Modernism, Yay or Nay

As the modernist era began to approach, many things began so change. The very viewpoint of things so basic such as literature and knowledge began to change with how widespread they were soon able to become. This draws me to a discussion on a brief question addressed in class, how did authors feel about the modernist era. Personally I can not even begin to imagine how much they must have hated it. With general knowledge becoming more common spread, the value of their individual contributions to the history of american literature must have decreased. Their works must have simply become other pieces of literature to the common person, as they are slowly exposed to more ways to obtain knowledge. Alongside this the greater availability of transportation to people and the more active and present transportation of knowledge and ideas must have also given Authors works less sincerity in their recognition. The more "sudden breaks in viewpoints" that the common man was given took away from the breaks in viewpoints that literature was primarily used to give. Also this must have created the effect that we see so often in today's world where one individual is inclined to feel a certain way based of how another, or how common people tend to view the same matter. Modernism must have created way to the loss of differing and unique individual values and viewpoints.

Pecola's Friend

Throughout our discussion for the past few weeks on Toni Morrison’s Novel, “The Bluest Eye,” we spent class time discussing how Morrison talks to her audience about the horrible impacts of racism and beauty standards. Even if I personally could not make every connection that was talked about in class, The connections that we made in class were both thought provoking and insightful. However, should this have been or Morrison’s intentions or not, there was yet another message I managed to take from the closing moments of Morrison’s Novel, from the final chapter, when Pecola talks with her imaginary friend. As a personal take away from this chapter, I found a message in the importance of friendship, and in having someone being there for you, which is a theme that I found to have been relevant throughout other sections of the novel as well, including the telling of Soaphead’s tale, and the chapter on Cholly. I believe that Morrison managed to tell the importance of company in how it shapes someone specifically in the chapter involving Pecola and her imaginary friend, as this is where we first begin to see the shattered state of mind that Pecola is left with. By having no one but herself to bounce her negative thoughts around, they simply settled and were watered by her surroundings, and they eventually polluted the earth that was her mind. Until the only positivity she could focus on were her eyes, so blue, so pure, and so beautiful, that she was the only one that could see them. Her lack of companionship and support trapped her negative emotions, planted by her society, and caused them to grow into dandelions, killing off the joy that had still yet to grow into beautiful flowers nearby. Pecola’s aloneness caused her to eventually “step over into madness” a very real madness that loneliness always drags around with it. 

The Hussars that we are

This week in 11AP we discussed many different things but at the end of the week we brought our Friday to a close by talking about Baroque and Rococo forms of art. Of these art forms however, we specifically discussed the painting, "Officers of the Hussars," painted by Kehinde Wiley. This specific painting still follows the dramatic and grand details that are usually seen in Baroque art forms, however the most noticeable part of the picture, the black man on the horse, is what truly makes it stand out, and also what conveys the message that is is trying to deliver. In the center of such a grand picture, encompassed in red and gold and covered with gaudy and royal details, Wiley painted a casually clothed black man dressed in, as stated in class, "A wife beater and some timbs" in the center of the piece. I believe that this shows that anyone can be a hero, no matter what our current interpretation of a hero is, or what the public and society's concert of a hero is. This also relates to the discussions we held on the bluest eye, as despite what we associate and brand beauty as being, and the people we associate the word with, it truly is something extensive that can be found in everyone and everything.

Different Races, Different Faces

 As discussed over the past two weeks in class, beauty standards are something that we are made to grow up with in today's current society. Everyone seems to have an image of how the ideal person should look. Through movies, posters, magazines, and of course, toy barbie dolls, the picture of beauty manages to stay constant throughout all of this. However do different races have different beauty standards? After all, despite her white surroundings, it is certainly a stretch for a black female to grow up wanting to have "pretty blue eyes." Personally speaking (Despite not being able to speak from a females point of view) I do not believe that beauty is limited to only those who have blonde hair and blue eyes. Especially seeing that these two traits (in hair color and eye color) are entirely genetic, and are unable to be changed by someone. However I do believe that the sought after definition of beauty is slightly different to every race. After all the Indian definition of beauty is certainty not the same as the American definition of beauty that we are all to similar with. Of course they are not totally different concepts, and many aspects of both are bound to overlap, but much like the different culture in India there is a different set of standards for beauty that accompany that, and though suffering from the same issues that we discussed in class, it should be stressed that people should not get too caught up in images that they were never meant to be able to be in the first place.

The Perfect Image

Once upon a time, long and far ago, perhaps even back to the time of Jesus, there must not have been ideal social images than women were forced to fit. However in today’s modern day and age, everyone is physically expected to fit into our perception of beauty in order to feel liked by others for who they are. For example as portrayed even by something as simple as a toy doll that girls grow up with, the concept that they must be long legged, sleek, or have a “Thirty-nine-inch bust and a twenty-three-inch waist,” are simple norms that are faced in growing up in today’s day and age. This leads to much insecurity within ourselves as we struggle to inch closer to images that are created through shaping plastic, or extensive computer editing. Though irrational, the train of thought is very simple. This is how people on magazines look; this is how I should look. This train of thought is what sets today’s standards as high as they are, and what keeps them always just one step above our reach. Even when considering standards set for males, it is still hard to expect everyone to consist of: A chiseled face, sharp jawbone, abs, and so on. Overall today’s beauty standards are as unreachable as pink elephants, and no matter how much we try to chase the perfect image, or how much of ourselves we sacrifice for it in the end it will always be just another step away from us.

The seen and Unseen

In our daily lives, our race and ethnicity and two very different things that end up determining a lot about us as people, both to all of those around us, and also to ourselves. As concluded in our class discussions this past week, race tends to be knows as how an individual is referred to by other people or how an individual person is stereotyped by public views and perceptions. On the other hand, Ethnicity tends to be seen as how we are viewed culturally or religiously within ourselves or within or families and friends. The public tends to create how we are seen from the perspective of race, often through categorization through skin color or looks etc. In that sense it is not possible for us to change our race, as we are simply to make due with what is given to us and how it is publicly acted upon. Our ethnicity however is not something that we are born with or bound to. It is something that we learn from those close to us in our upbringing and something we look to for internal self definition through our lives. Our ethnicity is not decided for us by society unlike, how as we concluded in class, our race often times seems to be. However despite the social constraints to something as key to our identity as our race, "It doesnt define who we are as a person, because any way of defining it is easily constructed."

Artie's emotional Comic

In Art Spiegalman’s story Maus, the author tells the story of a mouse Arthur and his father’s experiences in the holocaust as repeated to him by his father.  His father tells him how he lived through wartime and the era of the Nazi’s and all the challenges that he endured as his son takes notes in order to create a comic he hopes to sell about the suffering faces by Jew’s during that historical period. During his father’s stories however, there generally seems to be a rift in tone between Arthur himself and his Father. At points it seems as if both of them are each on their own extremes as far as what they want out of their conversations with each other, where Arthur seems to simply want a story, and his Father seems to need company and someone to talk to. However much more of Arthur’s emotional side is revealed when his old comic “Prisoner on the Hell Planet” is found by his Father and Mala. As the comic is shown to the reader, it reveals the struggles that a character (seemingly portraying him) faces when having to cope with his mother’s suicide. This comic is very insightful to the character of Arthur himself in the story as it shows that despite the attitude that he takes on in front of his father, that he feels immense guilt at the death of his mother due to how he treated her the night before, as he stated he “Turned away, resentful of the way she tightened the umbilical cord,” and also how in his comic the voices in his head were given life under the form of other people that told him how it was “His fault” and how he “Had better cried while your mother was still alive.”