Coffee & Literature

Southern Girl: A Play on Jamaica Kincaid’s Girl

Jordan — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 18:28:09 +0000

(I hope this is ok, it was mentioned in class that this was a blog possibilty but I did not see it on the blog list)

A man is not a man unless he has a truck, a cowboy hat, wranglers, boots and a six pack of Bud. Always keep a bottle opener in your back pocket, if you forget it make sure your hands are strong enough to twist off the bottle cap. Make sure the oven is always preset on 350, biscuits, bacon and sausage, brown just right. DO NOT BURN! Tailgate foods at the ready; make sure you have a steady supply. Wash the jeans, make sure you leave a little mud on the pant legs, a man always needs to look like he’s been working, don’t make the whites too white or the colors too bright. Always have something in the oven, a woman should bake and have food ready at a seconds notice. Don’t get taken in by fancy cars and diamond rings, the man you want works the land for his money and will take care of you at all costs. Don’t settle for a Chevy; keep your eyes on the Ford. Kenny Chesney is a jerk, Willie Nelson is a lover and Toby Keith is a sex god. Music isn’t music unless it has a guitar and the singer has a southern twang. Make sure you got a healthy appetite and you’re not too thin, a man doesn’t want chicken legs, unless they’re for eating. Have a small town attitude with big city dreams. Church on Sunday’s, chili cook-off’s every Jan., trips to Tennessee in the summer, own some plaid girl for heaven’s sake and a big buckled belt or two. Roundup on Friday nights, its right, right, left, left, back, turn, hit up that two step, time your turn for Save a Horse Ride a Cowboy, watch where you throw your lasso. Don’t be afraid to ride the bull, it’s a necessary thrill. Be kind to your elders, don’t talk back, and respect your grandma and God, and good grief sweep that floor right, at least twice a day, you know the sort of dirt that gets trekked into the house at moment’s notice. Don’t wait too long for children and try for two or more, get yourself a hound dog and a shotgun, leave yourself protected. And if that boy your dating is acting a fool, you give him your two sense and threaten his truck, he’ll shape up. But most of all love, love and let live, give your heart and don’t be afraid to lose it. Hurt is a part of life. This is how you light a fire, fry a turkey and make beer can chicken. This is how you get a nice southern fry, heat the oil, bread the chicken, pour in the Tabasco, we like it hot. The way to a man’s heart is through his stomach and in the cooler. Corona is a poor man’s Budweiser; don’t bring that filth in the house. This is how you drive a stick shift and maneuver a tractor, make sure it’s a Deer. This is how you hook a catfish, this is how you got it, girl don’t you dare serve that fish without a proper fry and collard greens. These are the lyrics to Free Bird, these are the appropriate karaoke songs- Pasty Klein, Reba, Shania and Leanne- and here I come. Jimmy Buffet is your brother. God.Country. Family. Our boys go to war and fight the right fight and you just make sure you send your care packages as often as you can. Most importantly, Sundays are for football, food at the ready! And it’s five o-clock somewhere.

Posted in American Lit, Women's Lit Tagged: Jamaica Kincaid

My Poets in the Kitchen: A Creative Attempt at Paule Marshall’s Poets in the Kitchen

Jordan — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 17:46:06 +0000

As a child I was always in the kitchen, I felt more at home there than in the solitary of my bedroom or in the imaginary lives of my Barbies. The kitchen was a consistent place, the epitome of warmth and comfort, where some kind of drama or honesty was ever in the making. Paule Marshall’s “Poets in the Kitchen,” is reminiscent of Alice Walker’s “In Search of Our Mother’s Gardens” in that she places her knowledge and intelligence as a skill acquired through the words and actions of her mother during time spent in the kitchen and garden. As cliché as it seems, even offensive at first, I think that most young girls learn the majority of their lifestyle skills and knowledge of the world in this setting.

Home, to me, was in a variety of kitchens. After my mother and father divorced, because of my mother’s status as a single mother of four children, we were constantly moving from place to place simply because we could not afford our residence anymore. But none of those townhouses, apartments and suburban houses were my home. What I remember most about my part-time houses were the kitchens, they were my universal home. Nothing was left uncovered in the kitchen, no rock unturned, no mysteries unsolved, no topic was left untouched, from politics to pop culture, from childhood nostalgia to thoughts about the future.

