Cool Blogs by Kelby

     In the novel The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath, we see the protagonist Esther undergo serious mental health issues and face depression in an era that is not very accepting or even aware of struggles like these. Over and over again we see characters ranging from therapists to romantic partners who push down or simply don't understand these struggles and how they influence Esther's mental state. Unsurprisingly, considering the fact that she raised her, Esther's mother has the strongest influence on Esther's personality. Being born and raised in an era with even less awareness regarding mental health, her parenting style is unprepared to help Esther's as she battles with depression during a major coming-of-age moment in her life. While her mother's actions in the book with regard to her condition may seem hollow and detached, it's not for a lack of trying. Her mother doesn't seem to be unempathetic for the purposes of hurting Esther in any way (although it...

     Although the graphic novel Fun Home is narrated and authored by Alison Bechdel, its focus is clearly centered around the father of the novelist, Bruce Bechdel. He is the centerpiece of the story and it seems Alison makes this book as an attempt to understand the meaning behind her father's actions by revisiting and illustrating them. His shady morality is already made evident when he is revealed to be a pedophile but the bizarreness and mysteriousness of Bruce's values and character in his at-home life is also evident. It's not surprising then that his daughter, Alison, would want to examine these mysteries and explore her father's identity. Although Alison is very interested in examining her own upbringing (specifically as a result of Bruce's parenting), Alison's mother, as we talked about in class, is very skeptical about Alison's public portrayal of their family's complicated history. Therefore, I thought it might be worth it to try and figure ou...

    The first time I saw the Catcher in the Rye , I didn't really know what to make of the title and I sort of disregarded it as one of those book titles that really seems to have no meaning. But I changed my mind after reading chapter 16 of the novel, where the words subtly come up as Holden passes a young boy carelessly singing the "catcher in the rye" tune. The book doesn't make much of the moment, but Holden, in character, does admire the boy's genuineness as he happily sings the song with no regard for how others might perceive him. Watching the kid, he sees it as a true moment of innocence and bliss that gives him a much needed mood-lifter in the middle of his New York breakdown. The phrase goes away from the attention of the reader for a while but, as though the phrase has been planted in his mind ever since seing the kid, he brings up the phrase in response to Phoebe's question about what he plans to do with his life. Holden seems really adamant about ...

One crucial concept that this book explores is the opposing dynamic between Pilate and Macon. Pilate and Macon Jr. have always been at odds in their adult lives and eventually, as we see in the bulk of the book, it makes them act as though they don’t even know each other anymore. Pilate and Macon are so isolated from each other that our protagonist, Milkman, doesn’t even meet his aunt or cousins until the age of 12, despite living in the same town as him. As we can see, these two sides of the dead family are starkly separated, but it also poses the question, why are Pilate and Macon so different? As we later find out, this conflict between the two siblings did not always exist and according to Pilate “Macon was a nice boy and awful good to me. Be nice if you could have known him then.” (Morrison 40). Pilate makes it seem as though in some moment during their childhood she and Macon Jr. got along, but somewhere along the road, he changed for good and it caused him and Pilate to have a f...

     Going through the second part of The Stranger, I often found myself feeling like something was off with the way the trial went. Although the first part of the book definitely opened my eyes to the bizarre nature of Mersault’s behavior, I found the actions and testimony of the prosecution and the judge of the trial even stranger. From trying Mersault based on morals rather than the law, to twisting Mersault’s qualities that would normally be considered admirable into a flaw and a point of prosecution, the nature of trial is most definitely odd and worth looking at.       To start, I found it most important to realize that, in the trial, the victim is in no way present. I didn’t realize until it came up in discussion, but the existence of the Arab man and major role as the victim in the trial is never mentioned once. Knowing this, it feels like the courtroom is in no way interested in justice for the Arab man. Rather, the prosecution makes a case th...

In The Sun Also Rises, we see a lot of dynamics between characters and settings that affect the attitude of the book's main character Jake. In terms of location there are clear differences in the way he acts from place to place. The place changes how much emotion he is willing to show and makes his behavior more or less genuine. The two main locations in the book are Paris and the Spanish countryside, which both bring out different sides of Jake. The situation tends to be worse for Jake when he is in Paris and his personality generally seems more closed off and even depressed. The Spanish environment brings out a side of Jake that the reader doesn't see till much later in the book when he gets to Spain with Bill but it features a version that I think is the calmer and best version of Jake. The drastic change in atmosphere from Paris to Spain eases his sadness with city life, and helps us realize that Jake is not as disconnected from his emotions as we think he is. In Paris Jake...

In Virginia Woolf's novel Mrs. Dalloway, the story is, as we can tell from the title, supposedly centered on Mrs. Clarissa Dalloway. However, as the book drags on, it often gives characters other than Clarissa more pages in the book. Characters like Peter, Sally, Elizabeth, and Richard do play important roles in the book, but the most crucial ideas of the book feel more centered around just two characters; Clarissa and Septimus. When we first discussed Septimus' larger significance in class, we drew a bubble diagram of the interconnectedness of all the characters' interactions in the novel. In the diagram, our class gave Septimus and Clarissa seperate central bubbles because they interact with seperate sets of characters in the book. However, I do think that Clarissa and Septimus are connected, except on a deeper level that is not as simple as a visible line on a bubble diagram.  The only physical branch between Clarissa and Septimus is Peter's senseless interaction wit...