Author: Jakethedawg

How strange that some texts without an alias would never be considered important texts or get the recognition or fame they would have today. In The Legend of Auntie Po by Shing Yin Khor, Mei is speaking with Bee about there future in which Bee responds with, “Well, you’ll move in with me and you’ll write stories, and poems under a man’s name and sell them to the paper. I’ll illustrate them for you.” The story subtly  hint to the prejudices surrounding the main Characters. This book takes place in the 1840’s roughly and during that time the literary world was dominated by men. Women writers were often dismissed or judged unfairly. Using male pseudonyms helped their work be taken seriously. Mei would do just as the Brontë sisters and Mary Ann Evans did by using a male name to portray credibility.

The power and influence of just changing one’s name directly illustrates the power of conformity. I’m not only taking about changing names but cloths, appearance, and speech. This is dangerous because it allows one group to dominate and build expectations that only one type of person is credible. It is mind boggling that one must dress a certain way to be taken seriously and it will be others downfall for not accepting those who are not an identical copy of themselves. There is nothing new to learn if everyone is the same, there is nothing new to think about if everyone is thinking the same things. Life becomes grey and mundane. It is a crime against humanity, a crime against the beauty and art that is life to conform. It steals the beauty from life and the joy of something new and different to see, learn, understand everyday. Conformity steals color from the world and makes life practically not worth living. The human race is meant to learn and evolve and explore and depriving that is a crime.

Mei should put her shit on paper so the people that will grow and add color to this world will find it. So people like her can gain more credibility, so women do not have to hide behind a mans name, so people that love like her can be taken seriously. Mei should share her color and so should everyone else so that conformity can no longer be acceptable or a norm. It might not seem like there is a lot of conformity today but there is, My Friend Zhong Haoan goes by Austin because he didn’t want to bother trying to teach his friends to say his name in fear of being bullied. He is our valedictorian and my best friend and adds color to the world even if he doesn’t realize it, I wish he could of added more color to the kids lives that I grew up with… I think they could of really used it.

Angels In America uses humor to add levity to a deeply emotional crisis in the US. This strategic usage of comedic relief reveals a similar structure to the Shakespearean tragedy Hamlet. When comparing the two pieces they both give the audience a break from the heavy and dark content while conveying a deeper message that would otherwise be difficult for audiences to absorb raw. Converting the message into an entertaining piece allows for the message to be more accessible to a wider audience. Angels in America has strategic comedic relief much like when the gravediggers in hamlet make light of Ophelias’s suicide, a serious and uncomfortable subject while also glorifying their professions as gravediggers. (Hamlet, Act 5. Scene1) Hamlet detracts from the serious nature of the subject of death just as Angels in America detracts from the uncomfortable and painful subject of the AIDS crisis in America.

Furthermore Hamlet himself is much like our Prior Walter using witty and sarcastic comebacks in their unfortunate circumstances. Prior Walter who is suffering but undoubtedly funny is one of the plays biggest comedic reliefs even though he is in one of the worst conditions, symptomatic with aids and understanding of his ultimate early demise. Prior when arguing with Louis responds to Louis’s serious discussion of law with thick sarcasm “I like this; very zen its … reassuringly incomprehensible and useless. We who are about to die thank you.” (Act 1. Scene 8) The play’s dark humor shows some of the characters resilience and strength in their ability to find humor amidst the overwhelming tragedy surrounding their lives during the AIDS epidemic.

Prior also carries a message for this story as he has received a “prophecy from the 8 vaginad angel”(Act 2. Scene 2) much like when a spirit came to Hamlet. (Act 1. Scene 5) This interaction is a point of revelation for both characters and will influence their actions through the second half of the play and impact the overall message that they hold for the entire story. While priors story is not the only main focus in Angles in America the dark humor and relief he brings will have a more widespread impact on an audience as his comedic relief breaks the heavy story into bite sized pieces that is more appealing to a diverse audience that might otherwise be uncomfortable or unwilling to hear the story.

