Poor Francis Macomber

I don’t know why, but I felt like Margot was going to kill her husband from the beginning.  The title made it obvious that he would die, and as soon as she was introduced I just got a feeling.  Everything she says to her husband is designed to undermine him in some way.  She is very aggressive. I know you hate that word, Dr. Williams, but I think it’s necessary here.  She keeps reminding Francis of his failure with the lion.  When she asks at dinner if Francis shot the eland, she immediately asks if they are dangerous when Francis says he did shoot them.  If he is happy about something or having a good time, she has to shoot him down.  I did think some of Margot and Francis’ conversations were funny though, because she is so mean to him in such a sweet tone.  I can just picture the scene in my head.  It seems like something that would be on a sitcom.  I liked the way Wilson analyzes Margot.  He says that American women are the cruelest in the world, and this section where he describes her sounds like he is describing an animal that he is hunting.  He clearly labels her as a predator, which is completely accurate. 

Wilson to me is a funny character.  He is so manly that he is almost ridiculous.  I feel like Wilson is Hemingway’s alter ego, which I thought was funny.  The whole time I was reading the story I just pictured Hemingway writing this and wanting to be Wilson.  He is the epitome of Hemingway’s idea of manliness: he hunts, he drinks, he sleeps with women but isn’t married to any of them, he breaks the rules, and other men are jealous of him.  He is also a fairly level-headed character who provides a contrast to Margot and Francis’ violent relationship. 

I hated reading about the hunting parts of the story, because I don’t understand the desire to hunt things.  Reading about it just makes me sad for the animals.  I did like the way Hemingway described the way the lion felt when he was shot though.  It was heartbreaking to read, but it gave me a real sense of the scene.  It set the ending up nicely too.  When it said “he felt a sudden, white-hot, blinding flash explode inside his head and that was all he ever felt,” I wasn’t sure if it was the buffalo’s feeling or Francis’.  I figured it was Francis, but I still wasn’t sure that he was shot.  I thought maybe he had a heart attack or something because of his excitement. 

I think Margot killed her husband on purpose.  She couldn’t stand not having control over him, so she did the only thing left that she could do to control him.  Shooting Francis was so desperate and cowardly that it shows she was really powerless to him once he found his confidence.  Like Taylor said in her blog, Margot is now afraid of her husband and she loses control.  I don’t think this is really intended in the story at all, but something was weird to me about how Wilson suggested leaving the gun in the car with Margot.  I felt like maybe they planned to kill Francis together.  When Wilson kept mocking her at the end it made me feel like he had talked her into doing something that she didn’t really think through.  The last thing he says to her is really creepy to me.  He will only stop when she says please, showing that he has power over her and he is in charge of the situation.  That is the line that made me think he might have set her up to kill Francis, because it seemed manipulative and controlling.  Like I said, I don’t think this is what Hemingway intended, I just thought it was interesting to read it that way. 

I felt bad for Francis.  I think he went on this hunt in the first place to prove himself.  He seemed like an okay guy, and both society and his cruel wife had him trapped and emasculated.  Instead of finding his masculinity and courage like he expected on the trip, he is further mocked by Wilson's manliness and the incident with the lion.  When he finally does take control and find himself, he only gets to enjoy it for a few minutes before it gets taken away with a cowardly shot.  His wife shoots him in the back of the head, while he is turned around and defenseless like an animal. 

My Most Embarrassing Moment

Whenever anyone asks the embarrassing moment question, I always know exactly which one I’m going to talk about.  Of course, I’ve had more than one embarrassing moment...I’ve had a lot of them, actually.  But I think this one stands out above the rest. 

