Feminism

I have never experienced much disabilities being a women; the society I live in has never been overly advantageous to men. However these two short stories that also talk about women have some sticking features of society that used to think of women as merely a trophy or an object.

Jeannie is raped by a man and she is heart-broken because the man seemed to hate her. Instead of taking aggressive action on the man, she tries to hide from her issues such as moving away from town. Also, her compulsion that she should be loved by all of society is the main reason of her stress. Jeannie symbolizes the portraits of women of those days when women don’t create their own value but is valued by others as merely an object. Just like a dollhouse, Jeannie doesn’t consider herself as a person who has a right to be shameful or angry of the rape accident but a doll that is not loved by someone, a failure.

Another absurdity comes when all the fault of being raped comes to Jeannie herself. When Jeannie defends herself that she was just taking a walk, Mrs. Thompson scrutinizes, saying,

"In high heels? With a purse on your arm, and a hat on your head? You don't go taking a walk in the bush that way. There's no place to walk to. Where'd you think you were going? I could smell Evening in Paris a quarter mile away.”

…

"You could have cleaned up your home a bit. There was always that to do."

The criticism about Jeannie’s clothes provokes some thoughts on KMLA rules too. The reason why KMLA doesn’t allow short pants or even ordinary skirts for girls even in stifling summer days come from the reason that we are living with boys too and it disturbs the study-atmosphere, causing distraction to fellow students and staff. To be girly, fancy and pretty is a desire of ordinary women that is not aimed to seduce other men, but this desire is trampled because it seemingly disturbs men. Doesn’t this rule also mean that we are putting men’s problem in front of women’s ordinary desire? Instead of wearing burka, shouldn’t we just teach men that there are nothing in correlation between “I want sex” and skirts? There was a campaign about women-rape months ago with a phrase

“You raped her because her clothes provoked you? I should break your face because your stupidity provokes me.”

“My short skirt is not an invitation/a provocation/an indication/ that I want it or that I give it… my short skirt, believe it or not, has nothing do with you.”

The actions of these two women provoke the thoughts of the readers that somehow, they are not human being but a doll that should be loved by all, that does not hold any value themselves but should be price-tagged.

 In contrast, Prue deals with her quotidian problem in other way: passiveness. She has some similarities with the above two women characters that she views herself as minor character of her life. From the main story-line of how Gordon meets with the woman waiting at the door, she only hears the crash and the female voice; she is the sideline of the main story, the audience of an absurd act (From lemonhound). She is merely an ornament of Gordon, the safety net and nearly worthless when Gordon’s in love with other woman. However different from the above two characters: Jeannie and Mrs. Thompson, she is well-aware of her and Gordon’s absurdity and passes it away dismissively.

“I think he was afraid I was going to laugh. He doesn’t know why people laugh or throw their overnight bags at him, but he’s noticed they do”

From the eye of Prue, we clearly see how she is the least important of Gordon’s life, (even crème brulee is more important than her) but she passes it away. The passiveness can also be seen in how she treats the tobacco tin. She puts the object that is the reminder of the nonsense of it all and forgets it. Chris Gilmore from lemonhound stated that this is exactly how Gordon treats Prue: he objectifies, dismisses, and forgets Prue. However, I think this action takes greater meaning in how Prue treats her quotidian events. She has all the reason to be angry, regretful or pitiful of the events yet she stays away from the events as if she’s the audience of her life, dismisses it and forgets about it. 

Anton Chekhov

 ‘The Student’ was an interesting read because it had so many ways to interpret the story. The story is as if it’s enclosed by a thick fog. You never really know the exact reason why the old widow cried or why this student suddenly preaches on these widows or if this is the happy ending or not. So for the first time I read it, I was confused. I didn’t get why Anton Chekhov had to leave everything ambiguous and ends it so abruptly with no explanation. However, that was also a strange charm of this quizzical short story. It leaves numerous interpretations, and it was one of the main reasons why I began to reread and began to appreciate the story.

