Rampant Streams of Consciousness

This week, we did a stream of consciousness activity involving rushed writing and distractions.  We also started on Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway.

I have to say, Mrs. Dalloway, so far, is a strange character (perhaps purposely so).  With a "narrow pea-stick figure"(Woolf 10), "ridiculous little face"(Woolf 10), and face "beaked like a bird"(Woolf 10), doesn't the author's description seem a bit harsh? Virginia Woolf, what has a kind, old, rich, elderly woman ever done to you?

But now that I think about it, perhaps there was logic behind this madness.  By describing Mrs. Dalloway unflatteringly, the authors intention is to contrast a paltry physique with a beautiful, complex, mind.  That's a major purpose of stream of consciousness, anyways; to offer the reader a rare look inside the mind, instead of commenting from the outside like so many other works of her time.

Every thought, every pondering, of the kind old Mrs. Dalloway is recorded, after all.  Although it confuses me often, and doesn't seem the most cohesive sometimes, it must have taken a lot of deep thinking and effort.  #respect.
~Chris

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Bonus round! Some of the highlights I wrote from our activity:

"People around me mirror my actions, and we’re all, in one moment, living in the same life force, in the same cocoon…outside the spell is broken, and the hectic chatter like songbirds freed from their cages"

"I am distracted, and yet annoyed. How does creative flow arise from such a distracted environment? Where do I draw my inspiration if not from my own silence?"

"Perhaps it is the external forces that strike me, knock me down….push me most. Is all work, all thoughts, just an amalgamation of the worldly forces existing at that moment?"  

Conclusion: This is frightening. Its a wonder i’m able to communicate at all if this is going through my mind every second.

Rage against the dying of the light

As I was reading "The Death of the Moth", by Virginia Woolf this week, I was constantly reminded of this poem:

"Do not go gentle into that good night,

Old age should burn and rave at close of day;

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

...

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,

And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,

Do not go gentle into that good night."

~Dylan Thomas

                     The life, and subsequent death, of the moth reflects the lives of humans, living ephemerally, like the flash of a burning sun. The same light that grants youthful passion also removes it so abruptly.  In the poem, Thomas explores the reactions of three kinds of people:  wise men, good men, wild men, grave men, and finally his own father, to the prospect of death.  The moth described in Woolf's work, similarly, struggles with its own transience. It "slips on the wooden ledge and falls"(Woolf 697), and "his legs fluttered again....in last protest" (Woolf 697).  

                   Each action of the moth, in this piece, mirrors a similarly human action.  In the rapid fluttering of the moth at the beginning, I saw a youth devouring the world which bombarded his senses.  In the middle, I saw a middle aged adult, "dancing and zigzagging" (696) with his significant other.  At the end, I saw an old man, "stiff or awkward"(697).  But Dylan Thomas views this aging process differently.  

                 In his poem "Do not go Gentle into that Good Night", Thomas urges his father to "rage, rage, against the dying of the light"; instead of slipping and falling like a dying moth, the poem seems to suggest being energetic, and being a "bead of life"(Woolf 696) until the very end.  And if you've lived a fulfilling and adventurous life, I suppose, that's the very best way to go.  

~Chris

"Nian Nian You Yu"

"Writing is an extreme privilege but it's also a gift. It's a gift to yourself and it's a gift of giving a story to someone" ~Amy Tan

            This week, the "Fish Cheeks", by Amy Tan was a piece that I could really connect to.  It tells of Tans experiences eating a Chinese-style Christmas dinner with a Caucasian family guest. Effectively, this piece combines two of my favorite things: Food, and Christmas, together into a work that resonates with my Chinese-American Heritage.

             Like Amy Tan, I also have felt the awkwardness and shame of "noisy Chinese relatives", and their seemingly boundless capability for faux pas (at least in an American context).  I have also had phases of wishful thinking, where I would be born white, and raised on such stereotypically American foods as steak, potatoes, and burgers(all of which I do consume nowadays.  But like the Tan family, I also commonly consume "rock cod", "tofu", "dried fungus", and "squid"(Tan 95), as well; perhaps having experienced both sides to this story, the contrast I see in the piece may not be as stark as the reactions of readers of other backgrounds.

              In many Chinese families, we have the saying "nian nian you yu", which is a play on words: the word fish is a homonym for abundance: the phrase itself means "every year has abundance/fish", and its the reason that fish is part of every Chinese new year, or marriage, or special occasion meal.  So I guess I have my own "fish cheeks".

             In the end, Tan does a remarkably good job of capturing the awkward, the embarrassing, and sometimes outright hilarious life that is a Chinese-Americans. And before I forget, the new show "Fresh off the boat", which tells the story of an Asian-American family? Amy Tan would definitely approve.
~Chris

And The Caged Bird Will Fly

“You may shoot me with your words, you may cut me with your eyes, you may kill me with your hatefulness, but still, like air, I'll rise.”   ~Maya Angelou, Still I Rise

First week of this class!
             This week, the most notable study for me, was an excerpt from Maya Angelou's memoir I Know When The Caged Bird Sings.  My first experiences with Maya Angelou had been through her poetry.  "Still I Rise", and "I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings" really resonated with me in its themes of the struggle for black rights, and it gained me even more respect for the movement.

              Anyways, the story itself was called "Champion of the World", and it described the boxing match between Joe Louis and Primo Carnera in the context of the entire black race.  In the story, a number of overarching ideas really stood out to me.  The parallel journey between the match itself and black pride was a fresh perspective on a subject too often told insipidly in history books.   The second major motif, religion, is one of the topics which we talked about in our seminar on the story: the idea that even God's judgement on the African American people depended on the results of a single boxing match.  Besides the obvious references to God, I found this quote interesting:

"...that God Himself hated us and ordained us to be hewers of wood and drawers of water, forever and ever"(Angelou 90)

             The expressions with the hewers and drawers belongs to Joshua 9:23, and the biblical story involves a group of people being cursed, to become menial laborers for the rest of time.  Although a bit of research on the semantics of the phrase revealed to me that the phrase is sometimes used with a positive connotation, to denote hardworking people, they are laborers nonetheless.

               Yet another literary twist that Angelou weaves skillfully into the story is the irony that exists even at the end of the story.  In the final paragraph,Joe Louis emerges victorious, and the African Americans watching in the store consider themselves "the strongest people in the world"(Angelou 90). However, the author then remarks that "it wouldn't do for a Black man and his family to be caught....on a [victorious night]"(Angelou 90).  By maintaining that despite the previous hours of pride and moral epiphany, being on the road is still dangerous, Angelou hints at something deeper with the struggle between blacks and whites--that the hundreds of years of mutual hatred requires time and effort--is too much to overcome in a single event, even for a legend like Joe Louis.

               But to Louis I say this: what must it feel like to have the hopes of an entire race resting on your shoulders?  Would be crushing, or inspiring?  Would it be beautiful or ugly, sentimental or terrifying? Perhaps even the greatest literary tricks refuse to reveal such private thoughts. Either way, it seems like Joe Louis rose up to the occasion.

For the first time of many, thanks for reading!
~Chris