My Ramblings

The Vote for Women

2005-04-13T14:31:00.000-03:00

I thought the play was great and everyone did a great job. While we were working on the play, I was working on a paper for my Italian Fascism on Film class. In the paper I was writing a section about women getting the vote in Italy. In Italy, women were not allowed to vote long after most other countries had given the vote to women. After the First World War, there was a movement to get the vote. The current government did not pay any attention to them so they went to the fascist party. The Fascists promised they would give women the vote once in power. Mussolini would often talk about that women should be allowed to get thje vote. In 1925, Mussolini did pass a law to allow a select group of women the vote, This law was put in place just in time for his government to get rid of the elections the women could vote in. Mussolini just wanted to play on the women's emotions. It was not until after the war before women were allowed rto vote. The whole topic makes me think of our own elections and the lack of turnout they get. Many people had to fight for this right that people now do not really care to use. The more I was going over the play, the I was thinking about all of this. I had spent a lot of time researching the roles of women during the fascists regime. Sorry for the little history bit, but I could not help the connection I made.

Virginia Woolf

2005-04-13T14:06:00.000-03:00

I have never been able to get through a full book written by Virginia Woolf and actually understand anything that had happened in it. A Room of One's Own was the first novel of hers that I could partly understand what she was saying. The whole modern literature period has been hard for me to understand ( well at least what I have read from this period). Virginia Woolf and James Joyce are the two writers who I do not think I will ever understand. With that being said, this book was a much easier to understand than her other works. Some of the things in the novel seems crazy, like her not being able to go into the library without a male with her. It seems so out of place in our time but then we hear about the people at Harvard wishing they could do the same. People say that history does not repeat itself but it does. Women have come a long way over the past hundred years but there are still so many prejudices out there against women. We would like to think that we are so much better then our past but some things are harder to change. The novel makes you wonder if there is really a place for women to write during that period. Women can write just as well as any man can. Women have just had to fight much harder to get this.

Historical Novels

2005-04-02T19:30:00.000-04:00

I know I have been slacking with my blogs. I'm going to try to catch up with them. I've been sick the past week so I haven't been able to do much but I'm going to try to post what I can soon.

A little while ago, Dr. Maier came into my history class to talk about the historical novel. Her discussion made me think a lot about history and english. I'm a historian by heart but I still love english. Dr. Maier said that every history has a story and that every story had a history. This is true. English and history are completely intertwine with each other. When ever I read a book, I always look to see what kind of historical background I can get. Literature gives you a wonderful background on certain time periods. Each novel gives you some short of description of the period. Some time periods in history are not very well known. Any literature written helps give a historian some insight to what took place then. In ancient times, not too much is known except what us written in the literature. Homer's Iliad provides us with one of the few accounts of the Trojan war even if it does have more mythical elements. When I first started thinking about english and history I started thinking about Dorothy Wordsworth's journals again. When I wrote my blog about her joutnals I went with that they were history not literature. NOw I think of them as bth. The journals are history because they chronicle a period in this woman's life but they are english as well because they tell her story. I've come to the conclusion that you can't have one without the other.

Back to the blogs

2005-03-03T22:01:00.000-04:00

I know I have been really slacking on my blogs, but I'm back in business. I think tonight has been the first night that I've had some time to actually think about things that does not have to do with history.

Jane Eyre and Films
This was the second time that I have read Jane Eyre. It is an excellent book and could not be the same if it was written any other way. I have been thinking about the supernatural elements in the novel. The supernatural makes the novel what it is. If Jane had not thought she saw her uncle's ghost while in the room, she would not have went into that fit and the doctor would not have been called. If these things did not occur then Jane would not have gotten the idea of going away to school. The story would have been completely different. The same goes when she hears Mr. Rochester calling for her. What other reason would Jane have to go back to Mr. Rochester? That element had to be there. She had to know some way that he needed her to be back with him. Plus it throws in a romantic element.
I really enjoyed watching the three different film versions of the novel. It is interesting to see what the director leaves and cuts out. Only one of the three actually showed Jane in the red room. The other two left that out. That is an important scene in the novel because it shows the reason why Jane needs to get out of the house plus reason for the doctor to come. The characterization of Jane and Mr. Rochester were also very different from each film. Characterization is very important if you want to portray the correct feel of the book. If you do not have the right person playing the part it won't work no matter how well the acting might be. Any reader of the novel would be able to pick out whether the person was right for that character. Only one of the Janes looked the part. Jane was a plain girl and needed someone who was plain to play her. If you had a very attractive person playing her you would wonder why she would have to do the things she had to do. Attractiveness would have gotten you anything back then. It is interesting to see what film makers do when they are trying to make a movie from a novel. I can say that very rarely does a film do a better job then the novel. The novel is always better. Just look at Lord of the RIngs. Peter Jackson did an amazing job on the films but nothing could be as good as the books. After I saw the first film, I decided to read the books. As I was reading I could not believe the changing that had been made. I ended up reading the whole series before watching the other two films, which kind of ruined them for me. Every person has a different view of what is important and what could just be left out. I like being able to read a novel then see what changing we actually made in the making of the film. Well that is my rant about novels and films.

