About the Blog

In class, I was not sure what to do or say when presenting my blog, so I skipped over the title and URL of my blog.  First of all, the URL, "negligible parallax" actually has a lot of meaning behind it.  It is a phrase I created after reading the definition of the word parallax.  Basically, a parallax is similar to a perspective point.  When you are looking in a straight line and move side to side, objects that are closer to you seem to move faster than the objects that are farther away.  Negligible parallax, to me, means that something is so far away that no matter how much you move around, it seems to stand still, much like when you stare at the moon or the stars while in a car.  This represents my hopes for the future and that even if I deviate from the straight path, I will still end up being successful and happy later on.  It also represents some things in my life that I do not like, but no matter how much I try to avoid them, they are still always there, in my line of sight.

The title of the blog, "Proceed into Space", is from the song "Selkies:  the Endless Obsession" by Between the Buried and Me.  The quote does not have as deep a meaning as the URL does, but I liked it enough to make it the title of my blog and I made the background match it.  The quote represents changes in my life, like going to college for the first time.  This is my first semester in college, so I was very scared at first.  However, instead of avoiding it and being afraid, I just dove right into it and made sure to do everything I have to.  Like space, there are still many things that are unknown to me, but that will not stop me from exploring and making the best of my college life.

Overall Class Reflection (revised)

After reading over my original class reflection, I realized that it sounded very negative and did not get my true opinion across.  As I said earlier, I tend to let small details bother me.  This is part of the reason why my original post was so negative.  After reading the blog assignment, I immediately thought, "Really?!?  A reflection about what I learned in the class?  What the hell am I supposed to write for that?...".  After actually taking some time to think about it, I realize that I overreacted about the assignment and took out my frustration on the professor and the class itself and I apologize for that.

Truthfully, I did gain a lot from taking this course; I am just very stubborn and do not like to tell people that I benefited from something they did.  Professor Brady is a great professor, she is always full of enthusiasm, and she is always prepared when she comes to class.  I enjoyed reading most of the stories, plays, and poems in the class and gained more writing experience from the papers.

Even though I am going to school for Computer Engineering, which revolves heavily around math, computer science, and physics, I did enjoy that I was able to take an English class.  It allowed me to write analysis essays again before I completely engross myself in just the required courses for my major.  I was also able to present my opinions in front of the class, which helped me work on my fear of being in front of large groups.  This also helped me project my voice in front of people because I used to mumble a lot whenever I spoke.

Medicine Wheel - Between the Buried and Me

Cartoon Comparison

            Even though this next class assignment was not really a lecture, I enjoyed it.  We had to answer the questions, “If you had to compare yourself to one thing, what would it be?  What is the significance of this metaphor?”  I took some time to think before answering this question, but decided to compare myself to an elephant.  After thinking about it further, I realized that I was really comparing myself to the way most cartoons portray elephants.  I usually have a very good memory and I am stubborn on most topics.  Also, I am bothered by things that are usually pretty insignificant, much like cartoon elephants are afraid of mice, which pose no threat to them.

Poetry Presentation

            More recently, we compared poems with song lyrics in class in groups and presented them to the rest of the class.  Even though I do not really enjoy working in groups, it worked out, oddly enough, because of the absences.  The number of absences caused it to be impossible to present as a group, but it worked out in the end; the few students that were left out of the remaining groups were allowed to just present whatever they had written down.  I enjoyed this because I no longer had to worry about work distribution; I just presented my ideas on the song I chose and compared it with two poems.  I was also kind of glad that the quote “first place in a backwards marathon”, as well as my interpretation of it sparked a discussion among the class.

