Filed under: Black Beauty
Holding Out for a Hero
There are several things that come to mind when I think of the word “gentleman.” My mom always told me it’s someone that will treat me like a princess. In the modern sense, I think of a gentleman as someone who opens the door, offers their help, and is well-mannered. In retrospect, I think of a gentleman wearing the tailed coat and top hat who is from a good family.
Jerry teaches his daughter, Dolly, that a gentleman “has got time and thought for the comfort of an old cabman and a little girl.”[2] For Jerry’s family, a gentleman is someone who is considerate towards people lower class than themselves. Black Beauty notices the man’s consideration when he patted him, saying, “but ninety-nine out of a hundred would as soon think of patting the steam engine that drew the train.”[3]
But the man raises the bar for the idea of a gentleman. Compassion and sympathy are not enough. “’If we see cruelty or wrong that we have the power to stop, and do nothing, we make ourselves sharers in the guilt.’”[4] The gentleman becomes a hero by taking an extra step to help those he sees are in pain or need. He does everything in his power to ensure the safety and quality of life for others.
“’Do you know why the world is as bad as it is?’
“‘No,’ said the other.
“’Then I’ll tell you. It is because people think only about their own business, and won’t trouble themselves to stand up for the oppressed, nor bring the wrong-doer to light.’”[6]
But is being a hero so difficult? Do we need super powers in order to help the weak?
So, how do we become heroes? Well, Students Against Cruelty to Animals is protesting the Austin Rodeo this Saturday from 5-7. If you want more information about animal abuse at rodeos, any of us who saw Earthlings can tell you about it. Other issues SACA actively protests are foie gras and the KFC distributors. If you’d like to get involved, you can contact the organization at utsaca@gmail.com.
Filed under: Black Beauty
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/Free-Lucky
“Training and Retaliation”
1:40-7:15[1]
The elephant from Earthlings reminds me of Ginger’s story. They are both mistreated and retaliate. The difference is that Ginger is saved. Every time she retaliates, she is given another chance with a different master. At last, she finds someone that cares for her. Unlike Ginger, the elephant does not find refuge. Instead, he is killed when he retaliates. When the elephant was shot down in the film, that’s where I broke down crying. If Ginger had not been rescued by the master, John, and James, she would have retaliated like the elephants from the circus and been killed for misconduct.
This is a photo of an elephant I saw at the San Antonio Zoo in January 2008. We stood there for nearly twenty minutes watching the elephant go back and forth, raising his right hoof, and picking up the stick with his trunk. Parents told their children he was a dancing elephant, and they laughed and took photos of him. I knew that he was probably an old circus elephant, but I didn’t realize the abuse he went through. No wonder, even when he was safe, he continued his circus routine. The fear of punishment controlled all of his actions.
This is why I’m surprised Ginger was able to bounce back from her abuse so easily and quickly. “The blood from my tongue coloured the froth that kept flying from my lips, as I chafed and fretted at the bits and rein.”[3] She tells Black Beauty that her master had no care for her. None of her masters did until she arrived to Birtwick Park. How could years of abuse not mentally damage Ginger as it did to the elephants? Although James and John were kind to her, was that enough to reverse the effects? It seems highly unlikely that a kind word would be able to mend years of neglect. People go through years of therapy to over come equally scarring cruelty.
Many of these training abuses are hidden. The end justifies the means, right? But as James’ teacher says, “cruelty was the devil’s own trade mark, and if we saw any one who took pleasure in cruelty, we might know who he belonged to, for the devil was a murderer from the beginning, and a tormentor to the end.”[4] So if more people knew of the exploitation of animals, would they want to stop it? Or would they continue because it’s “fashionable?”
