My Dearest Family,

Dear Mama, Brother, Ruth and Travis,

I had to go. Please try to forgive me.  I wanted to say goodbye, but I couldn’t stand the shame.  The shame of choosing to leave behind something so dear to me.  Please try to understand.  Things just been gettin’ so foggy and I couldn’t see so well and I felt so trapped and everything was goin’ far from any ray of sunshine and Asagai made the idea sound so nice and he talked about showing me “...our mountains and out stars...the ways of our people”(137) and I want to cure people there and help.  Don’t think me selfish because I’m really not that kind, but I still don’t know what kind I am and I don’t know what kind I want to be.  So that’s why I’m going and I am probably on the way.  Asagai says it will seem like I never left Nigeria and that I’ll like the lifestyle they live down there.  Me and him are getting married and I am goin’ to be wearin’ one of his sister’s dresses and they goin’ to teach me how to dance.  I hope Clybourne Park is nice and I hope them snooty white folk don’t get in the way of anything and I hope that rude Mr. Lindor don’t come over no more.  Tell Travis to behave well and to play in the backyard plenty.  Mama, make your plants grow strong.  As for the rest of you, I will feel like a part of me is gone, but I know this is for the better.  Don’t miss me too much and I’ll try to do the same.  Just know it isn’t the guitar or becoming a doctor that is going to make me who I am; it’s each and everyone of you that have helped me along the way.  I am so thankful for that everyday.  I love each and every one of you and I am so proud of ya'll.  

With Love,
Beneatha

A Fairy TAIL(of a vicious and fire breathing animal): Beware or this so called fairy TAIL could harm you too!

    Once upon a time, there was a sweet girl that fell in love with a charming young man; their families knew their children were right for each other and they lived happily ever after.  The End.

    Everyone has heard these perfect fairy tales, but I wonder if there is more to these stories than is on the surface.  The three evil step sisters are so tied up in their wealth that they couldn’t find love and Snow White is forced to run away from all of the evil where she grew up, a place that is infested with wealth almost as large and absurd and as a pink elephant.  Similar to these stories, wealth as a means of happiness causes the Washington family, in “The Diamond As Big As The Ritz” by F. Scott Fitzgerald, an abundance of trouble.  In fact most of the family loses their lives and even kills their own guests!  Although Moses was able to part the Red Sea, the Washington family couldn’t even differentiate between the contrasting ideas of wealth and happiness so the two could live in harmony with each other.  Even today, it seems as if obtaining money and a “happily ever after” have an enormous disconnect.  The rhetoric that F. Scott Fitzgerald uses such as the symbol of a diamond with no flaws, ironically having no worth if it were to be discovered, reveal the underlying theme in the story: the amount of joy you get out of living is not measured by materiality.  Although these stories point out the harsh reality of our society ruled by money, it is possible that they can change the fate of America.  While reading a story about a “diamond as big as the Ritz”, I knew that the story wasn’t far off.  When people start realize how dysfunctional it is to govern the quality of life by how much they own, the “American dream” might become something completely different.

Showing in Cinemas Near You: "The Not So Great Gatsby"

Surrounded by a society that is so indulged in self- image and status, I find it very evident that I, along with many others, have a false identity and it is so easy to get caught up into trying to prove that we are someone that we are not.  By a simple click of a mouse, one can change their appearance on a photo editing app and post it on Instagram, then wait anxiously to see how many likes they get.  If someone gets a bunch of likes, they might just convince their peers that they are “popular” or more worthy of attention.  Social medias play such a huge role at the moment in defining who we want to be and how we want others to see us.  I have been a witness to seeing the inside story of someone’s life, and then seeing them act in a completely different manner in public, distorting the image of themselves because they fail to grasp the fact that no one is perfect.  We fail to realize as people that everyone has faults and everyone has demons that they don’t need to hide, yet we spend countless hours trying to convince others of a falsity.  Even in the 1920s, people tried to get others to think that they were someone that they were not.  Jay Gatsby spends most of his time trying to prove that he was not poor and that he went to school in Oxford, while his past was much different and full of hardship.  He is so embarrassed of his past, something he couldn’t change, and needed to prove to Daisy and to everyone else that he was worthy.  As I said, the past cannot be changed, but how others perceive it can be changed.  Even if others view one’s past in a distorted way, the truth will always win over dishonesty which is seen countless times in Gatsby’s life.  The irony of it all is that the thing that makes Gatsby so great is a lie.  If everyone came to terms with their true identities, so much time would be saved and people would learn to love others for the people they truly are.

