Research paper is done/ Course is done and my opinions.

Over the last two semesters when the research paper was handed in it symbolized that a break was soon coming! We only have four days left and it’s quite scary to think that time have gone so fast! My paper is finally done, and being the horrible writer I am (yes I’m quite negative :)) I do believe that it decent considering! I did my best and got a few people to read it over, I can only hope that my best is good enough! It’s a great feeling when you put a lot of time into something and then to see the final results, its often something to be very proud of!

My overall opinion of this course, well first let me start off by saying that English really isn't my cup of tea if you know what I’m saying. I’m more of a science guy, hence why I’m majoring in chemistry! But anyways back to the subject. I did enjoy this course, it was quite different than the CM1120 which I liked, change is sometimes good! It sometimes took a lot of effort to get through the books because its not really something that I enjoy doing, but I made it "libidos a' blazin"(corny I know). I would recommend for people to take this course because I believe it’s a great learning experience for everyone to read these novels! However I am super stoked that I am finally done this course, cause my birthday is tomorrow! And it means that I will soon be moving to St. Johns for Memorial University!

This will probably be my last post ever on this blog so I would like to thank everyone who has read any posts and id like to say for everyone to keep it real! :D

Research Paper...

I’m not much of a essay type of guy. Writing this essay therefore was a done solely for the reason it needed to be done. Then again who enjoys writing essays when they could be doing something else? The topic I chose for my research paper was the social cultural background of One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey. The only thing that I some what enjoy about research essays is the fact that I do learn something from the experience; and I learned a nice bit from the research I done! The book was Kesey's way to get his message across that he wasn't for the feminist movement after the war in the 50s. The book acted as a way to show people that if we gave equal rights to women things like what happened in the novel could very well happen in society. Nurse Ratched the head of the ward as you might have learned through my earlier posts on this book was an emasculating feminist force in charge of everything that happened in the ward including all the male patients. It showed the readers that women if given the power could use it for evil. Personally I believe in equal rights, just because we give women the right to do the same thing as men doesn’t mean that they would use their rights in vain! I just think that at this time the thought of losing the power that everyone was so accustom to would feel like being emasculated! Looking at society now it’s quite crazy to think about how much we have progressed from even 60 years ago! What do you think?

Sylvia Plath

          For my second post for this novel I thought I would do a little bit of research on the author of this novel, Sylvia Plath, and see what else I could find out about her. She was born in Boston, Massachusetts on October 27, 1932 during the Great Depression. When she was 8 her father died due to complications of an amputated foot due to mistreated diabetes. This was a hard thing on her; she didn’t follow religion following this tragedy for the rest of her life. Plath attended Smith College in 1950 and excelled academically. Later she received a full scholarship to Newnham College where she continued her writing and publishing her work in the student newspaper.

           Dr. John Horder, a close friend to Plath gave her antidepressants a few days before her death because he knew she would be alone with her two kids he checked in on her everyday. He tried to get her to go to a hospital but that didn’t work, so he tried to get a in house nurse to go live with her. The day that the nurse went to the house she couldn’t get in, once they did get in however they found her dead with carbon monoxide poisoning from the stove; she put her head in the stove and sealed of the doors and windows with wet cloth so that the gas wouldn’t get to her children, she then turned on the gas in the stove and stuck her head in until she died (that’s quite horrible!). Her writing didn’t really get noticed until after she had passed away, that is the saddest part. I just wish that she could have had a little bit more time on the earth to pursue her writing career to its fullest potential.

The Bell Jar

           Out of all the four novels that we have covered throughout this course id have to say that this novel would have to be my favorite! It is a very easy read; even people who have difficulties reading would probably enjoy this. Kerri told us during the lecture classes that many people thought that Sylvia wrote this book about her own life and that Esther is actually her. So me being the nosy one had to do a little bit of research on her. I was amazed at how much the two’s lives were alike, pretty much identical. It made me think about whom might the other characters in the novel be in real life!

          I also found myself think that if she had to actually live through all of this in her real life then no wonder she went crazy; its almost as if she was chosen to live in the wrong century. If she was living now she would probably have been accepted for who she was and she would have been able to pursue her career in writing. It’s almost sad to see amazing talent like her go down the wrong path when they had so much potential! I feel so lucky and glad that I live in the time period I do, imagine being in a time when a lot of things were socially acceptable that we do now! It would not be a fun experience I believe.

          I don’t enjoy reading but I really like it when a book has the power to draw me in and make me not be able to put it down, you know that the book is good when it does that and that is exactly how this book was! Tell me when you guys think did this book do the same to you? Was it your favorite book you read all semester?

