Holden...the drifter.

Holden, Holden, Holden. I don't even know where to start with him. He's very fake, but real for a book character, if that makes sense. A lot of times book characters, especially the main character is two dimensional at most. Holden's different, he seems like a real person in that he's realistic and monumentally flawed. There's moments when I like Holden, and then there are moments when he's being a myopic idiot (vocab word, how cool am I?). On the whole I find myself searching for the redeeming qualities in Holden, yet I still find him likeable. Another reason he seems more 'real' (for a book character) is that the reader is allowed access into his head. It's completely different from the two other books we've read this year; The Crucible was all dialogue and The Road was in third person. With Holden I feel like I know him, and maybe that's why it's easier to like him. Everyone's mind is always working, always thinking and a lot of times that unique train of thought is thrown away in once people start writing.

Holden is SO lonely, uncommonly lonely. He has no one, not even himself. I say this because it feels like he doesn't know himself. He's always lying, constantly lying, that he even lies to himself. He can't distinguish the truth anymore. At the same time he's judgmental and elitist and pushes people away. He's too lonely too be so picky and judgmental. Any time he mentions any one he almost always accompanies it with a reason why he doesn't like them, but he's the one calling them up. Holden comes into everything closed off and skeptical because it's his defense mechanism. Really, Holden is very emotionally weak. Shutting down and putting up walls is the easiest way to confront emotions. Holden has an overwhelming fear of being hurt, so much so that he would rather feel nothing at all. It reminds me of the Whitesnake song (God, I can see the horrible hair now...) Here I Go Again (If you've never heard of this song you don't have a soul). Part of the chorus goes "Here I go again on my own. Going down the only road I've ever known. Like a drifter I was born to walk alone.". That's exactly what Holden is, a drifter, emotionally and physically. He doesn't have the stamina to stay in one place for too long.

Thanks for reading.
Gianna.

Also, for the record, I never thought I'd quote a Whitesnake song...ever.

My Red Foraging Hat

Okay, to be honest I STILL don't completely understand the point of this blog post. Holden's hat is this weird sort of thing that we keep talking about and what its POSSIBLE symbolism is, but I feel like we're all just guessing. We talked about Holden hunting phonies and then we talked about Holden being a phony, but deer certainly don't march around wearing red hats shooting up all their other deer-kin and claiming that they hate deer (Ahem, Holden). Maybe I'm reading a bit much into it. Anyways, Holden's hat is something he uses to make himself feel special and unique or whatever, so I guess I'll write about that.

Holden's hat is something he usually only wears in privacy or in other slim circumstances. Most people Holden knows will never see him wearing his hat, but a few do. That's a bit like me and my birthmark. I have this red birthmark shaped like Hawaii on the top of my left hand. It usually takes people a while to notice its there, some people never do. Part of this is due to the fact that it changes color (very cool, I know). It ranges from very light pink to a deep red-almost-purple color depending on my mood (even cooler). When I'm sick its usually a vibrant red. When I'm overworked or stressed or sad it becomes that almost purple color. Also, sometimes when its really cloudy and stormy it gets darker. Most people think I've injured myself. I can't count the number of times I've hear "What happened to your hand?". I've heard it looks like I burned myself, have a rash, colored on my self, sprayed myself with hot oil, got bruised weirdly, and even that it looks like a hickey (Hickey wins for most creativity, I think, yes?).

I guess my birthmark-hickey is sort of a far stretch for my red hunting hat but I don't do a lot of hunting considering I'm a vegetarian...perhaps 'My Red Foraging Hat' would be a better term. There then, title changed. Either way I buy my food mass produced so I think I get an excuse.

Cheers.
Gianna.

Thankfulness (Emily Hawkins is the bomb)

I don't think it will come to a surprise to anyone that the person I'm thankful for in the class is Emily. Emily Hawkins. There's really no way that this won't come off as a love letter to Emily so I'll stop fighting it and just embrace it.

