That's a Burden

I wanted to name this post "You Can Tell a Lot about a Woman by the Contents of Her Purse (and Who Carries It), but Sometimes It's More than It Appears to Be," but that's just obnoxiously long. So I went with the current over-used phrase. Because when most people see a man carrying his wife's purse, they make assumptions - she's spoiled and doesn't want to carry it, it's too heavy for her, he secretly enjoys carrying purses... - and they may be right.  Or they could be missing some blatant symbolism (not to mention manners).  You see, when a husband carries his wife's purse, he's helping carry some of her burden.  And what "In the End, We Are All Light" is saying is that carrying someone's burden is a sign of your love; you carry theirs and they forgive you for giving them yours.  And when this happens, the burdens don't seem so bad anymore.
This all ties in well with Their Eyes Were Watching God.  In her first two marriages, Janie's been burdened with the so-called womanly role.  She's been made to run the store and make dinner (without burning it!).  Just don't ask her to carry wood, or she might just leave you.  Even when Joe dies, she still has to run the store (while pretending to mourn).  But then the young, dashing Tea Cake comes along and makes her life so much happier.  He helps her decide to sell the store and move away, taking that burden off her.  And of course, he doesn't make her keep up the required role of a woman - he even lets her take her hair down.  Tea Cake frees Janie from having to live as a dependent woman, when she truly is very independent.  And this all is easy for him: freeing her doesn't put a huge weight on his shoulders.
Of course, their marriage isn't without Janie carrying some of Tea Cake's burdens.  Tea Cake is poor and Janie is rich; thus, Janie supports both of them.  Even when Tea Cake spends all of Janie's money without asking her, she forgives him.  When Tea Cake gets rabies, Janie takes on the burden of killing him to save both him and herself.  And here's the true sign of her love: she still loves Tea Cake and cherishes his memory, but is able to move on with her life, until that last burden is "light as a feather blown."

AP Feminist Bird Watching

Saline High School doesn't have a class specifically focused on feminism.  If you wanted to take one, though, AP Lit would be a good place to start.  In two weeks, we read The Awakening and A Doll's House, and we watched The Hours.  The three of them have a pretty common theme - women leaving their lives as they know it to find out who they really are.  In A Doll's House and The Hours, Nora and Laura abandon their families and start a new life.  In The Awakening and The Hours, Edna and Virginia Woolf take it a step farther; they kill themselves.  And the weird thing?  They both drown.  Edna comes right out and says that she's never felt freer than while she's in the water.  Even though it's never explained, it can probably be assumed that Virginia pretty much feels the same way.
The only woman who doesn't leave her family is Clarissa.  Of course, this because the person who was oppressing her has left her.  Clarissa had spent much of her life taking care of Richard, who was suffering from AIDS.  It's clear that both her partner and her daughter are feeling neglected (especially after Clarissa tells her daughter she's only living when she's with Richard).  Only when he kills himself is she free from him.
As if there weren't enough bird motifs in The Awakening and A Doll's House, there are even more in The Hours.  Virginia Woolf is finally taking a break from writing a book when her sister visits.  On a walk with her niece, she finds a dying bird.  They try to save the bird, but, in great foreshadowing, can't.  The two of them  are both heartbroken, but for different reasons.  Virginia's niece is very young, and the sight of the bird tears her up so much she makes a funeral for it.  But Virginia sees more than just a dying bird - she sees her heroine, and possibly even herself.  While writing this book, living in Richmond, she herself has been withering away.  She knew it, but it didn't really hit her until she saw the bird. She then tells her sister and niece that she had been planning on killing off her heroine, but has changed her mind (very likely due to the bird, in part).  She also convinces her husband that they need to move back to London in order for her to survive.  Alas, even that isn't enough to save Virginia, and she ends up dying as well.

Tales of Birds and Epiphanies

The Awakening and A Doll's House are indeed very similar.  Each has a wife and mother who is learning about herself and breaking away from what society tells her to do and be.  Edna and Nora are practically the same person - I still keep getting them confused.  Both women have husbands who are controlling and concerned with their roles in society.  In the end, the wives successfully get away from their husbands and are free from the life they had.
Of course, there are differences in the books - the most obvious being the way they escape.  Nora has an epiphany and walks out of her house.  Edna, on the other hand, escapes by committing suicide.  Though some people may say that suicide is the cheater's way out, I disagree.  In her eyes, she had no other options.  Her reputation had been ruined, and she had nowhere to go.  Another difference is the relationships Nora and Edna formed while away from their husbands.  Nora began to lean on Dr. Rank, seriously considering getting money from him.  She clearly did not love him; she just wanted his money.  It can be argued, though, that Edna loved Robert.  She had a relationship with him very unlike the one with her husband, and was experiencing a new sense of freedom with it.
Both books dealt with bird symbolism and freedom.  Nora's husband frequently called her his little "skylark," and Edna actually moved into a pigeon house.  Symbolism doesn't get much more obvious than that, folks.  But the meaning of the bird motifs differ: For Nora, she was her husband's skylark, while she was constrained in that marriage.  Edna's moving into the pigeon house was her big step towards freedom.  She had moved out of her husband's house into her own.
Overall, The Awakening and A Doll's House are very easy to compare, and even easier to confuse (especially when you've just watched Gone with the Wind.)  They're great stories about feminism that intertwine amazingly.

