I grew up in a small town on the northeast shore of Massachusetts in one of the oldest town in the country. I was surrounded by people with sharp Boston accents who had their own sayings and phrases distinct to that area like in Paule Marshall’s “Poets in the Kitchen.” A word that was used often was “wicked” which mean very, so something might be “wicked funny” or it could be “wicked cold outside.”
My father grew up in Medford, a town just outside of Boston, and my mother grew up in a small town in western Massachusetts near Springfield and lived in a more rural area. It was always interesting to hear the vast differences in speech and manner between the two families. My father’s family is loud, temperamental and all have very thick Boston accents. My mother’s side of the family is more subdued, quieter and has little to no trace of an accent despite being only two hours away from Boston. As a child I always loved to listen to the long and hilarious stories my father’s side of the family had to tell; my father in particular was prone to tall tales in which he would add extra falsities for added entertainment. When I was younger, I found myself doing the same thing while telling stories to my friends in order to get a laugh from them like my dad would.
It wasn’t until I moved to South Florida that I realized what a distinct and interesting place New England was. The houses all looked the same in Florida and the neighbors kept to themselves despite my father’s best efforts. To escape my homesickness and lonely early teen existence, I spent my time reading a wide variety of books like Paule Marshall describes doing. She describes how she “sheltered [herself] from the storm of adolescence in the Macon Street Library” (632).
There have been a number of writers and texts that have influenced my thinking and writing. One of which Marshall herself describes having a preference for; the “…long, full blown, richly detailed 18th and 19th century picaresque tales…” (632). I was particularly influenced by Charles Dickens and 19th century Russian literature like Dostoevsky, Tolstoy and Chekhov. I had always thought of myself as a quick reader but reading large, complicate literature like this forced me to slow down and aim not for finishing the book, but for overall comprehension. The more I read, the more I felt the need to write my thoughts down. Being able to comprehend this kind of literature and knowing that I could understand it if I allotted my self enough time made me less intimated by complicated literature or non-fiction.
Another sphere of writing which has been influential in my manner of speaking and writing are court opinions, legal blogs and legal history. Coming of age at the time I did, there have been many basic civil liberty and constitutional rights issues that I found myself being concerned about, but not really knowing why I should be. I stated reading legal blogs like Glenn Greenwald’s “Unclaimed Territory” on Salon.com where he would post links to various court opinions. I bought a legal dictionary and would spend a couple days or weeks deciphering these opinions with excessive note taking which I had become familiar with while reading literature. Considering that I read court opinions as a hobby, I’ve settled on attending law school. I’ve also learned that there is a developing field in law which connects my major, literature, with the law.
Work Cited
Marshall, Paule. Poets in the Kitchen. Callaloo, John Hopkins University Press, Spring 2001.
Friday, November 27, 2009
Friday, November 20, 2009
Death and Disaster in DeLillo’s “White Noise”
In terms of how death is presented in “White Noise”, it seems to read as a 20th century, modern American version of “Anna Karenina,” with a family moving about its daily routine and going through the motions of life as we all do. The disastrous events serve as the shock to the system of routines, and all the characters respond in both an awed and terrified way to them. In once sense there is a feeling of being at the mercy and whim of the unseen forces of the earth and this unknowablity is part of what terrifies both Jack and Babette. This idea is represented in the novel with the airborne toxic event. The sudden changes in movement of the cloud, the new and terrifying symptoms being reported over the radio, and the need for the characters to quickly adapt to new safety routes in a traumatic situation leads Jack to observe that the event is as “a parade of fools” (121). It is this helpless and defenseless feeling of being at the mercy of change that causes both Jack and Babatte to have feelings of dread at different points in their lives. Jack mentions this as a familiar state of mind, describing it as “the old defenseless feeling. Small, weak, death bound, alone” (224). Accompanying these feelings is the presence of the clock and the looming and relentless progression of time. Jack describes staring at his alarm clock, stating how he “watched the number change, the progression of digitals minutes odd to even” (224). The reader feels the ominous presence of time as something which can’t be controlled or stilled, and that will eventually bring about death and demise to everything.
On another level, the disasters are always accompanied by a sense of awe and fascination at the awesome powers of the earth that can kill and destroy. In one instance, Winnie describes to Jack what it might be like to see a grizzly bear in the wild and how mixed feelings of terror and fascination would be present in such a situation. She states that the sight of the bear would give “a renewed sense of self, a fresh awareness of the self….you rediscover yourself” (229). This sense seems to be present in all the characters consciences as they come into contact with disasters or the mere idea of them. It is as if this sense were imbedded with in them, something that is pre-language which is merely apart of being human.
