The Day of Silence

During class, there was a large amount of debate about whether or not the day of apology was a complete bust on Macon's part, or if in some ways it actually did accomplish what he wanted it to. Perhaps with enough planning, the day of apology could have worked out in a way that did not end in riots and death. But in my personal opinion, no matter how much time and effort Macon put in to the Day of Apology, there was no way that he would be able to execute it without it ending in riots.

The first reason for this is that Macon does not have the mind nor the attitude of a careful planner with attention to detail. Everything that he did to bring himself to fame was done spontaneous, from the gun hold-up in the cab to his speeches as The Franchise. It was only a matter of time before Macon's spontaneity caught up to him, and The Day of Apology was exactly that time. Macon's entire operation would have fallen apart without Nique and Andre's assistance planning, and what Macon didn't seem to be able to grasp throughout the entire novel was that no matter how inspirational he was or how amazing his ideas were, he would not be able to make an impression on the white population without careful organization and planning. Macon refused to work with Andre and Nique as they tried to schedule interviews, and this lack of planning caught up to Macon on the Day of Apology.

The main problem with the Day of Apology was the concept itself. The goal of the Day of Apology was to make white people reflect on their privilege and to feel bad about themselves. But Macon did not seem to take into account how much this would irritate and anger the black people that were being apologized to. The result was white people getting mugged, beaten up, and possibly even murdered, even though the book did not give any specific instances of this. Macon then made the matter worse by trying to act as if he was above everyone else and didn't have to apologize when confronted, resulting in the accidental gunfire that started all of the riots. However, even without Macon to shoot the fatal bullet, riots would have occurred, as Macon was adding so much tension to an already very tense situation in New York City by asking white people to apologize to black people, which seemed to solve neither of their problems.

Overall, although I agree that Macon's idea of having white people reflect on their privilege and feel guilty about it is not necessarily a bad idea, the way that Macon tried to execute his plan was so full of flaws that there was no way that it could end well. Also, when it did end, it was the blacks who were hurt most by the Day of Apology, because it was their neighborhoods that were burned down by the riots, and it would be them who would be held responsible for the mess that the Day of Apology created.

Ma's Decision

During Ma's interview, the reporter asked a question that I hadn't considered before. She asked Ma whether Ma had ever considered sending Jack to an orphanage or somehow getting him out of Room. This would mean that he wouldn't have to grow up in Room, even if it meant being away from Ma. The reporter did not realize that Ma was actually the one who wanted to have Jack, and Ma viewed Jack as her "savior" because Jack gave her a reason to live. However, I realized that Ma's choice of having a child and raising it in Room could be almost seen as a form of child abuse. Even though Jack improved Ma's life drastically by giving her a reason to live, I don't think Ma really considered the child's life, and in many ways she got lucky in how well Jack turned out.

First of all, Ma was relatively young and inexperienced to have a child, and she had very little experience taking care of children. She also had no other help in raising Jack besides Old Nick, and Old Nick knew even less about child raising than Ma did. Ma seems to have raised Jack by trial and error, and she got lucky that she was able to raise such an intelligent child. Ma also didn't know that Old Nick wouldn't hurt or abuse Jack, and if Old Nick had wanted to, Ma could not have done anything to stop him. It surprised me how little Old Nick seemed to know about the child, and I was also surprised by the fact that in 5 years, Old Nick had never once seen Jack. Another risk that Ma took was that she had to hope that Jack would stay healthy, and although she did a good job of making sure he washed his hands to keep germs away, she could not guarantee that he wouldn't get an illness, and she would not have been able to treat him, especially given how reluctant Old Nick was to get medicine during the "great escape." Ma could not have known that all of these bad things would not happen to Jack, so she was risking a lot when she decided that she wanted a child.

Although many of the things that could have gone wrong with Ma's raising of Jack did not happen, we do not know if or how severe the problems with Jack are. First of all, Jack was obviously not getting enough nutrition, as seen by his small size. This is not surprising given how little food we see Jack and Ma eating in Room, and also the low quality of the food. Jack also has many problems with spacial perception, and although the doctors seemed to think he would get better at judging long distances, there is no way to know for sure. Finally, Ma was obviously not planning for the distant future when she had Jack, because it would have been extremally hard, if not impossible, for Ma to keep Jack satisfied in the room for more than a couple years after he had turned 5, and after that some sort of confrontation between Old Nick and Jack would have occurred. Overall, although I understand that Jack saved Ma by giving her a purpose in life, I also think that she perhaps should have thought through the consequences of having a child, even though in the novel she got lucky and nothing terrible happened to Jack.

