Note: This is for my music teacher. Please pay no mind to this post Mr. Kent. :)
http://sebastianwolff.info/news.php
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
Friday, December 4, 2009
American Cultural Themes_Extended
Prejudice has been at the base of America from the day it was born. African Americans were bondaged for the majority of American history and segregated for most of the rest. These two concepts wove their way into the text using the black John Jackson. For instance, after his fortune is told, the judge and even Tobin (who dislikes the judge) keep the clearer meaning from him. The judge tells him that "All will be known at last. To you as to every man." I think this hints at the fact that he is somehow infereior now and will soon ascend to their status in the future.
There is also an extremely funny encounter between the owner of a restaurant and the Glanton Gang. The owner puts his hands down on the table and said, "Gentlemen...we don't mind serving people of color. Glad to do it. But we ast for em to set over here at this other table here. Right over here." Someone from the gang says, "He thinks were niggers." Glanton then says, "Mr Owens, if you was anything at all other than a goddamn fool you could take one look at these here men and know for a stone fact they aint a one of em goin to get up from where they're at to go set somewheres else." After a little more talking, Brown gave the owner a gun and told him to shoot the nigger. He didn't want to but in self defense. But Jackson killed him first. Basically, they were testing the owner with Jackson's life. Even though they knew he would win, it was still a cruel test with which to make him pass.
The idiot, before his demonic baptism by the judge, is basically a retard (hence the name idiot). The way society treats him is by putting him in a cage for all to see, as if he isn't human. Around this time period, Dorothea Dix led a crusade for the mentally ill. She argued in her report to Congress titled Memorial that there are, "Insane Persons confined within this Commonwealth, in cages, stalls, pens! Chained, naked, beaten with rods, and lashed into obediance." This paints a clear picture of how the idiot is treated. In America, prejudice towards the mentally ill has become more of a social isolation rather than a physical one. But that doesn't mean that society as a whole cannot care more for them. For instance, if it leaked that someone met a psychiatrist once a week, then that person might be labeled as psychologically unstable and be shunned be people for no truly solid reason.
There is also an extremely funny encounter between the owner of a restaurant and the Glanton Gang. The owner puts his hands down on the table and said, "Gentlemen...we don't mind serving people of color. Glad to do it. But we ast for em to set over here at this other table here. Right over here." Someone from the gang says, "He thinks were niggers." Glanton then says, "Mr Owens, if you was anything at all other than a goddamn fool you could take one look at these here men and know for a stone fact they aint a one of em goin to get up from where they're at to go set somewheres else." After a little more talking, Brown gave the owner a gun and told him to shoot the nigger. He didn't want to but in self defense. But Jackson killed him first. Basically, they were testing the owner with Jackson's life. Even though they knew he would win, it was still a cruel test with which to make him pass.
The idiot, before his demonic baptism by the judge, is basically a retard (hence the name idiot). The way society treats him is by putting him in a cage for all to see, as if he isn't human. Around this time period, Dorothea Dix led a crusade for the mentally ill. She argued in her report to Congress titled Memorial that there are, "Insane Persons confined within this Commonwealth, in cages, stalls, pens! Chained, naked, beaten with rods, and lashed into obediance." This paints a clear picture of how the idiot is treated. In America, prejudice towards the mentally ill has become more of a social isolation rather than a physical one. But that doesn't mean that society as a whole cannot care more for them. For instance, if it leaked that someone met a psychiatrist once a week, then that person might be labeled as psychologically unstable and be shunned be people for no truly solid reason.
Judge Holdon's Philosopies
The judge is the most myserious character in the novel and appears to know everything on anything. However, his strange beliefs and heretical position on subjects causes him to take on an otherwordly quality. For instance, when questioned on why he sketches and notates drawings of objects he finds, he replies that he wants "to expunge them from the memory of man." He later mentions the Anasazi, an old civilization that supposedly practiced cannibalism, and lectures on how they are "gone like phantoms and...All progressions from a higher to a lower order are marked by ruins and mystery and a residue of nameless rage." Basically, the Anasazi destroyed themselves and, because of that, they will forever remain a mystery to the human race, just like Holden himself.