When my mother was close to giving birth to my twin sisters, my brother and I stayed with my mother’s best friend Sue. I was used to the kitchen being an area filled with laughter and chatter; here it was all talk of the future, of advancement, of prospects. This was not a kitchen I was used to. This was the arena in which I realized that I needed to think about my future. The kitchen was impeccably clean; the white tile floors glimmered, reflecting the glare of a double-door stainless steel refrigerator- freezer combo. The counters were neatly organized with labeled canisters, coffee, tea, sugar, flour…there were dish towels hanging on the handle of the oven, the dinning table was set, complete with a bouquet of fake flours, red, yellow, green, in the center.

Sue talked of cleanliness, homework, good grades and college. She was a housewife that was going back to college to be a middle school history teacher. She wanted what was best out of life, was always at the gym, eating organic foods, taking vitamins, showers twice a day. I definitely was not used to that. Her motto was that cleanliness was not only godliness but that taking care of the body was insurance for the future. This mantra is what instilled in me the need for the gym, for vitamins, for vegetables even. She was constantly finding creative ways to bring health food and exercise into her daily routine with hula hoops, bike rides, walking around the block, the pool, and trips to Whole Foods. The only women ever in Sue’s kitchen were her little girls, all three of them my best friends, it was here that she built a relationship with her girls, not at swim meets or cheerleading practice but where the food was made and plans were built.

My favorite kitchen would have to be my aunt Gretchen’s. Whether it be Christmas, Thanksgiving, New Year’s or a cousins birthday there was a permeating aroma of French vanilla coffee- no doubt the reason for my caffeine addiction today- and women everywhere. My grandmother, aunt and mother hustle and bustled their way to cooking enormous feasts with huge smiles on their faces. I’d hear about my aunt and mother taking off from home on the pretense of going to Mexico for a few days and coming back a month later. I don’t think as children we see our mothers as capable of adventure or in the image of anything but our mother. It was here, in the kitchen that I met my mother for the first time. I realized that she was full of passion, she wrote poetry, loved to draw and had been all over the world, with countless of adventures under her belt before she was the age I am today, 19. She was full of happiness and excitement, I started becoming aware of my mother’s likes and dislikes, of her past relationships, of sadness, resentment, how she met my father… I know full well that this is how my mother and I became best friends, and I also have a similar relationship with my aunt Gretchen.

As I grew older I became more and more involved in the baking and aiding in the kitchen, so that I became one of the girls, no longer the daughter or niece. My whole relationship with the women in my family changed because of this. I felt a complete contentment, I could talk about anything and everything and get solid, well thought out, sagacious advice and not fear being condemned. Many people don’t find that sort of trust for the majority of their lives but I found it at an early age, in the only place I feel at home, the kitchen.

Posted in American Lit, Women's Lit Tagged: Paule Marshall

In Search of Sexual Freedom: Edwidge Danticat’s Breath, Eyes, Memory

Jordan — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 20:56:05 +0000

Sophie Caco’s progression from adolescence to adulthood can be psychologically analyzed from three poignant pinpoints that placed significant pressure of her sexuality: the series of “testing” assaults that her mother performed on her and Sophie’s course of action to stop the abuse, the birth of her child and the painful sexual relationship with her husband Joseph and finally, Sophie’s eating disorder, therapy and ultimate forgiveness of her mother. Edwidge Danticat’s “Breath, Eyes, Memory” follows the matriarchal line from grandmother to granddaughter and their haunting traditions for protection of purity as was expected in Haitian culture to insure respect in the family name and reputation.

Posted in American Lit, Women's Lit

Jack Gladney’s Fear of Death: Don DeLillo’s White Noise

Jordan — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 21:03:52 +0000

Don DeLillo’s “White Noise” is a multifaceted book with many confusing themes including, but not limited to, fear of death, American consumerism, technology as the enemy and loss of definite identity (GradeSaver). Grasping DeLillo’s roundabout methods for presenting these aforementioned themes can be difficult. By breaking down the foundation of the book- the reason for the title “White Noise”- understanding DeLillo’s reasoning is a lot less complex. Excerpts from the New York Times Book Review on “White Noise,” a four page article written by Jayne Anne Phillips in January of 1985, shortly after “White Noise” was originally published, analyze these themes and break down the various components that make up DeLillo’s idea of what precisely white noise is and the role it plays on America as a society.

