Class Blog

“…and they lived happily ever after”

“Odd that marriage, a public display and free to all, gives way to that most secret of liaisons, an adulterous affair.” (16).

In the civil and religious world, marriage is a binding contract. There is a certain image of the “perfect marriage” that society has indoctrinated us all with. Society dictates that marriage is between two people whom love each other and wish to spend the rest of their lives together, sharing every bit of themselves with one another, and  presenting a perfect image of themselves as a couple to all that look at their relationship. Society says this union is a partnership with no secrecy or issues. As we all know, this is never the case. This short but precise sentence eloquently expresses what I have thought about marriage for quite a while.

The use of punctuation in this passage is very telling of how the narrator feels about the “sanctity” of marriage. Every thought regarding marriage is separated by a comma. I took this to be that the narrator is pausing for the narrator to sigh in disgust. The narrator is fed up with the unholiness of the marriages the narrator has witnessed. The narrator has had many affairs with married women, and knows that those marriages are shams. The narrator knows that these woman stay in these marriages, although they wish to be with the narrator, in order to keep their societal image and acceptance. These commas are used to express and emphasize the disgust that the narrator feels towards those marriages that are just illusions for the public eye.

This passage also emphasizes that marriage, the perfect and ultimate union of two people, is not always what it seems. This also applies to the concept of the family unit. However, to fit in with society, most people want to have a perfect marriage and family to show off to the world.  This concept of the desire to have a perfect family unit is discussed in Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick’s writing “Tendencies.” In her writing Sedgwick says

“Looking at my own life, I see that-probably like most people-I have valued and pursued these various elements of family identity to quite differing degrees….I see it’s been a ruling intuition for me that the most productive strategy (intellectually, emotionally) might be, whenever possible, to disarticulate them from one another, to disengage them-the bonds of blood, of law, of habitation, of privacy, of companionship and succor- from the lockstep of the unanimity in system called family.” (pg6).

The desire for a perfect familial image and identity begins with the foundation of a perfect marriage. Society tells us to strive for perfection and happiness, and a way to do that is to have a family. The pressure from society to maintain this image eventually leads to people being forced into lives they never wished for themselves.

Not Everyone is Interested in Love

“I considered her. I didn’t love her and I didn’t want to love her. I didn’t desire her and I could not imagine desiring her.” (26)

The narrators need to constantly remind that  “ I didn’t love her”, “I didn’t want to love her”, and, “I didn’t desire her” throughout the quote was something that I found very captivating. The repetitions in this passage made me question the narrator’s honesty. Repetition is interesting in way that it has the ability to form arrangements, which catches our attention creating comfort within our minds. If you repeat something several times a part of you will start to believe it, whether it is true or not. I questioned whether Z was trying to convince the audience or him/herself that he had no intentions of loving Jacqueline. I think that Z wanted to make sure that his/her point was made by letting us know that not only did he not love and desire her but he had no intention of loving nor desiring her. It is almost like he was refusing himself love.

I think this passage is about the way Z views relationships and how one should feel in relationship. The fact that Z can even say “I considered her” says a lot about how much he/she values relationships and the importance of a relationship and love. In this passage Z comes off as very selfish. Even though he/she does not love Jacqueline and has no intention on loving he/she still does not mind having her around. Z is selfish for not being honest with her. Instead of thinking about her feeling and needs as a person who also would like to be loved all he can offer her is being “considered”.  I think this passage is forcing us to look at love and in a more forced way.  Love in this passage is being looked at as unwanted where as I am so used to seeing love being an intangible thing that people yearn for. In this sense love is seen as being something to avoid. I also think that the author forces us to look at love as one sided. In this sense it is very clear that the narrator wants nothing to with love but the woman is the equation can possibly be yearning for love.

The Essence of Louise

 “Oh Louise, I’m not telling the truth. You aren’t threatening me, I’m threatening myself. My careful well-earned life means nothing. The clock was ticking. I thought, How long before the shouting starts? How long before the tears and accusations and the pain? That specific stone in the stomach pain when you lose something you haven’t got round to valuing? Why is the measure of love loss?” (39)

This quotation comes from the narrator of the book, in reference to the love the speaker holds for Louise, despite the fact that she is married to Jacqueline. In the page before this quotation, the speaker is describing eating lunch with Louise and he is aroused by everything she does, from chewing on a carrot, to chopping up a pear. I thought this was interesting because another one of my classes is discussing food and how it can be related to sexuality.

