Bright Future?: A Reader’s Response to The Time Machine

The Time Machine by H. G. Wells discusses the potential future of humanity if technology and innovation goes too far, separating the social gap of the wealthy and the working classes. In this future, the Eloi, or the rich classes of society, play and do literally nothing all day. They have no care in a world and absolutely “no fears” except for the Darkness. In the darkness the Morlocks come out from the underworld and feast on the Eloi. The scary thing is that the Time Traveler (never referred to by name, therefore his name is unknown to us) believes that these are the descendants of the human race. He believes that society separates into two different types of species.

The Eloi are beautiful and care-free, they are also tiny. They do not have a coherent language and have no need for a written language. They are immensely stupid or completely ignorant of learning even mildly intelligent things. The Time Traveler introduces them to fire by lighting a match and they are absolutely fascinated by it. The Time Traveler also quickly becomes attached to a female named Weena, referring to her as “someone to come “home” to,” making this foreign future seem a little more human-like.

In contrast, the Morlocks are long, furry, completely white creatures. They have light-reflective eyes, which have adapted to see only in the dark. They, theoretically, evolved from the working class, since there are mechanical sounds coming from the underworld. They are terrifying, the Eloi fear them and the Time Traveler fears them just as much. But they appear to be more intelligent than the Eloi, since they are surrounded by machines. Although, they are cannibals, they resorted to feeding off the Eloi once their food supply ran out.

Personally, I found this book to be extraordinarily strange and almost depressing. The thought that humanity would evolve to either gorgeous and stupid (aka all dumb blonds) or horrendous, intelligent and carnivorous, its all kinda depressing. Humanity will progressively lose everything that makes us human, our compassion matched by our hatred, our love and passion for the arts (like a language, or knowledge of history), and our comprehensive thinking. Also our non-cannibalistic diet, kinda important to the whole human aspect. What do you think is the most important aspect of humanity? Is it our intelligence? Our way of connecting with others? Or the fact we don’t eat each other? Do you think that humanity will evolve into something similar to the setting portrayed in The Time Machine? Is that future better than the one we currently live in? Let me know what you think, because I honestly have no clue.

 

Love and Life: A Reader’s Response to Me Before You

While I feel morally opposed to writing a blog post about a book that I haven’t finished, I have a grade on the line, so here’s my opinion.

So far in the book Me Before You, by Jojo Moyes, which half of the girls in Ms. Frank’s AP Lit class have read, I am to the point where the reader just finds out that Will, the main character who is a quadriplegic, plans on having his family end his life after a six month time period. Riveting plot line in all honesty, but there is a subtle feeling in the back of the reader’s mind knowing that at the end of the six months he most likely will not die. But the true genius of the book is that the reader is able to feel for Will, you almost understand why he wouldn’t want to continue living.

Imagine having someone spoon feed you when you are 26, having someone help you go to the bathroom, having someone bathe you. You feel the unwanted sympathy of every single set of eyes that you encounter, even if they do genuinely mean it. There is no end to the shame and humiliation of having every single action assisted or never being able to live the life you once lived. Imagine your best friend and your ex girlfriend come to you to tell you they are getting married and that “It happened a long time after the accident, it wasn’t a sudden thing.” Watching your life deteriorate and turn into a miserable existence, at that particular point the reader can almost feel the pain of simply existing for Will. Asking for death doesn’t seem that terrible.

And yet, we see Will’s sister come into his life after a year a part and she screams at him, “This isn’t just about you Will!” She shows the pain and the emotion associated with the loss of a loved one. She reminds us that no matter what life is precious, and it is selfish to take it away with a suicide. Her reaction is the reaction a normal family would have to the loss of a loved one, “its not fair.”

Unfortunately, I have not finished the book, but skimming the page of the next chapter, I see that it switches to his mother’s perspective and the first words are, ” I never set out to help kill my son.” So clearly she is not at ease with this decision, but is making it regardless. I hope that in the coming chapters I will be able to watch Will fall in love with Lou or something dramatic happen where he has the will to live past those six months. I also hope that subtly the book will answer the questions of at a certain point, can we still carry on through our suffering? Is it worth living in a state of perpetual dependency? How can his family assist him in his own death without feeling completely responsible? What are your answers to these questions? Is his life worth living?

