The Final Fight of the Semester

This was the first time I saw fight club though I heard about it many times. It was a interesting movie where things were very mysterious till the end. I could not have imagined that the two were the same people. The idea of double and duality was crystal clear after watching this movie. The darker side was lurking under the cover of the nice and well mannered office clerk. It is surprising how he discovers his darker side and gives rise to a whole new person just by hatred against Marla who just joined the same support group that he did. This was the tipping point when he needed to get away form her and he creates Tyler within himself and his rage is fully transformed into Tyler just like Dr Jekyll escaped moral reasons when he turned into Hyde. I would say this movie was a satire to commercialism and modern living where you depend on the system to do everything and everything seems so fake. I loved that movie and I am going to buy this movie and watch it a thousand time.

we got Yellow and then a Jury

The story yellow wallpaper is one of the best stories I read the entire semester. We all know what happens within the ancestral hall all the frightening descriptions of the narrator. This story reminded me of a movie "Girl Interrupted" where women with mental disorder and the ones who were labeled to have mental disorder both were kept in the mental institution. I have a second thought about the the character of the husband if he really is the husband of the narrator. Lets say he is a husband and not the doctor acting her husband, then he is definitely letting his wife suffer the most as it seems like he does not listen to what she says. He is never around in the house with her. I think the author is trying to prove a point by putting the shadow of the woman behind the wall trapped. The message that we can take form this is that women have no say during that time and that is why she has to be stuck in the ugliest room without no one to talk to. It almost feels like the narrator is trying to tear herself out from herself and express herself. Which she did at the end and the death of John perhaps represents the failure of male dominance and womens freedom and liberation. Thats just my thought.
The story "Jury of her peers" is a classic story of female victimization. While female victimization was not that obvious in the Yellow wallpaper, in this story it is the main theme. They charged a women for murder of her husband a farmer who was found dead. The women have been shown to work together while the men seek for the evidence and motives to charge the women for the crime. It is very interesting to see how women would go against the norm and work their way towards independence. These two stories that we read is about women fighting against stereotypes and fighting for an independent life from their husbands or other men.

Goodman and Arnold Friend

The story Goodman is hard to find was an interesting story. The story is sort of tragic and surprising. The story has Gothic elements like the scary and remote forest and a plantation with a sliding and secret passage. The end of the story marks the tragic fate of the family who left home but never could reach their destination. They just took a turn and got side tracked with the old womens stories and fantasies and they had to die at the hands of the escapee of the prison and his goons. Along the stories we find the links to slavery and old deserted plantations and the changes that had taken over during the old womans lifetime.
"Where have you been , Where have you gone" is another story that we read in class. This is unusual among all the stories we read so far in the semester in a sense that the terror is more psychological rather than physical. The protagonist is a young woman who is discovering her sexuality and had her first stalker.Arnold Friend is no friend of hers but a character that is troubling her. She wants to explore her sexuality but things are happening too fast and on a day when she is home alone she is trapped in the house with her stalker outside waiting for her. This time she is terrified as she plays constantly with her thoughts and emotions. The story represents internal conflicts within the protagonist.

A street Car named Desire

Desire is what takes people from place to place. While I saw the street car named "Desire" bring Blanche to this urban town in New Orleans, I thought may be she is chasing her desire to be with her Stella after a big loss of property. We soon realize that she is hiding her true self and her true desires with her outward appearance. For her every day is a show that she presents and I could relate this to the story Behind a Mask. Blanche has desire to attract a male partner. She often talks about that husband that passed away who was really premature may be because she is very lonely and wish to be with someone perhaps someone like Stella's husband. The movie was weird in a sense but very Gothic at the same time as there is an internal struggle and a state of uncertainty of emotions.

