Even though I have not had the best time with blogging I will say I have progessed in developing my blogging skills. First I started out not knowing anything about blogging or what to blog about and have worked my way to more in depth entires. Actually my entry on The Secret Life of Bees was what I feel to be my best attempt at blogging and the last one of the semester, when I was really starting to get the hang of it. My second best blog entry is on I Want to Live because this story aroused an emotional response in me. In my blog about A Streetcar Named Desire I asked a question about the reference to Elysian Fields and Moira answered my question by commenting which was nice. As a result I tried commenting on Moira's blog whenever possible. With the short stories (Blood Burning Moon, The Best Girlfriend You Never Had, Greenleaf, The Farmer's Children, Here We Are) my agenda items were not all that great (I mean the questioned I asked for discussion) However With The Secret Life of Bees my questions were more in depth because I truly enjoyed the story and really got a lot out of it. I did not interact on the blogs with peers as much as last semester mostly because I was spending all my time getting the readings done and trying to think about what to blog about them. Just a more stressful time for me.

First of all I would like to say that I really loved this story and it was probably my favorite of all the stories we read. There were a lot of things that really intriguied me about the story and most of my discussion questions are based around the things I questioned and found worthy of discussion.

It is interesting how the Daughters of Mary celebrate (on Mary Day) the Feast of the Assumption. The reason I find this interesting is because of all the feast days of the Blessed Mother, the ASsumption is the one that recognized her as a solo act. The Nativity recognizes her as the mother of Christ the Lord. The Visitation, when she visits Anne the mother of John the Baptist while she is pregnant with Christ. The Annunciation, when she learns she will become the mother of God. But the Assumption is a celebration of the glory of Mary being assumed into heaven body and soul. Lily says that in her Baptist church Mary is only discussed at Christmas time, typical of Protestant denominations. But in the meeting the Daughters of Mary read only scripture about Mary and pray the Hail Mary over and over again as if praying the rosary but they do not say the Our Father or the Glory Be or the apostles creed as Catholics do. It would seem almost as though they are blaspheming Christ and the Christian tradition and focusing soley on Mary. This could be considered an act of idolatry, worshipping false gods before the Lord. So my question is:

Do you think that the Daughters of Mary are being idolatrous, would the popes of the past roll over in their graves? AND

Why do you think they chose the Feast of the ASsumption to celebrate rather than any other feast of the Blessed Mother?

Lily experiences a change in her spiritual life when the meets the Boatwright sisters. This is obvious but one of the subtle ways we see this is through her private prayer life. In the beginning of the book we know that Lily believes in God and also that she loves God and believes in the power of prayer. She was raised in a Baptist church and even though she does not believe wholeheartedly that Brother Gerald is right about everything, she is still spiritual in her heart. We see her praying several times in the early part of the novel:

With Rosaleen when she runs away-- "Please God, I didn't mean to treat her like a pet dog. I was only trying to save her. That's all." (p. 54)

When T. Ray tells her that her mother left her-- "God and Jesus you make him take it back." (p. 40)

And also, she prays to her own mother, Deborah. She says things like "Mother, forgive me." etc. frequently before her spritual revelation. From my perspective this tells me that in her mind she has already justified that her mother is in heaven and in a position to be prayed to. She wants to believe that her mother is good and perfect and watching over her from above because she never truly knew her mother in life. This is common for people to do when they lose their loved ones.
After she meets August and becomes introduced to Our Lady, her prayer life begins to change slightly

She approaches the statue of Our Lady in the parlor and says-- "Fix me, please, fix me. Help me know what to do. Forgive me. Is my mother all right up there with God?...." (p. 164)

On page 258 she admits, "I wanted to talk to her [Our Lady], to say "Where do I go from here?"

And she tells The Blessed Mother, "You are my mother, You are the mother of thousands." (p. 269)

I believe that the reason Lily shifts to praying to Mary is because she is able to form a relationship with a spiritual mother who is perfect and everything that she wanted her own mother to be and thought she was before she found out that she left her. She stops praying to her own mother and to Mary because she realizes that her mother was human and make mistakes she is not the ideal mother of the world that she wanted her to be. My question:

What do you think the shift in Lily's devotion (from God more so to Mary) says about the changes she experienced once she moved to the pink house and found out about her mother?