 

Spoiler Alert! Richard Parker; Real or Not Real?: A Reader’s Response to Life of Pi

In the book Life of Pi, by Yann Martel, a young Indian boy, named Piscine Motlier Patel (also known as Pi), is traveling with his family to Canada on a large Japanese cargo ship, crossing the Pacific ocean with a multitude of zoo animals (his father owned a zoo in India). One night, Pi hears a loud noise and runs to the deck to see what is going on. The ship is sinking and he is thrown on to a life boat, with an injured zebra. The life boat floats away as he watches the ship quickly sink to the bottom of the ocean, and sees movement in the water. He rushes to save the creature, hoping it is someone from his family, but instead it is a Royal Bengal Tiger named Richard Parker. The tiger climbs aboard the boat and Pi, out of pure fear and desperation, jumps off. He sees sharks surrounding him and decided the boat is safer, if he makes little to no movement. The novel progresses by telling the story of the boy and the tiger, the moments of pure desperation and suffering, and the moments of pure joy. They spend 227 days at sea with each other, and for the most part are fighting for their lives each and every day. Eventually they end in Mexico, and Richard Parker runs off into the forest, never to be seen by Pi again. SPOILER: Japanese insurance men come to inquire Pi about the reasons why the ship sank. Pi tells dramatic and unbelievable story, and the men cannot imagine how a boy could survive this long with a Tiger; they ask him for the truth. Pi then tells them another story, one where his mother survives to the boat with a cook and a Japanese sailor, each representing an animal in the previous story and Richard Parker is thought to represent Pi. The cook kills the sailor and eventually kills Pi’s mother and Pi kills the cook in revenge. The Japanese men understand this story and are horrified by it, and ask no more questions. In the end of the story Pi asks the narrator which story he preferred, and the narrator says the story with the animals, but it is up to the reader to decide which story is true.

With that being said, the question arises is Richard Parker Pi’s alter ego? Did Richard Parker really survive or was Richard Parker the character that Pi wanted to be, the strength and majesty that he felt he did not possess? It is hard to decide, but the most logical explanation is that the animal story is “true” (since this is a work of fiction). Martel does spend some 170 pages describing the story with animals. He also goes into extensive detail just talking about Richard Parker, “His presence was overwhelming, yet equally evident was the lithesome grace of it. He was incredibly muscular, yet his haunches were thin and his glossy coat hung loosely on his frame. His body, bright brownish orange streaked with black vertical stripes, was incomparably beautiful, matched with a tailor’s eye for harmony by his pure white chest and underside” (151). Martel almost has a crush on tigers by the amount of time he spends describing Richard Parker’s “magnificence.” It is almost undeniable that Richard Parker exists, but there is the small question in the back of the reader’s mind, Could Richard Parker be the character, the strong image, that Pi needed to survive? Was Richard Parker the hero Pi couldn’t be? Could Pi have cast his deeds of killing a man and animals onto the image of a Tiger to feel justified in his actions? That is for you to decide.

 

Is Beloved Satan? A Reader’s Response to Beloved

The other day in class we talked about the influence of religion in Beloved and how it plays a major theme. I am not going to lie it was really challenging at first to find the connections of Christianity to the story, but after reading the passage about Baby Suggs’ Clearing, I can start to see the picture Toni Morrison is painting. I don’t think that the story has strictly Christian references, but it does pull from highly debated religious topics. For example, the idea of ghosts or supernatural occurrences, certain religions praise and value the concept of supernatural beings while most sects of Christianity do not. Beloved is definitely a ghost, so depending on which religion or interpretation of religion you have she can be viewed as a good or bad sign. I think Beloved has the potential to be devilish and a very bad omen.

In the very beginning when Denver begins to question Beloved about her past she asks, “What’s it like over there, where you were before? Can you tell me?” and Beloved replies, “Dark … I’m small in that place.” Then later she says, “Hot. Nothing to breath down there and no room to move in’ You see anybody?’ ‘Heaps. A lot of people is down there. Some is dead’ ‘You see Jesus? Baby Suggs?’ ‘I don’t know. I don’t know the names” (p. 88). This definitely implies that she was in Hell, it was “Hot” she saw “heaps” of “dead people” and Paul D is very suspicious of her. Especially in last nights reading when she convinced Paul D to sleep with her and declares her permanence in his life. She gets Paul D to do something morally wrong and sinful, sleeping with Sethe’s dead ghost daughter is not something people would consider to be a good thing. She chokes her mother and claims she did not, “I kissed her neck. I didn’t choke it. The circle of iron choked it’ ‘I saw you.’ Denver grabbed Beloved’s arm. ‘Look out, girl,’ said Beloved” (119). She denies harming her own mother and gets feisty with Denver when Denver rightfully accuses her of harming Sethe. Beloved is not saintly, she is the literal opposite; Beloved is the manifestation of Satan in the form of Sethe’s lost baby.

It is just like in Hamlet where the different sects of Christianity debated whether the ghost was the devil or a soul in purgatory, I am all in support of Beloved being the devil. I do not like Beloved’s mysterious presence and I think she will destroy the good that Paul D has brought back into Sethe’s life. What do you guys think? Is Beloved a dangerous ghost, someone who will destroy the family or someone (something) who will be a positive influence on the family? Does Beloved being bad or good change the dynamic of the story? Tell me your opinions of the mysterious story behind Beloved.

