Post-Modern Thinking

Post-Modern works offer a critical view of the world where it tells us we are all dead inside, but when nothing has meaning, including death, then we don’t even have death to hold us together, only emptiness. In Amzi Azmi’s work “The quandary of human minds in post-modern perspectives” Post-Modernism is described as “question to the traditional values and poses a deep mistrust towards the value systems”. These works can make us question our world and become paranoid about our existence. Although I believe that literature should open our minds, it can be hazardous if it’s making us feel that everything is fluid and meaningless. In Donald Barthelme’s “The School” the worth of life is measured, and the weight of death seems nonexistent when everything is replaceable. Then in John Cheever’s “The Swimmer” the protagonist, Neddy, lives in a world that is a prime capitalistic suburban neighborhood from which he can’t escape. Post-Modern works don’t ever seem to realize that just because the world is meaningless, it doesn’t mean that someone’s personal life is as well.

In Barthelme’s “The School” pets, trees, parents, and even students die as the school year progresses. None of it seems to effect the teacher nor the students because each time a pet dies, it gets replaced, so they don’t have to reflect over their questions of death, and it’s meaning. It’s not till two students die, do the children ask questions. “They said, is death that which gives meaning to life?”(311). Barthelme uses a deadpan approach by having these young ones ask a deep existential question about death. The teacher becomes a bit nervous when the children keep asking these questions, but they are saved when a new class pet, a gerbil, is brought into the classroom. I agree with Post-Modernist writers that things are easily replaced in our capitalistic world but only things. Human lives hold just as much meaning as ever and even though we may be not as surprised when the news tells us there is a different murder every other night but when its someone we know, we still feel. Barthelme is offering the idea that life is replicable, and I don’t believe it is. We shouldn’t allow the idea to spread that people today replace loved one’s like phones because things catch on, and we need to realize that everyone isn’t fluid. Every beating heart has a purpose.

Cheever’s “The Swimmer” does not focus on the meaningless of life but instead the emptiness of the inescapable world we live in. “Why, believing as he did, that all human obduracy was susceptible to common sense, was he unable to turn back? Why was he determined to complete his journey even if it meant putting his life in danger? At what point had this prank, this joke, this piece of horseplay become serious? “(161). Neddy has claimed that he is happy with his life but yet he is going on this journey that has him discovering the worth of the world he is currently living in. Neddy believes he is traveling across the world by just simply swimming across his town. This shows how he believes that this small neighborhood represents the whole world and what it stands for. So when he discovers the emptiness and despair in his suburban neighborhood, that is the world. Cheever offers an almost nihilistic view of a world where everything is meaningless that we have to pretend to be capitalist so we can be interesting. Society may force a structure upon us that makes us feel trapped but if you try to escape you can, instead of just swimming in circles within the world you already exist in hoping meaning will just come.

http://thinkingaboutphilosophy.blogspot.com/2012/10/the-world-is-meaningless.html

This writer agrees with me in the fact that you can build your meaning in your world. “Do not try to “find yourself,” you must make yourself. Choose what you want to find meaningful and live, create, love, hate, cry, destroy, fight and die for it. Do not let your life and your values and you actions slip easily into any mold, other that that which you create for yourself, and say with conviction, “This is who I make myself.”(Existentialist). Our existence is contained to a great extent by our beliefs. So what ventures you tackle, assuming any, and how innovative you are in seeking after them, is to a large extent dictated by your beliefs about yourself and life. Moreover, each of us structures particular opinions about what can and what isn’t possible. Postmodernist writers may find the humor in nothing having a purpose or feeling lost in this world; rather it’s in the existential aspects like or death or you’re very environment being a trap that makes you worthless. This is dangerous thinking, and I hope people can realize that just because societal standards may be empty and capitalistic and your clothes may just be a projection of a meaningless group or idea, you can still make every action and every word that comes out of your mouth count because this world has a lot to offer and so do the people in it.

Word Count: 854

Azmi, Amzi. “The quandary of human minds in post-modern perspectives.” Language In India Mar. 2014: 93+. Academic OneFile. Web. 28 April 2016.

Existentialist. “Thinking about Philosophy.” The World Is Meaningless. Thinking about Philosophy, 12 Jan. 2012. Web. 28 April 2016.

Cheever, John. “The Swimmer” The Norton Anthology. Vol. E. New York: W.W. Norton, 2012. Print. American Literature.

