My Video!! It finally Worked!!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yy0Bvu7vy9I

Rob - Chapter 10 video

I know this is really late, but here's my chapter 10 video on Rob. I couldn't figure out how to fit one of my other ideas into this video with the way I chose to do it so I'm going to add that in here. When I was first reading the chapter I assumed that the narrator was another person, someone who knew Rob when he was alive. As I continued reading, however, I realized that it was Rob talking to himself after he died or while he was dying and I guess seeing his  life flash before his eyes. I agreed with this thought I had once I realized the chapter is titled "Out of Body" and that there's really no one else that could possibly know all the information presented to the reader besides Rob, himself. That's basically it so hope you enjoy the video and that the way I cut up the song isn't choppy or weird.

My video (Chapter 13)

Here is my video, I am currently trying to upload a clearer version of it in a higher resolution (but it is taking forever to load!) so if that doesn't work here it is:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VAK-kQV3tU&feature=youtu.be

I made this video as a series of test messages to represent "T's." Something to keep in mind while watching this video (and reading the chapter) is, is the future really that different?

Goggles.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r_kbQPwqKog&feature=youtu.be

click this


Many of you have probably seen videos of people asking kids basic questions about serious events. I thought this would be a good idea for my video as we are constantly talking about the fact that everyone has a different point of view on things. What I did was give my little brothers a brief summary of the chapter, and then asked them a couple of questions to see what they would say. I realize that the actual video doesnt include to many specifics about ted as a character, so here is a brief description. Ted feigns happiness, in my opinion more than anyone else in the book. He also is stuck in a marriage that he does not want to be in--"Yet each dissappointment Ted felt in his wife, each incremental deflation, was accompanied by a seizure of guilt; many years ago, he had taken the passion he felt for Susan and folded it in half, so he no longer had a drowning, helpless feeling...it also made him feel that his wife had been brainwashed. By him." (211)--Ted is not a happy person and uses his trip to find Sasha as a break from his family life where he is not happy.

"Im sorry...He had always wanted to see it." (209)
"There was a pause...'Of course I love her,' Ted said quietly."(222)
"He wanted nothing to do with Sasha. She was lost." (214)

My Video (Chapter 12, Alison)

Here's my video for Alison. Sorry it took so long, I finally figured out how to put a powerpoint into imovie and still have the music I want. I think I can finally make a real movie now with the skills i've learned making this video. Anywayyyyy, I hope you like it, and make sure your volume is up, and enjoy the PAUSE.

;)

Zach's video (Dolly)-
- Bad parent,
- Cares only about money
- Only sleeps for 3 hours a night
- Is hurt by her past but will not look back on it.
- Sending Dolly to boarding school- for image
- Desperate for money (changes morals)
- Image/Money no longer a concern of Dolly
- Kitty follows her gut/morals and ends up being ok.

Is it ok to protect your kid without their consent?

"I want to live life intentionally, to suck all the marrow of life." - Thoreau
Dolly- can forget about her past and not reflect on it since she lives such a fast paced life.

"The warrior smiles at Charlie. He's nineteen....where his grandfather's hunting dagger will be displayed inside a cube of Plexiglas, directly under a skylight." (Pg 61-62)

Dans video (Jules)
- Thinks Kitty is boring
- Sexually attracted to her
- Attempts to rape Kitty
- Is aware of the fact that he is putting his career and life on the line
- WIld and crazy thoughts during these actions
- Is insane, but can act regular at some points
- Have irrational thoughts that seem regular to him.
- "Of course....the 'violent inability of some men to cope with feelings of rejection.'" (184)

Jules Jones video

http://youtu.be/5tGbywbZVlw here is the link to my video, I don't know how to get it on the blog, youtube is being weird. A little bit about the video: I kind of did something similar to Sophia in the sense that I did the video in first person narration however mine differs because it is from the point of view of a judge reviewing the criminal case against Jules Jones.

Dolly video

Hey so this is my video on Dolly. It is basically three minutes of me rambling in a vaguely connected way (something I have lots of practice doing). The song in the background is Can't Buy Me Love by The Beatles. If you are confused by anything (which is definitely possible) leave a comment and I'll try to reply in a timely fashion.

"I can't even imagine what being self aware is like."

Perception- never going to have the same perception we have right now
Stephanie-
- Unformed identity
- Can you have more than 1 identity?
          Dichotomy (a division or contrast between two things that are or are represented as being opposed or entirely different), Tennis player with Kathy, Rock and Roll wife with Benny
- Lies so she will not have to tell Benny the truth and disappoint him.

People in new york (Even himself)- "You can't tell. That's something im learning, here in N.Y.C.: you have no fucking idea what people are really like. They're not even two faced--they're, like, multiple personalities." (12)

"I can't even imagine what being self aware is like." - Olly :)

Stephanie

imovie was being difficult so just pretend this is in black and white and that the clash are playing faintly in the background. :)

Matty's G's video on Scotty!

https://plus.google.com/u/0/103866689149377067407/posts/4xX7eyBzAbV?cfem=1&pid=6088853140947876834&oid=103866689149377067407

Charlie and Charlene

http://youtu.be/-q1PxWPKj9U

There is not much to say about this video.  I just kind of put it together because I couldn't think of any other way of doing it.  I am not sure if you all understand what the voice is saying so here is a written copy:

Charlie and Charlene are two different personalities that belong to the same character.  Each personality comes through during different parts of the character’s life.  Though, Charlie hates the idea of a “Charlene” and Charlene is refined and improved version of Charlie.  Charlie, on page 82, shows that she loves the idea of freedom when she says “or maybe we remind them of birds.”  Birds represent freedom because of their ability to fly.  Charlene, on the other hand, is completely trapped from the freedom Charlie longs for.  This is seen on page 83 when she is watching her son’s soccer game with her mom and is unable to do anything else that she pleases.  On page 80, “Charlie shrugs. ‘I know Dad.’ Charlie doesn’t know herself.”  Charlie’s true self is actually Charlene but she hates that image so much that she ignores it until Rolph kills himself.  After, Charlie finally accepts herself for who she truly is: Charlene.  Charlie is a character in A Visit From The Goon Squad that shows us people do not change, they just become aware of who they actually are.

