This post was written on Sunday night as I read the first three chapters of Bell Jar, but Blogger didn't save it so I'm recreating it as best I can.
I'm trying to decide if I like the narrator or not. In a way she seems like Holden (Her oldish, casual style certainly sounds like him) and I like Holden, but they've got some key differences.
"These girls looked awfully bored to me. I saw them on the sunroof, yawning and
painting their nails and trying to keep up their Bermuda tans, and they seemed bored as
hell. I talked with one of them, and she was bored with yachts and bored with flying
around in airplanes and bored with skiing in Switzerland at Christmas and bored with the
men in Brazil.
Girls like that make me sick. I'm so jealous I can't speak."
"Bored as hell" and "Girls like that make me sick" sound very Holden. Although, Holden never admits to being jealous of the people that he dislikes (with the exception of Stradlater who he makes pretty clear he doesn't actually hate).
She talks about clothes more than he does too which makes her sound more superficial. "It suggested a
whole life of marvelous, elaborate decadence that attracted me like a magnet." I'm not so keen on that sentence. Although, I'm not sure how much distance is implied between the narrator and the character (her younger self). "Attracted" is put in the past tense, not the present which indicates that her opinions might be different at the moment. The story is in the past tense, so it's a little unclear, but she does occasionally use the present tense when expressing her opinions: " and a short,
scrunty fellow detached himself and came into the bar with us.
He was the type of fellow I can't stand." Is similar but in the present. I'm also not too keen on that sentence.
She's complaining about bored privileged girls while moping about thinking about being electrocuted instead of enjoying her fancy clothes and parties.
There are a lot of subtle similarities between Esther and Holden. She introduces herself with a false persona (Elly form Chicago) in a bar in New York. She employs casual racism (which Holden also does on occasion; a symptom of the time period, I'm sure):"Yellow as a chinaman." Oh boy. She's also tall and skinny and though she's not stricken with social anxiety, she's not the most gregarious of characters.
Overall, however, I would say that they are pretty different people. To me, Holden comes across as more compassionate, and of course their attitudes towards school are completely different (even if hers might be getting more critical). He's rich, she's poor, and he would not be too keen on the people she's hanging out with, particularly "famous as hell" Lenny. Although, I don't know how she feels about Lenny either. Maybe that's another thing-- she's less opinionated. Or, at the very least, we're not presented with her thoughts quite so intimately.
She just left Doreen in a puddle of vomit. I have decided that I do not like Esther. Given that this is a coming of age novel, this may very well change.
Tuesday, February 24, 2015
Wednesday, January 28, 2015
Observations
I seem to be unable to organize my thoughts in any productive way, so I'm going to throw together some observations and call it a post.
1. This has stopped some in the later story, but early on Joyce repeated words and phrases a lot. I'm not sure what he was getting at with this. Maybe he was just trying to capture the feel of a child's stumbling, undeveloped voice. For several examples: "Suddenly he became aware of something in the doorway. A skull appeared suspended in the gloom of the doorway" "breath had made him feel a sick feeling", this explanation seems to cover it, but for the repeated phrases (like "little drops of water in a fountain slowly falling in the brimming bowl" which appears again though slightly altered), I bet there's another explanation (though I have no idea what it is).
And actually, I realized today in class that the word repetition continues to an extent, it's just more elegant, so I haven't noticed it.
"He was alone. (...) He was alone and young and wilful and wildhearted, alone amid a waste of wild air and brackish waters and the sea-harvest of shells and tangle and veiled grey sunlight and gayclad lightclad figures of children and girls and voices childish and girlish in the air"
2. Stephen's coach tells him to run with his arms straight to his sides, which Stephen questions immediately. However, when he's practicing abstinence from any sort of comfort what so ever after he's been scared back into piety, he mentions that he holds his arms straight by his sides "like a runner". Just a little throw back to something mentioned earlier in the book. If I had to read into it I would say that this shows that at this point in the story he lacks the ability to question things that he once (rightly) questioned. Although that may be stretching it.
3. After studying ellipses in physics, Stephen writes the words "ellipsoidal fall" (referring to the earth's orbit) in a poem. So at least he's learning something in college.
