Can Killing Be an Act of Love?

    Toni Morrison’s Beloved explores the depressing lives that slaves had to go through in American society, and the trauma they face afterwards. The most infamous scene of the book is when Sethe decides to kill her daughter, Beloved, in an attempt to save her from slavery. This is where the question of whether or not killing can be an act of love comes from: Obviously, we usually associate killing with hatred or anger but can it be considered an act of love in the right situation? In this case, Sethe kills Beloved so that she wouldn’t have to experience the suffering and trauma of slavery. While reading through this scene, I drew some parallels to John Steinback’s popular book Of Mice and Men. In that book, one of the main characters is mentally disabled and gets into some trouble that results in people trying to lynch him. The other main character, who is the disabled man’s friend, decides to shoot him in order to save him from a cruel fate. In both books, killing is done as an act of love. While obviously sad, the killing is being done so that a loved one would not have to go through a worse fate. The killing is being done to prevent further suffering. However, is love enough to justify this type of violence? Is it more loving to save somebody from pain if that means ending their life?
    I think this also shows how truly oppressive slavery was. We’ve all read books about slavery in the past and we can all easily agree that it was a horrible, nauseating practice that caused suffering for millions of people. Beloved, however, portrays slavery in a way that I’ve personally never experienced before. The very act of killing your child so that they wouldn’t experience slavery already shows just how bad actually living through slavery was, to the point that it drives a mother to take her child’s life so that her child would be spared from the subjugation that she herself went through. This killing then becomes an act of resistance, as Sethe uses the power that she has in order to defy the fugitive act and the broader institution of slavery in general. Morrison explores the psychological toll that slavery took on those who experienced it in a unique way that showcases just how awful slavery really was.

The Myth of Meursault: Humanity, Society and Meaning

    Meursault is a man who lacks the typical emotional and social connections that define the human experience. People are constantly trying to conform to societal norms, which have been dictated by the people themselves. Meursault goes through life lacking any emotional investment in anything, resulting in him passively observing events as they happen instead of meaningfully engaging with them. His relationships are superficial, he acts only in the present and he is devoid of sentiment. This is where the title The Stranger comes from, as Meursault is a stranger to society due to his disregard for societal values and emotional attachment. He is a stranger to the values that hold a society together and form the human condition. Meursault is so focused in the present he lacks any purpose and meaning, and makes the reader question if meaning is a human invention. Most people usually have some sort of purpose or goal in their lives that they try to achieve and work towards, but Meursault doesn’t. He simply just exists, as if somebody forgot to give him his humanity. He cares about the physical, not the emotional.
    His trial then ends up being not so much of a trial for killing a man, but more so about his failure to conform to societal standards of emotion, morality and humanity. His general lack of remorse and emotion is seen as inhuman by the court, so he must be sentenced to death not for murdering the Arab but for not being “human”. This lack of humanity is seen as a far bigger threat to society than the murder, and is the reason for his extreme punishment. The Stranger shows us how a society fears a person who rejects the ideas of humanity and emotion, illustrating how society pressures people into conformity and making the reader wonder if life has any inherent purpose.

The Lost Generation

The Lost Generation

    The Sun Also Rises explores the lost generation and the trauma and aimlessness and loss of purpose that the generation experienced. Jake goes through the entire book without much sense of purpose and doesn't engage in much besides alcohol and activities to take his mind off of things. He navigates through a post-war Europe that has lost its grandeur, instead indulging in pleasures such as drinking and traveling, in order to escape the emptiness and dissatisfaction of his life. He also does it to distract himself from his injury, representing a permanent wound on his mentality and person. It serves a reminder that he can never escape his past in the war. This is similar to how many people had scarring experiences during that time period, showing how WW1 has left something in Europe and the world that would never be forgotten. It also emasculates him, and Hemingway explores the roles of masculinity in a post-war society that left thousands of men with injuries similar to Jake's. World War One may have lasted only four years, but Hemingway shows the reader how the war never left the lost generation and Jake’s injury is a great symbolic reference of that.
    The character’s inability to find fulfillment in relationships or society reflect how the generally aimless pursuits of the lost generation. Even the sparse prose of the book mirrors the emptiness of the lost generation, as Hemingway’s writing style shows how the characters struggle to find a clear sense of purpose. While they may move physically from place to place, the characters are emotionally and mentally stuck in the same place throughout the entire book. This further reinforces that idea of Hemingway’s depiction of those of the lost generation as being doomed to be aimless and lost for eternity. The disillusionment of the characters show how an entire generation was left fractured and broken, changed and scarred forever by a war that crumbled the foundations of a past never to return.