 I believe the ultimate massage of the story is cynical, rather than optimistic. At the second paragraph, it’s stated that “~ in the days of Rurik and in the time of Ivan the Terrible and Peter, and in their time there had been just the same desperate poverty and hunger, the same thatched roofs with holes in them, ignorance, misery, the same desolation around, the same darkness, the same feeling of oppression -- all these had existed, did exist, and would exist, and the lapse of a thousand years would make life no better.” The story starts with the big idea that the past and the present is linked with the same desperate poverty and hunger and will exist even after thousand years. After the preaching, the old widow cries and he realizes the message –

"The past," he thought, "is linked with the present by an unbroken chain of events flowing one out of another." And it seemed to him that he had just seen both ends of that chain; that when he touched one end the other quivered.

 From the first paragraph, it is already initiated that the past and the present is unpleasantly linked, and will so forever. What the student realizes in the end is also the similar message. The past is linked with the present and just like the time of Ivan the Terrible and Peter, Russians were desperate, miserable and sorrowful. Even when the student becomes joyful after realizing the message, it doesn’t mean the hopeful future for Russians. The last paragraph describes the scene: towards the west where the cold crimson sunset lay a narrow streak of light. The sun sets in the west, and the narrow streak of light is what the student saw, what would be vanished inside total darkness of the night.

 After I read the story, I thought the student was stupid. I believe student can’t really preach to the widows in this way. Of course, the older widow cried but the younger widow clearly hates him. The widows may have unspeakable backgrounds or experiences more than the student, yet the student brags his knowledge about “Jesus” and becomes proud after learning a message that the future and the past is linked, thus future would be miserable just like the past. Sometimes, the learned ones are the most stupid in the society. They talk about theories, life-living methods or some cool background knowledge but they are neither really helpful nor adequately targeted for audiences. Even in the stories, the student think he’s preached the widows well but maybe widows interpreted the Jesus story in completely different aspect. Maybe older widow just became guilty because she recalled hitting her daughter. This is a slightly different message student probably wanted to teach. I believe Anton Chekhov tried to leave the message in the story that the educated people can be the smartest, but maybe not the wisest. They interpret the society and their effects in their own way and may lose the realistic interpretation of their life.

Lamb to the Slaughter and Human nature

 My 3 year old cousin baby is a 3 year old. Whenever she’s in a bad mood, you just have to tape the window and wait until the hurricane pasts. I love her but she can be horrifying. If she wants something, she’ll always get it, or else she’ll just beat people with her fat fists yelling something like - “I want icecream!!!!!!!!” My uncle says that she’ll kill people for meat in the ‘Snowpiercer’; that’s her. It’s not only my baby cousin but every 3 year old, if you just look around, are such a ball of anger when they want something. No humility, no decency, no nothing. They’ll use their little violence or petty persistence to achieve what they want without any moral conscience. I believe this anger 3 year olds express conveys the very human nature Roald Dahl wanted to portrait; the anger human feel when they can’t get their own way can results into extremely horrifying acts

 It’s amusing why Roald Dahl particularly used ‘lamb’ meat for the setting. Lambs are symbol of innocence and purity. However, this symbol of innocence and ‘sheepishness’; the lamb is used for killing Mary’s husband. The lamb is the representation of Mary’s previously gentle personality that she showed outward. At the start of the story, Mary seems so helpless and even stupid because even though her husband is being such a trash, she keeps on being a gentle wife by trying to make him dinner as if nothing has happened. It was as if she was being led to the table for sacrificial victim of the marriage like a lamb. By killing her husband with a lamb and cooking it to dispose it, she has disposed of her own helpless sheepish personality and achieved what she want by killing her husband. The violent dark side of human nature when they can’t get what they want is drawn very clearly in the story when Mary kills her husband crying “But you can’t go! You can’t! I won’t let you!”

