Flashbacks

"Of course I did, thought Peter; it almost broke my heart too, he thought; and was overcome with his own grief, which rose like a moon looked at from a terrace, ghastly beautiful with light from the sunken day.  I was more unhappy than I've ever been since, he thought.  And as if in truth he were sitting there on the terrace he edged a little towards Clarissa; put his hand out; raised it; let it fall.  There above them it hung, that moon.  She too seemed to be sitting with him on the terrace, in the moonlight" (Woolf 42).

This passage represents how the past directly affects the present.  Peter Walsh just returned to London after five years of being in India and the first thing he does is visit his former love Clarissa.  He reflects back to the night he proposed to her, also the night she rejected him.  He sees the moon which they "looked at from a terrace."  His old feelings of love and "grief" are coming back to him through his flashback, proving how past events correlate with current events.

Just like Mrs. Dalloway, the TV show Arrow begins with no back story, it goes straight into the plot.  The show follows Oliver Queen, the son of a billionaire who goes missing for five years until he finally returns home, and his quest to protect his city by using his knowledge of the past to help with his current situation.  During each episode, there are two different time lines going on, one in the past and one in the present.  In order to understand the events occurring, you must understand the events that caused it to happen.

In this passage, there are also two timelines, one where Peter is in Clarissa's room and the other is the moment that Peter wishes he can forget.  But just like Oliver, he can't escape the past; the past is what shapes the present and the future.

Different

Steve in the 1940s                         Steve Today

This week, we read "Fish Cheeks," a short story by Amy Tan.  In this story, Tan discusses what it was like to grow up being Chinese in America.  She recalls being embarrassed of her culture at the time of the story, but later she realizes that she should not have tried to change herself and becomes "proud [she is] different" (Tan 95).  This reminded me of how Steve Rogers must have felt when he made the transition from the 1940s to the culture of today.

Although Amy Tan is discussing the difference between two cultures, the difference between two time periods can be viewed in the same way.  Each decade has their own slang, music, morals, technology, clothing, manners, and many more items and techniques associated with them.  If someone was to go from one time period to another, they would need to learn the culture of that period in order to fit in which is exactly what Steve Rogers had to do.  He dressed differently, thought differently, and he definitely didn't know what a cell phone was.  Just like Amy Tan and her "miniskirt in beige tweed," he thought if he looked the same on the outside he would fit in (Tan 95).  However, he will always be different.  A part of him will always be from the 1940s just like a part of Amy Tan will always be Chinese.

Charles Xavier

This week, we read a short story called "Disability" by Nancy Mairs.  In this story, Mairs reveals that the media severely hurts the disabled by failing to represent disabilities as normal.  In addition, the media's portrayal also hurts the "Temporarily Abled" because it influences people to believe that disabilities can't happen to them (Mairs 15).  However, people can become disabled "without warning, at any time" (Mairs 15).  Charles Xavier, also known as Professor X, fell victim to the media’s lack of portrayal when he gets paralyzed from the waist down.

Charles Xavier, along with the other X-Men, is a mutant.  Each one of them has a different special ability.  Charles has the ability of telepathy.  While on a mission with the X-Men in Cuba, he was accidentally shot in the back, paralyzing his legs.  He adjusted well at first, but over the years he becomes very depressed.  Charles was already an outcast of society because he is a mutant; now he is also an outcast of his own community because he is in a wheelchair.  He wants to be seen as "normal" so badly that he enlists the help of his friend to develop a serum that will allow him to walk again.  However, if he takes the serum, he will not be able to use his telepathy again.  In order to be considered "normal," he is willing to give up apart of himself that makes him truly special.  Nevertheless, he takes the serum anyway.  Finally he realizes that being true to himself is far better than conforming to society's standards.  Maybe if the media portrayed disabilities as something that "complicates but does not ruin human existence," the transition for Charles would have been easier (Mairs 15).

Walter's POV

All I want in life is to be successful.  I want to be rich.  I want to buy my wife a pearl necklace.  I want a yacht.  I want everything that comes with being rich.  This liquor store was going to be my chance to make it big.  Mama got a check for ten thousand dollars.  TEN THOUSAND!  I wanted to use it to invest in a liquor store with Willy Harris and Bobo.  We had it all planned out and the only thing that we needed was my share of the money.  But when I asked Mama, she wouldn't give it to me.  She said, "There ain't going to be no investing in no liquor stores."  And when I tried to talk to my wife about it she said, "Eat your eggs, Walter."  Nobody ever understands me.  All I want to do is make something of myself and nobody even gives me the chance. 

When the check finally came, Mama went and bought a house.  We were all fighting that day so she thought it would cheer us up.  Well it crushed me.  She took away my dream before I even got a chance to follow through with it.  There was no point of working if I didn't have anything to work for so I spent the next three days drinking at the bar.  I guess my boss called and complained because Mama showed up at the bar to take me home.  I told her how I felt and she felt bad for me so she gave me the leftover money, sixty-five hundred dollars.  She told me to go to the bank and put three thousand dollars into Beneatha's schooling and put the rest into a checking account for me.  

