Period 4 Conversations About Literature
Any period may read or post to any period, but use this starting point for followups to class discussions.
Any period may read or post to any period, but use this starting point for followups to class discussions.
Hmm… I guess I will start this off then. I seem to be noticing a theme of life as a physical journey in my literature, and that leads me to a couple of conclusions. First of all, it means that where you go is in your hands, and noone else’s. Sure, you can’t control what happens along the way, but where you set out to go is up to you. Also I think that this implies an almost nonteleological approach to life. It isn’t necessarily a beautiful thing or a painful thing or anything besides what you make of it. Its a canvas of sorts but the material is far less important than what you paint.
Any thoughts?
Blaine - May 18, 2009 at 7:58 pm |
I second this; my book, City of Thieves, the main character “grows up” rather abruptly because of a journey he is sent on to find eggs in the middle of war. By all means he should have been dead, but, for one reason or another, he is sent off on this seemingly ridiculous journey, which really holds just as much threat to his life.
On an overall basis, perhaps, one can control where their life journey takes them, but on an individual turn-by-turn basis, one cannot always choose. Ie. If I make it my life goal to end up as a famous artist living in Japan, having visited all the major country’s in the world… I can do that! Of course I could, anyone can do anything if they try their very very hardest. But the journey itself takes time, and will at times be completely out of my hands; maybe I’ll have to work a whole summer at McDonald’s to get enough money to go to college to learn the languages and get the connections I need to accomplish the big over-all goals and journey. All the same, the point you set as your goal will create the path you walk, and sometimes you’ll be able to choose which fork to take, and sometimes you won’t. Hopefully all of them end in the place you want to be.
I suppose, really, I did just say the same thing Blaine did, it’s just that I took more words and weird thinking to describe it. I very much like the idea that the canvas isn’t what’s important, though; a masterpiece can take shape out of cardboard and trash, after all.
Fiona - May 18, 2009 at 10:54 pm |
In my book, Robinson, the main character, does choose to go on a journey so he aboards a ship and travels, but while he’s out he gets stranded on an island. I think this happened in someone elses hands, it wasn’t his own plan. While he is out there though he tells a very inspiring story, leaving hte reader with the idea that a positive attitude can make any situation a great one. So no matter where you end up, or how you get there, there is a reason and something good will come of it….BE OPTIMISTIC!
Laurie - May 21, 2009 at 10:49 pm |
This is like what I was telling Erin; think positively, and good things will come your way! The only way bad things can *really* come your way, is if you think negatively and constantly focus on that negative aspect.
So, exactly, be optimistic! Think positive! : )
Fiona - May 21, 2009 at 11:01 pm
While I definitely agree with Blaine and Fiona, the character in my book has a tendency to do the exact opposite. She sort of lets life move around her as opposed to taking control over herself. For example, when she doesn’t get into the writing program she wanted to do at Harvard, she lets it consume her and turns down the opportunity to live there anyway, even when she says herself that she knows she should have gone whether she got in or not. I think the events and outcome of the book could have been very different had the main character been able to take a responsibility for herself and not let the things she cannot control take such a toll on her.
Erin - May 19, 2009 at 11:37 pm |
I don’t know that that’s so much a case of “taking responsibility” (although there certainly is that aspect there) as it is a case of the human mind. When something goes wrong, we each have a choice: accept it and move on, or wish and gripe and grumble and end up clinging to it. I suppose one could also choose to deny that the wrong even happened, but it eventually leads to later stress and the ill effects eventually come back to “kick” you. If you think negatively, negative things will be drawn to you. Likewise, thinking positive will bring good outcomes your way. You really can be your worst enemy.
Now, I’m taking from your summary that the main character is “sad” (just to put it generally) because of her passive attitude toward her life. She still has the ability to get back up and move, and she could also stay right where she is and figure out some good “meaning of life” that suits her. I don’t know if she ever “cheers up” by the end of your book, but I would think that, at least for a while, she would have more bad things happen to her while she was feeling bad, and maybe she finally decides she’s had enough and gets up and moves on. I don’t know, I haven’t read your book (as far as I know). Anyways, it’s just another illustration to the idea that your mind can be your worst enemy. Not only can it draw more bad things to you, but it can sit in your way and drag you down, until you tell it you’ve had enough! That’s the real key : )
Fiona - May 21, 2009 at 10:24 pm |
Well, my book is The Bell Jar, and the main character ends up attempting suicide and in a hospital. The ending is surprisingly hopeful, though, as she finds out if she will be released from the hospital or not. I definitely agree that you can’t necessarily control what happens, but you need to take control of your reactions to the things that happen to you. The main character in The Bell Jar, Esther, sort of begins to accept the events in her life as they are toward the end of the book and move forward.
