ACT II
1) What is does Polonius tell Reynaldo in the opening of Act II? How does he plan to trap his son?
He wants him to spy on his son and make up rumors about him to see if they are true.
2) What does this say about Polonius?
It says that he isn't a very trustworthy person. He will only do something if it directly benefits him. He reinforces a motif of lying/spying.
3) What particularly in Act II scene 1 has disturbed Ophelia?
She is mad because Hamlet was putting the moves on her but she turned him down. She could be mad that Hamlet had gotten so frisky. In the mind of a teenage boy, one would see Hamlet pulling, "The Naked Man." In which case, the man surprises the woman with nothing more than his birthday suit. Said woman then begins to make woopy with the filthies, and maybe I should stop there. Anyways, she didn't like it! Now I wonder if she really wanted to turn him down. Maybe that was what upset her.
4) Why have Rosencrantez and Guildenstern been sent to Denmark?
They are supposed to spy on Hamlet and find out what's making him so sad.
5) What does Hamlet ask the players to recite? How does the allusion mimic Hamlet’s position?
Hamlet asks him to recite a play about Dido. It was about getting revenge for their father, that is why it mimics him.
Identify
the following speaker of the following lines and discuss to whom the
lines are being delivered, and what do the lines mean?
6) “No, my lord, but as you did command/ I did repel his letter, and denied his access to me”
Ophelia is telling Polonius that Hamlet was coming on to her and she did what he told her to do.
7) “More matter less art”
This means get to the point, and the Queen thinks Polonius is stupid because he goes on and on just talking bullshit.
8)
“That I, the son of a dear father murdered,/ Prompted to my revenge by
heaven and hell/ Must like a whore unpack my heart with words,
He is planning his attack on Claudius, whilst questioning his own life and the legitimacy of the ghost being his father all at the same time. He then plans that to kill the King, first he would do this play to see his reaction, ultimately making the decision off of that.
9)
“Your bait of falsehood take this carp of truth/ And thus do we of
wisdom and of reach,/ with windlasses and with assays of bias,/ By
directions find directions out.”
This is what Polonius says to Reynaldo when he tells him to make rumors about Laretes to see if they are true.
10) “For if the sun breeds maggots in a dead dog, being a good kissing carrion-Have you a daughter?”
This is one of Hamlet's moments. Moments where he is acting like a psychopath for his own comic relief possibly. Anyways he is saying that the sun can bring out good things, just as it can bring out bad things. Hamlet is the sun, and Ophelia is the dog.
11) List three metaphors (1 direct, 1 implied, 1 extended) from the play.
D: for denmark. Denmark is a prison to Hamlet.
I: is the second one, so I is for the second letter in pImp! Which is what a fishmonger is!
E: Hamlet is the sun?
12) What proof does Polonius have that he believe indicates Hamlet’s love for Ophelia?
He pulled "The Naked Man"
13) Explain the quote, “There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.” How does this relate to Hamlet.
This is when Hamlet's friends Guildenster and Rosencrats try to find out why he is so sad. He says Denmark is like a prison. What this quote does is bring up the idea of who is to say what is good or bad? Is bad really bad? Because it a 'bad' thing might be good for somebody else. It's just all about how you look at it.
14) What is a fishmonger?
Muthha Phukkin P.I.M.P!
15) Who was Jephthah?
Hamlet compared Polonius to him. Jephthah the Gileadite was a mighty warrior. His father was Gilead; his mother was a prostitute.
- http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Judges+11&version=NIV
Tuesday, February 7, 2012
Monday, February 6, 2012
Hamlet 1.2-4
1.
He feels awkward because his father just died, and his mother remarried too soon...to his uncle!
2.
One, he is marrying his brother's woman. Two, he needs to take power of his brother's throne.
3.
He says he has done his duty to the Dane, and his thoughts and wishes bend again toward France.
4.
A little more than kin; Hamlet feels he and Claudius are more like cousins now. And less than kind; Hamlet thinks that Claudius doesn't love his mother, and disagrees with the marriage all together.
5.
He is saying that he is getting too much attention, being the Prince of Denmark.
6.
He is mad at his mother. She married her brother in law! And she didn't even mourn her husband's death! Hamlet is troubled because he feels that nobody cared about his father, he even considers suicide.
"O that this too too sullied flesh would melt.
Thaw and resolve itself into a dew,
Or that the Everlasting had not fix'd
His cannon 'gainst self-slaughter. O God! God!
How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable
Seem to me all the uses of this world!"
7.
Hamlet is talking to his mother and he is upset with her. He is wearing all black, mourning his father's death, and he just doesn't want to see her right now. He is going into an "emo" phase: feeling dissasociative, and indifferent...and wearing black, or possibly worshiping the devil...So he kind of starts to act differently, this leading to his high interest in the world of Drama.
8.
He says the ones at the wedding are the still warm leftovers from the funeral. It is relevent because it recognizes the time it took her mother to get over her husband's death. He is just talking behind her back here.
9.
They tell him that they have seen his father's ghost. Hamlet wants to see for himself. See he totally worships the devil, he probably made a "demon portal" or a pentagram.
1) What is Laertes advice to Ophelia?
Laertes doesn't want Ophelia to love Hamlet. He thinks Hamlet is going mad and he doesn't want his sister around him. He doesn't think they will last as a couple.
2) How does “The canker galls the infants of the spring/ too oft before their buttons be disclos’d” fit into the ideology of the decaying garden?
It is all about Ophelia's relationship with Hamlet. She is the Garden and he is a worm that will destroy it.
3) What analogy does Ophelia give to her brother as an answer to his advice? What does she mean?
She tells him not to be so hypocritical when he talks about love.
4) List five of the “few precepts” that Polonius gives to Laertes.
Don't speak your thoughts or be quick to action them
Don't be vulgure
Don't dress to fancy
Be nice to people but not too nice
Once you find friends you trust hold on to them
Listen to people but don't talk
5) In lines 105-109, what is the metaphor that Polonius uses to describe Hamlet’s words of love?
"taken these tenders for true pay which are not sterling. Tender yourself more dearly..." He is saying that she has treated herself to pay, or rewards, by tenders, or deeds, that are not sterling, or perfect. So what he means is that she needs to spend her time on better things because they will give her a better reward. Don't do Hamlet because Hamlet will not do you well. This could match the theme of prostitution.
6) List and explain one metaphor found in the lines 115-135.
"...I do know,
When the blood burns, how prodigal the soul
Lends the tongue vows. These blazes, daughter,
Giving more light than heat, extinct in both
Even in their promise as it is a-making,
You must not take for fire..."
Hamlet is fire; Hamlet is the Sun. Polonius basically says to Ophelia, "Don't trust Hamlet."
7) What is Polonius’ command to Ophelia?
She is forbidden to see him.
8) In scene 4, what is Hamlet talking about in lines 13-38?
He thinks that the king throws too big of parties and that makes his country look weak. The king is celebrating and he does so with cannons and loud music, and Hamlet is just depressed and can't help but bring the mood down.
9) Why doesn’t Horatio want Hamlet to follow the ghost?
He thinks it will make him go mad
10) What is Hamlet’s command to the three guards?
They must swear not to tell anybody what they have seen on the ghost dressed in armor
He feels awkward because his father just died, and his mother remarried too soon...to his uncle!
2.
One, he is marrying his brother's woman. Two, he needs to take power of his brother's throne.
3.
He says he has done his duty to the Dane, and his thoughts and wishes bend again toward France.
4.