 Also, Dahl seems to write the dark side of human nature especially in the form of impulsive revenge. In ‘Nunc Dimitris’, ‘Neck’, ‘My lady, love, my dove’ and several other Dahl’s short stories, the main character all try to have their revenge by hatred or anger. In some aspect, revenge is a very childish way of expressing unpleasant feeling. In decent conscience, when people have unpleasant moment, many of the mature people would at least try to overcome the problem by some degree of manners not by a form of violence. This shows that by making the characters more childish, Dahl was more apt to portrait the childish manner of human nature, which includes impulsive boiling anger. In the story “Lamb to the Slaughter”, the character inside are all very childish like other many Dahl’s characters. They are impulsive, stubborn, and revengeful. When Mary kills her husband with a blow, the impulsive act was not only because of mere use of violence to meet her goal but the anger that results into bloody revenge.

Picture of Dorian Gray Paragraph

At first glance, Oscar Wilde's "The Picture of Dorian Gray," might appear like another plain Faustian Tale where the main character falls into the devil's words.After all, when we first encounter Lord Henry and his beautiful words, we get the feeling that he's the one who corrupted Dorian. He was the one who awakened Dorian to his own beauty, and lured him to use his beauty for his own pleasure. However, as we continue to explore the book, we realize that there is no devil that makes his deal. The deal of youth just exists inside Dorian's portrait, which is supposedly a symbol for Dorian's desire for beauty, but later shows his most devilsh part. Therefore, it is perhaps more accurate to assume that, compared to the Bible, Lord Henry is merely a snake who lured Dorian into biting into an apple, and the true devil doesn't appear as a moving character like other Faustian tales, but more so a background image that's always there: the portrait. Realizing his beauty and using it for his benefit is surely a mishap; but the true devilish character was the boiling desire for beauty inside him, which is the ultimate reason for his madness that results in his suicide. In this sense, "The Picture of Dorian Gray" is different from other Faustian Tales because it shows that the true nature of the Devil is not the character outside, but has always existed inside oneself as insatiable desires.

The Picture of Dorian Gray: The identity of devil inside the book.

 I heard it before that my parents and relatives all marveled the beauty of my brother in his crib. It’s no wonder why they anticipated so much about me before I was born, a girl who was expected to be a next generation of Disney princess. As it turned out, the first sentence I heard after I came out of this word was from my dad – “Will she able to get married with this face?” A tragedy, really, to know that the very first sentence I heard in this life was the miserable disappoint of my face. As I was growing up, I could feel the power of beauty from my brother in every way; even he does some incredibly silly mistake, it was considered ‘cute’. He even got his first girlfriend when he was in kindergarten and changed them almost every month. I must admit that beauty is really an easy route for living a life; it has power different from knowledge or wisdom. However in this book, the beauty is what drives Dorian. I believe that the devil in this book didn’t come from Lord Henry, but Dorian himself in this way.

From the Book of Ceremonial Magic, dark magic is based on one simple rule: give and take. If you look at any fairytale regarding witches of dark magic, they all have some serious default. For example, the witch may have the most beautiful face or can fly with wings but will perish under the sun or melt by a simple bucket of water. They made this trade with devils to gain what they want, but would have to pay the price. This is the most basic logic of dark magic. In this logic, I believe that devil is inside the portrait of Dorian. As Dorian exclaimed how he wanted his portrait to olden instead of him, he’s made the trade with devil. The price Dorian has to pay doesn’t show up vividly, but I guess I’ll soon reach it in the end.

In my perspective, Lord Henry is just an influential charming person who introduced Dorian into new world and merely plays with his youth and beauty. He’s more like a spectator watching an opera while Dorian goes wild. The devil that really turns Dorian spoiled is ultimately the portrait. Portrait shows 200% of the pure beauty in Dorian, the sole power in itself and also signifies Dorian’s soul later on. Because of this portrait’s beauty in his first sight, Dorian begins to realize his power of beauty (also from the influence of Lord Henry) and begins to use his power of beauty in a new, evil sense, and the portrait helps him maintain this beauty. Consequently, the portrait shows how corrupted Dorian becomes as the story continues, revealing the pure evil inside the pure beauty of Dorian. The portrait becomes the portrait of demon.