When asked how to raise a child, the judge explains that "At a young age... they should be put in a pit with wild dogs...puzzle out from their proper clues that one of three doors that does not harbor wild lions... be made to run naked in the desert until..." He then states that "If G-D meant to interfere in the degeneracy of mankind would he not have done so by now?" No one answers his question. He merely concludes that "in the affairs of men there is no waning...His meridian is at once his darkening and the evening of his daydo you not think that this will happen again?" What does he say? He says that civilizations rise and fall and that man is destined to repeat its mistakes forever. They will rise and fall until the end of time.
Another interesting conversation in which Toadvine asks the judge why he writes in his little book and he responds by saying that, "Whatever exists in creation without my knowledge exists without my consent." He goes on to talk about how even "the smallest crumb can devour us." He believes that only nature has the power to keep men in bondage and that only when every unknown thing is brought out into the open will man be the "proper suzerain of the earth." A suzerain, he goes on to explain, is like an overlord whose will is dispersed through lower lords. For instance, the Federal Government of the United States is the suzerain over the State Governments. The judge illustrates by touching the ground and saying that even though he claims this ground, "autonomous life" still exists where he believes it should not. In other words, he wants the self sufficient creatures to depend on him and not be able to live seperately. He even mentions that "the freedom of birds is an insult to me. I'd have them all in zoos."
Later, the judge performs some magic with a gold coin and supposedly some horsehair when he states, "The arc of circling bodies is determined by the legnth of their tether...Moons, coins, men." He then proceeds to through the coin across the fire, wait a while, and have it fly back. Some witnesses thought their were two coins, to which the judge answered, "all men knew that there are coins and false coins." This implies that men are the coins and the circles made by spinning them are their spheres: spheres of influencing, being influenced, knowledge, and the such. Of course, there are "false coins," which could be explained as people who appear false (as in a false persona), or where their spheres are false, most likely not as big as they seem.
All of these arguements set forth by the judge include interesting and strange views that better inform the reader of how the judge thinks and what he believes.
When asked how to raise a child, the judge explains that "At a young age... they should be put in a pit with wild dogs...puzzle out from their proper clues that one of three doors that does not harbor wild lions... be made to run naked in the desert until..." He then states that "If G-D meant to interfere in the degeneracy of mankind would he not have done so by now?" No one answers his question. He merely concludes that "in the affairs of men there is no waning...His meridian is at once his darkening and the evening of his daydo you not think that this will happen again?" What does he say? He says that civilizations rise and fall and that man is destined to repeat its mistakes forever. They will rise and fall until the end of time.
Another interesting conversation in which Toadvine asks the judge why he writes in his little book and he responds by saying that, "Whatever exists in creation without my knowledge exists without my consent." He goes on to talk about how even "the smallest crumb can devour us." He believes that only nature has the power to keep men in bondage and that only when every unknown thing is brought out into the open will man be the "proper suzerain of the earth." A suzerain, he goes on to explain, is like an overlord whose will is dispersed through lower lords. For instance, the Federal Government of the United States is the suzerain over the State Governments. The judge illustrates by touching the ground and saying that even though he claims this ground, "autonomous life" still exists where he believes it should not. In other words, he wants the self sufficient creatures to depend on him and not be able to live seperately. He even mentions that "the freedom of birds is an insult to me. I'd have them all in zoos."
Later, the judge performs some magic with a gold coin and supposedly some horsehair when he states, "The arc of circling bodies is determined by the legnth of their tether...Moons, coins, men." He then proceeds to through the coin across the fire, wait a while, and have it fly back. Some witnesses thought their were two coins, to which the judge answered, "all men knew that there are coins and false coins." This implies that men are the coins and the circles made by spinning them are their spheres: spheres of influencing, being influenced, knowledge, and the such. Of course, there are "false coins," which could be explained as people who appear false (as in a false persona), or where their spheres are false, most likely not as big as they seem.
