Oh, did I mention this book bothers me?

"'By great application, however, and after having remained during the space of several revolutions of the moon in my hovel, I discovered the names that were given to some of the most familiar objects of discourse; I learned and applied the words, 'fire,' 'milk,' 'bread,' and 'wood'" (pg 78).

Sorry two year old Youtube sensation, but this creation learned how to speak fluent English, not just recite some lame speech.

Anyways, this great show of indirect characterization by Mary Shelley really shows how superior the creature is to Frankenstein.  Just a quick look at what all the creature learned would quickly classify him as a child prodigy, but he is actually a nice monster?  This quote shows that the creature is misunderstood by civilization and that they want him dead even if he is kind.  Poor ugly creature...

This book really bothers me, but if there is one thing that does not bother me, then it is this nature versus nurture theme that seems really to shown through the creation.  Much like how I was on Team Iago, I think that Shelley is on team "Nature."  If she was on team nurture, then the creature would be an evil abomination after he was yelled at by others.  I suppose something in his nature must have made him inquisitive.  Okay, maybe he got some genes from Victor and it makes him want to understand others just like how Victor wanted to understand animation.

P.S.  I will gladly bring Iago into any post that I can.

Spoiler Alert!

Othello dies?  I read through all the questions trying to find a second one that I felt semi-comfortable blogging about and question 16 spoiled the ending!  Anyways...

2.  Is Othello a person jealous "by nature"?  Does he show any disposition to jealousy in the first two acts?

"I cannot speak enough of this content.  It stops me here [in the heart], it is too much of joy.  And this, and this, the greatest discords (Kissing her.)  That e'er our hearts shall make!" II.i.191-194.

I don't really see Othello as being jealous by nature anywhere in the first two acts.  In the above quote he is basically saying that he believes his love with Desdemona will continue to grow throughout time.  I probably simply did not catch the foreshadowing, but Iago's aside afterwards certainly would disagree with this statement. Judging by this and Othello's reaction to the witchcraft accusations, it remains evident to me that Othello is not naturally  jealous, but rather has to be provoked.  I would say that Shakespeare tried to indirectly characterize Othello as being a very calm leader.

Iago was wrongly given the epithet of being "honest" so let's just call Othello the "quick to be jealous."  The only time I could sense even the slightest sign of jealousy in was in suspending Cassio, but that was really provoked by Iago's jealousy.

This is just a small reason, but I suppose it still works to help this point.  Othello and Iago are foil characters.  If Iago is jealous, which, let's be honest, he is (I.i.19-25), then it stands true that Othello should be the opposite of jealous, but I do not know what that word is.

We'll go with confident.

"Bumblebee the Scrivener"

"'Stationary you shall be then,' I cried, now losing all patience, and for the first time in all my exasperating connection with him fairly flying into a passion," (210).

I would prefer not to ever think about this story again in my life, let alone write a blog on it, but if you would prefer that I do, then I will prefer to write about question number nine... just a preference.

Okay, so I will try to recall the beginning of this story (Oh! The joys of a three hour long "short" story!).  The narrator, who I will call Bob for sake of sanity, pitied Bartleby *chills* from the start when he described him as "pallidly neat, pitiably respectable, and incurably forlorn."  Last time I checked, these were not the qualifications of anyone that I would want working for me, but Bob had already fallen to the charm of the Bumblebee.

I have the hiccups.

Finally!  It actually looked like Bob was going to fire the fool, but no, he found too much guilt in the idea of firing such a lost person.  At this point, I could not decide who I hated more, Sir Scaredy or Mr. Wishy-Washy, but none-the-less, I trekked on in hopes for something better, but still they remained... to my dismay.

All of these observations are from the indirect characterization.

NO!!!!!!  How could you let the guy live in your workplace?  Not only does this show how much of a push over you are, but it also made me almost feel sorry for Bart Bumblebee for a moment's time.  It passed.  Apparently his ideas passed too because he left the guy!  *Muahaha*

Seriously though, I would really prefer to not ever see this story again.