By using the method, the list of questions and question marks make this set of statements stand out in the book. It is clear that the narrator is in his/her own mind, questioning every thought which entered the mind. The narrator is trying to figure out why these feelings are arising and what to do with them now. The reader can tell that the speaker is feeling significant anxiety about how quickly feelings of love and happiness can turn to pain. Perhaps the speaker had significant pain in the last relationship, or perhaps this relationship is so different, because Louise is unavailable to the speaker, that being around her is torturous. Asking the questions listed in the passage about show the reader that there is an anticipation for an uneasy ending, yet the speaker doesn’t ask these questions aloud, rather they are the inner thought of the mind.

After the passage ends, the speaker continues to discuss the idea of jumping out of a plane without a parachute, a metaphor for possibly telling Louise of the desire for her, and possibly the question of will she leave Jacqueline. This makes it very clear to the reader that the narrator has become love sick over Louise and may possibly confront her and declare the love held for her. The questions asked are significant because they allow the reader access to the mind of the narrator and the struggles the narrator faces about having these feelings.

Precision

A precise emotion seeks a precise expression.  If what I feel is not precise then should I call it love?” (Winterson, 10)

This passage immediately drew me in, despite its brevity, because of the simple eloquence of its phrasing.  In a mere two sentences, the narrator turns the widely accepted idea of ‘love’ on its head, questioning how we define our feelings and what ‘love’ actually means.  The narrator poses an almost scientific theory, in the vein of Newton’s third law of motion (every action must have an equal and opposite reaction,) essentially stating that every precise emotion must be expressed through equal precision.  This opposition is itself then juxtaposed with the concept that if an emotion is not precise, it may not be expressed precisely.  In fact, the word “precise” is repeated three times, drawing special focus to the concept of precision and inviting the reader to question if it is possible define an emotion precisely in the first place. We all think we know what ‘love’ is, but if we were to ask everyone who is in ‘love’ to define what ‘love’ is, it is unlikely that we would end up with two identical definitions.  By that logic, if those feelings of affection most of us seem to experience are imprecise and individual-specific, should we even be allowed to define them as ‘love’?

I believe that Sedgwick’s idea of queer, “the open mesh of possibilities, gaps, overlaps, dissonances, and resonances, lapses and excesses of meaning,” can help us cope with this issue (8).  Humans are pattern-seeking animals and therefore seek definitions, particularly for those things that scare or confuse us, such as imprecise emotions.  Labels and clichés make us feel safe, assuring us that we are not the only ones experiencing the perplexing emotions that we do when we say, fall in ‘love.’ However, perhaps we overuse these clichés, forcing ourselves to shave down our emotions into precise pegs that easily fit in the holes we’ve made for them.  We’ve streamlined ‘love,’ cutting out any room for the “…gaps, overlaps, dissonances…” that Sedgwick speaks of by “embracing one identity or one set of tastes as though they were universally shared, or should be” as Warner argues (Sedgwick, 8)(Warner, 1).  As a result, we invite shame into the equation and push it on those whose idea of ‘love’ is more of a square peg than a round one.  Perhaps if we were to utilize Sedgwick’s idea of queer as a precise expression of imprecise emotions, we would be more at ease (and therefore hopefully less condemnatory) with emotions that don’t identically match our own.

Have We Already Fallen?

“I had lately learned that another way of writing ‘FALL IN LOVE’ was ‘WALK THE PLANK.’ I was tired of balancing blind-fold on a slender beam, one slip and into the unplumbed sea” (26).

“Lately learned” implies prior ignorance. It is so interesting that a feeling, a sense of happiness, a supposed ‘euphoric’ feeling can be so scary. The unstated connection made between the narrators heart and an “unplumbed sea” demonstrates the depth of the universal language of love.

I see freight in the words plank, balancing, blind-fold, slip and even sea; but why are these words associated with the oh so beautiful LOVE? Well, this fear was just learned. ‘Ignorance is bliss,’ or, was.

Why is love a “slender plank?” Is it the fear of the unknown? Fear of getting hurt? Fear of shame? Or fear of slipping off the slender plank and into the unplumbed sea? The Author suggests that his/her new learning of the dangers of love is strictly a game of ‘survival of the fittest.’ If we have already ‘fallen’ in love… then how are we still on the plank? There’s a connection there. The only difference is that it is an emotional fall, not a physical fall.

