Power Vs. Authority: A Thing By Me

It's been a good run this year in my AP Literature class. Good times. Now I'm only a few days away from graduating high school. It's bittersweet to think about it, but I'm ready to move on to the next level.

Before I do that, I created a sketch in honor of William Shakespeare's play "The Tempest", which was the first piece of literature we read last semester. My favorite character is Ariel, who I admire for his wit, charm and loyalty. Even Grady Harp believes that "Taymor and Shakespeare together make the important character of Ariel, Prospera's obedient sprite, a thing of magic." Ariel, a magical being of great power, was saved from a tree by Prospero, the castaway Duke of Milan who claims to be a sorcerer. To repay Prospero for his rescue, Ariel is in debt to him until he has completed his servitude. Although Ariel has a good relationship with Prospero, he has outgrown his service and does everything in his power to be free from service. Personally, I relate to Ariel on an emotional level.

It's interesting how Ariel has all the power in the world to create whatever he wants, even the tempest that brought Ferdinand's crew to the uncharted, mythical Island where Prospero and his daughter reside. He respects Prospero, to an extent, and doesn't disagree with his terms, no matter how deceiving. It isn't because that Prospero has a greater power than Ariel—in fact, Prospero is probably not a "sorcerer" at all. His true power comes from his sense of leadership and a great knowledge of his studies, which makes him the authority of Ariel.

"Power Vs. Authority" by myself. (You can see my self-insert in the upper left corner. Ariel from "The Tempest" is in bottom right corner.)

So I made this sketch as a visual of power vs. authority. No matter how much power Ariel had, his abilities are overshadowed by Prospero's authority. I also drew out the parallels between Ariel and myself—his respect for the duke, and mine for my parents. We have to power to create what we desire, but we still have a certain respect for our respective authority figures.

Ariel has done his job and is free to be his own leader, as I am ready to graduate and go off to college to be my own individual. It's good to be accountable for your own being. So with that mind, have a great summer!



Grady Harp's review of "The Tempest": http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1274300/reviews

Beloved and Animatronics: Vengeful Spirits

In Toni Morrison's "Beloved", an African-American runaway slave named Sethe kills one of her children in order to prevent them from living life as a slave. Now alone with her daughter Denver, they live in a house on 124 Bluestone Road in Cincinnati, Ohio. Paul D has come to visit them regularly, but has drawn out the ghost of Sethe's murdered daughter, who calls herself Beloved, and seeks revenge on her mother. Sethe, out of guilt, is consumed into a life of serving Beloved, to the point where her other daughter Denver seeks help from the local community to drive out the spirit. 

Similarly in Scott Cawthon's game trilogy "Five Nights at Freddy's", a man dressed in a animatronic costume lures five children from a family pizza diner and murders them. However, the spirits returns as hosts in the other animatronic suits, and corner their killer into a dangerously disassembled animatronic suit, which crushes and kills him. Later in the 90's, a man named Mike Schmidt works the night shift at Freddy Fazbear's Pizza for very little payment, and is haunted by the five animatronics. With the help of a phone recording of the previous night watch guard, Mike is able to outsmart the animatronics and survive five nights in the diner until he is released from his job. 

Toni Morrison's "Beloved" (book/movie cover)

Original FNAF Cover by Scott Cawthon

There are many similarities between the two horror stories. Beloved is depicted as the reincarnation  of a vengeful baby, and saps away everything Sethe ever wanted-freedom. Beloved torments and sucks the life out of Sethe to the point where she becomes frail and on the verge of death, which Denver takes note of. Even Paul D, who reunites with Sethe after Beloved disappears, is afraid that she will give up on life and die just like Baby Suggs. In Brendon Priestley’s article “The return of the dead and the repressed in Toni Morrison’s Beloved” (published 2002), it is said that Beloved is based off the hardships of slavery to  “represent a return of the repressed on an even grander and more resonant level; the rekindling of the memory of a forgotten and ignored people.” Many theories swirling around the Five Nights at Freddy’s series also suggest the vengeance of the forgotten murdered children. In the game itself, the company owner of Freddy’s sweeps the murder incident under the rug in order to stay in business, ignoring the harsh truth for thirty years. The murdered children are assumed to seek vengeance on their unknown killer, and are provoked to attack adults. Nadia Oxford writes in “Murder, Ghosts, and revenge: The Larger Story Behind the Five Night’s at Freddy’s Games” (published Feb. 11, 2015) that “when Phone Guy brings up the investigation in FNAF 2, he also says the animatronics have taken a sudden dislike to adults, even though they're still fine with kids. If the suits really are possessed by the spirits of the murdered children, they certainly have reason to take issue with grown-ups.”

Although though Sethe had some reason as to killing her daughter, she and the mysterious man both murdered the children out of their own will. The five spirits and Beloved come back to haunt their killers, even if it means taking vengeance on the innocent as well. Paul D and the guy on the phone are similar in the way that they bring a sense of reality to the haunted estates. Finally, Denver and Mike Schmidt fall victim to their respective ghosts, and overcome the haunting by searching for a resource of aid, drawing them from the crossfire and saving their own lives.

