Seeing this class on the course list choices made me happy. Finally a course I sort of felt like I already knew something about it. Including of course, my obvious female perspective because I am a girl. I liked the people in my class. I already knew some of them and they are all nice. My biggest fear was having a teacher who was hard to talk to. That was soon demolished once I met Ms. Tally.
This being a new class, Ms Tally was always asking us if we liked how she was doing things as a teacher. That was nice. I liked being able to say my true opinion although I rarely had anything to change because she gave us a fair amount of work. It was easily feasible as long as you read the books. I loved the book selection! With the exception of the Handmaid’s Tale, which I thought was quite boring. I felt like the plotline was a good start to the class but in comparison with reactions to the other books it just seems dull. I didn’t take as much from it as I did with the other books. The biggest lesson I learned in this class, is something that my dad has been telling me ever things I was little. I just didn’t listen until I had the opportunity to experience it firsthand. “Always be diplomatic.” My dad would say. It wasn’t until this class that I truly understood what being ‘diplomatic’ is. Basically, when you put your opinion out there to the public, you’d better make sure you have evidence.
One of the scariest things to me about this course was that a LOT of it had to do with time management. Well, that’s good and all. I know that’s what life is really about and I’m glad I’ve gotten better at it. I find it easier to write once I’ve talked out my thoughts to someone around me. That’s why these blogs were so hard for me to do in the beginning. Since I wasn’t entirely sure what to say. Now I just let my words flow out from the tips of my fingers and onto the computer screen. I write just like it’s my voice speaking. That’s what I love about this class. It captures your personality.
My opinion about women has pretty much stayed the same. I never thought women to be completely inferior or completely superior to men. I just thought they needed help at times from troubles with our society. I’ve learned that men do too. The whole world, men and women need to change in so many ways. They need to broaden their perspectives, and subject themselves to empathy. No matter what time, place, or status, women have similar experiences that overlap one way or another. In this way, we can relate to one another and get along better.
Tuesday, 7 June 2011
In The Style of Mrs Dalloway: Stream of Consciousness
“The air was in the early morning; like a flap of a wave…” (1).
South Africa
My favorite part of rain is the moments after. I see the rainbow so clearly from across the mountains and the wide open plain. All of them are still asleep, I’m the first of my group to wake up and fill the teapot.
London
I barely slept last night. It’s been two days since my daughter has left for her trip. Two days! I haven’t slept at all. Damn her school. How could they allow children to go to the wild? There’s nothing special about that. Call going to Primark at noon wild. Not going to some random grassy plain in Africa with lions. Those kids won’t come back. My daughter seems to think that by watching Discovery Channel she can survive on her own. That’s what the college experience is about isn’t it? She’s still my baby girl. It’s hot. I should open a window.
South Africa
I breathe in the clean air and it fills my lungs. I try to compare the smell to something I’ve experienced before, but nothing comes to mind. Yes, nothing. It smells like nothing. It doesn’t smell like perfume. It doesn’t smell like pollution. It doesn’t smell like food…yet. I’m confused. I thought everything had a smell. Is my nose blocked? No…I can breathe perfectly well. Look at me, I can breathe!
London
Ah fresh air. Who turns on a siren at 9am? It’s no time for loud noises. But that’s London eh. Where is that iPhone of mine? I hate iPhones. I never wanted one. But everyone says it’s the latest fashion. Everyone has one. I’ll send Amna a message. That’s what I’ll do. I’ll send her a message! Dear Amna…no no no. Dearest Amna. No. My dearest daughter Amna. I miss you and I hope you are doing well. Do not loose that pocket-knife of your fathers. You know how much he loves it…
South Africa
Bzzzt. Shit! What was that? Ohhh it was my phone! Crap. I’m not supposed to have it turned on out here. Cool! I can get reception! I should check if Noor is on MSN. I miss her! A text! From Noor? Oh just from my mom. Aww. She’s so sweet! I miss her too. Wow. I really do. I mean I barely even hugged her goodbye because I was checking if I brought dad’s pocket-knife. Umm wait. Where is it? Oh no! I must have left it by the fire at the last camp-site! We can’t go back there now can we? No… the guide just told me no way. He laughed. She’s going to kill me. I’ll just tell her a monkey stole it.
South Africa
My favorite part of rain is the moments after. I see the rainbow so clearly from across the mountains and the wide open plain. All of them are still asleep, I’m the first of my group to wake up and fill the teapot.
London
I barely slept last night. It’s been two days since my daughter has left for her trip. Two days! I haven’t slept at all. Damn her school. How could they allow children to go to the wild? There’s nothing special about that. Call going to Primark at noon wild. Not going to some random grassy plain in Africa with lions. Those kids won’t come back. My daughter seems to think that by watching Discovery Channel she can survive on her own. That’s what the college experience is about isn’t it? She’s still my baby girl. It’s hot. I should open a window.