 

It was quite a while ago, when I was in eighth grade.  At my middle school it was a school tradition for the eighth grade class to take a class trip to Washington D.C. for a week every February.  (I never really understood why they took a bunch of kids to D.C. in the middle of the winter.)  Our flight was scheduled to leave early in the morning- really early.  We had to be at the airport by about 4:30 am, so that meant getting up around 3:30.  I’ve never really been a breakfast person, but my parents insisted that I eat something (waffles.)  Once we made it to the airport, I thought a Dr. Pepper would help wake me up before the flight, so I got one....from McDonalds.  Never a good idea.  About halfway through the flight, I started feeling sick.  The breakfast, nervousness, and McDonalds together were a bad combination.  Instead of being smart and reaching for one of the little paper bags in the back of the seat, I decided to try to climb over the person in the seat next to me and run to the bathroom.  It didn’t work.  I threw up all over the middle of the aisle.  To make matters worse, that whole section of the plane was filled with my classmates.  I spent the rest of the flight sitting next to one of my teachers in the back (by the bathroom) dying of embarrassment while the stewardesses cleaned up and my peers turned around to stare at me.  We were required to wear our school uniforms on the plane, so we would have them to wear to a couple of other places during the trip.  Unfortunately, I had to wear that same uniform skirt, cleaned as best as it could be, to the White House.  Great. 

Somehow, I managed to survive the rest of the trip, and I actually had a good time.  I had to endure a lot of jokes about how I was feeling, but I made it.  After starting off a trip like that, I think I’m ready for just about anything. 

A Rose for Emily

I knew of Faulkner’s “A Rose for Emily” for a long time, but I never actually read it until this class.  When I realized Faulkner wrote this story, I wasn’t sure if I would like it.  My senior English class read The Sound and the Fury last year, and it was an extremely frustrating book to try to read.  I’m glad “A Rose for Emily” wasn’t written in the same stream-of-consciousness style; this style may be interesting or genius to literary scholars, but it is almost impossible to read it without getting a headache.  I liked the way Faulkner wrote this short story.  The point of view is from a third person perspective, but the person telling the story is a member of the community where Emily lived.  As a reader, I felt closer to the story because of this.  It made me feel like part of the town.  It also made the story seem more real, which is important for the shocking ending.  All of the strange little scenes that make up the story let the readers know that Emily is a very different person.  Even though I knew how the story ended before actually reading it, I was still shocked when the neighbors opened the door and found Homer in the bed.  The subtle way that Faulkner suggests that Emily has been sleeping in the bed with Homer’s body with the lines about the indentation on the pillow and the single grey hair is part of what makes it so shocking.  He doesn’t just tell us what has been happening; he makes us figure it out for ourselves.  Another disturbing part of the story that I didn’t see until we discussed it in class was the reaction of the neighbors.  When Emily died, they immediately knew that there was a room in her house that no one had seen in years.  They also noticed when Homer disappeared, and they complained about the smell that came several weeks after that disappearance.  Through all of this, no one bothered to investigate or call the police.  The neighbors all just watched Emily go crazy little by little, gossiping about her the whole time.  “A Rose for Emily” is definitely a creepy story, but I also feel like it is very sad.  Poor Emily went crazy because she was always the gossip of the town.  Her father chased away any of her possible suitors, and when he died she was left all alone.  If any of Miss Emily’s neighbors had taken the time to get to know her as a person, or include her in any events in the town, the story could have ended differently. 

The Yellow Wallpaper

At the beginning of the semester when I found out that we had to blog about a few of the short stories we read, I decided I wouldn’t blog until close to the end.  I wanted to give myself time to think about what we read, and then go back and write about several stories that stuck out to me.  There are some stories that I have kept thinking about.  Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” is one of those. 

I couldn’t stop thinking about this story for a long time because of its step by step narrative of the woman going crazy and also one of its themes that it prominent in a lot of the stories we’ve read this semester. 

The main theme I saw in the story was the early 20^th century relationship between men and women.  It is similar to many of Hemingway’s depictions of men and women, like “Hills like White Elephants,” because the man is the authority figure for no reason besides that he is a man.  He is the one who decides the “rest cure” will be good for his wife, and he basically forces her to come to the country house and stay in the upper bedroom.  At first, she believes that he is only doing this because he cares about her, but as the story progresses, she realizes that he is manipulating her and disregarding her opinion, even though she knows more about her own condition.  She is suffering from post-partum depression, a feminine problem that male doctors didn’t recognize as a real condition until much later.  I think it is a sad commentary on the attitudes toward women in this society that Jane has to go crazy to be able to escape from her husband.  She isn’t able to assert herself until she completely loses her mind, and then she is able to (literally) walk all over him like he did to her.  Since the author is a woman, I think this story is an accurate portrayal of her frustration with the male-centered society. 

