Responses

I commented Hannah's and Lisa's blogs in response to the video on Hinduism. It made me laugh what Hannah said about her dreaming what she wanted, when she wanted to. Lisa's response basically spelled out how it was for me listening to the podcast when she said it was over her head.

Mythology of Hinduism # 3

Wow, I am not meant to sit through a lecture class. This was a very intense lesson, and I'm sure to even come close to grasping what Watts was saying I'd have to listen to him speech several times. He used many analogies and comparisons, only a few of which i could even attempt to contemplate. I know at the beginning he was talking about dreams, but how they related to Hinduism I'm not quite sure. He then went on to explain how the western world's and eastern world's religious views differed. It is the view of those living in the west that the world was constructed a long time ago by one God, and that is how we came to be. The east thinks more along the lines of that God is still toying with us, and his creation is still happening and will always be happening. I like Alaina's comparison to As You Like It by William Shakespeare. That actually helped me understand better what Watts was saying. In all reality, though, I've learned a lot more in class from the notes we've been taking than from this lecture.

Common Theme

From story to story, I picked up on one very obvious reoccurring theme. That theme is being self-centered. In each novel, one of the main characters acts on a selfish impulse, and it always ends up hurting another character. In The Life You Save May Be Your Own, Mr. Shiftlet sees an opportunity to gain himself a car. In the process, though, he hurts both Mrs. Lucynell and her daughter. Likewise, in Rules of the Game, Meimei's mother tries to use her daughter to raise her social status. When Meimei confronted her about this, Meimei's mother became angry and Meimei was obviously hurt that her mother would simply use her daughter's talents for her own gain. Like in Rules of the Game, in Book of the Dead a parent hurts their child. However, in this case it is a father hurting his daughter. He did this in two ways. One, he had lied to her about his past. Secondly, he destroyed something she had created. Lastly, in Teenage Wasteland, Donny hurt his mother by doing several things. He did not trust his parents, he did not try and school, and above all else, he ran away. This theme seemed the most obvious to me, probably because I really do not like it when people act solely for themselves.

Teenage Wasteland

Finally, the last of the short stories (just kidding Mrs. Fox). Teenage Wasteland seemed to be like a lot of other stories we have read in the past, Catcher in the Rye being one of them. Again, like several other characters from the other short stories, I felt no pity for Donny. He was what the story implies, a teenage waste. Daisy, his mother tried doing just about everything she could. However, nothing worked. It all came down to Donny. Life may not always be fair, but that does not mean we have to hate everyone and should not try to be someone in the world. Sure, he may have had some troubles. But honestly, who doesn't? It is how we choose to react to these situations that defines us. Donny obviously did not care. I clearly dislike Donny, but Cal, Donny's tutor, did not help the situation any. He first seemed to be a positive influence, but his true character was shown later on in the story. Cal basically tried to step in and assume the role of being the parent, when he had no right to and most importantly no knowledge. Like Donny, he always tried to put the blame on someone else. In the end Donny runs away. I do not think life will ever get any better for him, and I do not really feel sorry for him either. I do feel sorry for Daisy, though. She truly tried, and it just did not work.

Book of the Dead

Between Book of the Dead and the story Rules of the Game, I have started to feel a sense of hostility towards parents. In Book of the Dead, Ms. Bienaime has created a statue of how she has always pictured her father. To Ms. Bienaime's amazement, someone has actually shown interest in purchasing it, and her and her father travel quite a distance to take it to their buyer. To this point, everything seemed to be quite normal. However, Ms. Bienaime's father, who she calls Papi, disappears one morning before the sale along with the statue. This is when I start to get disgusted with him. Upon his return, he reveals his reasons for taking the statue. Ms. Bienaime was shocked to discover that her father had not been brutally tortured in prison, but he had been a guard doing the torturing. He had never wanted to tell his daughter, but it had finally come to a point where he had to. That was his reason for throwing away the statue. However, I do not think that it was his choice whether or not the statue would still be sold. It was a creation Ms. Bienaime had worked very hard on, and though it may have meant little to him it still had a lot of value to the buyers. I feel sorry for Ms. Bienaime and the buyers. However, I have absolutely no pity for her Papi. He acted selfishly, and hurt his daughter very badly.

Rules of the Game

Rules of the Game was a very fun novel for me to read. In a way, I felt as if I could relate to the main character Waverly Place Jong. Her nickname Meimei is much easier to remember, though. As a young girl, Meimei began playing chess with her older brothers. It seemed that she almost instantaneously feel in love with the game, and would play and study it nonstop. This is sort of how my experience with soccer began. When I was young, I would watch my sister play and eventually became so involved with soccer it seemed as if my whole world revolved around it. For Meimei, she practically lived and slept chess. She had gotten very good, too. Much better than I will ever be at soccer. I was amazed that someone so young could have such an intimidating presence on the international level of a competition. I personally did not like the mother. As Meimei pointed out in the end, her mother was using her to make herself seem higher in society. Meimei was just a little girl, and all she wanted to do was play chess. It seemed to me her mother was the only thing that ever kept that from happening. All throughout Meimei's competitions, her mother would always be harassing her and trying to tell her how she should be playing. I may have overreacted to her behavior, but she just really seemed to play the spoiler role in the story. I didn't exactly understand the ending either. It seemed as though it was just left hanging. That may of been how it was supposed to be, though.

The Life You Save May Be Your Own

I did not particularly enjoy reading the short story The Life You Save May Be Your Own. There were several reasons for this. The main reason I did not like the story, was that I knew the man was going to hurt the old woman and Lucynell from the very beginning. I do not know how or why, but when those types of characters come along in a story they are relatively easy to pick out. From the moment he first showed up, though, it was clear his only interest was in the car. I thought of that as a great useage of foreshadowing in the story. However, it did not make it any more enjoyable to read. Whenever I read a story such as this one, I tend to actually get mad at the character doing the wrong. If we were to discuss this in class, I could almost guarentee I would speak out quite harshly against the man and his actions. I was very disappointed that the man took advantage of the two women the way he did. Not only were they nice people who worked for everything they had, but Lucynell, the daughter, was deaf. The old woman, who repeatedly kept mentioning the fact that she would not trust any man. However, she did trust the man. The thing that makes me madest about this is the man new this, and he still took advantage of them. To make it even worse, the man did not stop once he got his hands on the car. He actually married Lucynell, drove away with her, and left her at a diner far away from her home. All along, the man was only looking out for himself, which is where I think the title ties into the story. The life you save may be your own . . . seems fitting for a character like him.