Digitalization

I feel that people make a big deal out of digital books, perhaps because they don't hold as much character as a physical book. However, for me, the character of the book is within it's text, it's content, and what it can teach me. I have never been one who wrote in the margins or highlighted certain quotes of books frequently, but even digital technology still lets you do this. Therefore, I do not see the big deal. The words on the "page" are not altered, so why should it matter whether you are holding a Kindle or essentially what could be described as a large stack of papers? I feel that it's the words that matter most.

Also, I own a Kindle myself and I find reading digitally is much easier than reading a physical book. It is always awkward when you have to hold both edges of the book open and I often cannot find a comfortable position to read in. However, with my Kindle, I am not only saved the awkwardness of it all, but also the weight of the book. Often times, I like to lie flat and read (probably strange) and the book usually tires my arms. As pathetic as that sounds, it becomes a problem when trying to read easily. And with my neck and back being all sorts of messed up, I could use as little problems as possible when trying to position myself comfortably. Also, with the Kindle I have a free hand for snacking. Who doesn't enjoy a snack while reading?

Alas, I do not believe in this "lack of mystery" that digital books have. I think it's completely appropriate to own and read digital books and hey, we could all use the trees we'd be saving.

Wales and his army of editors

Wales "has marshalled an army of volunteers who believe that, working collaboratively, they can produce an encyclopedia that is as good as any written by experts, and with an unprecedented range."

This is the main goal of Wikipedia. The intentions of the site are ultimately good, but can we achieve this is our society?

There are so many different types of people who use the internet and Wikipedia reaches them all. I feel that because of this, Wales' goal is unattainable. There is no credibility factor that is necessary in order for a n encyclopedia to be useful. There is a difficult balance that Wales intends to maintain between free and easy knowledge and credible knowledge. That's the conflict with using Wikipedia as a source - the information may not be reliable.

Despite saying all of that, If Wales were to find that balance, it would be a revolution in information technology. I think it could change our society from being ill-informed, to over-informed.

One could also argue that if knowledge is derived from experience, Wikipedia is the perfect source. It could combine the experiences and opinions of all the different types of people in the world to create a super-base of knowledge. However, I still believe this to be an idealogical way of thinking.

"Men, men, men!!!"

One of my favorite characters from these acts is Mrs. Higgins. Despite her son's mischievous behavior, she keeps a graceful and calming attitude about her. I also enjoy her character because she is one of the only characters, perhaps besides Mrs. Pearce, that can actually relate to Eliza and actually cares for her. She can see the harm the men are going to cause Eliza when everything is said and done, yet she cannot seem to convince anyone of this. Mrs. Higgins does not directly interfere, however. Rather, she lets things fall into place. I think she handles the situation this way because there is no use trying to convince Henry that he is doing wrong and she knows this. Also, there is no convincing Eliza that this is a bad idea either because she is so dazzled by the idea of moving up in society.  Mrs. Higgins does allow Eliza to stay with her after her fight with Henry and seems to become her confidant in this way. Mrs. Higgins just seemed like one of the more genuine and admirable characters in the play.

I loved the scene where Higgins and Pickering are crowded around Mrs. Higgins, shouting over one another in excitement over Eliza's progress. This really made me laugh because both men are so consumed in their perspective of the experiment that they don't even notice that they are bombarding Mrs. Higgins. Instead, they just fuel each other to become louder and more obnoxious. This is one of the only times where I saw Mrs. Higgins lose her cool as she shouts at the men to stop bothering her and then claims "men, men, men!!!" as an end to the act. I thought this was an interesting way to end the act. The hysteria of the men has caused Mrs. Higgins a sudden outburst against them. I'm wondering what Shaw meant to imply by doing this. I also wonder if there is some tension between the genders and if Shaw is playing on this idea.

Poor Freddy

I had heard of Pygmalion before we started reading, but I never even knew it was a play. When I began, I was glad to see it was fairly easy and entertaining to read, except for the first bit of the attempt at the flower girl's dialect. That took a few times to get through.

I actually found the beginning of this play to be quite humorous. First, the townspeople think Higgins is a cop and for some reason the flower girl is extremely scared of this. Throughout the first act, the flower girl is ridiculous and made me laugh because pf her extremely unnecessary reactions to everything. I literally laughed out loud when Higgins ans Pickering find each other without knowing it when they were looking for one another all along. And then, to top it off, poor Freddy comes back with a cab finally and the two ladies have gone off to the bus and left him! This is certainly a great start and I'm not even to Act 2 yet.

"Politics and the English Language" - Orwell

Orwell's point seems to be that in our modern world intelligent writing means many difficult words must be strung together to say simple ideas. I agree with this in academic writing because we are often told to learn new vocabulary in order to spice up our essays. However, many people do not actually know what they are saying when they use these words because they misconstrue their meanings.

