The Importance of Being Earnest, Bliss, and The Mark on the Wall

The reading that I enjoyed the most this week was The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde. Even though it was quite long I found it interesting and funny at some points. For example when Cecily and Gwendolyn are insulting each other, and in a way they are insulting each other by using where they are from. I also found it quite funny when the consequences of Jack’s and Algernon’s bunburying took place, but I was happy that in the end everything worked out for them. Even though they had to go through Aunt Augusta who was big on marrying within money or nobility, but Jack ended up being a part of the higher class so he was accepted anyway.  I honestly do not think that a certain name makes someone a better person though, but I guess those were just how some of the British viewed things during that time. Two things that I found somewhat creepy were that Cecily wrote “Ernest’s” letters to herself and got sad over what she wrote and Jack still wanted to marry Gwendolen even though they were cousins.

Another story that I found interesting was Bliss by Katherine Mansfield. The one thing that I found the most interesting about this story was how Bertha ignored the fact that her husband was having an affair with Miss Fulton. Even though her life was good besides the fact that her husband did not love her and made plans with another women. Do you think that staying with her husband is really worth it so the rest of her life will remain good?  I think that the theme ignorance was bliss, really fits in with the story and how Bertha feels about her life.

I also found The Mark on the Wall by Virginia Woolf to be quite interesting due to its stream of consciousness style. I liked the way Woolf thought of an idea which somehow related to another topic that she started talking about.  I found it creative that she used the idea of a mark on the wall to show how imaginative and in-depth a person’s thoughts could be, especially a woman’s.  One thing that I wondered was if it really is that simple to look at a dark spot on the wall and imagine all of the things that it could be? But, I guess Woolf was just trying to get her point across about women writers.

An Outpost of Progress

            I thought “An Outpost of Progress” was not very interesting and I did not like it very much, but I noticed it brought up some issues that the British believed in during that time. Such as the idea of degeneration, since Carlier and Kayert ended up acting like savages towards the end of the story. I found it odd that they ended up acting like animals over something as trivial as sugar. Then, when Kayert shoots Carlier he tries to make up excuses and convince himself that Carlier’s death was not a big deal.  He said that thousands of men die every day and one dead person would not make a difference, and he also said that Carlier was a “noxious” beast, so he should have died. When Kayert was thinking this it reminded me of Porphyria’s Lover by Browning, since her lover tried to convince himself that he did the right thing and made up excuses. Although,  Kayert eventually became very upset the next morning and hung himself on the last chief’s cross hoping to be forgiven. In a way I kind of felt bad for Carlier and Kayert, since they were in a different country away from family and friends and they basically only had themselves to rely on.Towards the end I found it kind of odd that they started acting the way that they did but I guess it might be a "reasonable" way to act for a person that has been stranded all by themselves on an island for months without much food or supplies.

I really do not think anyone in this story is all that great of a person, because they only seem to care about themselves. For instance, Makola devised a plan to trade the company men and some of the Gobila men for ivory tusk without anyone knowing what he had done until the morning. Even though slavery was abolished in 1833 some people are still considered less valuable then an elephants tusk or of equal value in this case.  

Even though Kayert and Carlier were once upset about the trade because in their minds that shouldn’t have happened, a few months later when the Gobila take a hippo that they killed, Carlier thought that all of the natives should be killed before that land is habitable. Even though they had a reason to be angry with the Gobila and the Gobila had a reason to be angry with them, because they probably lost some of their men to the slave trade and one of them was also shot. Iwould think that such a situation would make it hard for either of them to trust each other again. 

Why do you think the character’s were so quick to make up excuses for what happened throughout the story?

Do you think that the point in the story where the character's realize they can't trust anyone in the story is after the tradesmen take the men?

Shooting an Elephant

I found the story of “Shooting an Elephant” by Orwell to be quite interesting. What interested me was how the character in the story opposed the British ideas and did not like what he was doing, and how he felt bad about the people in Burma and how they were being treated. But he still kept his job since he was getting paid and he had to enforce the idea of imperialism.