Mrs Dalloway

        I know many people have already stated this in their blog entries on this novel but this was one of the most difficult books I’ve had to read, the very specific and descriptive writing that Virginia used to write this novel wasn't of the norm. I'm used to reading easy flowing novels, nothing close to this novel. However once you got used to this novels writing style, I found it easier to follow through. But I must say reading this novel once is enough!

  I also found it hard to grasp the story line. The book is 200+ pages and its all written on one single day, that’s insane! One of the main reasons that I didn't really enjoy this novel is because of what it was about. Not many people would be interested in a middle aged woman's egotistical life whom revolved around throwing parties and making herself look good to the rest of the British upper class. I know that wasn't the point of the novel, but still, I don't enjoy people being rude and slandering someone else because of how they're of a lower class, or how she felt she had to have everything pristine in order to receive approval from her acquaintances. Maybe this is the norm for the upper classes at the time, acting as if they were interested in everyone else’s life and pretending to be happy; but for me living today in Canada I guarantee that I don’t agree I think one should be themselves and not act in false pretenses just to get the approval of someone else… but maybe that’s just me. Leave a comment about what you think below!

                                         

                                          

        

History of Virginia Woolf

We're currently doing the class discussion on Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf, and my curiosity started to get the best of me, I was very interested in looking in to the history of Virginia so I decided I would do some research online to see what I could find out.

Virginia Stephens as she was known as before her marriage was born in London on January 25, 1882. She was the daughter of Sir Leslie Stephen whom was a famous Philosopher who, along with many other literary occupations, was at was an editor for the Dictionary of National Biography. Her mother, Julia Stephen, whom died when she was 13, was a renowned beauty born in India, and moved to England with her mother where she worked as a model for pre-Raphaelite painters such as Edward Burne-Jones.

Virginia and her sister didn’t go to a public school; they were educated at their father’s library in their home and through the meeting of some of her father’s famous literature friends Virginia soon feel in love with literature. She began writing professionally 1900 and published her first piece of literature in 1915. In 1912, eight years after her father’s death, Virginia married Leonard Woolf. The couple in 1917 founded the Hogarth Press by setting hand printing on an old press. She published many more pieces throughout the years; so many that I was too lazy to count them all!

From all the depression she was facing from World War 2 and during the London blitz she was starting to be down on life. On the 28^th of March in 1941 she put on her overcoat, filled it with rocks and jumped into the River Ouse and drowned herself… her body was not found until April 18

Tuesday.

Dearest,

I feel certain that I am going mad again. I feel we can't go through another of those terrible times. And I shan't recover this time. I begin to hear voices, and I can't concentrate. So I am doing what seems the best thing to do. You have given me the greatest possible happiness. You have been in every way all that anyone could be. I don't think two people could have been happier till this terrible disease came. I can't fight any longer. I know that I am spoiling your life, that without me you could work. And you will I know. You see I can't even write this properly. I can't read. What I want to say is I owe all the happiness of my life to you. You have been entirely patient with me and incredibly good. I want to say that - everybody knows it. If anybody could have saved me it would have been you. Everything has gone from me but the certainty of your goodness. I can't go on spoiling your life any longer.

I don't think two people could have been happier than we have been.

V.

Gender Roles

I decided to do gender roles as my second blog post for One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest because it was a HUGE theme present in the book. Nurse Ratched as you all know by now was a very powerful women in the book, she was in control of basically all the men, she decided when they do things, how they do it, and if they didn’t behave she decided what punishment should be given. The men, all of them including RPM were powerless compared to her, they fell under her order weather they’d like to believe it or not it was true.

This is a very backwards gender role if you ask me; most the time when you think gender role, for western civilization at least you think of the male being the dominant one, however this was more back then around the time of this book, now females are too becoming successful and maintaining jobs that men have. So reading this book it was a shocker to see that this wasn’t the case. I decided to research the web to find out what gender roles were like in other places around the world!

Apparently in China the women have the higher say in what happens in the household, but tend to be less successful when it comes to careers. It also says that if a woman is successful she is looked at as powerful and unapproachable.

Apparently in India, once upon a time it was much like western civilizations views on gender roles. The male were the more dominant ones but now as we progress it says that the roles are becoming more equal, and both women and men are viewed equally capable over performing tasks.

Through much research I learned that a lot of places around the world are starting to adapt the idea that women should be treated as equals, the should be given the equal opportunity to shine in society. Personally its just a weird thing to see when the woman is the one fully in charge cause I’m so used to men being in that position, but I’m not saying that this is a bad thing!