Old Nick's relationship with Jack

Throughout the first two sections in the book, we have seen a couple of very important interactions between Old Nick and Jack, and I think that there "relationship" is a very complex and intricate one. First off, we do hear Old Nick refer to Jack as coming from Old Nick, so we can conclude that Old Nick is Jack's father. But from there the relationship gets a lot more complicated. First off, as far as we can tell Old Nick has never interacted with Jack before the beginning of this novel, which seems to imply that Old Nick does not have any emotional attachment to Jack. However, when Old Nick finds about about Jack's birthday, he brings Jack a toy car (which was probably not cheap, especially considering that Old Nick had been recently laid off). This toy car can be seen as a sord of bribery to make Jack like Old Nick more, but it also can be seen as some sort of fatherly duty. We also know that Old Nick buys "Sunday Treats" for Jack and also has never hurt him in the 5 years since Jack was born. We don't have enough facts to conclude whether or not Old Nick has any affection for Jack, or if his motives behind his seemingly kind gestures are solely for nefarious purposes.

Jack's view of Old Nick is even more complicated, as Jack doesn't have a category to put Old Nick in, since Jack doesn't realize that other humans exist besides Ma and himself. Jack tries to connect Old Nick to a god like figure, when he asks Ma why they thank God instead of Old Nick, when Old Nick is the one who brings them food and stuff. But later, after Old Nick hurts Ma, Jack seems to truly hate Old Nick, and threatens to "hurt" Old Nick if Old Nick ever tries to hurt Ma again. Jacks opinions throughout the first chapter and into the second one seem to be mixed about Old Nick, but by the time Ma and Jack begin discussing escaping, Jack seems to utterly hate and fear Old Nick, and there is nothing left of the perhaps awe or thankfulness Jack had for the Sunday treats or the toy car.

I suspect that as Jack begins to figure out how evil Old Nick is, Jack will begin to hate him even more, but at least for the first two chapters, Jack's view of Old Nick seems to be going up and down, and Jack's lack of understanding of concepts of what we consider the real world does not help him when he is trying to figure out how to view Old Nick. I'll be interested to see how this relationship evolves in the rest of the book, as Jack begins to realize that Old Nick is truly a despicable person.

Problems with The Memory of Running

After reading The Memory of Running, I realized that I have a couple problems with the stories realistic nature, and so I thought I would write about these problems as my final post on The Memory of Running. In my previous post, I wrote about how surprised I was by the complete lack of training or skill either of Bethany's psychologists had, and how I was not sure if it was really realistic that the psychologists would let Bethany live a normal life when she was obviously capable of terrible things such as murdering Count's dog, but there were a couple other problems I also had with the novel.

One of my biggest problems with the first half of the novel was how Smithy so easily adjusted to biking 10 hours a day, living off bananas, and not smoking or drinking. For someone who was as dependant on alcohol and nicotine as Smithy was, it seems very unrealistic that he would be able to go cold turkey and still be able to function normally, which Smithy seems to do. Smithy rarely if ever mentions any desire to drink or smoke after he leaves, which seems like a giant change for someone who was physically and emotionally addicted to these drugs. Smithy also seems to be able to ignore his lack of physical fitness, and although he complains about being in some physical pain towards the beginning of his journey, he doesn't seem to really be experiencing as much pain as I would expect a middle age man who weighed almost 300 pounds to feel when he was riding a tiny bike for 10 hours a day. The fact that Smithy was able to keep going despite his lack of physical prowess, is even more impressive given the injuries he sustained at the beginning of the journey, yet he still is able to bike and not need to eat much, which again strikes me as a little far fetched.

The other scene in the novel that really strikes me as unrealistic is when the girl biker tried to sleep with Smithy, but Smithy turned her down. Although this is a heroic refusal by Smithy, especially given his weird views of women that aren't Bethany or Norma, it also seems a little unrealistic that this random women would try to sleep with Smithy. First of all, he hadn't had a real shower for weeks, so there is no way that he smelled at all pleasant, even with the rare "sink baths." Also, after losing 50+ pounds, Smithy would have a large amount of baggy skin, which, combined with his unshaven hair/beard, wouldn't make him very physically attractive either. It could be she was attracted to his intellectual/emotional side, but he doesn't come off as having much of a personality in any of the scenes where she sees him. This combination makes Smithy seem like a very surprising choice for the women to sleep with. All of these facts that seem far-fetched made the novel less realistic for me, but still entertaining.

