Ok so you may be thinking, "the only reason she chose Parity was because it was her faction" with which I cannot entirely disagree. My choice may have had something to do with the fact that I created Parity and it would be crazy to say it hadn't. I believe in the ideas of the faction because they are what I think an ideal faction should believe in. Who knows what's your perfect fit in factions other than yourself?
Parity's central goal is to extend equality for all its members, and in this equality a freedom of expression is granted. When creating the faction I felt very strongly about this idea of equality and expression as I felt that throughout novel Divergent the factions forced its members to suppress who they are. I was sick of hearing of serums that forced people to spill their guts or face their fears and wanted my people free from this invasion of privacy. The people of Parity act as they choose, say what they feel, dress as they please, and behave as they wish. Their goals are their own and they are really able to connect with themselves as they aren't forced to adopt a way of life that they don't want.
Parity believes in peace and realizes that the only want to achieve that peace is through allowing people to be themselves and accepting others for who they are. I like this mentality, agree with it, and I could see myself living by it and being a member of the Parity faction.
I have to say, I'm kind of psyched that I'm Dauntless. I like what Dauntless stands for. They are free, can do what they choose and act as they wish. The faction empowers its members and allows them to make their own decisions, providing them with the tools they need to make those decisions. The faction's members embody what I want for myself: strength, independence, determination and the will to never give up. I want the drive that only Dauntless have, the power that the other factions don't understand. The Dauntless are exciting and exhilarating, there is never a dull moment in the compound and I feel as though that would be the faction for me. I also find the Dauntless's belief in equality appealing. They don't treat their teens any different than their adults, some are even leaders. They acknowledge that their women are just as strong as the men and seek to strengthen everyone.
This song reminds me of the Dauntless; of their freedom, strength, and how the other factions can't possible understand the courage and determination it takes to become someone who is dauntless.
I wonder if F. Scott Fitzgerald would have enjoyed Baz Luhrmann's rendition of his novel. With its CGI letters falling from the sky and flashy colors it seemed a bit unrealistic and forced, the theme of materialism and greed pushed in your face. The movie had a strange feel to it as almost half of it looked fake. The pan and zoom shots flying over the fake lake to reveal the CGI homes of Gatsby and Tom were followed by the half CGI home of Nick. And there were several shots of things either falling from or being projected into the sky which took away some of the seriousness of the film. The overly dramatic voice overs given by Nick were laughable, as were the many desperate gazes of Gatsby.
The casting was alright however it wasn't what I pictured the characters look like. Leo is good as Gatsby but I didn't love Cary Mulligan as Daisy. I think I pictured the two as a younger couple, as their actions as well as the actions of their fellow characters seemed a bit childish. Gatsby cannot handle that he didn't get what he wanted, Daisy is happy stringing both Gatsby and her husband along, Tom is cheating, and Nick is just always awkwardly there. It seemed like a cheesy high school soap opera complete with Project X style parties and driving from Fast and Furious.
Although I didn't love most of the film, the parts I liked were the parties at Gatsby's house. The parties seemed to take on a dream like quality as there is no way they could ever be reality. I liked the modern music in the film a lot. "Young and Beautiful" by Lana Del Rey seemed a bit over played but it played into the theme of the film well. "Bang Bang" by will.i.am was a perfect fit and I also liked Emeli Sande's version of "Crazy in Love". I thought the music was a success although most people disagree and think it had no place in a film set in the 20s.
All in all the film was alright, not my favorite but not the worst film I've ever seen. There were a few awkward moments I wish were less...awkward like when Daisy is throwing clothes to Gatsby and Nick is, of course, intruding in the scene. There were also moments I wish were less dramatic such as the scene where Myrtle is hit by the car and goes flying in mid air for about three long minuets. However I can't hate of Luhrmann because he created a film that brought to life what he thought Gatsby was and everyone has their own take on the novel.
Victor Frankenstein is a dynamic character in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein as he raises questions that ponder life's most challenging and unanswerable mysteries. Through Victor the reader is forced to face the issue of a man trying play the role of God and the morality of those decisons.
