Blog #10

Although I did not use Gerontion in my essay on T.S. Eliot, it is a great example of how Eliot uses modernist conventions to convey his purpose and themes that question the pureness and purpose of the human soul. “Gerontion” is derived from a word meaning “of or relating to old age.” It is also one of Eliot’s works that is part of the collection Poems, but is thought to have been written as a prelude to Eliot’s heavier works, like Waste Land. Gerontion explores the life of an aging man, most likely Eliot foreshadowing himself. The first stanza consists of a lot of imagery that creates a negative tone as the narrator describes his state in life. Lines such as “waiting for rain,” “bitten by flies”, “decayed house,”  and “a dull head among windy spaces” all describe how this old man is feeling; a decaying creature as he watches life continue around him. This is a modern convention used by Eliot as he focuses more on loss rather than gain in life, a characteristic in many of his poems. In addition, much like his other poems, Eliot, as usual, alludes to Christ as a tiger, stressing the importance of renewal of the spirit. Although this creates a feeling of hope in the second stanza, the poem continues to describe a what happens in life as one ages. The loss of senses, particularly his sexuality, creates the question of what does one have left after this loss? How is one to engage in acts of passion at this point in life, and what is the result of this?  Eliot continues, however, to conclude the poem by describing how every old man continues to live and exist, just as the spider “suspends in operations.” Eliot uses his conventional poetic devices to achieve his purpose of discovering the human soul through imagery, allusions, and metaphors. These not only deepen the poem’s meaning, but characterize it as a modern poem in the sense that it fits the reality of post -war society in the world. 

Reaction to T.S. Eliot

After reading some of T.S. Eliot’s poetry, it is clear that Eliot creates a style of writing that is not only relevant to his spirituality, but creates a message to his readers that allows them to judge his opinion on certain topics.  The distance of time also appears to be a motif in his poetry as subjects the idea of modern life and contemporary society into his poetry as they pertain to religion and a spiritual lifestyle. In poems such as Hippopotamus and Mr. Eliot’s Sunday Morning Service, it seems as if Eliot is not only presenting his opinion that there needs to be a stronger spiritual aspect in society during his time, but he is in an argument with himself and one that contemplates his role as a Christian and the role of the Church in his life. He depicts a life that is in cultural ruin, and often uses nature, whether it be the Hippopotamus or the “garden-wall bees”, as a comparison to draw attention to the beauty and simplicity of reality.  

As a modernist poet transitioning from the Victorian era, Eliot was writing in a time during the twentieth century when normal values were being challenged, especially during the war. Society placed more value on culture rather than spirituality and religion, and as Eliot himself became a devout Christian, his poetry aimed to change this value. His poems use basic imagery, yet includes many important allusions (often the Bible) that makes his readers analyze it’s importance and relevance to the poem’e message. In addition, his poems are set up in quatrains, each one representing a new image or idea that transitions into the next.  At first glance, each of Eliot’s poems seem to be foreign and irrelevant, but after breaking down each stanza, image by image, Eliot’s motifs of life and death and a transcendent spirituality are all crucial for characterizing him as a poet. Getting past the barriers of mythical and religious allusions, there is a concrete idea that Eliot is always able to convey. 

"This is Water"

Personally, I’ve been looking forward to graduation for as long as I can remember. I have never felt that high school was my “thing”, and that I would feel much more comfortable on my own at some university. However, now that my last semester of my high school career has begun and I know which school I will be attending next year, it has become bittersweet that I have or will be experiencing my “lasts”; last pep rally, last homecoming, last prom, etc. It has become real how fast the time has gone, and the reality has set in that I will truly be on my own next year, thousands of miles away from home. 