Dear Emily,

Thanks for being in my English class (even though that wasn't exactly your choice, but perhaps you willed it to happen). I love you because I can make a face at you and you already know what I'm thinking. We share opinions and feelings and passions (well, duh, you're my horcrux). It makes me feel slightly less crazy knowing that you agree with me. Even though it probably just means we're two crazies...still. I appreciate that I can text you when I have no idea what the homework is; which is probably more often than it should be. I like when we accidentally write about the same thing in our journal. I love you for introducing me to the Doctor and knowing why the phrase "Totally Awesome" can send me into uncontrollable fits of laughter. I love you because you have a nice balance of heavy metal and musicals on your iPod.

I love the look on your face when you realize something or find something totally awesome. I love that you realize your faults but still have confidence. I love the way you smell. I love that I get to be the red/green/blue/pink haired girl's friend. I like that your always energetic and full of life. I love your style. I love your face. I love that you're supermegafoxyawesomehot (by the way we need to get that word into the dictionary) without trying to be. I'm thankful you love me even though I'm a gryffindor. I'm thankful you put a Tardis on my locker so we can go on exciting journeys through time and space together. I'm thankful that after traveling for 16 hours on the floor of a bus that you would do it all over again.

I'm thankful that you're alive and you tolerate me.

Lots of thankfulness and love, as always
Gianna

Cormac McCarthy: The Road

In an interview with The Wall Street Journal Cormac McCarthy talks about goodness and his son, John. McCarthy says his son is morally a wonderful person. He also says that's just who John is as a person and that goodness isn't something you learn; it's just something you have or don't. 

Everyone is born with morals, and as we 'grow' and 'learn' these morals often fall away. It's like a ball that is constantly being thrown around and hit at and the ball gets ratted and worn, but its up to the person to keep the ball in good condition, and if they don't you won't even be able to use it any more; it'll just be a piece of crap. And some damage done to the ball can be reversed with a little cleaning but major damage can't always be fixed. So young children come automatically with these morals, these things that they know are right. And if this sense of morality is cultivated and encouraged at a young age then their morality can grow and become stronger. But if it isn't, their morals can easily fall away. And this goes on throughout a person's life, the world can chip away at their morals. But if the world can take away someone's morals, why can't it give them back? Sure, learning to be moral is harder than learning to be corrupt, but it's not impossible. So I guess I agree and disagree with McCarthy; I agree in that you're born with morals and they can be destroyed but I disagree in that I take the less cynical view (believe me, that's probably the last time you'll hear me say that) and I think you can learn morals from our world, as difficult as it may  be. Back to the ball analogy, no matter how beat up your ball of morality is, you can always get a new one.

Thanks,
Gianna.

Open Letter to Charles Bukowski, brilliant author of "Dinosauria, We"

Dear Charles Bukowski,

I'd like to thank you for writing "Dinosauria, We". The poem is so inspirational, and so intense, and so true. I absolutely loved it. I felt really empowered by what you were saying and I agree wholeheartedly.  Then I found out that you wrote it in the 70s and I was shocked. It all made sense for the 70s too, not just now. Our world is still struggling with the same things we've been struggling with. The 70s seem so long ago and so disconnected from now but reading the poem made me realize that in the grand scheme of things, 40 years is not that long, and not that much has changed. Technology has changed and social norms have changed, but the root of our society has shifted only slightly. Things you point out seem so specific to our time now that I was certain it had been written only a few years ago. It impressed upon me how little progress we have made on a lot of fronts, how much work there is to be done.

Your words are so powerful and flow so seamlessly, how long did it take you to write this? I also wonder, if you had lived long enough, what you would think about our society. Who would you be voting for?

Anyways, Mr. Bukowski thank-you so much for this poem. "Dinosauria, We" will be one of those things pinned up to my wall at college. You've been an inspiration.

Love,
Gianna Clark.