Filed under: Jude the Obscure
I Will Survive[1]: Jude the Obscure’s Arabella
At first glance, Thomas Hardy’s Jude the Obscure appears as a tragic story of Jude’s failed relationships and achievements, but in the background of the novel is the rational character, Arabella, whose thoughts and ideas are suppressed by Hardy and Jude. They portray the down-to-earth Arabella as a heartless seductress, and many read her as such, but that does not mean she is not a survivor. Arabella encompasses the archetype of the Earth Mother who lives off of her fertility and sexuality. Arabella is just that, a sexual creature that understands the cycle of life and death, and what must be done in order to maintain that cycle. She does everything in her power to survive as a Victorian woman while also fulfilling the duties of the Earth Mother. This attitude forces the reader to view her as a vile, selfish, and promiscuous person. Hardy describes Arabella’s natural instincts as animalistic, “a complete and substantial female animal—no more, no less.”[2] Jude tells his story from a biased view, a very sensitive, emotional, and ideal perspective that tends to ignore practicality or reality. Because he is a dreamer in a Victorian world, he does not belong and is unable to survive because of the Victorians’ intolerance to the idealistic. Most men in literature are terribly afraid of the Earth Mother, but Jude’s daydreaming prevents him from seeing the power and importance she holds. She has a power he cannot possess nor understand—the power of life and death. Arabella is the Earth Mother, the survivor, and the hero of Jude the Obscure.
“Love”
Arabella’s actions are animalistic and overt, but only because the Earth Mother must conform to the standards of the Victorian woman in order to accomplish her goals. In a Victorian world, the creation of life starts with love. Like the old rhyme, “First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes the baby in the baby carriage.” These are the rules Arabella must follow to complete the circle of life. Arabella pursues love in order to survive in the Victorian society, and she goes about it in a direct manner:
On a sudden something smacked him sharply in the ear, and he became aware that a soft cold substance had been flung at him and had fallen at his feet. A glance told him what it was—a piece of flesh, the characteristic part of a barrow-pig, which the country-men used for greasing their boots, as it was useless for any other purpose.[3]
Arabella uses the pig penis as her missile to portray to Jude what she wants from him. She does not want a sentimental relationship, she wants a sexual relationship. The goddess of fertility simply wants to have sex, not engage in an emotional affair, but Jude sees the penis and says, “used for greasing their boots, as it was useless for any other purpose.” Jude does not understand the gesture, which results in mixed communication. He does not see that he is dispensable, just as the pig’s penis. All Arabella needs is a man to help her reproduce, she can easily throw him away like the pig. Her action of throwing the penis was a sign for Jude: that is all he is to her, that is all she wants from him, and it is easy for her to throw away. Jude assumes that all love is the same; he is unable to open his mind to different concepts of the feeling. His love is a courtly love, where secrecy and passion motivate the pursuit. Arabella’s idea of love is a more practical sense of the feeling. What she wants from Jude is his body–his social status, prestige, future, and goals hold no importance to her. Once Arabella fulfills her idea of love, she moves towards the next step—marriage.
“Marriage”
Arabella’s relationship with Jude appalls him because it is purely sexual and because she does not share the same feelings that he does. Her fake hair, her fake dimples, her fake pregnancy, and her fake innocence disgust him. Even though he is aware that he is repulsed by her deceit, he still clings on to his fantasies, “For his own soothing he kept up a factitious belief in her. His idea of her was the thing of most consequence, not Arabella herself.”[4] These fake elements of Arabella that Jude detests are the only survival tools Arabella is given. For a pig-farmer’s daughter in the Victorian era, she overcomes great obstacles in order to achieve her goals. She climbs the social ladder and marries against all odds, even though her reputation and social status are enough to keep anyone from marrying her. To find a husband despite her repute, Arabella chooses her husband wisely. She chooses a man that she knows will not care about these elements of her character. Her goal is not to find someone that understands her, cares for her, or even loves her, but to find someone that will have sex with her. While her friends call Jude simple-minded, she knows he is not stupid but a daydreamer, unlike ordinary Victorian men. He does not have the same ethical views. As an idealist, Jude freely pursues a woman for the romantic elements of the relationship rather than the practicality of starting a family. Although Arabella chooses Jude for his unorthodox views of love and marriage, she fails to see his different views of life and death.