Once we talked about the story in class today it really made a lot of sense to me, since it was about an issue that was happening during that time. Maintaining image was one of the important aspects of the story, because the officer did not want to shoot the elephant but he had to in order to not look like a fool to the Burmese and to maintain imperialism.  

I would have never thought of the elephant as a metaphor for Imperialism but what happened to the elephant really seemed to relate to imperialism. I think that an elephant was a good way to express imperialism, because the story described the elephant as a big strong creature that was tough to take down and would not die that easily or quickly.  

I also had no clue that the Burmese people or any other people during that time under European control would be the actual people who hold all of the power. I could not imagine feeling so powerless when officers are supposedly the people who do have the power. It really seemed like it was a lonely job to have, since there were a lot more of the Burmese than European officers and the European officers had to do what the Burmese wanted unless they did not want to have anyone on their side.     

At one point Orwell says that doing what people want or expect of him is like wearing a mask and his face grows to fit it. In a way I found this statement a bit odd, because I would think that it would be the other way around but in this case it makes a lot of sense. Because, Orwell had to change himself in order suit what the Burmese people wanted him to do.

Discussion Questions:   

Do you think that the Burmese would have ever noticed how awful the enforcer’s felt about the whole situation?

Even though Imperialism gave certain advantages to the places that were taken over, protection and resources, does that overpower the bad things about imperialism?

Dr. Jekyall and Mr. Hyde

I found it interesting that Dr. Jekyall was also Mr. Hyde, and he created Hyde in order to get rid of the evil inside of him. Too bad Dr. Jekyall’s experiment somewhat backfired on him and he eventually died in the end. However, I think it was his own fault in the first place, since he experimented on himself and there was not a guarantee that the separation of the evil in him would transform into another person. Even though there were advancements in medicine and science at that time separating one person into two people sounds more like magic to me, but I guess the British had no clue what science was capable of at that time. I believe that the British might have thought that separating yourself into two people was a good idea because they were eager to get rid of the bad people and people who they thought were lower than them.

Again, this story made me dislike the British of that time even more, even though the opinions of the British were not expressly stated, they are evident throughout the story. This is shown in the beginning because Hyde is described as being pale and dwarfish, and also giving the impression of deformity. Also, at one point Mr. Enfield said that there was something detestable about him. Hyde shows that the people in Britain at that time thought of evil as ugly and deformed.

Even though Mr. Utterson is telling the story, he is only a spectator to what is really happening. This really gives the story an unbiased point of view because he does not exactly know what is happening but he gathers information to piece together the mystery of Dr. Jekyall. I found the use of written documents very useful in this story because it shows the proof that the readers or the characters might not believe in what is happening if the story was told by Jekyall or Mr. Hyde. It makes a lot of since that Mr. Utterson is a lawyer since he is gathering all of the facts and presenting them in the story like a case.

Discussion Questions:

If the story was told by alternating the perspectives of Jekyall and Hyde would it have been as believable as Mr. Utterson’s point of view?

 Do you think that Jekyall really needed to use himself as a test subject to see if the experiment was truly a success or should/could he have used some type of animal test subject first?   

A Walk in the Workhouse

I found “A Walk in the Workhouse” by Dickens to be quite interesting. I was not really sure what I workhouse was at first, but after reading it I have a better understanding of what it is and what took place there. I found it quite sad that the workers were not treated very highly just because they were poor. I was also shocked to find out that being put in jail was better than actually staying at a workhouse since prisoners had more opportunities. I found it sad that people were actually treated this way, in not only workhouses but in many other similar situations, like slavery. Although, I believe slavery was worse, I think both groups of people were definitely treated badly and looked down upon by many.      

I think that the two upper class men really show how much people really cared for the poor.  Even though the paupers expressed how little food they got and how badly they were treated, the two upper class men really did not seem to care. I have noticed that the people during this time and lower only seemed to care about themselves, particularly the rich. The rich also seemed as though they were better than everyone else. Even though they are humans like everyone else and only have more money and/or land than many others.    