Desire Discussion

            While reading the play, A Streetcar Named Desire, we discussed the differences in class between inherent desires and created desires.  It made me realize how many of our desires are created by the media.  Also, many inherent desires are skewed by advertising and the media.  For example, we need food and water to survive, but advertising causes us to desire specific foods, like candy or soda.  We desire foods like these, not because we need them to survive, but because advertisements make them appeal to the senses.  Naturally, all animals have sexual desires.  However, humans desire marriage and dating because the media, as well as society, cause us to believe that dating and/or getting married will allow us to fulfill our sexual desires.

Paper #3

“A State of Ardent Life”

            The poems Barbie Doll by Marge Piercy, In Time of Plague by Thom Gunn, and the song Ad A Dglgmut by Between the Buried and Me all have a similar theme:  something that can be considered beautiful by one person can be viewed as ugly or wrong by another person.  In Barbie Doll, the speaker refers to a girl/woman who changes her appearance in order to stop others from mocking her and in In Time of Plague, the speaker has sexual desires for two men at a gay bar, but cannot decide if he wants to sacrifice his reputation by acting on these desires.  In Ad A Dglgmut, the speaker is defending heavy metal music from people who cannot take it seriously because they claim it is just noise.

            Marge Piercy’s Barbie Doll describes a small girl in the first few stanzas as an innocent, typical child.  “The girlchild was born as usual and presented dolls that did pee-pee and miniature GE stoves and irons and wee lipsticks the color of cherry candy” (Piercy 1-4).  The little girl is happy; she plays with toys and has not a care in the world.  However, when the girl reaches the age of puberty, “a classmate said: You have a great big nose and fat legs” (Piercy 6).  This changes the girl’s attitude from content and care-free to self-conscious and insecure about her looks.  Later on, Piercy describes her as “healthy, tested intelligent, possessed strong arms and back, abundant sexual drive and manual dexterity” (Piercy 7-9).  She says this to show that the girl has inner beauty still, even though her classmates do not care for her physical appearance.  However, she says after this that “her good nature wore out like a fan belt.  So she cut off her nose and her legs and offered them up” (Piercy 17-18).  Piercy is saying here that the girl, who is now a woman, decided to get plastic surgery because she was tired of being considered ugly by others.  The last stanza serves to prove the main theme of the poem:

                        “In the casket displayed on satin she lay

                        with the undertaker’s cosmetics painted on,

                        a turned-up putty nose,

                        dressed in a pink and white nightie.

                        Doesn’t she look pretty? everyone said.

                        Consummation at last.

                        To every woman a happy ending.”

                        (Piercy 19-25).

Piercy is saying here that the woman may as well have died because she altered her appearance and personality so much in order to be accepted.  Then, she ironically adds the last line, “To every woman a happy ending” to say that women think that plastic surgery makes them happy, but it really just changes who they truly are.

            In the poem, In Time of Plague by Thom Gunn, the speaker is conflicted; he cannot decide whether or not he should act on his desires to have sexual relations with two men in a gay bar.  He says, “I love their daring, their looks, their jargon, and what they have in mind.  Their mind is the mind of death” (Gunn 12-14).  He is comparing acting on his desires to death because he fears the judgment of others, since homosexuality is not very widely accepted in 1992, the year the poem was published.  “I seek to enter their minds:  am I a fool … or are they the fools, their alert faces mere death’s heads lighted glamorously?”  (Gunn 22-28).  He cannot decide if his desires are foolish or if the two men are foolish for being so accepting of their decision.  The speaker says, “I am confused … to be attracted by, in effect, my own annihilation” (Gunn 3-5).  This further proves the point that the speaker feels that acting on his homosexual desires equates to social suicide.