“disadvantage or restriction of activity caused by a contemporary social organization which takes no or little account for people who have physical and or cognitive intellectual impairments and thus excludes them from mainstream society.” (Eli Pp.6) This really hit home for me as I recently have been once again comparing my own “cognitive disability” to a system not made for cognitive diversity. One that questioned why I should be given different tools in school than others. Teachers assumed I didn’t prepare or study. I am not unable or helpless, you are just trying to force a system not made for my learning on to me. I can answer the question you are asking, but I can also do so much more than answer the question once I understand it. I can apply and remember things in ways that confuse me. I can see pictures and worlds within my mind, but your previous system finds me incapable because I can’t do it in the constrictions you believe to be a judgment of intellect and ability.

This piece really enabled me to connect to how others might think or feel when it comes to subjugation. I think about in Loving In The War Years, Moraga purposefully and unapologetically writes in a way that is just wholly herself. She did not write in a way that is a “normal AP standard”. This was her breaking from the system. It made me think about what my writing or art or studies could look like if I explored them outside of the ideals of what people expect from me. Moraga’s usage of mixed language and a journal-like set up led me to thinking about what my personal, physical writing would look like outside of the standard writing expectation. What would writing or poetry look like if it was made just for me? I would play with punctuation like an artist, spacing would seem random and unusual, my thoughts would be like a cloud connected by parenthesis because all of the ideas are connected and tied in my mind, and it would be a mess, but not to me. I never thought about what my own writing would look like in my “language”. I’m not trying to insinuate that I am in any way better than anyone else. I’m trying to explain that everyone can do something someone else can’t in a way that works for them, so why are we all trying to do things in a way that work best for one group of people.

Disability theorist Michael Oliver defines impairment as “lacking part of or all of a limb, or having a defect limb, organism or mechanism of the body”(Eli pp.6) I am not lacking there is nothing wrong with being the way I am and normal is propaganda. 8 billion people and not one of them is exactly the same as the other so how did we all come to believe that one specific way was the right one or one specific way to do something was the right way to do it. Even in science just because one experiment is more successful than another you continue to study other methods because there are endless changes in technology and techniques. How could we forget how complex and unique our world truly is?

I noticed that the language in the poem was very interconnected with nature and natural disasters. All of the descriptors were very earthy, for example the word leaves was used three times. Twice for the usage of going one place to another and once for the  plural of leaf. The connection between the boy at the edge of the wood and nature was very obvious to me. I knew there was a deeper meaning to the woods alluded to in the poem. This got me to thinking of what woods and Forrest and natural spaces could mean. I immidialaty connected it to how Nathaniel Hawthorne alluded to the Forrest in The Scarlet Letter. In Nathaniel’s novel the Forrest was almost a portal into another world (Hawthorne Chpt 18.), a shade of leaves to cover them from the judging eyes of the towns folk. I really connected this to the poem. The Forrest is an out of the ordinary space for sexual play leading to the assumption this was secret, a roundezvous, an affair. But the wording boy lead me to think of young love, its passionate quick, a puppy love of sorts. I image two boys taken with each other that meet repeatedly at the edge of the wood away from the eyes that judge or forbid there relations, or would forbid if they knew what the relation entailed. Away from the “burning house”, this stuck out to me the cool of nature, the safety, the growth, the beauty compared to a burning man made structure, the harsh outside world, the world outside of the “portal”. I will assume that the house was not actually burning but take it as a metaphor for a heated environment a hostile one. It may represent an environment that does not accept this love the boys have. What I am trying to illustrate is that the connection between nature and safety as well as the word leaves makes the poem what it is. This is the end of a boys passionate rendezvous and the safety of the natural world away from people creates a world meant for him. And reality sets in at the end to return to his hostile environment that does not accept him or find him natural. The fleeting moment of Comfert they both have is only temporary as the poem itself begins at the end, he closes his zipper, his tongue leaves, leaves me alone. What an emphasis on the word alone as well a full pause, the emotion attached to it is so isolate. The excitement is over and we get to feel how desperate the author is to stay in the closure of the woods with the boy.