Friday, January 30, 2009
Give Me Some Room to Think!!
One idea that seems to be consistently popping up in the literature that we’ve recently been studying is the suggestion that suppression of expression can—and did, in the past—lead to psychological problems. In layman’s terms, some of our authors have suggested that the patriarchal society was responsible for the minds of brilliant women being figuratively “lost.” In Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper,” we are introduced to a woman who is sick with “temporary nervous depression—a slight hysterical tendency” (368). However, as the story progresses, we see that the narrator is allowed very little freedom by her husband, who she also says “hates to have me write a word” (370). She tells us that her husband’s sister “thinks it is the writing which made [her] sick,” (371). However, I would like to suggest the exact opposite: that it was not her writing that made her “sick,” but rather her lack of freedom to do so openly. The narrator seems to have some of the most distinguishable qualities of a writer imbedded in her, but her “imaginative power and habit of story-making” are “a nervous weakness” in the eyes of her husband (371). Like the character of Judith Shakespeare introduced to us by Virginia Woolf in A Room of One’s Own, this woman’s gift for writing and freedom of expression are suppressed by the patriarchal society around her. Woolf tells us that “it needs little skill in psychology to be sure that a highly gifted girl who had tried to use her gift for poetry would have been so thwarted and hindered by other people, so tortured and pulled asunder by her own contrary instincts, that she must have lost her health and sanity to a certainty” (49). Indeed, we see that Judith Shakespeare winds up killing herself, and the narrator of “The Yellow Wallpaper” basically loses her mind. Perhaps when Woolf spoke of the imperativeness of “a room of one’s own” to the writer, she was speaking of more than just a physical room. We began exploring this idea in class by suggesting that the mind itself can be seen as a “room of one’s own,” but I would like to take this one step further. I think that the word “room” can be interpreted in two different ways here. It refers to the actual physical space in which an author has to work, but I think it can also refer to figurative space for her mind to wander and explore. A writer’s mind needs “room” to think, or it just might lose itself.
Sunday, January 25, 2009
The Writing LIFE???
I have to admit that when Annie Dillard, in her essay “The Writing Life,” mentioned that she had written a “complex narrative essay about a moth’s flying into a candle, which no one had understood but a Yale critic,” a part of me (probably the pride/self-esteem part) wondered if, indeed, the essay was too deep for a mere non-Yaleian (yes, I made that word up) to appreciate. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find the article in its entirety online without having to pay for it, but I did manage to find an excerpt at http://poetryparsnip.blogspot.com/2003_05_01_archive.html , in case any of you are interested in checking it out.
So here are some of my raw thoughts and reactions to the snippet of the essay that I was able to read. Granted, I’m not “trained as a critic” (to quote Dillard in “The Writing Life”), but, as a writer myself, I have a natural tendency to analyze anything I read. I’d like to start off by noting that I think Dillard may have underestimated her readers when she claimed that her work is “too obscure, too symbolic, too intellectual…[and] not available to people.” True, the underlying message of her moth essay is a little obscure and perhaps difficult to extract, but I think it is safe to make the assumption that most people who read it realize that it has something to do with death; even the simplest of readers probably realize that Dillard would not devote her time and effort to writing about a burning moth without some kind of underlying message. From there, I think the essay really becomes a matter of personal interpretation. That’s the great thing about writing: its ambiguous nature allows readers to interpret it in different ways depending on what makes the most sense to them. It’s beautiful, really, how one essay, one sentence, one word, can affect so many different people in so many different ways.
That being said, here are some of my interpretations of the excerpt from “Death of a Moth,” and if you disagree with them, I encourage you to refute them with your own. My initial gut reaction (and we are often encouraged to trust our guts) was that Dillard is not being as obscure as she thinks she is. Sometimes in our society, especially among writers, death is kind of glorified. Sanders, in his essay “Writing from the Center,” goes so far as to say that “[w]e have often taken moodiness, madness, or suicide to be evidence of genius.” In “Death of a Moth,” Dillard describes the moth flying into the candle and burning in a descriptively grotesque manner. I don’t want to type out the entire essay for you--if you are interested you can follow the link above--but take the following passage as an example: “[The moth’s] six legs clawed, curled, blackened, and ceased, disappearing utterly. And her head jerked in spasms, making a spattering noise; her antennae crisped and burnt away and her heaving mouthparts cracked like pistol fire.” What is Dillard doing here? I think that she is refuting that glorified image of death by, as the old saying goes, “saying it like it is.” Death is not pretty; it’s as simple as that. My interpretation is either very enlightening or embarrassingly simple-minded. Of course, this is just one tiny aspect of Dillard’s essay; there are plenty of other themes to be analyzed, but for the sake of time (as well as for the sake of not swaying your opinions), I’ll leave that up to you.