All of these arguements set forth by the judge include interesting and strange views that better inform the reader of how the judge thinks and what he believes.
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
Image Study
http://www.all-art.org/early_renaissance/images/literature/dante/54.jpg
The next picture is from when the Glanton Gang was in Santa Cruz. Right after the door to the stable they were sleeping in shut, the souls began to glow. In the paragraph, the mare that shared the stable with them, "snorted and shied at this luminosity in beings so endarkened..." Basically, these murdering thiefs still had intact souls with which could give off their inner fire, or the fire of Creation that burned inside of them. Somehow their souls come alive and are visible for all inside to see.
This represents all of the ruined churches in the book. All of the ruined chuches the Kid finds are in Mexico and, being a symbol for religon, G-D, and order, means that this region devoid of structure and full of anarchy has no G-D. G-D does not reach into Mexico either because He can't or because He doesn't want to. "There were no pews in the church and the stone floor was heaped with the scalped nad naked and partly eaten bodies of some forty souls who'd barricaded themselves in this house of G-D against the heathen."
This last picture is of the last encounter of the Judge, Tobin, the idiot, and the Kid. They are at Carrizo creek where thousands of bones of dead sheep lie and where the Judge wounds Tobin. This is also where supernatural elements come out: the judge, the idiot, and the expriest seem to be able to appear and disappear at will. This leaves the Kid as the only person who can make a solid stand. When he goes to shoot the horses, the idiot is seen watching him and his head makes a 180 and his draw drops open like seem demon from hell. When he turns around form shooting the horses with the intent of killing the idiot, he finds nothing there. Throughout this entire ordeal, the sense of being in the middle of a battle between the forces of good and evil is certainly felt.
Sunday, November 29, 2009
Characters ~ Modern Analogies
Below are my intepretations of the characters from other books and real people so everyone might understand the characters better.
The Judge: Robert Wadlow, the tallest man, plus Jack Nicholson in One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest plus the Devil.
Robert Wadlow 8ft 11in
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/2/26/One_Flew_Over_the_Cuckoo%27s_Nest_poster.jpg
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/5/5c/Robert_Wadlow.jpg
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/2/26/One_Flew_Over_the_Cuckoo%27s_Nest_poster.jpg
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/5/5c/Robert_Wadlow.jpg
Glanton: Ted Bundy, serial killer, plus Han Solo
Ted Bundy 
Han Solohttp://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/f4/HanSolo.jpg http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/b/b1/Ted-bundy.jpg
The Kid: Tom Sawyer
Tobin: MLKJ because he refuses to shoot the judge and he's an expriest.
The Hermit, a minor character who mentors the Kid in the beginning of the evils of humans, is equivalent to Rafiki from the Lion King.
David Brown: Bill Ayers, for his radical nature.
Captain White: Stonewall Jackson for his white supremacist beliefs.
I may add more later but for now, this is it.
Saturday, November 28, 2009
Rhetoric Study
Page 312-13:
"He saw men killed with guns with knives and with ropes and he saw women fought over to the death whose value they themselves set at two dollars. he saw ships form the land of China chained in the small harbors and bales of tea and silks and spices broken open with swords by small yellow men with speech like cats. on that lonely coast where the steep rocks cradled as dark and muttersome sea he saw vultures at their soaring whose wingspan so dwarfed lesser birds that the eagles shrieking underneath were more like terns or plovers. He saw piles of gold a hat would scarcely have covered wagered on the turn of a card and lost and he saw bears and lions turned loose in pits to fight wild bulls to the death and he was twice in the city of San Francisco and twice saw it burn and never went back, riding out on horseback along the road to the south where all night the shape of the city burned against the sky and burned again in the black waters of the sea where dolphins rolled through the flames, fire in the lake, through the fall of burning timbers and the cries of the lost. He never saw the expriest again. Of the judge he heard rumor everywhere."
