Madame Bovary #12

It's really nice how the story in Madame Bovary is so simple. There aren't any confusing mysteries or events that are left unexplained. The narrator even explains the thought of every single character. Instead of merely saying that Rodolphe smeared water on the letter that he wrote to Emma, the narrator says that he did that in order to appear as if he was crying while writing the letter. It is because of these detailed explanations that the characters in the story seem so realistic even though I've never met anyone with personalities exactly like theirs. Without these explanations, the characters wouldn't seem as realistic because of their over-exagerated personalities.

Madame Bovary #11

When Emma encourages Charles to operate on Hippolyte's foot and the operation fails, it seems as if this represents how Emma wants anything that's not beautiful to become beautiful, even if it is not capable of becoming beautiful. When Doctor Canivet arrives to help Hippolyte, whose leg was the swollen and had to be amputated by then, Canivet said that it was pointless to try and fix his foot and that it was like trying to fix a hunchback. That means that Emma was being foolish when she encouraged Charles to operate and shows that she's merely once again being obsessed with appearances.

Madame Bovary #10

It's amazing how Emma has gone through the same cycle ever since she lived in the country with her father to (and probably beyond) the time where she has her affair with Rodolphe. Emma keeps on cycling between being unsatisfied with her life, to loving Charles, acting out (later in the form of affairs), and then repeating the cycle. It seems logical that she would eventually become aware of the cycle that she's in or at least deviate from it a bit. I expect that will be what the end of the book will be about but for now, it doesn't seem like anything is going to change.

Madame Bovary #9

Wow! I really like how it seems like Rodolphe and Monsieur Lieuvain, the guy giving a speech at the great show, seem to be acting like the devil and angel respectively on Emma's shoulder. Rodolphe is saying that people should just give in to passion and what they want because it's their fate while at the same time, Monsieur Lieuvain is yelling "ENDURANCE! PERSEVERANCE!" Also Rodolphe represents the sophistication Emma wants while listening to the person giving the speech would mean than she's choosing to be a poor, middle-class woman.

Madame Bovary #8

While at first Rodolphe seemed like he'd be sophisticated, he's actually extremely deplorable! He reminds me a little bit of Polonius because of the way he talks for a long time and uses art in his speech to make himself sound intelligent and desirable to Emma.

I feel sort of sorry for Emma that she moved from Leon, who was sincere, whom Emma could relate to, and whom Emma could talk to about various things for hours, to this creepy weirdo whose first though regarding Emma was imagining her naked. But at the same time, it's Emma's fault for being stupid and liking him just because he's rich.

Madame Bovary #7

I don't understand why Emma wouldn't put more effort into her love with Leon if she knew that she loved him and that she's miserable being with Charles. Also, I don't get why she would push Leon away more and more by pretending that she was happy with Charles and her family the more she realized that she loved him. It's almost as if she's purposely sabotaging her happiness, but then she becomes sad when she realizes that she's succeeded. I wonder what Emma's next self-sabotage will be. Since the first two were love-related, I'm guessing she'll be having another affair.

Madame Bovary #6

For the first 4th of the book, there was hardly any character dialogue and the whole story was told by a third-person omniscient narrator. Once and Emma and Charles moved, there was more dialogue from Emma and most of the other people in town, but Charles still didn't have any dialogue. It seems like people who have dialogue are the people who are higher up in class, and Emma who want to be in the higher class.

I'm not sure what effect that this switch from all narration to narration with dialogue is having on how I see the characters. The narration could be seen as more precise because of how the narrator know everything about the characters or the dialogue can be seen as more telling of the characters' personalities because it's what they said themselves =/...

Madame Bovary #5

On Pg. 93, it says ".... Charles, reappearing, invited him out in his gig to go and see one of his loal patients..." The word "reappearing" made me realize how unimportant Charles has become since the beginning of the book. I thought that Charles would have a more significant role in this book, seeing as how the first 2 or 3 chapters were practically all about his parents, his lifestyle, how he was doing in school, and stuff he did as a doctor, but now, his name sometimes doesn't even appear in a span of two pages, and when it does, it only appears once and very briefly. I guess this shows how unimportant Charles is becoming in Emma's life and how unimportant his existence is to the two men who like Emma. One of them even sat between Emma and Charles when he came to eat with them!

