Struggling to Find Answers

Lily Briscoe, while staying with the Ramseys, is attempting to complete her painting that captures the essence of Mrs. Ramsey and her son James. But the journey to do this involves struggling with trying to answer the “simple question…What is the meaning of life?” (161). Lily is convinced that Mrs. Ramsey holds “in her heart” the answer to this question and thus is infatuated with her. She is “in love” with the world that Mrs. Ramsey has built around her through her relationships with her husband, her children and her friends. She recognizes that Mrs. Ramsey possesses a special quality, a quality that “people must have for the world to go on” (50). As she tries to capture the essence of Mrs. Ramsey, Lily asks herself, “Was it wisdom? Was it knowledge?” (50) that made Mrs. Ramsey so special. Lily struggles with her painting for she cannot initially find the connection and understanding that she seeks with Mrs. Ramsey. She knows that “knowledge and wisdom are stored up in Mrs. Ramsey’s heart” (51), but she does not know how to attain this knowledge.

Lily tries to capture this knowledge from Mrs. Ramsey by physically embracing her and hoping that this knowledge would permeate from Mrs. Ramsey’s body into hers. She leans her head against Mrs. Ramsey’s knees; she wraps her arms around her knees; she places her head in her lap, all in an attempt to draw out this knowledge from her physical closeness. But Lily despairs that this knowledge does not come easily and compares it to treasures that are “sealed” and are locked away in “secret chambers” (51). There are “intricate passages of the brain” (51) that must be navigated to find the answers that Lily is certain Mrs. Ramsey holds. Again stressing that these answers are not obvious or easy to find, Woolf writes they are “not inscriptions on tablets, nothing that could be written in any language known to men” (51). Lily’s quest to answer the meaning of life will not be handed to her, but will require a struggle.

Woolf introduces a second metaphor of a beehive to continue the inaccessibility of Mrs. Ramsey’s “knowledge.” The beehive, like the “secret chambers in a tomb of kings,” attracts bees, which represent humans, but is essentially “sealed off” and impenetrable. The “dome shaped hive” that represents Mrs. Ramsey’s is “haunted” swarms of bees that are attracted to its “sweetness.” The swarming bees signify that many people are seeking the answer to the meaning of life, but what is heard around the bee hive are “murmurings and stirrings.” Nothing is clear or explicit, but elusive and intangible. Lily hopes that by deceiphering these “murmurings,” she could make sense of the world.

The Power of Women

In One Hundred Years of Solitude, multiple generations of Jose Arcadio Buendia and Ursula Iguaran are depicted. Although the men are revealed to be strong willed, single minded and passionate extremists, they are not necessary strong in character and eventually lose the reason for their passion. Instead harboring strong male role models, the clan of Jose Arcadio Buendia proves to be matriarchal with Ursula the one who controls and keeps the family on a somewhat straight course for well over one hundred years. Jose Arcadia Buendia is on a mission to explore and explain the mysteries of the world, locking himself up for endless amounts of time in his laboratory and losing touch with the world around him. It is Ursula who keeps the house running and takes care of the children. But moreover, it is Ursula who makes better judgments and more reasonable decisions and adamantly sticks by them. When Jose Arcadia Buendia wants to move from Mocondo, Ursula flatly refuses and firmly tells him, “If I have to die for the rest of you to stay here, I will die” (13). When no one can understand why Aureliano wants to marry the young Remedios, it is only Ursula who recognizes the young girl’s virtues. As Jose Arcadio Buendia succumbs to dementia and is left tied to the old chestnut tree, Ursula maintains control of the family, yet also shows a compassionate side as she lies to Jose Arcadio Buendia about their son Jose Arcadio so he does not know he is “bringing shame to the house” (106).