A Not-So-Fantasy World With Not-So-White Picket Fences

While reading “The History Teacher” this week in class, I was reminded of something that I read in my eighth grade English class.  In this particular class, we had to think about pretty deep things!(Well, at least for an eight grader)  Our teacher asked us to find the answer to the question, “is ignorance bliss?”.  We had to form an opinion on that question and write an essay after reading Flowers for Algernon.  I thought long and hard and still, I am quite unsure about my answer to that question. I think I may have said that ignorance is bliss, but after reading “The History Teacher”, I think I have changed my opinion.  The “teacher” in this poem euphemized every tragic event that he talked about saying, for example, that “the Ice Age was really just the Chilly Age” making the children think that everything in the world was rainbows and butterflies.  They were ultimately ignorant about the world around them, causing them to “torment the weak and the smart”, while history repeated itself.  History is bound to repeat itself where learning is not present.  The teacher may have thought that he was doing a good thing and helping the children remain innocent, but in reality the teacher was stuck in his fantasy with “white picket fences”, not even realizing the harm he was causing to the rest of the world.  The use of a picket fence is to enclose things off and to protect someone and in this case, the "history teacher" enclosed the children's perception of the world, protecting their innocence in a harmful way.

  So my answer to the question...is ignorance bliss?  Well, I guess it may be, but that bliss is offset by the amount of affliction it will cause to those that aren’t tied up in a fantasy.

.!?:;CREAtiv/ity!!!!!!

    To stifle creative expression and freedom through the written word would in the long run, stifle creative minds.  I think of writing just like any art form, like a painting or a drawing, where no parameters are present, where the artist can play with any tools they have to portray different messages to the viewers.  Each comma, each semi-colon, each question mark or exclamation point, is indeed very important, but rules of punctuation are meant to be bent to portray the message the author is trying to communicate to his/her reader.  A tasteless sentence can be transformed into wild and playful passages with punctuation- or the lack of it.  In The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison, she communicates the message she was trying to present to the reader without any punctuation at all.  Authors should not be restricted by “the dogma of the period”(Source B), nor by any other rule of punctuation.  In the debate, Sarah and Lena talked about Emily Dickinson, who is a perfect example because she is very famous and has a beautiful style, yet never followed the rules of punctuation.  Emily Dickinson has a very unique style of poetry because of her seclusion the majority of her life.  In fact, she lacks punctuation because it makes her feel free from her isolation.  Additionally, humans are sensual beings and they should be able to express themselves through creative writing any way that they please.

Heart Wrenching Realities-both terrifying and beautiful

“Public fact becomes private reality, and the seasons of a Midwestern town become the Moirai of our small lives”(188).

    I find this passage and the story of the storm previous to this quote to be quite interesting and complex.  The storm of 1929, which was a public fact, is something that can be perceived differently based on the individual’s “private reality”.  Claudia mixes up a summer storm with the tornado her mother told her about, revealing Claudia’s admiration of her mother.  Claudia describes her mother as “...strong, smiling, and relaxed while the whole the world falls down...”(187).  In the midst of a tornado, even as she is getting pulled up into a spiral of chaos, Claudia’s mother is ironically strong and happy.  Within the terrifying storm of the loss of innocence, Claudia’s mother provides stability to Claudia.  The novel’s foundation is set on trying to find truths in a world that includes frightening realities and spiraling storms of disbelief and disturbance.  The first chapter starts out with, “Nuns go by as quiet as lust…”(9), paradoxically pointing out the dysfunctional nature society has thrust upon them.  Another way of interpreting the idea of a “public fact” and a “private reality” contrasts the perceptions of Pecola’s baby.  Claudia and Frieda hear only horrible things about the painfully ugly features the baby is sure to have if it lives.  The townspeople look only at the baby with disgust because of where it came from, a disturbing relationship between a father and his daughter.  Although Claudia and Frieda hear the story an abundance of times, they think of what happened in their own terms.  Since they don’t know how babies are made, of course they don’t find the origins of the baby to be anything but beautiful which is how they think the baby will turn out, revealing their innocence, but also their wisdom.  Claudia looks past the white standards of beauty and knows she would love the baby even more than she hated Shirley Temple, which I think is a beautiful, beautiful thing.