Interestingly, Basil is the one who created the devil of Dorian. If Dorian has to pay the price, I believe Basil needs to do so too. The price these two must pay… I believe would cost more than their life.

The Picture of Dorian Gray Chapter 1

One of the assignments that I had when I was in middle school was drawing a friend-portrait. The serious problem I realized of drawing a portrait of someone is that it is not the matter of skills but just hating everything one drew from hair to neck. No matter how much I tried, the person in the picture was just a completely different person from what I drew. Even though the drawing did resemble some of original’s features, there was something essential missing from the portrait. There was something in one self that I couldn’t translate them into colors and curves but without it, the portrait was dead. It lacked the art, so it lacked the beauty. Only a very skilled artist would be able to translate the very essential of the beauty.. but how and where do artist find those beauty? In the preface of the book, it’s stated that “To reveal art and conceal the artist is art’s aim”. According to this statement, to show the pure beauty of the image and wipe off the vestige of personal reflection of the artist is art’s aim. Ironically, I believe that the artist finds the beauty of a person not to the pure beauty of the sitter but inside himself.

While Basil goes on and on about Dorian’s beauty and the inspiration Dorian gives to Basil, I could interpret the passage in 2 ways. First way is that Dorian is the symbol of beauty, which the artist aims for in their art. That’s why Basil can’t resist Dorian and realize that he and Dorian was meant to be. However for the other interpretation, I thought Dorian may be the narcissist part of Basil. Basil says that he put too much in himself in Dorian’s portrait. Artist tries to find the pure beauty and get the inspiration directly from it, but I thought maybe it’s the other way around – artist tries to find the beauty in himself. That’s why Basil wants to keep Dorian as a secret, the pure beauty and inspiration in him that’s fragile and young.

Human is an extremely selfish creature. Take an example of looking at a photo. While sorting out the photos, people concentrate solely on themselves, not the people walking beside them or others. Out of politeness, they remark about how Jane looks great in this picture and etc, but the most important part of sorting out the picture is to sort out one self from numerous photos. I think it’s the same with looking at an art piece. The reason why people admire art is because they want to see their own beauty in it. Probably that’s another reason why Basil couldn’t help putting himself into Dorian’s portrait. He selfishly wanted Dorian, the symbol of pure beauty to be one of his own self, the desire to fake his own self to Dorian’s beauty or maybe reflect the narcissist part in himself that he wanted to conceal.

The book seemed to talk much about beauty, but still I can’t grasp the entire meaning of the word, beauty. Beauty is such an abstract thing. It just exists. Beauty is not the tool but could be the goal in itself, the desire of human nature. Coming to think of it, human is the only animal on earth whose sole purpose could be beauty. In Discovery film, we don’t see a lion in the middle of his meal suddenly stop eating due to a beautiful sunset view. We don’t see a bird trying to sing more beautifully in order to create art, not to attract mate. Human is special in that way that they are lone creature who can admire beauty itself. In that way, Dorian is a very symbolic person in the book. He could be the sole purpose, the power, and the mere existence of human desire.

 While I was reading Chapter 1, I just had more time so I went on reading the book until I reached chapter 4. The book reminded me of Faust as it progressed but in the beginning of chapter 1 and 2, it reminded more of Hesse’s ‘Narzib und Goldmund’. Dorian, the Goldmund realizes his own beauty, nature and entirely different life in himself while talking to Harry, the Narzib. Goldmund gets more and more corrupted in the book, so do Faust – well, spoiler alert – Dorian also seems to get seriously corrupted as the book goes on. I wonder if Dorian is ever going to be saved in the end like Faust. That, I need to read on to know the answer.