Phillips’ analysis answered two of the questions posed in class: what white noise is and -via an interview by phone with Don DeLillo- why Jack Gladney is a Hitler studies professor. Phillips characterizes white noise as “…America’s soundtrack…expressway traffic…television…the bold print of tabloids…fast food and quad cinemas…automated teller machines…endlessly distorted, religious underside of American consumerism …supermarkets…” (Phillips 2). In addition to this, DeLillo relates the noise to children in general, claiming, “They are a form of magic. The adults are mystified by all the data that flows through their lives, but the children carry the data and absorb it most deeply. They give family life a buzz and hum; it’s almost another form of white noise,” (Phillips 4). Merged, these joint definitions can be viewed as the precursors to what white noise heralds, death. Consumerism and technology are intertwined with DeLillo’s interpretation of fear of mortality and are part of the white noise because they present an attachment to products and information. This connection, as Murray Siskind relates in his supermarket conversation about the Tibetan Book of the Dead, links these ideas as the origin and reason for fear, that these ties to Earth are what instills an overwhelming sense of one’s mortality (DeLillo 38). Children, as Babette mentions in one of her conversations with Jack about who would die first, when they leave home further the sense of impending death because there are no more little ones left to care for.

Jack Gladney’s constant dread correlates with his job. When talking about his novel and the character of Jack, DeLillo states, “It’s about death on the individual level. Only Hitler is large enough and terrible enough to absorb and neutralize Jack Gladney’s obsessive fear of dying – a very common fear, but one that’s rarely talked about. Jack uses Hitler as a protective device; he wants to grasp anything he can,” (Phillips 4). Jack’s attachment to Hitler although used as a shield from death may in fact be what is causing him so much anguish. Hitler, in spite of being immortalized by history, was a mortal, something I think Jack ignores. By meshing his identity with Hitler, Jack loses his own and reverts back to this tether as a source solid ground renewing his fear of death through attachment to a historical figure.

Works Cited

DeLillo, Don. “White Noise Study Guide.” GradeSaver. 10 Nov 2008. Gradesaver LLC, Web. 17 Nov 2009. .
Phillips, Jayne Anne. “White Noise by Don DeLillo.” New York Times (1985): 1-4. Web. 17 Nov 2009. .
DeLillo, Don. White Noise. 20th. New York, NY: Penguin Group Publishing, 1999. Print.

Interesting Info

Posted in American Lit Tagged: Don DeLillo, White Noise

The Epistolary Novel: Delving into the Feminist Intricacies of Alice Walker’s The Color Purple

Jordan — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 20:41:39 +0000

Often regarded as the precursor to the novel, epistolary fiction began in the late 17th to early 18th century originating, according to fame, in France and Britain with Samuel Richardson’s “Pamela,” Fielding’s “An Apology for the Life of Mrs. Shamela Andrews” as well as Charles Louis de Montesquieu’s “Lettres Persanes,”(enotes). Epistolary fiction is composed of various clandestine letters or epistles, chronicling the private intimacy or personal events of the correspondents. The structural benefits of the epistolary form are that it creates a fast-paced, moment-to-moment tale flooded with individual and sometimes multiple points of view that allow the reader to assess opinions on specific events and formulate their own truths or judgments (Bowers). In addition to these attributes, by writing in letters, the epistolary form deviates from previous attempts at substantial, heroic fiction in that the plot is richer, character development is centralised and it “…lends realism, complexity, and psychological subtlety…” to the story (enotes). Perhaps the greatest significance of the induction of epistolary fiction is that it posed as a venue for women to make their name in a man’s world of art. Fanny Burney’s “Evelina: or the History of a Young Lady’s Entrance into the World” exemplifies some of the reoccuring themes, including but not limited to, the “… Wrestle with sexual temptation and moral propriety…” (enotes) and “…woman’s exclusion from public matters and [the female character's mission] to transcend social barriers by making their own autonomous decisions,” (enotes). Alice Walker’s “The Color Purple” deals more with Celie’s route to self discovery, independence and salvation from her past through feminist principles of acceptance and possession of one’s body as an object of beauty and sexual desire.

Throughout the novel there is an acutely conscious confusion on the part of Celie on regards to her self image and whether or not she has any right to her physical body. Because of this, she writes to God for the majority of “The Color Purple.”