The Magical Glasses

In The Bluest Eye, Morrison finally provides a back story to the life of Pecola’s mother, Pauline.  Previous to reading this back story, I just thought she was a horrible mother and could not fathom how she could raise her kids in such an unloving environment, but after reading the back story, my thoughts have completely changed and I realized that I judged Pauline, while I only knew a tiny sliver about her life.  Morrison writes, “I loved them and all, I guess, but maybe it was having no money, or maybe it was Cholly, but they sure worried the life out of me”(124) which really made me understand that Pauline didn’t want to be a bad mother and it wasn’t even her fault that she was.  Pauline just had a rough marriage and there were many factors that played into who she was, but in the long run, Pauline was trying her best.  That got me to thinking about how judging others is such a common occurrence in society.  I mean I hope I’m not the only one who has ever made a snap judgement about someone without even knowing the person, then later realizing how wrong I was.  Maybe you have seen someone who looks sad in one of your classes or you have seen someone who is mean to everyone.  Instead of just thinking “They could be happy if they tried.  It’s their fault!” or “Wow that guy is such a bad person!”, it would make so much more sense to realize that they have reasons for the way they act and then try to positively impact their life.  This YouTube video relates very well to the topic of judging others and is definitely very eye opening so I recommend that you watch it! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LfeXxkbgCVE  The video shows a man who is only worried about himself and blames everyone else for anything that is not going as planned in the day, but that is before he puts on magical glasses that allow him to see a part of every person.  In the end, the man changes how he sees everyone because he realizes that he isn’t the only one going through something, in specific something that is not on the exterior and can be seen.  Most of the readers of The Bluest Eye most likely saw Pauline in a different light, almost like putting on magical glasses, after they could see the reasons why she is who she is. 

XOXO, unrealistic portrayal of High School students

Recently, as I was watching Gossip Girl, I found two things that related to what we talked about this week in class. Yes, for once, Gossip Girl has helped me instead of distracting me!!!! Yay!!!  In class, we talked about the Preface of The Bluest Eye which surprisingly related to Gossip Girl.  In The Bluest Eye, the author purposely made one part have no spaces, creating a frantic mood and symbolizing that there was no space and the person feels trapped.  I found it so hard to believe that the author could put so much thought into that, but the way one part of Gossip Girl was filmed made me realize that every detail can change the mood of each scene.  In the show, the scene was set at a party and the viewer could obviously tell that something was about to be revealed because of the intensity.  The scene switched perspectives frequently in a way that made the mood very frantic.  That directly relates because there was no time (space) between each perspective creating a scene that makes the viewer feel anxious for what is about to happen.  Also, the music that was playing in the background sounded like tribal music getting faster and faster, building up the suspense.  On a side note, similar to the negative effects barbies have on young girls, characters in TV shows and movies also have a negative impact on the viewer.  In Gossip Girl, the characters in the show seem like they are so much older and mature than a high school student, making real high school students feel as if they should be more like them.  This is because the actors and actresses are so much older.  Blake Lively was twenty years old in season one, while she was only supposed to be a junior in High School.  Also, surprisingly, Monique Coleman, playing Taylor McKessie, was twenty-six when they filmed High School Musical, while she was also supposed to be a junior in High School.  This inadequate portrayal of age is very damaging to young girls because they will think that they are going to look that mature when they are that age, but most will not.  If a high school student is watching a movie that unrealistically portrays teens their age, they may wonder why they look so immature compared to the characters, clouding and distorting their thoughts about themselves and who they should be.  I know when I was in elementary school, watching these movies, I could not wait until I was in High School so I could have a boyfriend that looked like Zac Efron, look more mature and like an adult, wearing tons of makeup, and of course randomly break out into song at school, but not many of my wishes as a young girl came true now that I'm actually in high school.  Making movies and TV shows more accurate to how high school students actually act and look would stop these predetermined ideals of high school and would most likely raise many teen's self-esteem levels.