A Review of Bethany's Psychologists

In The Memory of Running, the most disturbing scene in the entire book to me was when Smithy found Count's dog in the freezer after Bethany had presumably stuffed it there. This, more than anything else Bethany had done, reinforced the fact that she is truly mentally unstable, and that she needs serious attention. Her high school prom scene, although also disturbing, can be seen as almost justified given how she was being treated, and thus this scene wasn't quite as disturbing to me. However, the dog had done nothing more than walk across her presents, which definitely doesn't seem like an offense worth killing over, yet Bethany did just that. Although it may be argued that the voice was what killed the dog, and not Bethany, I think that this just points to how intertwined Bethany and the voice have become and how difficult they are to distinguish.

This scene with Bethany also got me thinking on how unrealistically incompetent her psychologists are. The first "golfer" psychologist didn't even believe that Bethany had a serious problem and took an overall flippant attitude towards treating her. He did not seem to be trying to make her better and didn't seem to be treating her or preventing her from harming herself or others. Dr. Glass is almost as bad, as she completely misjudges Bethany, believing the outlandish lies that Bethany tells. Dr. Glass also seems completely at a loss when Bethany's voice truly comes back, which surprised me, since isn't she supposed to be a trained psychologist ?Glass's incompetence is evident in her lack of knowledge of her patient and her seemingly inability to do anything once Bethany froze up.

Glass's biggest failure though was when Smithy called her concerned about the dog, and she tells Smithy that he is crazy for thinking that, because Bethany is harmless and would never hurt another creature. She then, rather obnoxiously, tells Smithy to never call her again. I thought she might feel a little bad for what she incorrectly accused him of earlier in the novel, but she didn't show any signs of remorse in this scene. Plus, Glass was absolutely wrong, because Bethany did murder the dog, so Bethany obviously is capable of that level of violence. Overall, this left me with very little respect for the psychologists that treated Bethany, because Bethany is obviously capable of harming others and herself despite what these psychologists say. The lack of skill in her psychologists also seems a little unrealistic to me, given that it was the late 20th century, and they should have been better educated and equipped to deal with cases such as Bethany.

The New Mrs. Bundren

When we talked about the new Mrs. Bundren, the class was almost unanimously against Anse for picking up a new wife so soon. However, after considering it some more, I have come to the decision that Anse's decision is actually not that unreasonable, given his specific circumstances, and it actually does not disrespect Addie's memory as much as people think it does.

First off, we know that Anse rarely visits the town, and as far as we know, there are no women that live close to Anse that he could potentially marry. It also sounded like Anse needed a woman around the house to do stuff like "cut his hair" and take care of the house, especially with Darl gone and Cash injured. Without a new wife, it is unclear whether Anse's house and farm would even be able to function, especially with Anse's dislike of any real work. Thus, it makes perfect sense for Anse to find a new wife in town, especially if the women likes him back, which we can only assume that the new Mrs. Bundren does.

I also do not see the new wife as dishonoring Addie, mostly because the entire journey was Addie's way of spiting Anse. Addie never really loved Anse, and in fact she hated him for most of their marriage, and her telling Anse to do the journey was her way at getting back at him. Yet Anse still went through with the journey to complete Addie's last wish, so that Anse could be done with Addie. Once the task was completed, it makes sense that he would look for another woman, preferably one that liked him at least a little as a person. So in the end, Anse's choice of a new wife makes perfect sense, and is only slightly offensive to Addie's memory, given that Addie hated Anse to begin with.

Cash

Now that we have finished As I Lay Dying, there is little doubt in my mind that the only character who is heroic in any fashion is Cash. First of all, Cash seems to be the most intelligent of the characters, and is also hard-working and dedicated, traits often associated with heroes. Cash shows immense bravery in his continuing with the "heroic journey" after the crossing of the river broke his leg. Cash continues to say that he is okay, and refuses to let his pain or suffering delay their journey. This bravery and dedication eventually leads to Cash losing his leg, which can be seen as his sacrifice for the journey. Cash will most likely be unable to continue working as a carpenter without the full use of one of his legs, yet he still braves through it, like a true hero.