Madame Bovary #4

It's strange that women, according to the summary on the back of the book, want to admit that they're like Emma and claim that the character Emma was modeled after them. Emma's seems to be really weak and pathetic because she's always relying on Charles to make her seem intelligent, well-known, etc. when she isn't even doing anything herself. If she's good at playing piano and embroidering, why can't she find a way to make it into the upper class herself? I understand why she can't if it's because she's a woman and all that, but after she gave up playing piano just because she knew that no one would hear her, it seems like she's pretty hopeless.

It's also a bit hilarious how pathetic Emma is. She only looks nice, but isn't really good at much. She couldn't even dance the waltz when the guy at the ball was trying to lead her and she ended up getting exhausted and collapsing on to her chair.

Why do women want to be like her?

Madame Bovary #3

There was a strange detail in chapter 6 when Flaubert talked about the women Emma admired. They include Joan of Arc, Heloise, Agnes, Sorel, La Belle Ferroniere, and Clemence Isaure buecause of how the "shone out like comets against the lack immensity of history". The strange thing is that Heloise is also the name of Charles's first wife whom he was with when he was cheating with Emma. It seems almost as if Emma purposely chose to flirt with Charles because the name of his wife is the same as the name of one of the women she admires. It's almost as if she wanted to be with Charles not because he was a doctor or for anything else about him, but because she felt that she would become great if she could triumph over someone with the same name as one of the people she admires.

Madame Bovary #2

The moment I began reading chapter 6, it was just like "Oh no, a religion chapter. I'm not going to understand any of the symbolism." Though I probably missed a lot, I love the imagery that I saw in this chapter.

I don't really understand why, but there's a lot of dark, grey-colored imagery in chapter 6. It talked about he moon, dark curtains, a Gothic cage, ruins, and steel grey water". My only guess is that Flaubert is trying to say that Emma grew up in the church admiring things that were dark and grey as beautiful and that's why her personality is a little messed up.

Madame Bovary #1

I really don't understand why people miss people they didn't really like when they're dead.

In Madame Bovary, Charles misses his wife, Heloise, only after she dies just because "she had loved him, after all." Because he hated her so much, it doesn't really make sense that he would miss her just because she died. It makes me think that he's being sad over her death just because it's what's expected of him. He could also just be doing it for appearances since, in chapter 1, Flaubert describes how Charles looked ridiculous because of his clothes that didn't fit properly and how the children in school made fun of him because he was different. There's also the fact that Charles seems to like Emma only because she's beautiful. Other than how she looks, he knows nothing about her.

At this point however, it seems like Charles is going to be running into some "poetic justice" for this, since he cheated on Heloise with Emma and, according to the back of the book, Emma is going to be having affairs as well.

Hamlet Essay (2)

8:30-9:30

Organized thoughts for essay by making 3 sections, 1 for each part of prompt. Still not sure what to put for the "significance of the "madness" to the work as a whole" section.

Hamlet Essay (1)

3:30-ish to 4:30-ish

I got rid of my whole first essay because I didn't really understand what it was asking, especially what the prompt meant by the word "reasonable". I switched the topic of my essay from Hamlet to Ophelia because it's easier to track Opehlia's craziness than Hamlet's and also because it's hard to tell if Hamlet is really crazy.

What have I learned?

Ok, I'm still a little skeptical about some of the things Foster said, but I can see it's not all made up. I've seen a bunch of journeys where the reason for the journey is hardly mention, a jesus, a flight reference, and a whooole lot of symbolism. I still believe that sometimes a story is just a story, but I've seen that sometimes a story isn't just what's on the surface and you can see more in depth as to why the characters do certain things by paying attention to things that stand out (and have nice moment of feeling smart for a second while you're at it ;]). Even though I hated Forster's book when I read it the first time, I feel like it was worthwhile because some people do write like that o.o'.