I tried keeping it short and simple so please comment if you want more explanation!

Ew

The sound's a little weak in the video so here's a summary for you bros...

I wanted to touch on two facets of Bennie's character 1) how he lets his past effect his present and 2) how he emasculates himself

His past: I looked at page 32 where he has hit fit about the party in which he tried to get with Abby and ended up basically having a freakout in the twin sisters recording studio.  I thought this showed how he can't let his past go as he lets his past effect his character in the present.

His emasculation: I looked at page 22 where he repeatedly eyes Sasha's breasts to try and see if he's "improving".  This showed me that his confidence is in the negative category right now and it appears as if he believes he can never regain that confidence.  It also shows me that he almost tries to convince himself that there is something wrong when there most likely isn't as the real problem is mental.

So yeah.  

What we have so far :) ;) lml

What we have so far....
How do we move from A to B?
What punishes us and how do we deal with punishment?
How do we fill the spaces left by something gone missing? (9/11, anything Sasha steals, Bennie's sex life, Rolph, Bennie's wife, Scottie's wife, names, Scottie's wife)
What makes something clean?
Can something dirty be cleaned?
How do we travel?
Where to we overlap with each other? (Circle theory)
What traps us? Is it possible to escape?
How do you define success?

Things that are dirty: East river, fish?
Things that are clean: Jacket, fish?

Something I thought was interesting was that in chapter 5 Jocelyn says, "Of our old gang, only Scotty has disappeared. No computer can find him" (85). And then in the next chapter Scotty makes a side note of "(real computers scared me; if you can find Them, then They can find you, and I didn't want to be found)" (97). I thought this was interesting because Eagan is almost weaving the same points through different chapters, meaning for us to catch them.

Motifs

does anyone know how to access the google doc to write the motifs?

here are mine anyway...

1) World Trade Center: pages 12, 33, 36. Sasha makes several references to 9/11 and the fact that the world trade center is no longer there. "It were a problem her mind couldn't solve" (37). I feel like it sets a mood of tenseness and a certain anxiety.

2) Identity crisis-real vs phony
"Where we live, in the Sunset, the ocean is always just over your shoulder and the houses have Easter-egg colors. But the second Scotty lets the garage door slam down, we're suddenly enraged, all of us" (44). Is their rage a facade? Are they pretending to be angry?
"Knowing all this makes us one step closer to being real, but not completely. When does a fake Mohawk become a real Mohawk? Who decides? How do you know it it's happened?" (46). It's almost as if they are pretend punks and they are posers.
but.. "Bennie does less of this. I think he actually listens to the music" (46). Does this make him less of a poser since he is different from the rest of his friends?
also.."[Alice] isn't a real punk, either" (47).
"Scotty's smiling now, grinning like I almost never see him grin wolf teeth flashing, and I realize that, out of all of us, Scotty is the truly angry one" (52). The narrator (Rhea) recognizes that Scotty is the only real one out of her friends and that the rest are just pretending.
Lastly.."[Alice] is calm and happy now that Scotty loves her. I can't tell if she's actually real, or if she's stopped caring if she's real or not. Or is not caring what makes a person real?" (58). We see Rhea really struggling with identity-not just her own but other people's as well.

Social Anxiety

I wasn't sure where to go with this project at all, but I did connect that both the narrator from Rebecca and my character Rhea suffer from low self esteem and social anxiety. I was unaware of how to connect these through a video, but I  then remembered those very sad notecard stories that were popular awhile back . It works I believe because those were always so sad and this is a pretty depressing topic, sorry it isnt funny.
P.S. Sorry for the horrible quality, it wouldn't let me upload it looking any better

Favorite Quote

So I have been trying this whole time to fit my favorite quote in to my paper, but at this point I don't think its gonna work. So I have decided to post on the blog about it instead because I just like it a lot.

"I believe there is a theory that men and women emerge finer and stronger after suffering, and that to advance in this or nay world we must endure ordeal by fire" (5)

This quote has so much to offer in so many different ways and is really powerful. Just something to think about as you are finishing editing your papers.

Question on tense

When talking about Rebecca and Maxim's marriage is that past tense because it was past tense in the book or do you still right it as the present?

We were wrong

What if all the guys Rebecca was sleeping with were secretly Maxim? Then who holds the real power?

Is this a stretch?

I was sitting thinking about my essay and I realized how bored I was with the topic already and how I had barely started writing. I then started thinking about other people, in the real world and in fiction, and how the ones with power tend to have some tragic back story (i.e. batman) or just be generally empty. I can easily prove that Maxim after taking rebeccas power (that's the angle Im going to take)became very empty and sad. I need some helping supporting the Rebecca part. The only concrete evidence I have is when she got maxim to kill her, almost as a transfer of sadness! But I want to be able to say something to the extent of her having all those affairs to fill a void in her heart. does anybody have any evidence that might help with this?

Page Numbers

Does anyone know the few pages where Max talks about his final confrontation with Rebecca, also when the narrator talks about Rebecca's three b's?

Manderley on Fire

I think this is from the movie, i'm not sure, but I got really bored and looked it up and found this. I think its a good visual. Also who do you think did it? Was it Jack or Danvers? or maybe it was both...

I'm talking about power and who holds in and how it connects to gender roles because last class I think we really got to something when we were discussing power.

"She was not in love with you, or with Mr. de Winter. She was not in love with anyone. She despised all men. She was above all that" (346)

does anyone remember the page number where Maxim was brushing Rebecca's hair?