Barthelme, Donald. “The School”. Sixty Stories. New York: Putnam, 1981. Print.

Rose Colored World

F. Scott Fitzgerald was a character straight out of one of his stories. From the dramatic relationship between himself and Zelda, always finding time for parties, and the depressing ending to his life in Hollywood California. The romanticism in Fitzgerald’s stories, that lead so many of his characters astray such as in Winter Dreams and The Ice Palace, had the very same effect in his own life.

 

In Edward J. Rielly’s book F. Scott Fitzgerald: A Biography, a reader, understands Fitzgerald romanticized view of the world and his obsessions with the higher class and wealthy socialites of society. Fitzgerald’s mother was wealthy due to inheritance and shared it with Fitzgerald’s, and his father was a failed business owner but shared his passion with higher-class clothing and enjoyment of literature with Fitzgerald. Reilly states “This contrast between father and mother would emerge in Scott’s fiction, such as the short story “The Ice Palace,” with its contrasts between the North and South, money and romance, coldness and sensitivity toward others. Although Fitzgerald keenly felt his father’s financial failings and aspired to what wealth could bring, he inevitably favored the values that he associated with his father over those he ascribed to his mother”(Reilly 2). Fitzgerald enjoyed money but was more important to him was the image that came with being higher class and the lifestyle to someone who has accesses to just about anything they could want. You see this in Fitzgerald’s stories as his characters seek the romanticized world of the wealthy. Just like Fitzgerald, it’s never what they hoped and they usually just find themselves disappointed with more problems than moments of happiness. “Fitzgerald’s alcoholism continued to take its toll”(85). Fitzgerald’s life fell apart as well as his relationship with Zelda due to her mental issues and he hit rock bottom. Fitzgerald took hits in life that are not uncommon to many rather its alcoholism, or money and relationships problems. It’s the fact that Fitzgerald had such a romanticized view of the higher-class lifestyle that when wasn’t everything he dreamed it hit him harder than it would anyone.

 

In Fitzgerald’s short story, Winter Dreams, Dexter starts off as a young caddy who falls in love with a wealthy young girl named Judy. Dexter’s romanticization leads him to believe that Judy is a work of art that is untouchable. “My name is Judy Jones. She favored him with an absurd smirk rather, what tried to be a smirk, for, twist her mouth as she might, it was not grotesque, it was merely beautiful”(237). Even when Judy is being snobby towards Dexter all he can focus on is her beauty much like how privileged wealthy men only focus on having the prettiest things in their life, and nothing else matters. Judy is just as bad as Dexter. When she meets him when they’re older, she tells him “I like you. But I’ve just had a terrible afternoon. There was a man I cared about, and this afternoon he told me out of a clear sky that he was poor as a church-mouse. He’d never even hinted it before. Does this sound horribly mundane?”(240-241). Judy comes to a privileged background, and all she cares for is money and with her looks, she knows she can get exactly that. In Winter Dreams, Fitzgerald focuses on the romanticizing of others so that they fit into the dream world one creates in their mind. Dexter, in the end, realizes Judy was nothing but a pretty face and is disappointed and moves on. Although Dexter was torn from his pretend world, Judy, unfortunately, loses her good looks and ends up with a man who goes out on her. Fitzgerald shows the danger of romanticizing others.

 

In The Ice Palace, Fitzgerald focuses on the romanticization of places. Sally Carrol is a beautiful Southerner, who gets engaged to a northern man due to believing the north to be a glorious place and wants to escape the south to live there. Sally tells Clark, a southern boy from her town, “I’m not sure what I’ll do, but well, I want to go places and see people. I want my mind to grow. I want to live where things happen on a big scale”(46) when he asks her why she’s leaving. When she finally gets there, she realizes that it wasn’t everything she dreamed of. She first realizes that she does not fit in with the people, “Lastly there was Mrs. Bellamy, whom Sally Carrol detested… She also knew that Harry’s mother disapproved of her bobbed hair, and she had never dared smoke downstairs after that first day when Mrs. Bellamy had come into the library sniffing violently”(58). Sally Carol then goes on to discover that not only does she not fit in with the people but she doesn’t even enjoy the north itself. After a cold night and a breaking storm, Sally Carrol and Harry, her soon to be husband, visit the ice palace; she immediately feels worried and tense. She gets separated from Harry and she starts to panic. Sally Carrol is terrified and afraid she will die and be frozen in the ice and she starts to reminisces about her friends and the warm, hospitable South until she is saved by Roger Patton, a man she met at Harry’s home. Sally Carrol’s romanticism led to be dangerous by shattering her hopes of a future where she escapes from the north and when things go wrong for her, they hit her hard.