Trying to think of other words for oppression and dehumanization...

My first attempt (of many I’m sure) of writing a synthesis essay:

When I first thought about the prompt that we were asked to write a thesis for, I thought that oppressing others only leads to the dehumanization of the oppressed, but based on many of the stories we have read over the past few weeks, I find myself to be very wrong.  Looking at others as inferior dehumanizes both the one being looked upon as less, as well as the person making the other feel inferior.  In “The Meaning of July Fourth for the Negro”, Douglas refers to the United States as “a nation of savages”(source G), meaning that people in United States act in a way that is so unjust and hypocritical, it doesn’t seem human.  The oppressor in this case is being dehumanized by the oppressed by being called a “savage”, as the oppressor is also making the oppressed feel subordinate by not giving them as many rights.  “There is No Unmarked Women” also deals with the relationship of the “other” and the “superior”.  When Tannen writes about when she was in a conference and she found herself “scrutinizing only the women”(source C), an important point is brought up here.  She, a woman, is doing the exact thing that she wants to be stopped, but also realizing that it is inevitable.  As Tannen discussed, women are seen for theirs styles, shoes, makeup, hairstyles, and the list goes on and on, while on the contrary, men aren’t so much based upon these materialistic things.  So I wonder how the oppressors are also being oppressed in this situation.  By oppressing this certain group, the oppressors dehumanize themselves by almost creating a"mob mentality".  This blog post may have gotten a bit wordy, but I tried not to overuse certain words!

The Definition of Definition: define what defines you

Although most people will probably be blogging about the end of The Scarlet Letter this week, I racked my brain for some other things that we had talked about in class.(Although I have a strong urge to write about how aggravating the end of the novel was!)  I remember that once we turned in our test on The Scarlet Letter, some people said they thought it was easy, while others complained about how they probably failed.  Ms. Valentino said something very important that I need to remember more, as do most students at Troy High.  I think it was something like, “Your grades do not define you, it’s how much you learn that really matters”.  I guess it should seem obvious that grades don’t define who you are, yet I feel that many people base their self worth on the grades they receive.  I am not saying that students shouldn’t try their best and challenge themselves by taking difficult classes, but we need to recognize that such a concrete thing, such as grades, do not define someone.  So you may be wondering what does define someone.  In all honesty, I am wondering the same thing.  Is it the experiences someone has had?  The actions they take to help others?  Everything that they love and have a passion for?  Is it their biological makeup?  With all of those things, how did grades even find their way into what defines someone.  Maybe society’s focus is all wrong.  Maybe we should be graded on who we are as people, not on how many facts we can memorize.  The next time you get a test back, look at the letter grade in a new light; know that much more defines who you are than the grade written on your paper.

not a dirty word

    There is an enormous difference between how women and men in society are treated and looked upon but society today, just like in Hester’s time.  If a woman and a man committed adultery in Hester’s time, the woman’s punishment was not even comparable to that of a man.  A man would just get a minor punishment, while a women would be shunned from society for the rest of her life or even be burned at the stake.  While I was thinking about that double standard for women, homecoming popped into my mind.  I question why guys are usually the ones to ask the girl to homecoming.  Just that fact makes the idea of male dominance more prominent.  If a girl were to ask a guy, they would be thought of as aggressive and a social oddity.  Furthermore, a girl will spend at least two or three hours getting ready, while a guy would spend at most an hour.  This is because the girl feels like she has to look good for the guy, which means she ironically is objectifying herself, but that is because if she doesn’t look perfect, she’ll stand out from everybody else, breaking the social norm.  So I guess it is actually society objectifying her.  Also, the varying styles, colors, and cuts of homecoming dresses each mark a girl, while a guy isn’t marked because most guys wear suits that look somewhat the same.  The way women and men are expected to dress and act should not be based on gender.  For example, most women are thought of as weaker than men just because that is sadly most people’s preconceived notion on women and that is how most women are portrayed as in society.  I mean how many more male superheroes are there compared to female superheroes?  In reality, a women could be much stronger than a man, not just in a physical sense.   Men aren’t often associated with gender inequality, but they also too often feel the weight of gender stereotypes.  Men are supposed to be all strong and “macho”, while many guys are very sensitive.  They shouldn’t have to feel like they have to be strong, again not just physically, just because they are guys.  In Emma Watson’s speech to the UN on the subject of feminism, she talked about how two different genders shouldn’t be looked at as two opposite sets of ideals, but instead on a spectrum.  “If men don’t have to be aggressive in order to be accepted women won’t feel compelled to be submissive”(Watson).  The ideas I have talked about all embody the word feminism which is a very misunderstood word.  The official definition is “The belief that men and women should have equal rights and opportunities. It is the theory of the political, economic and social equality of the sexes.” If more people knew that was the definition, I think that more people would identify as feminists.