Key Lines

I have a lot of lines I like about everyone living in a lie, but this is a line that has really stuck with me (because I'm also focusing on the past and pain):
"we'll start again, once this thing is behind us. We can do it, you and I. It's not like being alone. The past can't hurt us if we are together" (325).

and then a lie from earlier that I also found intriguing (it also almost contradicts this): "If it comes to gifting, I'll fight alone" (292).

This one doesn't exactly relate to my AOI but I like it: "I put Manderley fist, before anything else. And it does not prosper that sort of love. They don't preach about it in the churches, Christ said nothing about stones, and bricks, and walls, the love that a man can bear for his plot of earth, his soil, his little kingdom. It does not come into the Christian creed" (278).

farther down on that same page their is a line that is not necessarily a key line, but just a line that really annoys me because the narrator just didn't get it: "But I looked away from him so he should not see my face. What did it matter whether I understood him or not? My heart was light like a feather floating in the air. He had never loved Rebecca" (278).

Another line that stood out to me: "I don't regret anything else. If it had come all over again I should not do anything different. I'm glad I killed Rebecca, I shall never have any remorse for that, never, never. But you. I can't forget what it has done to you. I was looking at you, thinking of nothing else all through lunch. It's gone forever, that funny, young, lost look that I loved. It won't come back again. I killed that too, when I told you about Rebecca. It's gone, in twenty-four hours. You are so much older..." (304)
- not only does this have so much in it: love, regret, loss of innocence, but something else that I find interesting it that the line about him not feeling remorse has the same structure as the line from earlier on in the book about him not loving Rebecca.

basically I have a lot of lines that I like and I could go on for a lot longer, but I think this post is long enough and I also think it mirrors that fact that i'm interested in a lot of things at the moment and don't really know where I am going to go with them yet.

Disney Reference

Okay, that whole scene with the narrator looking into the mirror and seeing Rebecca, how could you not think about the Evil Queen from Sleeping Beauty. In this movie, the Evil Queen wants to be called the fairest in the land (the prettiest) which totally fits with how the narrator was feeling. When the Evil Queen looks into the mirror she is the fairest, and when the narrator in Rebecca looks into the mirror she sees the fairest, who in this case she believes is Rebecca. Which leaves us with the lingering question, is Rebecca and the narrator the same person or is the narrator becoming Rebecca after Rebecca's death?!
Anyone remember the specific page for this scene by the way?
Thanks

Gender/POWER Key Line

"'We could make you look very foolish, Danny and I,' she said softly. 'We could make you look so foolish that no one would believe you, Max, nobody at all'" (283).

I think this quote shows the significant difference between power in Max and Rebecca's relationship. She is so powerful that women like her and Mrs. Danvers can take advantage of men like Max. Since she is this powerful no one would ever believe what Max could say about her having affairs or sexual relations with her cousin or anything like that. However, Maxim is to powerless to stop her from all of this because of the threats that Rebecca constantly puts on him just like in this quote. 

I JUST REALLY LIKE THIS QUOTE.

Hey :)

- Can gain power by giving power
- Karl Marx
         - Super Structure: Beauty, Brains, Breeding,
         - Sub Structure: Bitch, Manipulative, Sexual, Liar, Dominates (Alpha)
- Getting Max to kill her, (Gives her ultimate power?)
- Narrator's womanly defense: Playing weak...
- Rebecca's womanly defense: Not what society defines as "Womanly" opposite from Narrator's (more manly)

Asha driving the toaster

How?

What is love?

However this is the title of a populat song in the 80's, this is a legitimate question. What actually is love? How can you describe it? Most people can't, we just "know" what it is. But do we actually know something if we can't describe or teach it? Basically, love is a lot like the meaning of life, no one actually knows what it is or how to describe or express it, but we all truly know what it is. Love, like the meaning of life, is completely relative to what you want it to be. However, in Rebecca, I see love as being complete happiness. The characters aren't in love with eachother but they are in love with happiness and use others to obtain that happiness. This is seen completely with the conflict between Rebecca, Maxim, and the narrator. They all love happiness, that is all they want. Rebecca's happiness is power, Maxim's is Manderley, and the narrator's is just having someone to be with. Once these characters start to lose their happiness, they lose love which is actually them losing their meaning to live. The problem is with this book is that to obtain or keep these happinesses, only one character will be able to survive. This is completely due to the fact that each of the characters' happiness is intertwined with another's. So to sum up, there will be one prevailing character at the end to have pure happiness, love, and meaning of life, I believe, but the one problem is who can they share it with? What is all of this if you won't have anyone to share these aspects of life with? Nothing. Thjs will cause the final character to probably kill themselves or run away from everything. These are all assumptions but I'd like to know what other people think. (I am a bit behind in the book also so I could be stating the obvious but I really don't know)

Rebecca (and a bit of Hamlet just because)

So last class I really liked analyzing the scene where Maxim killed Rebecca after reading that we all understood why Maxim did it, but its important to remember he was telling the story to our narrator. He tells the story of how he got to that point. But story telling is interesting because the narrator usually only tells what they want you to hear, and the listener only hears what they want to like the narrator during Maxim's story after he tells her about the cliff she thinks "he had never loved her, never, never. They had never known one moments happiness together. Maxim talked and I listened him, but his words meant nothing to me"(278).
Whats the point of communicating if no hears it?
Why tell this story? What does the narrator get from hearing all of this? Which brings me to Hamlet, my favorite Shakespeare play. Hamlet is never on the same page with really anyone except the audience. He does not think that anyone in the kingdom heres him and they don't. He realizes in his death the importance of telling your story to anyone who will listen, even for a little bit. That small piece of Maxim's story puts the narrators mind at ease.

So So Sorry

I know I told everyone I was going to post on the blog last night, and then I never did, so here we go!

