#10 What noise?

 I wanted to comment on Tom Leclair’s Closing the Loop because I enjoyed how he routinely compared DeLillo’s White Noise to piles of garbage but I am leaning more towards John Duvall’s ridiculously long titled The (Super) Marketplace Of Images: Television As Unmediated Mediation In DeLillo’s White Noise. Mainly because he focuses strongly on my favorite character from White Noise, yeah you guessed it TV!

Duvall mentions the TV as a character and how it buts in on several conversations and how the Mink character speaks primarily in Quotes from the TV (448-449). The majority of this essay focuses on Murray and how creepy and horrible he is. He is the little devil on Jack’s shoulder and Jack is a dimwitted idiot who can’t see through his incredibly thin disguise. Duvall wrote this essay in the mid or early 90’s he mentions the Gulf War and the L.A. riots. He connects the television coverage of these events to DeLillo’s thoughts on media coverage throughout White Noise.

I thought the article did a good job of pointing out motifs and language of White Noise. I could easily find something to use on the essay from either of those points of view.  I already thought of the TV as a character when I read White Noise this article points out many of the times this theme appears in the book.

                                                                 WORKS CITED

  Duvall, John N. The (SUPER)MARKETPLACE OF IMAGES: TELEVISION AS INMEDIATED MEDIATION IN DeLILLO'S WHITE NOISE. White Noise. New York City: Penguin Group, 1998. 432-55. Print.

Number 9! White Noise or Audible Groans!

                                                  http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9f/Brady_Bunch_full_cast_1973.JPG

                                            Huh…… White Noise?

                    No need to worry about spoilers; I will only be commenting on part one and two.

Part one is separated into 20 chapters consisting mostly mundane day to day life stuff, some character descriptions and quirks. Nothing resembling a plot happens in part 1. It is all set up until part 2. DeLillo does a pretty good job of fleshing out characters; Every time Murray makes an appearance my stomach turns. You must be a good writer if you can make someone reading your book physically ill. I find most of the other characters less disgusting. The Narrator and main character is Jack Gadney. Jack is a Hitler Expert, has three children from two previous marriages. He is currently married to Babette a sugar-free gum addict, with sporadic memory loss and three children of her own. So Jack and Babette are exactly like Mike and Carol Brady from the Brady Bunch! Except Jack has two daughters and one son and Babette has two sons and one daughter.  I guess this means that creep Murray is Alice. Only two of Jack’s children live with him and Babette, Steffie and Heinrich. Steffie appears to get upset when a plane crash happens on the TV while the rest of the crew cheers and guffaws; she wears a green tinted golf visor all the time. Heinrich is an annoying creepy balding fourteen year old, He is pen pals with a psycho killer he has phone calls with mysterious folk about incest and babbles on for pages about whether rain is wet or not. Bee is Jack’s 12 year old daughter, she doesn’t spend much time in the book because she is busy being a globetrotting crime fighter. Babette’s three children are Eugene, Denise and Wilder.  Eugene is in Australia, Australia was really popular in the 80’s. Denise is the resident girl detective; she is always snooping around and trying to figure out what kind of drugs her mom is hopped up on. Wilder is either a half-wit mute or a baby I haven’t figured it out yet, his shining achievement is he is too big to ride in the shopping buggy and he can cry for 24 hours straight. The only other character worth mentioning is Murray. I don’t even know where to start with this horrible abomination, he works at the same college as Jack, he doesn’t like cities because cities are full of hot sex, he likes to sniff things, he lives in a slummy boarding house because he enjoys human misery, he doesn’t seem to understand personal space. This guy is a grade A creep. In a way the TV is a character in part 1; at several points something said on the TV seems to add to a conversation that the other characters are having. I could swear TV is talking about Bee when it says “The creature has developed a complicated stomach in keeping with its leafy diet” (DeLillo 95).

Part two or the thing with three names! Heinrich is on the roof being a weirdo and spots the cloud of smoke. The radio informs them to evacuate the town and get to the safe zone. The cloud of smoke with an identity crisis chases the family across snowy roadways until they get to the emergency shelter. At the shelter Babette reads stupid tabloid papers for almost four solid pages of the book. Jack hangs out with Jehovah’s witnesses and learns what crazy people think about the end of the world. Heinrich does a stand-up comedy routine and the rest of the crew sleeps. But be warned you aren’t getting out of part two without a little cameo by Murray! Here we see Murray in his natural habitat a parking lot propositioning prostitutes in a van. This is the first time I have encountered ipecac in written word form.  The next day they are told the cloud is a heading right for them. The family receives complimentary dust masks and then they follow some hillbillies through a snowy forest. Jack and company arrive in Iron City and hang out in a Dojo (Karate was also big in the 80’s).  

