11th, November: New lifestyles, old problems

‘Cortes Island’ and ‘You're Ugly Too’ may be both focusing mostly on effects of careerism on people, and as far as I remember, it was the 90’s when serious concerns first sprang up about this matter. The so-called ‘one-person group’ seems to be the main reason corrupting the marriage of the young couple in the former, and keeping Zoe lonely in the latter.

It’s implied in Cortes Island that the younger couple ends up the same as the old one, but it doesn’t seem that the reasons are the same – except for the old lady having a spirit as individual as a modern carreerist woman’s. They’re just ordinary married modern people who start their lives in a cheap apartment, believing that living and thinking completely different from their parents’ generation will prevent them ending up anything like them, but it seems we’re susceptible to the same mistakes, whatever the cultural background; if one lifestyle doesn’t lead there, another will. The husband appears to be hard-working, and gives all the financial and emotional support that seems necessary, but doesn’t look much after his wife’s less relevant needs – it may be even a little old-fashioned, but with an individualistic attitude. The triangle of wife, husband and the old man holds strong resemblance to that of Catherdal’s, only in a perverted, sexist, so-nineties-ish version.

Carreersim in ‘You’re Ugly Too’ is much more pronounced; Zoe is in a kind of dead end. She obviously focused on her carrier, but now her ruined private life undermined her emotional balance which, in turn, began to undermine her mental balance, and now she’s not even really good at teaching. Her health problems may have been derived from those circumstances, and she begins to feel there’s no way out. Earl seems to be her male counterpart, and while he blames careerist women, I’m not convinced that he was the victim of his divorce. Their expressions of their problems are ridiculously obvious: Earl is obsessed with getting laid, while Zoe wants the world know that she’s doomed. Such an infantile way of self-expression may be connected with careerist people lacking social skills.

28th, October: How to stop being an immigrant

‘Hunger of Memory’ is a detailed explanation of immigrant children’s curious situation in a foreign language environment, and also a quite one-sided, decided essay against affirmative action. Rodriguez examines an old dilemma – sticking to tradition or adapting to the environment. He points out that a child of an immigrant family cannot be socialised in both American culture and their family’s at the same time, and there’s no way being successful or well-educated with the second.one. His explanation isn’t uninteresting either: he describes how the confrontation of the two cultures molds a child’s still developing concepts of language and intimacy. It’s an amazing example of how human mind develops itself according to its environment during infancy and childhood, rather than following a fixed pattern; Spanish and English appears as a ‘private language’ and a ‘public language’ in his mind. His lack of English skills defines his social skills, and since it’s his ‘public language’, it doesn’t only make him feel like he shouldn’t speak English, but also like he shouldn’t go public at all – and we are close again to environment-induced quasi-insanity which is usually nothing but a healthy (yet sometimes disadvantageous) adjustment to the circumstances. Rodriguez concludes that such a situation is already too difficult for a child, so it doesn’t worth concentrating in bilingual or bicultural education or anything like that; he exclusively advises to sacrifice family tradition and relationships to any extent it’s necessary, or else there’s no way escaping being an underrepresented immigrant for a lifetime, no matter how the government might try to help – if you want a good life in the States, then you’ll want to be an American.

On the other hand, he’s not shy to admit how it all may end up: he details his complete alienation from his relatives, his loss of intimacy (as well as loss of general intimacy within his family), and his embarrassing moments at his grandmother’s death bed, as well as a hunger of memory.