Timeline of Victor Frankenstein throughout Frankenstein:
Voncille Sherard is a black woman originally from the south who was hired as a domestic worker. She was to watch the employers children, although a child herself, in most of the homes she worked. Voncille was brought up to attend church and pray each night and would instill those values upon the children she raised. Having been employed by several households, Voncille has dealt with many types of people and their treatment towards African American help. While in her first home her employer treated her as her own child and would take her out shopping with her, have her sit in the front of the bus or on her lap, would hug her and call her baby, and would yell at the man who would hand Voncille the heavy bag of groceries. So far Voncille's story sounds similar to that of the women in The Help. She raised her employers' children and cleaned their homes. Although she is only eight years old, Voncille and the black women from the help completed the same type of jobs. However here is where Voncille's story takes a turn for the worst. After having to drop out of college she returned home and got a job as a domestic for a baby of six months. She was to get to the employer's small, two-bedroom apartment at eleven and at five or six the husband of the home would bring her home. One day the husband came home alone around one or two and tried to force her into bed, telling her how much more she could make if she agreed. Voncille refused, and told the wife that she would have to find other arrangements for getting her home. Her arrangements now consisted of the husband and his friend both in the car for the ride home. About a week after the incident, Voncille had an encounter with the husband's friend. He also tried to force her into bed which she responded with sprinting from the home, racing to her house. The story of Voncille is more realistic than those of The Help but there are several similarities between the two. Voncille spoke of woman who on the first day took out a fork and a plate telling her that those were hers to use. We see Minny telling her daughter the rules of domestic work which includes just that, separate plates and utensils for the help. We see Voncille and Aibileen both caring for children and trying to instill a sense of morality on the children whose parents don't have time for them. However The Help doesn't address the major fear of Voncille which was the possiblility of sexual assault from her employer. The reason for this may be that the women of The Help are older than Voncille who is at an extremely vulnerable age. Although the topics addressed are different, both works are accurate portayals of the racism and resentment towards the black maids. They dehumanized themselves in order to treat these women with little to no respect. The actual maid's account seems to have a stonger impact as you know this story is completely true and this was a possible fate of many, many young girls.
I can understand why the book is seen as aiding the stereotype of African Americans in the U.S.. The novel is centered around black domestic maids in Jackson, Mississippi who have to deal with horribly cruel employers and a harsh environment. I get that the author is white and that she writes in a southern dialect that some find offensive. However I don't see the novel as stereotypical as it is only telling it how it was. The author herself was raised by a black maid and wants to tell the story of how unfairly these women were treated. This is really how society treated the African American maids of the south and it was probably worse. The help actually had separate bathrooms in which they were required to use and were forced to return home in fear of violence from white extremists. Unlike Mammy in Gone with the Wind the African American women in The Help are strong and inspiring. The maids know that they are endangering themselves and their families by talking about the injustices done to them but decide that they must take a stand. They are brave women who leave their home and children in order to raise the children of their employers and provide for their family. The relationship between the children and the maids is like that of a mother and daughter or a mother and son and is appreciated by those children when they are old enough to realize who their true caretakers were. They are forever grateful of their maids who raised them and provided them with the affection they hadn't received from their parents. However when it comes time to hire a maid of their own they seem to conform to the mob mentality of society and refuse to treat these women with respect. They are the true cowards as they turn their backs on the women who raised them.
I’m following
what the papers been writing about that couple from Virginia, the Lovings. It’s
hard not to follow when they’re headlining every paper ‘round. What I’m getting
at is the two were married in D.C. ‘cause there ain’t no law ‘gainst it there but
then moved back to Virginia. Didn’t they know that in Virginia their marriage wasn’
gonna fly? Virginia is under strict code, has been for centuries, and this code
is made to keep the whites and the blacks from mixin’.They have to know as everybody knows that Jim
Crow got his hands gripped tight round the South. They shoulda stayed in D.C.
where no one would mind what color they are but now they in deep with the law.
Just yesterday the two confessed guilty to violatin’ the interracial marriage
ban and were given a year in the state penitentiary. I read that the only way
for them to not go to jail is to leave the state. I don’t know what they are
gonna do next, but if it were up to me I would get myself out of Virginia. I agree
that the law needs to be changed but the way them folks going about it makes me
uneasy. Not everyone is acceptin’ of change. All I sayin’ is that these two had
been arrested for gettin’ married, not like they robbed a bank or stole an automobile, but
it’s gonna take a lot for people down south to change the way they think. They
been raised to believe that there ain’t no way a black girl and a white man are equal ‘nough
to go on a get married and I don’t think that their mind is gonna change
anytime soon. I am gonna keep on readin’ ‘bout these Lovings in the papers and I
wish them the best. Who knows what could happen? Maybe this could be one of
them landmark events that they teach kids ‘bout in the classrooms someday. I just wish them safety, wouldn’t want for them what happened in Arkansas
with them students just tryin’ to go to school and gettin’ the near crud kicked
outta them. Wonder whats gonna happen, but ‘til then, I’ll be readin'!
"If you were to tell the story of your world, your journey, how would you do it?"
