November's Wall of Shame

I've decided rather than allow anyone to miss these little gems of wisdom from university students, I would begin a monthly wall of shame. Today, I begin November with this:

Oh, America, has it come to this?

"I myself grew up in a difficult household and led a fairly rough life. Not in the same manner as the people in the movie. I can still relate to the fact that fighting does may win the battle, only calm will win the war."

From an e-mail inquiry to my university:

"hi ,

i happen to be 32-over the age of your traditional undergrad,can you give me any suggestions on where i could go to further my training in acting, or to start like i would if i where attending there.what would be the next best place other than yourself that you suggest i go, unless you have a program for adults.
thank you... XXXXX"

My turn

Today, I go on my own wall of shame. It's not for something I wrote, but for something I failed to write. I managed to miss an entire week of discussion in class without realizing it until my professor sent me e-mail to make sure I was alive. My head was as in the clouds this week as those who you typically see quoted here!

Hi, I want to go to another school:
(This one is especially priceless, because it is an e-mail addressed to me at Pace University)

"I am a high school senior, and I am plan apply to CUNY Brooklyn College for the Fall 2010 semester. I just wanted to know if there are any Letter of Recommendation requirements in which the recommender has to follow?"

Can I have an apostrophe, please?

"In conclusion, I truly feel that your emotional reaction is always at the mercy of the director and writer's and whether one feels upset about that or not may depend on what that person believes the truth's are in the movie, excluding the tweaks and embellishments."

Behold, the power of PoMo!

The following is written about Ishmael Reed's Mumbo Jumbo. It addressed the question: "One critic writing about Mumbo Jumbo calls it a "de-centered" text. One example of this is that it is often hard to figure out who is speaking. In what other ways is this quality reflected in the book? Why do you think Reed uses this method? Analysis and examples, please!"

Thanks to the lovely website http://www.glbtq.com I came across the following quote that seems to help address this issue perfectly.

Linda Hutcheon describes the intellectual goal of post-modernism as to erode our assumptions by examining them, "to de-naturalize some of the dominant features of our way of life; to point out that those entities that we unthinkingly experience as 'natural' (they might even include capitalism, patriarchy, liberal humanism) are in fact 'cultural'; made by us, not given to us," so that post-modernism "provokes an investigation of how we make meaning in culture."

This pretty clearly describes what we are looking at when we read Mumbo Jumbo. Reed has turned the world upside down with this novel. He breaks enough literary conventions that we are forced to really examine his work in order to pull some meaning from it. Reed switches tense, voice, and even location without a moment's notice. There is none of Aristotle's precious unity of time, place, and action to be found among these pages.

Not only has Reed made the novel challenge the current standards of writing, but as Hutcheon states above, he has challenged the notions of everything we are conditioned to think of as natural. We see Reed refusing to tip-toe around difficult race relations. The interactions in chapter 23 demonstrate the people of all races can work together, but people of every color can still come to the consensus that whites cannot be trusted (82-89). Attention is drawn to the fact that members of this alleged elite hegemony will commit murder and cover it up rather than allow the marginalized one more step up the ladder (95). Reed even shows us a black woman with a white maid (103)!

On the surface perhaps, the book addresses religion and politics of the Western world, but it does so much more than that - it tears it apart so the reader has to try and rebuild it. That is the point of de-centering the text, after all - to prove that these things are ultimately just constructs. Reed even forces us to consider one of the lesser used definitions of politics. The last definition Merriam-Webster offers for politics is “the total complex of relations between people living in society”, and even better, the website www.die.net offers as a definition “social relations involving authority or power”. It is this last definition that Reed makes us focus on. The politics of the book are not confined to party lines – religion is politics, dancing is politics, love is politics, New York is politics, history is politics, but it is perhaps most important to note that ALL of this is being challenged because a group of marginalized people are showing some autonomy and shaking up the status quo. That, ladies and gentlemen, is how every action these people take becomes politics – it all involves which group will ultimately end up with the power and control.

Similarly, Reed challenges our notions of religion by creating Jes Grew as a “religion”. It is not Christianity or Judaism, but it is something the people can rally behind, have faith in, and use as a means of keeping their spirits up in hard times. Isn’t that what most other organized religions give us? The hegemonic beliefs on religion are challenged more than that though. Early on we see Abdul switching off and on his “religion” when people are watching: “Abdul sees that the doorway is empty. Deprived of an audience, he changes his demeanor” (36). Reed introduces the Hierophant who confuses matters by being a symbol of corrupt religion. We see what looks like a genuine case of possession (126 -129). And as if we needed more cause to question everything we believe to be true about religion, we meet “3 deacons accompanying Rev. Jefferson” (142) who seem to be some play on upstanding southern Christian men being told to “bust him up. It ain’t no use to planting potatoes when it’s hog-killing time” (142).

