Humanities Lit Blog

Invisible Man

2005-04-18T10:04:00.000-07:00

I think that everyone is invisible in their own way. Whether it be you are in love with someone that does not notice you, or your family doesnt pay attention or care about you, or if scociety as a whole neglects you. Everyone is invisible.
I couldnt help but feel that it was inevitable for the IM to fail in the long run. No matter what he did, going to college, working at the paint factory, joining the brotherhood; it all blew up in his face. It was his destiny to realize that he was Invisible and deal with it. He had to get past it and just live life, stop worrying about what everyone thinks or if noone notices him. I really found it ironic that Mr. Norton did not even recognize him in the subway after he had been kicked out of school for spending the day showing Mr. Norton around.
Overall i enjoyed this book. I really liked the IM's speeches, those were his times to shine. He got his 15 minutes of fame so he should be happy. He was not invisible his whole life. He had purpose at first in the Brotherhood. But it was inevitable for him to find himself in a dark hole...all alone...invisible to the world.

The house Of Spirits 6,7,8

2005-03-28T11:43:00.000-08:00

Now i really dont like Estaben as the book goes on my annoyance and dislike for this character keeps growing. Beating your daughter and wife in any matter is just wrong i dont care what time you live in or what the circumstances, this man is a coward and i think he is going to get what he deserves. i know his illegitamate love child Estaben garcia wants him dead and after Trueba denies him the reward that is rightfully his Garcia has all the motivation he needs to carry out the act. The count is kind of an interesting character but he is a greedy man who is only out for personal gain in every aspect which i dont like. i hope that Blanca and Pedro meet up together since they are truly in love and have been all of their lives.
I enjoy how Nickolas is so different from the other members of the family. How he "searches for his destiny" by smoking hashish and doing other unusual activities. But i think smoking hashish is not such a horrible way to go. Drugs can be a very good way of finding yourself and being more comfortible with who you are. I had really hoped Blanca would not get married to the Count but for rite now that will have to suffice, i think later on she will some how end up with Pedro who i know has gotta to be looking for her. I really enjoy how No body like Estaben i great great enjoyment out of it. Especially from the sons since Estaben has never been a father to them im glad they defy him as if he is not there father becuase that is what he deserves. I see some wierd tension growing between Nick and Jamie do to the fact that Jamie likes Amanda and i think Amanda is falling for Jamie becuase she realizes nickolas is not the one for her. I relaly didnt think they had abortions back then but apparently i was wrong
OK the count is a wierd and dangerous man. I know he hasnt done anything all that dangerous but being involved with coke and other drugs along with his wierd preference for naked indian men, that combination can only equal bad things and im glad Blanca decides she she should get the hell out of there

House Of The Spirits 3,4,5

2005-03-28T11:18:00.000-08:00

I think Clara's family did the right thing in not trying to force her to talk, they knew that if she wanted to talk she would and could do nothing but wait until she felt she was ready. I really found it odd that Estaban would consider marrying Clara since he was so in love with her sister, but i guess maybe he was gona take what ever he could get. The book says that Clara did not marry for love but becuase she has seen some of her own destiny and knows that marrying Estaben is what she is supposed to do. That makes me wonder what she had seen to know she should do such a thing.
At this point it would not surprise me if Clara and Estaben break up...it also would not surprised me if clara knows of Estaben's cheating affair. Clara really seems to be spending too much time with her spiritual friends and i think she should be spending more time with her children, and i think she sent the twins to bording school so that she could devote more time to her spiritual frineds. Blanca on the other hand seems to be loved greatly by her mother and is haveing the time of her life being inlove with Pedro. I had thought that clara would be in much more pain knowing of her parents horrible death, but she went to retrieve her mothers head in what i think to be an act of letting her rest in peace. I kinda relate that to Antigone when she goes to bury her brother who does not get the proper burial that he deserves. Her mother can not properly rest with out her head.
I figured that Clara would grow sick of Estaben, for 1 he is an asshole and 2 after the discovery of his sisters death his attitude totally changes and he becomes an angry bitter man because he blames him self at first then soon after turns the blame right back at his sister. I feel bad that Blanca and Pedro's relationship is becoming so hard, its not easy when you want to be close to someone and you are not allowed. its hard being secretive and sneeking around hiding your love for another. I kinda wish Estaben would have just died in the earthquake, just get him out of the story all together and make everyone happy.

Cortez

2005-02-27T13:04:00.000-08:00

I found the Legend of cortez to be pretty amuzing. I totally picture this to be a story that every mexican child hears growing up. It is like there equivalent to Paul Bunion. I know that the exagerated tale isnt true but i think think they make cortez sound like this amazing action hero. He rides hundreds of miles being chased by hundreds of policeman and rangers and when he is confronted he kills them. He kicks ass and he is unstopable...i love it. Though in the real story he only kills two men, but that is enough. This cortez seems like a great guy that just had a VERY bad day that changed his life.

