Thesis ideas Galore
I’m going to discuss all of the ideas that are ruminating in my head so that I can take a look at them all in a day to really get a feel for what it is that I want to discuss. I have so many ideas going on at once that I can’t seem to narrow in on just one that I really want to write about. I have a general feel for what I want and when I look at journal articles, they seem to articulate my idea much better than I can, so here we go…
The effects that history has on the novel and how the novel continues to change in form and yet remain the same in definition. I will discuss the multiple forms a novel can take on and still be considered part of its genre, for example the change in perspectives in Flaubert’s Madame Bovary and how this novel has some truly original, for the age, dialogue settings that allow the reader an experience similar to that of a movie. For example, when Rodolphe tells Emma of his love for her while the talk of fertilizer and manure is heard in the background. This scene really does provide the reader with an idea of what this relationship is going to be like. (I don’t really want to get into the idea of technology that much, but when talking about history technology is bound to come up). Also, this scene is a good example of something that can be described in a novel, while other sources of literature are not as flexible.
I also cannot get the idea of didacticism out of my head when it comes to novels. I see a connection between novels and television, because when it comes to looking at the characters and the situations that they are put in, I think that the audience/reader can get a lesson/moral out of the situation and what the individuals did to solve/resolve the circumstance. I realize that novels are definitely not the only source of literature that can provide a reader with a moral, however the novel can accomplish didacticism in a way that allows the reader to get to know the character on a deeper level, deeper than a poem could anyway. I find that characters in novels are easy to empathize with, sometimes easier than a real life friend even, because at times the reader completely knows the character because the narrator is omniscient and therefore, the reader can often times see the thoughts of the character. This accessibility of the characters in novels is what makes novels so unique, and also is why the novel will never be dead as Vidal says. There are far too many forms that a novel can take on for it to ever die and I believe Vidal agrees that the infinity of forms for a novel are what makes the novel invincible to extinction and stronger than ever in history and in the future.
I’m going to continue to read all of the journal articles that I have collected to see if I can postulate a stronger thesis than I currently have, but I think that tomorrow this blog post will turn out to be quite useful, because I have plenty of ideas, just not plenty of thesis.
The keeeeeep
I’d like to say quickly that this idea of the keep representing the literary canon is an unbelievable metaphor that I completely missed. I was completely oblivious to this idea, and when Dr. Middleton said it in class it was like a bell went off in my head.
The form of this novel allows the novel to do so much with so little. The way that Egan gets to hide behind Ray as the actual writer allows this frame within a frame to occur, which is pretty incredible. At one point in the narrative Ray says that writing this story is a way for him to escape the confines of prison and place himself in this alternate reality. This is a commentary on how the novel is an escape for the reader as well, just as television, movies, and any other type of entertainment serves as a way for a person to bring themselves outside of their own reality even if just for a moment.
In class it was said that it is obvious that Egan is very conscious of the time period she writes in and I think that the form is a good example of her consciousness. With the pop culture and entertainment systems that we have in today’s world, most people are looking for a little “time off” from their life; or their reality. As Vidal said the novel is dead and Egan is trying to mirror the way that television and movies work in the writing of her novel, which some people may think is “dumbing down” the masses. Unfortunately, in this day and age, people do not have much time to themselves, and the time they do have, they do not want to spend working out their mind, they want to be pacified. This is not supposed to be a criticism, it is just a truth, and I think that Egan has kept this idea in mind and this novel stemmed from that.
Obama and Kwang :)
In class it was mentioned how reading this book in the age of the Obama administration is completely different from the time when this book was written in. I think that this is really interesting to look further into because Kwang is described as an amazing politician that brings all different races together and not many other people would be able to achieve this. I think that Kwang’s character, politically, and in the beginning of his campaign (and beginning of the novel) is extremely similar to our president today, which is funny/ironic because this novel was written before Obama was on the political map. Kwang is idealistic, young, a minority, a family man with two young children, and extremely intelligent. The people in the novel tended to fall in love with him as soon as he steps into a room, which may be an overstatement with our current president, but it can be said that both Obama and Kwang seem to be equally charismatic from what I can tell from Kwang’s description. When Kwang first arrives to make his speech the novel reads: “He held no speaking notes or cards” (Lee 150). I think that after watching Bush for 8 years attempt to make speeches then watching Obama with his eloquent turns of phrase and not ever having a speech written in front of him is simply a great change. Also, this is yet another thing that Kwang and Obama have in common and after the novel’s audience having had this experience of going from Bush to Obama, it makes the novel even better.