Works Cited

”The Epistolary Novel – Introduction.” Literary Criticism (1400-1800). Ed. Lawrence J. Trudeau. Vol. 59. Gale Cengage, 2001. eNotes.com. 2006. 11 Nov, 2009 epistolary-novel>
Bowers, Toni. “Epistolary Fiction”. The Literary Encyclopedia. 24 July 2009.
[http://www.litencyc.com/php/stopics.php?rec=true&UID=350, accessed 11 November 2009.]
Walker, Alice. The Color Purple. 7th . Orlando, FL: Harvest Books, Harcourt Inc., 1992. Print.

Interesting Info

Posted in American Lit, Contemporary Lit, Women's Lit Tagged: Alice Walker, Epistolary Novel, Feminism, The Color Purple

Ode to Howl: A Play on Allen Ginsberg’s Revolutionary Poem

Jordan — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 16:18:35 +0000

“I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by” (Ginsberg 9)

consumerism, screaming distraught anxious,

racing through department stores before sunrise

searching for the latest gadgets

hotheaded sycophants uniting in igniting for the heroism of capitalism

aching for a caffeine hit at a Starbucks on the border

of each chaos-lined corner

who groggy and disheveled and fumbling and Sandman vanquishing waited

up, running for pizza and doughnuts in the floodlight lined haze

of cemented brand-conscious buildings ten-hutting on cheap lawn

chairs and third row van seats scavenging sale adds,

who pledged their allegiance to Visa under a Mastercard billboard and

saw visions of 2^nd hand Euros glimmering in the

almost daylight,

who shuffled through office monotone with lunch breaks in mind

glued to the tick tock clock and clicking of heels amongst the

educated shadows of humanity,

who once lit a blunt, tailgate black outted the best years of their lives,

one night standing friends and enemies in the bitterness of

passion,

who lived in box-like dorm rooms pajama-clad,

glaring at miniscule texts listening to sex panting and raunchiness

through the walls,

who smuggled Ketle One in laundry baskets,

aiming for a quick shot at the calm,

who popped X or shot up to find a friend in

this cesspool of sameness and nobodies,

inviting death and nothingness to join in the fun,

with disillusionment, fuzzy brained, hallucinating happiness with

shroom induced fancies,

isolated incidents of giant Care Bears and multiplying ninjas

shattering the time space continuum, altering lame reality,

black holes, synchs, worms abound

gravel face-plants, dirt encrusted mud brown pub nights,

dizzying intoxication beating to techno toned rhythms of the body,

sweat dripping locks Medusa-ing their latest victims,

red and blue and purple splatters, DayGlo-ing

white-bodied Sirens under the guise of innocence,

drunken slurring, spouting spontaneous philosophy lost to a Gibberish nation,

who fancied themselves scholars,

slaves to the glories of Einsteinian knowledge,

dust-lined lungs and cobweb-covered corneas cracking open the recesses of

the old cerebrum possessed file cabinets,

searching ever searching for connections,

brain turkey-basting with the supposition of success,

who sacrificed sanity, stress hospitalizing the weak and sick-bedding soldiers

longing shotgun graduations and peace of mind,

ceaseless class coping test taking travesties in the namesake of

making straight A’s and the horror heightening of dirty-mouthed

Grad School,

who woke up miles from home and hours from hopeless,

strangers stranger than fiction whiskey-breathed whisperings of

meaninglessly momentary love enough for a slumber and goodbye,

a keg-stand bliss, funnel hosed high painted in garnet and gold angry for a win,

hungry for championships, shouting for a fight to the finish

Nole brothers and sisters in alumni eternity

beer-ponging chugging vomiting promising trysts and beatings and

forevers and always and love and loss and hatred and

tauntings of bulimia and suicide and addictions,

whole societies of imbeciles, geniuses and avant-guardists envious of

fame fortune and wants, unquenchable wants in a Wheel of

Fortune effort for the Price is Right, the American Dream

mediocre to modernization,

who disgustingly devoured the distinguished, shunning individuality for

cold-hearted conformity to make a bigger buck,

to have to hold to cherish in the marriage of materialism for

a Black Friday extravaganza of bragging rights for the money saved

in spending

suffering tortured soul-sickened beasts to upper-class lifestyle yearning

for who? Children? Spouse? Self? Achieving all but satisfaction in

the growing belly of heightened extravagances

who economic depression threatens but doesn’t break, show-offy ill natured

human beings debt collecting fed to shark copycatted creditors upping APR’s

and building a solid shovel to dig, diggitty-digging

their own holes to third world nightmares.

