Bright Future, Big Memories

       Morning: Every senior’s worst enemy. You’re overcome by the drowsiness of staying up late binge watching some show on Netflix instead of doing homework. You need a good pick-me-up song for this time of day, so you turn on “Livin’ On A Prayer” by Bon Jovi. Nothing helps you stay awake for (what feels like) another pointless day of school more than a classic rock song. Now you’re ready to take on all the excitement that comes with your last few weeks of high school.

       After leaving the comfort of your own bed, you must shovel your school supplies into your backpack to get ready for the joys of learning. Time is slowly crawling to the freedoms after senior graduation one school day at a time. For over a decade, your parents have dragged you to school hoping to inject some useful knowledge into your head before they send you off into the real world.

       Once you arrive at school, all the quizzes and tests you have that day suddenly come to your attention. You know that the last minute studying is being done in vain, but you continue anyway out of pure desperation. For some reason you can’t get Twenty One Pilots’ “Stressed Out” out of your head as you regret watching so many episodes of Jane the Virgin last night instead of studying for the government test you are about to fail.

       The excitement begins to pick up with the pep rally quickly approaching. The plain lunch you bought at the cafeteria or brought from home just doesn’t cut it in terms of providing the hype associated with your school’s pep rallies. You are able to sneak past Delgado during fifth period to get Chick-Fil-A. Ah, much better than anything you could have packed yourself. You jam out in the car with Ellie and Paige to various songs from the High School Musical movie.  You’ll miss times like this when you are up later studying in the library at the University of Florida.

       It’s time for the pep rally where all of your friends are screaming their heads off as “Crazy Frog” plays on the stereo. You think that the pep rallies are kind of lame but your friends make it fun for you any way. An awkward game of musical chairs is played and you actually participate in a game as well, this is when you make a half court shot.  The crowd is clapping and screaming for you, and your cheeks turn bright red. You only really like being the center of attention when you’re trying to make jokes in class.

       After exchanging goodbyes with everyone, you go back home to the same coziness of your bed you departed from earlier that morning. Crawling back in bed, you wonder why you ever decided to leave this wonderful safe haven that has been there for you. Vaguely imagining a future away from home and your beloved bed, you drift off into a deep sleep after all the excitement of the day. The song “I Lived” by One Republic is lingering in the back of your mind because as much as you want to leave home and gain unlimited freedom, you know that you’re going to miss the amazing life you have now with your friends at Lake Mary Prep.

Sir Walter or Sir Satire???

Jane Austen uses satirical elements in Persuasion, as well in her other novels, to ridicule the upper class in the era that she lived in. Both the plot and the characters in Persuasion are shaped around the satirical elements involving social status and marriage.

Like many other Jane Austen novels, Persuasion begins with not having a male heir to inherit the family land; in this case it is Kellynch Hall. Cousin William Elliot is supposed to inherit the land, and that somewhat obligates him to marry one of Sir Walter’s daughters to keep the land in the immediate family. Anne, a foil to her pretentious and self-absorbed father, disagrees with the general view of marriage and social rank in her society. She feels that marriage should be primarily decided upon “domestic values”, and also thinks that she should not have to hang out with people just because they are of high status.

The relationship between Anne and her father are quite opposite, which is probably why she wasn’t Sir Walter’s favorite! From the beginning of the novel, the readers know that Sir Walter thinks very highly of himself and places a lot of importance on social class. For example, he has mirrors all around his room because he thinks he is so good looking. Jane Austen directly characterizes (and makes fun of) Sir Walter and uses the comparison “Few women could think more of their personal appearance than he did nor could the valet of any new made lord be more delighted the place he held in society” (Austen 4.). Even though Sir Walter really isn’t in the best economic situation and doesn’t have the same looks as he did when he was younger, he still cannot get enough of himself! Similarly, his favorite book is one of the family ancestries; he can see the social ranks he and his family were born into. So basically when he is not looking at himself in his mirrors, he is reading about himself. These characteristics contrast with Anne’s because she has friendships with people like Mrs. Smith, who has no money and is ill, but still enjoys her company any way. Although her father enjoys concerts and dinner parties with people like the rich Darymples, Anne finds them extremely boring. Anne symbolizes the views of Jane Austen, and her father Sir Walter is both a contrasting and satirical character, representing the majority of people in her time.