I just want to make one quick final note about the “Death of a Moth” essay in relation to Dillard’s “The Writing Life” essay—a connection that I saw between the two. In “The Writing Life,” Dillard compares writing to visiting a dying friend or taming a wild animal, saying, in both cases, that “[i]f you skip a visit or two, a work in progress will turn on you.” This implies the necessity of returning to your writing every day if you want to keep it under control, if you want to avoid “death” (whether it be the death of that “dying friend” or your own death when attacked by the “feral” beast that your writing becomes). Interestingly enough, however, in “Death of a Moth,” Dillard implies that writing every day will also result in death. While the moth is burning, she says its head becomes “a hole lost to time” and that “[t]he moth’s head was fire.” She later adds that “Rimbaud in Paris burnt out his brain in a thousand poems.” It seems Dillard is giving us mixed messages here. We imply from “The Writing Life” that neglecting to write often will result in a “death” of sorts, while “Death of a Moth” suggests that the writing itself results in death. Is Dillard suggesting that the nature of the life of a writer sentences her to a life of misery, a “death” of sorts, no matter how she approaches her work? As you consider this, keep in mind another quote from Dillard’s “The Writing Life”: “The mind of a writer does indeed do something before it dies, and so does its owner, but I would be hard put to call it living.”
I have more thoughts, but this is already getting rather lengthy. I want to hear yours.
So here are some of my raw thoughts and reactions to the snippet of the essay that I was able to read. Granted, I’m not “trained as a critic” (to quote Dillard in “The Writing Life”), but, as a writer myself, I have a natural tendency to analyze anything I read. I’d like to start off by noting that I think Dillard may have underestimated her readers when she claimed that her work is “too obscure, too symbolic, too intellectual…[and] not available to people.” True, the underlying message of her moth essay is a little obscure and perhaps difficult to extract, but I think it is safe to make the assumption that most people who read it realize that it has something to do with death; even the simplest of readers probably realize that Dillard would not devote her time and effort to writing about a burning moth without some kind of underlying message. From there, I think the essay really becomes a matter of personal interpretation. That’s the great thing about writing: its ambiguous nature allows readers to interpret it in different ways depending on what makes the most sense to them. It’s beautiful, really, how one essay, one sentence, one word, can affect so many different people in so many different ways.
That being said, here are some of my interpretations of the excerpt from “Death of a Moth,” and if you disagree with them, I encourage you to refute them with your own. My initial gut reaction (and we are often encouraged to trust our guts) was that Dillard is not being as obscure as she thinks she is. Sometimes in our society, especially among writers, death is kind of glorified. Sanders, in his essay “Writing from the Center,” goes so far as to say that “[w]e have often taken moodiness, madness, or suicide to be evidence of genius.” In “Death of a Moth,” Dillard describes the moth flying into the candle and burning in a descriptively grotesque manner. I don’t want to type out the entire essay for you--if you are interested you can follow the link above--but take the following passage as an example: “[The moth’s] six legs clawed, curled, blackened, and ceased, disappearing utterly. And her head jerked in spasms, making a spattering noise; her antennae crisped and burnt away and her heaving mouthparts cracked like pistol fire.” What is Dillard doing here? I think that she is refuting that glorified image of death by, as the old saying goes, “saying it like it is.” Death is not pretty; it’s as simple as that. My interpretation is either very enlightening or embarrassingly simple-minded. Of course, this is just one tiny aspect of Dillard’s essay; there are plenty of other themes to be analyzed, but for the sake of time (as well as for the sake of not swaying your opinions), I’ll leave that up to you.