Kwang is extremely careful with his language, which goes along with the language theme in the novel, but also is similar to Obama: “Perhaps this was because John Kwang constantly spoke of us as his own, of himself as a part of us. Though he rarely called you a brother, sister, son. He was prudent with his language. If anything, he called you friend” (Lee 147). I see a similar connection here with Obama as well. At his inaugural address Obama began with “My fellow citizens…” however usually the president addresses the people as “My fellow Americans…” Kwang’s referral to people as friends and Obama’s referral to people as fellow citizens are equivalent in that, they are telling the people that they are equal and working toward the same goal.
I realize that Kwang and Obama’s similarities are not the most relevant topic to discuss, but when I was reading Kwang’s speech I could not help but make comparisons to Obama. Then when their similarities were mentioned in class I really could not get it out of my mind because of how eerily similar the fictional character and our very real president are, especially when one considers the fictional character was created before the president was in the political environment.
***Language***
As I keep reading it is extremely obvious to me the large role that Language plays in this novel. There is always a noticeable reference to the way Henry pays close attention to his speech, Leelia’s career as a speech therapist, and the way that Leelia i basically in love with the way that Henry speaks. The scene between Henry and Leelia when they first met, Leelia questions Henry about his attentiveness to his speech and later when they are in Molly’s apartment Leelia says, “God, I’d forgotten how much I love your language” (126). Whenever Leelia is in a scene in the novel, speech and communication is a popular topic of conversation between Henry and Leelia and commentary by the author. Language is not always in the spoken form in this novel either, Leelia mentions how Henry has not mentioned Mitt’s name more than a couple times since the “accident”:
Just think about it. You haven’t said his name more than four
or five times since it happened. You haven’t said his name
tonight. Maybe you’ve talked all this time with Jack about him,
maybe you say his name in your sleep, but we’ve never really
talked about it, we haven’t really come right out together and
said it, really named what happened for what it was (129).
Earlier in their conversation Leelia says that Henry and her talk between every meal, that talking is all that they do she even makes a joke about the amount of talking they do: “the premise of the movie about us is that we spontaneously combust if we don’t talk every six hours” (125), and yet the most tragic thing that has happened to them as individuals and in their relationship is never spoken about, never analyzed, while everything else is. It is also important to note the way in which Mitt died in silence.
He was suffocated to death by his friends who were playing around; Mitt was on the bottom of the dog pile and for some reason was unable to use language to tell his friends he was having trouble breathing, or even to
simply scream. This lack of communication is what kills Mitt a perfectly healthy seven year old boy. And now an unmentioned number of years have passed and Henry’s silence about Mitt’s death in addition to his dual personalities is tearing Leelia and him apart.
Native speaker post 1
This novel is pretty interesting so far. There is a sort of mysteriousness to it that makes me want to keep reading, for example, what’s going on with Henry’s job, what will happen with Leila, who is this new person that Henry has to make a biography/legend about?
Henry describes the people at his work place and brushes the surface of what they actually do at this company: “Grace handled Eastern Europe; Jack, the Mediterranean and Middle East; the two Jimmys, Baptiste and Perez, Central America and Africa” (17). I thought that the last names of the two Jimmys were rather interesting because they are the last names of the cuban leader before Castro, and Perez was the dictator in Argentina. Why would Lee use these two names as the last names of the two Jimmys that work with him? What motive do these names fulfill? (In an unrelated note, Henry’s job in this novel reminds me a lot of that new show on tv called “Dollhouse”).