Gothic Short Stories

2005-02-05T13:40:00.000-04:00

Sorry for taking so long to get this blog up. I have been working on Jane Eyre and I forgot about the stories.
I really did like Alcott's A Whisper in the Dark. I was kind of surprised how engrossed I was in the story. I've never been too big on short stories but this one kept me reading. When I was reading it, I was surprised with the relationship between Sybil and her uncle. It seems very weird to have your uncle behaving in that matter. Even though we found out later that they were not related by blood, it still did not get rid of the odd feeling about the relationship. Sybil had specific agenda once she found out that she had been lied to about agreement of her father's will. She just did not have the experience to get herself out of some of the situations that she got herself in. I can't really figure out why she needed to make Guy jealous. I do understand that she would want the reassurence that he really did love her by why would you ever use someone's father as the bait. I did find it creepy that it was her mother that was right above her, trying to get her to find the dog. It seems quite justly that the doctor dies during of of his experiments and Sybil is able to escape and be rescued by Guy.

Good Lady Ducayne was a different story. I never did put two and two together about the doctor until the end. I knew something didn't seem right when she when from being completely healthy to being very sick. Even when it was said that the last two girls Lady Ducayne had died, I never tohught anything of it just that she seemed to have bad luck with her companions. After I had time to reflect on the story, Bella really didn't seem to be aware of anything. She put her faith in this doctor even with what she had overheard about the other girls. It really isn't until the young doctor rescue her that she realizes what had been going on. I never thought that Lady Ducayne was an actual vampire, but when you think of it she is one in a sense. She had the doctor steal the bood for her and then put in her. She didn't want to do the dirty work, she just wanted the product.

I found Shelley's The Parvenue rather boring and couldn't quite figure out how this fit with the other stories. I was just waiting for some supernatural or sonmething to pop out. All she wanted was a better life. She felt bad not being able to help her family as she wished she could. Her husband was almost like a tyrannt telling her that she couldn't give all her money to the poor or that he didn't not want to give her family money. She did what she thought was best when she left her husband to be with her mother. The ending was odd, her leaving to go off and die so her husband could remarry. I would have made him suffer not give in to him. She should have lived a nice, hppy, long life just so he couldn't be happy. That does sound a bit spitful but he did treat her kind of badly.
Those where the three stories that stuck in my head the most. Now back to Jane Eyre, hopefully I'll have a blog about that up before Monday...

Web Page

2005-01-31T10:53:00.000-04:00

Here is my web site on Louisa May Alcott. I had some fun playing with all the colors. I would have posted it last night but it decided it didn't want to work. I fixed it all this morning, so it should be working.
http://www.geocities.com/amanda_shepherd/home.html
Hope you enjoy.

Frankenstein Pt 2

2005-01-22T19:38:00.000-04:00

I just finished reading Frankenstein. When I was reading the creature’s tale, you start to feel bad for him for everything that he was going through. He was completely abandoned, having to fend for himself, he does what any human does is survive. He does this any way he can. He gets no help along the way even when he does show kindness to others. He is constantly being denounced because he is different. Society does not want to deal with something different. Society would rather cast them away than take the time to understand. The creature’s physical appearance is what every person is afraid of. He isn’t what they are normally used to seeing. People are fearful of the unknown regardless if kindness is shown as in this case. It’s understandable that the creature becomes extremely angry with humankind especially the human who created him. All he wanted was to be accepted into society but he was just cast away.

It would be easy to just blame society and Dr. Frankenstein for the creature’s actions. You could say that he didn’t know any better and the anger drove him to do the murders, but he did understand what he was doing and that his actions did have consequences. When he planted the picture on Justine, he knew that it would be used against her leading to her death. Each death was pre-meditated. All he wanted to do was to destroy Dr. Frankenstein’s life. If his creator had not abandoned the creature, there still is no way of knowing if he would have turned out the same way. His creator might have shown the kindness to him that he wished, but society still wouldn’t have understood. The creator’s thoughts and actions are solely his. People can lead you in certain directions but you have the choice of what you want to do. The creator had the choice of killing all of Dr. Frankenstein’s loved ones or just leaving society itself. Dr. Frankenstein did try to make amends to the situation after Elizabeth died. He wanted to destroy the creature that took everything from him. He never did get the chance to finish his quest.