21th, October: The Great Gatsby

Just after I began to read ‘The Great Gatsby’, I was happy to acknowledge that I’m reading some of the very best of English literature. I started thinking about what makes a novel the best, and wondered if any novel can be really great if its background is not related to the reader. (The question itself is largely theoretical, of course, since at least the motif of human nature makes some relation to all readers). Well, it took lots of pages until I even remotely felt that I’m reading some really great literature; not as if I’d found it mediocre before, only it seemed nothing more than a fairly written thing about rich New Yorkers in the 1920’s, and I couldn’t see how could this story evolve into a reasonable crisis, or how this (polite and intelligent, but otherwise not very special) Gatsby will prove to be great – great enough to be the great man of one of the greatest novels. In the end, however, it turns out not to be solely a ‘roaring twenties’ story, but also an ageless character’s struggle with this setting. He’s a very romantic character in the classical sense, but he appears in a scenery that is everything but romantic. While this scenery corrupts his dreams and methods in a way it does everyone else’s, it doesn’t affect his character. He pursues his love and wealth (which is his preference even though it’s also needed to marry Daisy), his methods are illegal, but he knows what he is doing, and is not distracted by money, power, or anything else, nor his good intended and loyal character have changed, even though he’s not educated to cope with being wealthy. It’s his picture of Daisy that’s changed: since she’s nowhere near sublime enough to be worthy of such an effort, her image gets overromanticised Gatsby, is aware of that – at least after he meets Daisy again – but he doesn’t back out. When he ultimately fails, he considers his role in life finished. Whether that means a great character or a coward is a subject to controversy, of course, but this kind of character makes The Great Gatsby a classic, nevertheless.

14th October: It’s not the wallpaper

I’m pleased to see that environment-induced insanity (or, in some cases, quasi-insanity) is concerned in many of this semester’s stories; apart from me being interested in the concept of sanity, it’s also an essential motif in my thesis. The most curious thing about ‘The Voice from the Wall’ is the wife’s impossible situation – she’s under extreme pressure of several serious problems. Had anyone payed attention to her situation, it would have been obvious that she’ll inevitably go insane. Her situation is hopeless: her new life in the United States is making an obsession out of her past from the very beginning. At the immigration office, she loses her identity, which could help her beginning a new life, but, in fact, it rather causes a shock than relief. Then, this confused woman with a reasonably blank page inside is living with a husband whom she cannot talk to, in a city where she can’t speak to others, either, including fellow Chinese. What is being written on those blank pages is alienation and fragments of her memories – and none of them contributes to good emotional balance .The husband is another amazing element. I’d never realised his similarity to Cathedral’s narrator until I began to write this post, though he may be even worse – he doesn’t even realise his wife’s grave need to find some company (and learn some English). By the time her daughter grows up a little, she picks up some definite insanity (provided she hasn’t arrived like that already), and when he gets frightened by a chinese man – probably seemed to recognize her old seducer – her fragile balance gets slowly overthrown. It’s not really implied, but her condition probably contributed to (or caused) her second miscarriage, finally throwing her into madness. Ironically, her husband can’t easily recognise even that. It’s interesting to note the contradicting title: it implies that insanity will be concerned, but in the story, it’s the real voice of healthy people coming from the wall.

7th October: A most subjective narrative

If ‘Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?’ was a story hard to interpret, then ‘The Cathedral’ was one I remained quite clueless – is there something I haven’t noticed or it is ‘only’ about the narrator gaining insight? After doing some research, it turned out that I hadn’t actually missed much – it was only the epiphany of the narrator itself that I couldn’t deal with. It was obvious that there’s not much intimacy between wife and husband, because that latter – mildly speaking – lacks some empathy which is made up by Robert, whom the wife tells everything via the tapes. A motif of alcohol is unavoidable as well; I myself pay some professional attention to spirits, so if it seems even to me that too much booze is coming around, then there’s something definitely wrong about it. Perhaps those two have found out that they get along better if both of them have a little every once in a while – keeping a little of everything at home is quite the hallmark of ‘drinking every once in a while’ kind of people. The narrator also turns out to know exactly nothing about the blind; so if he wasn’t interested in his wife’s friend, that makes the prospects of the visit even worse. I haven’t noticed how well Carver’s famous method works: from the narrator’s subjective point of view, despite some obvious clues, his problems don’t seem as bad as they are – except his amazing cluelessness about the blind . Not only he’s someone lacking insight (which further deprives the narration of objectiveness), but he also talks from a present perspective, rather than as a reminiscence. Now, about his epiphany... it comforted me for some extent to know that this ending is regarded a ‘zero-ending’, and the narrator’s success of gaining insight is important rather than what he’d exactly find out – a surprising idea. Usually, it's not easy to realise the importance of problems we are not affected by. Douglas Adams' Somebody Else's Problem field may be working better than it seems to.