These twisted, unexpected, de-centered lines of politics, religion, race, power, and corruption cause us to see clearly how carefully constructed this world must be. People are meddling in the election, trying to put “their man” in to maintain the balance of things. Entire publications are created to spread false messages to people. The end result of it all is that the reader cannot possibly piece together what is really happening at any moment. We must try to tease apart whatever scraps we can and then stitch them together to form our own construct of the truth. In doing so, we hopefully examine our own world a little closer and discover that societal power, organized religion, pop culture, and racial stereotypes are all carefully built by the people who have the power to begin with.

The City of Orchids - Foreshadowing in Raymond Chandler's The Big Sleep

In chapter two of Raymond Chandler’s The Big Sleep, we are introduced to General Guy Sternwood. Due to his health, the man often secludes himself in a greenhouse that is “as warm as a slow oven” (7). The interior of this greenhouse serves as a subtle introduction for the rest of the novel. Much like the rest of this sordid, corrupt city, the greenhouse is overbearing. It is full of deceptive beauty that falls apart upon closer inspection and is actually sickening. In a single scene, Chandler has given the reader an analogy to use for the entire world outside the greenhouse.

As Marlowe enters the greenhouse, he notes that it is extremely hot, but also that “the air was thick, wet, steamy and larded with the cloying smell of tropical orchids in bloom” (7). Orchids are the primary visual element in this description, and they tell the attentive reader much. Orchids are often symbolic of beauty and perfection. To a lesser extent, these flowers are also symbols of strength and wealth. In this case though, the flowers are not being described as beautiful or perfect; they are cloying. Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary defines cloying as “disgusting or distasteful by reason of excess”. A few lines later, we are told “the plants… [have] nasty meaty leaves and stalks like the newly washed fingers of dead men” (7).

Though we don’t know it yet, this is the scene we will be faced with throughout the rest of the novel. The women Chandler writes into his novel are all much like the orchids – they are beautiful on the outside, perhaps even a touch exotic, and certainly luxurious in their own way. Under the surface however, they are sickly, disgusting creatures. Geiger’s book store looks normal and pristine at face value – like a place where one can find rare, valuable treasures – but this too is a façade. Eddie Mars’ Cypress Club is meant to look like a grand, old-fashioned ballroom, but it is a masquerade for the death and chaos that seems to follow him. The entire city with its corrupt law enforcement, evil beauties, and misleading external cues is one giant cloying orchid.

When Marlowe and General Sternwood talk directly about the orchids, Marlowe admits to not liking them. Sternwood’s description of the orchids follows along with the idea of them as this corrupt, dying thing. The image we are left with is disturbing rather than beautiful and coveted. Sternwood says of the orchids: “They are nasty things. Their flesh is too much like the flesh of men. And their perfume has the rotten sweetness of a prostitute” (9).

The heat is oppressive and as Marlowe drinks the brandy that was offered to him, it only gets worse. This too serves as symbolism for the book as a whole. Throughout the novel, the heat gets turned up on Marlowe more and more. He is always getting in deeper, finding more and more trouble and danger. The deeper in he gets, the more he drinks, and the more he drinks, well… “the heat didn’t get any less hot with the brandy in [him]” (15).

As if there were any chance of the reader forgetting this unsettling image of exotic beauty turned into a rotting, disgusting thing, Chandler throws in one more visual for us before Sternwood dismisses Marlowe. As the General rings his bell for the butler, we see “the side of the deep dark green boxes in which the orchids grew and festered” (15). This again attaches the idea of beauty and desire to death and decay. It is even stronger this time as the orchids are attached to something green which serves as another symbol of this Eros/Thanatos relationship between sensuality/life and rotting/death.

Chandler is a master at providing clear description to set the stage of his novels. The foreshadowing tells an analytic reader everything they could want to know about what will follow at the end of the novel. If one is surprised by the beautiful, exotic Carmen turning out to be a killer or the corrupt law enforcement in this oppressive city, they need only have remembered the painfully hot greenhouse and the cloying orchids in the green boxes.