A little more than kin; Hamlet feels he and Claudius are more like cousins now. And less than kind; Hamlet thinks that Claudius doesn't love his mother, and disagrees with the marriage all together.
5.
He is saying that he is getting too much attention, being the Prince of Denmark.
6.
He is mad at his mother. She married her brother in law! And she didn't even mourn her husband's death! Hamlet is troubled because he feels that nobody cared about his father, he even considers suicide.
"O that this too too sullied flesh would melt.
Thaw and resolve itself into a dew,
Or that the Everlasting had not fix'd
His cannon 'gainst self-slaughter. O God! God!
How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable
Seem to me all the uses of this world!"
7.
Hamlet is talking to his mother and he is upset with her. He is wearing all black, mourning his father's death, and he just doesn't want to see her right now. He is going into an "emo" phase: feeling dissasociative, and indifferent...and wearing black, or possibly worshiping the devil...So he kind of starts to act differently, this leading to his high interest in the world of Drama.
8.
He says the ones at the wedding are the still warm leftovers from the funeral. It is relevent because it recognizes the time it took her mother to get over her husband's death. He is just talking behind her back here.
9.
They tell him that they have seen his father's ghost. Hamlet wants to see for himself. See he totally worships the devil, he probably made a "demon portal" or a pentagram.
1) What is Laertes advice to Ophelia?
Laertes doesn't want Ophelia to love Hamlet. He thinks Hamlet is going mad and he doesn't want his sister around him. He doesn't think they will last as a couple.
2) How does “The canker galls the infants of the spring/ too oft before their buttons be disclos’d” fit into the ideology of the decaying garden?
It is all about Ophelia's relationship with Hamlet. She is the Garden and he is a worm that will destroy it.
3) What analogy does Ophelia give to her brother as an answer to his advice? What does she mean?
She tells him not to be so hypocritical when he talks about love.
4) List five of the “few precepts” that Polonius gives to Laertes.
Don't speak your thoughts or be quick to action them
Don't be vulgure
Don't dress to fancy
Be nice to people but not too nice
Once you find friends you trust hold on to them
Listen to people but don't talk
5) In lines 105-109, what is the metaphor that Polonius uses to describe Hamlet’s words of love?
"taken these tenders for true pay which are not sterling. Tender yourself more dearly..." He is saying that she has treated herself to pay, or rewards, by tenders, or deeds, that are not sterling, or perfect. So what he means is that she needs to spend her time on better things because they will give her a better reward. Don't do Hamlet because Hamlet will not do you well. This could match the theme of prostitution.
6) List and explain one metaphor found in the lines 115-135.
"...I do know,
When the blood burns, how prodigal the soul
Lends the tongue vows. These blazes, daughter,
Giving more light than heat, extinct in both
Even in their promise as it is a-making,
You must not take for fire..."
Hamlet is fire; Hamlet is the Sun. Polonius basically says to Ophelia, "Don't trust Hamlet."
7) What is Polonius’ command to Ophelia?
She is forbidden to see him.
8) In scene 4, what is Hamlet talking about in lines 13-38?
He thinks that the king throws too big of parties and that makes his country look weak. The king is celebrating and he does so with cannons and loud music, and Hamlet is just depressed and can't help but bring the mood down.
9) Why doesn’t Horatio want Hamlet to follow the ghost?
He thinks it will make him go mad
10) What is Hamlet’s command to the three guards?
They must swear not to tell anybody what they have seen on the ghost dressed in armor
Tuesday, January 31, 2012
Questions for ACT 1 SCENE 1
1) How is interest created in the opening scene?
The setting is interesting to me. It is a midnight in winter, outside a castle. The mood is set dark, like death and they are even preparing for war.
2) What information are we given to help us understand the situation?
Horatio's speech
The ghost comes back and then vanishes as the cock crows
4) What is the mood of the scene?
Dark/mysterious
5) Why are the sentries apprehensive (there are two reasons)?
Sentries?
6) What reasons are suggested by Horatio for the appearance of the late King’s ghost?
The setting is interesting to me. It is a midnight in winter, outside a castle. The mood is set dark, like death and they are even preparing for war.
2) What information are we given to help us understand the situation?
Horatio's speech
- Fortinbras vs. Hamlet
- There is a ghost of King Fortinbras who is dressed in armor.
- Leaders show up in times of danger
The ghost comes back and then vanishes as the cock crows
4) What is the mood of the scene?
Dark/mysterious
5) Why are the sentries apprehensive (there are two reasons)?
Sentries?
6) What reasons are suggested by Horatio for the appearance of the late King’s ghost?
- Getting revenge on hamlet
- Great leaders are there in times of danger for the People
Tuesday, December 13, 2011
1, 2, 3, Eyes On Me!
1)
The beginning of Chapter 12 is a long paragraph of judgement towards Janie doing things with Tea Cake. This, at first, made me think there might be another end of relationship, but instead she moved away from all the judgement and in with Tea Cake. She 'turned in to the skid' good for her =D
The difference between the judgement here, and in the beginning with Joe, is love. Janie loves Tea Cake at this point. She moves with him to the Everglades, "down in the muck." Kinda like being 'fat and happy.'
2)
(But Tea Cake never let go. They wrestled on until they were doped with their own fumes and emanations; till their clothes had been torn away; till he hurled her to the floor and held her there melting her resistance with the heat of his body, doing things with their bodies to express the inexpressible; kissed her until she arched her body to meet him and they fell asleep in sweet exhaustion.)
Or in other words...ERR-E...ERR-E..ERR-E..ERR-E ERR-E ERR-E ERRRREEE!...ERR-E...
This is my statement: sex is always the answer. In this chapter, Janie is furious that Tea Cake is flirting with a girl named Nunkie. She caught them 'wrestling' and when they got home, she wanted to throw down, and she did. She wanted to destroy Tea Cake! But what she didn't realize is that Tea Cake is probably familiar with hoes who have a pimp to answer to. He knows the answer. Sex is always the answer, and there is a reason Tea Cake has this name; He 'takes the cake' on this matter! He is the man at giving women the answer.
So he gave her the answer, and she accepted it with "sweet exhaustion." And the next morning, they joke about Nunkie. They pretty much forget it ever happened. Sex is ALWAYS the answer.
If you're not convinced, try out one of these songs
"S.E.X." -Nickleback
"What's Your Fantasy" -Ludacris
"Every Time We Touch" -Cascada
"Smiley Face (It's All Good)" -Bowling For Soup
3)
The beginning of Chapter 12 is a long paragraph of judgement towards Janie doing things with Tea Cake. This, at first, made me think there might be another end of relationship, but instead she moved away from all the judgement and in with Tea Cake. She 'turned in to the skid' good for her =D
The difference between the judgement here, and in the beginning with Joe, is love. Janie loves Tea Cake at this point. She moves with him to the Everglades, "down in the muck." Kinda like being 'fat and happy.'
2)
(But Tea Cake never let go. They wrestled on until they were doped with their own fumes and emanations; till their clothes had been torn away; till he hurled her to the floor and held her there melting her resistance with the heat of his body, doing things with their bodies to express the inexpressible; kissed her until she arched her body to meet him and they fell asleep in sweet exhaustion.)
Or in other words...ERR-E...ERR-E..ERR-E..ERR-E ERR-E ERR-E ERRRREEE!...ERR-E...