“Life and Death”[5]
The idea of life and death between Jude and Arabella stands as the major disagreement between the two characters. When Jude must kill a pig, he chooses to do so quickly and mercifully, but Arabella wants the pig killed slowly for the blackpot. Jude is reluctant to kill the pig, and while doing so says, “It is a hateful business!” Arabella shortly retorts, “Pigs must be killed.” Once the pig is dead, Jude exclaims with relief, “Thank God! … He’s dead.” Arabella scorns him, “What’s God got to do with such a messy job as pig-killing, I should like to know! … Poor folks must live.”[6] Jude’s focus on the pig’s pain averts him from the reality of the situation—they survive by killing pigs. Arabella understands that by killing the pig, they are supporting life; things are born and things die, there is no avoiding the situation. Arabella’s idea of the circle of life[7] is commonly disregarded as her insensitivity to other creatures, but on the contrary, it shows her acute appreciation of life by accentuating her understanding of the cycle. Differing ideas of life and death spark many of their conflicts in the novel.
Jude returns to Marygreen at the notice of his dying aunt. He encounters Arabella at a bar, and she offers to accompany him the next day. Jude does not trust her intentions, suspecting her reasons: “There was something particularly uncongenial in the idea of Arabella, who had no more sympathy than a tigress with his relations or him, coming to the bedside of his dying aunt, and meeting Sue.”[8] Arabella is not the unsympathetic animal Jude depicts her as. Her second marriage to Cartlett has turned stale and lacks the sexual attention that she desires. This supports the belief that Arabella is the Earth Mother figure of the novel because if she would stay in the unfruitful marriage, then she would die. She needs a productive sexual relationship in order to live, and searches for a new companion in order to fulfill her sexual desires. She uses the opportunity to try and reunite with Jude, but he sees her pursuit as lack of sympathy, and this repulses him. But the situation is like the pig: Arabella understands that Drucilla’s death is inevitable because she is ill and old. The Earth Mother is not sympathetic towards the dying because she knows that fertility and life will always follow.
Arabella’s lack of grief and remorse over the deaths of Little Father Time, Carlett, and Jude seem to have earned the disdain of Hardy and readers, but her reactions were neither callous nor heartless. There is no visible sorrow with the deaths, but only because she knows she must continue on with her life. She does not crumble like Sue at the death of Little Father Time, and she continues to survive even after the death of her two husbands. Her actions are not selfish; they are survival tactics. After the death of Cartlett and the argument with her father, Arabella is homeless and penniless, so she returns to Jude. As Jude grew ill and towards death, Arabella explained, “Weak women must provide for a rainy day. And if my poor fellow upstairs do go off—as I suppose he will soon—it’s well to keep chances open. And I can’t pick and choose now as I could when I was younger. And one must take the old if one can’t get the young.”[9] Understandably, this reaction to Jude’s death is seen as ruthless, but her circumstance would not have called for anything else. The options for a single, lower-class woman of that time were discussed in class: living with the family, prostitution, or suicide. She recognizes the dilemma she is in, and that in order to survive, she must find a new husband.
Arabella is the only character in Jude the Obscure that is able to survive after the novel’s end. Arabella was able to continue to exist as the Earth Mother in the Victorian world although her lifestyle was looked down upon, she lost her child, and she was widowed twice. She is a sexually-driven female that is perceived as innocent and angelic to society in order to live without ill repute. Arabella had to outwit, outlast, and outplay in order to survive through the hardships she faced. Her strong will and understanding of the cycle of life helped her survive through daily tasks, the pressures of society, and the death of her family. Arabella is able to rise above from a position of weakness and live successfully in the Victorian world. If she had given into emotions like Jude, she would have failed just as he had.
Total WC: 1,693
Quotes: 228
WC: 1,465
Filed under: Extra Credit
Nature – Animals – Humankind
Make the Connection
“Make the connection” … Sound familiar? It’s been our theme throughout the semester. Watching this video made me cry and feel sick. Honestly, I don’t want to talk about it. I’ll just briefly go over some of the main parts of the film and hopefully get through it without feeling sick.
1. Pets: breeding, pet stores, puppy mills, animal shelters.
2. Food: factory farms, milking, beaking, dehorning, hormones, over feeding.
3. Clothes: furs, leather, transportation.
4. Entertainment: rodeos, circuses, zoos.
5. Science: medical and psychological abuse.
The main point of the movie was animal rights. Animals have a nervous system, therefore, they can think and feel. Abuse, cruelty, pollution, and ignorance were all addressed in the film. I’ve found the film online and posted it below.
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
(Smiling, even though I’d been crying for the past hour and a half.)