More importantly than just running the house and being the commander- in –chief with good judgment calls, Ursula dictates the moral code of the family and is not afraid to enforce that code. When Arcadio takes over control of the town when Colonel Aureliano Buendia leaves for war and starts to act like a dictator, Ursula is not afraid to step in and speak her mind. She publicly yells at Arcadio that he is bringing “shame on the family” for using public funds to build his house. She calls him a “murderer” when he has Caterino shot for disrespect. When Colonel Aureliano plans to kill Gerinaldo Marquez, Urusla knowing it is wrong, fearlessly threatens him, “I swear to you before God I will drag you out from wherever you are hiding and kill you with my own two hands.” She also recognizes that her son Colonel Aureliano, although obsessed with war and fighting for the liberal cause, has lost his reason for the fight, his spirit, and has only ended up with a “coldness in his insides” (155). Ursula understands that Colonel Aureliano has lost his moral compass and his inner soul and has literally becoming a stranger. She has a clear perception of the spiritual collapse of her sons as they grow old, especially Colonel Aureliano and has premonitions of his eventual spiritual solitude.

In the first two chapters of One Hundred Years of Solitude, the concern with human loneliness and solitude is introduced, most notably in the story of Jose Arcadio Buendia’s killing of Prudencio Agular. Repeatedly, Jose Arcadio Buendia and his wife Ursula are haunted by the ghost of Prudencio Agular. Instead of being scared by the ghost, they are more concerned that he is wandering in the town and identify that the problem is that he is “so very lonely.” The feeling of solitude is reintroduced multiple times throughout the novel and as a problem in all the generations. It becomes a reoccurring theme that man cannot or is always trying to escape solitude. Even Jose Arcadio’s first sexual experience with Pilar Terera is infused with “fearful solitude.” Aureliano, aware of Jose Arcadio’s secret sexual encounters with Pilar tries to live though his brother’s experiences, but the two end up “taking refuge in solitude,” instead of comfort in sharing their secret.

The first two chapters also create the mystical, super-natural, and fantasy-like quality to the novel. The gypsies, the hot jungle-like environment with singing birds, and the mysteries of the sulfuric smelling laboratory all reinforce this dreamlike state. There is no attempt at realism and this only highlights Jose Arcadia Buendia’s comment to Ursula that “incredible things are happening in the world.” One does not question or be concerned about the strangeness of the events. It is totally consistent in a fairy tale like way that Ursula disappears for five months in search of her son and then returns as if nothing had happened and having discovered the route that had eluded her husband for years. As we remember our lives is it no more than a collection of mysterious and not always understandable dream-like epsiodes?

NYT and García Márquez

Two things I read in the New York Times this past week interestingly enough relate to Gabriel Garcia Marquez. First, Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s last novel, Memories of My Melancholy Whores was recently banned in Iran by the Minister of Culture and Islamic Guidance after its first printing and a second printing was not being allowed. My guess is the subject matter, a 90 years old man, who celebrates his birthday by arranging a night with an adolescent virgin, offended the “moral code” of the Iranian leaders.

I also read a review of the movie adaptation of Gabriel Marquez’s “Love in the Time of Cholera,” (review, Nov. 16, 2007) which basically panned the movie saying that the “crucial missing ingredient, for which no amount of lush scenery can substitute, is the voice of Mr. Garcia Marquez’s omniscient narrator.” Having read some of One Hundred Years of Solitutde, I can already appreciate the omniscient narrator who jumps back and forth in time. For example, Garcia Marquez constantly refers to Aureliano’s eventual execution. If Love in the Time of Cholera is anything like One Hundred Years of Solitude, it would be interesting to see how Garcia Marquez’s fantasy-like story and language could be captured in a movie. How could one project on the movie screen Garcia Marquez’s description of the gypsy girl’s room which “from being used so much, kneaded with sweat and sighs, the air in the room had begun to turn to mud?”

Everything That Rises Must Converge

O’Connor’s “Everything That Rises Must Converge” would fit nicely into my essay on “What is in a Name.” In particular, Julian’s mother reminds me of Mrs. Compson in The Sound and the Fury. Similar to Mrs. Compson, Julian’s mother constantly reminds her son that they come from a “good” Southern family, who used to own plantations and lots of slaves. Specifically, because of her family’s past wealth and social status, she feels superior, especially to blacks, and self-important. She tells Julian that the people at the Y “are not our kind of people.” Despite Julian’s mother’s economic fall and loss of the family estate, she still finds her identity with her family’s past greatness. Julian, trying desperately to “teach his mother a lesson” and put her in her place, meanly tells her “You haven’t the foggiest idea where you stand now or who you are.” It is ironic that although Julian detests his mother’s constant reminder of her past and rejects her belief that she is a “gracious” and “good” human being because of her heritage, he secretly believes that he is the one who only really appreciated the home he grew up in.