Despite this, I believe we are headed down the opposite path as of today. We are too simplistic because of the social networks (and also text messaging) that we communicate through. Words are often abbreviated and language has become unimportant in that way: words do not matter, so you do not have to write them out fully. We are taking advantage of writing because we use it everyday, though we do not practice it correctly everyday.

My AP Literature teacher used to tell us not to use words that have no meaning, such as "great" or "very" or as Orwell says "human," "natural," or "sentimental." I have never understood this because these words do mean something as long as they are in context. All words have meaning. I think the point my teacher (and Orwell as well) was trying to make is these words are used today as filler words - words that do not particularly mean anything, but seemingly give your sentence a little extra. In overusing these words, we have hollowed out their actual meanings and replaced them with many meanings so that they might fit into many sentences. This is unfortunate because we have taken away the validity of our language and made it frivolous just so we could use a few extra words to make us seem more intelligent. It seems simple - use the words you need and leave out the ones you do not. The most intelligent people are the ones who put ideas into words that everyone can understand.

The Riddle of Femininity

“marriage compounds the problems of Catherine’s life” (469)

I believe this partial quote explains much of the feminist viewpoint of Wuthering Heights. It is interesting that it Catherine is able to choose who she “wants” to marry and at the same time, she is unable to choose. She loves Heathcliff, but due to pressures of society, she marries Edgar because of his higher social class. This makes her decisions and actions the center and the basis for Wuthering Heights. The way she is so commonly influenced by society – in her maturation as well as her marriage to Edgar – makes Catherine an example to the question “’what is a woman’” (470)? Pykett explains that because of this, femininity is a by-product of society – “reinforce, rather than derived from woman’s ‘nature’” (470). Pykett also offers that Catherine’s “double-self” directly proves the latter theory. In childhood, Catherine’s wildness with Heathcliff is seemingly her nature. Then when she stays at Thrushcross Grange, she is suddenly changed into a “proper young lady.” Hindley’s wife even insists that they must not let Catherine stray back to her old ways, implying how she has once been was all along natural. In this way, society has imposed it’s beliefs on Catherine and changed her indefinitely – so much so that she chooses a man she does not love over one she is madly in love with. The fact that society has this much influence over her is a reflection of oppression. Catherine is not truly in control of her choice for marriage, yet society is. Catherine does not truly pick Edgar, society does. And Catherine is certainly and negatively affected by this as she physically loses herself and her decisions in the end. 

Miniaturization

"It is by thus triumphing over the forces of both time and space that the miniature offers its consumer a fantasy of control, one suggesting that art, knowledge, and/or technology can conquer even death" (448).

I believe this quote is saying that Wuthering Heights is a small part of history that is able to out live even the death of the culture of the time. In other words, Wuthering Heights a mini slice of life from the time period that we are able to experience through reading.

It is interesting then to look at all of the aspects that Nancy Armstrong writes about. Folklore is especially intriguing, especially in the context of Heathcliff's arrival into the Earnshaw home. He is perceived as something that embodies these superstitious fears. Being unknown in origin, he irks the family and sets off this seemingly traditional culture. By doing this, he exposes much of the culture as kind of an ironic figure.

The cultural criticism seems to suggest that Wuthering Heights works to preserve the culture of the time - "the native culture" (449). In photography, the more urban areas get a look at the less industrialized life of rural England - almost as if they are looking back in time. Wuthering Heights also does this for us. It reveals the history, culture, and traditions that we have certainly built upon.

Docs and Illustrations

I found the illustrations and depictions of the gypsy lifestyle to be very interesting - especially the one where the pig is fleeing the gypsy tent. It is a sketch, so I assume someone had intended it to be an insult to the gypsy way of life - that even a pig wouldn't want to live like a gypsy. That mindset perfectly describes Hindley's and Catherine's initial rejection of Heathcliff once they had learned his origins and Catherine's inability to marry him despite her love for him. I think most of the pictures just show strangers as compared with the "normality" of the Earnshaw's home. People tend to reject the things they are not familiar with and I think in this case the Earnshaws not only saw Heathcliff as mysterious, but also dangerous because of the prejudices associated with his supposed origins. The illustrations then go on to depict royalty - this being the way Nelly views Heathcliff. She is the only one (maybe besides Catherine, although she is in denial) that sees Heathcliff from a positive point of view - she has an optimistic view of his origins, despite everyone else's negative ones.

I also like the tie-in of the legal aspect with Heathcliff's degradation. Although he is depicted as someone of lower class, gypsy origins, he rises to the top. And not only that, but he is seen as strange and not of their world. Yet, he uses the laws that they are so familiar with to become successful. By doing this, he proves two assumptions wrong. 1. That he is of lower class and will never be able to rise above this stature, and 2. That he is not able to assimilate into their society.