4. Stephen's development reminds me a little of the development of the narrator's in "Invisible Man" in the sense that he's trying to make sense of the world and his place in it and in the process switches between extremes quite a bit. The narrator first respects white authority, running along like he's supposed to, just like Stephen respects the authority of the church in the beginning of the book. Then they snap back dramatically: the narrator joins the communists, and Stephen surrounds himself in sin, before rejecting this way of life for a more moderate(? not sure if this is the right word), individual state devoted to art and thought. I can relate to the narrator's thought process more than Stephen's though. Stephen's is a lot more emotional and poetic and less intellectual and grounded in real issues. My opinions have developed more or less like the narrator's.
Also, they both lead weirdly solitary lives. I don't think I know anyone with so few personal connections. Neither character seems to feel any strong feelings towards anyone else. (I'm discounting Stephen's weird connections with girls he barely knows.) The narrator barely keeps in touch with his family and has no friends that last him through the book and Stephen seems to always be at a distance from his peers and family as we have mentioned extensively in class.
1. This has stopped some in the later story, but early on Joyce repeated words and phrases a lot. I'm not sure what he was getting at with this. Maybe he was just trying to capture the feel of a child's stumbling, undeveloped voice. For several examples: "Suddenly he became aware of something in the doorway. A skull appeared suspended in the gloom of the doorway" "breath had made him feel a sick feeling", this explanation seems to cover it, but for the repeated phrases (like "little drops of water in a fountain slowly falling in the brimming bowl" which appears again though slightly altered), I bet there's another explanation (though I have no idea what it is).
And actually, I realized today in class that the word repetition continues to an extent, it's just more elegant, so I haven't noticed it.
"He was alone. (...) He was alone and young and wilful and wildhearted, alone amid a waste of wild air and brackish waters and the sea-harvest of shells and tangle and veiled grey sunlight and gayclad lightclad figures of children and girls and voices childish and girlish in the air"
2. Stephen's coach tells him to run with his arms straight to his sides, which Stephen questions immediately. However, when he's practicing abstinence from any sort of comfort what so ever after he's been scared back into piety, he mentions that he holds his arms straight by his sides "like a runner". Just a little throw back to something mentioned earlier in the book. If I had to read into it I would say that this shows that at this point in the story he lacks the ability to question things that he once (rightly) questioned. Although that may be stretching it.
3. After studying ellipses in physics, Stephen writes the words "ellipsoidal fall" (referring to the earth's orbit) in a poem. So at least he's learning something in college.
4. Stephen's development reminds me a little of the development of the narrator's in "Invisible Man" in the sense that he's trying to make sense of the world and his place in it and in the process switches between extremes quite a bit. The narrator first respects white authority, running along like he's supposed to, just like Stephen respects the authority of the church in the beginning of the book. Then they snap back dramatically: the narrator joins the communists, and Stephen surrounds himself in sin, before rejecting this way of life for a more moderate(? not sure if this is the right word), individual state devoted to art and thought. I can relate to the narrator's thought process more than Stephen's though. Stephen's is a lot more emotional and poetic and less intellectual and grounded in real issues. My opinions have developed more or less like the narrator's.
Also, they both lead weirdly solitary lives. I don't think I know anyone with so few personal connections. Neither character seems to feel any strong feelings towards anyone else. (I'm discounting Stephen's weird connections with girls he barely knows.) The narrator barely keeps in touch with his family and has no friends that last him through the book and Stephen seems to always be at a distance from his peers and family as we have mentioned extensively in class.
Friday, January 23, 2015
Portrait of the Artist, thus far, has been a novel about the language arts. We know that, since it's sort of autobiographical, and the title calls the main character an artist, Stephen will most likely end up as an author.
We can see the influence that literature has on him very early in the book.
It begins with the story Stephen's father tells him about... well, I'm not really sure, but it's certainly a story, and it presumably has some importance in Stephen's life, because Joyce takes the time to write about it. This first section also ends with a little rhyme told to him by Dante about apologizing and eye-picking, which seems to have worked itself into his brain.
