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!

Early Insane Asylums!

          As you all may know, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest take place in an insane ward/asylum. This got my brain thinking; if this is what was depicted in the book, what was it actually like in an asylum in these times. So what did I do? I researched it on the Internet. I thought you guy would want to know what I found out. First off I would like to point out that I was shocked that all the methods stated in the book were actually used in the mid 20^th century as treatments for the mentally ill:

Some therapies used:

EST (electroshock therapy)- is a psychiatric treatment in which seizures are electrically induced in anesthetized patients for therapeutic effect. Some effects of this treatment are, Memory loss, effects of the brain structure, effects on pregnancy etc. It is still used today but rarely.

Lobotomy – is a neurosurgical procedure, a form of psychosurgery. It consists of cutting the connections to and from the prefrontal cortex, the anterior part of the frontal lobe of the brain. Some side effects of this procedure are, convulsive seizures, distractibility, childishness, facetiousness, lack of discipline, and post-operative incontinence.

Its crazy to think the things that RPM went through in this novel were realities for some individuals in this time.

Today insane asylums no longer exist; I guess you can say we live in a lucky era. Nowadays modern medicine treats the people who have mental disabilities, therefore the mental hospitals are not much different than the everyday hospitals you see in most every town.

"The Wars" by Timothy Findley

    
    My opinion about the novel "The Wars" by Timothy Findley would be good. Out of all the novels that we currently discussed in class it was one of my favorite thus far. It was well written and it wasn't, in my opinion, the typical war novel. This novel gives the reader an alternate look into just how harsh the lifestyles of deployed troops were during this war, the things that these men had to face on a daily basis is appalling. Personally I don't think I would be able to go to war because just the idea of the unknown routine alone would cause me to over react and probably die from stress.

     This may be a bad way to put it but I do not like reading in the slightest, but this book had the power to draw me into its catchy plot and I wasn’t able to put it down after I had started. I guess it could be because of my fascination towards these types of things; just the types of things people had to face in order to get to the society we're living in today.

     It almost like the reader grew this attachment to Robert, the reader almost dreads the idea of something bad happening to this young man, just starting to experience the world really. Its really a sad thing to see his innocence stripped from him, without it being his own wish. Another thing that was hard to bare on top of all that is going on with his life was the scene when Robert was raped by his fellow soldiers, this was probably in my opinion the hardest scene of the novel. It left Robert, whom was already lost of majority of his innocence to someone having none is a sad thing.

    Overall it was a great, easy read and I would definitely recommend this to anyone with an interest in this area of history, Timothy Findley does a miraculous job getting his message across and proves that he is an amazing Canadian author!

The Wars and the Importance of the Animals

              In our CM1135 class we are currently reading and going through the novel "The Wars" by Timothy Findley. This is a fantastic piece of literature written by an amazing Canadian writer.
              This story takes place during the First World War, A young boy named Robert Ross, from Ontario experiences some dramatic times in his life. His younger sister Rowena whom he admires greatly passes away, this causes a great tole on Robert. Rowena had these rabbits that she loved to play with so when she passed away Robert wanted so badly to keep and to watch after them. However his mother Mrs. Ross had a different plan for them, she wanted Robert to kill all of them. This is an important part of the novel because it is the first part where Roberts downfall starts to happen. Robert is known for being a very nice boy, he doesn’t do anything out of the norm when it comes to being mature in everyday life; but being demanded to kill these rabbits corrupts him a little, he doesn’t like that his mom is trying to get him to do something he hold dear to his heart. The rabbits also come in through out the book, some people believe that whenever Robert see a rabbit it is Rowenas’ doing, she is there with him in the body of a rabbit.
Though out the novel there is countless examples of animal imagery. The next one after the rabbits is the coyote. Robert is out for a run and he spots a coyote and follows him. This is symbolic of how innocent Robert use to be.
               Another animal that plays a big part in this story is the horse. On the boat on the way overseas the horse breaks his leg, since Robert is the only one whom has a gun he is ordered to shoot the horse in the head. This is a hard thing for him to do being so close to animals. However he overcomes anxiety and does it. This is not something he would have been able to do at the beginning of the novel, this is also prevalent in Roberts demise.
               We meet a character named Rodwell, Robert really likes his company and finds that he reminds him a lot of Rowena. Rodwell is like Rowena in the way that he is very close to animals and would pretty much do anything to save and protect them. At the end of the novel Rodwell kills himself after being forced to witness two men killing a cat.

               Basically what I am trying to say is that this novel is swimming with animals and their symbolism. They play an important part in the telling of this story.