zAP College English - Period 6/7 - Oak Park River Forest High School - 2004-2005 - Weblog - Blogging the Literary Life

Questioning Identity

So, what do you guys think about Identity?
Is a person's identity only a social construct, based on the positions of power they hold in life?
Or is it something separate, something someone has that is his own
and is not reliant on other people and things for definition?

I do not think that how a person defines himself, what he sees as his Identity
has to rest on outside people or things.
I think that there are the types of people who do need to define themselves by those things--
who need to define themselves by their jobs, friends, politics... and I think most people do at times,
but I think that they just don't realize that they are something beyond that... that they have an "Identity" that is all their own.

But then again, maybe I am thinking of something else besides identity... maybe I am defining it wrong

here are three definitions of identity (thanks to dictionary.com)-
1. the collective aspect of the set of characteristics by which a thing is definitely recognizable or known
2. the set of behavioral/personal characteristics by which an individual is recognizable as a member of a group.
3. the distinct personality of an individual regarded as a persisting entity; individuality

Does that change anyones opinion?

Appreciating Shakespeare

So don't get me wrong, I'm no Bernie Heidkamp and I didn't tear up, but I really liked the scene with the King of France talking about how great Cordelia was even without the fortunes of her father. I think it's important to note how remarkable that scene is and it how it shapes up with the rest of the play and other Shakespeare work. It obviously invoked a lot of emotion in Mr. H. and others too and I think that is the most amazing thing about Shakespeare, the way he invokes emotion and can make completely different scenes equally remarkable. Shakespeare has a way with words that needs to be appreciated, whether it be on paper or in performance. He has this ability to make powerful scenes whether they be romantic, action packed, or just monologues. Mr. H. pointing out this scene really made me realize just how good Shakespeare is when it comes to being able to write about different things and situations and we should all appreciate it as we read and perform King Lear.

Nice job, Passage B group

I just want to thank you all for articulating so well the meaning of Passage B. It was clearly the most complex part of that packet, and you guided the class so well through it. I dunno, I was just astounded -- it was, as Donne wrote, "stupefying" -- at how you never faltered. Maybe you worked together a lot outside of class (or maybe you didn't), but I think all groups, in the future, should think of how put-together they were, sticking to explicating hte central theme the whole time, even when trying to decipher individual vocabulary words.

IMAC "title" prompt

I believe that the second AP essay prompt for IMAC has alot more to offer than it might be showing. There are alot of avenues that you could go down if you gave it alittle thought. First, Roth catches the reader's attention with the title and creates an idea in their head that the book will be about communism. Although that is true, Roth tackles so many larger issues than simply communism. He spends countless pages discusssing: religion, family values, social aristocracy, education, and betrayal. Betrayal is the other major issue that is important to understand from the title. Throughout the book betrayal marks Ira's life, and Eve's, and arguments could be made that many other characters are betrayed. Ira is betrayed by Eve and by O'Day, while Eve is betrayed by herself, Ira, her past husbands. Countless issues can be discerned by analyzing the title of the work and looking alittle closer at all the events that take place within the novel.

Final Set "c" #7

So numerous times Mr. Heidkamp has mentioned posting on the blog about the final exam and so far nobody has. Mr. Heidkamp even said that he was going to get it started, but never did, so here's my contribution but I need some help so if anyone is reading this, feel free to comment.
I had contemplated many character's including O'Day, Leo, or Doris, but I decided that Helgi may be the best person to write about. I think although Helgi is a character that appears briefly, event revolving around her help with the development of Eve's character, without which the novel would be completely different. Eve used revenge against Helgi which in a way led to the publishing of the book, and showed how capable she was of betrayal to Ira, and just how nasty she is. Helgi also is a lot like Ira, although she is the messeuse and does labor for Ira and Eve, she also has money but comes from a poor background, but I don't know how I can relate this to my essay. I need some more support to make this an essay though, so please help me.

Is The AP The ACT?!?

Panic struck me during class today when we were reviewing the passages that are going to be on the final. I had a terrible realization: this is just like the reading section of the ACT. We are probably going to face brutally confusing and ambiguous questions without enough time to answer them.

Does anyone else see the resemblence? I am not thrilled people.

Lying Ira

Discussion Question number 8: Ira presents himself as a searingly honest man, and seems actually to believe that this is so.  Yet he consistently lies about two vital facts of his life: that he is a Communist, and that he is a murderer.  Does your knowledge of these lies imply, to you, that he is dishonest about other things?  That he is in fact dishonest by nature?

I think that Ira's lies don't make him any less than a person.  I think that it's a part of human nature to lie.  And not to condone his lies or anything, but I think that most anyone would lie or hide the fact that they killed someone, just because they would want to move on with their life and not have to dwell on a past mistake.  I mean why else would Ira start over in zinc town with the whole Gil Stephens thing?  He obviously wanted to get away from the murderer title and I couldn't blame him. 