This is my statement: sex is always the answer. In this chapter, Janie is furious that Tea Cake is flirting with a girl named Nunkie. She caught them 'wrestling' and when they got home, she wanted to throw down, and she did. She wanted to destroy Tea Cake! But what she didn't realize is that Tea Cake is probably familiar with hoes who have a pimp to answer to. He knows the answer. Sex is always the answer, and there is a reason Tea Cake has this name; He 'takes the cake' on this matter! He is the man at giving women the answer.
So he gave her the answer, and she accepted it with "sweet exhaustion." And the next morning, they joke about Nunkie. They pretty much forget it ever happened. Sex is ALWAYS the answer.
If you're not convinced, try out one of these songs
"S.E.X." -Nickleback
"What's Your Fantasy" -Ludacris
"Every Time We Touch" -Cascada
"Smiley Face (It's All Good)" -Bowling For Soup
3)
Wednesday, December 7, 2011
All eyez on me (PG 60-140)
1)
(As soon as the cowd was out of sight they closed in circles. The near ones got nearer and the far ones got near. A circle, a swoop and a hop with spread-out wings. Close in, close in till some of the more hungry or daring perched on the carcass. They wanted to begin, but the Parson wasn't there, so a messenger was sent to the ruler in a tree where he sat.)
Page 61 is full of birds. Hurston does a good job showing the vultures in society that circle around the dead hog. There is a motif that is tied in with the birds; circles are very present here. Circles represent order usually, however, here it seems more to symbolize repetition, or a never ending cycle. Janie's relationships have been repeated, well the freedom she has in them has been. With her Nanny, she was controled. She was very sheltered, and got in trouble for kissing a boy over a fence. Then she was forced to marry. In her first marriage she was controled too. She was taken total care of for a while, but then Logan Killacks got tired of 'kissing foot' and started trying to get her to work. Same as Joe Starks, who always told Jaine to get to work in the store.
2)
"The feds is watchin', niggas plottin' to get me
will I survive, will I die, come on lets picture the possibilities
Giving me charges, lawyers making a grip
I told the judge I was raised wrong and thats why I blaze shit
Was hyper as a kid, alone, as a teenager, on the mobile
calling big shots on the scene major
Packing hundreds in my drawers, Fuck the law
Bitches I fuck with a passion, livin' rough and raw
Catchin' cases at a fast rate, balllin' in the fast lane
Hustle 'til the morning, never stopped until the cash came
I live my life as a Thug nigga
untill the day I die
Live my life as a Boss playa
cuz we be getting high"
-All Eyez On Me
Tupac Shakur
The vultures are to the mule what the society is to Janie. They circle around her, peck at her head and eat away at her dieing body until not even the maggots can take any more, and puss pops, and the stench grows and grows building a perimiter around the lifeless being. At least, this is how Janie feels. She has a reputation to uphold, being married to the man in charge. She has to present herself the way other's want to see her, and it kills her inside. She has everybody watching her. Just like in Tupac's song "All Eyez On Me" Janie feels trapped, like she has no freedom. It tears at her core, and it's a constant thing too. She was "alone as a teenager" because it happened then too, and she was the only black kid; she felt different. So now, she knows she doesn't like the society because the society doesn't like her. Or, at least it doesn't like what she wants to be.
Janie talks about this Pear Tree constantly. It is a dream she has on how she wants to live her life/relationship. She wants to just sit and chill in the sun, with nature. There, things would be easy, and free. The society is getting more in touch with the rest of the world with all that Joe has done in the town of Eatonville, so they must be a little more structured. Janie doesn't like the structure. Like Makaveli, she packin' hundreds in her draws, and says fuck the law! She livin rough and raw, and that's okay!
3)
(What is it dat keeps uh man from gettin' burnt on uh red-hot stove-caution or nature?)
What would you say? Is it caution, or nature? Do men naturally keep away from the red-hot stove, or do they have to take caution when near one? I think they naturally keep cautious of it. If a red-hot stove can burn you, you might have to go check it out for yourself. When I was about four years old, I was camping and I got a little curious and touched the cut out of a burn barrel that was our fire pit. Needless to say, I got burnt. But now I know better: you don't go and straight up touch it, you hover your hand over it and if it's good, you can touch it really fast and it won't hurt!
See men for some reason like to know how things work, so with anything, a man is gonna check it out. When it's something like a red-hot stove, or something where you can get burnt, it's in our nature to find out how it reacts. Depending on if the man has any knowledge on the matter, he will be cautious. But the very first time, he may just jump right into it, he might just try to grab the fire and hold on to it for a while.
4)
(Aw naw they don't. They just think they's thinkin'. When Ah see one thing Ah understands ten. You see ten things and don't understand one.)
This is in a fight scene with Janie and Joe. Janie is trying to stand up for herself and women alike, as Joe puts women down. Joe is just mad because he has done so much to make a name for himself, and Janie can't handle it. He wants her to feel like the queen and act like her too. Janie doesn't want all this power and responsibility. She makes constant note that she doesn't want to be a woman, she wants to stay young, and innocent, and irrisponsible because doing things is hard. It's hard to be busy all the time, and her life has been hard all her life. She just wants something to be easy and smooth, for once in her life.
She has been trained to think that marrying is the way to do it; marriage is the way to find true love and happiness. However, that is not the case. Marriage, especially these quickly sprung marriages of Janie's, are hard. Janie has married two men, and didn't love either one. When that happens, it's like getting stuck in a ditch, and digging straight down, thinking it's going to get you out, and that everything is going to be okay. You just keep digging, and digging, and digging, and digging. Then you realize you haven't eaten for days because you've just been working so hard to make things good, when you finally look up, you see you're going the wrong way.
5)
(She had an inside and an outside now and suddenly she know how not to mix them.)
Oh god, she's got the powa! Everybody run!
...Just kidding, Janie does sort of wield some strength with this. She does get some power. Now, she can be two people! She can put on her 'outside' when she want's to appear as the world wants her to, and she uses her 'inside' when she needs the world to see through her eyes. Everybody has an inside and and outside, it's just that some people don't know mix them at all. In fact very few people know how to mix them right. The power of word is comparable to the hammer of Thor, the beard of Zeus, and Great Oden's Raven combined, and Janie has found the translations. "Hot pot of coffee!" I shall say, after I spill a drop on me, of course meaning, "Thy occurring event hath stricken, and scortched at thyne eye! And I am to have no mercy in repay! Have at you!" Outside I say, "Hot pot of coffee!" but inside I say something else. There are two peronas there, and I am supposed to know which one to use at any given time. This is what Janie has learned.
6)
(Sometimes God gits familiar wid us womenfolks too and talks His inside business. He told me how surprised He was 'bout y'all turning out so smart after Him makin' yuh different; and how surprised y'all is goin' tuh be if you ever find out you don't know half as much 'bout us as you think you do. It's so easy to make yo'self out God Almighty when you ain't got nothin' tuh strain against but women and chickens.)
This is an important part in the development of the story, and to the expedition Janie is on to finding her own identity. Here Janie sticks up for herself, and for women as a whole. It reinforces the theme of strength of women and search for identity.
7)
(The more his back ached and his muscle dissolved into fat and the fat melted off his bones, the more fractious he became with Janie.)
There is a reason the man is Father Time and the woman is Mother Nature. Men's dreams are washed away by time. Hurston believes men make their dreams unaware there is a thing called time, and that it will catch up with them some time. Women hold life, and let it out into the world. They bring the Earth some fresh youth.
In this quote, Joe is getting old while Janie stays young and beautiful. Joe starts to get jealous of Janie because he starts to get fat and wrinkly. He is compared to Methusalem, the oldest person in the Bible. The oldest of the old. The Bible works with the Father Time reference because it splits time in two: Before Christ and After Christ.
