: "Logan looked like a black bear doing some clumsy dance on his hind legs."

Why: The simile of Logan resembling an awkward black bear doing a dance is used to further contrast him to the seemingly amazing qualities of Joe from earlier in the chapter. Joe is described as being a wonderful man worthy of desire whereas Logan continues to be seen in a worse and worse light as the story continues. The black bear is chosen for the simile instead of something more docile as it conveys more of a malicious tone about Logan coming from more than just the way he speaks to Janie.

5)Page Number: 32

Technique: Simile

Quote: "The morning road air was like a new dress."

Why: The feeling of the air as she ran away being like a new dress communicates the idea that even the air feels new as she begins a new life. The fact that even the air is new to her also hints that in her new life only what is in her mind will remain of Logan, his demands for her to chop wood and peel potatoes and to drop everything that she's doing just for him.

February 4th, 2009

Journal Entry #1

The narration differs from the dialect of the speech in that the narration has a very educated tone to it, whereas the dialect is more of a typical Southern African-American drawl of seemingly less educated folk. The effect of this contrast is that the people talking are of a lower level of knowledge than the intended reader but the consistency in the intelligence of the narration supplies the source of the reader's continued curiosity into this story.

Journal Entry #2

Since the novel is set in the American South in the first half of the 20th century, the characters' motivation is less of superficial purpose as many African-Americans there at that time sometimes struggled just to get by. As well, the atmosphere is influenced by it just being the second generation after the Civil War, so the idea of Black slavery is still relatively fresh in the people's minds. The sense that it is in a small town through the use of the gossip about Janie's return contributes to the development of the atmosphere of the text as well.