As for Ira lying about being a Communist, that is shady.  I don't like how he lied straight in Nathan's dad's face.  I mean if you can just lie straight into someone's face, then what else are you going to lie about?

I think that the fact that Ira is able to lie about such big aspects of his life that he will definitely be dishonest about other things.  But I don't think that means that his lies take away from anything that he says.  I think that his thoughts, values, or whatever are still legitamate, no matter how much or how little I agree with them. 

How I Felt About IMAC

I would be the first to admit that at the beginning I had an extremely hard time getting into IMAC.  I was on vacation and I had so many days to read it while relaxing, but I opened it probably a total of two times, only managing to read 10 pages at a time.  However, when I got back and realized that I only had like 3 days to read 7 chapters, I freaked out and began reading diligently.  To my dismay, I ended up liking the book more and more as I got father into it.  But it was one of the hardest books to get started on.  Maybe it was because we were supposed to read it over break, but for some reason it was challenging.  Overall, I have to say that I truly enjoyed the book.  Not only did I love Roth's diction, but I also found his structure of the book intersting.  The way the stories were intertwined and woven together was creative and made for a good book.  Before I read it I was nervous thinking that Commuism was the main idea in the book, but I was happily pleased in the way it turned out, and I didn't find any difficulty in deciphering certain historical events that occurred.  Two thumbs up!

Challenging Family in IMAC

In the post-reading DQs, number 6 deals with Ira's reasons for staying with Eve, whether or not he is with her simply for the challenge, or if there are other reasons that are less obvious. Number 7 then asks who deserves the most blame in the self-destructive mother-daughter relationship between Eve and Sylphid--How has Eve contributed to Sylphid being the way she is, and in what ways are they similar?

It seems like Ira would get pretty bored with his marriage to Eve--he enjoys talking everyone's ear off about his political beliefs so you would think he would want a wife that would discuss the ways of the world with him in a stimulating manner. However, I realized Ira doesn't want to discuss his views on Communism with people, he wants them to shut up so that he can educate them. Eve is the perfect candidate here, as we often hear of him attempting to talk to her about the wrongs in our country, etc. She plays a central role in this society that he so despises, and therefore sees her as the greatest challenge he could possibly encounter. He would derive such a huge feeling of success from convincing her to think like him, from bursting her perfect little bubble.

Now, the next question made me think about Eve and Sylphid and not only about who is to blame for their strange relationship, but also why do they put up with Ira? In the same way that question can be asked of Ira, so it can be asked of them--Why does Eve stay with Ira if all he ever does is preach to her, abandon her to go to his shack in the country. and throw fits at her fancy parties? Sylphid has no reason to remain in association with Ira, either. She does clearly state her opinions on him, much more than Eve does, but she is smarter than Eve--there is very little doubt in my mind that she suspected Ira was a communist long before he was outed in Eve's novel. But she said nothing.

I think they were both very bored with their standard American lives, living a sophisticated life in their nice house, etc. and Ira kept things interesting. He was challenging, he wasn't another perfect part of their lives so they kept him around.

In the same way Ira presented to challenges to them and v/v, Eve and Sylphid challenged eachother. Sylphid was never the perfect daughter that Eve wanted, she did that wierd thing with her food and she was not physically appealling. She was a big challenge.

Eeek, out of time...Thoughts? Agree/disagree?

Murray's Political Assessment

Q- Murray discusses the motives for Eve's book on pages 271-274. What are his key ideas about motivation? If Murray is accurate, what does his assessment say about the political world in which we live?
Hmm...tough question. First I think it is important to mention that Eve didn't write the book, that the Grants did. The Grants planned to write the book so that Bryden could find his way into office. Murray says that Eve could not write as badly as the book was written, so her motivation for writing the book was because of her own prejudice towards Ira. "Either Eve had no idea what she was being used for by the Grants or, more likely, she knew but didn't care, because the experience of being an attacker made her feel so strong and brave, striking back at the monsters at last"(274). This shows that Murray thinks that Eve's motivation was to just get back at someone for all that had been down to her, surely a pessimistic view on his part, although it may be true. His assessment shows that politicians can be extremely manipulative, and that they are very good at pointing their fingers at people. The motivation on Eve's part was to get back at Ira and on the Grants part to get Bryden into office. Murray also shows how politicians will step on other people in order to put themselves upon a pedestal, which is exactly what the book did. The political world in which we live seems to be fake, and the politicians undeserving according to Murray.

Group E: Why Not Reagan?

Question 12 for ch. 7 is long, so look it up in your packet if you want to know the whole thing.  It basically asked why Roth did not have Murray make comments about Reagan's funeral, as well as Nixon's.