8)
The Wingless Bird
The whole idea behind Janie being a wingless bird is being trapped, tied down and/or spiritually dying. A bird with no wings is like a truck with no transmission. It is trapped! It just sits there day after day, waiting for something to happen. Time doesn't even matter because there's nowhere it can go, nothing it can do. The bird and the truck are a beauty nothing can match, but their lives are empty. The bird's specialty is flight, and without wings, it's useless.
Janie feels like the bird. She has so much beauty and elegance to her, and she is being taken care of, but still she feels like she is trapped. She's just not in love with Joe. She was always told, "get married, then you'll be in love." That isn't exactly how it works though in real life.
9)
("'Tain't really no need of you dying, Jody, if you had of-de doctor-but it don't do no good bringin' dat up now. Dat's just whut Ah wants tuh say, Jody. You wouldn't listen. You done lived wid me for twenty years and you don't half know me atall. And you could have but you was so busy worshippin' de works of yo' own hands, and cuffin' folks around in their minds till you didn't see uh whole heap uh things yuh could have-")
In this script, Janie stands up for herself...well that's what we're supposed to pick up from this. Joe, her husband, is dying and she comes over and kicks him while he's down. What a b*+@#! I mean, technically, I guess it's good she got all this off her chest, but she did it to a dying man, she can't be that proud of it. It's like if somebody that bullied you for a while suddenly got cancer and you went to the hospital and started telling them off. Oh yeah, you're just so cool and tough! People wish they could be you! Cevieche curva!
10)
(The young girl was gone, but a handsome woman had taken her place. She tore off the kerchief from her head and let down her plentiful hair...tied it back up again. Then she starched and ironed her face, forming it into just what people wanted to see...)
When somebody dies, Janie thinks about her hair. She looks in the mirror, collects herself and carries on. This ties into the beginning, where Hurston says women forget. This is Janie's proccess, her ritual. It is a step in moving forward for her. She must see into her own self and see what it looks like. She knows that how she presents herself is how the world will see her, so she puts on a show. She forms her face into how people want to see it. She is still controlled here then. This is a conflict between person vs. self and society here. She wins against herself if she wins against the society first.
11)
(She hated her grandmother and had hidden it from herself all these years under a cloak of pity.)
Janie has spent her whole life hiding from herself so far. She can't express what she's feeling most of the time. This is an idea that represents the strength of women in the novel, where Janie is overcoming this cloak of pity. She is excited to live, and laugh and love, but she cannot do so until she is really in love, and not being controlled.
Her first two marriages didn't work out so well. She wasn't in love with Logan or Joe, they both supported her, kissing foot, but they both controlled her. She can't live, laugh and be in love with someone who is so controlling. This is why she doesn't love her nanny either. There is more mislove than love in her life.
12)
(For no matter how far a person can go the horizon is still way beyond you)
In the words of AC/DC, "It's a long way to the top, if you want to rock and roll." You can never reach the horizon. You may be able to reach the spot it was at when you first saw it, but when you get there it has moved just as far away. So no matter how far you go, you're never moving. This idea of being trapped represents Janie's failed relationships, and the idea behind men and their dreams on ships. In both cases, time is endless.
Janie so far has been searching for love and happiness. Each new husband brings a totally different lifestyle to her, and each guy is a new horizon. She makes this dream when she meets them, but when they get married and she is walking towards the horizon, it keeps moving farther away. She has been struck with the treadmill effect. She is stuck, trapped in a bad life.
All men have their dreams on ships, sailing at a distance. They drift either to or away from the men. Those who have enough time get their dreams to drift in with the tide. For others, their ships are sailing the wrong way, always on the horizon, but the men can never leave. They must wait for their ship to come in. They don't have anything else to wait for.
13)
Tea Cake
Janie meets this guy Tea Cake when everybody is at the ball game. He shows her how to play checkers and they play a lot. Checkers, as apposed to Chess, is a less sophisticated game. This idea of lower class is represented through Tea Cake.
14)
(He looked like the love thoughts ov women. He could be a bee to a blossom-a pear tree blossom in the spring. He seemed to be crushing scent out of the world with his footsteps. Crushing aromatic herbs with ever step he took. Spices hung about him. He was a glance from God.)
So Janie tries to get Tea Cake out of her head. She pretty much tries to hate him. But there is a lot of emotion she has for this guy, and it's hard to just let it go. She is a woman, she forgets what she doesn't want to remember. This is what she is trying to do here, but she remembers him all day long. She totally loves him.
15)
Janie doesn't really want to love Tea Cake yet. She is putting it off as best as she can, while inversely Tea Cake is trying as hard as he can to love her. Tea Cake comes and goes, from Janie to work for Janie. Or at least he claims that's what he's doing. (He did not return that nigh nor the next and so she plunged into the abyss and descended to the ninth darkness where light has never been.) This is extremely dark. WTF Janie? She's got a conection to Tea Cake like Gollam does to The Ring. When it's gone...there is nothing!
While Tea Cake tells how much he loves her...
(Janie, Ah hope God may kill me, if Ah'm lyin'. Nobody else on earth kin hold uh candle tuh you, baby. You got de keys to de kingdom)
(As soon as the cowd was out of sight they closed in circles. The near ones got nearer and the far ones got near. A circle, a swoop and a hop with spread-out wings. Close in, close in till some of the more hungry or daring perched on the carcass. They wanted to begin, but the Parson wasn't there, so a messenger was sent to the ruler in a tree where he sat.)
Page 61 is full of birds. Hurston does a good job showing the vultures in society that circle around the dead hog. There is a motif that is tied in with the birds; circles are very present here. Circles represent order usually, however, here it seems more to symbolize repetition, or a never ending cycle. Janie's relationships have been repeated, well the freedom she has in them has been. With her Nanny, she was controled. She was very sheltered, and got in trouble for kissing a boy over a fence. Then she was forced to marry. In her first marriage she was controled too. She was taken total care of for a while, but then Logan Killacks got tired of 'kissing foot' and started trying to get her to work. Same as Joe Starks, who always told Jaine to get to work in the store.
2)
"The feds is watchin', niggas plottin' to get me
will I survive, will I die, come on lets picture the possibilities
Giving me charges, lawyers making a grip
I told the judge I was raised wrong and thats why I blaze shit
Was hyper as a kid, alone, as a teenager, on the mobile
calling big shots on the scene major
Packing hundreds in my drawers, Fuck the law
Bitches I fuck with a passion, livin' rough and raw
Catchin' cases at a fast rate, balllin' in the fast lane
Hustle 'til the morning, never stopped until the cash came
I live my life as a Thug nigga
untill the day I die
Live my life as a Boss playa
cuz we be getting high"
-All Eyez On Me
Tupac Shakur
The vultures are to the mule what the society is to Janie. They circle around her, peck at her head and eat away at her dieing body until not even the maggots can take any more, and puss pops, and the stench grows and grows building a perimiter around the lifeless being. At least, this is how Janie feels. She has a reputation to uphold, being married to the man in charge. She has to present herself the way other's want to see her, and it kills her inside. She has everybody watching her. Just like in Tupac's song "All Eyez On Me" Janie feels trapped, like she has no freedom. It tears at her core, and it's a constant thing too. She was "alone as a teenager" because it happened then too, and she was the only black kid; she felt different. So now, she knows she doesn't like the society because the society doesn't like her. Or, at least it doesn't like what she wants to be.