References:

"Beloved" by Toni Morrison (1987)

"Five Nights at Freddy's" by Scott Cawthon (2014-2015)

http://www.brentonpriestley.com/writing/beloved.htm

http://www.usgamer.net/articles/murder-ghosts-and-revenge-the-larger-story-behind-the-five-nights-at-freddys-games

Cleaning- A Flash Fiction

 Based on the beautiful art by Byron. You're a cool dude, man.

"Cleaning" by Byron Otis

Lotte was an odd maid, she was. She never liked having it easy.

She liked her work, Lotte did. She took pleasure in taking control. She didn’t want her work as a maid to be boring. Even now in the middle age, she was stubborn whenever any of her employers made her job simple, and when they did, she would retire.

Always looking for a challenge, Lotte was eager to find an employer who wasn't immediately taken by her.

After quitting again, she traveled along the shore of her homeland, carrying nothing but a pail and a few of her things, searching for someplace new, and hopefully, a new manager to keep her on her toes. Lotte liked to impress. If only it weren't so easy.

That was the problem with the people in her country. Everyone was too happy and easy to please. Sure, Lotte liked good folk. But she especially liked making unhappy people happy.  

And so, she glanced at the many houses along the shore, looking for one that could give her a challenge.

And then she spotted it. A gloomy, withering mansion that screamed despair all the way to sandbar.

She walked up the wooden stairs that led to the porch of the gothic mansion, her clogs clopping along the way. Clop, clop, clop, all the way to the doorstep she went. Lotte knocked.

There were footsteps, and a dark figure emerged. He had long, dark hair and a grim face. He dressed in a black robe that went past his feet.

Fascinating, Lotte thought. She gave him her name and declared that she was a maid looking for a job.

He frowned. “I’m not looking for a maid. I’m a doctor. What do you know about my cleaning ability?”

“Pardon me, but what do you know about cleaning, as a doctor?” She asked.

He scoffed. “Enough to keep things relatively organized.” Lotte caught that. Relatively.

“Well, surely I could be of use. I'm lively, and better yet, stubborn. It'll be hard to turn me away,” she smiled.

“Really?” He questioned. “Even in the midst of a situation?”

“Oh, yes. Even better,” Lotte chirped.

“If you're so sure, why don't you have a look at my work—I'm actually in the middle of it right now.”

He let her in, leading her down the dimly lit hall. The floorboards creaked with his shuffling and her clogs. Clop, clop, clop, they went, until they entered the room at the end of the hallway.

The room was large. One wall had a table lined with equipment of all sorts. There were two paintings of a sailboat at sea and a lighthouse on a cliff. They were spotted with red.

The floor was also spotted at the core, just underneath a metal bed. There lay a man, sweating in agony. The man's leg was the source of the red stains. The thigh was cut open.

“I'm a surgeon, you see,” the doctor said, walking back to the man. “I cut people open, and I sew them back together.” He focused on finishing the last stitches of thread in the man's leg. After being bandaged and given medicine, the man paid his dues, got up, and wobbled out. The doctor didn't bother to walk him out, though—instead, he took the knife he previously used, and wiped it clean in his robe.

The doctor turned to face Lotte. “So, I'm sure that this job wouldn't be quite appealing to—“

He dropped it. She was covered in blood, her pail laid on the ground. Lotte was already scrubbing away the red mess.

She just grinned. “When do I start?”

He blinked, and for the second time that day, frowned at her. “I guess you already have,” he huffed, reaching to pick up his knife. “Well then, do you have any questions?”

Lotte's grin only got bigger. “Yes. How did you get blood on your paintings, doctor?”

Lotte was an odd maid, she was. But she was glad to have found her challenge.

Monsters Make Bad People

Well folks, this is the last update until I am otherwise notified.  I’ve had a good summer with you all, and I hope that you did, too.  Anyway, let’s get this show on the road, shall we?

So, on to the third chapter of Thomas C. Foster’s “How to Read Literature Like a Professor”. In this chapter we discuss monsters, particularly, vampires.  In the third chapter, which is cleverly titled “Nice to Eat You: Acts of Vampires”, Foster explains how monsters are the illusion to the bigger picture within literature. In many ways they portray the worst of people, only back then it was voodoo to even mention anything relating to the birds and the bees, alcoholism, you name it. So, monsters were used in place of people in classic literature, acting as symbols, to perform acts of communion.  Yes, there are more ways than one to portray acts of communion.  Like in the last chapter, which described how some authors use food for imagery, this chapter deals with the use of monsters.   

And so, the reader is introduced to something mysterious, something new.  Eye candy within literature.  In this chapter, we learned about attractive, older men that seduce younger women and ditch them later.  Or, as Foster points out, the “vampires” classic novels. You get the idea.