Anyway, we spoke in class about how Henry seems to be a closed character, meaning he does not allow his true self to come through to the reader in his writing. However, I do not think I agree with this entirely. I agree that the nature of Henry’s job has cost Henry his true self in a lot of ways, but I do not think that Henry closes himself off from the reader. I think that the few scenes early on in the novel show the reader a close insight into Henry’s character for example: the scene with the shrink, Dr. Luzan, Henry starts to tell him about his real life problems as opposed to the problems that were set up for him to talk about. Henry starts to really like Dr. Luzan after several weeks of seeing him and even sets up another appointment during the week so that he can see him twice instead of just once and Dr. Luzan likes Henry just as well, “Take one, my friend … we shouldn’t submit to the traditional doctor-patient relationship. It’s not our psychology, anyway. Let them have their problems. We can share our own” (43). This is when Hoagland believes Henry has done a really good job, however, to Henry, this man, or client, became a friend. After speaking with him for quite some time, they shared something together, Henry felt that he could actually tell Luzan how he was feeling. This is an amazing thing in Henry’s line of work, which is evidenced by the fact that Henry didn’t tell Lelia, his own wife, what he did for a living for a very long time.
Blog Roundup :)
Posts:
1.) Reading 1/13/09
2.) Never Never Land 1/21/09
3.) Emma’s Plight 1/26/09
4.) no title 2/2/09
5.) Lily Briscoe’s Character 2/6/09
6.) Mrs. Ramsay is weird 2/9/09
7.) Human Nature 2/11/09
8.) Objects and their Usefulness 2/16/09
9.) ¿Secondary Source Integration? 2/20/09
10.) Myra=Myron 2/23/09
11.) Different Characters Goals and Beliefs 2/26/09
12.) Hmm… 3/2/09
13.) Native Speaker post 1 3/16/09
14.) ***Language*** 3/19/09
15.) Obama and Kwang 
3/26/09
16.) The Keeeeep 4/2/09
17.) Thesis Ideas Galore 4/9/09
Comments:
1.) Cosmatorium – “Save the Children!” Jan. 21,2009
2.) Marmason – “To the Lighthouse post 2″ Feb. 9, 2009
3.) Iamgodless – “Comments on Madame Bovary Characters” Jan 21, 2009
4.) Fischerr546 – “To the Lighthouse” Feb. 9, 2009
5.) Lilsmeg7 – “Beginning of ‘To the Lighthouse’” Feb. 6, 2009
6.) Cosmatorium – “This is the end, my only friend, the end” Jan. 28, 2009
7.) Lilsmeg7 – “Just when I thought Emma had a heart, she ruined it again..” Jan. 26, 2009
8.) Sjordan740 – “Selfish Emma+Incognizant Charles=Ultimate Frustration!” Jan. 26, 2009
9.) Sjordan740 – “Intelligence + Insecurity = Heartache <3″ Feb. 5, 2009
10.) ju1522 – “Myra can wait, I have someone else to discuss…” Feb. 25, 2009
11.) Lilsmeg7 – “Beginning of Myra…” Feb. 24, 2009
12.) Sjordan740 – “POV Shifts in Myra Breckinridge, etc.” Feb. 24, 2009
13.) ThreeSmallApples – “Myra It was no man you wanted, believe me it was a world” Feb. 26, 2009
14.) Silentwriter1222 – “Trying to contain the Laughter” Feb. 26, 2009
15.) Marmason “Native Speaker post 1″ March 19, 2009
16.) Cosmatorium “Silencing the Speaker” March 19, 2009
17.) Fisherr546 “The Keep” April 1, 2009
18.) Marmason “The keep post 1: metafiction and the novel” April 1, 2009
19.) Lilsmeg7 “Conclusion of Native Speaker” April 1, 2009
20.) Sjordan740 “The Race war in Native Speaker” April 1, 2009
21.) Eth76 ”The Keep and Symbolism” April 1, 2009
22.) Cosmatorium “Problems keeping track of Identity” April 1, 2009
23.) Sjordan740 “Notes on Description in the Keep” April 8, 2009
24.) Marmason “The keep post #3: ‘The real/unreal binary’ and ‘telecommunications yada yada” April 8, 2009
P.S- I think that the computer messed something up because I didn’t do six comments on one day and I also didn’t do anything at 6am. The problems is I don’t know what the real dates are…
Hmm…
I didn’t really know what to think when I finished this book. The chapters leading up to the end betrayed the character of Myra, because things that Myra was completely against became things that Myra wanted in life. For example when Myra says the lines in Chapter 37 about needing to protect Mary-Ann and herself until a man came along that she could marry. This idea is not one that Myra liked throughout the novel to this point. In fact Myra, Mary-Ann, and Rusty all have a conversation about the traditional, societal view of what people are supposed to do in life, which is to marry and procreate. Rusty and Mary-Ann believe that this is what they want until Myra steps in and undermines their relationship and view of the world and sexuality. Myra gives them a whole political overview of the world’s overpopulation problem and how their are people in other countries that are literally starving to death because there isn’t enough food to feed all of the people in a specific area. Myra also provides insights into other cultural views on what makes a gender.