Allen Ginsberg’s Howl is a product of the Beat Generation composed of ”Members of the generation that came of age after World War II who, supposedly as a result of disillusionment stemming from the Cold War, espoused forms of mysticism and the relaxation of social and sexual inhibitions” (“Dictionary.com”); his cacophonous language showcases the sporadic nature of his writing style. Ginsberg advocated a ceaseless rush of thought process, advising poets and writers alike to never stop mid-idea and go back to finish it later but to complete it immediately in an effort to maintain pace and voice, which is what I have experimentally tried to accomplish with this ode. I’m definately not the best poet but true to the continous thought process this is the product of Ginsberg’s suggestion.

Works Cited

Ginsberg, Allen. Howl and Other Poems . 4th. San Francisco, CA: City of Lights Books, 1959. Print.
“Beat Generation.” Dictionary.com. 10 Oct 2009. Random House , Web. 11 Nov 2009. .

Interesting Info

http://www.observer.com/2008/media/james-franco-will-star-allen-ginsberg-biopic-howl

Posted in American Lit Tagged: Allen Ginsberg, American Poetry, Howl, The Beat Generation

The American Slave Narrative Revisited: Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God

Jordan — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 01:39:48 +0000

Originating as early as 1760 (Campbell), the traditional American slave narrative was characterized by a journey from oppression to freedom, or more acutely, literal travel from the deep Antebellum south to the liberal minded Northern states. However, “…the attainment of freedom is signaled not simply by reaching the free states, but by renaming oneself and dedicating one’s future to antislavery activism,” (Andrews). Often including a preface to emphasize and affirm authenticity, the narratives pooled nature imagery, biblical allusions and spirituality, as well as severe emotional and physical abuse including but not limited to: lynching, domestic violence, rape and molestation. In their earliest period, slave narratives were written by sympathetic white witnesses, some slave owners, others not and later evolved into personal accounts direct from ex-slaves. Exemplified in Harriet Jacobs’ Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, more clearly than in some of the others, poignant internal struggles and the wrath of the mistress were to an extent more detrimental than the physical torment. Crude insinuations and whisperings from the master, verbally abusive rants from the mistress and the sexual acts themselves shattered childhood innocence but never the chance and hope of the victim to overcome her strife (Jacobs).

Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God differs from the slave narrative and has more of a kinship with the attributes of the Harlem Renaissance, but is most precise in genre when the two are combined. The Harlem Renaissance or the New Negro Movement incorporated “…Africa as a source of race pride, black American heroes or heroines are apotheosized, political propaganda is considered essential, the black folk tradition is affirmed and candid self-revelation is on display… the urbanity of the New Negro and joy of discovering both the variety and unity of the black people,” (Patton and Honey). The core component is Janie’s position as an independent woman; the Harlem Renaissance recognized gender oppression and because of this, nature is often an allusion or extended metaphor for a feminist subtext and commentary on sexuality, a symbol of liberation from both man and slavery.

Janie feels more alive underneath the pear tree, while both the slave narrative and Renaissance encompass nature her sexuality is directly linked to these images: “She saw a dust-bearing bee sink into the sanctum of a bloom; the thousand sister-calyxes arch to meet the love embrace and the ecstatic shiver of the tree from root to tiniest branch creaming in every blossom and frothing with delight. So this was marriage,” (Hurston 11). The sensual personification of the bee fertilizing the flower is symbolic of Janie’s sexual awakening and shortly after this she kisses Johnny Taylor and is forced to wed a man she doesn’t love, Logan.

As the title suggests, relationship with God through biblical allusions, such as “Somewhere up there beyond blue ethers bosom sat He. Was He noticing what was going on around here? He must be because He knew everything. Did He mean to do this think to Tea Cake and her?” (Hurston 178) as was common in slave narratives. Slaves would turn to God to find internal salvation from their situation through confession and prayer. Here Janie expresses a belief in God but doesn’t pretend to understand or agree with His divine decisions.