Septimus and the Portrayal of Mental Health in Mrs. Dalloway

    Mental health is a central part of Mrs. Dalloway, as Virginia Woolf channels her own experiences with mental health into the book. Septimus is probably the most clear example of this, suffering from poor mental health eventually leading to suicide. Septimus is Virgina Woolf’s representation of being suicidally depressed, as she attempted suicide in real life and Septimus unfortunately successfully commits suicide in the book. Septimus’s mental struggles represent the difficulties WW1 veterans faced in the early 20s, only a few years after the war had ended. As discussed in class, Septimus is meant to represent the more severe mentally ill character as compared to Clarissa Dalloway, who while also suffering from mental illness does not suffer to the same degree as Septimus does. Virginia Woolfe clearly has a very personal connection with Septimus Smith, as he is inspired by Woolfe’s own experiences. Septimus is used as a character to highlight the general mistreatment that mentally ill people had at the time. While this mistreatment is naturally frustrating, this frustration is further emphasized given the fact that he is a war veteran who fought in the world’s deadliest conflict at the time. He essentially fought to preserve his home’s society yet when he returns, he is neglected by the very same society he fought to protect.
    The ignorance of mental health at the time can be seen with the doctors: Holmes and Bradshaw. Holmes consistently downplays Septimus’s issues. For example, he says that when he was feeling a little depressed, all he did was go down to the music hall and play golf. He suggests Septimus should do something similar, believing that would solve the incredibly complex nature of his mental illnesses. He chalks up sleeplessness, fears, headaches, and dreams as being nothing more than nerve symptoms. Septimus makes it very clear that he doesn’t want to see Holmes again yet Holmes still forces himself past Rezia to talk to Septimus. The other doctor, Bradshaw, only sees Septimus through a clinical lens instead of a human being in pain by saying that his proportions are off. Bradshaw also downplays Septimus’s mental struggles, saying “We all have our moments of depression” and he firmly believes that what he is doing is helping Septimus. The way both Holmes and Bradshaw brush off the complexities of Septimus’s mental health is meant to be incredibly frustrating to the reader. His cure also involves losing one’s individuality and essentially, conforming to his will. This happened to Bradshaw’s wife, who eventually conformed to Bradshaw’s will, becoming totally submissive to him. This is how Bradshaw wants to treat his patients as well. This shows how frustratingly ignorant medical professionals at the time were, and how neglected mental health really was in 1920s society.
    The treatment of mental health and the general stigma around it has evolved over the past 100 years, to the point that I don’t think characters such as Bradshaw or Holmes would be as common anymore (although there probably still are a few left). 1920s society is obviously very different to our current modern day society that we’re all living through and the treatment of mental health is one of the biggest differences shown in the book.

The Mezzanine: Baker's Thorough Analysis of OCD

    The Mezzanine is an exploration of human consciousness, centered around the thoughts and details of a white-collar office worker as he rides the escalator to his job. His mind fixates on the tiniest, most minuscule details that do not matter at all in the grand scheme of things. However, while many may think that Nicholson Baker is simply trying to be quirky with his unique writing style in The Mezzanine, I believe there lies an in-depth analysis of a man suffering with extreme obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). Howie’s never-ending fixation on trivial details, ranging from milk bottles to shoelaces, reveals his struggle with OCD as his mind never seems to stop spiraling into seemingly endless inner-commentary about random subjects that most people do not care about. Nicholson Baker does a perfect job at capturing the core essence of OCD, by portraying Howie’s mind as being stuck in this cycle that can not stop constantly thinking.
    Baker’s writing style mimics the obsessive nature of OCD, as there are several footnotes placed throughout the book that lead to very OCD-esque tangents that completely diverge away from the main narrative. This is meant to display the potential disruptive and even damaging effects OCD can have on people, by constantly distracting and unhealthily obsessing over objects and items that don’t really matter. However, one could argue that Howie could simply just be blessed by only having to worry about how to tie his shoelaces and the nature of proper bathroom etiquette. While this may be true to some extent, I would argue that Howie’s obsessive nature on minute details is almost unhealthy, as I think that kind of obsession can potentially be damaging and seriously disrupt the daily flow of life in a person. I think the most revealing part of the book is how unhealthy obsessive Howie is when on page 127, he forms a chart in his head consisting of the subjects of his thoughts and how many times those thoughts occurred per year. Again, you could use this as an example that this dude literally has NOTHING to worry about to the point that he is just so bored that this is what he does for fun but I don’t feel that this sort of behavior is necessarily healthy in an individual.
    While The Mezzanine can be interpreted as just a boring book about a guy on his lunch break on the escalator, I think there is more to this novel than meets the eye. I believe The Mezzanine is meant to be a thorough analysis and exploration about the human mind and specifically, how OCD impacts the mental process of a human being. Baker’s introspective narrative showcases the potential challenges (or benefits?) that one could have if they suffer from OCD.