Erin - May 22, 2009 at 9:05 am
I totally agree with Blaine that your life is of your own making. In my book the main character goes on this intense treasure seeking journey which proves to be a very life changing experience. I think what really can be taken from this is importance of jumping on opportunities that appear in life and experiencing everything possible. This doesn’t mean run off with some sea men and pirates searching for treasure(unless that is what your into), but I think this is the only way to really find yourself and know what you really are interested in. Thus leading you to a more meaningful life.
Henry - May 21, 2009 at 7:59 am |
I totally agree. If an opportunity crops up take it, you may regret it after wards.
In Running with Scissors Augusten finishes the book with this quote:
“In the opening sequence to The Mary Tyler Moore Show Mary’s in a supermarket, hurrying through the aisles. She pauses at the meat case, picks up a steak and checks the price. Then she rolls her eyes, shrugs and tosses it in the cart. That’s kid of how I felt. Sure, I would have liked for things to have been different. But, roll of the eyes, what can you do? Shrug I threw the meat in my cart. And moved on.”
I think to get where you want to go there are going to be problems. In Henry’s example (Treasure Island if I am not mistaken) the main character has to get through the pirates to get to his opportunity, that of the treasure. This is the…wait for it…CONFLICT! of the work of literature.
See how I did that?
Anyway, life needs conflict. Those conflicts may contain little life lessons as well, how to trust, how to clean, how to act, how to write, what have you. In my book the character, Augusten, wants to write but doesn’t want to learn about nouns and verbs and prepositional phrases, et cetera.
To learn a Mozart concerto I have to learn scales and Bach first. To learn Bach I have to learn to read notes. To learn music I have to practice. They may not be fun but they are necessary.
Eric von Jeffords - May 21, 2009 at 8:08 pm |
Here is a link to said show, the song is connects to this idea as well: Mary Tyler Moore Opening
Eric von Jeffords - May 21, 2009 at 8:13 pm
This idea is similar to what I was posting in our thread; I think sometimes “the universe” throws an idea/conflict/whatever at us, to see how it goes, but there is almost always a conflict of some sort on some scale. It must be overcome, and then the universe says, “Hey, let’s not do that one again…”
Conflict is definitely an important aspect of everyone’s lives, no matter how obnoxious, painful, or depressing they may be. (Note, also, that a conflict doesn’t have to be people shouting at each other, it could be something as simple as the stapler jamming on you, or the jar on the pickles refusing to budge.)
Fiona - May 21, 2009 at 10:29 pm
I do agree that experience = life in an ideal world, Henry, but I don’t think it’s that easy. You can’t exactly let your opportunities for new experiences come to you, you have to go to them, and make a sincere effort to do so. And, in some cases, like in my book, “We the Living” by Ayn Rand, you become part of a society that suppresses opportunity and experience enough so that the only thing you can do is escape. But even in communist Russia there was still hope if one made the effort, and the main character in my book seems to accept her fate there of a lifetime of miserable service to the state without even pondering an escape. I feel like sometimes we personally trap ourselves in our own little communist Russia–we become slaves to our schedule, passionless zombies wandering through our days without ever experiencing anything that will lead us to a “more meaningful life.” So, maybe sometimes we should stop, reflect on how we’re living our lives, and if we aren’t satisfied then maybe it’s time for a change…even though I know that school can be kind of an obstacle on the way toward change and new experience.
Colin - May 23, 2009 at 7:42 am |
I think I would even go so far as to say that change is not just an option, it is necessary. Noone can claim to be living a perfect life in a perfect world; there are always things we wish were different. And even if your life is perfect, one perfect day after another would leave you trapped in a Groundhog Day-type syndrome, and how boring would that be? My work has a pretty consistent theme of the importance of change and evolution both in society and in one’s individual lives, and I have to agree. Sure, sometimes change comes at the expense of comfort, but it seems that in the end comfort matters very little. Living your life is going to require some element of change.
Blaine - May 25, 2009 at 4:43 pm
Going back to Blaine’s comment, that life is what you make it and you cannot control what happens, but only how you handle it. My book, Life of Pi is about a young boy who ends up on a boat with a Zebra, Hyena, Orangatang, and a Siberian Tiger. I know, kind of weird but it is a really good book. It is about how he survives this experience, learns to take care of himself, and to survive living with a tiger. Pi could have given up the first day, but instead he chose to do what he could in such a dire situation to survive and he used previous knowledge to dominate the tiger. Life will give you many obstacles that seem so overbearing and it will seem like things will never get better. I have learned that it is truly how you handle these situations that will make the difference. You always need to believe in your own abilities, and that sometimes it is only you who can really help yourself.