I don't feel that talking about Reagan would have proved Murray's point.  He was talking about betrayal before segwaying into the funerals.  Nixon is appropriately mentioned because he was a traitor to his country.  Reagan, as far as I know, did no such thing.  Also, I think this book was written before Reagan died anyway...

Helgi Gives 'Em Hell

chapter 7, question #5: The event involving Helgi that would bring "the whole thing down," alluded to at the end of Ch. 5, occurs on pages 257-259. It's an uproarious scene, but aside from being funny, it's interestingly appropriate to the political themes of the novel. What are the political aspects of the scene? In what ways is Helgi the perfect deus ex machina to move this novel to its impending tragic conclusion?

my response (on behalf of Group E): Helgi brings politics into the scene by stating, "The peasant [Helgi] gives him the blow jobs" (p. 258). By saying this, Helgi provides evidence that the bourgouis that Eve is a part of does not satisfy Ira.

A deus ex machina is a person who suddenly enters a novel to solve a difficult situation. Helgi is that person because she serves no other purpose than to give Eve the incentive to write the book which pushed Ira over the edge. Helgi adds a dynamic that completely changes the course of the novel by breaking the last thread of sanity that was holding everything in Ira's life together.

Eve's anti-Semitism

Eve, in a desperate attempt to move to the top of the Hollywood social hierarchy, attempts to ditch her Jewish identity. She's no longer Chava Fromkin from Brooklyn. She's beautiful, she's famous -- what she needs now is a way to maintain this. So she latched onto movie star Carlton Pennington, taking him as her Gentile model and a means to de-Jew herself.

Murray mentions The Sun Also Rises to further explain Eve's transformation: like Robert Cohn in Hemingway's novel who goes to Princeton to box and forget his Jewish identity does Eve with Pennington. But he was more than, as Murray says, "this rich, polo-playing upper-class genuine aristocrat ... her director." He was gay, he was anti-Semitic: the ultimate outsider, truly, in the movie studio community.

Here, as Mr. Heidkamp pointed out, lies one of the book's themes, this unwillingness to make your own decisions, to remain true to yourself. This is on the bottom of p 158:

The crime isn't even bringing an anti-Semite close to you. That's your choice too. The crime is being unable to stand up to him, unable to defend against the assault, and taking his attitudes for yours. In America, as I see it, you can allow yourself every freedom but that one.

Eve, Murray later says, is taking an act too far. To rid your identity? Fine. That's your prerogative. But to continually hate Jews? To spite a baby for having a Jewish mother? That, he says, is wrong. She could act with nuance and change on stage, but in reality, she was unable to shake this habit that she acquired from Pennington. She's a vessel. She comes back to Jumbo Freedman in the same manner: she conveniently drops her hatred for, as Murray says, "what you go to a Jew for -- money and business and licentious sex. It was a transaction." With her star falling, Eve hedged her bets.

But is Murray also foreshadowing Ira's downfall? Ira tried to leave his past behind, the primordial sixteen-year-old kid who laughed after he killed a man, the tempestuous Army brat who threw a guy into the ocean for disagreeing with him. And so he married Eve, he hosted The Free and the Brave, he dressed up like Abe Lincoln, the paragon of American virtue. It all crashes down, doesn't it? He marries Eve and tries with all of his literary and political might to rid her of the anti-Semitism, to be her O'Day. He takes on Eve, Murray theorisizes, to win the ultimate battle. To enforce his beliefs onto hers is, as Murray says, rendering Eve "unable to stand up to him, unable to defend against the assault, and taking his attitudes for [hers]." The least permissible transgression of all -- the opposite of his prized critical thinking.

For that matter, who does honestly change in this novel? Nathan? Why's he living alone on the hills? Why does he ignore what he once thrived on -- he ends the novel not with a bang, but with a whimper, "the colossal spectacle of no antagonism."

Literature v. Politics

Leo declares that literature and politics are in an inverse relationship, that they are polar opposites.  He says that literature's "task" is to "impart the nuance, elucidate the complication, imply the contradiction" whereas politics renounces the nuance.  In other words, literature is supposed to be specific, show the chaos and truth of humankind, while politics generalizes, calms, conforms. 

Though I may have read into this totally wrong, projecting my own opinions onto Leo, I got the impression that he thinks literature is the nobler pursuit.   He states that writers "introduce something into the world something that wasn't even there at the start."  I agree with this, and think that it is very important.  Every work of literature is something new, something that has never before existed.  On the other hand, politicians must conform to one of the preexisting parties.  Politicians deviate very little from the mean, while it is an artist's job to deviate greatly. 

On the other hand, Leo did basically state that literature "...has no place in that world. It's useless." Did I get his opinion wrong?  Or when he said "that world" did he mean the world of politicians, the world of militants, the world of believers, the world of peope who couldn't "see the shit"? What do you think?