Blood Wedding

2005-02-11T12:18:00.000-08:00

Over all I thought this was a descent play. There were a few things that i could deal with out like the pointless singing and the random characters at the end like the beggar women and the two girls, but all in all it wasnt bad.
It really seemed to me that all the characters in the play were being controlled. They all had their destiny planned out from the day they were born, just because of the blood line they were from. There are three specific examples i am thinking of with this: Leo, Bridegroom, and Bride. The bride's mother had been known to not love her husband and leave with another man that she had loved, and like mother like daughter the bride did the same thing by leaving with Leo at her wedding. The bridegroom's father and brother had each been killed by a member of the Felix family, and that came to be his fate as well as he fought Leo to the death and was killed. i beleive it was also Leo's fate to kill the last of the men in the bridegroom's family, and with him dieing as well it ends the fued b/w the two families. Some ppl might think these occurences as coincidence but i do not...i see it as fate. Some things are just destined to happen and you have no control over it. This also reminds me of the Matrix..where the Oracle says "you can never see past the choices that you do not understand"..you dont know why things happen how they happen until they have already happend. Everyone is given choices through out their daily lives and it is up to them how they explore those choices.

The Awakening

2005-01-31T13:52:00.000-08:00

My overall feelings for this book were good, i enjoyed it and i thought it had a good story. I was dissapointed in the ending mainly becuase i just dont think her commiting suicide was the right thing to be done. She could have done a number of other things like try to convince Robert to run away with her. Or just run away her self to a new world where she could start anew and find happiness.
i thought for sure that Robert and Edna were going to get together mainly at the time right before Edna had to go visit Mrs. Ratignolle. If she wouldnt have went to see her, Robert would have been over taken by his love and could never have left.
I cant help but relate this book to the movie the Matrix. Becuase Edna had woken her mind up to realize the world in a different light. She started to strive for her happiness and her own individuality. Like in the Matrix where the world u were living in was just a prison for your mind so you could not see what was really going on. Edna had woken up from her un loving relationship with her husband and had found a new love, but it was a love that she was not allowed to have. In that time it would have caused so much trama. Her and her husbands images would be ruined by this affair.
I like how things are now adays compared to back when this book takes place. I think its ridiculous for people to be looked down upon or not be allowed to express who they really are. There was probably countless women who were in the same situation as Edna...living in a never ending constantly the same prison of a loveless marriage, and they could do nothing about it. They were too afraid to say anything. I give Edna a lot of credit she was a very brave women to act as she did and to follow her feelings.

the yellow wall paper

2005-01-24T10:23:00.000-08:00

I really didnt like this story all that much. I found it kind of hard to follow and rather un interesting, but im gona write something about it anyway. even though I found it boring there are two things that i kept thinking of while reading it that directly relate to this story. One being a song from one of my favorite bands "Shinedown". The song is called 'stranger inside'. the two lines that stick out to me are 'cuz im sick and tired of u'll be fine, well how do you know can u read minds?' that totally relates to the girl in this story how she KNOWS there is something wrong with her, but her physician husband doesnt beleive her and thinks its all in her head and that she will be just fine. Back in that time though i beleive that mental illness just was not a very comin thing, mainly due to the lack of information on them and the lack of ease to diagnose such an illness. The other thing that this story made me think of was a sad personal moment that i had last semester with a close freind. One of my pledge brothers dropped out of school temporarily (and is still gone) because he was suffereing from depresssion. I even hung out with him almost everyday and i could never have known tat there was something wrong. he seemed like a happy person to me, but that is the trick with sicknesses its hard to tell what is wrong unless they let ppl know.

Frederick Douglass

2005-01-19T13:35:00.000-08:00

I have always been against the thought of slavery. The mere thought that people can actually be so cruel as to enslave someone as if they are superior disgusts me. Douglass's story only fuels my hatred for racism and all of its effects. I greatly enjoyed the two passages from Douglass's book that we had to read in class. He was an amazing man and i beleive he had more spirit inside of him than any other slave. He gave me much inspiration in how he never gave up and persisted on when he had goals that he strived to meet. I also beleive that he really is one of the most intelligent of all the slaves around the country to basically taught himself how to read and write and to become remarkably good at it. I have to admit that he is much better than me and i have been in school for 14 years of my life. Douglass really grabbed a hold of me during these readings and just kept feeding me what i wanted to hear, i couldnt put it down. Douglass is a great writer and he has given me a much better understanding of what slaves had gone through and further proof of how unjust slavery was and how bad racism is.