F. Scott Fitzgerald romanticized world is shown throughout his stories, and although he may not have known in the beginning, the troubles his characters faced were foreshadowings for his own life.

Word Count: 944

 

 

Rielly, Edward J. “THE COMEBACK.” F. Scott Fitzgerald: A Biography. Santa Barbara, CA: Greenwood, 2005. ABC-CLIO eBook Collection. Web. 7 Apr 2016.

Fitzgerald, F. Scott. The Best Early Stories of F. Scott Fitzgerald. New York. The Modern Library New York. 2005. Print.

(Both short stories were found in this collection of stories)

Forbidden Knowledge

William Faulkner’s short story “That Evening Sun” tells the story of what the old south was from the point of view of Quentin. Quentin is twenty-four in the story but looks back on his experience as a nine-year-old and what happened to their African American laundry lady at that time. Quentin realizes how unfairly Nancy was treated but when everything was occurring he was too young to understand any of it. Through Quentin’s portrayal of events you see the issue of there being a problem at large but rather if it’s from being use to southern tradition or being too young everyone turns a blind eye.

 

Nancy is always abused throughout the story due to her color. When she asks one of her customers, Mr. Stovall, when he is going to pay her (not for laundry but for sexual pleasure) he beats her. The town believes the best way to handle this is to turn their heads and put Nancy in jail for causing problems. As a way of coping Nancy continues throughout the story to refer to herself through racial slurs. When she talks about her unplanned pregnancy she says, “I ain’t nothing but a nigger, Nancy said. It ain’t none of my fault”(293). Saying this Nancy believes that due to her skin color she has been doomed from birth. Since she has done this not only have the white people of the South accepted this tradition of racism but the African Americans as well.

 

The people of the town refuse to acknowledge let alone do anything about the racism problem in their town. Faulkner uses symbolism through forming Nancy’s husband to be a Christ figure by naming him, Jesus. Thus, in doing so, Faulkner can show what horrid shape the town is in. When the children are asking if Nancy is waiting for Jesus to pick her up Quentin replies by telling them how Nancy said, “Jesus is gone”(293). This shows that the people are abandoning religion, and even Jesus isn’t able to save the sinners of the town. The characters, especially Nancy, are even scared of Jesus showing up because they know how wrong their actions are. In the end, Quentin’s father says, “He went away a long time ago”(309). Following that statement Caddy and Jason argue over pointless things showing that the town has accepted their fate and refuse to open their eyes to see the issues in front of them.

 

The issue of avoiding facing serious problems in our world is still a problem today. Sadly racism is still one of the big dilemmas we have trouble solving. A young artist, Raury, who is African American, released the song “Forbidden Knowledge”.

 

The powerful lines of the song talks about fighting against hatred, segregation, and how “Forbidden knowledge can destroy mankind”. Raury, Like Faulkner, understands that the issues in our world are destroying us but people never seem to lift a finger. In “Forbidden Knowledge” Raury says, “Why does history repeat like a sequel? Well that’s forbidden knowledge is God a man watching TV like people”. In theses lines, it show that this issue has been around for a while now, for example during Faulkner’s time. Also Raury questions God’s role in all of this as did Faulkner when he placed Jesus in his story. Faulkner and Raury seek to understand how neither God nor human can make a move to solve the problems right in front of them.

 

 

Macklemore recently released a song called “White Privilege II.”

 

 

Macklemore talks about the view from a white person in the chaos of our issues of today dealing with racism. Macklemore acknowledges how we have stolen their identity, “You’ve taken the drums and the accent you rapped in You’re branded “hip-hop”, it’s so fascist and backwards” and how white people seem to still not understand the seriousness of the issue, “Want people to like you, want to be accepted That’s probably why you are out here protesting Don’t think for a second you don’t have incentive Is this about you, well, then what’s your intention”. In “White Privilege II” Macklemore has acknowledged how just like the town in Faulkner’s “That Evening Sun” white people still don’t open their eyes and do something to cause change. Even though all the evidence and knowledge is right there in front of us, we still turn our heads. “We take all we want from black culture, but will we show up for black lives.”