As David Foster Wallace speaks to this graduating class, it seems as if he trying to scare them, or maybe he is just preparing them for the real world. It seems scary as we all are headed for new and unknown experiences, but Wallace makes an important point. He says that “the true freedom of education is that YOU get to decide what has meaning and what doesn’t.” He also mentions how we all revert to our natural default setting, the “unconscious belief that I am the center of the world.” He challenges the graduating class to look outwards rather than inwards, and think of the possibilities of every situation around us. It is easy to get absorbed in the every day hustle-and-bustle of society, but it is ultimately our choice to be aware and turn off this “default setting.” Looking back at the past four years, I can imagine how I unconsciously went through each day, longing for the weekend, longing for summer, and longing for graduation. This last semester will not be one where I am longing for these things, but rather enjoying the time I have left with the people I am surrounded with in my life right now, because soon enough, they won’t be there. I choose to turn off this “default setting” of mine not only for the next four months, but as I continue through my college experience. And with that, as Wallace mentions, I will experience the true freedom of education. 

Blog #8- The Intruder

The Intruder by Jorge Luis Borges is a short story that becomes very barbaric and immoral to the reader. The Nilson brothers of Turdera are unapproachable and notorious men in the community  known as “drovers, horse thieves, teamsters, and once in a while, professional gamblers. Cristian, the older brother, used a woman named Juliana Burgos as his servant, sex slave, and more importantly, the woman that he unadmittedly loved. Of course,  however, his younger brother Eduardo fell in love with her as well. After this is revealed in the beginning paragraphs, Borges begins to reveal odd details and an unfathomable plot follows. Instead of the two brothers killing each other, they decide to share Juliana. After figuring out that the other brother is jealous of the other because they both love her, they decide to sell her to a whorehouse. This seems to fix the problem, until both brothers find each other going back to see her. As if this isn’t an odd enough plot by now, Borges really mixes things up when Cristian and Eduardo buy her back and the kill her one night and leave her body for the vultures to eat. Borges’s purpose seems to change throughout the short story until I looked back after I finished reading. In the beginning, it seems that it will be a story about the jealousy between the two brothers that will have a deadly ending. Then, after they sell Juliana, I thought maybe Borges would make this story about the brotherhood and loyalty of Cristian and Eduardo. After reading, however, this is an untypical plot  because usually the fate of the brothers in a story like this is death. Instead, this odd and uncomfortable story becomes about the relationship between the brothers and the intrusion that Juliana causes.  Rather than getting rid of “the other man”, they get rid of the intrusion- Juliana herself.  Although this very brutal and inhumane, it makes this short story intriguing to read because of its nonrealistic plot. Also, this story arises the question of Borges as an author himself. He clearly is not a feminist, using a communal woman to connect two men physically and emotionally.  Obviously not identifying with the purpose of this story, yet finding it intriguing to read, I am left speechless by the cruelty of the whole situation. The ending sentence, “One more link bound them now-the woman they had cruelly sacrificed and their common need to forget her”, makes me think that Borges wrote this short story to draw attention to the barbaric natural instincts of man. 

Blog #7

After finishing The Secret Agent, I am able to look back and analyze how and when my reading changed. Although this was a challenging book in the beginning, the plot slowly picked up speed and many things began to happen very quickly. The chapter when Chief Inspector Heat has a conversation with Winnie, and Winnie finds out that her own husband played a role in Stevie's death, is in my opinion the best chapter in the book. Not only does Winnie, a character who is thought to be innocent and minor, becomes a cold-blooded murderer of Verloc. This was a major plot twist that I did not expect, and its irony allowed this chapter and the book as a whole to become extremely powerful. Winnie murders a murderer, revealing a major theme throughout the novel. I did not expect Winnie to become such an authoritative and influential character because of her lack of action throughout the early part of the book. From this point on, the action and suspense keeps building. She runs into Ossipon and convinces him to run away with her with the money she received from Verloc. As we find out, he only pretends to agree until she boards the train and he jumps off last minute with her money. In addition, Winnie’s suicide just adds chaos to the whole situation.

This chapter is not only a major plot twist, but it is the most important one in which Conrad reveals themes about the book and his view of society in the early twentieth century. As if plotting to bomb the Greenwich Observatory wasn’t enough of a statement about society, Conrad develops a plot in which there is lack of trust, loyalty, and morality. Although this theme is dispersed throughout this book in small parts, Conrad is able to convey this theme in one climactic chapter. Violence and death become prominent motifs in the book as well, and they become very important when they transform characters like Winnie and Ossipon into corrupt citizens, making these characters dynamic.