30th September: It's All Over Now, Baby Blue

‘Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?’ is not an easy story to interpret, and the murders that inspired it aren’t much of a clue either. I had a look on the other source of inspiration – i.e. the Bob Dylan song – which turned out to be just as ambiguous, but bringing the two together implies some radical change in somebody’s life and a goodbye to their present self – one way or another.

Now, we’ve got a serial killer’s case in the background and a story full of curiously unreal elements which may be explained with a dozen of theories (the story could be completely symbolic, Arnold could be an alien, etc.), but the simplest background would be that the whole setting is a nightmare induced by the murders and driven by the desires and fears of an adolescent girl. If that’s the case, the short story doesn’t indicate a shift between reality and dream – just like we don’t realize such a shift as we fall asleep and begin dreaming. Basically everything becomes improbable about Arnold upon is arrival to the house: he has an impossible name, a curious car with his name on it and ornamented with several other lines, and an appearance like that of imperfectly pictured characters in a vague dream. His friend in the car – being more or less out of Connie’s attention – is seen almost merely as an animated doll. The above are completed with something perfectly improbable: Arnold is as omniscient as far as the story goes.

Not only real and symbolic/dreamt elements are mixed up in the story, but there’s also no hint whether distinguishing the two is important or not – the story focuses on Connies’ experience about her desires (those she regards completely mature), her fright upon getting close to their fulfillment, and her decision (or involuntary drifting) to actually fulfill them.

23rd September: Social Responsibility

Europeans often don’t see any sense in the way Afro-Americans’ equality is emphasized in the U.S. media. In many cases, it seems unnecessarily highlighted, almost in an infantile way (some even thought that it’s illegal to feature a pair of cops in an American movie without one of them being black), while American movies often present an overall peaceful (and even trustful) relationship between Caucasians and Afro-Americans. The latter can be easily seen trough, of course, and it is more or less widely known that even today, there’s a lot of tension between those people. It is far less known, though, that this official altitude is relatively new, and it’s contrasting the former one that used to be quite the opposite. Battle Royal is a surprising reading for an average Hungarian: different forms of public humiliation posed as a cultural event, and considered a good-intended initiation ceremony for black men. The conditions of the narrator delivering his speech are, however, even more humiliating. The speech is scheduled just after the fight; the boy performs it soaked in sweat and blood, in the same gear he was fighting in. The hosts leave no doubt in their comments that they consider him some kind of speaking ape (as well as black people in general), whom they most benevolently allow to express his thoughts in public – almost implying that they could, by all rights, keep them all in cages. All that in the twentieth century. If you ask someone in Hungary about the past of Afro-Americans, you’ll typically hear that they were slaves until the late 19th century and they had a hard time getting all the rights a citizen is supposed to have, which doesn’t sound as bad as it was. It is not really known that their social equality had been a taboo for a long time after the end of slavery, an idea that was officially considered a kind of rebellion.

16th September: Slightly Scandalous

While The Magic Barrel doesn't make it that obvious, it unfolds problems of Jewish-American communities, just like Defender of the Faith. If I’d have to name a tenacious group of people, that would be – considering their internationality – the Jews, so it’s most surprising to see some of them making their troubles public. (It was an interesting part of Frank Herbert’s Dune series that – in a distant future when the civilisations of ancient Earth are already merged and long forgotten – suddenly a hidden Jew community appeared. Their communities and traditions survived ten thousands of years in the story.)
The Magic Barrel reveals the emotional (and thus partly religious) shallowness of a would-be rabbi. The need of a matchmaker wouldn’t be much of a flaw – he’s not supposed to be a womaniser by any means –, but he’s personally disinterested and also never loved anyone. The matchmaker’s moral flaws are referred to as well: he wasn’t only unable to provide his daughter an appropriate moral education, but he also failed to love her thereafter.