 

Chaucer’s Twisted Humor: A Reader’s Response to The Canterbury Tales

From the very beginning of the book, I have noticed that there is a considerable amount of twisted or sardonic humor. It started with little comments for example, “His cheek was always smooth as if just sheared. I think he was a gelding or a mare” (72). He is insinuating that the poor man had no balls, and was extremely high pitched and appeared pubescent, while being a grown man. He demeans others for the sake of humor, a trait prevalent in today’s society, which demonstrates the timelessness of these stories; they relate to society today.

The next instance that stood out in my mind of this twisted humor was in the Reeve’s tale when the students took revenge on the dishonest miller. For instance, “And since the night was dark, she could not see, but by the student crawled trustfully. And lay quite still, and would have gone to sleep. Presently John the student, with a leap, pitched into this good woman. Year in, year out, she had not had for long so merry a bout, for hard and deep he went; he thrust like mad” (155). He turns rape into a comedy, a terrible situation where the wife actually enjoys it but is completely unaware that it is not her husband who she is screwing but rather a student. Normally it is extremely rude to joke about rape, but since she enjoyed it and it is only a fictional story its pure comedy. These stories also use sardonic humor to make snide and cynical comments about each of the other passengers on the pilgrimage to Canterbury. The Reeve’s tale is meant purely to insult the Miller and it is effective, the story takes a cocky dishonest miller and uses painful humor to get revenge on the Miller for his dishonesty. It promotes the stereotype of the times that Miller’s are dishonest tradesmen and deserve whatever pain comes their way.

But the most prevalent use of twisted humor is used by the Wife of Bath, she demeans women to simple sexual objects, while painting men in a light of constant sexual arousal. She views men and “in debt” to women and the only way they can pay that debt is to satisfy their sexual desires. She explains her sex life and her previous marriages, implying that she was a gold digger previously, “Blessed be God that I have married five, and always, for the money in his chest, and for his nether purse, I picked the best” (208). Implying that her men were rich and “he put his instrument in play” (210). She implies that men only cared for her looks, which is why they married, but she was primarily concerned with how they would pay their debt (with actual money and with their sexual ability). She is not concerned with the idea of love for her first few marriages, and prides herself in her ability “I can’t help laughing yet thinking of how at night I made them sweat, and I thought nothing of it, on my word!” (212). She thinks its hysterical how they tried, and she felt nothing for them in the slightest. Chaucer uses her sexuality to make fun of the desires of men and the desires of women, and how different they are. He makes comments on society through raunchy stories that are sardonically funny.

What other instances do you think Chaucer uses twisted humor to ironically make fun of society? Do you think it is necessary to use sexual encounters as the primary component of almost all the stories? Do these stories still connect to society today? 

 

Heathcliff the new Jack Sparrow?: A Reader’s Response to Wuthering Heights

Let me just start off by saying, Heathcliff is persistent as Jack Sparrow is when he was trying to get the key to dead man’s chest, or when he wanted rum. But Heathcliff is a very different type of persistent, he was the patient persistent while Jack was more of the lucky persistent (situations just seemed to work in his favor and assist him in his goals).

While reading Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights, I was considerably impressed by Heathcliff’s patient dedication to completely ruin Hindley and the Linton Family. He accepted suffering and complete isolation from Hindley throughout his youth, patiently awaiting the day where he would completely destroy Hindley’s lineage, starting with young Hareton. Nelly encounters this patient-side of Heathcliff when he was a young boy, she says, “I was surprised to witness how cooly the child gathered himself up, and went on his intention …sitting down on a bundle of hay to over come the qualm which the violent blow occasioned … He complained so seldom, indeed, of such stirs as these, that I really thought him not vindictive: I was deceived completely” (Bronte 40). Nelly was practically convinced that Heathcliff was a good boy when he was younger, but instead the whole time he was the most manipulative character in the book. He appears to not have a plan at all, no means to an end (marrying Catherine), but all along he knows exactly how to get his revenge and still win back the heart of Catherine, not unlike the methods of Jack Sparrow. Jack would appear not to have a plan, but every single time he would escape his shackles, or get the treasure, or get the rum that he had been wanting. Both characters are manipulative with specific actions, to find a means to a very specific end. Heathcliff to be a worth man for Catherine, which is why he leaves and comes back wealthy and completely owns Hindley, the man who used to own him. Jack, in the first movie, using Will to get to the treasure and get his ship back. While completely different styles of manipulation, Jack Sparrow and Heathcliff are very similar characters, with their patient dedication.