            Ad A Dglgmut by Between the Buried and Me is a song that uses various literary and musical elements in order to defend heavy metal music from people who judge it too harshly.  In the first 60 seconds of the song, the vocalist screams random nonsense instead of actual words in order to represent how music in this genre sounds to most people that do not enjoy it.  All they hear is just screaming and cannot make words out of it.  Later on, when there are actually lyrics in the song, the speaker says, “Scream loud, loud, loud, loud.  Static intoxication, sing this lovely violin song.  Beat this bottle on a wall.  Scream, scream, scream” (Rogers 5-8).  Thomas Giles Rogers, the main lyricist for the band, uses repetition of the words “loud” and “scream” to refer to the fact that many heavy metal bands only focus on the heaviness and brutal sound of their music instead of meaningful lyrics and musicality.  The speaker says later on, “It all makes sense... we're capable of beauty through sounds that make one cringe.  The dogs only hear us now” (Rogers 11-13).  He is saying here that some people find beauty in heavy-sounding music, especially if the artists switch between a very heavy sound and a lighter, more peaceful sound.  The song up to this point is extremely heavy and Rogers screams all of the vocals, but the tone of the music transitions into a slow, light sound during this quote.  This further proves the theme that it is possible for music to be considered beautiful even if most people find it offensive to the ears because of its heavy sound.  The phrase, “the dogs only hear us now” refers to the fact that only the die-hard fans would even hear the soft part of this song, since most people would be turned away by the tone of the rest of the song.  He also says after that, “The first time, tears came to my eyes while I was listening.  Noise brings so many things... makes my tingling skin freeze” (Rogers 14-15).  The speaker is saying here that the first time he heard music transition between two extremely different tones, it brought tears to his eyes and made him shiver.  He uses this to further prove his point by saying that he finds this kind of music so appealing, that it literally causes his body to react to it physically.

            The poems Barbie Doll by Marge Piercy, In Time of Plague by Thom Gunn, and the song Ad A Dglgmut by Between the Buried and Me all have a similar theme:  something that can be considered beautiful by one person can be viewed as ugly or wrong by another person.  Piercy uses the story of a little girl’s transition into a woman to prove this point and Gunn describes a situation in which a man cannot decide whether or not to act out his sexual fantasies.  Finally, Rogers uses tone, repetition, and onomatopoeia in order to defend the genre of music his band is classified as.

Overall Class Reflection

To be honest, this semester, I did not learn much at all in my English class.  I learned how to properly format a citation in MLA format, but not much else.  I am not saying that I did not gain anything from the course, but it is just a 100-level English class.  Many of the literary works we read were interesting, as were some of the discussions, but most of the course depended on formulating opinions, writing about them, and presenting them. 

            Ever since I first learned how to analyze a work of literature using literary elements, I enjoyed it because there are always so many elements that can be used to prove a point.  Also, there are various perspectives that a literary work can be seen from.  The “fishbowl” discussions we had in class helped me see the literary works we read from different perspectives, but I felt that the giant posters decorated with colorful markers were a bit unnecessary.  I prefer to use index cards, a notebook, or an occasional slideshow when I present something in front of others.

            I don’t want this to seem very negative, as if I’m saying “I gained nothing from this class; it was stupid” or anything like that.  I just want to make that clear.  A lot of the lectures and discussions were thought-provoking, but I will get to that specifically in other posts.  Overall, I think this was a fun and interesting class.  Unfortunately, the only other English class I have to take is Technical Writing, which does not sound like it will be very creative.  I may decide to take a writing course in the future as an elective depending on how much room I will have in future schedules.

Paper #2

“Anatomy Defines More than a Few of the Gaping Holes in our Social Fabric”

            In the plays The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins-Gillman and Hills like White Elephants by Ernest Hemingway, women are forced to conform to society’s gender roles.  This is a recurring theme shared with the song, “Turn Soonest to the Sea” by the band, “Protest the Hero”.  However, Hills like White Elephants hints at this theme while The Yellow Wallpaper and “Turn Soonest to the Sea” expose it directly.