Perhaps the most evident revision of the slave narrative can be viewed through the mother-daughter bond or lack thereof. Janie’s grandmother and mother have both highlight the usual roles of the slave-master relationship. Her grandmother was a sexual plaything of her master, resulting in the birth of Janie’s mother and Janie’s mother herself was raped by her school teacher, producing Janie. This was a reoccurring theme in slave narratives that Hurston battles through Janie, for she comes to choose her husbands and never has a master. Also, Hurston is writing from the point of view of a black woman whereas most slave narratives were originally written by white masters.

Works Cited

Campbell, . “The Slave Narrative.” Washington State University. WSU, Web. 10 Oct 2009. <http://www.wsu.edu/~campbelld/amlit/slave.htm.>
Andrews, William L. “North American Slave Narratives.” Documenting the American South. 6 Oct 2009. University Library, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Web. 10 Oct 2009. <http://docsouth.unc.edu/neh/intro.html. >
Jacobs, Harriet. “Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl.” eNotes.com. 05 Oct 2009. eNotes, Web. 10 Oct 2009. <http://www.enotes.com/incidents-life-slave-girl-text/.>
Revisioning the Harlem Renaissance- Venetria K. Patton and Maureen Honey from Considering Literary and Social Movements
Hurston, Zora Neale. Their Eyes Were Watching God. 35th . New York, NY: HarperPerennial, 1998. Print.

Additional Info

Posted in American Lit, Women's Lit Tagged: Harlem Renaissance, Hurston, Slave narrative, Their Eyes Were Watching God

L’ecriture Feminine via Gertrude Stein’s Tender Buttons

Jordan — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 16:55:05 +0000

L’ecriture Feminine or the female vernacular of the Female Aesthetic movement advocated emphasis on the “female sexual morphology,” calling women writers to arms to embrace the beauty and functions of their bodies (Lee). Often in an ambiguous style, the writing of L’ecriture Feminine is about resistance to the patriarchal norms of conventional structure and stylization as well as the French feminist term jouissance: “The derived noun, jouissance, has three current meanings in French: it signifies an extreme or deep pleasure; it signifies sexual orgasm; and in law, it signifies having the right to use something, as in the phrase avoir la jouissance de quelque chose,” (Clark). Identification and acceptance of the female to her bodily functions in the context of masturbation and sex in general was something sinful to talk about or really think about for the female prior to the feminist movement and French Decadence movement in literature and art. Shifting from the phallogocentric orientation of the world to sexuality and the body allotted for the women to use her physical manifestation in writing as a playground for symbolic protest and self-evaluation. There was an overwhelming need for change or as Irigaray states, “Need for women to recognize their jouissance to subvert phallocentric oppression.”(Jones). Feminist writers, namely French, believed that in order to trump the phallus-oriented world women needed to become one with their bodies, to love and bring them to the brink of pleasure and understanding.

In Cixous’ The Laugh of the Medusa, she advises all women on how the road to independence for women should be paved and what had to be done: “I shall speak about women’s writing: about what it will do. Woman must write her self: must write about women and bring women to writing, from which they have been driven away as violently as from their bodies — for the same reasons, by the same law, with the same fatal goal. Women must put herself into the text — as into the world and into history — by her own movement,” (Cixous). Similar to Gertrude Stein, Cixous insists that not everything is black and white, that there is more than two sides to be taken, that there is a middle road, another color to be considered, the red that Stein continuously strings throughout her poems. Women are passionate, red in emotion, scarlet in love, while the reason obsessed, scientific man is not gray but black and white, fact or fiction; both Stein and Cixous object to the actions of men, clearly stating that women are different to an extent but should still have the same rights as men. “Listen to a woman speak at a public gathering (if she hasn’t painfully lost her wind). She doesn’t ‘speak’, she throws her trembling body forward; she lets go of herself, she flies; all of her passes into her voice, and it’s with her body that she vitally supports the ‘logic’ of her speech. Her flesh speaks true. She lays herself bare. In fact, she physically materializes what she’s thinking; she signifies it with her body. In a certain way she inscribes what she’s saying, because she doesn’t deny her drives the intractable and impassioned part they have in speaking. Her speech, even when ‘theoretical’ or political, is never simple or linear or ‘objectified’, generalized: she draws her story into history,” (Cixous).

