Invisible Man – Part 2 March 26, 2007

     So, as we ended our reading in chapter 10 with the Invisible Man working.  He had got knocked unconscious.  In chapter 11, it opens up with a scene in the hospital.  He is very confused and has not the slightest idea of where he is or what is going on.  With the dialogue that he hears around him, and from what he sees he tries to piece this all together.  While still having difficulty with this, the doctor tries to help him remember by asking him a series of questions.  He asks: “What is your name?”  The narrator realizes that he all of a sudden can not remember.  He can’t answer this question.  And the doctor asks again slower, “What…is…your…name? And again, “Who…are…you?  He then moved on to ask him “What is your mothers name?” Yet again, the narrator does not know.  So, the doctor asks again, “Who was your mother?”…“Think” The narrator stares at him with no reply.  Then, the doctor resorts to something new.  He asks “Who was buckeye the rabbit?  This triggers something with the narrator and he flashes back to being a child (again with this obsession with the past theme).  Buckeye was him, he remembered this song, “Buckeye the rabbit Shake it, Shake it Buckeye the Rabbit Break it, Break it…”  The one name that he does remember is Mr. Norton, and he asks the doctor if that’s who he is.  He replies no, and they move on. 

           

     When he is released he is walking down the streets, and it is obvious that he is still not well.  He is very frail and weak at this point.  This is where Mary enters the story.  She offers to care for him, and help him out.  She takes him back to her house to help him relax and rest a bit.  She tells him he can stay longer, but he leaves shortly after.

           

     When he leaves, he is so hungry.  He passes a man selling yams.  The majority of chapter 13 is about his encounter with this man at the stand selling yams.  I have to ask myself, why has this taken up a whole chapter?  Who is this man, and what is his significance?  Well, eating these yams really brings him to thinking about the South again.  (Obsession with the past, again)  He walks around, proud, and thinking about what people would think from there is they had been able to see him at that moment.

           

     As he continues his walk, he wanders down a side street where he begins to feel horrible again, because someone has set something on fire and the smoke is incredible.  He continues down to meet a woman who is in tears, yelling.  They are kicking this older couple out of their apartment, and the woman is pleading for help.  The narrator attempts to help them out in their situation because he can relate to what they are going through.  He makes a speech to the crowd, and they are all willing to help move the old couple’s furniture back into the apartment. 

           

     And then Mary comes back into the story…

Invisible Man March 26, 2007

             Invisible Man is quite the interesting story.  I must say that I am really enjoying it.  I would have to admit that it is definitely my most favorite book that we have read so far.  My interest has been kept throughout reading it.  I find myself getting through the chapters a lot quicker than I expected to.

           

            In the opening of the book, I will say that I was a bit nervous about reading the rest of the book.  With the scene of the Battle Royale, I was hoping that this wasn’t really going to set the tone of the rest of the book.  I did not want to sit through reading scenes like this.  I was relieved as I continued to read that after that part it was the end of that cruel treatment, at least for now.

 

          Toward almost the middle of the book the Invisible Man is kicked out of college, but is given these letters (which he assumes are good) to go out and get a job.  When he eventually finds out what the letters really say, he is shocked and angered, however he still remains to get the job.  He is working with Liberty Paints; Optic White.  Their slogan there is “if it’s optic white, it’s the right white.  This brings him back to his past when he remembers “if you’re white, you’re right”.  This is something that connects the non-canonical books with this theme of obsession of the past that we see throughout this book.

Canon vs. Non-canon books March 15, 2007

In reading The Great Gatsby by Scott Fitzgerald, The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner and the short stories by Ernest Hemingway we were able to come up with the main themes that were seen throughout each of these.  They were all related and connected in many ways.  These stories are supposed to tell us, and all those who read them, what the American lifestyle is all about.  However, do these books really tell what people should know?  Is it realistic?  These are the questions we need to ask ourselves.  Are these the ideas that we want everyone to see as what the American lifestyle is all about?  Why have these books been chose as the key books that everyone should read, and as the ones that represent American characteristics?

 

Then, we move on and read non-canonical books.  I was assigned to read Dorothy Parker.  These short stories did have a few of the same themes as the books in the canon, however it differed a lot.  I definitely would not put her stories into the canon, and I can see why they were not included.  I felt as though all of her stories were about the same thing; meaningless marriages and relationships.  There were no relationships that lasted throughout any of the stories, and nobody got married because they were in love; it was only for the reason that they were supposed to get married at that point in time.

 

 

When looking at the wiki pages for the other books, I noticed that some of them had the majority of the themes that we noticed in the books in the canon.  So, why have they not been chosen?  What gives a book that certain quality and difference to be added into the canon?

Dorothy Parker Short Stories March 13, 2007

This book of short stories is a collection of Dorothy Parker’s written works.  The longest short story is only 24 pages.  All are very easy to get through.  I read her more famous pieces because I wanted to get a taste of who she was, and what her writing was really like. 

One of the major themes throughout most of Parker’s stories was this idea of meaningless marriages.  Everyone just got married because it was supposed to happen, and that was the next step in their lives, so it had to happen.  Therefore, every story that involved a husband and a wife had some sort of dilemma involved with it also. 

The first story I read was Big Blonde, which was her most famous written piece.  This story was basically about a large blonde woman who made meaningless relationships with men she met out at the bars, until finally she decided it was that time in her life to get married.  So, she meets Herbie, and they decide to get married.  However, there was never a “spark” in this relationship to begin with, and it did not take long for them to realize that this just wasn’t working out.  They divorce, and she re-marries several times throughout the rest of the story.

In reading New York to Detroit, this theme was demonstrated very elaborately.  The wife was home in
New York, but the husband was away on business.  They were having a phone conversation, and the wife was going crazy because she missed him so badly, however the husband obviously did not feel the same and he made it very clear to her.  He did not show any remorse when she told him that she was doing horrible without him, and he told her that he would be traveling even longer than he told her originally, and he would not be coming home.