This novel had so much to do with Literary Theory that sometimes, it even used the same language. I cannot remember who the writer was, (maybe Baudrillard) during the scene with Letitia and Rusty getting caught in the act by Mary-Ann and Myra, Myra says that Letitia simulated anger. The word “simulation” is taken directly from Baudrillard’s writing. Also when Montag and Myra are talking together, Myra mentions how Montag’s projection of his emotions may be misread by Myra because the only way that she would know what Montag is feeling is if he directly tells her, but maybe not even then.
I want to discuss, a little, the ending of this novel when Myra becomes Myron again and Myron and Mary-Ann pretty much live happily ever after. This ending was disappointing, but left me with a question: What happens when Mary-Ann finds out that Myra did all of these terrible things to Rusty and basically planned the demise of Mary-Ann and Rusty’s relationship? Even though, technically this question may not matter because Myron makes Mary-Ann happy, its just strange how nothing is really cleared up. Myra becomes Myron again, but for what reason? Is it because all Myra ends up caring about is making Mary-Ann happy? Or is it because Myra no longer wants to be a woman that no man shall possess? But it couldn’t be that, because she only wants Mary-Ann at this point… I don’t know. Why would Vidal make Myron become Myra only to become Myron again? What point is he trying to make there? After Myra rapes Rusty has she accomplished her goal of exerting her power over masculinity and avenged Myron and that is why she can then become Myron again? I guess I don’t totally understand the point of it all.
I definitely think that this novel makes the reader think about many topics at the same time, which may be why I’m having some trouble getting a hold on all of it. One thing is for sure, this book could definitely be read in a Literary Theory class! Anyway, I would like to understand Vidal’s main point in this novel, and if there even is a main point.
Different Characters Goals and Beliefs
The women in this novel, which so far include: Myra, Mary-Ann, Letitia, and Gloria (from the orgy, but not important) are all a very specific kind of women; as are the men for that matter: Buck, Rusty, Clem, Dr. Montag, and Myron. Rusty and Mary-Ann have the same kind of attitude toward life when it comes to gender roles and they both represent the traditional roles of male and female. Myra and Myron, being the same person, are without a doubt one another’s counter parts. Clem represents a different type of male than Rusty, because Clem is the musician that is not extremely good-looking, according to Myra, and Rusty is the archetypal, traditional football player, big, and tall male. In Myra’s opinion Rusty is the definition of masculine which is why she wants to break him in order to have her own personal victory.
Letitia is sort of Myron’s and Myra’s counterpart, she is sexually “non-traditional” and she represents the strong female character: “Two masterful women had met and there is no man alive capable of surviving our united onslaught… Women like ourselves owe to one another to present a united front to the enemy” (111). Letitia, as far as we know, has not had a sex change, but she definitely has the same attitude toward men that Myra has; that they are to be used to the woman’s satisfaction and that is it, Letitia and Myra both hope to exert their power and prowess over men sexually. However, there is a big difference between these two women. Myra likes to break men down and have sex with them, but does not like them to enjoy the sex, because when they are not enjoying it, Myra has all the power over the man. Whereas, Letitia uses her power as an agent to actors to make them have sex with her, so Letitia exerts her power in a different way than Myra. Letitia basically blackmails men into bed, but Myra breaks them down emotionally and pretty much rapes them.