The Garden of Live Flowers
Valentine’s Day Extra Credit
(skip to 1:20)
Supplies:
1 package of multicolored tissue or crepe paper
1 package of green pipe cleaners
Scissors
Directions: Take four to five sheets of the tissue paper and layer them (if you want multicolored flowers, use different colors). Cut into 8-inch squares. Keeping the sheets layered, take one set of squares and fold it like an accordion so it looks like a thin rectangle. At the center of the rectangle, cut a small v-shaped notch on both sides. Take the end of a pipe cleaner and twist it around the notch. With the stem pointing straight down, gently pull up one layer of tissue into the center. Pull up the remaining layers, one by one. Repeat for the other side of the flower. Once all the layers are pulled up, fluff them in place to look natural. Continue making more flowers with the remaining stacks of squares.
Tips and variations: For sturdier stems, wrap two pipe cleaners together. Cut smaller or larger squares to change the size of your flowers. Add more layers for thicker flowers or less layers for thinner ones. For a shiny effect, dip the top edges in white glue and then dip in loose glitter. Glue a pin on the back of a flower for a fluffy lapel decoration. Make smaller flowers and string them together as garland.
“O Tiger-lily!” said Alice, addressing herself to one that was waving gracefully about in the wind, “I wish you could talk!”
“We can talk,” said the Tiger-lily, “when there’s anybody worth talking to.”[2]
Flowers play an important role in the traditional Valentine’s gift. Although they are usually taken for granted, their absence is noticed.
A rose is usually given on Valentine’s Day, but the color, shape, and number convey many messages. Although flowers cannot speak in our world as they do through the looking-glass, they say many things through their presentation.
Take, for example, the color of roses given on Valentine’s Day: red, pink, and yellow. Each color says something different. Red is associated with love, pink with appreciation, and yellow with friendship. If the flower itself were to be other than a rose, that would suggest many other meanings. The choice in flowers and color depicts the feelings the giver wants to express.
When I looked up the history of giving flowers, most of the sites had the same thing written:
Giving flowers on St. Valentine’s Day first became popular in the 17th century. Roses, having the distinction of representing love in all its forms, are the blossoms of choice on Valentine’s Day. The rose was reputed to be the favourite flower of Venus, and so it was dubbed the flower of passion and love. One single perfect red rose framed with baby’s breath is referred to by some florists as a “signature rose,” and is the preferred choice for giving on St. Valentine’s Day.
I’m not really sure how this applies to Victorian literature, but Carroll shows how particular he is to certain types of flowers, just as Venus was. He changes the passion flower to a tiger lily because of its connotation, chooses the daisies for their changing petal colors, and refers to the younger Liddell sisters to flowers that represent their names.
Filed under: Alice
It was very difficult for me to choose a topic for this blog. Would I write about a persistent professor that is always whispering in my ear like the gnat, two Honors advisors that banter back and forth like Tweedledee and Tweedledum, or comparing my life to a game of chess? I chose none of these. I’m dedicating this blog to my friend who dragged me along to all sorts of student activities against my better judgment.
“Take a straight and stronger course to the corner of your life.
Make the white queen run so fast
She hasn’t got time to make you a wife.”
Like the song suggests, life is all about reaching your destination—and fast. The first time I visited the University of Texas, I was dragged there by the Red Queen:
They were running hand in hand, and the Queen went so fast that it was all she could do to keep up with her: and still the Queen kept crying ‘Faster! Faster!’ but Alice felt she could not go faster, though she had no breath left to say so.[2]
This Red Queen is my friend, David. We met my second semester of college at one of the Honors Program’s conferences. We were both presenting projects for the first time with the group. Of course, he didn’t remember me. Who was I to a queen? “’All the ways about here belong to me—but why did you come out here at all? Curtsey while you’re thinking what to say. It saves time.’”[3] When I asked David how I should describe him in this blog, he quoted Mark Twain, saying, “Don’t tell us that the woman screams, bring her on and let her scream.” As you can tell, he is persistent on his vanity. He prefers honest arrogance to false modesty.
The next semester, we unknowingly registered for three of the same classes. From then on, he remembered who I was, dragging me around with him for the next year. We joined a literary magazine editing team, the Gay Straight Alliance, student government, and engaged in some of the most ridiculous and unorganized research I have partaken in.