Janie talks about this Pear Tree constantly. It is a dream she has on how she wants to live her life/relationship. She wants to just sit and chill in the sun, with nature. There, things would be easy, and free. The society is getting more in touch with the rest of the world with all that Joe has done in the town of Eatonville, so they must be a little more structured. Janie doesn't like the structure. Like Makaveli, she packin' hundreds in her draws, and says fuck the law! She livin rough and raw, and that's okay!
3)
(What is it dat keeps uh man from gettin' burnt on uh red-hot stove-caution or nature?)
What would you say? Is it caution, or nature? Do men naturally keep away from the red-hot stove, or do they have to take caution when near one? I think they naturally keep cautious of it. If a red-hot stove can burn you, you might have to go check it out for yourself. When I was about four years old, I was camping and I got a little curious and touched the cut out of a burn barrel that was our fire pit. Needless to say, I got burnt. But now I know better: you don't go and straight up touch it, you hover your hand over it and if it's good, you can touch it really fast and it won't hurt!
See men for some reason like to know how things work, so with anything, a man is gonna check it out. When it's something like a red-hot stove, or something where you can get burnt, it's in our nature to find out how it reacts. Depending on if the man has any knowledge on the matter, he will be cautious. But the very first time, he may just jump right into it, he might just try to grab the fire and hold on to it for a while.
4)
(Aw naw they don't. They just think they's thinkin'. When Ah see one thing Ah understands ten. You see ten things and don't understand one.)
This is in a fight scene with Janie and Joe. Janie is trying to stand up for herself and women alike, as Joe puts women down. Joe is just mad because he has done so much to make a name for himself, and Janie can't handle it. He wants her to feel like the queen and act like her too. Janie doesn't want all this power and responsibility. She makes constant note that she doesn't want to be a woman, she wants to stay young, and innocent, and irrisponsible because doing things is hard. It's hard to be busy all the time, and her life has been hard all her life. She just wants something to be easy and smooth, for once in her life.
She has been trained to think that marrying is the way to do it; marriage is the way to find true love and happiness. However, that is not the case. Marriage, especially these quickly sprung marriages of Janie's, are hard. Janie has married two men, and didn't love either one. When that happens, it's like getting stuck in a ditch, and digging straight down, thinking it's going to get you out, and that everything is going to be okay. You just keep digging, and digging, and digging, and digging. Then you realize you haven't eaten for days because you've just been working so hard to make things good, when you finally look up, you see you're going the wrong way.
5)
(She had an inside and an outside now and suddenly she know how not to mix them.)
Oh god, she's got the powa! Everybody run!
...Just kidding, Janie does sort of wield some strength with this. She does get some power. Now, she can be two people! She can put on her 'outside' when she want's to appear as the world wants her to, and she uses her 'inside' when she needs the world to see through her eyes. Everybody has an inside and and outside, it's just that some people don't know mix them at all. In fact very few people know how to mix them right. The power of word is comparable to the hammer of Thor, the beard of Zeus, and Great Oden's Raven combined, and Janie has found the translations. "Hot pot of coffee!" I shall say, after I spill a drop on me, of course meaning, "Thy occurring event hath stricken, and scortched at thyne eye! And I am to have no mercy in repay! Have at you!" Outside I say, "Hot pot of coffee!" but inside I say something else. There are two peronas there, and I am supposed to know which one to use at any given time. This is what Janie has learned.
6)
(Sometimes God gits familiar wid us womenfolks too and talks His inside business. He told me how surprised He was 'bout y'all turning out so smart after Him makin' yuh different; and how surprised y'all is goin' tuh be if you ever find out you don't know half as much 'bout us as you think you do. It's so easy to make yo'self out God Almighty when you ain't got nothin' tuh strain against but women and chickens.)
This is an important part in the development of the story, and to the expedition Janie is on to finding her own identity. Here Janie sticks up for herself, and for women as a whole. It reinforces the theme of strength of women and search for identity.
7)
(The more his back ached and his muscle dissolved into fat and the fat melted off his bones, the more fractious he became with Janie.)
There is a reason the man is Father Time and the woman is Mother Nature. Men's dreams are washed away by time. Hurston believes men make their dreams unaware there is a thing called time, and that it will catch up with them some time. Women hold life, and let it out into the world. They bring the Earth some fresh youth.
In this quote, Joe is getting old while Janie stays young and beautiful. Joe starts to get jealous of Janie because he starts to get fat and wrinkly. He is compared to Methusalem, the oldest person in the Bible. The oldest of the old. The Bible works with the Father Time reference because it splits time in two: Before Christ and After Christ.
8)
The Wingless Bird
The whole idea behind Janie being a wingless bird is being trapped, tied down and/or spiritually dying. A bird with no wings is like a truck with no transmission. It is trapped! It just sits there day after day, waiting for something to happen. Time doesn't even matter because there's nowhere it can go, nothing it can do. The bird and the truck are a beauty nothing can match, but their lives are empty. The bird's specialty is flight, and without wings, it's useless.
Janie feels like the bird. She has so much beauty and elegance to her, and she is being taken care of, but still she feels like she is trapped. She's just not in love with Joe. She was always told, "get married, then you'll be in love." That isn't exactly how it works though in real life.
9)
("'Tain't really no need of you dying, Jody, if you had of-de doctor-but it don't do no good bringin' dat up now. Dat's just whut Ah wants tuh say, Jody. You wouldn't listen. You done lived wid me for twenty years and you don't half know me atall. And you could have but you was so busy worshippin' de works of yo' own hands, and cuffin' folks around in their minds till you didn't see uh whole heap uh things yuh could have-")
In this script, Janie stands up for herself...well that's what we're supposed to pick up from this. Joe, her husband, is dying and she comes over and kicks him while he's down. What a b*+@#! I mean, technically, I guess it's good she got all this off her chest, but she did it to a dying man, she can't be that proud of it. It's like if somebody that bullied you for a while suddenly got cancer and you went to the hospital and started telling them off. Oh yeah, you're just so cool and tough! People wish they could be you! Cevieche curva!
10)
(The young girl was gone, but a handsome woman had taken her place. She tore off the kerchief from her head and let down her plentiful hair...tied it back up again. Then she starched and ironed her face, forming it into just what people wanted to see...)
When somebody dies, Janie thinks about her hair. She looks in the mirror, collects herself and carries on. This ties into the beginning, where Hurston says women forget. This is Janie's proccess, her ritual. It is a step in moving forward for her. She must see into her own self and see what it looks like. She knows that how she presents herself is how the world will see her, so she puts on a show. She forms her face into how people want to see it. She is still controlled here then. This is a conflict between person vs. self and society here. She wins against herself if she wins against the society first.
11)
(She hated her grandmother and had hidden it from herself all these years under a cloak of pity.)
Janie has spent her whole life hiding from herself so far. She can't express what she's feeling most of the time. This is an idea that represents the strength of women in the novel, where Janie is overcoming this cloak of pity. She is excited to live, and laugh and love, but she cannot do so until she is really in love, and not being controlled.
Her first two marriages didn't work out so well. She wasn't in love with Logan or Joe, they both supported her, kissing foot, but they both controlled her. She can't live, laugh and be in love with someone who is so controlling. This is why she doesn't love her nanny either. There is more mislove than love in her life.
12)
(For no matter how far a person can go the horizon is still way beyond you)
In the words of AC/DC, "It's a long way to the top, if you want to rock and roll." You can never reach the horizon. You may be able to reach the spot it was at when you first saw it, but when you get there it has moved just as far away. So no matter how far you go, you're never moving. This idea of being trapped represents Janie's failed relationships, and the idea behind men and their dreams on ships. In both cases, time is endless.