South Africa
I breathe in the clean air and it fills my lungs. I try to compare the smell to something I’ve experienced before, but nothing comes to mind. Yes, nothing. It smells like nothing. It doesn’t smell like perfume. It doesn’t smell like pollution. It doesn’t smell like food…yet. I’m confused. I thought everything had a smell. Is my nose blocked? No…I can breathe perfectly well. Look at me, I can breathe!
London
Ah fresh air. Who turns on a siren at 9am? It’s no time for loud noises. But that’s London eh. Where is that iPhone of mine? I hate iPhones. I never wanted one. But everyone says it’s the latest fashion. Everyone has one. I’ll send Amna a message. That’s what I’ll do. I’ll send her a message! Dear Amna…no no no. Dearest Amna. No. My dearest daughter Amna. I miss you and I hope you are doing well. Do not loose that pocket-knife of your fathers. You know how much he loves it…
South Africa
Bzzzt. Shit! What was that? Ohhh it was my phone! Crap. I’m not supposed to have it turned on out here. Cool! I can get reception! I should check if Noor is on MSN. I miss her! A text! From Noor? Oh just from my mom. Aww. She’s so sweet! I miss her too. Wow. I really do. I mean I barely even hugged her goodbye because I was checking if I brought dad’s pocket-knife. Umm wait. Where is it? Oh no! I must have left it by the fire at the last camp-site! We can’t go back there now can we? No… the guide just told me no way. He laughed. She’s going to kill me. I’ll just tell her a monkey stole it.
Monday, 6 June 2011
2 In One
Today we finished watching The Hours and reading Mrs. Dalloway. I thought that The Hours put up an interesting twist to Mrs. Dalloway and connected major themes. In The Hours, Meryl Streep is Clarissa Von who has characteristics of the Mrs. Dalloway character in Mrs. Dalloway. She is homosexual and has a partner, just like Mrs. Dalloway did. However, unlike the book, she remains close with her ex-husband. Richard. In the book although they remain close, their relationship did not seem as stable as it did in the movie. Clarissa Von has to deal with suicide, just like Mrs. Dalloway did. That is because she watched Richard commit suicide by falling out of a building.
I like the twist that Richard turned out to be the character of Laura’s son from the 50’s. Laura also dealt with suicide because she almost overdosed on pills, but we found out that the reason she didn’t go through with it was because she was pregnant with her second child. She says, “I can’t.” Just like how in the book says, “One cannot bring children into a world like this. One cannot perpetuate suffering…” (78). Laura ends up reasoning with herself that the reason why she cannot commit suicide is because she doesn’t want to harm a new born. I find this ironic because we find out that she left her family after her second child was born. Her husband dies of brain cancer and both her children end up committing suicide. So, just like in the book, she brings her children into suffering. When Laura comes to Richard’s funeral, she says to Clarissa Von,” Abandoning your children is the worst thing a mother can do.” Laura also said that nobody would ever understand or forgive her for it.
I think lack of choice is a big theme in not only the novel Mrs. Dalloway, but also in a lot of literature that women write. I have learned that women do a lot of things for other people rather than themselves. Nicole Kidman who plays Virginia Woolf in The Hours says, “I am the only one that can understand my suffering. I had my life taken away from me and I cannot live a life that I don’t want to live.” I think her message is important because even though it is sad to think that she would not want to live her life, and ended up drowning herself, she did what she wanted to do. She didn’t let Leonard, who I think is her husband control her any longer. When Leonard asked her why someone has to die in her book she responded with, “Someone has to die so that the others can appreciate life.” Leonard didn’t understand that. I find it interesting that she said that because maybe that means that she didn’t think Leonard appreciated life since she killed herself. I think that maybe it would have been better if the movie followed through on Leonard’s reaction after her death and if he changed his way of living.
Another aspect of the film and movie was regrets. Laura, Richard’s mother said, “It would be easy to have regrets, but what does it mean? How can you have regrets when you had no choice?” I still think that she had a choice. How awful it must have felt to go to her son’s funeral and know that he wrote about her in his book. He hated her for leaving him. The movie didn’t go into his sister and how she killed herself, which I think, is for the best because then it would have been confusing. Another example of having to deal with regrets happens when Richard was about to kill himself. He says to Clarissa Von that she and him couldn’t have been happier together and she should not blame herself for that. I felt like he had no regrets about how their relationship turned out. Laura mentions that she and Richard didn’t keep in touch often. So maybe he has regrets about the lack of relationship with his mother, but that isn’t clear.