So, backtracking to our little trip to the University of Texas. It was his first time visiting the campus as well, but he took me under his wing and showed me around as if it were his own castle. With a large rainbow umbrella in hand, David clanked it against the sidewalk as if it were a magnificent scepter. As we walked around the campus, he’d point the large umbrella towards buildings, saying, “One day Hagar, this will all be yours.” In other words, “’And in the Eighth Square we shall be Queens together.’”[5] He truly believes I’ll make a name for myself, but he is worried about my confidence. Like the queen, he points out where to go and what to do. He guided me through the looking glass, trying to help me find myself in the process.
But the tables have turned. I have morphed into David’s white rabbit. He’s now chasing me to the University of Texas and will be joining the madness in the fall of 2008.
Filed under: Alice
For me, college has become the quest to find my own voice (although this endeavor was not optional). This phrase has been said to me so many times, but this semester it has morphed into something new. Something I’m sure I will hear over and over until I’ve graduated. “‘Who are you?’ said the Caterpillar.”[1]
The quest started out simply and strangely enough. I was forced to create a device that would allow a raw egg to drop safely from ten feet. Some how, saving the egg would help me understand who I am.
The next step into finding myself was to join the honor’s program and be matched with a mentor. I was very excited to have someone I could go to for college advice, to help me with my homework, and to guide me through my degree plan. But every time I would enter his office, he’d cross his legs, fold his bony fingers across his knee, and look at me with a smirk. Like the Duchess, he believed everything had a moral.
“‘You’re thinking about something, my dear, and that makes you forget to talk. I ca’n't tell you just now what the moral of that is, but I shall remember it in a bit.’”[2]
When I complained about professors that treated other students unfairly, he’d say, “Good. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.” If I was overwhelmed with homework and completely confused, he’d say, “Good, that means you’re learning.”
In his world, if you weren’t flustered, overwhelmed, or confused, you weren’t trying hard enough. I hate the feeling of being out of control, but he explained this feeling as “college:”
“‘But I don’t want to go among mad people,’ Alice remarked.
“‘Oh, you ca’n't help that,’ said the Cat: ‘we’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad.’”[3]
I’ve gone on about the presentations I was forced to do in previous blogs. These were their essential tools in helping me find my voice. One day when I was discussing a project with my mentor, he suggested altering it to fit some other thesis. I think he was proudest of me when I finally said, “No, that’s not what my project is about.”
“Have you guessed the riddle yet?” the Hatter said, turning to Alice again.
“No, I give it up,” Alice replied. “What’s the answer?”
“I haven’t the slightest idea,” said the Hatter.
“Nor I,” said the March Hare.[4]
Other professors of the college caught on to my mentor’s methods. Instead of the quiet girl in the class, I was now on a journey of self-enlightenment. They ate this up. One professor asked me to analyze The Sneetches and participate in a chili cook off. Another professor had me dress up like June Cleaver and present cultural feminism to total strangers. I traveled across the country, danced with Native Americans, and watched horror films–all to find myself. But none of this has been explained to me.
Talking back to a professor, saving an egg from falling, and public embarrassment are their ways to help me find myself. But why? Why these methods? Like the Cheshire-Cat’s advice, I should keep moving forward. “‘—so long as I get somewhere,’ Alice added as an explanation. ‘Oh, you’re sure to do that,’ said the Cat, ‘if you only walk long enough.’”[5] I’ll just have to trust those in my college Wonderland and believe there is a moral in their madness.
(Alice hits a crossroad)[6]
Filed under: Littlefield
Ruskin created a Gothic architecture checklist in “The Nature of Gothic”:
(Littlefield House)
Littlefield shows all of these elements: imperfect workmanship, diverse art style, jutting, and bizarre. But how does this connect to Victorian literature? Jerry Taylor describes authors such as Shelley, Stoker, and Poe demonstrating influence from Gothic architecture, but these are not Victorian novels, “In essence, these stories were romances, largely due to their love of the imaginary over the logical, and were told from many different points of view. This literature gave birth to many other forms, such as suspense, ghost stories, horror, mystery, and also Poe’s detective stories” (523).