Janie so far has been searching for love and happiness. Each new husband brings a totally different lifestyle to her, and each guy is a new horizon. She makes this dream when she meets them, but when they get married and she is walking towards the horizon, it keeps moving farther away. She has been struck with the treadmill effect. She is stuck, trapped in a bad life.
All men have their dreams on ships, sailing at a distance. They drift either to or away from the men. Those who have enough time get their dreams to drift in with the tide. For others, their ships are sailing the wrong way, always on the horizon, but the men can never leave. They must wait for their ship to come in. They don't have anything else to wait for.
13)
Tea Cake
Janie meets this guy Tea Cake when everybody is at the ball game. He shows her how to play checkers and they play a lot. Checkers, as apposed to Chess, is a less sophisticated game. This idea of lower class is represented through Tea Cake.
14)
(He looked like the love thoughts ov women. He could be a bee to a blossom-a pear tree blossom in the spring. He seemed to be crushing scent out of the world with his footsteps. Crushing aromatic herbs with ever step he took. Spices hung about him. He was a glance from God.)
So Janie tries to get Tea Cake out of her head. She pretty much tries to hate him. But there is a lot of emotion she has for this guy, and it's hard to just let it go. She is a woman, she forgets what she doesn't want to remember. This is what she is trying to do here, but she remembers him all day long. She totally loves him.
15)
Janie doesn't really want to love Tea Cake yet. She is putting it off as best as she can, while inversely Tea Cake is trying as hard as he can to love her. Tea Cake comes and goes, from Janie to work for Janie. Or at least he claims that's what he's doing. (He did not return that nigh nor the next and so she plunged into the abyss and descended to the ninth darkness where light has never been.) This is extremely dark. WTF Janie? She's got a conection to Tea Cake like Gollam does to The Ring. When it's gone...there is nothing!
While Tea Cake tells how much he loves her...
(Janie, Ah hope God may kill me, if Ah'm lyin'. Nobody else on earth kin hold uh candle tuh you, baby. You got de keys to de kingdom)
Monday, November 28, 2011
Their Eyes Were Watching God 1-60g
1)
(Ships at a distance have every man’s wish on board. For
some they come in with the tide. For others they sail forever on the horizon,
never out o sight, never landing until the Watcher turns his eyes away in
resignation, his dream mocked to death by Time. That is the life of men.) Page
1
This is the opening paragraph of the story, Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora
Neale Hurston. This is a statement made in generalities. Hurston has grouped
together all men, making them all one and the same. The significance of the ships
is a connection to the sea and previous earthly exploration. The sea is said to
be a mysterious place, filled with creatures unable to breath air, a different
way of life entirely. Only those living in the sea can understand the meaning
of life underwater. The ships are connected with earthly exploration because
when the New World was discovered, men were sailing in ships, doing all the
work on the sea. Just like in the Navy, the sea was no place for a woman at
this time. The ships, and the sea is a way of life only men can understand,
just as the underwater creatures understand the sea. They are the same. No
coincidence then, that Poseidon, God of the Sea, was a man.
The meaning of the wishes on board is that some men’s dreams
come true, while some men have to accept defeat and let go. If the ships come
in with the tide, they’ve done so for a good reason. The men who’s dreams are
brought to them are of great importance and the ships have heard of them. These
men have made a name for themselves so the ships actually have a reason to come
in. Men who just sit and watch, have no need for the ships, so they look away
after a realization. If men don’t dream, or dream of the wrong thing, their
wishes won’t come to land. Maybe they already have their dream, or maybe they
just aren’t enough man to chase it.
2)
(…women forget all those things they don’t want to remember,
and remember everything they don’t want to forget. The dream is the truth. Then
they act and do things accordingly.) Page 1
In this passage, Hurston states that women have all the
know-how in the world. Women obviously know what they know is the truth, the
whole truth, and nothing but the truth so help me God. Basically, if there is
any question on if something happened was good or bad, the women would know. If
I ran to McDonalds in the snow, and the middle of day, naked, women would know
if that was a good or bad thing. Even if they don’t know why it happened. They
don’t have to know why, they just know. They get to pick and choose their
memories.
Strange then, if they can pick and choose memories and yet,
what they know is still truth. If I did go running naked in the cold, they
could easily forget it and say it never happened (except that with me, the
chicks dig it. They don’t forget the Danny ;). So now, that didn’t happen.
Truth be told that didn’t happen! Why? The women said so, so it’s true now. But
of course what they didn’t know is that I ran there naked in the cold because I
gave my clothes to a hobo family and was running to McDonalds to get cheep food
for all of them. Not such a bad thing right? But now it never happened because
the women said so…and thus the battle of the sexes begins…
3)
Or main character is Janie Starks. She is a beautiful, black
woman with some flaw. What flaw, we do not know yet. The story starts out, and
Janie is being judged by everybody. (What’s she doin coming back here in
overhalls? Can’t she find no dress to put on? Where’s dat blue satin dress she
left here in? Where all dat money her husband took an died and left her? What
dat ole forty year ole ‘oman doin’ wid her hair swingin’ down her back lak some
young gal? Where she left dat young lad of a boy she went off here wid? Thought
she was going to marry? Where he left her?
What he done wid all her money? Betcha he off wid some gal so young she ain’t
even got no hairs, why she don’t stay in her class?) Page 2. They do not know
what happened to her, that she has come back home a changed woman. It seems
Janie hasn’t told anybody anything, and she is okay with them making their
crazy assumptions.
From what they all say about her in this passage, I see a
woman of beauty none can match, a black stallion, lounging in dirty, torn
overalls smokin’ a bowl on a hammock as a way of presenting the world a big F
U/Spondee. Something happened to this woman, and now she has no desire to
search out a fine man to fill her life. She has everything she needs, and while
others just don’t understand, she has life all figured out. Simplicity is the
way to true happiness, and this woman is simple. She has no money, no nice
clothes, no man, no worries.
4)
(…you know if you pass some people and don’t speak tuh suit
‘em dy got tuh go way back in yo’ life and see whut you ever done. They know mo’
‘bout yuh than you do yo’ self. An envious heart makes a treacherous ear. They
done ‘heard’ ‘bout you just what they hope done happened.) Page 5
This is a great quote. If people don’t know your business,
they’ll look for it if they really have nothing else going on. People who do
this are sad little bitches. One person’s life really isn’t anybody else’s
business, but sometimes people have no business and seek out drama. This is
unfortunate, but also can be fun for some. Janie chooses not to tell people of
her past and lets them think what they want to think. Why? Probably because she
knows her business is her business, and nobody has to know anything. She is a
woman, and Hurston clearly stated that woman forget what they don’t want to
remember; this woman, whatever happened to her, didn’t happen. So she has
nothing to tell people. They can make up whatever they want to make up, and
none of it would be true because to Janie, nothing happened.
There isn’t a lot I can say on the subject pass what has
been stated already because I am unaware of the events between Janie and Tea
Cake. I can predict she was being controlled by him, and wanted some control
herself, so she killed him and is now laying low. What a great way to take
control. Maybe Tea Cake was control, and she had to take it because she had
none. No sense in trying to make any sense out of them, a woman is a
psycho-hoe’s-beast.
5)
(…Sam say most of ‘em goes to church so they’ll be sure to
rise in Judgment. Dat’s de day dat every secret is s’posed to be made known.
They wants to be there and hear it all.)