Memories

Why is it that our memories are so... unreliable? When Amir went back to Afghanistan he was shocked and thought that the driver had taken a wrong turn; however that had always been Afghanistan, Amir just never saw it. It was extremely touching how Amir was so intent on going into his house just to see the tree that he and Hassan had read stories under and carved their names into. But the strange thing is that nothing in Afghanistan is how Amir remembers it? Baba's house was wrecked, the orphanage was destroyed, and people are begging in the street. Why is it that, among everything, that the tree is the only thing that remained the same? It must be that it's because Hassan is the only thing left of his life in Afghanistan since his father died and Rahim Khan is dying. After that, Amir's search for Hassan is like a desperate attempt to salvage the last of his childhood.

"Krusty, I'm going to try to remember you how you used to be"
"But I've always been terrible!"
-The Simpsons

Religion. Who is important to you?

I think in this story, the way Amir's views on religion show who's important to him. When he believes in religion, Hassan (who never missed prayer) is important to him. When he doesn't believe in religion, Baba (who doesn't believe in god) is important to him. At the beginning of the story he was stuck in between Baba and his friend Hassan. He believed in religion, but not completely. When he got to America with Baba, Amir had almost completely forgotten the words to his prayers tho they had not entirely disappeared because they were something he could never really forget, just as Hassan was something he could never really forget.

It really puzzled me how Amir was so religious in the hospital at the end of the story and now I believe I understand. Religion was important to him because Hassan was important to him. He still couldn't remember all the prayer words but it's the thought that counts, and he was definitely thinking of Hassan, not Baba.

Kiterunning

From the beginning of the story, I found it hard to believe that kite fighting is actually a real thing. I couldn't imagine how you can hurt yourself from flying a kite and that you can actually make a competition out of it. So I looked it up....

It's real O___O!

Now what is the meaning of Hassan being the Kite Runner? If I remember correctly, flight=freedom. But why is it that Hassan, being the best kite runner who can even predict where the kite is going to land be the person who pretty much gets abused the most in the story? Is it just because he's a Hazara? Or is that, in addition to that, he doesn't keep the kite for himself? He gives the kite, his freedom to Amir.

However, at least to Amir, the kite symbolized not freedom, but the love of Baba. But really, the kite would not make Baba love him, but just made Amir insist on gaining Baba's love. If the good methods don't work, you have to use the bad ones right? And I guess it did work... sort of. Amir got the kite and Baba while Hassan had no freedom, Kite, or Baba.

Poor Hassan x'[. But at least the book is named after you.

For better or worse?

What would it be like to live in a different society? It seems kind of nice and sometimes I wish America was more like the societies of the people that make up America. The places where valentino and amir grew up seem closer and simpler. A small town, friends you'll know your whole life, a community that actually helps each other and where people actually know each other. I guess this could happen because of how "advanced" America is. We have cars so our communities are larger and no one really knows each other we have to pay for everything like water which they can just get from the river. It seems like they would be the more barbaric ones yet we're the ones with more random violence and crime (like Tonyo robbing Valentino). But I guess we'll never be able to change back.

People like me would miss being able to type this on an iPod x__x

Loyalty

Why is Amir bothered by Hassan's loyalty?

Maybe it's because his loyalty is unreal just like how I believed Valentino's kindness was unreal. Or maybe it's because Amir feels like he doesn't deserve Hassan's loyalty. Hassan reminds me of a character in an anime called school days just because they're both so loyal. What happened to this character was pretty different (with it being a different situation and that this character was the only 1 of the 3 main characters alive at the end of the story) but the thing that they have in common is how they were both taken advantage of o.o'.

That sure sends a good message, doesn't it?

God is... Assef?