Instead of going to the bank, I gave all the leftover money, including Beneatha's money, to Willy Harris and Bobo for the liquor store.  If this investment worked, I could pay for Beneatha's schooling myself.  We were one big happy family for a while there.  When Mr. Lindner from the "Welcoming Committee" came over to try to buy the house from us, we declined.  There wasn't anything that was going to stop us from moving into that house.

Later that day, Bobo came over and told me that Willy Harris has run off with the money.  I was devastated.  I finally had the chance to achieve my dream and Willy Harris crushed it.  Our family also needed that money.  I knew I made a huge mistake so I tried to make it right by calling Mr. Lindner and accepting the money for the house.  Once he came over however, I knew I couldn't accept his offer.  If we gave in to the white oppression then how will the black equality movement ever move forward?  Money is still important, but sticking up for your family and yourself matters a lot more.

A Not So Perfect Fairy Tale

"The Diamond as Big as the Ritz," by F. Scott Fitzgerald, has every aspect that is attributed to a "Once upon a time" fairy tale: a handsome prince, a beautiful princess, and a gigantic castle located in a scenic area.  However, the story is missing a "happily ever after."  In fact, it has the complete opposite of a happy ending; but that is the point.  Fitzgerald's theme is to show that material possessions do not measure how happy a person is.  He achieves this theme through the use of rhetoric such as the symbol of the diamond.  The gigantic diamond represents the wealth of the Washington's which is also the source of their happiness.  A diamond that large would have no value because "there would not be enough gold in the world to buy a tenth part of it" (87).  Since the diamond is not worth anything, no happiness can come from it.  Although the idea of a diamond mountain is as ridiculous as pink elephants, the story's theme can still be applied to today's world.  When I walk into the school lunchroom, I see almost everyone on his or her phone.  When people forget their phones, I hear them say that they feel empty and sad.  People need to realize that material possessions, such as phones, can't make them feel truly happy.  John T. Unger also fails to realize this.  Although he saves Kismine and Jasmine from the airplane attack much like Moses saved many people by parting the Red Sea, he cannot truly be called a hero because his view on happiness never changed.  He is unsuccessful in realizing that true happiness comes from the relationships people make and the experiences you share with those people, not from luxurious items. 

The American Nightmare - EC

Question: Is there a dark side to American success?

I believe that there is a dark side to the American Dream.  The American Dream is that someone can start out poor, work really hard, and then become really rich and successful.  This is really hard to achieve; but if someone manages to, it never is what they expect it be like.  A good example of this is Jay Gatsby.

Before Gatsby became rich, he was James Gatz.  The son of unsuccessful farmers, he always dreamed he should be rich.  He even said that "his imagination had never really accepted them as his parents" (Fitzgerald 104).  He was determined to become wealthy, no matter what the cost. Since he couldn't become rich legally, he became rich illegally.  He expected that once he was wealthy, everything would fall into place.  Daisy would be his and everything would be perfect.  However, this is not the case.  Daisy is married to another man, but this doesn't stop Gatsby.  He is prepared to do whatever is necessary to make her his "and to this conception he was faithful to the end" (Fitzgerald 104).  But Daisy doesn't feel the same way, thereby crushing Gatsby's dream; she states, "'Oh you want too much!'" (Fitzgerald 134).  Until the day he died, he never gave up on his dream.  He truly was ""faithful to the end" (Fitzgerald 104).  Gatsby did achieve the American Dream, but it didn't turn out to be everything he expected it to be.  

Realizing Reality

This week, we read a speech given by David Foster Wallace to the graduates of Kenyon College in 2005.  In this speech, he talked about how "the most obvious, important realities are often the ones that are the hardest to see and talk about."  This reminded me of Tony Stark because he couldn't see that his weapons caused more harm than good until he experienced it himself. 

Before Tony Stark became Iron Man, he was the CEO of Stark Industries, a weapons company.  He designed and created weapons for the U.S. military but his weapons were sold to other countries as well.  Tony only wanted his weapons to be sold to the United States, but he was too involved in his "lens of self" to realize what was going on.  All he cared about was making money and partying.  He was too distracted by his own needs that he never paid attention to what was going on "right in front of [him]."

That all changed when he was kidnapped in Afghanistan after he gave a weapon demonstration to the U.S. soldiers.  While he was there, he realized that the same weapons he created to protect innocent people were also the ones the terrorists were using to hurt them.  He escaped the cave he was held in by creating the iron man suit.  After that, he improved his suit and started using it help people because he finally realized that he is not the "center of the world." The world was suffering because he was being "self-centered" and he wanted to put an end to it.  Tony started to "experience" events in a new way, which is all David Foster Wallace asked for.