Page 6
This is why people make odd assumptions of other people’s
business. They want to know what happened because the suspense has just been
killing them. The rise in Judgment is relevant to the Last Judgement, or the end
of the world. Every secret is known, and it causes people to go crazy. People
shouldn’t know everything; some doors
are better left closed.
6)
Okay, I’m just going to say it, Janie and Pheoby make out.
They totally kiss each other, and whatever else. There is proof on pages 6 and
7:
(…Dat’s just the same as me ‘cause mah tongue is in mah
friend’s mouf…
…if they wants to see and know, why they donn’t come kiss
and be kissed?...
…They sat together in fresh young darkness close together.
Pheoby eager to touch and feel Janie…
…Pheoby, we been kissin’-friends for twenty years…)
Now, don’t get me wrong, there’s absolutely nothing wrong
with this. She’s obviously bangin’ hott and I bet Pheoby isn’t a total cow.
7)
(…Tea Cake is gone. And dat’s de only reason you see me back
here—cause Ah ain’t got nothing to make me happy no more where Ah was at. Down
in the Everglades there, down on the muck.)
This is the all we know about the situation between Tea Cake
and Janie. She told this to her partner Pheoby, and this is all she’s told
anybody of it. Now, I thought the Everglades were nice. Why then, does she find
no happiness there? Tea Cake obviously wasn’t very entertaining, but he must
have been worth suffering the Everglades. We need to know more about her and
Tea Cake to understand why she was down on the muck.
8)
Janie is not like every other person. She never knew either
of her parents, and had to learn things on her own, for nobody was there to
teach her. Her grandmother raised her, but controlled her mind. Janie is one of
the most beautiful women put on this Earth, yet she stands out from even the
rest of the pretty girls. She has a good heart. She knows how good she looks,
but she never uses it to her advantage. She’s just another one of God’s
creations in her mind, and everyone around her is equal. That is, before she
meets them and can judge her thoughts on them. What separates Janie from the
rest of the pretty girls is that Janie isn’t a bitch, and that she doesn’t take
things for granted. She can see that people don’t have much to live on because
she is one of them.
Another thing is that she is black, and didn’t know it until
a picture she took with her friends as a young girl. She looked at the picture
and didn’t see herself in it. It wasn’t until she asked, “where am i?”
everybody laughed and then Miss Nellie pointed to the black child and said,
“that’s you”. She had thought she was the same color as all the other children.
Nobody was there to teach her about races.
9)
(Oh to be a pear tree—any
tree in bloom! With kissing bees singing of the beginning of the world! She was
sixteen. She had glossy leaves and bursting buds and she wanted to struggle
with life but it seemed to elude her. Where were the singing bees for her?)
Janie is at a rebellious age now and so many more questions
are coming into her head. None of which can be answered at home, Janie knows
she wants to search for the answers. She wants to live! She is getting older,
probably a little bit horny, and maybe even wants to cause a little trouble.
She is a girl with daddy issues, this is normal for teens like her. She is
“waiting for the world to be made.”
There are questions she asks throughout pages 10 and 11.
How? Why? What? How? Why? Where? When? How? This is all that’s going through
her head at this point and she wants to have experiences. She needs an
adventure.
10)
(Have some sympathy fuh me. Put me down easy, Janie Ah’m a
cracked plate.)
This is grandma talking. She doesn’t want Janie to go off
and do all those things she knows she wants to. Grandma was a slave woman and
even had to hide with Janie from General Sherman in his March to the Sea. This
is a direct allusion. Grandma worked so hard to give Janie what she needed to
survive, and to keep her young an innocent. Now that she is growing up, she’s
not so young, and isn’t as innocent.
Janie was caught kissing a boy on the fence late one night.
Her grandmother saw her kissing Johnny Taylor. Janie was yelled at, and told
she wasn’t acting like a woman. She replied, telling her grandma she doesn’t
want to be a woman. She wants to stay young. Her youth is her freedom, and in
youth, she can explore her curiosity of the world. Grandma wants her to marry
right away. Janie doesn’t like this idea because grandma wants her to marry
Logan Killacks. Janie doesn’t love Logan, but she does marry him for her
grandmother.
This is how controlling her grandmother is, she can make her
marry against her will. She is not the only controlling force in Janie’s life
in the story, but she is the first and foremost.
11)
The First Marriage
Janie is married to Logan Killacks at this point. This is
her first marriage and she doesn’t know for sure what to expect. She has been
told, “Husbands and wives always loved each other, and that was what marriage
meant. It was just so. Janie felt glad of the thought, for then it wouldn’t
seem so destructive and mouldy. She wouldn’t be lonely anymore.” She keeps
thinking of this Pear Tree, and what it would be like to lay under one with her
love just to pass the time, happily.
But it seems that Janie isn’t doing her part in the marriage
and Logan may not put up with it. “…He ain’t kissin’ yo’ mouf when he carry on
over yuh lak dat. He’s kissin’ yo’ foot and ‘tan’t in uh man tuh kiss foot
long. Mouf kissn’ is on uh equal and dat’s natural but when dey got to bow down
tuh love, dey soon straightens up.” This makes it seem like Logan is doing
everything he can to please her and she isn’t really doing much in return. She
doesn’t kiss mouth or foot, and she isn’t happy with him.
Grandma dies, and with her, a part of Janie dies too. With
the passing, Janie ends up finding out that marriage doesn’t make love, and she
is done with Logan Killacks. “Her first dream was dead, so she became a woman.”
12)
The Second Man
Logan Killacks isn’t the pleaser he was in the beginning
years of the marriage. Janie saw their relationship fading. Logan says he is to
go in to town to get another mule. He wants one for him and another for a woman
to work through the year. It doesn’t sound like he’s coming back into her life.
Right when he leaves, a new man comes into the story. His name is Joe Starks
and he gets quite the introduction. He wears a suit, and he has a way of
leading people. Something about his face makes others want to follow in his
beliefs.
Joe and Janie sit and talk for a while under a tree. This is
significant to her dream of marriage with the image of the Pear Tree. Janie
feels this man would make her happy. So then Logan comes home and Janie hints
that she wants to leave. He then goes off on how no man will want her so he
isn’t worried about her leaving. Of course, she wasn’t lying and she does leave
him for Joe Starks and they move down to an all colored town where Starks would
become mayor. The town they come to live in represents the time of the Harlem
Renaissance.
13)
(What was she losing so much time for? A feeling of sudden
newness and change came over her. Janie hurried out of the front gate and
turned south. Even if Joe was not there waiting for her, the change was bound
to do her good.)
This is a reference to the way women deal with problems in
the beginning pages of the story. It was stated right off the bat that women
forget things they don’t want to remember because what they know is the truth.
They must believe the truth, so by forgetting something ever happened, there is
no proof, and it is no longer true. Why this works for them, I will never
understand. But Hurston, in this book, seems to think that what women know is
true, is true indeed. So now she never married Logan Taylor…just like that.
14)
The Second Marriage
(It must have been the way Joe spoke out without giving her
a chance to say anything one way or another that took the bloom off of
things…she went down the road behind him that night feeling cold.)
This marriage won’t last long. Joe is a man who will do
things for the good of mankind. He makes his name known. Janie feels proud of
him, but is lonely. Her husband becomes a workaholic and she knows there is a
storm coming.
Joe ends up being another controlling force in Janie’s life.