This book is interesting so far. There are a few big criticisms I have. Is it really necessary for two characters to argue over who should die first for over a page on two separate occasions? Just because the author has the uncanny ability to mimic the kind of argument an annoying teenager would come up with doesn’t mean he should. I have never thought about college professors sitting around and talking about shitting, pissing and James Dean until now! I don’t know how much of this stuff will come up later in the story but it seems like excessive amounts of nonsensical filler. I don’t relate to any of the characters. The author has some strange obsession with shopping malls, grocery and hardware stores and describes them very vividly. I have no idea what this story is about so far. My only guess is it’s about mid-life crisis and the assorted horrors of parenting.

I am a fan of audiobooks I find that sometimes I hear something that I missed when I read through.

Big number 8! The middle!

What has been my biggest challenge in the class so far?

This is the first time I have taken an online class, I kind of miss peer reviews of my essays. I can take them to the learning center or the online writing tutor and that is neat and all but I do miss having someone I see at least once a week nervously telling me how bad or good my essay is. I think that helped me improve quite a bit.

What has been my biggest success?

Everytime someone leaves a nice comment on my blog. Whenever I start writing something I try and think of a way to make people smile while they are reading it. So whenever I get a nice comment from someone who enjoyed my post it feels like a big success to me.

How have the readings in the class affected me?

I am a huge fan of Moby Dick and I was pretty excited to read another Herman Melville story, boy was I surprised. Bartleby the Scrivener was beautifully written and had the poetic wording I expected from Melville, but it was a boring snoozefest of an uninteresting story. I did not like it one bit. The second reading A Modest Proposal was something I had heard of before but this was the first time I ever read it. I found it super funny. I find it hard to believe that this kind of morbid humor existed almost four hundred years ago. I am not sure if I agree with Swifts politics but he sounds like a fun guy to have at a party.

How is literary analysis different from other types of writing I have done in college?

Literary analysis sounds easy. I have silly opinions about all kinds of things. the message or meaning I can get out of a specific reading is so different than anyone else it seems like I would have an infinite well of knowledge to pull from while writing an analysis. But the hard part for me is I tend to worry about whether or not my opinion will be understood. I don’t think understanding is the point, but I almost always soften up my idea because I fear that it might be too out there.

What are my goals for the second half of the session?  What do I hope to improve or accomplish?

Easy question my goal is to win. I hope to feel much better about my next essay the first two I felt kind of meh about. I want to finish essay number three and think to myself, Yeah that is a good essay. 

post #7 or The joyful beginnings of yet another essay.

             Jonathan Swift’s attitude towards the state of Ireland as a whole is made very clear in A Modest Proposal. He insults the poor, the wealthy, the Catholics, the Protestants, and the English. The writing is meant to enrage the vast majority of Ireland and hopefully inspire a reaction out of them. The poor need to make some attempt to improve their station and the wealthy need to attempt to improve the current state of their lands and country. Swift was trying to hold a mirror up to the Irish populace and show them just how ugly they had become.

Here is a link to some early 18th century Ireland alleged history. It isn't easy to understand exactly what was going on in a different country 400 years ago so Click me!

#6 Golly Mr. Swift

                                  

                                      Response to Swift

The exploding population of the impoverished in 18^th century Ireland caused many to search for answers; one of the more popular proposals was made by Dr. Jonathan Swift. Passing by begging mothers flanked by a half dozen children was a sight all too common. Seeing such misery could negatively alter the mood of any passing lord. Thankfully Dr. Swift was a man of vision and came up with a solution that would be beneficial to all involved. The impoverished masses could become useful providers of goods, in the form of their young delicious babies. Swift saw human offspring as a useful untapped resource. The primary usefulness as delicacy for those with refined palates, second the fine soft leather could be used for exquisite gloves and boots. This would improve the station of the impoverished by providing a steady income to fertile women and preventing their mistreatment out of fear of harming their stock.

Swift’s suggestion despite being very persuasive is most certainly not meant to be taken seriously. He is trying to compare the treatment of the impoverished to that of livestock. His goal is to rub the land owners' noses in the inhumane way they treat their fellow man. Seeing the absurdist comparison of treating humans as livestock could potentially cause the lords to think a bit deeper about how they should treat other people.

His suggestion is very logical. He has many examples of this kind of solution being used by others in the past. A long list of potential positives outcomes are clearly outlined, and the only thing that truly stands in the way of this being a very persuasive proposal is morality. The example of the man from the island Formosa (now known as Taiwan) telling the story of how when young people were executed their meat was sold as a delicacy, is both an example and an insult. Comparing lords in Ireland to savages in a far east pacific island was probably very effective at a time when xenophobia was still very much alive.