A Rose for Emily and Old Gardiston

William Faulkner in his short story "A Rose for Emily" was very successful in capturing the time of the reconstruction after the civil war. The story is somewhat disturbing as it tells us about a women who is so obsessed with her own ways that she does not co-operate with authority. She even keeps her man Homer, the contractor form the North, in the same bed even after his death. When I was reading the story I felt like it was the rebel nature of the south and the things that was going on in the house was a bitter reaction to the rapid changes that were going on in the South. It is also a clash of old vs new ideas for example Emily is very hesitant of change as she does not want to install a mailbox/number in her house. I took Death of Homer to be a revenge against the Northern ways and the changes the North brought in the South. It was an interesting read. The most interesting thing about this story is that the entire town is represented as a narrator which is a new idea to me. The Gothic elements are the dead body, conspiracy and extreme secrecy. No one knew what was really going on until the death of Emily.
The Old Gardiston is another bitter response to changes that is taking place in the south. We still see the confederate flags in the present day so it is normal for the people of that time to disregard the idea of single country where the North and the South being together as a single country. While the speaking house is the gothic element in this story, the story has some deeper meanings. The attitude of women is stronger against the change as they have suffered the most during the war as they lost their loved ones in the war. So this story may be the reaction against the act which the women would blame the Northerners for.

The Goophered Grapevine, The sheriff's Children and Jean-ah Poquelin

This short story week was fun because we could actually relate all the three stories that we read because they were written on a similar theme. All the stories were based on the time of slavery. There were deeper meanings to the stories and the meanings often co-relates with the background of the authors especially in the story "The Sheriff's Children" where the author would relate the children of mixed race as he was one at his time.

In the short story "The Goophered Grapevine" there is a mysterious curse that was cast down upon the person who eats the grapes and Henry a slave who did not know about the curse eats the grape. They try to lift the curse but the only way he could survive was by using the sap of the grapes to be healthy and strong. This is a co-relation of slavery and the old southern economy where the slavery dependent upon the plantation. If the plantation was thriving the slavery was growing. The curse can be related to the condition the slaves had to live in during those dark times. The grapes would perish after a season and so did the health of Henry. This might be suggesting that when there was work to be done slaves would have better health may be because they would have more food in the table or more care as the owners needed them. Henry's owner sold him every off season and buy him back making some profit. This story represents the culture of the old south and has some deeper meanings. The Gothic images used are the mysterious and magical curse. The idea of being sold as a property itself is very Gothic as it incites terror.

The Sheriff's Children is also based on issues of slavery and represents the old south. It tries to address the problem of mixed race children as the author Chestnut was had mixed heritage. In this story a person of authority, a Sheriff commits a crime by raping a slave women who eventually gives birth to a son. The Sheriff ends up selling his own son. The son later is charged of murder. There is a lot of internal conflict represented in the story. Tom the mixed racial child is not accepted in the society. He feels like he would never get fair treatment like the whites because he was half black. This is a very important part of history as several mixed race children would have to struggle against the society primarily controlled by the white Americans. It is a story about acceptance and struggle for being accepted into the society. Tom lets himself bleed to death because he feels like he would never be accepted, and he gives up fighting for the fair treatment for himself. This story is very revolutionary of the time and I am sure that the author at some point had experienced similar attitudes from the others for him being mixed racial

Jean-Ah Poquelin is another story which is around the time of slavery. The story however doesnot directly touch upon slavery and its issues. It is more subtle and the meanings are very deep. For example the slave that the brothers have cannot speak or in other words is mute. George W Cable perhaps want this to be a political statement to the people of the time as the slaves did not have a voice meaning the fundamental rights that the other had. Also it is a tool to make the affairs of the house to look more suspicious as the caretaker of the house would not be able to talk about what goes on in the house. The location of the house is bizarre and he history of the family has some Gothic elements to it.

Behind a Mask--what you see is not what you get

Reading the story Behind the Mask I could see how we can relate the things to our present day life. In the story the characters have dual identity, as they literally have two faces. The central character Jean is new to the house and family members. It takes her one moment of fainting and showing of her feminine side to take over the entire family. She likes to get attention from the people and she is highly manipulative. She is hiding her real identity which is an old women with makeup and dentures hiding behind the look of a young woman. The external apperance is a mask that she puts on every day to manipulate the family and get whatever she wants. This should remind of people or even some agencies that have a front face and the evil dark intentions lurking behind. We also talked about this in class where there is a front side view like in the common living room area of a house where it is clean and tidy as opposed to the rooms where people spend their private life which may not be just as pretty. The dual nature is very well represented in this story. The part that makes it gothic is that the real intent of Jean is disguised by the show she puts on everyday. Every day is a show and the audience is mesmerized by it. All others are just like puppets and she is sort of controlling them. This is subtle but the gothic part of it. It was a decent read and was not very long. I didnot like the overly dramatic imagery but liked the concept very much.