Now that Bumblebee is in jail (insane asylum would have been more appropriate), Bob retracted his previous attempts to leave him behind by visiting him in jail.  Then Bumblebee dies.  Great ending in my mind... but I suppose I should go more unbiased really quick.

Okay, so Bumblebee is really just a scared person because of his past.  Fair excuse, suppose I (what was up with the way it kept being "said I" instead of "I said").  I must also say that Bob is not really a push over, per se, but really just a caring person who wants to help out a man who is lost in where to go.  These two compliment each other in a blend of awkwardness that I suppose I would have preferred not to have ever learned about.

By the way, Bumblebee and Bob are foil characters, but I never actually said that before now.

"Everyday Use"

"Although I never was a good singer.  Never could carry a tune.  I was always better at a man's job.  I used to love to milk till I was hooked in the side in '49.  Cows are soothing and slow and don't bother you, unless you try to milk them the wrong way," (pg 175).

Let me begin this blog by saying that on my list, Dee was my number 2 most likable character (so 9 on the scale), but my group disagreed with me.

Speaking about the number two, let me more closely analyze (I use that word with hesitation) the second half question number two from "Everyday Use" by Alice Walker.

This question really attempts to test my awareness to the small clips of the past revealed by Mama.  Here's a clip that came to my mind when I read this question.  Can you count how many times the team in white passes the ball?

Be able to pull out small details like this while seemingly menial tasks go on is crucial in the indirect characterization of Mama, Dee and Maggie.

Dee's hatred of the old house helped to establish Dee as a round character.  Dee may appear to be a girl who left her family for better beginnings, but her resentment of the house showed us that she was always an independent woman hoping to go further in life than her family was allowing her to.  By quickly establishing Dee's hatred of the past house, Mama also establishes Maggie and Dee as foil characters to explain the differing opinions found later in the story.

Dee's ability determination to stare down any disaster continues to portray Dee as the character who strives for excellence and will not let a mere obstacle hinder her progress in defeating the prejudice that has held her back thus far.  Following this was the mention of Dee's unique style which further confirms the idea that Dee was destined to exploit the new opinions surrounding the African American culture.

Maggie's burns from the fire are a constant reminder for Maggie that she is vulnerable and inferior to Dee.  Her mother was there for her during the fire, but has since left her as she began to feel inferior to Dee who was standing under the gum tree during the fire watching her mother and Maggie struggle through the fire (not that she really could have done much else, but the way the scene described it made it seem like she was gloating from a distance in Mama's mind).

Mama's accident when milking the cow warranted only two sentences in the entire short story, but the connotation of them is striking.  Cows seem to be a symbol in this story for staying true to the past (up to their presence in pictures with the house).  Mama seems afraid to stand up to Dee because if she confronts Dee the wrong way, then she will no longer be the slow and soothing Dee she knows.

Dee's refusal to accept the quilt really goes along with the first question in that it shows us how much Dee has grown to accept her heritage as a piece of her that she should be proud of.  She now finds herself more deserving of the quilts than Maggie because Dee has grown to appreciate the meaning behind the quilts as more than a means of keeping her warm.

(Wow, it takes a lot of words to answer one question...)

"Those Winter Sundays"

"Sundays too my father got up early

and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold,

then with cracked hands that ached

from labor in the weekday weather made

banked fires blaze.  No one ever thanked him."

In this poem, Robert Hayden indirectly characterizes the father by his work ethic.  I noticed that the entire poem seemed to reminisce on the hard work of an unappreciated father.  Hayden really stressed how the people around the father reacted, along with some of the work he does (like chopping wood to keep the home warm) to portray the father as a respected member of the father.  The speaker in the story definitely seems regretful of not showing his/her father the love he/she the respect he deserved.

The overall mood of the poem is that of childhood regret.  The main regret seems to come in the form of the speaker's regret in not telling his/her father how much he/she respected all of the hard work put in by the father.  The title of the poem definitely expresses either a very negative or meaningful weekly tradition, but is clearly very memorable none-the-less.  While the speaker seems to fondly remember the Sunday mornings, the speaker definitely has some unique feelings attached with the memories.

I really hope that this poem did not have a deeper meaning or highly metaphoric meaning, because I absolutely did not find one.

