Friday, November 7, 2014
Thursday, November 6, 2014
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.
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.
Tuesday, November 4, 2014
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!
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!
Monday, November 3, 2014
Sunday, November 2, 2014
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
Matty
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