My walls are far from bare. Pictures, paintings, clocks and even wreaths have found their ways to hooks, decorating each and every wall. I wouldn't say the extra weight is unpleasant, because it's not. It can shield from the sun and protect from the cold, besides, one can learn a lot by the art decorating a man's walls. And the ceiling, don't get me started. It seems as though my inhabitants are blind as the sheer number of lights which penetrate my walls are enough to light an entire football field, which, from my understanding, is quite large as I have never actually seen one myself. When the humans forget to turn out the lights, leaving their blinding shine glaring all night, I am utterly annoyed as I prefer the darkness. The humans with their human eyes, cannot see, if you even want to call it see as I don't have actual 'eyes', what I can. Perspective, in my opinion, is about experience. It's hard to gain perspective, being cemented in the ground, but I'll do my best to make due with the cards I've been dealt. As someone, once again one can argue that I'm not a someone but a something, who is only an observer I find it easy to criticize those who have inhabited my walls. What I'm trying to say, in so many words, is that I've done my share of watching. Now its time for someone to listen. This is my story. I know what goes on in every crack and every crevasse of this place. I've know for decades. This is also the story of the families who've lived within me. Oh, where are my manners? I should be well learned as a pleasant Protestant family with immaculate etiquette has once been residents. They were kind enough, a little dry for my tastes but served me well. The Cambells painted my walls with a lovely, pastel, eggshell purple, a lavender one can argue. But before I'm able to deviate again, I, as I am formally known, am the ranch-style home located at six Annette road.
My story, would be told from the point-of-view of the house.
Who knows the secrets of a family better than the house in which they reside? One can create a façade fooling the public, but once inside the comforts of their own home they return to their true nature.
My family's received countless Christmas cards where the dog is right smack in the middle of the picture, next to the smiling children. Americans today are treating their pets as members of their family, a child to care for and nurture. Dogs have come a long way from just being used as hunting companions or sheep herders. Two-thirds of American households own at least one pet, totaling to about 7.1 million. A reason for the increase in pet ownership is that it has become more affordable for Americans with the growth of the middle-class. Another huge reason pets have grown in numbers is their loving nature. Pets don't judge, they don't talk back, and they are completely loyal. They are the perfect companion and provide for a sense of stability in one's life. You know that when you return after a tough day your furry friend will be there waiting for you. They know how to cheer you up, the perfect time to help and what mood you're in. It's no wonder Americans are treating them as a valued part of the family. They care about the family just as a person would, protecting its master the best it can. If unconditional love isn't enough to be considered family, I don't know what is.
This novel sets out to send a message: as time goes on trends fade, and as those trends fade it is replaced by the next hot topic of discussion. That new topic will eventually become a thing of the past as tomorrow's generation has created something bigger and better. This constant cycle of replacing and adapting is addressed by Egan through an array of characters. She depicts them throughout different stages of their life, well adapt to society's culture and what was expected of them by their generation. As a teen, Bennie was focus on his drive to make it as a punk rocker, complete with a Mohawk and a dream. When he reaches adulthood Bennie is still in music business, however he has lost his drive to make it as a musician. He has become a record executive, conformed to what society expected as having the dream to become a musician is unfitting and unrealistic. Readers see how time and expectation shaped the course of Bennie's life, taking his dreams and aspirations and crushing them, crushing them into thin pieces of gold to be poured upon the coffee cup that is life. Goon Squad is a novel about aging, about being forced to grow up, and being forced to accept it.
Why is fitting this book into a defined literary category such an imperative and daunting task? Does it add to the plot discovering once and for all that Goon Squad is in fact a novel? The form is challenged throughout the book only adding to the storyline, so the necessity to categorize Goon Squad only takes away from its overall effect. There needs to be no definite form in literature; unique narrative thrives off the complex blending of genres and writing styles and to constrain such elements is to eradicate innovation in literature. The emotional response Goon Squad draws from its readers wouldn't have been accomplished if the novel was constructed any other way. The PowerPoint, newspaper article, and second person writing style works. It's crazy but they work. We see inside the mind of the characters, they become real to the reader, taking on a persona of their own, one in which a narrator would be unable to capture.
Pushing boundaries, breaking from tradition, and separating from the norm, these ideals have become a part of today's society, one that champions originality and encourages creativity. Egan takes the notion of new and unexpected and runs with it, as no one could have predicted the end result. What Egan creates is an innovative novel that captures the reader's attention with its constant spanning of time and characters as each chapter's perspective is up for grabs. I have never read a novel like this before. I have never had the experience of reading a book and not knowing which characters were to be introduced, what stories were coming, and which time period the story was to be taking place. What results is a novel that requires one to think and engage in what's happening and because of the effort required of the readers there is an attachment to the characters as you've become invested in their stories and lives.