If you have been persuaded by Dr. Swifts proposal you might find the following link on proper preparation of human meat useful.

http://www.churchofeuthanasia.org/e-sermons/butcher.html

Rhetorical Analysis.

This advertisement is super effective. The tone is similar to an action movie. It uses amazing lightning effects and intense music to catch the viewers’ attention. The narrator speaks with the confidence of a man who has survived in the wilderness and fought off many packs of wolves and at least fifteen sasquatches. Any skepticism about the knife is quickly dismissed as the first thing you see is a tree getting stabbed. I have no idea what 420 molecular steel is but it sounds pretty extreme.  The perks of the knife alone seem too good to be true. Before you can get over how amazing the knife is the grizzled narrator lets you know it has a compass built in to the handle, so you will never be lost as long as you keep this beast at your side. At this point the viewer is probably putting a loan out against their home so they can afford this monster; the narrator seems to sense this and quickly lets you know that it is only ten dollars.

The message this commercial is trying to get across is more of a question. ”do you want to survive?” This should appeal to the majority of people. It takes great pains to show you all the ways this knife can help you pick a fight with nature, and come out the other side with air in your lungs. The reaction expected was for every human that has a desire to keep on living to pick up their phone and order several dozen of these knives, insuring the future of mankind.

ROUGH DRAFT!

                              Here is my rough draft. I need to beef it up a bit and work on the conclusion but any harsh criticisms would be greatly appreciated. 

                                                             Bartleby the inner demon

                        Herman Melville’s Bartleby the Scrivener is the story of lawyer who hires an employee that refuses to work after a few days. The lawyer feels pity for the man and has a difficult time letting him go. It can be said that the narrator from Bartleby the Scrivener isn’t trying to get rid of an unruly employee but trying to get rid of his own grim outlook of the future. Bartleby’s refusal to continue working and unwillingness to change is a reflection of how the narrator feels about his station in life. His attempts to rid himself of Bartleby is actually his inner struggle with depression and monotony. Bartleby is a thought, a thought so peculiar that the narrator is unsure why he has had it.

                        The thoughts that run through the heads of men vary wildly. Sometimes the thoughts that run through an individual’s mind can vary just as much. Indecision  can be described as a man’s thoughts struggling against eachother. Thoughts can have character, they can appear from nowhere, a thought can lay dormant and arise only when the mind is in the perfect position. It is not hard to see Bartleby the character as Bartleby the thought. The narrator struggles with this thought and believes there may be truth in it. The thought is small yet poignant, it catches the narrator off guard. He did not want to have this thought but after it occurs it is difficult to forget.

                        While the narrator describes himself as an elderly man Bartleby is said to be young. The first appearance of Bartleby is described as “pallidly neat, pitiably respectable, incurably forlorn!”(15). This could be because the feeling of monotony and meaninglessness is a new idea that has crept into the mind of the narrator. The narrator claims to have a profound conviction that the easiest way of life is the best (4). This says that recently his work is proving more trouble than it is worth. The first time Bartleby says “I would prefer not to” The narrator describes performing a task that leads one to believe it has been done many times before (18). This is Bartleby the thought coming forth for the first time, the narrator questioning what he does for a living. The disbelief in what the narrator has just heard is his own denial of the thought that he has just had. He tries to deny the fact that that thought has even crossed his mind and reflects on it. He tries to purge the idea as nonsense but dwells on the question he has no answer for. Would the narrator prefer not to continue the job he had chosen many years ago? A job he chose for its lack of stress and relative reclusiveness. He chose a job where he could be alone with his thoughts.

                        Most people have struggled with a thought at some point in their life. The thought of how things could have been different had they chosen a different path or how things could be different tomorrow if they change right now. The narrator is struggling with the thought of why. Why does he continue to write these documents that the majority of people will see as worthless after a short period of time, papers that most won’t understand or ever see at all? Barleby’s appeareance happens at point in the narrators life when he has taken on more of a work load than he his used to. The frustration of being buried under paperwork causes him to wonder about the nature of the documents he is toiling over. This happens only after a few days of working hard and seeing little improvement. The young, silent and lonely image he has conjured to help him get through the new workload soon turns into a roadblock that causes him to stop and wonder about how sad and lonely his life would be if he had to continue to work like this. He feels as if he has been trapped in a brick building with no human contact and bent over a desk. At first this thought only haunts the narrator when he is at his place of work. “As yet I had never of my personal knowledge known him to be outside of my office” (23). As he is out enjoying himself and living his life outside of his work, Bartleby waits in the corner of his office for him to return.

                        Why is it the narrator has so much trouble getting rid of this idea? He lets it out and tells others about it to get their opinion on it and presumably so he can see the absurdity of it.