Dr. Montag plays a significant role in this novel, even though he has had almost no dialect, Myra’s constant reference to Montag plays a crucial role. Montag represents the time in Myra and Myron’s life when they both existed in the same body and Montag represents the traditionalist that does not believe that the sexually promiscuous lifestyle does/ought to exist: “Since that traumatic experience for us all, Randolph has been, in some ways, a new man, a changed dentist. How he almost believes those stories his younger patients tell him of parties where sexual roles change rapidly, according to whim and in response to the moment’s pleasure, stories he used to reject as wish fulfillments” (87). As the psychologist/dentist Dr. Montag almost believes that the sexual ambiguity of the “new age” exists. He doesn’t quite believe it, and this role in the novel provides the reader with some insight into Myron/Myra’s difficulty in the process and in life.
Myra = Myron
I really think that Myra is Myron and that Myron is Myra. I don’t think they were ever married, I think that Myron had a sex change and became Myra. I’m basing this on the name similarities, and the hints in the novel itself. Myra says that she wants to finish the Thesis that Myron was working on about the films in the 40’s:
That was the year poor Myron was trying to complete his book on
Parker Tyler and the films of the Forties – a book I intend to
finish one day, with or without Mr. Tyler’s assistance. Why?
Because Tyler’s vision (films are the unconscious expressions
of age-old human myths) is perhaps the only important critical
insight this century has produced (13).
This section is important to note because not only does it show Myron’s interest and passion, but it shows that Myra has this same interest and passion, which further proves my theory of Myra and Myron being one and the same.
Then there is another suspicious statement that leads me to believe in this sex change hypothesis, Myra quotes a novel saying: “Or as Diotima said to Hyperion, in Hölderlin’s novel, ‘it was no man that you wanted,
believe me, you wanted a world.’ I too want a world and mean to have it. This man – any man – is simply a means of getting it (which is man)” (18). This statement shows that Myra is willing to use any man to get to the end that she wants. And Myron, in my opinion, was one of the men that she had to use.
The one line that really began all of my questioning, says that Myron and Myra used to exist: “I knew the Chelsea of Manhattan where Myron and I used to exist” (28). So Myron and Myra existed at the same time at one point, which makes sense if Myron really did die, however people don’t usually use the word ‘exist’ when referring to another person, unless of course they’re Myra and have had a sex change.
One last piece of evidence is when Myra uses strange language again: “Yet I must write the absolute truth for I am not Myron Breckinridge but myself and despite the intensely symbiotic relationship my husband and I enjoyed during his brief life…” (30). So now Myron and Myra’s relationship was symbiotic? Interesting. Either they were a really close married couple, OR they were the same person.
¿Secondary source integration?
I was looking to find out why the objects in the novel To the Lighthouse were so apparent in most scenes throughout for example, the intense descriptions of Lily’s paintings, the kitchen table, and of course the lighthouse. During “Time Passes” the house on Skye Island was the main topic. The descriptions of the house’s deterioration and the objects left inside the house as well. The article “The Housemaid and the Kitchen Table: Incorporating the Frame in To the Lighthouse” explains that through the use of an object, for example Lily’s paintings, Woolf is able to talk about the relationships between and among the characters in a more specific way due to the frameless nature of an object. I think that this is a really interesting way of looking at Woolf’s novel and looking through the novel again different scenes make more sense knowing this particular way of using of an object.
The author of this article uses different literary theorists, other novelists, and other works by Woolf to help discuss the novel To the Lighthouse. At one point in the article, the author uses another critical analysis to help explain his point, “In The Truth in Paining, a reading of Kant’s Critique of Judgement, Jacques Derrida observes the quality of the frame that is both without and with the portrait at the same time, insufficient to the thing it represents, but constitutive of that representation” (Handley 24). The author goes on and uses a large quote from Derrida’s piece then continues to connect it with Woolf’s work in To the Lighthouse. The article also reflects the reading of the novel through the knowledge gained from the author having previously read Woolf’s diaries, because in the article the author says that Woolf’s depiction of Mr. and Mrs. Ramsay is a clear representation of her own family, particularly her mother. The main comparison throughout this article was with another book written by Heidegger. While I haven’t read that other novel that the author refers to, it was sometimes useful to see the comparison so that I could see the way an author other than Woolf has used a similar technique in his/her writing.