Starting off in reference to class today. I really loved that conversation we had about "why Maxim killed Rebecca," I think I definitely learned a lot more about the book than I did before, especially about everyone's specific areas of interest, which was cool to see. For me I looked at Maxim as loosing his innocence (by killing  Rebecca) and although Rebecca already lost her's, it was like her's was being taken away from her again. This really goes hand and hand with that theme we were looking at very closely with The Virgin Suicides; surviving and why someone survives. So to connect that back to Rebecca, I guess a good question to ask is, if Rebecca already lost her innocence why did she continue her life, what was so valuable to her in her life that kept her alive. OK that was my recap on class...onto the reading.

This section was just so great...am I right? So, we find out the Rebecca was indeed pregnant, Maxim killed her out of jealousy, and Rebecca did plan on committing suicide (which ties so greatly back to what I said above). Rebecca had lost everything in her life (innocence, Manderley etc...) and felt that ending her life would be the easiest and for her the most relieving solution. Maxim wanted to take away Rebecca's "Freedom" per-say, and by doing so killed her before she could do it to herself. On page 323, "'Suicide,' he said, 'without sufficient evidence to show the state of mind of the deceased. They were all at sea of course, they did not know what they were doing." We can see Rebecca's plan to kill herself here, and an interesting gathering place (the sea? - anyone have a guess about the significance of that?). As you continue on in the reading..."Where was the motive?" I think not only is the character in the novel asking this, but we as readers are as well. That is always the big question, and is always left as a mystery...it is up to us to collect clues and infer what her motive was. As you continue reading in this section, page 331, Favell states something great, "'Rebecca committing suicide. The sort of thing she would do, wasn't it?" This just sums up the fact that Rebecca was a very dramatic person and someone who had nothing left going for her. As we can see, although Rebecca herself never committed suicide in the peaceful way she intended, she still died and thus ending her so called miserable life. For me the big investigating question here is, was Rebecca happy she died even though she was murdered? I will probably never get an answer to this question, but I will keep it in the back of my mind as we near the end of story.

P.S. Sorry this is so long and I hope I didn't spoil anything!

I like their mustaches.

Late Blog Post

Hey everyone, I know I am incharge of posting on the blog for Tuesday, but I already know that I will not be able to post before 8:00 pm. So, I just wanted to apologize in advance. There will be a post up by Tuesday, but it will be posted very very late on Monday (aka today). Sorry, I am posting this at 1 am on Sunday, which I guess is 1 am on Monday, but anyways you get the point...again sorry!
Matty

this mustache hurts my face

Zach Blog

Here are the notes I took on page 203:

• Rebecca inhabits her 
• max is saying men and simple and women are really complex (men try to figure it out)
• Max finds the change that he sees in the narrator is unpleasant 
• doesn’t want her to be older (would not suit her), okay with her outer look not her personality/self changing (not the right sort of knowledge) 
• innocence, not age that is changing 
• Knowledge: the expression that she has all the time left and something else took it over, (she loves the reaction) 
• husband and father= not that different, a certain knowledge that should be kept under lock and key (did R get the knowledge) 
• garden of eden: eve wants the knowledge and then has to leave

Right now I have around three areas of interest: happiness, the past, and pain. Connecting this to happiness, the narrator feels a false sense of happiness as she is transported from her reality into her fantasy. She allows herself to become completely overcome by her fantasy not even realizing that it is fake (a myth!!!). Similar to the myth of grosse point, ignorance can give a false sense of happiness. Connecting this to my other two interests, confronting reality or the past can both be painful and living in ignorance is a way to protect yourself against that, but by doing you so give up the chance to experience genuine happiness.  

For Asha Wednesday 10/29

hey asha we (mike and I) are located on the couch behind you!

Just like the extreme differences between the west and east wing there is a huge difference in the way Maxim and Mrs. Danvers cope with Rebecca's death. Maxim tries to completely erase her from his memory while Mrs. Danvers cleans the dust off in Rebecca's rooms everyday. There is no in-between stage in their mourning. In the time that Mrs. Danvers is showing the narrator Rebecca's rooms, it seemed like the one time the narrator is learning all about Rebecca, and she feels likes she's learned too much.

ZACH BLOG: Our AOIs

So during our last class, we mostly focused on our own personal area of interests. Talia gave us her AOI, and she used page 148-150 as her text for backing it up. It was funny to me because I chose page 148 as well. We didn't go over mine in class because we needed more text and not the same page. ANYWAYYY. My AOI is Public Image. It fascinates me why Maxim and the Narrator married each other, and it got me thinking that it might be because of their public image. The questions I asked myself were:
Did Maxim lose his high status and good public image when Rebecca died? and it that why he wanted to marry again to keep his status high as a married man? He even says "I wonder if I did a very selfish thing marrying you"(148).
-now that might mean that he did not get married for love, but to keep his status up.
Also, why does the narrator feel the need to gain this higher public image and marry Maxim? what is he giving her that Mrs. Van Hopper wasn't other than that image? and if it is just for the image why did she need it? Why did the narrator have "no choice" (148)?
My last question I asked myself was-Did Manderley itself lose its image when Rebecca died?
I have not yet found the perfect answers to these questions, and I have a feeling I never will, but I think I have a good sense of my AOI already.
Any thoughts or questions to add would be very helpful!!
Thanks

ANDDDD sorry again this is so late. I just got home from the stupid apple store. (at least they fixed my computer).

Sorry

sorry guys. I know I havnt posted yet. Im still stuck at the apple store cuz my computer decided to crash yesterday and they're fixing it now. I dont know how much longer it should take because this apple store is taking foreverrrrr. Im sorry ill do the best I can.