Wuthering Heights

What I find most interesting about this novel is its characters and the way they interact (especially Catherine). At first, the amount of characters and their relations to one another was greatly confusing - I found myself extremely overwhelmed. Then when Ellen Dean began her story of their histories, the twisted tangle of the relations of family disfunction became clear. I was somewhat amazed by old Mr. Earnshaw's fondness of a stranger child as compared with his own blood. His compassion was astounding and it is easy to see how these children grew to become the adults that they eventually transformed into. Heathcliff, originally insensitive, is ironically sensitive to Hindley's blows and insults as he makes it his life goal to seek revenge on him. Catherine's adoration for Heathcliff, yet hatred for his "gypsy" origins, sends her into hysteria. She is completely torn by what her heart and her mind are telling her. Edgar's incessant need to make Catherine happy, yet never truly being able to fulfill her (at least not like Heathcliff can) makes him less worthy than Heathcliff, even though in society, Edgar would be seen as more worthy on the surface. And then the fact that it is his fervent pursuit of happiness that splinters their relationship even further, making everyone miserable is certainly a form of irony. It seems to me that all of this could be simplified if Catherine had confessed her love for Heathcliff and if he could have accepted it. However, the involvement of complex emotions deeply entangles the story. In turn, Wuthering Heights has become a place of somber, gloomy confinement of human distraught.

The Book Fool

This chapter interested me from the get-go. I have certainly recognized glasses as the symbol of reading, but I have never thought of it in the way that Manguel portrays. He calls these glasses "a mask through which the world can be observed" (291) and permits that they have become "the reader's emblem, a mark of the reader's presence, a symbol of the reader's craft" (291). I enjoy this chapter so much because there are so many eloquent descriptions of everyday things that we often take for granted within its text. As well, I never thought of the reader as a fool - I always thought of reading as an act of intelligence. However, when reading about Brant's "folly of the scholar" (297), I quickly realized how it could be seen as foolish. When reading was more of a form of entertainment, it could be seen as indulging when someone read often. Nowadays, because of technology advances, the ability to entertain ourselves requires little effort. Therefore, reading is seen as quite the task and an intellectual form of entertainment. Especially when you can readily turn on the TV to Jersey Shore and let your brain rot without any difficulty at all. So it makes sense that reading would be seen as a more prestigious form of mind stimulation today.

"We are merely the stars' tennis balls" - Webster

When I first began reading Maguel's A History of Reading, I was almost bothered by the extreme presence of repetition and continued to find myself saying "get on with it". However, I soon came to understand that Manguel's deep-seated passion for books and his immense knowledge of texts explained a necessity for his methods of writing. Also, as I read on I found an enjoyable sense of humor and wit in his descriptions. The quote I used for my title is just one of  the many highlights made in my copy of this book. His renditions of reading made me think about how it came to be and how it has impacted human nature and culture in ways I never had before. 

There was one point that I did not particularly agree with, though. Near the beginning, he explains that reading is being alive because you are learning life experiences through other characters. Although I think this can certainly happen, I do not think it is as effective as actually going through those experiences. Also, I do not think that reading, mainly solitary reading, is beneficial because it takes you from the real world and creates for you a fantasy world, hence Manguel explaining how as a child, he "believed in sorcery" and "prepared [himself] for encounters with ghosts, with death, with talking animals, with battle" (pg. 10). I do think, however, reading instills a greater sense of imagination that can be maintained long after childhood. But the issue of reading by oneself only is a concerning one because it implies absolutely no social interaction and that is essential to learning and living. 

The idea of questioning how we came to be able to read is one that I could not really grasp. In fact, as I was reading about it, I started to be unable to decipher some words because I had no answer to any of Manguel's complex questions.Yet, I was able to learn a great amount about speaking, writing, and then reading that has evolved over the years. 

The best idea I found in this entire reading assignment was based off of a quote by Phaedrus. It goes "The painter's work stands before us as though the paintings were alive, but if you question them, they maintain a most majestic silence. It is the same with written words; they seem to talk to you as though they were intelligent, but if you ask them anything about what they say, from a wish to know more, they go on telling you the same thing over and over again." I think this quote simply ties up the ideas Manguel makes about reading. It concludes that memorizing words are not enough, it is relating to them through all of the senses. It is through a silent connection and conversation with the words that makes them real. The reader is the painter, allowing the words to be shaped whichever way they desire.

Intro to Erin

To start, I enjoy wit and humor, hence the title of this blog. That would probably be the most important thing I could say about myself. Second is that I love literature and writing. My fortes are poetry and short stories, however I hope to publish my own novel one of these days. That would explain why I chose to become an English Education major. I chose the education part so that I could have some spare time to write and also, because I've always enjoyed school and I guess I just never want to leave. One of my favorite things in this world is my one-eyed Chihuahua named Skippy. Another is my Kindle (one of the most useful electronics I own, even more so than my cell phone). I suppose that's the basics.