So apparently some authors do like to use the position with arms perpendicular to the body that looks like a cross to mean that that person is god. But really, that person had to be Assef? Really, Assef isn't god-like at ALL. Threatening and bullying small children, frightening parents, and raping someone? Sounds very god-like. Wasn't god in literature supposed to be some strange looking, but nice man? The only other thing Assef did is that he rose from the dead in our minds, seeing as how he wasn't mentioned for the whole middle section of the book x.x.

It's really unbelievable how, at the hospital, Amir got on his knees and started praying to god! God beats you up and then you pray to him. But I guess that's how religion works in real life too.

Cruelty vs. Kindness

I was really surprised to find that the main character of "Kite Runner" is as cruel as he is! It's kind of refeshing from the usual good guy and being wronged. I mean, Amir's father doesn't always give Amir the fatherly love that he should be getting, but Amir does his fair share of abuse as well. The reason I like the character of Amir because his cruelty is extremely real. No heroics. No bursts of courage. He's seems real just like many people who would easily consider turning their backs on a friend on need, feeling extreme guilt, craving attention from his dad, and becoming more rebelious against his father when he becomes a teenager.

Valentino, on the other hand, seems much too saintly, kind, to be a real person. He helps a random woman, buries his deceased friends while walking, and helps out at the refugee camp when he becomes older. And what's extremely sad about this is that Valentino isn't fictional. Amir is. It's almost like saying kindness doesn't exist while cruelty, however, most definitely does.

What is the What (???)

It may have taken me almost the entire book to figure it out, but I think I've gotten it now. And by the end of the book, I think it was simple to see what the What is. The What is the unknown. What does confuse me is the fact that Valentino's father had two versions of the story of the What. Is the second version supposed to mean something as well or is it really just a second version created to avoid offending the recipients of the story?

I think the message of the What is a wonderful way to end the story. It's able to link the beginning and end of the story together perfectly and show how Valentino has changed and advanced since the beginning of the the story such as how Foster (in "How to Read Literature like a Professor") said that the reason young people in literature are sent are journeys is so that they change or learn something. It's really amazing that things like this can happen in real life, that Valentino's father would remember his story of the What after all those years and mention it to Valentino at the one time he speaks to him and at the time where he needs to make an immediate decision and, therefore, the time when he needs it the most.

I exist!

Through the last lines and many lines throughout "What is the What", it seems that Valentino's whole purpose of telling his story is to make us realize his existence. Valentino talked about how TV Boy Michael, the police, and the doctors at the hospital all ignored him, so I guess I can understand why he would want to show us that he does indeed exist. But in a sense it amazes me that a book that partly seems to be made to scream "I exist!" has become a bestselling book. It's as if a 535 page internet rant written by someone who thinks no one notices him became part of the high school summer reading list. But I'm not saying I don't like the book, because I do like it and applaud Valentino for his determination to make us aware of his existence. I suppose the reason why this book has succeeded is because of the fact that it is informative, well-written, gives other messages (such as the one hidden in the story of the What by Valentino's father). I also can't help but think that it's also because it's a book about a Black-American. Because honestly, schools really seem to love making us read about the hardships faced by minorities. But I guess that's part of what we call education.

To walk with Moses

"I dearly want to walk with Moses again, and will do so, I promise I will do so, unless he plans to walk barefoot... In that case I would not join Moses; that would be madness" -What is the What

The first thing I wondered was Valentino would be so anxious to walk with his friend Moses. Did he want to because Moses is his friend? Because he asked him to? Because he wants to get out of Atlanta? I believe that it's because Valentino wants to advance and make a point: that they do exist and that they're still strongly moving forward.

Second, I wondered why Valentino would oppose joining the walk if they were barefoot. It's because he doesn't want to move backwards, to go back to the past. Walking with shoes and without shoes are completely different things. Many of the men, children, and women who were forced to walk toward the refugee camps had no shoes. To Valentino, the shoes that they are able to wear on their feet show how far they've gone. Walking without shoes would show, rather than their progress, that they are still as they were and that they are stuck in the past.

Where's the miracle?