It is because of this chapter that I not only was able to connect everything together, but it drastically changed my opinion of the novel. I was not a fan of this particular book in the beginning, but once I understood what Conrad was doing with the plot, I greatly enjoyed finishing the novel. The book was very blasé until this chapter, then it suddenly catapulted into this very meaningful and forceful book. The fact that Conrad has the ability to do this and change a reader’s opinion of the book as a whole a single chapter makes him a very competent author.

Blog #6
In the first half of Joseph Conrad’s novel, The Secret Agent, major characters are introduced and the characterization of Verloc and his family helps give the reader a grasp on this complex plot. Mr. Verloc owns a shop in Soho, London, where he not only houses is family, but hosts meetings for a group of anarchists. In addition to being an anarchist, he serves as a secret agent for an unnamed foreign country. Verloc is called into his supervisors’ office, and is told to “shake” England by blowing up the Greenwich Observatory. Already in these beginning chapters, Mr. Verloc is introduced as a man with a lot of responsibilities and power.  The reader can see his conflicting jobs, one of which he hides from his wife, Winnie. Not only does this affect the reader’s opinion about Verloc and his morals, but the structure of Conrad’s novel plays an important role understanding the plot. In Chapter 4, Conrad jumps ahead to the actual event of bombing the Observatory. Instead of waiting until the end of the book, Conrad introduces the climax (or what seems to be the climax at this point in the book) of the major event that Verloc was ordered to carry out, which goes terribly wrong. This allows more characters to be introduced, such as Chief Inspector Heat and The Professor. Because there is this lapse in time between the chapters, the reader has knowledge that the characters do not. The structure is not in the ordinary chronological order of events, and the reader is taken from the present to the future which allows loose ends slowly come together. Although this is complex and makes reading difficult at times, it has allowed me personally to make connections and predictions. However, even though my predictions and inferences could be wrong, it makes Conrad a great writer because this type of structure allows Conrad to suddenly and drastically change the plot and actions of the characters.

Blog #5

After finally finishing Family Album, I had a difficulty determining whether the ending was successful or not. It left me speechless, not because something extraordinary happened, but because the ending was completely predictable and tied the rest whole story together. After finding out that Clare was Ingrid and Charles’s child, not Alison, the reader is pulled into a deeper understanding of the novel and why Alison’s portrayal of her family is so superficial. She insisted that Ingrid “go away” for a while until Clare was born, and then they both return to Allersmead as if nothing happened. Charles’s affair with the au pair did not affect Alison as it should in a normal marriage, and she demanded that no one know about it, not even Clare. However, as the children grew up, they all began to suspect that Clare was not their sister, yet it was as if this idea was to be known only subconsciously; no one ever talked about it or questioned it. Then came the predictable and ordinary ending: Alison and Charles grow older, all the children continue living separate lives, and Allersmead slowly falls apart. Charles and Alison don’t have the money to renovate keep such a large and empty house, but Alison holds onto it with everything she has because it is a symbol of the life she created with the perfect family. Then, in the last chapter, Charles dies of a heart attack. It seems odd at first because no one is deeply upset or expresses any grief about this death. But looking back to the rest of the story, it is very fitting because Charles had no significant role in any of the children’s lives, and he never affected Alison’s way of life. Charles was almost just a role in presenting the “perfect and successful” family that Alison strived so hard for. It is after Charles’s death that Alison finally agrees to sell Allersmead, and maybe it is because she can no longer grasp this dream of hers. She has come to the realization that life must move on, and hopes that a young, growing family will buy the large Edwardian house and create memories like her family did. Although this ending is predictable and fitting to the rest of the novel, it is needed in order to close all loose ends. It allows readers to make a judgement and look back to the rest of the novel, and that is what makes Lively’s ending a success.