Aside from this theme, I also found the vivid descriptions of the setting and the narrator’s downward spiral into insanity interesting.  When the narrator describes her room in a journal entry (a form of writing that I enjoyed reading), she says it must have been a playroom or a gymnasium.  However, her description of the room- with rings on the walls, bars on the windows, and a bed nailed to the floor- leads readers to see that the room has really been used as an insane asylum.  The fact that Jane thought these details belonged to a playroom or a gym is a sign that she was probably a little crazy the whole time.  Her fixation with the wallpaper paints us a great picture of what it looks like.  The pictures we found on the internet in class show that everyone who reads the story has a clear vision of what that wallpaper looks like to them.  The way the narrator employs all the senses in her description of the setting made me feel like I was going crazy with her.  The way she describes the curling of the wallpaper, the “yellow smell,” the hideous patterns, and damp, musty air gave me a sense of the anxiety she felt there, and it made me want to get away from the room.  Jane’s journal entries seem a bit more desperate and disjointed every time.  They become much more focused on the wallpaper and the woman who creeps in the garden and less about her husband and how she hopes they can leave soon.  In the end, Gilman leaves no question as to whether the narrator has gone completely crazy.  Her use of her name in third person when she says “I’ve got out at last, in spite of you and Jane,” shows that she no longer considers herself the same person; she separates into a whole other being.  The overall effect of the story for me was unsettling.  It left me with a very clear image of Jane creeping around the room, crawling over her husband as if he wasn’t there at all.  It is a disturbing image that I have thought about again several times since reading the story, and it makes me glad that I live today instead of in the early 1900s, where I might have been a victim of the “rest cure.”

Time Magazine: November 19th, 1928

I found the right periodicals section of the library after a few minutes of wandering around and a little help from Katy and Hannah, who were already there looking through magazines.  I chose a volume of Time magazine from 1928, with issues from July to December.  I flipped through the book to November, and found an issue actually published on my birthday, November 19^th.  It was interesting to think that I was reading something that was published on my birthday such a long time before I was born.

                The first thing I noticed about the magazine was the ads.  They were different from the ones we see today.  Almost all of the pictures in the ads were hand drawn instead of photographs, and the few ads that did have photographs had small ones.  The ads were also filled with text, nearly as much as most of the articles.  The text gave helpful information about the product in most cases, with feedback from customers that didn’t seem as made-up as most ads do today.  The advertising felt a lot more honest to me.  I enjoyed seeing some of the strange products that the magazine advertised, like the Dictaphone.  It was a huge machine that people placed on their desks to record messages, I think.  It even advertised that it was “up with the times” because it came in ten different colors.  There was also an ad for a company called College Humor, which probably has nothing to do with the popular website that exists today, but I found it funny anyway.

The magazine itself read more like a newspaper than an actual magazine.  There was no cover that went with it, just a front page with the title at the top.  The articles weren’t so much articles as they were small paragraphs that fit into certain categories.  They were split up like a newspaper is, into sections like Sports, National, and Entertainment.  There were several categories I found interesting like “aerospace” and “medicine.”  Overall, the text was written in a more formal style and on a more educated level than most modern magazines. 

I liked this assignment, because I think magazines and things that were intended for the general public can be helpful when trying to get an idea of what another time period was like.  Literature or art doesn’t always appeal to, or express the opinions of, the masses like magazines and newspapers do.  My parents have some old magazines from the 60s and 70s that I enjoy looking at, so it was interesting to see another even older magazine. 