Cash is also the only one in the novel who seems to have an arc as a character from the beginning to the end. At the beginning, he is solely focused on his work of the coffin, which is a show of extreme dedication towards his mother. His chapters at the beginning of the novel are short and abrupt, even ending with a partial sentence, because Cash is so focused on working that he doesn't have time to help narrate the story. However, by the end of the novel, Cash is the most reliable narrative, providing the reader with mostly clear and coherent narration. This is in contrast to Darl, who starts out as a reflective narrator who we rely on throughout the beginning and middle of the book, but ends up going "crazy," and his last chapter makes very little, if any, sense.

Overall, Cash's bravery, stoicism, and overall tenacity of achieving his goals makes him the hero of the novel. Cash even ends up getting what he wanted when he first started the journey into town, which was a gramophone. This gramophone is provided to Cash by the new Mrs. Bundren. This can be seen as Cash's award for being a hero throughout the book and bearing the pain of his leg throughout a large portion of the journey, and bearing the inability to walk the rest of his life.

O Brother, Where Art Thou?

O Brother, Where Art Thou? has a relatively different plot than The Odyssey, but at the same time there are many characters who are direct parallels of characters from The Odyssey. However, there are also a group of characters that have more ambiguous parallels between the movie and the book.

The most obvious parallel is betwen Big Dan, who wears an eye patch, and the cyclops Polyphemus. The parallel is seen in the way that Big Dan robs Everett and the way that Big Dan almost loses his eye to a flag, only to be later crushed by a burning cross. Another obvious character parallel is the sirens in the movie, who obviously represent the sirens from the book who lure people in with there singing, but also can be seen to represent Circe in the way that they "turn" Pete into a toad, because in the poem, Circe turns Odysseus's crew members into pigs.

The themes from the poem can also be seen translated into the movie. For instance, Odysseus's greatest flaw in the book is his excessive pride, and in the case of Poseidon and the cyclops, his pride is what caused Poseidon's animosity towards him. In the movie, Everett also has excessive pride in his hair, with his special hair product that actually end up helping the police officer that is chasing them. In both the book and the movie, the excessive pride hurts the main character. The other most obvious plot parallel is between the suitors in the poem and the man who is trying to marry Everett's wife. In both stories, Everett/Odysseus is traveling home to prevent a marriage to a "suitor," and Everett's daughters even call Vernon a suitor multiple times in the movie. The final plot similarity is the emphasis on deception throughout The Odyssey by both Athena and Odysseus, and the large use of deception in the movie. Everett's entire escape is based upon the elaborate deception that he told his prison inmates about having buried treasure, and Everett was also originally arrested for posing as something he wasn't, which is another form of deception. All of these examples show that there exists many character and plot similarities between the two stories, some more obvious than others.

Athena: Guide or Puppetmaster

I think that, as we near the end of the Odyssey, there is little doubt that Athena plays an enormous role in the adventures of both Odysseus and Telemachus. She both directly tells them what to do as well as orchestrates the events that transpire around them. However, a question that is not completely clear is what role Athena actually plays in the story. The entire adventure since Odysseus was released has basically been for Athena's pleasure, for some unknown reason (possibly to spite Poseidon or just for the entertainment of it all). The underlying questions is whether or not Athena been controlling both Telemachus and Odysseus every step of the way. For that matter, do Telemachus and Odysseus really have any choice of courses of action, or does Athena always push them in the direction that she wants, so that she can get the blood bath she is looking for.

The argument can be made for both sides, because at different parts in the book, Athena is seen just guiding the two heroes and directly interfering to the extent that it almost seems like she is in complete control of everything that happens. As a goddess, she has the power to change people's appearances, appear as anyone she wants, and make people do things they wouldn't normally do. Athena takes on the appearance of a variety of people to influence events, like when she calls the Phaeacians to come see Odysseus or when she appears as Telemachus to gather his crew for his ship. Athena also makes a couple of characters, especially Odysseus and Telemachus, glow with a special light that makes them more awe-inspiring. Finally, Athena is seen changing other people in the way she gives strength to various characters throughout the story to inspire them to action, including Penelope, Nausicaa, and Telemachus. Athena also makes the suitors insult the begger Odysseus even when, under normal circumstances, they may not have gone as far as they did. Everything Athena did was to get to her final goal of a bloodbath of the suitors.