When I think of Victorian literature, I think of authors like Bronte, Dickens, Tennyson, and Eliot. I have a hard time imagining these grotesque buildings as anything Victorian. “For much of this century the term Victorian, which literally describes things and events in the reign of Queen Victoria (1837-1901), conveyed connotations of ‘prudish,’ ‘repressed,’ and ‘old fashioned,’” (Landow).
But Landow goes on to explain that Victorians are not “single, simple, or unified,” they are much more complex than that. The Victorian era was not simple and old fashioned, “it was an age of paradox and power.”
There is evidence of Gothic architecture in Jude the Obscure:
From his window he could perceive the spire of the cathedral, and the ogee dome under which resounded the great bell of the city. The tall tower, tall belfry windows, and tall pinnacles of the college by the bridge he could also get a glimpse of by going to the staircase. These objects he used as stimulants when his faith in the future was dim. (#)
(Oxford)
Jude the Obscure shows the tension between realism and fantasy through the Gothic architecture. Scholarship and prestige are Victorian elements, but they must be obtained in a “romantic” setting, as Taylor described the architecture. Landow explains, “The Catholicism of the Oxford Movement, the Evangelical movement, the spread of the Broad Church, and the rise of Utilitarianism, socialism, Darwinism, and scientific Agnosticism, were all in their own ways characteristically Victorian,” these ideas, by no means, are “prudish, repressed, or old-fashioned.” These are the external virtues of Victorian society, where the abstract ideas of that time are seen in the architecture.
George P. Landow, www.victorianweb.org.
Filed under: Jude the Obscure
Jude the Obscure is a melodramatic story of characters that are emotional wrecks. Reading this novel reminded me of my class last semester, Masterworks of Dostoevsky. Hardy’s characters remind me of Dostoevsky’s characters in The Idiot. They’re all melodramatic, they’re all insane, and they all end up alone and unhappy. But the two are written in completely different moods, just as the two classes and professors are different.
My Dostoevsky class was a rude awakening to me. The novels were extremely hard for me to read and write about because they were full of despair–there was no glimpse of hope in any of these characters. It was a lot like the class–there was no glimpse of hope with that gloomy professor. It was an emotionally burdening semester.
What I had expected was an inviting atmosphere where thoughts and ideas were shared and accepted. It was my first upper-division class at the University of Texas, I had just transferred from a small community college where I was used to strong student-professor relationships.
(portrait of Dostoevsky)
What I found instead was a professor that was as obnoxious and unrelenting as they come. Any time a student spoke, he’d say, “I see what you’re saying, but I don’t understand your logic.” At one point, he even told a student, “You’re bogged down in an illogical quagmire.” This infuriated me. The books were hard enough to read already without his complete dismissal of our thoughts and feelings, but he had to rub our noses in the dirt. It was a humbling experience, but I doubt I would go through the torture of that professor again.
But unlike The Idiot, I read Jude the Obscure as a black comedy. Maybe because I feel free to express myself in our class, or maybe because I’m longing and searching for what I was refused in the Dostoevsky class. I found the characters’ actions and thoughts absurd… they overreacted to everything, were extremely rash in all of their decisions, and were unable to cope with the consequences. While reading the book, my thoughts were similar to the above video. Yes, all characters in this book are extremely, “eeeeeeemooooooooooooo.”
“If we children was gone there’d be no trouble at all” (262). One of the craziest moments of the book was the death of all the children. I had the same feeling when watching the climax of Happiness… The pedophile father/husband is finally visited by the police–it’s the end of him. His life is destroyed, there’s nothing he can do to save himself. Failure is inevitable. You just know everything is falling apart. For some reason, this is slightly humorous (at least to me). The events and the actions aren’t, but the situation is.
When Sue cries out, “Oh, my comrade, our perfect union—our two-in-oneness—is now stained with blood!” I couldn’t help but sigh (265). I knew that the death of her children would be an emotional strain on her, but the way she reacted reminded me a lot of Arabella’s freak out at the beginning of the book–when Arabella runs into the street screaming about Jude, and a passerby says sarcastically, “Good Lord deliver us!” (57). This line was replaying in the back of my mind through out the novel as my palm went to my face in frustration and humiliation with the characters.