Forrest Gump

I was struggling with the idea of the idiot savant during our last class but realized after watching Forrest Gump what the idiot savant represents and how the character helps develop a certain lens the reader can wear while reading Rebecca.  I imagine everyone has seen Forrest Gump so I don't want to summarize the plot, but basically Forrest is slightly retarded and no one thinks that much of him besides his mom and Jenny.  What I realized though is that throughout all of the chaos during the time in the movie, Forrest seems to be the only person with a stable grip on the situations he and others face.  He never falls into the manipulation of others and never manipulates anyone, he's just a good guy who's out there doing all he can to improve the world.  I'm going to try to draw a parallel between him and Ben, because no one expects much from Ben, and frankly, Rebecca hated him.  However, Ben seems to be the only contrast from all of the manipulation at Manderley, and he is the only person in the book to hold Rebecca in a negative light.  Not sure what this means for the rest of the book, but Ben seems to be a pretty important character that chills out in the background and under the radar.

Perception

In relation to the west and east side of the house and perception, and I know it's probably annoying that it's the only thing I talk about, I wanted to pose the question: does a person's perception of his or herself put them in one side or the other, or is it other people's perceptions that place someone?  I worded that terribly but I was thinking about how what one person thinks about himself differs from what other people think (obviously).  This relates to that long conversation that we had a few classes ago about the hockey team; we may think we're tamed on the east side but everyone else may see us as west siders.  Which perception holds true, and which perception actually matters?

The whole picture

I posted a picture on Instagram yesterday of a view in my town when I went fishing. In the picture, like in person, it looked immaculate. Though, the spot is about 200-300 ft from a main road and right next to a country club. The way I took the picture, no one can see these loud and distracting imperfections. The only way to notice these imperfections is to actually be in the same spot in person, otherwise, they are completely unnoticed.  So what looks like a perfect spot for a relaxing day of fishing ends up by being a day filled with distraction, muffled chatter, and cars zooming by behind you. This can be seen with Rebecca. All the characters see her as my perfect fishing spot. They only see the one perfect part of the picture I showed instead of the country club, the road, or even the desolate field that used to be flourishing with corn. All of Rebecca's imperfections cannot be seen because the narrator is a separate human being and is only showing us the perfect view so we are lead to believe that Rebecca is the definition of perfection.  Also, this can be translated into our lives in which we have to stop basing and judging people by the view in which they take their picture. We have to accept, understand, and learn why they show us the specific view. Here is the picture if you didn't see it before. I wish I thought of taking a picture of everything else but I just made this connection. 

When we read the marriage proposal and were asked to write about it I wrote, "She is too blind to see the ridiculousness of this proposal because she is using him just as much as he is using her. He uses her because she is the complete opposite of Rebecca and she uses him to live in Manderley and she realizes she may not find another husband. The narrator has seen the way he has acted and blown up before so she shouldn't be surprised if that were to keep happening. It's also unfair of him to propose to her because he is much older and has already been in love before and she won't be able to share the joy of experiencing first love when she's not someone elses." 

I just thought it was interesting that he would marry someone because she is the complete opposite of Rebecca and would be unable to love her. The fact that he can do that to someone just proves that he is not a good person and there will problems down the road. 

Max de Winters=rude

I'm going to start off by saying that for now, I am not a big fan of Max de Winters. Maybe he will shape up later on and not be such a jerk, but for now, he is the biggest jerk and I dislike his character. He is very rude. The whole marriage proposal thing was just so bizarre. First of all, I was not even thinking about the fact that they had the possibility of getting married, and honestly if I were the narrator I would have sticked with Mrs. Van Hopper. Sure, she's annoying and obnoxious too, but at least she is not trying to replace someone with you, like Max de Winters is. He is trying to fill in the space of Rebecca in Manderley, but in a bad way. He is almost asking the narrator to marry him to be his servant and please him, but not be too much like Rebecca because that brings back bad memories, and that is just no okay. He even says "instead of of being companion to Mrs. Van Hopper you become mine, and your duties will be almost exactly the same"(54). Like excuse you.  He was also a raging jerk during his proposal. He insulted her and said she is "as ignorant as Mrs. Van Hopper, and just as unintelligent" (53). Who would want to marry someone after that?
(and I realize this post is really long, I just needed to get this off my chest)

Zach Blog: Thirst for Rebecca

So basically, sorry for posting late but I have been so busy all weekend. But in class we went over all of the character roles. The narrator is a jealous person that only compares her self to Rebecca. She cant't get over how "perfect" she was and I feel as if she loves Rebecca and that is the reason for her obsession. It is really the same thing in the Virgin Suicides with the boys so in theory the narrator is the boys. Kind of sad actually because the boys aren't as awesome as they think they are :(. Maxim de Winter is still attempting to get over Rebeccas death and we all know that he will never actually accomplish that. Finally, Rebecca is the "ideal" women in the story. She had brains, beauty, and bread well. So the way I see this story is just how everyone sees Rebecca as a superhuman and constantly compares everyone to her which leads to everyone being insanely depressed because no one can ever accomplish that.

Back to Survival

I was scrolling through my news feed and saw this post from humans of New York: 

"We've been trying for a few years. We both want it very badly, but it's probably been hardest on my wife. It's her body and she's been the one that's had to go through all the treatments, so I think the failure hits her hardest. It seems especially unfair because she's the sweetest and most liked person I know. Sometimes it's hard to keep our frustration from becoming the focus of the relationship, but it's also brought us closer together and given us a shared goal. We've got another treatment in a couple weeks. It's a very advanced procedure and we're very hopeful about this one."
"Will you be OK whatever the outcome?"
"'OK' might be too strong a word, but we'll definitely survive." 

It started making me think of survival again and made me question if you really do have to be okay to survive  Our narrator certainly has survived something, but it brings me to the question is she okay? I think it is a little early to answer this question though I could certainly start. Just something to think about. 