Works Cited

Baker, Nicholson. The Mezzanine. New York, Weidenfeld & Nicholson, 1988.

Lee Harvey Oswald: The Original Redditor & Attention Seeker

    Don DeLillo takes every popular conspiracy theory surrounding JFK’s death and compiles it all into Libra. It is a chilling novel, showing how a few angry CIA agents managed to plan a major historical event due to their bitterness and even more chilling to think about how this possibly could have actually happened, with those actually responsible for JFK's death never being caught. Libra also takes a deep dive into Lee Harvey Oswald’s personal life. I always believed Oswald’s motivation for the assassination of the 35th American president was due to his communist views. However, reading through Libra makes me think that Oswald’s main goal was simply to get attention, which somehow is far worse than differing political ideology.
    As we discussed in class, Oswald clearly wanted to go down as a major historical figure. He desperately wants to be different from the crowd. Sometimes when reading Libra, I felt like Oswald mainly became a communist so that he could stand out of the crowd. We see him praising communism to his fellow marines while stationed in Atsugi, and he quite literally acts like a redditor. He clearly thinks he knows better than everybody else, and always tries to insert some sort of “well actually” comment into his conservations. One theory I had for why Oswald would end up the way that he was because he did not grow up with a father. The lack of a parental figure during childhood might have driven Oswald to crave more attention then one normally would.
    One might wonder how different would history have been if Oswald had received an amount of attention he thought was adequate enough. I personally think that JFK would not have been murdered, at least not by Oswald. Unfortunately though, he never did get enough attention and decided to change the course of history so that he could finally get some. What is ironic is how Lee Harvey Oswald spent his entire life trying to become the center of attention, and when he finally achieved that, he died just two days later.

How Time Travel Changes People

    What would you do if you were sent back in time? Whether you were sent back to experience the jazz era, cultural revolution and prohibition-fueled violence of the 1920s, or the medieval feudal era of the 1300s to fight in the Hundred Years War, what would you actually do? And how would the people in that era react to you? How would these experiences in the past change a modern individual? These questions are answered by Octavia Butler in Kindred, in which a black woman, Dana, and a white male, Kevin, from 1976 are sent back to the 19th century.

    When Dana and Kevin time travel together, they quickly take up their new roles in this alien society. Although we have recently learned that Kevin helped slaves escape, in the earlier parts of the book Butler dropped some hints at Kevin becoming racist. On page 109, the reader sees how Kevin wants Dana to essentially become his secretary and type his manuscripts for him. He repeatedly asks Dana to do this for him, even though it clearly makes her uncomfortable, showing Kevin’s ignorance. Another example of Kevin’s ignorance is when he was living on the Weylin plantation, where he says that slavery is not that bad and how he would love to experience the building of the American West. He is not aware of the brutal whippings, beatings, and punishments slaves get because he is a white man so nobody is telling him to come outside and see what happens to slaves. Fortunately, Kevin does not turn racist, but it does make the reader wonder about the possibility of somebody turning into a far worse person. As we discussed in class, at what point do roles turn into reality? 

    Dana was not a violent person, rather she was squeamish about violence, but when the patroller attacked her, she realized that her squeamishness was for another age. She could have jabbed out the patroller’s eyes but could not bring herself to, which is when she realizes that was a fatal mistake. She goes back to the past but tries to jab out Kevin’s eyes, as she mistakes him for the patroller. This shows how quickly one can change when thrust into the circumstances of the past. Dana now had no hesitation trying to jab one’s eyes out in self-defense. This comes full circle at the end of the book, when Dana kills Rufus. She was in the same exact circumstance as she was in the beginning of the book but now the person who committed this horrible act was somebody related to her, somebody who Dana had been ambivalent towards the entire book. She kills Rufus in self-defense, and this leads to another example of how she changed: losing her arm. This is mentioned in the first few pages and Butler spends the entire book explaining everything that happened for that to occur. Obviously, Dana losing her arm is a physical and permanent representation of her experiences in the 1800s. She had gotten scars from whippings in the past but losing an entire arm for the rest of her life serves to show how a part of Dana will forever be stuck in the 1800s.