Gertrude Stein’s Tender Buttons , a seemingly surrealist, if not cubist piece, at first glance appears to be a randomized stringing of senseless and unconnected words together to form an even more confusing poem, however if you tame the randomness a story of liberation and change unfolds. Stein uses puns, metaphors and symbolism to juxtapose the common views of women and her own feminist viewpoint.

A CARAFE, THAT IS A BLIND GLASS when compared to A TABLE is an intertwined whole. A carafe in itself is clear, but designated to hold red wine, “a single hurt color,” and is arranged to sit on a table. The wine or red is, in a sense, symbolic of the passion of women and of blood, signifying that although the emotions of women from their outside appearance might be clear, what is felt inside is contained for fear of “an arrangement in a system to pointing.” The act of pointing in itself is read as condemning, placing whatever it is that is being singled out as awkward and unacceptable, marked estranged from the dominant of society and subject to severe judgment, much as women that dared to turn to the unconventional were; Edith Wharton’s Age of Innocence is one of many examples of this feeling. The concluding line of A CARAFE, THAT IS A BLIND GLASS emanates a sad tone, “The difference is spreading, ” is interpreted as the negativity of the pointing is growing in size, no matter that more and more women chose to welcome their sexuality rather than abhor their bodily functions.(Stein 123).

In spite of this, A TABLE blasts power and positivity, much like the sigh and confidence of a strong army before a battle that they knew they would win, whether it was this specific fight or one of the many to follow. Stein describes the table as the epitome of stability, perhaps suggesting that change for the better would be thoroughly rejected by men because they were steady and knew their grounds in their current position and to introduce women as competition was the throw their world off its axis. Stein also conveys that this table was more significant than than afore mentioned carafe, ” A table means more than a glass, even a looking glass is tall,” (Stein 132) in that this table had seats where everyone had their rightful place, no matter the carafe on the table and that revision to this placement would come and with it’s coming a stand would be taken and the table would shake. The shuddering of the table could tip the carafe or at least allow a spill, in which woman physically and psychologically would have escaped from oppression and be free to stand on the shaking table, altering the stakes and ultimately, break through adversity.

Works Cited

Clark, Robert. “Jouissance”. The Literary Encyclopedia. 1 January 2004.
<http://www.litencyc.com/php/stopics.php?rec=true&UID=602, accessed 2 October 2009.>
Lee, Elizabeth. “Feminist Theory-An Overview.” The Victorian Web. 01 OCT 1997. Victorian Web, Web. 2 Oct 2009. < http://www.victorianweb.org/gender/femtheory.html.>
Jones, Ann R. “French Feminist Theory and l’ecriture feminine.” Michigan State University-Harrow. 05 MAY 2007. MSU.edu, Web. 2 Oct 2009. <http://www,msu.edu/-harrow/ucad/French-feminist-theory.htm.>
Stein, Gertrude. Three Lives and Tender Buttons. 1. Stilwell, KS: Digireads.com Publishing, 008. Print.
Cixous, Helene. “The Laugh of the Medusa.” Ryu Yung’s Drama Homepage . 09 OCT 2008. Web. 2 Oct 2009. <http://www.drama21c.net/feminism/articles/Medusa1.htm. >
DeShazer, Mary K.. The Longman Anthology of Women’s Literature. 1. New York City, New York: A.B. Longman Publishing Company, 2001. Print.

Additional Information

I also wrote an essay on the subject of feminism and lesbianism in Gertrude Stein’s Tender Buttons, specifically in the poems GLAZED GLITTER, A SUBSTANCE IN A CUSHION and A BOX. If anyone would like to read the essay please comment and i’ll link it.

Thanks.

-J.

Posted in American Lit, French Lit, Women's Lit

Gender Role Reversal as a Critique on Sex: Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises

Jordan — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 20:39:13 +0000

Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises critiques the modernization of sex through gender reversal of the protagonists Lady Brett Ashley and Jacob Barnes.

Lady Brett Ashley is not what the average person in the early 20th century would consider a very feminine woman in regards to her morals or lack there of. From the connotations of her name- which is in itself an arguable contradiction- for while being a Lady in light of social class, Brett Ashley is certainly no lady. Aside from her title, Brett is a mans name and often Lady Ashley calls herself and her literary friends ‘chaps’ in order to be associated as one of the boys and jokingly teases that she will quit her unlady-like behaviors, stating she’s, “Never going to get tight anymore. I say, give a chap a brandy and soda,”(Hemingway 29).