In class we questioned the retelling of a dream and if we really know if it's the truth or not. I learned the word confabulator, which makes something better than it actually is, which made us ask if Manderley is everything the narrator makes it seem.
Then we discussed the characters and defined what an idea man and woman is. We defined the man as strong, rich, "good with a sword", have power (bloodline-->legacy)
The ideal woman was beautiful, domestic, mother, loving, complacent, social space, entertainment, good image)--> she just reproduces for the bloodline but doesn't take care of the children due to their class.

Pride and Prejudice or Rebecca?

The more I read of this book the more I draw connections between it and Pride and Prejudice. There is the upper-class woman (who is rude and annoying), though I'm not sure if she reminds me of one specific character. She is more of a mixture of Mrs. Bennet or Lady Catherine de Bourgh. Mr. de Winter not only has an amazing house that is very similar to Pemberly, but also "set himself a standard of behavior" (17). He also writes the main character a letter to apologize for his behavior. These are just some of the many parallels that I am seeing in this book. I find it both intriguing and annoying at the same time.

dreamers

When an anonymous student ( Matt) posted the question "why can't I go to the college of my dreams?" I was seeing how it could relate in any way to the book while I was reading. On page 3 she says, "Moonlight can play odd tricks upon the fancy, even upon a dreamer's fancy". Although it has nothing to do with college, it still relates to the idea of dreaming.

Sike

Yeah two pages into this book and I don't like it.  Seriously took two pages to describe going through a fence and through a field.  I don't understand the need for such excessive description about literally every minute (small not time) detail.  If this is a precursor for how slow the rest of the book is going to be I already know I'm not going to enjoy it.

Class today FTB

So yeah class today was really interesting.  I really liked the gothic, romantic, and horror aspect of the class. Seeing how the three collided in the movie was really interesting and actually easy to see after we researched them.  As of right now I'm not dreading reading this book like I did during TVS, I think seeing the three aspects of the novel work together through the narration is going to be entertaining. 

Looking for a quote

Does anyone know where a quote about the boys and their wives would be?

Grosse Point

So I was taking a break from my homework and I decided to goggle what grosse point look like to get a better feel for Eugenides background and also the town that this story takes place in. I came across a picture that showed the boundaries between the two and when I clicked on it, it brought me to this website: http://www.63alfred.com/thewalls.htm it shows the separation between the two and it is not what I expected to see at all. there are actual walls dividing grosse point from the city of Detroit and the contrast between the two is amazing. Just thought some of you might find it interesting (also I only looked at this one website so don't quote me on any of this, I don't know how accurate it really is, but the pictures are interesting).

Isiah 5:1-7 to Virgin Suicides

So I hate to bring religion into an intellectual concept but I feel this will make a lot of sense to everyone. In Isiah 5:1-7 it reads: 

The Song of the Vineyard

5 I will sing for the one I love
    a song about his vineyard:
My loved one had a vineyard
    on a fertile hillside.
2 He dug it up and cleared it of stones
    and planted it with the choicest vines.
He built a watchtower in it
    and cut out a winepress as well.
Then he looked for a crop of good grapes,
    but it yielded only bad fruit.

3 “Now you dwellers in Jerusalem and people of Judah,
    judge between me and my vineyard.
4 What more could have been done for my vineyard
    than I have done for it?
When I looked for good grapes,
    why did it yield only bad?
5 Now I will tell you
    what I am going to do to my vineyard:
I will take away its hedge,
    and it will be destroyed;
I will break down its wall,
    and it will be trampled.
6 I will make it a wasteland,
    neither pruned nor cultivated,
    and briers and thorns will grow there.
I will command the clouds
    not to rain on it.”

7 The vineyard of the LordAlmighty
    is the nation of Israel,
and the people of Judah
    are the vines he delighted in.
And he looked for justice,but saw bloodshed;
    for righteousness, but heard cries of distress.

I found this reading very interesting because it has a lot to do with parental control in the Virgin Suicides and also the discussion we had in class. The coolest thing with Biblic Readings is how they mean completely different things to people at completely different times. Though, tonight this reading hit me hard. Basically, the owner of the vineyard, the vineyard, and the vines are metaphores for parents, their living space, and children.  All parents want the best for their children; that's a fact. However, the "best" is generally debatable.  It all depends on the child and what they need. Most parents try to form their child into their ideal when that is never the case. The best for a child is the support and care that the child needs so they can grow to be responsible and mature.  In the parable, the vineyard owner makes a "Garden of Eden" type of setting. Perfect growing conditions, perfect vines, perfect setting, but the vines bear wild grapes. This causes great confusion to the owner; why didn't the perfect grapes grow? It is because these ideal growing conditions do not grow ideal grapes. You get what you get, but you have to adapt your vineyard to your vines, not your vines with your vineyard. This is where the Lisbon parents went wrong. Mr. and Mrs. Lisbon tried to make their ideal grapes with ideal conditions, not ideal conditions for their vines. This lack attention to their children because they think they will just grow to become their ideal made the children "wild grapes" and eventually led to the daughters' suicides. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N3L4EZwmRrA

This one goes to eleven.

Endings and such

The end of this book kind of made me realize that although I understand why the boys are so engrossed in this investigation I think the rest of the town is right for sort of letting it ago because what the girls do is inexplicable. That sort of leads into the thing about the asylum  and essentially to me it seems as though the boys are trapped in the asylum of their own tree house unable to escape "those rooms where they [lisbon girls] went to be alone for all time"(243) because they saw the situation from a different frame of reference than the rest of that world and since no one else understands them they are trapped.
Afterthought- the whole trapped thing also applies to the lisbons but I don't have time to delve into that side of it right now.

This is the end...

Hold your breath and count to ten. (Anyone get my adele reference) well now you did. I just wanted to state something. Unlike the Handmaid's Tale when I didnt know what happened in the end and freaked out and really wanted to know. With The Virgin Suicides I was kind of ok with not knowing. It didnt bother me as much as i think it should have. But I dont care if i never find out.