Arnold F(r)iend

In literature, characters are considered grotesque when they induce the emotions of empathy and disapproval from the reader.  Empathy is drawn from the reader for Connie after we discover that her parents are not very active in her life; they aren’t asking important questions like “Where are you going?” and “Where have you been?” Winslow suggest that “Connie’s mothers suggests that she worries about her daughter’s habits and friend group, but Oates doesn’t show judgment of her but suggests there are tons of girls like her” (Winslow 3).  Not bothered by her mother’s worries, Connie goes out with her desperate group of girl friends nightly to try to attract guys. 

Connie was clearly craving the attention that her parents gave to her sister, and as a result she found herself trying to flirt with guys like Arnold Friend. Sympathy for Connie arises because we see her as a teenage girl doing what any other teenage girl does at that time. Even their pop culture reveals a lot about their morals, almost as if it represents religion, “However, her (Oate’s) use of popular music as a thematic referent is typical also of her frequent illumination of the illusions and grotesquely false values which may arise from excessive devotion to such aspects of popular culture.” The music that Connie listens to acts almost as a religion for her, as for most teenage girls at the time. Its lyrics portray their values, which seem to be attracting guys and having fun. 

After Connie meets Arnold Friend one evening, the readers are at the edge of their seats with suspicion of this perverted and sketchy character.  From his looks to his name, the reader is given an eerie feeling about this disguised man who had “a grinning face that reminded Connie of a pumpkin, except it wore sunglasses” (Oates 3). Arnold Friend’s characteristics seem to closely resemble those of Satan, and as we learn more about him we learn less about Connie. Connie loses her identity as she learns just how crazy and demonic Arnold Friend is. She spends so much time trying to find out WHO Arnold is, that she loses sight of who she is. Connie isn’t able to even dial the police to help her because Arnold had gotten in her head so much at that point. By the end of the story, all she has become is a victim, Arnold’s slave.

Works Cited

Oates, Joyce Carol. “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2002. Print.

Wegs, Joyce M. “’Don’t You Know Who I Am?’: The Grotesque in Oate’s ‘Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?’” Journal of Narrative Technique 5, 1995. Print.

"So no one told you life (narratives) was (were) gonna be this way..."

Friends is a good example of the Presentist narrative that Rushkoff discusses in the first chapter, “narrative collapse”, in Present Shock. Friends does not truly have the traditional narrative that Rushkoff explains in the text, “there is plot-there are many plots- but there is no overarching story, no end. There are so many plots, in fact, that an ending tying everything up seems inconceivable, even beside the point” (Rushkoff 34). I recently started watching the show from the beginning, so I can relate quite easily with the point that Rushkoff makes. First of all, beginning with season one episode one of Friends, the storyline starts off in medias res. At least at the start, you don’t know who this group of ridiculous friends are and you don’t really know how they even came about to be friends in the first place. There is a point to this. The show was not made to make people ponder life or want to keep hitting “next episode” on netflix. Rather, its purpose is to entertain with a hysterical group of dorky friends when someone wishes to be amused. The “middle” of the TV series goes against Rushkoff’s traditional sense of a story arc because each friend has their own lives away from their time together in the “Central Perk” coffee shop below their apartment. Each friend has a job, dates, other friends, and other life events that do not always connect with one another. I can’t really speak of the end, since I am only on season 4, but if it’s anything like How I Met Your Mother, it will be horrible, make me cry, and leave a bunch of questions unanswered.

Nearly every episode of  Friends is the same dang thing every time, yet some how the lively  show has me totally hooked. However ,as hard as it is for me to admit it, there is no real point to the story line or the characters within it. Rather, it is the atmosphere created by both of those things that appeals to the viewers (no, it is not a hit tv show just because of Jennifer Aniston’s tendency to look like a total goddess). This atmosphere is created as one watches various episodes of the show, it is not given to you in bits rather than all at one, creating less depth to the show. Rushkoff says that the result of this rather flat tactic is that “Narrativity is replaced by something more like putting together  a puzzle by making connections and recognizing patterns” (Rushkoff 34). This puzzling technique replaces the linear storytelling. There is no mystery or other phenomena to be solved or resolved in Friends.