Meagan - May 24, 2009 at 11:33 am |
We were talking in class the other day about being in a situation that y ou may not have been happy about, but that you were happy you had to go through it. Some people shared some experiences, but I know that at one point this year I had almost every aspect of my life come crashing down at once. Everywhere I went There was always something I had to try to handle. At some point everyone is going to fall. It took me some time to realize that the way I felt about it all was going to depend on how I handled it. I am glad that I had some hardship, for it taught me a lot about myself, and the people who I am around. Doing this “Meaning of Life” Assignment at a time where we are all a little crazy and ready to get out of school, sort of makes you slow down and think just a little more about what you are doing with your life and how you a re treating yourself and what you really want.
Meagan - May 24, 2009 at 11:41 am |
I agree wtith Meagan! This was a really good time to do this project. It taught me mostly to not search for the “meaning of life” but to figure out the “actions you need to take in your life.” These actions can involve attitude and decisions. I don’t believe in trying to find the meaning of “this” life but I do think it is important to be aware of how your treating others and who you represent yourself to be.
Laurie - May 24, 2009 at 2:05 pm |
Nietzsche and I would agree with what Laurie said, specifically about taking the right attitude about life. Nietzsche was very strongly convinced that in order to be healthy one had to embrace life and everything that comes with it with all of your strength.
This may sound a little strange coming from the man who often talked of nihilism and is often quoted for saying, “God is dead,” but Nietzsche saw life as absolutely and uncompromisingly beautiful. He thought that if a person was truly powerful they could view life from the nihilistic lense – denying all external or sources of meaning and purpose – and still embrace life. In other words Nietzsche believed it was important to have the ability to look at the most abysmally vile and soul-crushing aspect of life and still evaluate it as completely good and wholesome. The following quote from his work “Thus Spoke Zarathustra” sums up his position on the matter.
“The heaviest weight. – What if some day or night a demon were to steal into your loneliest loneliness and say to you: ‘This life as you now live it and have lived it you will have to live once again and innumerable times again; and there will be nothing new in it, but every pain and every joy and every thought and sigh and everything unspeakably small or great in your life must return to you, all in the same succession and sequence…The eternal hourglass of existence is turned over again and again, and you with it, speck of dust!’ Would you not throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse the demon who spoke thus? Or have you once experienced a tremendous moment when you would have answered him: ‘You are a god, and never have I heard anything more divine.”
Essentially your attitude makes everything.
Jake - May 27, 2009 at 11:54 pm |
I think Jacobs last comment was perfect for my book. I read The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath and the main character is a young girl who is trying to succeed in both her personal and professional life. She was extremely smart but she had so many insecurites she actually went crazy. Because she was so insecure she ended up isolating herself, and then that isolation lead her to be even more insecure (very vicious cycle!). Her attitude about everything was just if it’s supposed to happen it will happen. She waited around for the “right man” and the “perfect job” and none of that turned out… she ended up getting shock therapy and turning into a bit of a zoombie. If she had been more proactive things would have probably gone much differently.
Julia - May 28, 2009 at 6:21 pm |
Taking Julia’s comment of being proactive things would have gone differently, I see a relationship between a choice that Miss Prym (from the Devil and Miss Prym by Paulo Coelho) and the proactive idea. You see Miss Prym was the ‘news bringer’ of my story and she could either ignore what she knew and disregard her responsibility and NOT be proactive or BE proactive, tell the news and thus turn her town into a turmoil. It goes back to the thing we all wonder, should you tell people what they want to hear? although most of us would say no, we should tell the truth… NOT being proactive and protecting some knowledge is important also.
I also wanted to talk a little about Meagan’s book the Life of Pi. I really disliked the book probably because I thought all the way through that it was a true story… it isn’t. But this kind of says a lot about life and expectations. You can over expect the greatness of something or be pleasantly surprised by something that had low expectations. But is it really good to go around with low expectations of everything just so you can feel pleasantly surprised? No not really, it is expectations that give us motivation. In Life of Pi everyone assumes that the tiger will be the evil one and (if I remember correctly) he is, but it is the unexpected relationship between Pi and the tiger that is really what is surprising, the humanness of the tiger combined with its brutal animal savagery. This relationship makes the motivation of the story really.
I remember doing a write # something about… well I don’t know but I wrote about what it means to me if I failed government and didn’t graduate high school. Really it is my own expectations, my college’s expectations, my family’s expectations, that have convinced me that graduating is a no-brainer. And yet, I hate to assume things or expect too much because it forces a closed mind and a resistance to change. Argh… expectations.
Gaelyn - May 28, 2009 at 11:13 pm |