In a complete opposite universe for the Lisbon girls

AOI and such

My AOI is communication and story telling as survival tools. My questions are who survives by communicating and who dies by the lack? why do those who survive do so? How is possible people are completely shut out (lisbons)? How do false stories aid or hinder survival.
This is the story of the boys telling their story. The passage on 182 that starts with "how long could we remain true to the girls?" show how the boys are reflecting in this moment and realizing the story they had been telling is wrong. They say "our talismans ceased to work" (182), showing their loss of communication with the girls whom the boys were unsure about the level of interest of the girls. It helped them function thinking the girls shared similar interests. This fallacy was beneficial to the boys during the time when they originally struggling to figure out the girls and what was going on but once they realized their thinking was skewed, the inaccuracy hurt them because they lost the confidence in their observational skills that they thought they had.

*reads salad section

Area's of Interest (FTB)

 The Myth of american Happiness (AOI)
- Difference between detroit and wealthy suburb
- False Paradise (rotting flowers)
- Lawns
- Flowers
- Day of grieving

Isolation(AOI)
False Protection(AOI)
Blame(AOI)
Story as Tool to Survive(AOI)
Gender(AOI)
Sex and Sexuality(AOI)
Burning/Light(AOI)
Loss of Innocence(AOI)
Narration, Passive/Active(AOI)

Little sauce back to Trip

Not gonna lie I thought Trip was a baller, but when he basically ditched Lux I was like, "Sir!!!"

This doesn't have anything to do with my area of interest but I just thought it was interesting. I was playing squash with a French girl that goes to Trinity the other day and I asked her if she wanted to stay in the United States after college. And she replied "yes I would never want to go back to France. Everyone is so angry all the time. I know people say Americans are really fake but I'd rather work with people who are at least pretending to be happy…it's much more pleasant and it's not like everyone is fake..it's actually quite easy to find genuine people". This related to  when the narrators were talking about Mrs. Karafilis and she said "What my yia yia could never understand about America was why everyone pretended to be happy all the time" (169). It was just a coincidence because I was just talking about it to my squash instructor.

When Asha asks you a question in class

Replacement

For some reason I find it so interesting how the idea if replacement is found so often throughout the book. Like Cecelia replacing herself with the memory of herself and Trip replacing his normal self with almost an addiction to Lux to nothing. Why does this happen? What causes the replacement? Why to the characters replace themselves with such specific objects or ideas?

Trip is no longer the boy!

Trip was so chill and now i hate him. All of the sudden he just decided that he didnt like Lux anymore... the whole reading just made me really mad in general. The fact he still remembers the kiss with bonnie was also weird.

Flowers (not as boring as you think)

My group never got to present on tuesday so I figured I would outline a little of what we talked about here. We focused on pages 104 and 105. The plants were living in a "false paradise" (104). We drew connections between the garden of Eden and the paradise. All that is left is the "aroma of a rotting world" (104). The granddaughter of the women who planted the flowers "volunteer[s] her time in the hope of restoring the flowers" (105), but it is hopeless. Unlike the boys who want to save the girls, but never try, the granddaughter tries to save the flowers, but knows it is hopeless. The girls resemble the flowers in many ways, they are both described as falling apart and disheveled, and Muffie Perry could smell the "odor of the girls' grief "(105).

I also recognized that the false paradise they live in is their own. The parents created a myth for themselves (perfect houses, lawns, and families), but they don't even believe in it. Their whole lives are an illusion which brought me back to the line, "we realized that the version of the world they rendered for us was not the world they really believed in, and that for all their care taking and bitching about crabgrass they didn't give a damn about lawns" (52).

ALSOOOO

Another thing i saw…. on page 131...When Uncle Tucker said "It was the kind of music they play when you die" referring to the background music playing from the house, it made me think if it was the death of the Lisbon girls' social life. If it was the last time they were going to leave the house "freely" because of Lux's bad girl attitude and coming home late. I use the word freely, in a loose way because they were never really free because even at the dance Mr. Lisbon was chaperoning them sooooo

wasn't planning on it

Okay, so my original plan was to comment on someone else's blog post because I didn't really want to write one. BUTTT after i say this line on page 128, I just had to. When Therese says "Cecilia was weird, but we're not. We just want to live. If anyone would let us." This go me wondering. Who wasn't letting them. Their parents? for keeping them all locked up and caged like animals. or was it everyone else who keeps comparing them Cecilia and thinking that if Cecilia was weird and suicidal then they must be too. So which on is it? Or is there another "anyone"? I have no idea, but it got me to post on the blog, so props to Jeffrey Eugenides.

First Blog Post!

Throughout my reading of this novel I continue to find sections filled with lots of interesting points and other parts where I feel totally lost and bored. That might just be the nature of the book... Anyways, I finally found a line that actually stood out to me. "Grief is natural....Overcoming it is a matter of choice" (pg. 100). How great is that line!! That basically sums up all that we have been talking about with survival etc... We have all experienced grief and loss in our lives, but it's interesting to think about how we each individually overcome it. Some people mourn for years and fall into a state of depression, and others take a more postive approach and remember the happy times and try to move on. Cleary quickly getting over the loss of someone is not easy, but figuring out how to is even harder. 

Side Note: I totally felt that pages 104-105 were the most useless pages ever, but thats just my opinion! 

I also just wanted to quickly look at the differences between the sisters. On page 106, the author disucusses the various activites each sister joined after the death of Cecilia and I was just wondering if you guys thought that their activities had anything to say for their personailites? 

Therese - Science Club

Mary - Help divorce lady sew costumes for school play

Bonnie - Christian fellowship meeting at house of Mike Firkin

Lux - Tried out for school musical

I don't know what to title this

A section of the reading that i found to be interesting was the lead up to the dance. As the narrators says "Only when the girls reached the bottom did the boys realize they hadn't decided who was taking whom"(117).  Almost the entire football team wee begging Trip to choose them to be dates for the Lisbon's, but none of them really knew who the others were. The idea of just being near the Lisbon's was more intoxicating to the boys then even the sisters themselves were.