“Balancing blind-fold on a slender beam” would instill fear in us, it would give us an almost animalistic instinct to fight, to prevail and to survive. Who did The Narrator ‘learn’ that you need to ‘survive’ love from? Is he/she crazy? Or did we teach ourselves? Are we dying to survive something that would never kill us in the first place?

In Sedgwick’s Tendencies, she states that,

“The survival of each one is a miracle. Everyone who survived has stories about how it was done” (1).

Maybe this is the “newly learned” case in Winterson’s Written on the Body? Should we fear love? or love the fear? I am going to go out on a limb and say that it is the fear of the unknown within the unplumbed sea that makes us fear surviving, but LOVE survival.

 

 

Biblical Beginnings

“Louise, in this single bed, between these garish sheets, I will find a map as likely as any treasure hunt.  I will explore you and mine you and you will redraw me according to your will.  We shall cross one another’s boundaries and make ourselves one nation.  Scoop me in your hands for I am good soil.  Eat of me and let me be sweet” (20).

The narrator describes Louise as lying in a single bed, implying that she is sleeping alone, right off the bat.  As the passage continues on, a prevalent use of geographical words arises: map, treasure hunt, explore, mine, cross, boundaries, one nation. The metaphor is clearly that the two souls will become one due to the crossing of boundaries and exploration that is to take place, however, this union has not yet been made.

The sentence in this passage that really sticks out to me is: “Eat of me and let me be sweet.”  Suddenly, mid-paragraph, the topic of discussion is abruptly directed away from geography and towards eating and sweetness: pleasure of the mouth.  This immediately elicited thoughts of the Garden of Eden and the forbidden fruit.  In Genesis 2-3, the fruit, so savory and tempting, has been forbidden with the threat that if eaten, Adam and Eve will die. Of course, they eat it, thus marking the beginning of the dichotomy between good and evil.

Genesis 2:24 reads “That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh.”  The verse ties in with the narrator’s quote: “We shall cross one another’s boundaries and make ourselves one nation.”  This is extraordinarily significant, particularly in terms of sexuality and idealism.  Adam and Eve are said to be the first people to ever walk the Earth, and more importantly, the first couple: the bodies from which we were all born. Adam was attracted to Eve and vice-versa; a heterosexual precedent set for all of mankind to follow. This is where identity comes into play. Certain sects of Christianity denounce homosexuality and queerness in general, because it is claimed to be an “abomination,” but perhaps also because of this heterosexual biblical beginning of mortal life.  Perhaps those who are queer are identified as “strange,” because it is not how society commenced.

In her novel, Tendencies, Eve Sedgwick writes about the Christian holiday season and the “family” expectation that goes along with it, saying that the word, “family,” implies several characteristics that must be consistent throughout. An iconic religious example of a family is Mary, Joseph, and Jesus. Heterosexual parents, and of course, there was no premarital sex. The societal expectations of people are rooted in the bible, and have not been adapted to the changing times.

 

 

Dryads

There are plenty of legends about women turning into trees but are there any about trees turning into women? Is it odd to say that your lover reminds you of a tree? Well she does, it’s the way her hair fills with wind and sweeps out around her head. Very often I expect her to rustle. She doesn’t rustle but her flesh has the moonlit shade of a silver birch. Would I had a hedge of such saplings naked and unadorned.

In this passage, the narrator compares Louise to a tree. The narrator compares Louise’s flesh to the shade of tree bark and says her hair fills with wind the way leaves rustle in the fall. This passage is unusual because the narrator is unsure of the commonality of this comparison. “Is it odd to say that your lover reminds you of a tree?” is the narrator’s central question in this passage and the reader’s immediate reaction is to say yes. At least, that was my first reaction. Comparing women to anything always hints of objectification to me, even when the comparison is to something beautiful, like in nature. On second reading, however, this question is not so outlandish because trees are quite common to women- both provide life and beauty to humans. I believe this passage is not just about the similarities one can draw between the beauty of a woman and the beauty of a tree but also about the abilities both have to provide life and the narrators newfound understanding of this. The narrator is asking us to reexamine identity and our bodies as they relate to nature. The narrator wishes to have a tree as “naked and unadorned” as Louise, signifying that the narrator is more interested in trees turning into women than women turning into trees, as questioned in the beginning of the paragraph. In Queer and Now, Sedgwick talks about how queer youth develop attachments to cultural objects as a mean of finding queer representation where there is none while the narrator only develops attachments to objects in nature when viewed as a representation of women. The narrator’s life focuses on lovers where they do not exist while queer youth focus on LGBTQ representation where there is none.