These examples point to Athena being a puppetmaster controlling the entire story, leading up to the eventual slaughter of the suitors. However, there are examples that point towards Athena being more of a guide/teacher, as seen by her teaching Telemachus how to interact with other kings on his own. Athena is also seen advising Odysseus and Telemachus in a less direct way, allowing them to formulate their own plans and ideas. Either way, Athena is an extremely influential character throughout the story who controls much of the events that occur.

Telemachus: A Privileged Hero

We have spent a lot of time earlier in the year talking about whether or not Telemachus is a hero in the first four chapters of the book, and the more I think about it, the more it seemed to me that Telemachus is less of a hero and more of a privileged person who steps up to the challenge and uses the gifts of his rank and luck. Before Athena shows up, Telemachus is just sulking, without even trying to improve is situation with the multitude of suitors staying with him. Then, it literally takes a god's insistence to motivate him to act, and when he does he acts in a rather ambiguous way, stumbling through his dismissal of the arrogant suitors. The result of this is that the suitors do not even follow his order to leave, and continue to stay in his land and eat his food and eventually even plot to kill Telemachus. Eventually, Telemachus does use his privilege of royalty to order the suitors around, but this privilege of royalty was inherited and not necessarily earned.

When Telemachus does finally journey to find Odysseus, Athena helps him gather his crew and tells him where to go, leaving Telemachus as just a figurehead to the journey. During his visits to the kings Nestor and Menelaus, Athena guides him on every detail, even becoming Telemachus at one point. Athena also makes him seem more handsome and "glow" in a godly fashion so that these other kings would respect him. Although Telemachus uses Athena's gifts to his advantage, he does not do anything that strikes me as particularly heroic. The other kings respect him for his ability to talk in a kingly fashion, his kingly manners, and his resemblance to Odysseus. None of these are characteristics that necessarily make him a hero. In fact, all three are traits that he either inherited by blood or part of his royal upbringing, but again, he does use these gifts to his own benefit, which could be considered heroic in some way.

Perhaps as the novel progresses, Telemachus will perform some heroic deed or fulfill a quest that will make him actually a "hero," but at this point, Telemachus just seems like a spoiled prince without much backbone or originality that is guided by the gods, his wealth, and his prestige. From what we have heard of Odysseus so far, Odysseus seems to have more of the characteristics of a hero than Telemachus, and Odysseus seems to have more personality and willingness to take action. Although Odysseus has been aided by the gods, he has acted without the gods, and does not completely rely upon their aid, unlike Telemachus.

Epic Fantasy

Since I was very young and first started to read, I have greatly enjoyed reading books from the genre of epic fantasy. The epic fantasy genre is loosely defined as fictional novels set in a medieval setting that lacks modern technology. The most defining characteristic of the epic fantasy genre is that the author must build a unique world and universe, and this allows for great creativity and originality on the part of the author. In the past decade, I have read hundreds of fantasy books, from common authors like J.R.R. Tolkein to books that few people have ever heard of or read. The epic fantasy genre is the classic example of the hero's quest. Almost every fantasy book has some form of a hero or antihero who typically must complete a quest or achieve some goal.

 In the beginning, starting with Tolkein's The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings and Ursula Le Guin's Wizard of Earthsea, fantasy books had well-defined "good" and "bad." Often, the villain that the hero was trying to defeat was the pure essence of evil. This is definitely true in The Lord of the Rings, where Sauron is not as much a single being as the embodiment of evil and greed. However, in the past decade, the fantasy genre has evolved to include more complex heroic types. The genre still includes plenty of classical hero high fantasy novels as well as many antihero novels, but many authors in the genre have turned to a darker, more foreboding type of fantasy. In these books, there does not exist a definitive hero, but instead each character is somewhere in between good and bad. Each character is often doing what he or she believes is "good," and some novels even have main characters fighting against each other, leaving the reader to decide who is "good" and who is "bad."

Because epic fantasy novels are set in a world that is different than our own, I have always felt a certain level of detachment towards the heroes in these stories, and this has partially translated over to how I regard heroes in our society. When I think of heroes, I think of Legolas and Samwise Gamgee, characters who literally saved a world by their actions. In contrast, I view people who do great things in our world as great people, but I am hesitant to apply the word "hero" too hastily.