 

From Faulkner to the young artist of today such as Raury and Macklemore they continue to try to show us the problem through their art, and we still struggle to make the change. Faulkner and Raury point out that our “God” is gone and is not going to save us from these sins and our troubles. Hopefully white people such as Macklemore will take notice to this “Forbidden Knowledge” that Raury speaks of and not end up like the characters of Faulkner stories that continue to ravage in the destruction of their world and will instead use the knowledge to make a difference. Not just stand and turn our heads.

(845)

 

Faulkner William. That Evening Sun. New York. American Mercury, 1931. Print.

Raury. “Forbidden Knowledge”. Online video clip. Youtube. Youtube, 17 Oct. 2015. Web. 1 March 2016.

Macklemore. “White Privilege II”. Online video clip. Youtube. Youtube, 21 Jan. 2016. Web. 1 March 2016.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lost in a Clean, Well-Lighted World

As a vegetarian who would run from a fight any day of the week, there aren’t many ways in which I relate to the well-known author Ernest Hemingway. With that being said in Hemingway’s work “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place” I find myself relating to the underlying concept of not fitting in time with the rest of the world as does the older waiter and the old man in the short story. The story conveys the idea that even though you don’t fit in it doesn’t mean you find everyone and everything miserable. Instead like in “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place” when you don’t fit in the conversation may not always flow, and it’s not as easy for one to sleep at night but one still functions. Just life can tend to feel like “Nada” and a bit empty.

 

When you feel out of place in the world, it’s during the night when one feels most at peace. “The old man liked to sit late because he was deaf and now at night it was quiet, and he felt the difference”. There is a comfortable silence that can only be found when one is out in the streets in the middle of the night that even a deaf old man can sense. Everyone who is out in the midst of the night is more focused on figuring out what in their life has caused them to be sitting at a dinner at three in the morning all alone rather then wondering why the person at the table across the room is doing the same thing. In “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place” the older waiter is trying to start a conversation with the bartender and the bartender isn’t having any of it the waiter thinks “It was too late at night for conversation”. During the day, it’s viewed as rude to want to be left in silence but during the night, it’s expected. This is why the older waiter does not find it strange for the old man to sit by himself alone and drink brandy. I may not have fought in WWI, but the lost generation and I both find solace in the night that you can’t find during the day, and it’s during that time where lost souls find comfort.

 

Even though one such as myself may feel lost in the world at times, it does not mean it’s difficult to live. Everything is always just a little bit off. The conversation with peers never seems to flow quite right. The younger waiter in the story seems rude at times but as Hemingway states “He did not wish to be unjust. He was only in a hurry”. The older waiter represents someone like Hemingway, who is part of the lost generation, and the younger waiter is a materialist of the younger generation. Neither are wrong in their opinions of what one should be doing at that time of day, but when they try to discuss it, they seem only to bump heads until the younger waiter finally says “Come on. Stop talking nonsense and lock up”. Not only can the older waiter not match up his schedule with the rest of the world but also he can’t discuss his personal self-being with the younger waiter.

 

The younger waiter is at peace in the story, and that is drawn from being in a state of naivety. This is seen when the younger waiter believes; the older man couldn’t be in despair over anything because he had money. This makes one think that if you relate to the older waiter, such as I do, then one must be more enlightened of the world around them. Of course, I’ve never been in a war and have only been alive for eighteen years, but this may offer insight into my life. It could be possible for me to have seen all the right things in life. Some may say the wrong things if they would prefer to be like the younger waiter. “Innocence is bliss” according to some.

 

The only difference between the older waiter and I is when it comes to this sense of being lost in the world. I am aware that I’m out of place. As the older waiter lays awake at night and is waiting for the light of day to come finally up for him to finally rest, he thinks “It’s probably only insomnia. Many must have it”. The older waiter doesn’t notice that he isn’t in time with the rest of the world. He gives everyone from the old man, to the younger waiter, and even the bartender reasons for why they act differently from him. Still the older waiter and I both have an acceptance of the fact. I don’t mind staying up all night to find my peace with all the other lost souls and even though I find it hard to converse with others, I wouldn’t ever want to become like the young waiter. Hemingway has shown me in “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place” that there are plenty of people just like me accepting their thoughts in the middle of the night.

 

Word Count: 855

 

 

 

Hemingway, Ernest. “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place”. The Complete Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway. Ed. Quality Paperback Book Club. New York. 288-91. Print.