The ending of the film shed a new light on suicide for me. In a weird way maybe Virginia Woolf was right when she said that someone has to die so that others can appreciate life. After I watched the film, it wasn’t that I immediately appreciated my life more, but I understood why someone could feel suicidal. Sometimes suicide isn’t always completely selfish like a lot of people think. When it comes to Laura though, I was surprised that she hadn’t killed herself before Richard did. It didn’t seem like she was doing a lot of things in her life at the moment, but she looked happy. I still think that leaving her husband and kids was selfish. Her home life in the 1950’s seemed perfect; she had a smiley husband and a cute son. Everyone was happy. Yet, it only seemed that way on the surface. The audience could tell that she had a lot of problems from stress and dark thoughts.
I’m glad that we watched the movie because it really put the plot of Mrs. Dalloway into perspective. Although The Hours was a combination of Virginia Woolf’s novels, but the single day plotline stayed the same. It helped me because it compressed the time span of the novel and made it more manageable for me to understand. I liked how there were parallels in the shots that captured each of the time periods. For example, when Virginia, Laura, and Clarissa would wake up in the morning, I could see a unifying quality in their actions. They would wash their face, cut the flowers, and put them down in a vase. Even though they had different lives, they shared similar experiences.
I like the twist that Richard turned out to be the character of Laura’s son from the 50’s. Laura also dealt with suicide because she almost overdosed on pills, but we found out that the reason she didn’t go through with it was because she was pregnant with her second child. She says, “I can’t.” Just like how in the book says, “One cannot bring children into a world like this. One cannot perpetuate suffering…” (78). Laura ends up reasoning with herself that the reason why she cannot commit suicide is because she doesn’t want to harm a new born. I find this ironic because we find out that she left her family after her second child was born. Her husband dies of brain cancer and both her children end up committing suicide. So, just like in the book, she brings her children into suffering. When Laura comes to Richard’s funeral, she says to Clarissa Von,” Abandoning your children is the worst thing a mother can do.” Laura also said that nobody would ever understand or forgive her for it.
I think lack of choice is a big theme in not only the novel Mrs. Dalloway, but also in a lot of literature that women write. I have learned that women do a lot of things for other people rather than themselves. Nicole Kidman who plays Virginia Woolf in The Hours says, “I am the only one that can understand my suffering. I had my life taken away from me and I cannot live a life that I don’t want to live.” I think her message is important because even though it is sad to think that she would not want to live her life, and ended up drowning herself, she did what she wanted to do. She didn’t let Leonard, who I think is her husband control her any longer. When Leonard asked her why someone has to die in her book she responded with, “Someone has to die so that the others can appreciate life.” Leonard didn’t understand that. I find it interesting that she said that because maybe that means that she didn’t think Leonard appreciated life since she killed herself. I think that maybe it would have been better if the movie followed through on Leonard’s reaction after her death and if he changed his way of living.
Another aspect of the film and movie was regrets. Laura, Richard’s mother said, “It would be easy to have regrets, but what does it mean? How can you have regrets when you had no choice?” I still think that she had a choice. How awful it must have felt to go to her son’s funeral and know that he wrote about her in his book. He hated her for leaving him. The movie didn’t go into his sister and how she killed herself, which I think, is for the best because then it would have been confusing. Another example of having to deal with regrets happens when Richard was about to kill himself. He says to Clarissa Von that she and him couldn’t have been happier together and she should not blame herself for that. I felt like he had no regrets about how their relationship turned out. Laura mentions that she and Richard didn’t keep in touch often. So maybe he has regrets about the lack of relationship with his mother, but that isn’t clear.
The ending of the film shed a new light on suicide for me. In a weird way maybe Virginia Woolf was right when she said that someone has to die so that others can appreciate life. After I watched the film, it wasn’t that I immediately appreciated my life more, but I understood why someone could feel suicidal. Sometimes suicide isn’t always completely selfish like a lot of people think. When it comes to Laura though, I was surprised that she hadn’t killed herself before Richard did. It didn’t seem like she was doing a lot of things in her life at the moment, but she looked happy. I still think that leaving her husband and kids was selfish. Her home life in the 1950’s seemed perfect; she had a smiley husband and a cute son. Everyone was happy. Yet, it only seemed that way on the surface. The audience could tell that she had a lot of problems from stress and dark thoughts.
I’m glad that we watched the movie because it really put the plot of Mrs. Dalloway into perspective. Although The Hours was a combination of Virginia Woolf’s novels, but the single day plotline stayed the same. It helped me because it compressed the time span of the novel and made it more manageable for me to understand. I liked how there were parallels in the shots that captured each of the time periods. For example, when Virginia, Laura, and Clarissa would wake up in the morning, I could see a unifying quality in their actions. They would wash their face, cut the flowers, and put them down in a vase. Even though they had different lives, they shared similar experiences.
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