Julian’s nasty and selfish qualities also remind me of Jason Compson. They both feel put upon by their mothers and treat them disrespectfully and with contempt. Julian is intent on humiliating his mother and proving to her that she is racist. He wants to see her squirm in her seat and thus tries to strike up a conversation with the black man sitting next to him. Ironically, the black man will have nothing to do with him. Julian only wants to put his mother in uncomfortable positions and even fantasizes that he brings home a black fiancée. Although believing that he is fair and ‘sees things as they really are,” he actually has no idea of his true inner self. He believes he is “liberal,” but feels superior because he thinks he is objective. In reality, he is the least objective. He believes himself to be smart and this also translates into his feelings of superiority, but he is unable to make it as a writer and sells typewriters. He thinks his mother is racist, but he considers himself to be above so many others because of his intelligence. He does not recognize what his mother really means to him until she is dying of a stroke on the street partially because of his own nastiness to her. It is not until this catastrophic event that Julian is forced to face his “guilt and sorrow.” Once again it is ironic that he is determined to teach his mother a lesson, but it is himself who ultimately learns the lesson.

O’Connor’s technique of ? parallelism makes the reader at first think the situation is comical, but then realism and its sobering moral lesson set in. When the black woman boards the bus and is wearing the same hat that Julian’s mother bought especially so she would not “meet” herself, there is a hint of comedy. But then once realizes that O’Connor is pointing out that although Julian’s mother is trying to maintain her superior identity by wearing her unique hat, she really is no different that the black woman to whom she feels so superior. On a bigger scale, O’Connor is showing how the two classes are “converging.” Also the parallelism of the two mother /sons is comical when O’Connor states how it is as if they switched sons. However, the strained and unhappy mother son relationship is evident in both on different levels. The black mother is almost abusive to the child, yelling at him, pulling him, and treating him meanly. Julian abuses his mother verbally also. Both relationships present tension between sibling and parent.

Who is really guilty?

