Fin

Literature is about life. Writers are philosophers trying to make sense out of the experiences of life. What does it all mean? What is the proper way one should live? Questions don’t get much bigger than that. These are themes great writers focus on.

I learned that living a simple ordinary life can be worse than death. Ivan Ilych taught a lesson about what is important in life. You can own all the things that make life pleasant but they can’t give you meaning or a sense of self-worth. You also can’t take those things with you as we learned in Everyman. When you face death the things we remember or will be judged by are our Good-Deeds.

One of my favorite themes in class was women’s perseverence and their struggle for identity. It is a topic largely ignored by society. Norah, Elisa, the narrator in “The Yellow Wallpaper,” and the poet in “Cinderella,” all provided insight to the hardships women must endure in a patriarchic society. It makes you pause and think about the gender roles society imposes on us and how it could be ethical for a culture to expect someone to sacrifice their individuality solely because of their sex.

The thing that sticks with me the most was the poem I choose to write my paper on. “The Hollow Men” by T.S. Eliot shared many common themes with Dante’s Divine Comedy. It’s a sin to walk through life and never take a stand for what you believe. Choosing to remain neutral is worse than actually committing the offense. If you can stand by and watch someone do wrong you are just as guilty because you are condoning the behavior. Eliot would argue you are even worse because you have the power to stop it and you choose not to. Indifference is moral death and there will be hell to pay.

“Prufrock” probably had the most profound impact on me (other than “The Hollow Men”). A man so afraid of rejection he is a prisoner of his own insecurities. I am afraid of rejection, but I’m making an effort to take chances and act boldly. I have adopted a new paradigm. It is better to be rejected than to never take a chance and wonder what if. I got a lot out of this class.

Laugh Now, Cry Later

The language of The Tempest is hilarious. It reads like a comedy. The characters are ridiculous but the themes being discussed are serious. The fact that no one gets hurt and the make-believe atmosphere of the drama keeps it lighthearted. There really is a fairy tale quality about it with Prospero playing the sorcerer, Ariel his faithful spirit doing his biddings along with the rest of the spirits. Also there are some comical coincidences like Ferdinand falling in love with Miranda at first sight or even the most fantastic coincidence that all the same people responsible for Prospero's exile are traveling by ship and they end up shipwrecked on his island. You almost roll your eyes at the impossibility of the situation but it plays out well.

The play does take on some heavy themes such as revenge, redemption and justice. During Prospero's monologue when he says the rarer action is more virtuous, that is worth some contemplation. These are serious issues being discussed that deserve some debate. Not your typical comedy. The plot is revenge driven but one could argue that Prospero redeems himself by forgiving his enemies and moving on. There are complicated issues as well like the nature vs. nurture argument when it comes to the island creature Caliban. I thought he was too one-dimensional almost like a character actor. It would've been nice to see him develop into someone with more depth. The nature of the argument is too complicated to base it on such a easy character to vilify.

Throughout the play there is a lighthearted tone, whether its the characters interaction with each other or the fantastic events Prospero is conjuring with his magic. The spirits lend the drama a make believe element that makes it fun to read because it makes you think that anything is possible.

Barbie's Dream Home

A lot of the same themes from the short stories are in A Doll's House. Nora, suffers from the same afflictions as the heroines of “The Yellow Wallpaper” and “Chrysanthemums,” such as isolation, inequality, and lack of identity. The settings of the stories are a microcosm of the world women must live in and the opportunities available to them. The wife in “The Yellow Wallpaper” is trapped in an asylum much the same way Nora is confined to her living room and Elisa in her garden. They are masters of their environment. It is the only place they have any control in their lives. John’s wife becomes obsessed with the room when she is deprived of any stimulation. Ibsen’s play is set exclusively in the Helmer living room which is where Torvald would like to keep Nora forever if he could.  

The men in Ibsen’s play and Gilman’s short story are products of their time and are seen as the system of values that need change. Both Torvald and John share an intense narcissism that upon first sight the reader fails to identify it. The characters see themselves as protectors, doing what is best for their wives, but their intentions are purely self-motivated. 

In all three stories the main characters are dependent on a male character feeding into the popular fallacy that defined a woman as being motivated by an unconscious desire to be taken care of as a fear of independence. This is exactly the role the women in the stories are expected to fulfill. They play the part, but show the hollowness of such an ideal at the end when Nora, realizing she is nothing more than an object leaves her family, and the narrator in “The Yellow Wallpaper” goes insane.