Father and Son

In The Road the element of parent-child relationship is isolated and becomes a major theme of the book. The Father and Son are in this drastic situation where they are completely reliant on each other. They're both reliant on each other to keep them alive. The situation is extremely horrible and stressful and would wear on any relationship. The Son is so young and knows so much about the world, but at the same time so little. The Father is trying to shelter his son and keep his life as normal as possible, and in doing so doesn't tell him whole truths, which the boy picks up on immediately. Things like this seem to be pushing them apart. I think the Son senses this a lot, where as the Father doesn't as much. The Son is growing up in this ridiculously horrible situation and if he lives long enough to understand just how much his Father did for him he will be grateful. However, now it feels like there's this growing resentment towards his Father. In his eyes his Father is the one who makes them constantly travel and move from place to place. There's no way for the Son to completely understand what's going on. Despite this there is an undeniable amount of love between them, but it seems that it's just love. They love each other so much and are so focused on survival that they don't seem to actually like each other, or enjoy the others company. But then again can you really enjoy someone when you're trying so desperately to survive?


I'm definitely not a parenting expert and I won't pretend to be. I'm lucky enough to have great parents, but frankly I find parent-child relationships weird and hard to define. Every parental relationship is different across the board. I'm also not a kid person, which may have something to do with it.

Thanks for reading.
Gianna

John Proctor, Hero or Stooge?

What is a hero? A hero is someone who saves the day, who does good in the world, rescues a few damsels in distress, an overall good guy. Or is he? Maybe a hero is just a guy who was in the right place at the right time. A guy who’s rich, handsome, influential, etc. A hero can be so many things, but when it comes down to it, he does something good, right?

What is a stooge? A fool. No one really expects anything of the stooge, he just sort of runs around and everyone rolls their eyes and dismisses him. No one thinks of themselves as the stooge, but I think everyone’s been a stooge at one point or another. Plus stooges are the most lovable, everyone likes an underdog.

So what’s the difference between a hero and a stooge? I’d argue a lot less than one would think. Little things differentiate the two; circumstance, money, good looks. There’s always that part in a super hero’s tale when nobody believes him or the general public downright hate him, much like they would a stooge. Never the less, something happens allowing him to switch over from stooge to hero.

In John Proctor’s case, he was able to become a hero. First, he had influence in the town. People looked up to John before the witch trials started. He also is rather good looking, making him the perfect fit to play the hero. We can all view John Proctor as the hero because we look back on the times and people of Salem as being extreme and misguided. They persecuted innocent people, which we are naturally against as Americans (the government seems to forget that from time to time, but that’s another story…), so John Proctor can only be thought of as the hero. He went against this crazed society and stuck up for people who couldn’t stick up for themselves.  So he’s a hero in our eyes, of course. But then, we are the society that prevailed. The winners write the history books. If the Puritan ideal had prevailed, we’d all think John Proctor worse than a stooge, more like a crazy lunatic getting in the way of God’s will. The label, hero or stooge, depends less upon what he actually did but which society prevails to think of him as a hero or a stooge.

In other, more ‘normal’ circumstances John would not have been the hero. He cheated on his wife with the Reverend’s niece, who was still a girl. John would have been the sorry loser caught on ‘Cheaters’ by his wife in a crappy motel with his face blurred out and would run around cursing the camera in the parking lot. We love to hate cheaters. It all comes back to circumstance. Only the craziness of the witch trials could save John from such reality television defamation and catapult him into heroics. It could also be argued that if John hadn’t cheated with Abby the whole thing wouldn’t have happened. Abby wouldn’t have been so drawn into the whole witch craft thing and wouldn’t have urged the girls to participate in the rituals and she wouldn’t have drunk blood, etc. The whole thing could have been avoided. But we say “It’s okay that you inadvertently caused all the madness, John. You tried to save everybody with some less than fool proof evidence. That’s all that really matters. Thanks a bunch.”

To answer the question; John Proctor is a hero, at least in this story. But the point is that the term hero or stooge can’t be viewed as a simple thing. People are weird and complex and beautiful and ugly all at the same time. So maybe no one’s a hero, maybe we’re all just people, and what we are depends on perspective. Except for Superman and Chuck Norris, they’re definitely heroes.

Maybe my take on this was a little bit…cynical...or maybe its more critical? Not sure. Thanks for reading anyways,

Gianna