Never Let Me Go - Fourteen

"And then there was the way Ruth kept pretending to forget things about Hailsham" (page 189).

This is an indirect characterization of Ruth.  Kathy is really showing us that Ruth has moved on past her childhood years and is trying to strive towards the future.  This also could be an indirect characterization of Kathy, though.  Since the story is in Kathy's first person point of view, Kathy is actually the one who is deciding what is important to the plot line (in a sense).  As I said in my last post (I think?), Kathy really reminisces in her childhood and uses it as a way to learn about her future.

So now we have what I call "the Mr. North question," because I told you the "no duh," but not the "Why does it matter?" -  That sentence makes no sense.

Anyways, I finally realized that Ruth and Kathy seem to be foil characters.

• Kathy embraces her past, while Ruth tries to move on.
• Kathy is sympathetic to others, while Ruth is brutally honest.
• Kathy values friendship, while Ruth is always looking for an upgrade.
• Kathy thinks, while Ruth lives in the moment.
• Kathy has an experimental mind, while Ruth is a go-getter.
• Kathy goes through with plans, while Ruth is a theorizer. (No Mozilla, I did not mean terrorist!)

That cannot be all of them, but that would be a long list.

Never Let Me Go - Four

"What I want to do now is get a few things down about Ruth, about how we met and became friends, about our early days together" (pg 45).

I like how this book is structured into definitive little sections that make it really easy for my brain to comprehend what is going on.  In this array of anecdotes, Kathy indirectly characterizes herself and Ruth.  Ruth, much like Tommy, seems to have had quite a temper, but seems to have outgrown it with age.  Kathy really seems to become more of the deep thinker who was unbelievably mature for her age, but I suppose she may just be avoiding the embarrassing stories of herself like I would also do.  I found the story of Kathy and Ruth riding horses to be the best representation of each girl's personality.  Ruth has a wandering imagination which seems to grow through the Senior years late night chats, but she clearly has some jealousy issues when it comes to people stealing her attention.  Ishiguro seems to have broken up the official introduction of Ruth by foreshadowing the future events that Kathy and her will undertake together, giving a feeling that Ruth was a life friend and not just a friend for the school year (if they have school years?).  Kathy, on the hand, becomes further portrayed as the person who wants to please everyone and will do so without coming off as annoying.  She also is clearly attached to her memories and even begins to remember more as the story unfolds.  At first, Kathy could not remember the names of any horses other than Thunder and Bramble, but goes on to remember Ruth's reactions when Kathy went to ride Daffodil.

Never Let Me Go - Two

        "Anyway, it was those temper tantrums that really got people going, escalating everything, and around the time I'm talking about- the summer of our Senior 2, when we were thirteen- that was when the persecution reached its peak.
       Then it all stopped, not overnight, but rapidly enough... Then gradually, people got bored and the pranks became more half-hearted, until one day it struck me there hadn't been any for over a week" (pg 21).

Ishiguro uses a plethora of small anecdotes through Kathy's memory to indirectly characterize Tommy.  I think that these play hand-in-hand to shape Tommy's character in the most unbiased way possible by allowing the reader to infer their own personality traits of Tommy instead of simply hearing Kathy's view on Tommy's persona.  Through all the tantrums, I learned that Tommy really just seems to be misunderstood and not really an angry person.  He seems to be the kid who wants to be friends with people, but is not really sure how so he just tries to get attention in whatever form he can.  During these anecdotes, Kathy really showed us the changes that Tommy made to better his lifestyle.  Anecdotes also help me to relate to the characters more as well as make the story seem more plausible.  The juxtaposition in Tommy's personality above shows us how quickly he was able to change when Miss Lucy told him that it is okay to be different (which is a nice contrast to Brave New World's values).  I think that Ishiguro chose to juxtapose the different personality traits of Tommy so that we can really see what was bothering him and that he really just needed reassurance in his life.  It also may become the start of a theme on how people can change their personalities so easily, but I would not go out on a limb to say that one yet.

I also think that these flashbacks and anecdotes will remain very active in the first part of the novel since it appears to be used to describe Kathy's childhood with Tommy and Ruth at Hailsham.