Within the paragragh, McCarthy uses some of his best rhetoric in the book. For instance, "He saw" appears at the beginning of every sentence save the last one and even within some sentences and provides parallelism. There are also two great similes in the excerpt. In the first, he compares the speech of Chinesemen to cats, which portrays the racism of the period. In the second, he compares eagles and smaller birds becaues, in contrast with the vulture, the eagle looks petite. This could be a sign that all of the virtures of America (freedom. honor, etc) are overshadowed by the qualities of the vulture, mostly death and scavengery. Next there are some personifications giving things like the coast and the sea feelings like lonliness and mutter-like chatter. This section of text is plagued with choppiness due to the varying sentence legnths, especially the long sentence at the end. Finally, I believe that three epanalepsi are set one after the other towards the end of the paragraph. (They are underlined). McCarthy attempts and succeeds in characterizing the growth of the Kid to the Man and creates and efffective transition that sums up all of his travels.
"He saw men killed with guns with knives and with ropes and he saw women fought over to the death whose value they themselves set at two dollars. he saw ships form the land of China chained in the small harbors and bales of tea and silks and spices broken open with swords by small yellow men with speech like cats. on that lonely coast where the steep rocks cradled as dark and muttersome sea he saw vultures at their soaring whose wingspan so dwarfed lesser birds that the eagles shrieking underneath were more like terns or plovers. He saw piles of gold a hat would scarcely have covered wagered on the turn of a card and lost and he saw bears and lions turned loose in pits to fight wild bulls to the death and he was twice in the city of San Francisco and twice saw it burn and never went back, riding out on horseback along the road to the south where all night the shape of the city burned against the sky and burned again in the black waters of the sea where dolphins rolled through the flames, fire in the lake, through the fall of burning timbers and the cries of the lost. He never saw the expriest again. Of the judge he heard rumor everywhere."
Within the paragragh, McCarthy uses some of his best rhetoric in the book. For instance, "He saw" appears at the beginning of every sentence save the last one and even within some sentences and provides parallelism. There are also two great similes in the excerpt. In the first, he compares the speech of Chinesemen to cats, which portrays the racism of the period. In the second, he compares eagles and smaller birds becaues, in contrast with the vulture, the eagle looks petite. This could be a sign that all of the virtures of America (freedom. honor, etc) are overshadowed by the qualities of the vulture, mostly death and scavengery. Next there are some personifications giving things like the coast and the sea feelings like lonliness and mutter-like chatter. This section of text is plagued with choppiness due to the varying sentence legnths, especially the long sentence at the end. Finally, I believe that three epanalepsi are set one after the other towards the end of the paragraph. (They are underlined). McCarthy attempts and succeeds in characterizing the growth of the Kid to the Man and creates and efffective transition that sums up all of his travels.
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Far From Home ~ Vic Mignogna lyrics and Blood Meridian
I realize that these lyrics carry a hopeful quality which contradicts that of Blood Meridian's mood. But there are some lines that apply to journeying, especially involuntary journeying, that I think carry meaning with Blood Meridian. In fact, the rest of the lyrics that include love and the such can be considered direct opposites to that of Blood Meridian. Even though this song may seem a stretch because of that, it is really because there aren't many sad journeying songs about death, so I make do with what I have. Enjoy. And here's a site if you want to listen to the song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJ817-az1sQ
Oh what a world to take my breath away
From canyon deep to star above
All take their place to start the symphony
of a great big love
I've seen the valley from the mountaintop
Sailed cross the blue and back again
From east to west
Majestic tapestry I can't comprehend
(but that's not where I long to be)
(That's not where I long to be…)
[Chorus]
Now I'm stuck here
But I don't belong here
Though my heart and soul are inclined to roam
Time is coming when I'll be with my Jesus
But for now I'm far from home
(ye~ah yeah…)
(though I'm a stranger in a strange land…)
This land can be a lot of fun, yeah
I'd start a list of all that thrills me
And never get done
(but that's not where I long to be)
(That's not where I long to be…)
[Chorus]
Now I'm stuck here
But I don't belong here
Though my heart and soul are inclined to roam
Time is coming when I'll be with my Jesus
But for now I'm far from home
Shubidee doo badow [repeat]
Diggadum dum badow
(That's not where I long to be…) [repeat]
[Chorus]
Now I'm stuck here
But I don't belong here
Though my heart and soul are inclined to roam
Time is coming when I'll be with my Jesus
But for now I'm far from home
(Now I'm stuck here but I)
I don't belong here
Though my heart and soul are inclined to roam
Time is coming when I'll be with my Jesus
But for now I'm far (so far)
I wanna be where you are
Maybe I'm not so far from home
(http://www.allthelyrics.com/lyrics/vic_mignogna/far_from_home-lyrics-1267366.html)
1)In the second stanza, the lyrics state that they've been to a lot of places and seen many things that they "can't comprehend." For the Kid, this is interpreted as things that don't make sense: killing Indians for their scalps and for profit.