Another thing I thought was worthy of discussion is May. The character of May. In the story May's character is really short lived for such a colorful vivacious character. She adds a lot of variety and interest to the story. But:

What does May represent in the story?
What is her purpose?
Why did the author create her character? How would the story be different if it had just been June and August in the pink house and no May involved?
When answering consider the following Mayisms:
- her affinity for bugs (not wanting to harm any creature)
- her wailing wall and her eternal suffering and sorrow
- the cause of and details about her death
- her banana habits (wanting the perfect banana)

This story was short and to the point I guess but somethings about it were fuzzy to me. For instance, when the step mother is tucking the girls into bed she looks at the quilt and really thinks about it. Is it possible that the quilt was the one from the barn and somehow it was brought into the house purposely or accidentally but someone. It seemed significant that she was seriously thinking about the quilt. Why else would that detail have been added. I think it was pure foolishness for the boys to be sent to a barn a mile away from the house to protect farm equipment. Hello!! Does that even make sense? Two young boys are going to protect farm equipment from possibly several grown men. Not a smart move on the parents' part.
Then the worker was fired that made no sense to me unless he was the one who stole the blanket. I don't know, I'm confused.

This story really got inside me very deeply. It was one of those stories for me that you just don't feel the same after reading. You feel gentler, more at peace with yourself and with dying. Life at times can be stressful and busy and we lose track of why we are here (to love our neighbors and God) and we forget that death and suffering will happen to us eventually. Usually death is just something that happens to other people. We show up at the funeral home, make small talk, take the little card with the name and sign the book and that's death. I actually just attended a funeral home on Wednesday. My boyfriend's grandfather passed away. When you look at somebody's body laying there with the makeup and clothes so still it's so strange to me because it is not them, the life is gone. I could go into a big rant about why in the heck do we powder and preserve our loved one's bodies but it's really not relavent to the story. I think the reason this story got the best of me was because it truly is from the perspective of the dying woman. It wasn't her story of how she beat cancer or the story someone would tell about a loved one who died of cancer. It was the real story. We take for granted everyday that our bodies work right and that we are not in pain. This story is meant to make us look at our condition and live everyday to the fullest. Why bitch about Mcdonald's burgers not being made right? Does that matter? No. So laugh and love and enjoy your life while you can. Live your life always ready to meet your death. I have slipped away from this mindset myself, when the stress builds up, the first thing we let go of is the very thing that holds us together, our spirituality, our faith. Though I have not lived long, I have experienced things in my life which have caused me to realize how possible death is for me. One of them, I had time to prepare for, two of them I did not. Like in the story the kids sitting in the theatre, waiting for the curtain to roll up, you have to wait for death like that. KNowing that it's there behind that curtain.

Another thing that is constantly brought up is the pain the woman has. She is constantly in pain. The thing about pain is, at least for me, If you are in servere pain, and all you think about is pain, then the pain will never go away in fact it will consume you. There is good pain and bad pain. Good pain is pain you understand, you know what is happening and you accept it. Like labor, the body is equipped to handle the pain of labor and if you trust that you don't need an epidural, I didn't take pain medication of any kind when I had my daughter because I truly believed in my body's ability to handle it. Bad pain is pain that you don't understand and don't accept. The thing about bad pain is that you can't get it go away as easily as good pain because either it's killing you and you are fighting it or you don't know what it is and you think it may be killing you. This is the position the woman is in. She has pain from the cancer and she is not ready to die. She cannot accept the pain, she is fighting it.
If she were ready for death pain would be a sign that it won't be long. She wouldn't need all the pain killers. I don't know. Maybe she would, but I don't really think life is living for the next time you can take a pain pill. Or being whacked out on morphine the last minute you will see you loved ones. I don't think I want to meet my maker while I am high on morphine. That's just me. This story is a lesson, it's supposed to sink in real deep, at least i think so.