The show is not concerned of what will happen in the future, but rather with what is happening right at a particular moment. Rushkoff notes that there have been stories that are anticlimactic but still considered a traditional narrative. He says the difference is that the character would “always have the next day” to become wiser (Rushkoff 32) whereas in presentist narratives, time sped up and ruined that. The characters in Friends end up facing the same present shock as the creators of the television show because they just wake up in a random situation and have to figure out what is going on.

Rushkoff talks about the “CNN effect” and how it draws an immediate response from what he calls “always-on news”. I think that this can be drawn into his ideas of the narrative collapse within television shows and particularly, Friends. The show aims to get a quick and simple response from the people watching at home. As many of you know, the creators made the show to be comedic. So, the goal is not to make someone contemplate what next big thing will happen in the episodes to come, but rather to make them laugh and move on to the next episode.

Rushkoff, Douglas. Present Shock: When Everything Happens Now. New York: Penguin, 2013. Print.

It's the Hemingway or the Highway

          If I had to describe Hemingway’s style in one word, I would have to characterize it as “inconsistent”. He goes from using long sentences to short ones, literal language to figurative. Another inconsistency is his treatment of time in A Moveable Feast. I think that it is because of these stylistic irregularities that we read Hemingway in the first place. His unique style is what makes him such a renowned author, it obviously wasn’t the “oh so intriguing” plot my friends. Throughout the novel, Hemingway brings the reader through parts of his life with important people and places that impacted his career as a journalist and eventually an author. Often times, Hemingway wouldn’t even put these events and introductions to new people in order, simply because that is not the point he is trying to make. This tactic might seem nutty, but come on; it’s Hemingway for Pete’s sake. Because Hemingway goes about it in this way, form absolutely does not follow content. If it did, content would play an important role in how Hemingway’s form is expressed. Hemingway doesn’t want the readers to be using the content to explain the form; rather he wants us to use the form to create our own content. Hemingway’s tone of uncertainty encourages the reader to paint their own personal pictures in their heads. For example, Hemingway will leave parts of the plot for the reader’s interpretation, “It was only Zelda’s secret that she shared with me, as a hawk might share something with a man. But hawks do not share.” The reader is left unsure of the secret and is responsible for interpreting what Hemingway meant by the hawk comparison. Hemingway may seem like just a crazy guy, but that alone couldn’t have gotten him the success that he achieved. A Moveable Feast is considered a memoir but I think that it is more of a journal type genre; it was almost as if Hemingway took snippets of his life (very detail-oriented ones at that) and compiled them into one big story telling session. 

Little Eva, Big Problem.

           Schools in the twenty-first century have two very important things that the kids in the 1990s did not… cell phones and easily accessible Internet. These two prized possessions per say are what have disconnected the world on a social and educational level. Postman, throughout The End of Education, stressed through his “big 5” narratives that schooling lacks cohesion and in my opinion the taken-for-granted technological advances are responsible for that. In the past 20 years, the world and United States in particular has been introduced to so many new things. In my opinion, I think that the issue is not the advances themselves, but the way they have formed the public. Postman elaborates on his idea with his mini cautionary tale about “little Eva”, who would stay up late learning algebra. Some may think this is quite studious of little Eva, but is she really learning anything or retaining it? Before authoritative figures (teachers, parents, ect.) were the children’s main source of information, now that same information can be found in seconds with just a few clicks. Postman comments on this concept after explaining Little Eva’s story,  “At the very least, what we need to discuss about Little Eva, Young John, and McIntosh’s trios what they will lose, and what we will lose, if they enter a world in which computer technology is their chief source of motivation, authority, and, apparently, psychological sustenance.” (Postman 43). What Postman is concerned with is not how we use technology, but how IT is using US. To avoid this situation however, technology could be used as objects of inquiry (Postman 44). For the most part, students have a lazy attitude towards technology. If they can’t find an answer, they just Google it. Who wouldn’t do that when an answer pops up in milliseconds? With smart phones that have access to the Internet almost anywhere, students have “all of the answers” at hand. In my opinion this leads to less collaboration between the students themselves and less cohesion between subjects. Technology promotes almost a separate and finite answer to everything. For the most part, it’s good enough for the students to get by, but they aren’t truly learning anything without having to discuss it with classmates/teachers and put it into context within the world.

Works Cited

Postman, Neil. The End of Education: Redefining the Value of School. New York: Knopf, 1995. Print.