She is always to help out around the store. He tells her what to do, when and
how to do it. All day, every day. He is the boss, and everybody listens to him,
even Janie. Janie is a Pear Tree Girl. That is, she wants to sit and lay under
a tree and talk, just to pass the time. She doesn’t want to grow up and have
responsibilities. Joe is forcing them upon her for becoming so big among the
people. His fame is then represented through her, and she has to be something
she is not in order to depict his magnitude the way he needs it.
15)
We’ll walk in de
light, de beautiful light
Come where the dew
drops of mercy shine bright
Shine all around us by
day and by night
Jesus, the light of
the world
This is a song sung after the lighting of the first lamp in
a black town. This is a big moment in history, just as it is a big moment in
the storyline. This short song represents light as a symbol of life. It is a
motivational message; let your light shine on, don’t be afraid to put yourself
out there with what you truly believe is right. This is what Janie needs to do.
She is being controlled so much and she needs to be more independent, not
listen to so many people, and shine her light.
16)
People start to grow envious of Joe Starks, but nobody could
fill his shoes. They like what he is doing for the town, but begin to think
they are being taken advantage of. (…how could they know up-to-date folks was
spitting in flowery little things like that?) At this moment, a little order
turns into chaos. (It was bad enough for white people, but when one of your own
color could be so different it put you on a wonder.) There is some racism going
on here, but it’s within one race. There are no white people in this story
really, this makes it really harsh. Not only are black people beginning to
loose trust within their own race, but they then start to feel a little crazy
what with everybody hatin’ on each other.
People begin to turn on Starks (…he’s de wind and we’se de
grass. We bend which ever way he blows…He’s got uh throne in de seat of his
pants…he’s uh man dat changes everything, but nothin’ don’t change him)
17)
(The town had a basketful of feelings good and bad about
Joe’s positions and possessions, but none had the temerity to challenge him.
They bowed down to him rather, because he was all of these things, and then
again he was all of these things because the town bowed down.)
Comparison between the town and Janie maybe?
The town, and Janie both have the same feelings towards Joe
Starks. They love him, but they hate him. They can’t live with him, but they
can’t live without him. Joe brought them so much product and order into their
town, and he has become such an important person. Janie has to be what he is to
some extend. She is acting as a first lady in this town, and from what we know
about her, she just wants to sit under an apple tree, this is too much
responsibility for her to handle, and she is being forced into it. Joe has her
working in the store a lot too, more than she wants to be in there. He even
goes as far as forbidding her to indulge in conversations about the mule
because (He didn’t want her talking after such trashy people.)
18)
(Abraham Lincoln, he had de whole United States tuh rule so
he freed de Negros. You got uh town so you freed uh mule. You have tuh have
power tuh free things and dat makes you lak uh king or something….Yo’ wife is
uh born orator, Starks. Use never knowed dat befo’. She put jus’ de right words
tuh our thoughts.)
Matt Bonner’s yellow mule is
the subject of ridicule among the people of Eatonville. When Joe Starks frees
the mule by purchasing it from Matt, there is a moment of triumph for him because
the people didn’t like to see the animal abused. However, his victory is
wrecked because his wife finally grew a pair. Janie mocks him in a speech
comparing him to President Lincoln. Hambo quickly shows his appreciation. This
is a moment in the rising action that fuels the drift in Janie’s marriage to
Joe. His jealousy will not allow him to be upstaged by his wife. (Thank yuh fuh
yo’ compliments, but mah wife don’t know nothin’ ‘bout no speech-makin’…Ah
never married her for nothin’ lak dat. She’s a woman and her place is in de
home.)
Sunday, November 20, 2011
The WasteLand: Part V
The first four lines of the first stanza talk about the aftermath of war, lifeless land and the shouting a crying of people affected by it. Eliot is referencing the aftermath of WWI. Rich and poor are affected by it, and that makes them all equal. This sort of reinforces the idea in the first poem that death is better than life. In this deathly wasteland created by WWI everybody is one, and there is some sort of peace among the people. Then the last four lines in stanza one, “He who was living is now dead We who were living are now dying With a little patience” represents the idea of hope.
The second stanza is about a wasteland. This land is dry and “one can neither stand nor lie nor sit.” In this wasteland, there is nothing you can do, because it is so dry. The people are in dire need of water. I think the line “If there were water” is one whole stanza. It is the symbol of hope they are searching for.
Stanza six (A woman drew her long black hair out tight) is about darkness. Bats hang upside down with “baby faces?” Bats represent darkness, but with baby faces? This is a way of saying there is still some good inside them, some hope. Here in this stanza, time becomes unimportant, and there is still no water. This is the lowest of the low.
The next stanza brings some life back to the picture. The grass is singing in the mountains, and there is a chapel, or a Holy Grail. The Holy Grail is symbolic of hope. It is the idea that there is something worth searching the whole world for that will fix everything. This stanza ends with rain, the water has arrived, and now the thunder speaks!
The thunder is god. He makes three main points, or ideas: Give, Sympathize, Control. He asks, what have we given, because in the other poems all there was were rapes and failed relationships. In WWI there were obviously failed relationships among countries. The Sympathize speech puts us all in one boat. It tells us that everyone is locked up, and this makes us equal, so there is no need to fight. Control is exactly what it sounds like. There needs to be control, in this world of no control. Team: Together Everyone Achieves More.
The next stanza is about the fisherman again! I like the fisherman. Anyways he has the grail but he is wounded and cannot regenerate his land. Another way to think of this is when you have searched your entire key ring for the right one to open the door, but when you get there, you find that the mop you were looking for isn’t in the room and you can’t clean the wrestling mats!
The last four lines are the happy ending of the poem. There is hope, and there is rain. “These fragments I have shored against my ruins” is what Eliot saw after WWI. It can be related to Pangea. The world was united, and now it has fallen apart and there is no more teamwork. “Shantih Shantih Shantih” is the rain. It is the hope.
The second stanza is about a wasteland. This land is dry and “one can neither stand nor lie nor sit.” In this wasteland, there is nothing you can do, because it is so dry. The people are in dire need of water. I think the line “If there were water” is one whole stanza. It is the symbol of hope they are searching for.
Stanza six (A woman drew her long black hair out tight) is about darkness. Bats hang upside down with “baby faces?” Bats represent darkness, but with baby faces? This is a way of saying there is still some good inside them, some hope. Here in this stanza, time becomes unimportant, and there is still no water. This is the lowest of the low.
The next stanza brings some life back to the picture. The grass is singing in the mountains, and there is a chapel, or a Holy Grail. The Holy Grail is symbolic of hope. It is the idea that there is something worth searching the whole world for that will fix everything. This stanza ends with rain, the water has arrived, and now the thunder speaks!
The thunder is god. He makes three main points, or ideas: Give, Sympathize, Control. He asks, what have we given, because in the other poems all there was were rapes and failed relationships. In WWI there were obviously failed relationships among countries. The Sympathize speech puts us all in one boat. It tells us that everyone is locked up, and this makes us equal, so there is no need to fight. Control is exactly what it sounds like. There needs to be control, in this world of no control. Team: Together Everyone Achieves More.
The next stanza is about the fisherman again! I like the fisherman. Anyways he has the grail but he is wounded and cannot regenerate his land. Another way to think of this is when you have searched your entire key ring for the right one to open the door, but when you get there, you find that the mop you were looking for isn’t in the room and you can’t clean the wrestling mats!
The last four lines are the happy ending of the poem. There is hope, and there is rain. “These fragments I have shored against my ruins” is what Eliot saw after WWI. It can be related to Pangea. The world was united, and now it has fallen apart and there is no more teamwork. “Shantih Shantih Shantih” is the rain. It is the hope.
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