Briony spends her entire life trying to atone for accusing Robbie of a crime he didn't commit and for ruining Robbie's and Ceceila's chance for love and happiness. She certainly feels guilty, but is she really responsible for this crime of was her crime unintentional and not premeditated? Briony was a victim of her own imagination. As a precocious child immersed in literature and fairy tales, she constructed her world according to the fiction she read. Order was achieved through a set of black and white rules and life had to fit that framework. In Briony's world, there was the princess stolen away by the evil "maniac," and the prince who saves the princess from an evil fate (after he saves her from drowning). Thus, when Briony inadvertently sees Ceceila and Robbie at the fountain, she can only interpret the scenario in one way as she forces the scenario to fit into her view of the world which she has created through the stories she has read. She knows no better and should not be expected to know better. But when events do not unfold as she expected (ie. Ceceila being rescued from the fountain, followed by a proposal), and when she reads Robbie's sexually explicit note, she can only now cast Robbie into the role of the evil "maniac," a role she feels was always his and that she had just missed the signs. So even though Briony thought that " for now it could no longer be fairy tale castles and princesses, but that her writing had now matured to a new level - that she had "privileged access across the years to adult behavior," she is still a child and still forcing what she sees in the world according to the princesses and bad guys. Her actions are also motivated by her own desire to write. Briony is so convinced that Robbie is the evil maniac, she feels she must protect her sister. However, she is a victim of her background of fiction and thus it was so "easy to get everything wrong." It is easy to convince herself that Lola's attacker was Robbie and as a child, it was hard once the investigations intensified to extricate herself from her accusations. Once she was able to realize what she had done, her guilt is so overwhelming that she pends the rest of her life trying to atone for her crime by the only way she really knows how - by writing the story of what happened, specifically writing the story "from three points of view...to show separate minds, as alive as her own," to suffer by understanding exactly what Robbie and Ceceila felt and went through because of her. Writing has caused Briony to lie, and writing is the only way she knows how to atone for her sin. But even her writing must be falsified to make her achieve her goal.
(As an aside, I think it is interesting that McEwan has chosen to contrive his own writing of the story to help reinforce Briony's views of Robbie as a monster. When Robbie emerges from the woods with the twins, he appears as if he were a gigantic monster because he has one of the twins on his shoulders. This depiction again reinforces for Briony that Robbie must me the evil one who committed the crime and MCEwan by describing Robbie that way forces him into that role.)
But who should really be guilty in this novel? Commenting on the social evils of the time, McEwan, through Emily Tallis and both Lola and Marshall, reveals the ills of class superiority in England. Emily Tallis is perfectly content to see Robbie accused of the crime and is blinded by her own prejudices of her superiority over the gardener's son. She has always resented that her husband paid for Robbie's education and snobbishly comments that it was a fancy of her husband. In the last section, McEwan paints Lola as a Cruella DeVille "the guant figure, the black coat, the lurid lips." Although Lola and Marshall are huge philanthropists, Briony comments that perhaps he has given away so much money "spending a life time trying to make amends." But the other option that Briony suggests is most like the truth - "or perhaps he just swept onward without a thought, to live the life that was always his." The Marshalls are definitely guilty of the crime, but because of their place in society, they will be protected.
Although Ceceila is cast as a victim, she too in reality, cannot escape her own notions of class and is convinced that the gardener Danny was guilty.

Meta-Analysis Response S&F

Coming to Know Your Process as a Writer: Meta-Analysis
After many years of composing five paragraph thesis driven essays from a straightforward 45 min CAPT essay in 6th grade to last year’s research paper, I was taught a formulaic process to write an effective essay. The importance of a thesis sentence, supporting paragraphs with “blended” quotations, and a conclusion that effectively summed up the thesis was drummed into my head. Thus, when assigned to write an exploratory essay, the inverse of a thesis essay, on a novel as complicated as The Sound and the Fury, I struggled with my first draft to escape my habitual writing style and instead attempted to write as if I were thinking through possible answers to a question I was posing about the novel.
As I now look over my first draft and the comments attached to it, I realize that my first draft was a victim of how I usually compose an essay. Despite how much I tried, I could not escape the thesis based approach. I recognized this even when I handed in the essay for I wrote as criticism, “Are there too many examples and is this too thesis based?” In this second draft, I have tried to follow your advice, “TAKE SOME CHANCES.” As you suggested, I flipped around my ending using Juliet’s rhetorical question “What’s in a name?” as my introduction. Instead of ending the first question with an answer, I ended it with the question I was going to explore. Similarly, at the end of the second paragraph, I removed the last line that yes, “reeked of a thesis based essay.” (Just couldn’t contain myself from including it the first time around!) and tried to take some more chances in the third paragraph by concluding with a new question, “If one is tied to his or her name, then is it synonymous with identity formation?”
What about content? Yes, too many examples and as you commented, “sounds too much like a list.” My standard approach to writing is to have lots of examples to support my thesis. I had just recently been discussing how some tribes in Africa name their children and I “stuck” this paragraph about names to proclaim one’s achievements in my first draft trying to make it work. Rereading, I realized this was off topic and yes, “random” (but interesting). Similarly, I felt the Kennedy paragraph on rewriting the second draft unnecessary, so I eliminated that one too and tried to return to The Sound and the Furry and include a paragraph about the name Quentin and the burden that the younger Quentin assumed by being named after her uncle who committed suicide. Trying to again take a chance, I allowed myself to let this lead into the question whether one can form one’s own identity and escape one’s name.
My goals are to be less formulated in my thinking and my writing so I can develop content in a more sophisticated manner. Again this goes back to taking chances with my writing, not always an easy task when you have relied on formulas in the past that has been successful.