The narrator is going against the norm by asking this question, as it is more common for women to turn into trees in legends, such as the tales of dryads (tree nymphs) who turned into trees to resist the advances of male gods such as Zeus. The narrator seems to be comparing Louise to a dryad and therefore zirself to Zeus. Given that Zeus was always chasing after women and goddesses and our narrator seems to move equally fast from lover to lover, this comparison to Greek mythology might not be too far off.

What Makes Us Human

“I have been made to learn that the doom and burthen of our life is bound forever on man’s shoulders; and when attempt is made to cast it off, it but returns upon us with more unfamiliar and more awful pressure.” (43)

In this passage of The strange case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson, Dr. Jekyll reflects back on his decision to attempt to split his evil side from himself. He expresses his regret and that his, at first seemingly great idea, backfired and, in the end, made him more miserable than before. What I find interesting is that he expresses his coming to that knowledge not as a learning process that he made, but that something/someone made him come to that conclusion. It makes me wonder if he feels that he turning into Mr. Hyde was, for the most part, his destiny. The way he expresses himself in this passage, from a letter to Mr. Utterson to explain himself after his death, sounds like a warning. A warning to mankind never to try to repeat his doings. The second time he uses the word ‘made’ in his sentence, Dr. Jekyll also acknowledges, that he has failed in his attempt to cast off the “doom and burthen” (43) of his life. Though it seems as if it had worked in the beginning, he soon finds that he has rather enforced his evilness and given it the power to take over his ’good’ side. It is a metaphor of the importance for a balanced scale of good and evil. Having both of these sides in us, and keeping them in balance, is what makes us human and we cannot survive without them.

My Two Natures

“My two natures had memory in common, but all other faculties were most unequally shared between them. Jekyll (who was composite) now with the most sensitive apprehensions, now with a greedy gusto, projected and shared in the pleasures and adventures of Hyde; but Hyde was indifferent to Jekyll, or but remembered him as the mountain bandit remembers the cavern in which he conceals himself from pursuit.” (p 48)

This passage, to me shows the intertwined important relationship between Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. The author is talking about how he feels the pressure to choose between the two personalities, that in a way support the other. There is an internal and external struggle taking place; this in turn creates a lack of balance. The shapes and identities between the two are shown here fully in this passage. Hyde and Jekyll represent the mountain bandit and the cavern that protects and hides the true identity. He hides behind the cleaner persona, allowing only one side to be shown at a time. I really enjoyed this passage because it relates to the larger picture of the novel pertaining to how we as humans are always concealing one side of ourselves. It relates back to the class’s ideologies because in our image based world it is extremely difficult for some people to show their true selves. The language shows the hidden message behind the passage by using words such as unequally, sensitive, and indifferent; these are all ways we can use to describe someone. Perhaps we do not view them as equals, maybe we think they are sensitive, or we are completely indifferent to them all together. In this scenario Hyde is indifferent to Jekyll and does not view him on the same level. Many people do this everyday to the other and sometimes solely based on sexual orientation. This makes people hide or conceal aspects of themselves that society does not deem normal.

 

Spawning Evil

Although The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde is a fictional story, so many people can relate to a tumultuous relationship between a father and son, or parent and child.

The relationship between Jekyll and Hyde can be summed up as, “Jekyll had more than Father’s interest; Hyde had more than a son’s indifference.” (59) This passage comes from Henry Jekyll’s Statement of the Case, which outlines the story of how Hyde came to life. Jekyll and Hyde are technically the same person and share the same space in the universe and their existence but exist in different physical forms and identities. Each character looks at the other in similar ways as a father to a son.

This quote can be looked at both literally and hypothetically. Dr. Jekyll spawned Hyde, much like a father spawns a son. The words interest and indifferent speak both to the characters of Jekyll and Hyde respectively. Jekyll can be identified as a man of quality character and develops interest into creating a life form that allows him to play out his negative urges. Though Hyde never narrates the story for himself and says very little throughout the story, the reader can pick up on a feeling of indifference towards his negative behaviors since he is able to make his violent choices while relying on the return to Jekyll’s appearance which acts as a safe haven; this is until Jekyll is no longer able to sustain his own identity.

The theme of identity plays an important role throughout literature, love, and life.