"Then like a jerk...

'Its really sad when he dies.' I wasnt even thinking. Grace Hilton elbowed me and i turned purple. It got totally quiet."

On page 99 do you think that bonnie would have made this a big deal had the other girls not made it a big deal? It seems like they're making it difficult for her to be normal by acting this way...why is even the mention of death in a way that has nothing to do with her sister such a big deal...just something i thought about while reading..

Flatness

I have reached an "ah-ha" moment about the idea of flatness.  When we think of flatness we think of lack of uniqueness and individuality. At this point in the story, Cecelia obviously felt like she was not an individual. This is the reason why she did several actions to scream out for the attention she lacked: the wedding dress and even her first suicide attempt. Her need to be different and noticed led to her ultimate death. The one spot she found the was not flat, the fence, is the spot of her death. Once that was taken away, her suicide became less noticed by others and on page 90, most of the town had "forgotten about Cecelia's suicide." Ironically, she was buried in the non-flat cemetary. However, all the sisters need individuality. The lawn represents their need to stand out from the rest of the neighborhood's tidiness as an act of individuality and social recognition. 

When youre trying to be clandestine and bae keeps asking you about it

Mr. Lisbon and co.

I found an interesting idea that we hadn't really talked about yet in the reading. When Trip is ending his conversation with Mr. Lisbon "he could tell how starved Mr. Lisbon was for a son, because he spoke he got up and gave Trip's shoulders three sporting shakes." (109). It makes me think that might be some of reason for his lack of connection with his daughters. He may not necessarily neglect them, but he doesn't see eye to eye with them. He seems clueless when it comes to his daughters and maybe not having any sons probably plays into that. Either way its ostensible that there is something not right about these parents. Id be interested to here other theories about the parents.

Individualization

One thing that stood out to me was a longer quote on page 107, "Other people filed Cecilia's memory away more easily. When they spoke of her, it was to say that they had always expected Cecilia to meet a bad end, and that far from viewing the Lisbon girls as a single species, they had always seen Cecilia as apart, a freak of nature. Mr. Hillyer summed up the majority sentiment at the time: "Those girls have a bright future ahead of them. That other one was just going to en up a kook."
Everyone seems to be individualizing Cecilia as the "weird" sister or the odd one out of their single species. Isn't this what Cecilia wanted? Or is it the fact that she's still the "strange" one in the group, still addressing her as in the group?

When someone makes an awesome comment in class

When the reading makes sense

Mundane (VAP)

I was googling the vap words for their definitions and when I put in mundane I came across this really cool article about how this guy makes really cool sculptures out of mundane objects. Here is a picture of one of his creations:

More Equations

Today during our passage unpacking, it occurred to me that Lux seemed healthier/more radiant after the car episode. while leaving Trip feeling dead. I think this shows the happy medium in relationships, intimate in the minds or just the body, that if one feels more than the other it can drain them while leaving the other feeling pleased with themselves and their "conquest." Lux lacks any type of love, while trip constantly has physical "love", so Trip is trying to fill the lack of real love with Lux, while she does not particularly care what type she gets. Therefore she is the stronger in this situation and walks away feeling good, while trip sits wondering what just happened. It is like a chemical equation with a limiting reagent, one is all used up, while the other still has more left to be used elsewhere. Trip is the limiting reagent, he is spent/all dried up.

When Asha says we are in fact the boys

Lux's behavior

A place in the reading that caught my eye was on page 84, when Dr. Hornicker says that "Lux's promiscuity was a commonplace reaction to emotional need"(84). While the doctor has been portrayed as truly terrible in his practice, how much of his statement is true? On page 82 Trip says that sitting in the Lisbon living room was like "a dead planet"(81). My final question brought on by this quote is that if the doctor is right, how much of this type of behavior are the other girls going to show?

'Trip'ing out the window

Trip says all sorts of important things during the reading, but one that stood out to me is on page 80 where he comments, "You would have killed yourself just to have something to do." The entire passage from Trip's time at the Lisbon home reeks of boredom and "bland entertainment" (80). Furthermore it gives me the impression that the girls live in a soul sucking psychiatric hospital padded room. Their mother doesn't let them do anything, from judging the suitability of the TV shows to poking Lux's toes with a knitting needle when they rest on the table. Perhaps it is this lack of freedom and identity that drives the girls to suicide.

Don't Trip

Trip Fontaine is an interesting character in this book, in some ways he is similar to the boys, but he "never mixed up the Lisbon girls so theres a difference" (75). As a character he is described at first as that smooth guy who did whatever he wanted to. For some reason, (I don't know what it is) "he didn't understand how she had bewitched him, nor having done so she promptly forgot his existence, and in desperate moods he asked his mirror why the only girl he was crazy about was the only girl not crazy about him. (76).  Why doesn't Lux like Trip? She doesn't seem like the person who would go for him however given his prior description it seems a little weird that she doesn't want to acknowledge him. Why does she eventually acknowledge him and agree to hang out with him even if the scene is really weird ? It seems almost out of obligation she does so. He is far more vocal than the boys about to Lux but the boys seem to have a deeper interest.

For me, an important quote/moment in the reading was "Sometimes we caught sight of tattered knee socks rounding a corner, or came upon them doubled over, shoving books into a cubbyhole, flicking the hair out of their eyes. But it was always the same: their white faces drifting in slow motion past us, while we pretended we hadn't been looking for them at all, that we didn't know they existed." I find this quote disturbing because of the obsession that the boys have with these girls. It makes me wonder if this sort of obsession with them played some part in the suicides that we know come later.