Freud and Poe

When I learned that we would be discussing Poe next week after Freud, I got very excited. I admire Poe and find him great to talk about around this time of year (Halloween!). I thought about Freud and his "Uncanny" when I saw we were going to be discussing Poe. There are many aspects of Poe's stories that make them scary, but in the "Tell-Tale Heart," one of the most scary moments is perhaps the repetition of the beating of the heart throughout the end of the piece. This reminded me of the repetition/fear factor that is mentioned in "Uncanny," and of course I thought this was cool. The repetition of this makes it suspenseful and scary. Very cool, Freud...very cool. He got this idea right on the money in my opinion. I liked that we read Freud before reading Poe, because now when I read these stories, such as I did with the "Tell-Tale Heart," I'll look at the psychological aspects of them.

My Dream and Freud

Yesterday afternoon, I talked to my Mom about a day trip my boyfriend and I took. I told her about how much fun it was an how my sister would really enjoy it. She told me that maybe in the Summer she'd come down here with me for a few days and I could play tour guide. This made me so happy, especially since I've been seriously missing my family lately. That night, I had a dream where not only was my sister at my apartment, but my Mom was. I was taking her around the place, showing her random things with great pride, such as my toaster and my book shelf. I couldn't help but think about Freud after this. Though there was no mention of my Mom coming down in the conversation, I still wanted her too. It was never stated that I missed her, but I do, and greatly. Don't get me wrong, I miss my sister as well, I just thought it was cool how my Mom was the main character in my dream, especially since I have missed her very much over the past week.

What the People Wore in Oedipus Rex

I think the costumes the performers wore in Oedipus Rex should not go unmentioned. I read Oedipus Rex a while ago and had a very hard time visualizing what the characters may have looked like. I liked their hands and faces, and I especially liked how dramatic it was at the end when Oedipus' mask and costume comes off and we now see his face and body for the first time. This is powerful because with the tall wooden head and robe, he seemed bigger, greater, and almost untouchable. But after he gouged his eyes out, he was small and frail. This was very appropriate since he was also full of shame during this time. The costumes do a wonderful job of symbolism (though I am having a hard time understanding why their hands were shaped the way they were, I know it was for a reason, hmm...) as well as they do a great job of amping up what is going on at the moment, for instance the end of the opera.

Oedipus Rex: Subtitles

When the opera first began, I payed extremely close attention to the subtitles, not wanting to miss a word because I was afraid I would miss something important in them. As it progressed however, I found myself paying more attention to what was actually going on in the play, and by the end of it I rarely looked a the subtitles, yet I feel like I still understood what was happening. For the performers and the music to come together and tell a story visually and aurally is fantastic. It didn't matter that it was in Latin! Even if I could understand Latin, I don't think that I could have enjoyed watching this anymore than I did, which was a great deal.

Horace - The Art of Poetry

"It has always been granted, and always will be, to produce words stamped with the date of the present. As trees change their leaves when each year comes to its end, and the first fall first, so the oldest words die first and the newborn thrive in the manner of youth, and enjoy life." I found this quote by Horace on page 85 of our book to be thoughtful to say the least. I know it's not very related, but this reminds me of the name "Brittany." This name didn't come into common use until the 1970's after a character in a TV show was named Brittany. I have searched the internet through and through trying to remember what the TV show was but I can't find it. When I do I'll post the name of it. At any rate, I'm just curious as to how long this name will continue to be used, well, as a name.

Dante and the word "Anagogical"

In part seven of "Letter to Can Grande della Scala," Dante discusses how there is not just a single sense in the work, but several senses (polysemous). While I understood this word, especially after he followed it up with a short definition, I had a bit of trouble with "anagogical." I looked it up in the OED and found that other words that are related to this are mystical and spiritual. I liked the short definition I found online that stated an "idealistic striving of the unconscious." After looking this word up, I felt that I better understood what Dante was trying to say. He felt that there was a literal way to look at a letter, but also a second anagogical way. Though he also used the words moral and allegorical, they didn't really help me understand what he meant by anagogical. No worries now, however :)

Comparing Two Flannery O'Connor Stories

“A Good Man Is Hard To Find” and “Good Country People” are both very similar stories, but the similarity that I found most interesting was the fact that the people who thought they new all of the answers both “got theirs” in the end, not that this is a good or a bad thing, I’m just saying…At any rate, the cool part about this is how in “A Good Man Is Hard To Find,” the Grandmother is very close minded, and refuses to see the bad in everything unless it is deemed “good” by her standards. In “Good Country People,” Hulga is very educated and dislikes folks who are close-minded. Both of these characters are very different from each other, and would probably want to scratch each others eyes out if they ever were to meet, yet they are so very similar. Both, in fact, are close minded, and take being this way to the max. I just thought this was really cool to think about in the sense that they are opposites, but on the second hand, not so much.

"A Good Man is Hard To Find"

The first time I read this story about two years ago, I was so shocked at how it ended that I re-read the last couple of pages numerous times, trying to make sure that what happened actually happened. I couldn’t believe that she died, right there on the page, after having lead herself and her family into these woods in a cause and effect sort of way. It is sad what happened to the family, as well as the grandmother. I can honestly say that though she didn’t have all of the answers like she thought she did, she didn’t deserve death, and nor did her family. Her poor grandchildren, I feel had no choice but to act the way that they did. They were young, and children behave the way the people around them do, therefore I was really saddened by their deaths. I’m sure that had the grandmother survived this ordeal with the misfit and had only been scared into being an actually “good” person, then her grandchildren would have changed as well. It’s a shame that the Grandmother died right after finding redemption in a sense.

Beauty

I really enjoyed this discussion in class about beauty and its meaning. I found the exercise about what we thought beauty was to be very fun to say the least. I liked hearing what people in class had to say about the subject. Though everyone had something different to say about beauty, most everyone’s responses echoed similar messages. This was uniting in a way, and though it’s cliché, gave me a “warm feeling.” I also enjoyed the discussion on Thursday about the Venus de Milo, and how disabilities do or do not affect beauty. All in all, I liked both of last weeks discussions, and felt that they tied into each other very well.