The book leaves you wondering about a person’s free will and if you can actually control another. The creature did what he thought he had to do. He was completely aware of what he was doing. Society can be blamed for some of the misfortunes the creature endured, but it can’t be completely blamed.

Frankenstein

2005-01-17T18:03:00.000-04:00

This is my first time reading Frankenstein. Of course, I have grown up with the Hollywood version of the Frankenstein story. I think the first real movie that I remember watching about Frankenstein was “Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein.” Frankenstein was a huge monster that needed a brain to survive. It’s nice to actually read the true version of the story.

When I read the author’s introduction of my version of the book, I was quite surprised to find that Mary had written Frankenstein as a ghost story in competition with Lord Byron and Shelley. I never knew any of the background to the novel. The novel took a hold of me as soon as I started reading it. You always think of Dr. Frankenstein as this crazy scientist that came from a crazy family. His family was anything but crazy. He came from a great family and seemed to have everything that he wanted. He also had a thirst for knowledge from very early on. This thirst could also be looked at as his curse. His chance finding of Cornelius Agrippa changed his life forever. Even with his father’s warning of the volume, he continues to read it as well as other authors who studied the same thing. When he went to university, he still could not be discouraged against studying these authors. As he learned more about the sciences, the pursuit of making some discovery took over his life. This pursuit became his curse.

The discovery was finally made and his creature created. When the creature was “born,” you can get an image of when God created Adam. Dr. Frankenstein was basically playing God when he set out to create another human live out of nothing. Adam was created from nothing but the sand of the earth. The idea of a man creating life may seem odd to some people but most view God as a man and he created all of human kind. The idea of man creating life seems different because women are given the duty of “creating” life. But a man created the human race.
When Dr. Frankenstein realizes the horror that he had created, he just wants to get away from it. He doesn’t care what happens to the creature or care about the fact that he just released this creature on the rest of the world. He just wants to get away. He realizes the mistake of leaving the creature to fend for itself when his brother is murdered. He completely believes that the creature murdered his brother (I haven’t read the creature’s tale yet). Even if Frankenstein hadn’t abandoned the creature, could he have been able to control what the creature did? Can any human control another human? Many people often try to control other people but it never fully works because of free thought. A person can never control another person’s inner thoughts and actions-- influence, yes; control, no. A person’s free will cannot be controlled by another.

The Grasmere and Alfoxden Journals

2005-01-11T13:00:00.000-04:00

Yesterday's class discussion was very helpful. While reading the journals, I never really thought about whether or not the journals could be considered literature. Usually I just assume if I had to read it for my english class it must be literature. I agree with Michelle, the journals seems to be more of a history then literature. She is giving us insight into what one woman's life was like during the 19th century. Journals are often another way historians can get a better look into certain time periods. Dorothy's journals did show a very different view of what women did during that century. She was able to do more things then most other women of the period. She still had the usual housework to do (and she seemed to do a lot of that) but she was also able to go on these long walks everywhere with William.
Her journals showed just how involved she actually was in William's writings. She was there for him every step of the way. Sometimes she was even collaborating with him. She was able to help him get ideas about what he should write about as well as editing his work. She was also a writer herself but she did not view herself as one. It seemed to her that it wasn't her place to be a writer, she was just writing down her thoughts and helping her brother.
As to the question is her journals literature, I cannot completely say yes or no to that question. If we do say yes that it is literature, then can all journals be considered literature? I have my own journal and I dont consider literature. I lean more towards it being a history. You get to look into someone's life for a certain time period and just see what it was like to be living during that time. Most jpournals do give you a story but it gives you more of a history. I say it's a history just because I've used journals when research my history papers.
Dr. J- After class I went online to find out more about thyme. Here is a little bit of information about it:
Thyme is the leaf of a low-growing shrub in the mint family called Thymus vulgaris. Its tiny grayish-green leaves rarely are greater than one-fourth inch long. For use as a condiment, Thyme leaves are dried then chopped, or ground.
Thyme is often included in seasoning blends for poultry and stuffing and also commonly used in fish sauces, chowders, and soups. It goes well with lamb and veal as well as in eggs, custards, and croquettes. Thyme often is paired with tomatoes.

Blog Number 1

2005-01-03T15:24:00.000-04:00

This is my first blog for my english class