The TCU Bookstore with Pamela

      Today I met with Pamela for the second time.  She told me today that she is on a diet, so we decided to have salads at the TCU bookstore Starbucks instead of going to Fuzzy's and eating tacos.  Karen couldn’t join us this time because she hurt her foot earlier this week.  When Pamela was explaining that Karen hurt her toe, she called them “foot fingers,” which I thought was funny.  Pamela said Karen had a doctor’s appointment today, so hopefully she will be able to join us again in a few weeks.  Pamela was planning to bring pictures of Brazil today, but she was in a hurry to get to class this morning so she forgot.  We both talked about how we are ready for spring break to start.  Pamela’s cousin is moving to California, so Pamela is going to stay with her in Los Angeles over the break.  She is excited to go to the beach and see all of the stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.  She also hopes she will be able to go to Disneyland, because it has always been her dream to go there.  We talked about our favorite Disney characters; she loves Minnie Mouse.  We both have a few hard tests and assignments to get through before the break. 

      After we ate, Pamela wanted to explore the bookstore a little bit because she hadn’t been there before.  We looked at all the TCU clothes and agreed that they were all so cute but kind of expensive, especially in the Polo section.  We were both surprised by how expensive some of the Polo shirts were.  We tried on a few hats and looked for a sale section, but there wasn’t one today.  I told her the bookstore was a good place to bring her family if they ever come to visit her, because her parents would probably be willing to buy her things.  She liked this idea. 

      We also looked at some books with pictures of Texas.  Pamela wants to make a scrapbook of her time in Texas, and she said she would bring a camera next time so we can take some pictures together.  After that, Pamela had a class to go to in the rec center.  I walked there with her since I live in Milton Daniel, and I showed her my dorm.  We’re planning to meet again next week on Wednesday, at Dutch’s this time. 

The Modern Art Museum

The Modern art museum is one of my favorite places, so when I found out we had to go there for class I was excited. I really enjoyed the Ed Ruscha exhibit that is on display right now.  I got to go on a guided tour of it when it first opened, so it was nice to go back and see it again on my own.  I love his works that involve the Hollywood sign because I think they are easy to understand and accessible to all viewers, unlike some Modern art.  His book of photography called Every Building on the Sunset Strip that was in a glass case in the exhibit was one of my favorites because it was a fun and interesting idea.  I liked how he put the buildings that were on one side of the street upside down, so that if both of the sides were folded up it would be like driving down the street. A project like that must have taken a long time to finish.  I also stopped to watch the short film in the Ed Ruscha gallery.  It was about a car mechanic who went from being a typical, greasy mechanic to acting like a scientist while he was trying to fix the car.  It was filmed well and I enjoyed it, but I think that film is a different type of art than the paintings and sculptures that are normally in museums.

This time at the museum, there were some works on display downstairs that I hadn’t seen in a while.  There are many different styles of Modern art in the museum.  I think the green candy sculpture is always an interesting one to see.  The way it works is the artist writes down how many candies and what kind of candies the sculpture needs to be made of, and then he lets the museum interpret how the candies should be displayed.  Part of what makes it interesting is that visitors can take the candy, and it makes me wonder how often the museum has to add more candy to it.  It is always funny to see people’s faces when they realize you can actually eat the sculpture.  The candies taste pretty good too.  I was disappointed because the work by my favorite artist, Mark Bradford, isn’t on display right now.  It is a huge collage work made with magazine pages, foil, and posters that the artist finds in Los Angeles.  I enjoyed seeing the Birth of Venus painting.  I love its bright colors, and it reminded me of our discussions of modernism in class because the artist was using an allusion by using this subject, just like many modernist writers do.  Roy Lichtenstein’s painting is another one of my favorites. 

There are some works in the museum that make me understand why Modern art is confusing to some people.  Dan Flavin’s fluorescent light bulb mounted diagonally on the wall is one of them.  A few months ago when my boyfriend and I saw that work in the museum, we joked that we should go to Home Depot and buy some “art.”  That one light bulb is not too impressive, but I’ve seen pictures of some of Flavin’s other work with colored lights and shadows that are much more interesting.  Modern art definitely includes a lot of different things that can be considered art, but I think “art” is something that everyone has to define for themselves.  Personally, I think almost anything can be art if the artist has a specific meaning in mind or a statement he or she is trying to make with it.  Since I love Modern art, I hope everyone enjoyed their visit to the museum!