Defender of the Faith is a much more obvious story about religious and moral flaws: sergeant Marx finds that being a soldier, a Jew and a human are three things constantly interfering with each other. A sergeant is not really supposed to approve every religious requirement, or do personal favours, while a Jew is supposed to obey religious rules, but not supposed to help in case someone abuses their religion to make life more comfortable. Being human, however, may confront with both, and that is what he sacrifices for the former two. It is still not his decision that is seen the most scandalous but Grossbart’s altitude towards his religion: he’s not actually interested in following his religion, and he’s not really interested in hiding it either. He also grossly abuses Marx's kindness, against which Marx's revenge can be seen as a proper response – Grossbart was to send someone else to the front instead of himself, after all.

18th March: Dark Depths of Yellow

Serious stories are always connected to current affairs or issues experienced by or known to the author. Exceptions can be the ones dealing with topics never out of season, thus they're not really exceptions. After reading 'The Yellow Wallpaper', I supposed it doesn't belong to the latter, so I had to look up its background before evaluating it. The story seemed to be only about a woman driven nuts by a lack of stimuli, so there had to be just more to it. It was reassuring, though, to find out that's exactly the case, only with a reference to the era's medicinal methods partly based on contemporary stereotypes of women.

Her developing madness may be evident from the beginning for those who are keen to suppose it, but assuming other possibilities makes the story more exciting for open-minded readers (provided they don't know the background). Since the narrator is the woman itself, everything is described in a perfectly subjective way. That keeps some questions open, at least unless the creeping woman appears everywhere, that being very typical of madness. Supposing the woman to be more or less sane at the beginning, the wallpaper is already damaged when they arrive, which would allow some space for a fantastic hypnotizing or magical pattern on the wall, though it seems to be ridiculously far from the author's concern.

The criticism of this aspect of the era's medicine is really clear and straightforward: a depressed woman is destroyed being a sister and a wife of two well-recognised doctors, who are never going to assume that their 'modern science' may be flawed at some points. (That should be considered highly unscientific, shouldn't it? It have been typical all along human history, though.)

It's also interesting to see how far we've come from that conception of women (a little bit too far, maybe) that almost totally distinguished their emotional needs – and how this change changed women themselves in the meanwhile.

11th March: L'amour est éternel

I’ve found myself in the embarrassing situation of not having two stories to compare; however, a slight analogy with ‘An Occurrence At Owl Creek Bridge’ should be observed: dozens of clues are given to the end result, but they’re also misleading at the same time.

Although the readers may sense the irony throughout, they likely perceive it being only against the preconceptions of ‘civilised and tender white people’ and ‘barbaric and rough black people’ when it ‘turns out’ that Desiree is partly of black origin. The facts otherwise seem to be in order. Seeing an austere white man who is softened by love is just natural, just like a ‘black woman’ who seems to be simple in her emotions and was a foundling anyway.

Overrating of genetic differences’ relevance is affected in two aspects in the story. The more apparent one was discussed above, and the other one is overvaluing the state of being a descendant of great families; it's half cultural even for Armand, though, since he rather talks about ‘names’ than ‘blood’. In addition to the above preconceptions – which lead Armand to a ridiculously immature, yet also disastrous decision – another related problem emerges. When Armand turns out to be the ‘black’ one, one may comprehend that Desiree wasn’t that plausible to be the culprit, after all; we’ve just found that logical because we wanted to. If a situation is supposed to be logical, then it will usually seem to be, and that is what makes preconceptions really dangerous.

It should be mentioned that the vocabulary of the story was almost simple enough to read without a dictionary, and those words I had to look up were mostly French loan-words, which wasn’t really the case in the previous ones.

4th March: The Wild West

The thing this week's novels had in common was the confrontation of civilised and barbaric forms of human life, or at least what are called such in our culture. In 'The Bride Comes To Yellow Sky' by Stephen Crane, it happens directly and by completely devastating the idea of barbarism, while in 'The Law of Life' by Jack London, 'barbarism' is meant to be contrasted with the reader's own culture, and while it definitely degrades the former for some degree, it also leaves space for musing.