I just want to make one quick final note about the “Death of a Moth” essay in relation to Dillard’s “The Writing Life” essay—a connection that I saw between the two. In “The Writing Life,” Dillard compares writing to visiting a dying friend or taming a wild animal, saying, in both cases, that “[i]f you skip a visit or two, a work in progress will turn on you.” This implies the necessity of returning to your writing every day if you want to keep it under control, if you want to avoid “death” (whether it be the death of that “dying friend” or your own death when attacked by the “feral” beast that your writing becomes). Interestingly enough, however, in “Death of a Moth,” Dillard implies that writing every day will also result in death. While the moth is burning, she says its head becomes “a hole lost to time” and that “[t]he moth’s head was fire.” She later adds that “Rimbaud in Paris burnt out his brain in a thousand poems.” It seems Dillard is giving us mixed messages here. We imply from “The Writing Life” that neglecting to write often will result in a “death” of sorts, while “Death of a Moth” suggests that the writing itself results in death. Is Dillard suggesting that the nature of the life of a writer sentences her to a life of misery, a “death” of sorts, no matter how she approaches her work? As you consider this, keep in mind another quote from Dillard’s “The Writing Life”: “The mind of a writer does indeed do something before it dies, and so does its owner, but I would be hard put to call it living.”
I have more thoughts, but this is already getting rather lengthy. I want to hear yours.
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Writing Metaphor, Part II
Ok, I am not trying to be some kind of suck up or goody two shoes or what have you by posting two assignments; I realize that I have already posted the writing metaphor assignment, but as I was driving over to swim at Notre Dame this afternoon, inspiration STRUCK (thank God it was inspiration that struck me and not my jalopy of a car striking some innocent bystander as I was failing to pay much attention to what I was doing, so overcome was I with this amazing idea for my HUST blog post). Who am I to deny inspiration an outlet through which it may share itself with the rest of the world? Given the nature of my epiphany, I feel justified in claiming that I am merely acting as a mediator here, a link between that brilliant thought that STRUCK me this afternoon and all of you lovely blog-readers.
Before I share with you that STRIKING thought, I feel maternally inclined to protect my car's pride (and, by extension, my own) from any mockery that may result from this post. I'm sure that several of you have seen it around campus...it's the rust-encroached '85 Buick with a handwritten sign christening it "The Cowmobile" visible from the back windshield. I know it's a piece of crap, but it's my piece of crap, so please refrain from posting any scathing remarks regarding its appearance.
Anyway, by now you are probably wondering if I truly was STRUCK by inspiration or simply
desired a place in which I could ramble aimlessly for hours on end as a means of entertaining myself. I assure you, we will get to the STRIKING part shortly; but first, some brief exposition...
As we all very well know, walking around campus last week was basically the equivalent of trekking through an arctic tundra (all to experience the joys of learning, what dedicated scholars we are!). Not only did this frigid weather affect our health (I am still coughing up massive amounts of mucous), but it took quite a toll on a lot of students' vehicles as well. Now, the Cowmobile is quite aged, and I have the occasional problem getting it to run when it's not -3150 degrees out (an exaggeration? Ok, perhaps, but it was pretty freaking cold), so you have to realize that trying to get my baby running last week was quite an undertaking. It didn't help matters that I have a tendency to get very cranky when I'm cold, or that I had forgotten my snow brush at home and thus had to use my jacketed arm (which I am just now recovering the functionality of...ok, perhaps another slight embellishment) to scrape off the foot of snow that had accumulated on top of my car. By the time I got inside the dang thing, I was very cold, very wet, and very unhappy.
Things got progressively worse (as they often seem to do in these situations) when I realized that I had set my keys on the hood of my car while brushing the snow off of it. This does not seem like a big deal, I know: Why couldn't I just open my car door, grab the keys, and start the engine? I'll tell you why--because God hates me. Well, actually, it's because I'm a moron and, by prying open the frozen door earlier, I had somehow managed to break the door handle in such a way that prevented it from being able to function from the inside. Thus, I had to roll down my window (old-school style--by cranking a handle), subject my already freezing arm to the elements, and open my door from the outside. I then proceeded to grab my keys and attempt (note my word choice there) to start my car.
I could ramble on for a few more paragraphs about my multiple futile attempts to get the thing running, but I'm sure you're all bored with my incessant complaining by now. The bottom line is this: With persistence and a willingness to try different methods when the previous ones didn't work (and, ok, quite a few swear words), I finally managed to get my car running and, subsequently, made it to my desired destination (Starbucks, for some much needed caffeine).
Moral of my story? Writing, for me, is very similar to what happened with my car. Sometimes I get stuck, and it seems like everything is working against me. Sometimes I know exactly where I want to go and just can't seem to get there. But if I force myself to just grit my teeth, work through the issues, and look at things from different angles (and, ok, yes, again, perhaps utter a few swear words), I can usually get things running smoothly. It always pays off in the end.