The Wall of Shame

Pray you never see something you've written here. The following will be excerpts of posts written by college students in my classes. When I try to explain to people why I am disillusioned by the American education system, perhaps these will serve as good examples of why. I will be updating this as I find more and more things worthy of the Wall of Shame:

Today's post of shame (really? WTF?):

"In the story "A Meeting in the Dark", I believe John was both the victim and a victimizer. From the beginning of the story, it was shown that John always feared and fear his father. Although, John did not like certain things his father asked him "when is the journey" Again John Thought: why does he ask" I have told him many times." He could not talk back to his father.

I think, what made John the victim was that even though, he thought to himself, "why not marry her? She is beautiful! why not marry? Do I love her or don't I"(105), he was afraid of facing his father. John had grown up under a Calvinistic father. Also, John was getting ready to go to University, but the fact that Wamuhu was already circumcised was stopping him.

In the other hand, John was trying to make himself a victimizer, worrying about afterward consequences. Up until John killed Wamuhu, he was thinking about everything that would happen to him if he just had left or if he faced his father. "

First two sentences from a different post:

" John and Nhamo were both affected and altered because of Western influences in both stories. Both of them were affected by Western influence that led them to to be altered."

And from a communications major, no less:

""He believes if you have not experienced it or no what your talking about, your writing will suffer."

This moment of illiteracy has been brought to you by my detective fiction class:

"LaBas and Black Herman personalities I felt was both wise, intelligent and understanding. Both older men who have seen alot. Abdul I felt was also intelligent who had a tough life, and is true student of learning. He seems to be very arrogant, and whats to be perceived by people in a certain light."

A class post I was fairly pleased with

I've just started a class on cultural challenges in world literature, and one of our first readings was a short story called "The Setting Sun and the Rolling World" by Charles Mungoshi. Below is my first dicussion post about the story, which I really enjoyed writing:

"The Setting Sun and the Rolling World" opens with two lines that set the stage of the story for me. In two lines, it is established that the earth and land are symbolic of the old traditions and the sky symbolizes the new ways of thought. The story opens with: "Old Musoni raised his dusty eyes from his hoe and the unchanging, stony earth he had been tilling and peered into the sky. The white speck whose sound had disturbed his work and thoughts was far out at the edge of the yellow sky, near the horizon" (98).

The description of the earth is of something hard and resistant, something set in its ways and unwilling to give. This is immediately juxtaposed with the sky, which is connected to disturbing him and is colored yellow. Yellow is often associated with illness and disease, and in this case, brings attention to the fact that the sky - symbolic of change brought about by the outside world - is disrupting the old ways. Similarly, the introductory paragraph mentions Musoni looking west and seeing "the shadows creeping east" (98) which shows the sun in the sky from the west (North America, Europe, the "new world") bringing darkness across his lands.

Once this exposition has been established, it is easy to look for signs throughout the story that point to the continuum of community stability and individual fulfillment. This also directly relates to the question of progress versus tradition. In fact, as Musoni tells his son that "there is no way out in the world. Except the way of the land, the way of the family" (99) we see that there is a strong tie to family and community among these people. Though Nhamo loves his father and shows him respect, he believes that some of the new ways are better.

The story compares the people of his community to animals and Nhamo laughs at the belief his father still holds in charms and magic. He is thrilled when his father gives his blessing for the journey ahead and we are told "he was free" (101) which I take to mean not only from the community of his people, but that he is finally free of the old ways and can make a life of his own, influenced by the new ways brought from the colonialization and from the white man.

Nhamo insists that he must go away because there is nothing for him there. The land is dying and "the family is almost broken up" (99). He has chosen to seek individual fulfillment over the stability of the community, since he feels his community is already unstable. The last paragraph shows that perhaps this community, like Nhamo, will no longer be able to resist the force of new ideas and progress as the sky, wind, and frost attack "the unprotected land" (102).

When Planets Align... Rebel Without a Cause in Two Scenes

In Nicholas Ray’s Rebel Without A Cause, two scenes take place inside a planetarium which can explain so much more about the film than meets the eye. The first scene, during a school field trip, shows the kids watching a show with images of stars and planets. Though the lights are dim, each character can be clearly seen. The show is guided by the adult in the center of the room who is explaining to the students these wonders that make such little sense to them. This man guiding the show can be seen as a figure of adult guidance in each of their lives – helping shine just a small amount of light on a confusing world so they may begin to understand the mysteries of the vast universe that lies ahead of them. At the end, their guide talks about the destruction of the world and says to the class, “Through the infinite reaches of space the problems of man seem trivial and naive indeed. And man, existing alone, seems himself an episode of little consequence." During this speech, there is a gaseous explosion shown which leaves Plato cowering under the seats, and when he finally resurfaces, he asks Jim, “What does he know about man alone?”