I wonder how long this couple will last. Or if they stay together I wonder if they will ever be happy. Instead of snuggling together on the train and maybe talking about the future children or whatever somethign normal they are bickering. It is completely not what a conversation between two married people should be like 3 hours after thier wedding. Either the couple doesn't know each other well enough to even be married or they are just so nervous now because they have to have an actual conversation just the two of them. Its like Here we are we are married so now what... They dont know what to do so they are fighting. Perhaps they were too caught up in the actual wedding that they ignored what it symbolized or was supposed to symbolize.

I have to say that I totally saw it coming from the beginning of the story; something was bound to happen with Mrs. May and the bull. Honestly, as I read the story the Greenleafs really didn't seem all that bad. Sure they were kinda strange but i think they were sincere and pleasant. Mrs. May really has no room to talk though, look at her sons. They have no respect for their mother and are really not sincere people. I feel bad for MRs. May in a way but at the same time I think she deserved what she got for being bitter impatient and thinking that she is better than everybody.

DO you think Mrs. May deserved what she got or not?

Personally I'm glad for Louisa. Both these guys have serious issues. I'm glad she didn't end up with either one of them. Bob is just obsessed with her because she is attractive and he thinks he can dominate her because she is a black girl and she works for the family. He is constantly worried about what everyone else he knows will think about it and it seems like he projects a sense of entitlement about everything. He "sauntered". "He went in as a master should and took her" He obviously still has these ideas about slavery in his mind and believes Louisa to be below him. Then Tom tells her that Bob better not like her like that or he will "cut him jes like I cut a nigger" Isn't that a nice thought. Gee, that makes me just want to tie the knot with this guy right away. At least now she can go find a nice man who isn't on a complete head trip.

Do you feel bad for Louisa or do you think it was the best thing that both men ended up dead?

One of the more interesting lines from this story was this one "I could tell you the lie I told myself with Gordon. That anybody is better than nobody. And you will know exactly why i stayed in the back of that Pathfinder, unless you are lucky and then you will not."

The reason I think this is interesting is because the author is commenting on the fact that so many people in our world feel this way especially women. So many people stay in relationships that suck because they figure that its better than no relationship at all. All of this starts in childhood, I believe. It is obvious that Lucy's problems with relationships were a result of her messed up family situation. It seems that so many families are broken and people do not learn how to have normal relationships because their parents do not have normal relationships etc. Its a vicious cycle. But basically she is saying in that line that somebody like her with the mentality of "a bad relationship is better than none at all" can rationalize why she stayed in the Pathfinder even though it was not her fault that the surfer held the door open for her and she let him make her believe she was to blame for something. Somebody who has more respect for themself and has in their mind an idea about what is right and wrong in a relationship will absolutely not buy the lie and not understand why she would stay. I feel when I blog about these stories I am constantly being a shrink for the characters. Anyway my agenda item:

What do you think? Can you understand why she stayed in the Pathfinder or not?

Obviously the one thing about Streetcar that stuck out in my mind was Blanche and her lies and not only her lies, her appearance. What is up with her face, she doesn't want to be looked at in the light? Does she just think she is old and ugly or does she really have some kind of slight disfigurement? Then there is Stanley who doesn't really seem all that bad at first, then he hits his wife and then he has his way with her sister. Also I know that the metaphor between the streetcar named Desire and the street being called Elysian Fields and all that but what does all that really add up to in terms of the play? Are the Elysian Fields a reference to heaven or paradise? If someone knows can you explain.

Do Stanley's redeeming qualities justify his behavior towards women? Obviously his wife thinks so.

Obviously the one thing about Streetcar that stuck out in my mind was Blanche and her lies and not only her lies, her appearance. What is up with her face, she doesn't want to be looked at in the light? Does she just think she is old and ugly or does she really have some kind of slight disfigurement? Then there is Stanley who doesn't really seem all that bad at first, then he hits his wife and then he has his way with her sister. Also I know that the metaphor between the streetcar named Desire and the street being called Elysian Fields and all that but what does all that really add up to in terms of the play? Are the Elysian Fields a reference to heaven or paradise? If someone knows can you explain.

Do Stanley's redeeming qualities justify his behavior towards women? Obviously his wife thinks so.