As we learn more about Stephen, one thing becomes apparent: he's a nerd. Instead of playing sports, he just shuffles back and forth on the court, the "fellows" don't like him, and he's a good student. Maybe the idea is that he has to escape the depressing realities of his real life, I'm not sure, but as is often true of fictional nerds, he spends much of his life in his imagination. And, if his inspiration for his imagination isn't coming from real life, it's probably coming from the stories he consumes. We see evidence for this in the way he thinks about his own actions. In his mind, his life is all very dramatized. Like we mentioned in class, he compares his bravery in telling on the pandier, to the heroic acts of the men in historical tales.
Each chapter has its own story arc, which I suspect is partly due to Stephen imposing the pattern he has observed in literature onto the events in his life. He puts himself in the position of a story's protagonist and seeks out a great resolution or revelation because that's what's supposed to happen. Nothing (not the kids cheering for the rector instead of him, or the fact that the chance encounter with a magical female figure isn't all that random or magical) can ruin his idea of these little happy endings. Stephen feels a deep, romantic connection between himself and Emma at the party, and when the night doesn't turn out like it ought to, he has to write the proper ending in a poem.
Stephen has also obviously thought harder about poetry than his classmates, because he picks the controversial Byron (obviously his own decision) as his favorite instead of a more popular poet. We can see that he really connects with Byron's emotionally laden, romantic style in the flowery language that is used in the book at this time, and the fact that he will soon deviate from the church for the sake of passion or love or maybe just rebellion. The poetry foundation describes Byron's hero as "defiant, melancholy, haunted by secret guilt", which is a good description of Stephen in this section of the novel.
And, after all this deviation, he doesn't feel guilty till he reads (emphasis on reads here) that his sin would offend the Virgin Mary, and that it might multiply into all the others. At which point, he becomes obsessed with the souls in purgatory, which are no more than abstractions to him, and so, in a sense, like the characters in a story. I dunno, the last ones are stretching it a bit, but I do think that stories have an unusually large effect on his development.
We can see the influence that literature has on him very early in the book.
It begins with the story Stephen's father tells him about... well, I'm not really sure, but it's certainly a story, and it presumably has some importance in Stephen's life, because Joyce takes the time to write about it. This first section also ends with a little rhyme told to him by Dante about apologizing and eye-picking, which seems to have worked itself into his brain.
As we learn more about Stephen, one thing becomes apparent: he's a nerd. Instead of playing sports, he just shuffles back and forth on the court, the "fellows" don't like him, and he's a good student. Maybe the idea is that he has to escape the depressing realities of his real life, I'm not sure, but as is often true of fictional nerds, he spends much of his life in his imagination. And, if his inspiration for his imagination isn't coming from real life, it's probably coming from the stories he consumes. We see evidence for this in the way he thinks about his own actions. In his mind, his life is all very dramatized. Like we mentioned in class, he compares his bravery in telling on the pandier, to the heroic acts of the men in historical tales.
Each chapter has its own story arc, which I suspect is partly due to Stephen imposing the pattern he has observed in literature onto the events in his life. He puts himself in the position of a story's protagonist and seeks out a great resolution or revelation because that's what's supposed to happen. Nothing (not the kids cheering for the rector instead of him, or the fact that the chance encounter with a magical female figure isn't all that random or magical) can ruin his idea of these little happy endings. Stephen feels a deep, romantic connection between himself and Emma at the party, and when the night doesn't turn out like it ought to, he has to write the proper ending in a poem.
Stephen has also obviously thought harder about poetry than his classmates, because he picks the controversial Byron (obviously his own decision) as his favorite instead of a more popular poet. We can see that he really connects with Byron's emotionally laden, romantic style in the flowery language that is used in the book at this time, and the fact that he will soon deviate from the church for the sake of passion or love or maybe just rebellion. The poetry foundation describes Byron's hero as "defiant, melancholy, haunted by secret guilt", which is a good description of Stephen in this section of the novel.
And, after all this deviation, he doesn't feel guilty till he reads (emphasis on reads here) that his sin would offend the Virgin Mary, and that it might multiply into all the others. At which point, he becomes obsessed with the souls in purgatory, which are no more than abstractions to him, and so, in a sense, like the characters in a story. I dunno, the last ones are stretching it a bit, but I do think that stories have an unusually large effect on his development.
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