Near the end of the book, Murray mentions how Leo Tolstoy was terrified of death, stating “Tolstoy himself struggled to understand. He feared it terribly” (282). The characters in “White Noise” deal with similar fears and nagging questions that seem unanswerable which the characters of Levin and Anna encounter in “Anna Karenina.” Like Jack, Levin spends the whole novel constantly assessing and questioning himself and his life, leading him to be in a lost and depressed state. While Anna seems to merely react to her life’s situations and tries to fend off and ignore looking too closely at her feelings, thoughts and actions. By the end of the story, Anna commits suicide and Levin has a spiritual awakening. The reader gets the impression that Levin develops this faith in life because he actively tried to understand himself by dissecting and questioning his life, where as Anna was merely reacting to situations and was eventuality overwhelmed. As “White Noise progresses”, Jack seems to be more active in trying to understand what his fear is and continually talks to other characters about it. At one point, he acknowledges that “Fear is self-awareness raised to a higher level” (229). Perhaps what DeLillo is suggesting is that we need to try and understand our death and fear of it instead of trying to ignore it.
Work Cited
Delillo, Don. White Noise. New York, Penguin, 1998.
On another level, the disasters are always accompanied by a sense of awe and fascination at the awesome powers of the earth that can kill and destroy. In one instance, Winnie describes to Jack what it might be like to see a grizzly bear in the wild and how mixed feelings of terror and fascination would be present in such a situation. She states that the sight of the bear would give “a renewed sense of self, a fresh awareness of the self….you rediscover yourself” (229). This sense seems to be present in all the characters consciences as they come into contact with disasters or the mere idea of them. It is as if this sense were imbedded with in them, something that is pre-language which is merely apart of being human.
Near the end of the book, Murray mentions how Leo Tolstoy was terrified of death, stating “Tolstoy himself struggled to understand. He feared it terribly” (282). The characters in “White Noise” deal with similar fears and nagging questions that seem unanswerable which the characters of Levin and Anna encounter in “Anna Karenina.” Like Jack, Levin spends the whole novel constantly assessing and questioning himself and his life, leading him to be in a lost and depressed state. While Anna seems to merely react to her life’s situations and tries to fend off and ignore looking too closely at her feelings, thoughts and actions. By the end of the story, Anna commits suicide and Levin has a spiritual awakening. The reader gets the impression that Levin develops this faith in life because he actively tried to understand himself by dissecting and questioning his life, where as Anna was merely reacting to situations and was eventuality overwhelmed. As “White Noise progresses”, Jack seems to be more active in trying to understand what his fear is and continually talks to other characters about it. At one point, he acknowledges that “Fear is self-awareness raised to a higher level” (229). Perhaps what DeLillo is suggesting is that we need to try and understand our death and fear of it instead of trying to ignore it.
Work Cited
Delillo, Don. White Noise. New York, Penguin, 1998.
Friday, November 13, 2009
Louise Erdrich’s Writing Style
Louise Erdrich’s writing style is one that is colloquial, having a lyrical tone that captures the sound and dialect of how the characters speak. Her style is also in the tradition of Native American oral literature. In A. Lavonne Brown Ruoff’s article “Introduction to American Indian Literatures”, Simon Ortiz discusses the importance of oral story telling stating:
"The oral tradition is not just speaking and listening, because what it means to me and other people who have grown up in that tradition is that the whole process,.. Of that society in terms of its history, its culture, its language, its values, and subsequently, it’s literature. So it’s not merely a simple matter of speaking and listening but living that process" (184).
In this way, there is an importance attached to those who’ve grown up in the Native American culture, hearing and telling stories from the past and feeling the need to write them down as a way to preserve them. This can be seen in “Love Medicine” by the structure and format of the story. Each individual story can stand on its own and reads like the narrator is verbally telling the reader the story. The stories themselves interconnect and as the novel progresses, certain questions are answered, characters are made more complete, and details are clearer as different characters give insight into the other characters and their individual views create the story itself. This aspect of the novel also reflects an important idea in the Native American oral tradition; that of the words themselves creating the world around them. To explain this point, Ruoff points to Gary Witherspoon’s work “Language and Art of the Navajo” which presents certain Navajo beliefs explaining that “the Navajo world was brought into being by the gods, who entered the sweathouse and thought the world into existence” (185).
