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.