While reading "What is the What", I realized how unreal this story seems to me, that this kind of suffering actually happened. This is because I was reading while the TV was on and left the room for a couple minutes. I came back, anxious to resume Valentino's story, but for some reason, I thought that this story was coming from the TV! It's like I thought this kind of suffering was only possible in fictional stories and every time Valentino and the other Sudanese are forced to suffer through in their refugee camps and forced to walk to some other deserted location, I admit I am amazed. It's just like Valentino said, that people expect refugees to remain in refugee camps for only a year or so. I guess I really did think so or, if not for about a year, that their time in the refugee camps would be far shorter than it actually was. It really makes me wonder how and when Valentino will actually go to America.

Communist hunt in what is the what?

On page 79 of "What is the What", Achak describes how people were forced to declare hatred of the SPLA, name others who sympathized with the SPLA, and how those who were named would also be interrogated. This sounds, to me, a lot like the Communist "witch" hunts that we learned about in US history and in the movie "Guilty by Suspicion". After reading that short passage, I predicted that at least one person's life would be ruined by this aaand I was right. Achak's father was then interrogated about his friend by the soldiers and they were forced to move away from Aweil and leave the store behind.

TV Boy as Us?

Whenever Achak/Valentino talks about TV Boy, it always sounds as if he's not really talking to TV boy but is talking to us. TV Boy seems to represent how people like us only know what we learn from the TV and that's why we look down on people like Valentino (by dropping phone books on his head and kicking the tape back on to his mouth). I really enjoy how he seems to be talking to us, the readers yet, at the same time, not. It makes me wonder. Did this TV Boy really exist or was it just made up for the story? I find it difficult that this book is part biography and part fiction because it's hard to distinguish which parts actually happened and which did not =/. Other times, the things that Valentino says to TV Boy (in his head).... seem a bit extreme and don't always seem to flow correctly. It seems like Valentino is only saying these things in his head in the story in order to continue the story of what happened back in Marial Bai. I wish I knew which parts were fact and fiction, and I hope that the parts of the story back in Marial Bai are true because I'm taking everything he says about his life back then as what really happened.

1 AM Blogging

I was thinking about this just a few minutes ago and figured I might as well write about it while I still remember...

Why is it that in "Heart of Darkness" Marlow thinks that the man who died on pg. 55 had just fallen over because he had just wrestled a cane from the attackers and not that he had been stabbed with a spear?

When Marlow first started giving the description of this man falling over on the deck and hitting his head on the steering wheel, the first thing I thought was 'oo, he's dead', but I was really confused that Marlow wasn't more surprised by this ..... Until I realized he didn't realize that the man was dead. And this seems strange to me, because he was standing so close to where it happened that the man's blood was able to flow and fill his shoes. Maybe it's strange because it symbolizes something?


So far, I have three guesses... It either symbolizes
1. how Marlow is unable to see danger ahead (such as how he chose the wrong path that led them to danger and how he may be unable to see how dangerous going to meet Kurts is)
2. that Marlow is destined to walk a path of blood and violence, even though he tries to avoid it by throwing his new shoes overboard.
3. or the suddenness of death

I guess I'll see if I'm right x.x?

Beginning Heart of Darkness

Yay! I finally got to start reading my other summer reading books! The first book I've chosen is Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad. I actually chose it because I thought it would be the easiest to analyze (since it's only 96 pages long so I'd have less to remember). However, two things surprised me. It's actually really difficult because I keep wondering if something is a symbol (like how the old man likes pigeons and how Marlow keeps on wanting rivets). The second is that the book is more interesting than I thought it would be (I thought it was just going to be about the sea after reading the first couple pages). It's actually really interesting how Conrad describes everyone. He makes it seem at first that the whites are the only people who do wrong but later shows how all people are capable of wrongdoing when he describes the men of the Eldorado Expedition which included both blacks and white men. I'm still not sure what the title "Heart of Darkness" refers to, but I'm going to guess right now that he's talking about the dark hearts of all men.