Curiosity didn't kill the cat...

WARNING: This blog may contain information that contradicts what you believe, but I’m challenging you to open up your mind as you read further.

In The Scarlet Letter, guilt is strongly felt by many characters as sins are committed.  In class, we discussed how guilt would affect us if we had no free will.  As I was sitting there, twiddling my thumbs, thinking about what to write, it occurred to me that this question was very biased.  Instead of thinking of the answer to the question, I thought about how I could be sure that I did have a free will.  Maybe I don’t.  Maybe you don’t.  I researched what other people thought about this subject when I got home just to see what the views on it were.  I found out that the controversial topic of free will has been debated by philosophers and probably will be debated for a long time in the future.  When one throws a rock, does that rock decide where to go?  A lot of factors play into where the rock lands, but in a nutshell the laws of physics decide where it lands.  Now let’s take a bit more complicated thing, a cat.  The factors that contribute to what room a cat wonders in include the weather, where it’s owner is and the cat’s natural instincts along many other factor, to lengthy to list.  Our life form is on the spectrum of one celled organisms to where we are today so I question why we would be any different.  According to Ortega, “the very important point here is that both nature AND nurture, both heredity AND environment prohibit free will”(Ortega).  If everyone believed we that don’t have a free will, some people might say things like “since I don’t have a free will, I’ll just lay around on my couch all day” or “it isn’t my fault I stole from this person”, but that would be taking advantage of the fact that we don’t have a free will.  Most people would probably just go along in their daily life like normal because of our human characteristics.  The topic of free will should be looked at more so people can better understand that we are part of nature, just like everything else.  I think I should include that I am not trying to inflict these beliefs on you, but I feel that people should question everything they are supposed to believe and think for themselves.  If no one ever questioned that the world is flat, where would we be now?  Opening up our minds, always being curious, will make for a much more honest world.  So for the answer to the question, one cannot really know how guilt would be affected if everyone believed that we do not have a free will.  That depends on the morals one holds and the other factors that make the person up.

Okay? Not okay.

As a teenage girl, I am familiar with the pressures that society puts on people to look a certain way.  Discussing the effects people have on the space they take up and how women are objectified in society, I immediately thought of the show Toddlers and Tiaras.  From an early age, girls are thought of as objects to many people.  In the show Toddlers and Tiaras, the toddlers are judged on their outside appearance, wearing tons of makeup and provocative outfits.  Such young girls are being taught that to go far in life, they must use their looks to facilitate their success.

   

 Since people do not choose how they look, they should not be rewarded for being “beautiful”.  As the young girl becomes a teenager, again, she will face the issue of having to look a certain way to fit in.  Advertising plays a huge role into who the teenagers look up to and want to be like.  The people that the girls look up to, are transformed to look completely different and to what society deems as “flawless” using Photoshop and an enormous amount of makeup.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=omBfg3UwkYM

Even songs nowadays, try to convince people that a woman's only use is to look good.   In the song Blurred Lines, three topless women are shown, where the men are dressed in suits showing that, according to Tsion Abera, “The video demonstrates a clear power dynamic, in which the men are dominant and the women are treated simply as sex objects”(Tsion Abera).  The difference between the space women and men take up is completely different and this needs to change. 

The Fault in Our Society