The town marshal and his newly married wife are representing the wilderness of Yellow Sky and the spreading civilness simultaneously – on the train and at home, respectively. The story actually concentrates on the way how sophistication (and thus civilisation) wins over barbarism. We may see it on the train already, but it’s the end of the story which is devastating for the latter: it demonstrates that no self-confindence is unbreachable if it’s hit at the right point, even by chance (and the only way to improve its probablity is being more sophisticated). It's also worth observing that any kind of behaviour connected with childish activities may look ridiculous in an instant to anyone when confronted with adult matters.

The second story about the former indian chieftain however, makes only a slight judgement about barbarism, referring to the narrow-mindedness of the old man’s ideology. The narration is intended to be neutral, and there are no things in the forest that would make a contrast. It could be seen as a comparison between the values of pagan religions and Christianity – obeying nature and living in harmony versus reaching for Heavens and incurring all the illnesses of a misused body and mind. The average reader however – and the century in which the story was read may not make a difference – is probably not impartial enough to make objective judgements on the story, and it’s also questionable if the writer was. It may be an effective tool to write a neutral narrative while letting the prejudice of the audience to do the rest.

25th February: Two Tragedies

I think I'm supposed to find some parallelism between this story about the leaping frog and the hanged man at the bridge. While the former seems to be utterly funny and pointless, and the latter a deeply emotional and mournful one, I'm not to be distracted easily.

The point I'd like to make first is that – while I may be completely wrong regarding this story – sometimes a piece of literature may have a desired effect other than entertaining, even if there's no definite message. Due to this nature of the effect, it would be hard to express its essence; perhaps an adjustment in the way we see the lives of different people. In both stories I think, we've got protagonists who made the right decisions in the beginning, but then, they forgot to pay proper attention and made bad mistakes. One can find real tragedy in the leaping frog’s story by ignoring the comfortable set of a supposedly fictitious story in a supposedly fictitious story and the fact that Mr. Smiley hasn’t got any particular features to deeply sympathise with. It is funny though that the reader enjoys a writing that (s)he more or less agrees to be pointless and basically boring.

A completely different, yet interesting issue of the second story is that whether the imagined escape is unreasonably long considering the few seconds of fall in which it was experienced or not. Probably the best answer is that the writer didn’t care, and nor should he. Many of us have already experienced dreams that seemed scores of minutes long, while they occurred in just a few minutes’ sleep, and that phenomenon may be strengthened further by extremes of danger. It’s also somewhat surprising that the dénouement surprises most of the readers, although several clues are given. The most important perhaps is the ticking of the watch that seems to slow down infinitely, and the environment being a bit surrealistic during the escape. Half of the readers may take those as regular exaggerations, and half may concentrate too much on the success of the protagonist; as for me, I’ve fallen to both.

18th February: Slavery.

I have to tell I read the two excerpts without having an authentic image about slavery in America. The most serious material I've seen in the topic was probably that quite naturalistic film I saw when I was 13 or so. (The film itself was about a black American woman being sold by a black master to another black master, but I can't recall much more about it.) I had, therefore, to rely on my sense of realism in order to decide what I should think about the two stories.

The first one by Harriet Beecher Stowe was hard to believe even in the beginning, but it deliberately passed the line of realism afterwards. One may accept that the slaves of the household were favoured by the masters (at least for the sake of comfort), but I just can’t help visualising the whole scene exactly like a Walt Disney-cartoon. You can almost see the floating smell of the cookies, and you most probably wouldn’t be suprised if one of the ill-behavioured slave kids – isn’t their behaviour surpassing any expectations regarding a situation like this? – would emerge and float around smiling along the trail of smell. Even if the surreality of the chapter doesn’t ring a bell, you may wonder how come that slaves are free to bake the things they please, and even if their master could be that permissive, how committed the author can be to reality if she depicts the life of slaves as such an idyllic business in an age of actual slavery.

The other excerpt by Harriet Ann Jacobs featured a favoured slave from the household, too, yet in a much more believeable way. Her master – like most of mankind – being unable to deal with the situation of possessing other people, acts with some hints of controversy. While most of us would consider him cruel and hypocrite, he seems to believe that he’s doing his best to his slaves. This is what allows the slave girl to rebel against his master almost directly without making the story too romantic or killing herself – we could call this set-up a stroke of a genius, provided it wasn’t a true story.