The best comment I heard this week was related to the short story Cathedral being read in class. In the story, the main character finds onion skins in a shopping bag he is using to undergo, little to his knowledge, a spiritual transformation. At this, someone mentioned the scene in Shrek http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t9nJlXLF06k where ogres are compared to onions because of their layers.
This made a lot of sense in the context of the story, since it showed how even a pot-smoking fourty-something year old, who is also proudly unsophisticated, can in fact possess layered deeper qualities, that don't meet the eye, and might require some drawing out.
This made me have a much deeper appreciation for people around me. People who I find to be irritating, simplistic, apathetic, or too passionate might all in fact be quite different and understandable underneath their layers.
Although I never intentionally or maliciously have denied the existence of people's layers, the moment in class really but a nice ogre's face on the whole issue. This guy in the story, just like Shrek, have depths which might take a while to get to. Why, then, should I deny anyone I know that possibility?
Sunday, February 22, 2009
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
What if?: I was a doorframe
Being a doorframe seems like it would be a lot of fun. Get to stand there, watch things, but only have people stay under you when they're yelling to the outside, or there's an earthquake. In any case, the story Boys contains a door frame who witnesses the childhood, infancy, and coming of age, in and without a particular order.
I think similarly being able to monitor a life in these snap shots would be compelling but also tedious. How much can you really tell about someone by the way they enter a house? Isn't what happens once you've entered what really matters? The story would say no, but I would say yes. I prefer a chance to actually get to know someone, to see them through an action, instead of before and after. That way you can actually understand the way they work, instead of the way the did work, and the way they will work. A door frame is still a cool mechanism for a story, but we don't learn nearly as much as we can about how the people involved fundamentally change. Rather, we learn what has fundamentally changed about them.
I think similarly being able to monitor a life in these snap shots would be compelling but also tedious. How much can you really tell about someone by the way they enter a house? Isn't what happens once you've entered what really matters? The story would say no, but I would say yes. I prefer a chance to actually get to know someone, to see them through an action, instead of before and after. That way you can actually understand the way they work, instead of the way the did work, and the way they will work. A door frame is still a cool mechanism for a story, but we don't learn nearly as much as we can about how the people involved fundamentally change. Rather, we learn what has fundamentally changed about them.
Sunday, February 8, 2009
Connection: Heart of Darkness and The Wizard of Oz
This comparison was made in class, how Marlow goes into Congo-Oz down the Yellow Brick River, but I thought direct parallels, as well as theme resolutions deserved some fleshing out.
Marlow starts his journey in Kansas-Brussels, in the comfort of family and friends, to depart, on an eye-opening journey, for the Congo. Here the two stories are slightly different, but very helpful to each other. Marlow makes his initial journey from a place of comfort, on a ship, while observing a distant/unknown land. Similarly, Dorthy is in her house when she's uplifted, but the journey is in fact much quicker, since her destination is clearly not of this world. Conrad is here making a statement the Wizard of Oz doesn't in forcing us to realize that these horrors are part of our world.
In the interest of time and space, I won't go through the entire book, but make a few other connections.
Kurtz as the wicked witch. This comparison actually makes a lot more sense if you've seen Wicked. (which, for better or worse I have) The two stories inform one another in building a true sense of how the villain's role is more of a fall from grace, and less of a chosen path. In both stories, the character on the journey confronts the villain simply to help free them from the heart of darkness, not to defeat them. (Dorothy unknowingly aiding an escape, and Marlow preventing a return). Dorothy obviously doesn't feel a spiritual obligation to carry on the memory of the witch, but the Heart of Darkness is less of the classic hero's tale than the Wizard of Oz to start with.
The Manager as the wizard. This one's a bit harder, but in both cases, the two are essentially reluctant and somewhat incompetent masters of worlds they take by circumstance, staying healthy and dropping in a hot air balloon, rather than by design or prowess. In the end, we see that in both cases actual leadership skills are lacking and pure lack allows each to survive.
In the end we see why the Heart of Darkness is called the Heart of Darkness, and not the Heart of Fuzzy Bunnies- it's dark. The side of human character and nature it reveals is something the Wizard of Oz, a classic hero's journey, could never touch on. Even if they borrow some characters.
Marlow starts his journey in Kansas-Brussels, in the comfort of family and friends, to depart, on an eye-opening journey, for the Congo. Here the two stories are slightly different, but very helpful to each other. Marlow makes his initial journey from a place of comfort, on a ship, while observing a distant/unknown land. Similarly, Dorthy is in her house when she's uplifted, but the journey is in fact much quicker, since her destination is clearly not of this world. Conrad is here making a statement the Wizard of Oz doesn't in forcing us to realize that these horrors are part of our world.
In the interest of time and space, I won't go through the entire book, but make a few other connections.
Kurtz as the wicked witch. This comparison actually makes a lot more sense if you've seen Wicked. (which, for better or worse I have) The two stories inform one another in building a true sense of how the villain's role is more of a fall from grace, and less of a chosen path. In both stories, the character on the journey confronts the villain simply to help free them from the heart of darkness, not to defeat them. (Dorothy unknowingly aiding an escape, and Marlow preventing a return). Dorothy obviously doesn't feel a spiritual obligation to carry on the memory of the witch, but the Heart of Darkness is less of the classic hero's tale than the Wizard of Oz to start with.
The Manager as the wizard. This one's a bit harder, but in both cases, the two are essentially reluctant and somewhat incompetent masters of worlds they take by circumstance, staying healthy and dropping in a hot air balloon, rather than by design or prowess. In the end, we see that in both cases actual leadership skills are lacking and pure lack allows each to survive.
In the end we see why the Heart of Darkness is called the Heart of Darkness, and not the Heart of Fuzzy Bunnies- it's dark. The side of human character and nature it reveals is something the Wizard of Oz, a classic hero's journey, could never touch on. Even if they borrow some characters.
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