Because really, everyone Marlow describes in his story seems like an awful person. These people fire at each other and fight each other for no reason other than their god, which is actually not even god. What these people worship is the ivory within the trading business. Comparing ivory, which has already come up so many times in the book, to a god that they whisper and pray to really helps to make these men look like power-hungry fools. I'm interested in seeing if Kurtz, the man who Marlow is looking for will be the same as everyone else Marlow has met so far.

A bit insulting, don't you think?

I have no idea how to begin this, so I'll just start by saying how insulting it was how he compared (in the chapter "It's All About Sex...") the chalice to female sexuality as "an empty vessel, waiting to be filled". MAYBE those "Grail legends" are about sexuality with the chalice representing female sexuality, but describing it, and therefore women, as an empty vessel waiting to be filled is sexist and saying that the only thing women are good for is waiting for a man to "fill" them, literally or not.

Other than that, I'm finding that this book is waaay too long and boring. These examples he gives take way too long to explain and a lot of the time, I feel like he's rambling on and on forever, which REALLY makes me wonder how old he is. I'm finding that a lot of the time, I feel like I'm reading and see a phrase that's sort of interesting, but by the time I've gotten there, I have no idea what he's talking about because the rest of what he's saying is too dull, in my opinion, for me to be able to pay attention.

I remember how, earlier in the book, Foster said that the reason authors using ideas from other books is so effective is because of that "Aha!" that we get when we realize something's the same and it helps us to understand the work better or w/e. I think it's just because we like to feel smart. And when authors put in things that are like things in other books, we can say "Oh, this sounds like this" and then go tell other people how much that thing sounds like some other thing. Or we could use it to BS some essay by saying how much it sounds like some other book. I really don't feel like all these things that he's saying are necessarily true.

Honestly, reading this book irritates me because I feel like I'm going to make him correct by reading it. Like if I were to write a story after reading this, I could think of a whole bunch of extra, clever, things to put in, but would people really, really, think to put these things inside books if no one put that idea in their heads in the first place? I tried making a manga before but found that it took too much time. But in the first page, I drew a man with his arms stretched out in the position of a cross. In no way was that man supposed to be Jesus-like. It's really just an arm position. It seems to me like Foster may be promoting overanalyzation, by which I mean giving meaning to things that have no meaning.

I get it, but it's still just... ok (How to Read Literature Like a Professor)

I feel like it would be really hard to try and make connections with other books, seeing as how I haven't read all that many, especially when he says most of the books have to do with Shakespeare and the Bible. They're just things I'm really unfamiliar with. What I DID like were the chapters on children's stories and the weather, since I am familiar with both of them.

I also like what he said about symbolism, that what he's saying each symbol stands for isn't definitively what it is and that it can mean different things for everyone depending on past experiences and other stuff. Which I like ^__^. I really like having my own opinion on what I'm reading and not being told that one thing is definitely a symbol for something else. That really annoyed me last year where we were either right or wrong about the symbol, being right meaning that we had the same view as the teacher. So what's-his-name... Foster, wins point with me for that ^__^.

This book is actually taking a while for me to read. Maybe because I keep trying to focus on something to write about in the margins and then eventually giving up and just moving on... But reading this is making me want to try out what he's saying on some other books x.x But it'll have to wait, since I'm only about halfway done with this book x.x...

Am I Supposed to Believe this Guy? (How to Read Literature Like a Professor)

So far I've read up to page 16 (including the introduction) and I'm confused on how anything that he's said so far has to do with being able to analyze literature. He's saying a lot of stuff that, I guess, makes sense such as characters going on quests (unless it's not a quest?)and characters eating together to show their relationships with each other, but I don't see how this is going to help me analyze literature. I don't see how knowing that characters go on quests and that they eat together is going to help me reach the conclusion that Mr. Lindner is the devil and that Beowulf represents the universe's hostility towards humanity and the darkness of human nature. Maybe I missed the point or maybe he'll get to the point later, but for now, I just don't get it.