Brett dawns the dress of a tease, her constant flirtations and spur of the moment trysts, endless trips to bars and various occasions of intrigue, she is the Paris Hilton of the socialites without the rumors and media attacks. Brett Ashley is respected, her affairs are known of but unspoken of in polite conversation. All in all she does what she pleases regardless of the consequences, very much like a man.

In actions of passion, Lady Ashley is the masculine of our protagonists; she treats sex in a most offhanded way, she appears to be a user, toying with the emotions of multiple men, but in reality Lady Ashley condemns herself in a twisted effort to cope with the central issue: that she loves a man that could never be a man in the sexual sense, but only in name. Brett seems to be fearless, she goes to see the bull run and doesn’t shy away from the gore but relishes in the adrenaline.

An introverted intellectual at heart, Jake Barnes deploys romanticized idealism for harsh reality in regards to his love for Lady Ashley. Wounded from the war, Jake is emasculated; this castration from male emotions makes him more calculated and yet at the same time feminine because of his devotion to Brett and the softness and social ability of his character. Barnes plays by the rules in interactions with his peers and follows a code of propriety especially in work where he comments, “It is very important to discover graceful exits like that in the newspaper business, where it is such an important part of the ethics that you should never seem to be working,” (Hemingway 19). In lew of his impotence or inability to have sex, Jake feels connected to bull fighting as a way of life. “Nobody ever lives their life all the way except bull-fighters,” (Hemmingway 18) emphasizes Barnes’ envy of the macho lifestyle suggested by the dangers of being all man, willing to embrace life and death as it comes.

This ‘lost generation’ awakened a new risque, racy behavior in women where in a feminist sense they could have the same freedoms sexy and socially as men, at least in the sense of Lady Ashley. However, Lady Ashley is still lost, no matter the gay, carefree lifestyle she leads a chance a substantial love and happiness is forfeited to meaningless sex due to her nonchalant actions. The ‘modern’ women gave up part of what it meant to be a woman when taking on the personality of men, she threw away her ability to socialize with other women, to be a mother-like figure, instead she was just another sexy one of the boys.

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The Villainy of Heroes: Season 4 Premiere

Jordan — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 11:25:55 +0000

Clichéd doesn’t do justice to the overwhelming predictability and general lack of intrigue that aired on NBC’s controversial continuation of Heroes last night. For months prior to the premiere countless interviews, a new team of writers and additional all-stars to the cast later, hope, the centralized theme of the said TV show was alighted in the millions of fans worldwide, yet still the media remained skeptical and here’s why:

Heroes is in a crucial stage of production, this could very well be the last season if the ratings continue to drop. The first season of Heroes had something kin to Lost and Supernatural in it’s pilot episode. With a spin-off of comic book superheroes meets 21^st century reality, the characters were real, mysterious and political as well as incorporated numerous sectors of society from escaped convicts to mobsters and Senators. There was just something about Heroes that was inspirational in its moral convictions and the ever present fight to save humanity from its true villains, the people themselves.
The second and third seasons while, in my opinion, still very lively and addicting ( there were some days I couldn’t help myself from watching 2-4 episodes in a row) lacked in storyline and believability. This is the key issue. In spite of the core cast being equipped with a series of mega superpowers they still suffered defeat, they still fell, lived and died…until they dying off ceased to be truly definite. In the case of Daphne and Peter, while in all appearances they died, somehow they were always brought back so that even now in season 4, we have to question whether characters may yet be brought back to life by some unforeseen, extenuating circumstances.
Masi Oka (Hiro) and Hayden Panetierre (Claire Bennet) in their interview on life and death in Season 4 talked about the changes that would be made to steer the series back in the right direction. This time characters would truly die and the Heroes would have more of a normal life, plagued with the sorrow and self-doubt of the average person as well as the triumphs and happiness that can be found in small packages, like Matt Parkman with his son, little Matt Parkman. I have my doubts after watching the new episode.

Useful Links:

http://primetimetv.suite101.com/article.cfm/heroes_interview_masi_oka_hayden_panettiere

Posted in Cool TV shows, Personal Tagged: Comic book, Heroes, Season 4, Supernatural, TV show