That, my friends, is what STRUCK me today. Just thought I'd share. :-)
Before I share with you that STRIKING thought, I feel maternally inclined to protect my car's pride (and, by extension, my own) from any mockery that may result from this post. I'm sure that several of you have seen it around campus...it's the rust-encroached '85 Buick with a handwritten sign christening it "The Cowmobile" visible from the back windshield. I know it's a piece of crap, but it's my piece of crap, so please refrain from posting any scathing remarks regarding its appearance.
Anyway, by now you are probably wondering if I truly was STRUCK by inspiration or simply
desired a place in which I could ramble aimlessly for hours on end as a means of entertaining myself. I assure you, we will get to the STRIKING part shortly; but first, some brief exposition...
As we all very well know, walking around campus last week was basically the equivalent of trekking through an arctic tundra (all to experience the joys of learning, what dedicated scholars we are!). Not only did this frigid weather affect our health (I am still coughing up massive amounts of mucous), but it took quite a toll on a lot of students' vehicles as well. Now, the Cowmobile is quite aged, and I have the occasional problem getting it to run when it's not -3150 degrees out (an exaggeration? Ok, perhaps, but it was pretty freaking cold), so you have to realize that trying to get my baby running last week was quite an undertaking. It didn't help matters that I have a tendency to get very cranky when I'm cold, or that I had forgotten my snow brush at home and thus had to use my jacketed arm (which I am just now recovering the functionality of...ok, perhaps another slight embellishment) to scrape off the foot of snow that had accumulated on top of my car. By the time I got inside the dang thing, I was very cold, very wet, and very unhappy.
Things got progressively worse (as they often seem to do in these situations) when I realized that I had set my keys on the hood of my car while brushing the snow off of it. This does not seem like a big deal, I know: Why couldn't I just open my car door, grab the keys, and start the engine? I'll tell you why--because God hates me. Well, actually, it's because I'm a moron and, by prying open the frozen door earlier, I had somehow managed to break the door handle in such a way that prevented it from being able to function from the inside. Thus, I had to roll down my window (old-school style--by cranking a handle), subject my already freezing arm to the elements, and open my door from the outside. I then proceeded to grab my keys and attempt (note my word choice there) to start my car.
I could ramble on for a few more paragraphs about my multiple futile attempts to get the thing running, but I'm sure you're all bored with my incessant complaining by now. The bottom line is this: With persistence and a willingness to try different methods when the previous ones didn't work (and, ok, quite a few swear words), I finally managed to get my car running and, subsequently, made it to my desired destination (Starbucks, for some much needed caffeine).
Moral of my story? Writing, for me, is very similar to what happened with my car. Sometimes I get stuck, and it seems like everything is working against me. Sometimes I know exactly where I want to go and just can't seem to get there. But if I force myself to just grit my teeth, work through the issues, and look at things from different angles (and, ok, yes, again, perhaps utter a few swear words), I can usually get things running smoothly. It always pays off in the end.
That, my friends, is what STRUCK me today. Just thought I'd share. :-)
Gone Fishin'
A Fisher of Words
Equipped with nothing
but the thin rod
grasped in my right
hand, I face the expansive
sea of potential.
A hook
baited only with
a wriggling idea—
exposed—cast
into the unknown.
Reeling. The return
is smooth, and I—
I’ve got nothin’.
I toss the line again
and will myself
to practice patience,
as I cast and reel,
cast and reel,
cast and reel—
methodic and unrewarding.
Not until I relax my effort
and divert my focus
do I feel the snag of inspiration
on my end of the line.
And I am satisfied
with the day’s catch,
however small
it may be.
Jesus fed five thousand
with a few loaves of bread
and only
two small fish.
Hey everybody! So, while I feel like I've come to be quite the pro "facebooker," I admit I'm a rookie "blogger." Please be patient with me as I get accustomed to the format. On the writing issue (assuming I--in my technologically handicapped capacity--can actually get this thing posted and thus enable you to respond to the question I am about to pose), does anybody else feel like the harder you try to write something inspiring/powerful/non-crappy, the harder it is? I hate writing under pressure...it stifles the muses, ya know? :-) Like when I was in high school, we always had to write these timed literary essays in class without being given the topic ahead of time, and it just made me panic. I was wondering if anyone has any specific coping/relaxation techniques that kind of help them in the writing process.
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