A Book's Always Better the Second Time Around (I Hope)

Middlesex was a strange book for me, in that I was bored by the first half but absolutely loved the second half.  I didn't care much about Desdemona and Lefty (in fact, I got really sick of Desdemona), but enjoyed their story.  It was around Milton and Tessie's story that I got antsy for Callie to be born.  Once she was, and when she got to her relationship with The Object was when I started really enjoying the book.  It was really interesting seeing the world from Callie's point of view, from her self-consciousness in that what she was feeling was wrong, through when she had her transformation.
When we discussed the book in class though, being assigned to book 1 gave me a better appreciation for the first half of the book.  I hadn't noticed how much went into it, and how much symbolism there was there.  All the connections between Desdemona's life and Cal's life amaze me.  I really admire authors that are able to put that much work and connections into their writing.  Now that we've discussed it, I want to reread it, though I can't right now because I'm busy preparing for Deathly Hallows by rereading the entire Harry Potter series :)

Yeah, They're Off to See the Wizard...but What Else?

In The Wizard of Oz, Dorothy makes it very clear where she's going - she's "off to see the wizard."  But why was she really going there?
The Quester: Dorothy, Toto, the Scarecrow, the Tin Man, and the Cowardly Lion
A Place to Go: The Emerald City, to see the Wizard
A Stated Reason to Go There: So Dorothy can get home
Challenges and Trials en Route:  The antagonist of the story is The Wicked Witch.  Dorothy has the Witch's sister's shoes, and she wants them back.  So she flies around Dorothy, throwing fireballs at the Scarecrow.  She sets flying monkeys on Dorothy, trapping her in a dungeon-type room.  She makes them walk through a field off poppies that put them to sleep.  And there are also the creepy trees that throw apples at Dorothy.  It's really a miracle she makes it to the Wizard.  And then, once she's there, he just makes her go face the Witch again to get her broom. It's a bit unfair.
A Real Reason to Go There: So Dorothy can discover that "there's no place like home."  Her whole life, she had dreamed of leaving the farm, of going "over the rainbow."  Then when she did actually get there (dream or not), she had an awful time for the most part and just missed Auntie Em and wanted to go home.

No Matter How Much You Travel in Time, You Can't Avoid Violence

One of my favorite books is The Time Traveler's Wife (even with Rachel McAdams, who's simply amazing, the movie was pretty bad.  Just read the book.)  When Henry, the time traveler, is 5, his mom gets killed in a car accident.  He would have died as well, but he traveled in time forward just about 5 minutes and landed outside the car, avoiding the crash.  This violence was caused by the author, not one of the characters.  It obviously dramatically affects Henry and Henry's father (who becomes an alcoholic)'s lives.  Fortunately, Henry's able to travel back in time and talk to his mom, though he can't control where he goes.  He also frequently visits the crash, but is never able to change what happens.
Henry provides some violence himself.  At one point, when he's 32 and is visiting Clare (his wife) when she's 16, he badly beats up someone.  Clare was at a party, and the guy wouldn't leave Clare alone.  Henry got really pissed off and destroyed the guy.  This had different effects - Henry eventually went back to his present (8 years later, married to Clare) and got away with it.  Clare's reputation was totally changed, however.  She had always ignored guys at her school (she had known Henry since she was 6 had  pretty much loved him since then), and it was revealed here that she had what appeared to be a (much older) boyfriend.  You can only imagine how people in her school would react to her having a 32 year old man no one knows beat  up a guy from her school.

Jesus Can Fly, Too!

If you've only seen the original Superman movies, it may seem like a stretch for me to be comparing Superman to Christ.  But in Superman Returns, the symbolism is pretty obvious.  When it starts, Superman and Clark Kent have both been missing for 5 years (seriously, how did Lois never figure it out?).  Turns out, he's been hovering above the Earth hibernating or something.  Lois writes an article about why the world doesn't need Superman, even using the word "savior." But then Superman decides to pay her a visit.  He says to her that he hears people crying for a savior.
Superman's been in contact with his father, Jal-El says he's sent his son down to show them the way.  Sound a bit familiar?
At one point, Lex Luthor badly beats of Superman, sticking a piece of Kryptonite into his back.  When Lois pulls it out, Superman  rises above the clouds to absorb some sun rays and heal himself.  There's your ascension.
Lex has made some big evil plan that I don't really remember, and Superman managed to destroy it by throwing it out into space.  But it exhausted him so much that he collapses and slowly falls back to earth, in a very crucification-like pose.  He gets rushed to the hospital, but dies.  Then of course, a couple days later, he comes back to life.
Sounds a lot like a Christ figure to me.

Firebolts, Hippogriffs, and Dolorians

Harry Potter flies a lot.  Obviously, he flies on his broom.  The first time he ever flew was during his first week at Hogwarts.  He had lived with his terrible aunt, uncle, and cousin for 10 years before, staying in the cupboard under the stairs.  He hated his life -- he had no friends, and was constantly beaten up by his cousin.  When he was rescued by Hagrid, he instantly felt freer.  However, it wasn't until he went to a flying lesson that he really felt free. When he was on the broom chasing Malfoy around, he knew flying was for him.  He felt completely safe and at ease in the air.
In the second book, flying literally was freedom for Harry.  He had been locked in the bedroom, with a dogflap on the door for food and bars on his window.  He was there for about a week before Ron and the twins showed up to save him.  They took him away in the flying car, where he literally was given freedom from his family.
And of course, Buckbeak did a lot of flying too.  When Harry was forced to ride him at the lesson, he totally forgot about his studies and that Sirius was apparently out to kill him.  He could just breathe the air and relax and be free.  And at the end of the book, Harry and Hermione went back in time to save Sirius, and they flew him away on Buckbeak, saving him from the Death Eaters.  It also was literally freedom.
I could go on about Harry Potter forever, but I'll stop here.


I also wanted to write about how in Back to the Future, Marty and the Doc have to find a lot of road for them to be able to reach 88 mph, but then when Doc comes back from 2015, he's made the car be able to fly (I'm still expecting flying cars 5 years from now.  It's gonna happen.), and they no longer have to worry about space, and are free from the road.
Yeah.