I have to say that at the beginning of the semester I wasn't real into the idea of blogging. I never blogged before and didn't really get it. Although it's still not my favorite thing in the world I can appreciate the educational value blogging has to offer. Some of the earlier entires were not very long or deep. It wasn't until we started reading the Great Gatsby that I began to delve deeper into the texts. I ended up writing my close reading about references to flowers in the Great Gatsby because I started thinking about this symbolism. ALso, this blog entry got others thinking about the flower references that they hadn't picked up on.

The poetry unit really gave me the chance to interact with my peers on an intellectual level. Plath's "Daddy" and "Judith" are examples of this. I also was the first to comment on Gina's blog several times offering help and comments about the poems.

Upon reading Machinal I almost dismissed it as i dismissed the Adding Machine as pessimistic and not worthy of much intellectual thought on my part but instead I learned to look deeper into the play even though I personally didn't care for it.

My favorite blog entry is mine on "Judith" "Never Again Would Birds Songs Be the Same" and "Daddy". In this entry I made connections between the poems regarding the role of women in each poem. I feel that it was well done even though it is not the longest of my blog entries

Blogging has helped me develop my critical thinking skills and apply them to books, plays, poems and even movies that I watch.

I have been having a hard time thinking of a thesis. I thought of something but I am not sure if this is appropriate for this assignment. My idea was for Machinal, about the young woman's vanity being more important to her than anythign else. (her obsession with hair, hands, etc.) Can anyone help me? Is this good, bad, stupid, not really what we are supposed to do?

I think one of the interesting ties between "Judith", "Daddy" and "BIrds" is the changing role of the women. In "Judith" she is a hero, one of the elders. She did what a man cuold not do, her beauty was her sword. A man could not defeat Holophernes, only a beautiful woman was able. In "Daddy" Plath is woman tortured by her father's death in her child hood which is unreconciled in her mind and (as i read on Kayla's blog) her cheating husband. She is powerless and alone, defeated.

In "Birds", it is interesting that the focus is on Eve, not Adam. Birds tend to personify freedom. Humanity was free until Eve sinned. We are now held captive by our sins until our salvation is at hand. "Moreover her voice upon their voices crossed" We once sang a song of freedom as birds do, they sing because they are free and happy to be birds, but humans no longer sing happily and freely. We sing a constant song of sorrow. This clashes with birds. Once we sang in harmony with birds but not anymore. Because the birds "heard the daylong voice of Eve" and sang along with her "tone of meaning but without the words" (humans are separate from animals in our use of language) when she changed her tune, the birds didn't know what to do, they were freaked out. Now birds are skiddish and afraid of humans, you can't get too near a wild bird and they always seem to be so nervous. But imagine being able to walk around like you were in a Disney movie singing along with birds and birds not being afraid of you. I think basically the message here is that we have lost our harmony with nature and the animal world that would have existed in Eden at the time of our creation.

I have never read Plath before and all I really knew about her was that she wrote the "Bell Jar" and that she committed suicide. In the poem where she says
"If I've killed one man, I've killed two--
The vampire who said he was you
And drank my blood for a year,
Seven years, if you want to know.
Daddy, you can lie back now."
Could she mean that another man who was not her father but pretended to be, a step father or something? possibly molested her or somethign like that. Just the language used in those lines makes me sort of think that way. I think that the poem is sort of about her "killing" her father in her own mind. Kind of like getting over the things she went through and killing the memory of her father. It was not enough that he died, she had to mentally sever herself from him in her own mind. It seems to me that Sylvia Plath is infatuated with death, I just now read her poem Last Words in our poetry book and it is about her own death soon to come.

This poem is an ode to a man made structure, a bridge. I felt that it was a sort of celebration of man's achievement in building such a huge, magnificent structure. It's like saying to God "Beat That" ("lend a myth to God") or maybe saying that it's so great that it's hard to believe it was created by wretched mankind. I don't know, it was very rich in imagery, comparing the bridge to so many different things. Describing it was curving, shadowing, eternity. It is interesting to compare this with the World Trade Center poem in which the author is not overjoyed with the twin towers but doesn't like them until the end of the poem when he suddenly decides they aren't that bad. He spend the whole poem talking about how ugly they are as opposed to the one about Brooklyn Bridge where he praises it to no end.