2)The next part says, "Now I'm stuck here but I/Don't belong here." The Kid, being fourteen years old, certainly doesn't belong in a world with murderers and thieves. A big concept in the book is fate. Supposedly, the Kid has many choices on whether he wants to stay with the scalping gang or not and always chooses to stay.
3)When the lyrics talk about the heart and soul being "inclined" to roam, I think it means that we are all, in a sense, nomads, moving from place to place, whether that be through life, physically, mentally, or spiritually. The Kid is inately a wanderer and doesn't slow down for anyone. He is always running from someone or something.
4)Now as far as anyone is concerned, Jesus had nothing to do with the Kid, at least in the sense that G-D, and therefore Jesus, had no place in the forsaken land past the Blood Meridian.
Oh what a world to take my breath away
From canyon deep to star above
All take their place to start the symphony
of a great big love
I've seen the valley from the mountaintop
Sailed cross the blue and back again
From east to west
Majestic tapestry I can't comprehend
(but that's not where I long to be)
(That's not where I long to be…)
[Chorus]
Now I'm stuck here
But I don't belong here
Though my heart and soul are inclined to roam
Time is coming when I'll be with my Jesus
But for now I'm far from home
(ye~ah yeah…)
(though I'm a stranger in a strange land…)
This land can be a lot of fun, yeah
I'd start a list of all that thrills me
And never get done
(but that's not where I long to be)
(That's not where I long to be…)
[Chorus]
Now I'm stuck here
But I don't belong here
Though my heart and soul are inclined to roam
Time is coming when I'll be with my Jesus
But for now I'm far from home
Shubidee doo badow [repeat]
Diggadum dum badow
(That's not where I long to be…) [repeat]
[Chorus]
Now I'm stuck here
But I don't belong here
Though my heart and soul are inclined to roam
Time is coming when I'll be with my Jesus
But for now I'm far from home
(Now I'm stuck here but I)
I don't belong here
Though my heart and soul are inclined to roam
Time is coming when I'll be with my Jesus
But for now I'm far (so far)
I wanna be where you are
Maybe I'm not so far from home
(http://www.allthelyrics.com/lyrics/vic_mignogna/far_from_home-lyrics-1267366.html)
1)In the second stanza, the lyrics state that they've been to a lot of places and seen many things that they "can't comprehend." For the Kid, this is interpreted as things that don't make sense: killing Indians for their scalps and for profit.
2)The next part says, "Now I'm stuck here but I/Don't belong here." The Kid, being fourteen years old, certainly doesn't belong in a world with murderers and thieves. A big concept in the book is fate. Supposedly, the Kid has many choices on whether he wants to stay with the scalping gang or not and always chooses to stay.
3)When the lyrics talk about the heart and soul being "inclined" to roam, I think it means that we are all, in a sense, nomads, moving from place to place, whether that be through life, physically, mentally, or spiritually. The Kid is inately a wanderer and doesn't slow down for anyone. He is always running from someone or something.
4)Now as far as anyone is concerned, Jesus had nothing to do with the Kid, at least in the sense that G-D, and therefore Jesus, had no place in the forsaken land past the Blood Meridian.
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