            In The Yellow Wallpaper and Hills like White Elephants, the speaker and Jig (respectively) are troubled by the gender roles that they are expected to conform to.  The speaker of The Yellow Wallpaper refuses to take on the roles of a typical mother figure at that time:  cooking, cleaning, taking care of the baby, and staying home all day.  She says this in paragraphs 48 through 50:  “Nobody would believe what an effort it is to do what little I am able, —to dress and entertain, and order things.  It is fortunate Mary is so good with the baby.  …I cannot be with him, it makes me nervous” (Perkins-Gillman 48-50).  In this quote, the speaker is saying she cannot conform to the female gender role, which would require her to dress the baby, entertain guests, order from catalogs, and take care of the baby.  She also says earlier that “congenial work, with excitement and change, would do me good” (Perkins-Gillman 14).  The fact that the speaker wants to get out of the house and work instead of being forced to cook and clean proves that she is unhappy being forced to conform to the gender roles of the time period she lives in.  However, she is forced to endure the rest cure in order to treat her serious case of “hysteria”.

In Hills like White Elephants, Jig is expected to give into the American’s demands by having the operation.  He doesn’t force her to do it or threaten her, but he tries to manipulate her by constantly repeating phrases like “if you want to, you don’t have to.  I wouldn’t have you do it if you didn’t want to.  But I know it’s perfectly simple” (Hemingway 55).  He knows she will get annoyed by his repetition and hopes that this will cause her to just impulsively agree with him to get him to stop talking.  The American believes that Jig is just his sex puppet and that if he can convince her to have the abortion, he can continue to take her around the world, staying in hotels along the way.  Jig’s fear of causing a disagreement with the American becomes apparent through her actions and words.  She merely hints at her pregnancy by saying about the hills, “They look like white elephants” instead of just bringing it up directly (Hemingway 9).  Also, in order to get the American to stop talking, she asks, “Would you please please please please please please please stop talking?” (Hemingway 98).  This does not show that Jig should fear being abused by the American, but in the time of the story, it was unheard of for a woman to be living on her own, especially if she was pregnant.

Protest the Hero’s main lyricist, Arif Mirabdolbaghi was once known for his creative lyrics and very touching album called “Kezia”, which discusses the wrongful prosecution of a young woman with the same name as the album.  The song, “Turn Soonest to the Sea” exposes a lot of the problems with the society during its fictional setting using irony.  The speaker uses phrases like, “put some plastic in your tits; you’d look better as a blonde” to represent the way a lot of men feel about women’s looks (Mirabdolbaghi 13).  This shows that women are viewed as sex objects that are exhibited mainly for the entertainment of men.  Later on, the speaker also says the following, which show that women were supposed to act a certain way, but were expected to be nothing but “whores”.

“So when you bled on the bed as you fed those expectations as a whore, not a human, you embraced with hesitation the very parameters of all you can be:
not a mother, not an aunt, not a sister that's not subdued
because dignity is not physical and your flesh means more than you.”

(Mirabdolbaghi 20-24).

These lines are very cruel intentionally to represent how unforgiving society can be.  Earlier, the speaker talks about how the society is extremely patriarchal:  “We've made you all the peasants and we've made ourselves the kings” (Mirabdolbaghi 10).  The speaker expresses his hopefulness for a better society in the future later on with the following quote:  “Maybe someday when, when this bloody skull has dried … a plaque will read, ‘No woman is a whore.’” (Mirabdolbaghi 31-35).

            In the plays, The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins-Gillman and Hills like White Elephants by Ernest Hemingway, there is a recurring theme of gender roles being assigned to women.  Both of these stories share this theme with the song, “Turn Soonest to the Sea” by a band called “Protest the Hero”.  As you have seen, Perkins-Gillman expressed her frustration through the thoughts/writings of the speaker.  She refused to conform to the gender roles of her society and was punished by a treatment that was disguised as a cure.  Hemingway hints at the idea of gender roles in society through the actions and careful choice of words by Jig.  Although she does not seem to know how to communicate effectively, she decides instead to hint at things instead of speaking directly.  Protest the Hero used irony to show the similarities between the fictional setting of “Kezia” and life as it is now.