I thought that Dickens really painted a good picture of how the workhouse workers were treated, and also how regular poor people could be treated too. One instance of when I noticed it was when the old men were trying to figure who died in a bed last and they couldn’t remember. It really shows how little a person’s life was valued at a workhouse. I was also annoyed to find out that the working conditions and the environment were only good enough to the point that the product would not receive any contamination. I would never want to work in such a place or even walk through there; I can’t imagine how awful it must have been living like that, especially when no one really cares about you.

Discussion Questions:

Would the story have been less affective if the men that walked through the workhouse happened to be in the middle or a lower class?

Do you think Dickens hoped to accomplish getting rid of workhouses or did he just want to inform people of what was happening there by writing this story and similar ones?

Goblin Market

I liked the “Goblin Market”, I thought it was an easy read and was easy to understand for the most part. I understood the biblical sense of the story, about how it deals with temptation and disobedience, like in the story of Adam and Eve. I honestly did not pick up on the other way the story could be interpreted, but it makes a lot of sense and I now fully understand the story. I understand now how the kernel-stone Laura saved did not grow from her tears since she was now impure like Jeanie and how only Lizzie could hear the goblin’s cries since she was not tainted by them like Laura was.

What I liked the most about the poem was that Lizzie was willing to do anything for her sister in order for Laura to get back to normal. It really shows how good of a person and a sister Lizzie is since she was willing to sacrifice herself in order to redeem her sister.

The one thing that I thought was weird at first was why the goblins looked like different animals. I always pictured goblins as little green creatures with big pointy noses and ears, but I guess their forbidden fruits would not have gotten sold as much if they looked like evil ugly green creatures even though they really were, but looked like little animals in disguise. Anyway, I wasn’t surprised that this poem was read by children during that time since it makes a lot of good points that the children could easily pick up on. Such as, don’t be disobedient or there will be consequences and always help out your family members. I also thought that it was odd that Laura would kiss the fruit juices off of Lizzie because she was so obsessed with the forbidden fruit. Although, I was glad that Laura learned her lesson and realized what she did was wrong. I also noticed that this poem shows the values of the Victorians during that time, since it is saying that if women give into temptation they will be ostracized and looked down on. 

 Discussion Questions:

Why do you think Rosetti chose to combine two meanings or ways that the poem could be interpreted?

If the poem was never intended to be read by children do you think the goblin men would still be pictured as little animals or mean little creatures?

Porphyria's Lover

I found Robert Browning’s poems to be quite interesting except for “Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came”. I found the first two difficult to understand at first, but now I realize that they were about power, gender, and class struggles between the main character and a female character in the poems. What I found the most interesting about “Porphyria’s Lover” and “The Last Duchess” was that the main characters were somewhat crazy and possessive which is unlike any of the other poems that we have read so far. Even though in that time the Victorians became more interested in psychology, I wonder if there were many men that were power crazy and would have gone to such extreme lengths to retain their dignity and power. It makes me think that there were since women did not have many rights at that time and their husbands had all of the power, and also Europe was known for colonizing and taking over many other countries.

Even though her lover saw that she really loved him, I do not understand why he did not just ask her if he could act like he had all of the power sometimes when they were together. Or maybe he was just too power hungry to except that and did not want to stop at anything as long as she was below him in status and power. In a way Porpyria’s lover reminded me of Manfred in “The Castle of Otranto”, since he was the most concerned about maintaining power and control in his castle and everyone in it. Although, Manfred was not as crazy since he still had a reputation to uphold so he could not do anything too rash.

I also found it interesting that the poem took on a different tone once he decided that he wants to kill her in order to preserve her goodness and pureness. But, what I don’t understand is that she will eventually decompose soon, so I wonder what he would do then. Even though the two poems were about crazy men, I liked how Browning seemed to include a meaning to the two poems that could have related to what was happening in that period at that time.

Discussion Questions:

Once Porphyria’s body decomposes do you think that her lover would find another upper class woman to love and kill her also so he would have all the power again?

If Porphyria had not been an upper class woman do you think he would have still killed her to have absolute control over her?