It is not until much later the viewer understands why this concept scared Plato so much. We discover that he is completely alone – abandoned by his parents, without any friends – and this concept of man mattering so little that he can simply disappear terrifies him. He is searching for someone to care about him. He wants desperately to believe that his parents will come back for him, but perhaps even more than that, he just wants to matter to someone.

This scene is quickly forgotten as the movie moves forward with a knife fight, death, and tension between characters, but after what Plato perceives as his final betrayal by Jim and Judy, he runs back to the planetarium. Jim finds him there hiding alone in complete darkness. The blackness as compared to the first scene shows how lost Plato is without adult guidance. It is demonstrative of how dark and immense the universe feels when you are young and left to fend yourself.

Jim, who has already been set up as a semi-father figure to Plato is able to find him and talks him into coming out of the dark planetarium and back outside. Even then though, the lights outside are too bright for Plato to handle – he is not ready to understand the world or to be shown any real reason. The lights are temporarily turned off again, and Jim guides Plato outside, but the damage has already been done. There is so much confusion, and the gas has already started to spiral toward the ultimate explosion. When the lights come back on, Plato is shot and killed, ultimately proving that he really was alone in the world and not of much consequence to anyone. His fear from the first planetarium scene has now become a reality.

Setting the Stage for Stagecoach

The first ten minutes of Stagecoach establish an enormous amount of information without boring the viewer to tears with back story. These introductory scenes establish the identity of the entire party who will be traveling with us for the duration of the movie, and also sets up the situation with the Indians. Director John Ford and the script writers manage to fit enough information into the exposition to set the stage for the rest of the film.

The opening shot shows two men racing through an open landscape on their horses from a distance. This creates a sense of excitement and intrigue. The men are too far away to see who they are and we cannot determine why they are in such a rush. It is soon established that they are heading back to a military base, where men are meeting with an Indian man warning them about the presence of the Apaches. It is clear that there is hesitancy to trust an Indian, but is then pointed out that this man is a Cheyenne Indian, and they hate the Apaches as much as the white man. As word spreads, the name Geronimo strikes fear into everyone who hears it.

The remainder of the opening ten minutes introduces the traveling party. Doctor Boone and Dallas are the first two we meet, and the scene with them also introduces us to the idea of social values. The doctor is being thrown out for not paying his rent, but it is obvious that he is also an alcoholic. When he is thrown out, he quotes Christopher Marlowe, showing that he still has his education and has some wits about him. Dallas comes onto the scene and is being thrown out of town by the rest of the women who reside there. Looking at the difference in the way she dresses, and the fact that upon boarding the coach, she exposes her shin, it can be pieced together that she is being forced to leave because she has a reputation for being a whore.

Mrs. Mallory is seen as a nice, upstanding lady. The fact that she is “not well enough to travel” may be an indication that she is pregnant, but this could not simply be said during this time period. The man who strikes a mutual intrigue with her, Hatfield, is described as not being a gentleman, but rather a “notorious gambler” despite his appearances of being a gentleman. His decision to follow Mrs. Mallory onto the coach is not surprising given the way he has been watching her.

Gatewood, the banker, is established immediately as untrustworthy. He takes the $50,000 that was just deposited to the bank, lies to his wife about being there for dinner, and then sneaks off to board the coach and get out of town with his newfound wealth.

Peacock is there, but is the most harmless of the bunch. All we know is that he is a whiskey drummer with a wife and five children who is from Kansas. Though Ringo has not joined the party yet, even he is mentioned in the first ten minutes. It has already been established that he is an outlaw, but that he is not in jail and they will be trying to find and capture him.

A thorough introduction to the characters that establishes relationships between them, sets up some of the social standards, and explains that there is a violent conflict between the Apaches and white men is a tall order for ten minutes worth of film. The script writers and director had to work very hard to make this exposition informative without being boring, and they did a fine job of it. This introduction to the characters pulls the viewer in and makes us want to keep watching to see what will happen: will they escape the Apaches, will they find Ringo, will Hatfield put the moves on Mrs. Mallory, will Dallas be welcome in any town? The expository scene makes us wonder all of this and more. Fortunately, all of the viewers questions are answered in just as thorough and interesting manner as the movie begins.