And there’s more than just vampires. Foster points out these “monsters” performing various acts of communion in the following works: “Dracula” by Bram Stakes, “Interview with the Vampire” by Anne Rice, “A Christmas Carol” by Charles Dickens, “The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde ”by Robert Louis Stevenson, “The Turn of the Screw” by Henry Jones and his other novel, “Daisy Miller”, “The Metamorphosis” and “A Hunger Artist” by Franz Kafka, “Innocent Erindira” by Garcia Marquez, “The Fox” and “Women in Love” by DH Lawrence and, finally, “A Severed Head” and “The Unicorn” by Iris Murdoch.

So, vampire and monster interpretations are found in all sorts of literature to portray acts of communion that lead to the destruction of themselves and others.  Since using monsters to portray sinful characters was so popular in English literature, today’s authors – especially in pop culture – like to create their own characters as monsters.

My personal favorite monster genre, heavily featured in the twenty-first century through books, movies, comics and video games, is zombies, a mythological undead corpse from Haitian folklore.  Zombies can be interpreted in so many ways. You could compare zombies to people who are absorbed by technology and lack sleep, carrying on sluggishly on minimal rest from the previous night.  Zombies can be interpreted as the newer generation losing itself to technological advances, only to lead themselves to destruction and return to the stone age.  Zombies can also be somewhat similar to ghosts, symbolizing the loss of a loved one and haunting said person.  That person can also be led to their own demise and can dragged down after suffering the loss of a person close to them.  For example, there are characters haunted and/or brought down by the dead in AMC’s “The Walking Dead,” based off the comics by Robert Kirkman.  To name a few, (SPOILER) Andrea loses her sister Amy to a zombie mob, or “walkers”, and Daryl Dixon suffered from the loss of his brother, Merle (notice how both characters had a close connection with their lost one). 

Andrea saying goodbye to her sister Amy

Daryl Dixon putting down his brother Merle

In summary, acts of communion can be portrayed in many ways from food, to vampires, to zombies, and more.

Food and Drinks Make Everything Better

Hello again! Today I'll be reviewing the second chapter of Thomas C. Foster's guide on "How to Read Literature like a Professor". In this section of the novel cleverly titled "Nice to Eat with You: Acts of Communion," Foster explains how characters in literature work their ulterior motives through well planned events-namely luncheons and dinner parties; rather than a simple get-together to lighten the mood.

Foster begins to tell the reader that things are just what they are. Cigars are cigars (Sigmund Freud). Food is food, meals are meals, et cetera. And he's right, that's all they are. So why does an author write a scene about characters smoking at a joint, or eating food, or refusing to eat food? Because there is something else happening within that moment than meets the eye. It could be friends befriending enemies, or strangers. It could be that someone is plotting to reveal a secret over dinner. Or maybe it's a simple act performed by two friends as a way to tell the reader, "I'm friends with this person, we're close, this is normal for us." Whether the scene provides a positive, negative, or neutral outcome, these are all "acts of communion," as Foster puts it. There is always an ulterior motive behind such events, just as there are hints of foreshadowing in elaborate descriptions within literature. Foster points out these types of allusion in "Tom Jones" (Henry Fielding, 1749), and "Cathedral" (Raymond Carver, 1981).

It's actually quite easy to spot acts of communion in literature, especially in a meal scene within a novel. After all, what better way to break the ice than doing it over supper time? Anyway, I believe that watching movie based off a book without actually reading the book is cheating, okay? So before watching BFF's Toby Maguire and Leonardo DiCaprio portray Nick Carraway and Jay Gatsby, I borrowed my mom's copy of "The Great Gatsby" and read it first.

(Spoiler alert for "The Great Gatsby": read on or skip ahead to the next paragraph. You have been forewarned. Thank you, and have a nice day.)

Actual Proof That I Own The Novel

So, towards the end of the book, Gatsby is prepared to announce his love to Daisy Buchanan and expects her to tell her current husband, Tom Buchanan, that she never loved him for the five years they have been married, and has always loved her first love, Gatsby. However, despite her love for Gatsby, and her knowledge of her husband's affair with another woman, Daisy still loves her husband, and is torn between the two of them. She secretly wishes to keep her recent affair with Gatsby a secret. Meanwhile, Tom's ready to call out Gatsby for selling bootlegged alcohol in drugstores (remember, this is the US in the 20's, way to go, flappers) and accuses him of not being of blue blood/pure blood/born into money, as the Buchanan's friends Jordan and Nick look on and act as the supportive friend and the third wheel.

And so, here they are, all together at the Buchanan's estate for a luncheon, to get better acquainted with one another, or something along those lines. The room is described as hot and humid, too hot for a summer's day in New York, and the adults are taking in nervous and/or greedy gulps of whiskey. Are they just having a normal luncheon? No. Gatsby's ready to tell the world of his undying love for Daisy, Daisy's a nervous wreck trying to avoid conflict with Gatsby and Tom, Tom's about to hand Gatsby his "a-hem" and level on with Daisy on their affairs with other people, while bemused Jordan and a poor Nick are there to be innocent bystanders of "a-hem" hitting the fan. (Source: see chapter 7 of F. Scott Fitzgerald's, "The Great Gatsby). Things get pretty heated from there.

Actual Leonardo DiCaprio

And that, my friends, is another example of an act of communion. Until next time, take care.