What is going to become of my generation when our children are the innovators? Egan gives us a hint of the future with her final chapter of speculative fiction. She warns of children becoming reliant on technology at a young age and that marketing has become directed to appeal to their age group. This thought scares me. I am afraid to think that I am going to become the grandmother who annoys her grandson, begging him to explain this shiny new contraption or the bright new gadget. Readers are shown how time can pass a person by and how society, with its superficial standards, is continuously striving for the next innovative breakthrough.
"I used to rule the world, seas would rise when I gave the word; now in the morning I sleep alone, sweep the streets I used to own."
I wasn't sure what to expect when I embarked on the ominous "PowerPoint" chapter. Would it live up to the hype it was receiving from the class? How could there be a random PowerPoint thrown into a novel that already had a news article for a chapter and contained a section written in the second person? It seemed as though Egan wanted to drive her readers insane while writing, "what would completely blow their minds? I've already thrown in an umpteenth amount of characters, a constantly shifting time line, and very, very confusing plot, ...how about adding article and a PowerPoint? That would really throw 'em off." The crazy thing is, it works.
This book isn't like others. It's far from normal, so I'm not quite sure why I thought it would be. Throughout the novel we see a series of events unfolding, these events, which seem unrelated and obscure, matter, the characters matter. Evidence of this is when a character, Lulu, is mentioned in the middle of chapter four as the future wife of the future grandson of a present character. She is given only a sentence but returns in chapter eight and again in chapter 13. A character who seemed so irrelevant returns and has a big role in the book's ending.
The chapter I found to be the most innovative would in fact be the PowerPoint chapter. I know it sounds cliché as the entire class probably choose it but there's a reason for it: it's different, very, very different. The chapter allows readers to see into the mind of its creator, Alison. We see her life through her eyes, although we've seen the two characters she calls mom and dad in a different light. We are able to see the feelings of appreciation and resentment she shares for each of them and why they exist. In a few words, the PowerPoint is able to make what most writers of regular chapters aren't: a connection. We, the readers have invested time in the characters of Sasha and Drew and to see them portrayed as a mother and father, especially through a PowerPoint created by their daughter, it gives the characters so much more depth that a typical novel can't reach.
Goon Squad is different, but it's a good different. It's the kind of different that opens new doors in literature, questioning the status quo, creating future masterpieces.
Television today is confusing. One of my favorite shows, Game of Thrones, has many characters which required me to search a map. Well, here it is:
This map doesn't even cover the amount of characters introduced. Each character has their own back story, their own relationships. There are twists and turns in every episode, keeping viewers constantly on their toes. This show doesn't follow the mold of those before it. Full House didn't have me cringing, gasping, or crying. I wasn't hoping that DJ would find her dragons or that Danny would emerge victorious in his revolt against the Lanisters. What contemporary television does is it keeps you engaged, keeps you thinking. It's not the mindless shows that run on Saturday afternoons. Each episode ends in a cliffhanger, causing you to wonder where on earth the writers are going next episode. Game of Thrones isn't the only show taunting its views.
Lost, the immensely popular adventure drama, makes its viewers nuts with smoke monsters, flash backs and ominous talk of 'the others'. I've just completed season one and I can say that it ties as one of my favorite shows with Thrones. I never know what's coming next, where the story is headed. This isn't your average castaway story, there is something strange about this island these unlucky flighters found themselves on. Season one wraps up without voices or sounds, just instrumental music tuning it all out. The viewers see the castaways boarding the plane, ending with the beginning, showing those who are still alive, struggling and deserted, and those who have perished, casualties of the island. The dramatic end, with its music and flashback, served to me as an in memoriam, mourning those who died and the lives all the castaways once lived. It drew an emotional response from me and I am sure I'm not alone.
That's contemporary television. Those shows that reach the viewers within, making them think, making them angry, upset, anxious, making them feel as though they knew these characters. Television is no longer a one sided activity, it requires, DEMANDS, the attention of its viewers, creating a never before seen experience.
Kleptomania is defined as a irresistible need to steal, resulting from emotional disturbance rather than economic need.
I hadn't know that kleptomania was, I mean, I knew that people stole things for fun but I didn't know they stole out of necessity, to fill the void that was forming from the need to swipe something, anything. It's the way their brains are wired, they way they think and feel. It's an emotional state, a mental disorder and is not brought on by choice. Kleptomaniacs live a life of shame, they are embarrassed of who they are and what they do.
Following Sasha in chapter one of Goon Squad we see that she doesn't want this, to be this person. She snatches the wallet of an unsuspecting bathroom occupant, one who was in the wrong place at the wrong time. What follows is an exhilarating flow of emotions. The night is no longer a dull date, but an evening filled with an abundance of possibilities. I can't say Sasha's actions are justified, stealing's a crime. But the world's not black and white and not everything in this world is just.