There are a number of ways in which Louise Erdrich writing style is in contrast to the traditional Western ideals of language. The first way this is shown is by Erdrich incorporating traditional Native American language and mixing it with the English prose. This can be seen in the novel with a number of the characters speaking in their native tongue. This occurs in the first story in couple of instances; the first is when King asks Gordie for a cigarette and Gordie replies: “…you don’t say can I have a cigarette. You say ciga swa?” To which Eli replies “Them Michifs ask like that….you got to ask a real old time Indian like me for the right words” (32). The second instance is when Eli comments on being old stating “I’m an old man…Akiwenzii” (34).
Another way that the Erdrich writes against the Western ideals of story telling is by not having an omnipotent narrator who knows everything and who speaks in the same tone and with the same attitude. In “Love Medicine” the story is told from multiple narrators which provide multiple points of view. In this way, the reader can hear different sides of a story or hear a different prospective that provides a more complete view of a story or a character. For example the reader is provided with different views of Lulu, one provided by Nector in an earlier time and the other provided by Lipsha at a later time period. This balance is also provided with the story being told from different perspectives; from both male or female and young or old points of view. The novel also dose not have a linear format as it is not in chronological order and the time periods jump from story to story.
By using multiple narrators, a non-chronological format and by incorporating Native American language and traditions of oral story telling, Erdrich manages to use a European prose like format in a new and different way to reflect her cultures traditions.
Work Citied
Ruoff, Lavonne Brown A. Introduction to American Indian Literatures. New York, MLA, 1990
.
Erdrich, Louise. Love Medicine. New York, Harper Perennial, 2009.
"The oral tradition is not just speaking and listening, because what it means to me and other people who have grown up in that tradition is that the whole process,.. Of that society in terms of its history, its culture, its language, its values, and subsequently, it’s literature. So it’s not merely a simple matter of speaking and listening but living that process" (184).
In this way, there is an importance attached to those who’ve grown up in the Native American culture, hearing and telling stories from the past and feeling the need to write them down as a way to preserve them. This can be seen in “Love Medicine” by the structure and format of the story. Each individual story can stand on its own and reads like the narrator is verbally telling the reader the story. The stories themselves interconnect and as the novel progresses, certain questions are answered, characters are made more complete, and details are clearer as different characters give insight into the other characters and their individual views create the story itself. This aspect of the novel also reflects an important idea in the Native American oral tradition; that of the words themselves creating the world around them. To explain this point, Ruoff points to Gary Witherspoon’s work “Language and Art of the Navajo” which presents certain Navajo beliefs explaining that “the Navajo world was brought into being by the gods, who entered the sweathouse and thought the world into existence” (185).
There are a number of ways in which Louise Erdrich writing style is in contrast to the traditional Western ideals of language. The first way this is shown is by Erdrich incorporating traditional Native American language and mixing it with the English prose. This can be seen in the novel with a number of the characters speaking in their native tongue. This occurs in the first story in couple of instances; the first is when King asks Gordie for a cigarette and Gordie replies: “…you don’t say can I have a cigarette. You say ciga swa?” To which Eli replies “Them Michifs ask like that….you got to ask a real old time Indian like me for the right words” (32). The second instance is when Eli comments on being old stating “I’m an old man…Akiwenzii” (34).
Another way that the Erdrich writes against the Western ideals of story telling is by not having an omnipotent narrator who knows everything and who speaks in the same tone and with the same attitude. In “Love Medicine” the story is told from multiple narrators which provide multiple points of view. In this way, the reader can hear different sides of a story or hear a different prospective that provides a more complete view of a story or a character. For example the reader is provided with different views of Lulu, one provided by Nector in an earlier time and the other provided by Lipsha at a later time period. This balance is also provided with the story being told from different perspectives; from both male or female and young or old points of view. The novel also dose not have a linear format as it is not in chronological order and the time periods jump from story to story.
By using multiple narrators, a non-chronological format and by incorporating Native American language and traditions of oral story telling, Erdrich manages to use a European prose like format in a new and different way to reflect her cultures traditions.
Work Citied
Ruoff, Lavonne Brown A. Introduction to American Indian Literatures. New York, MLA, 1990
.
Erdrich, Louise. Love Medicine. New York, Harper Perennial, 2009.
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