Invisible Man

Ellison's writing is excellent. The whole work has prolific meaning. Each word, each sentence is pregnant with layer upon layer of interpretation. The black and white text, the black and white struggle is full of color! Vivid, vivid color and words. The whites where described in reds and the blacks in blues for a while, but later in the book, the blacks were also described in red. This shows how the invisible man changed, how he became invisible.
IM takes us on a journey of the finding of humanity, of conscoius thought, of whole human beings. At the end we can see that the simple boy from the south has changed, but is left at a crossroads and this is where America was left at the time. The racial tension was changing, morphing, becoming so many things and so compounded, but it was not resolved in that time, during IM's time. While those never thought to be human before are finding themselves, there's still a block in the road. While some are changing, others are not, and still others are going backwards. This is a time of turmoil that we find personified in the IM. He's invisible because he's stripped away the definitions society has given to describe lesser beings of the black people, but invisible still because he can't move the next step on his own. He can't make himself visibile, others have to see that there are inivisble people before they can see all the world at all. Others have to see to help make the IM whole. While it is dependent on himself, it is also dependant on others. Let all the invisible people come out of hiding and make their presence known and let us accept their presence. Let us see them human beings in the least.
Whence all this passion towards the conformity to not see some and regards others as objects? Conformity is the downfall of a thinking human being who is unique because of this consciousness. Conformity is for the people seeking an easy answer, a blanket to cover the world and their eyes, a decision that does not require thought but only the limited ability of partial sight. Diversity is the word because it is the world. Escaping reality through limited sight or no sight is the downfall of us all.

Invisible Man, Reactionary Man

IM reacts to ways in the situtations he's been placed in very similiar the feelings and actions of my own. He experiences waves of paranioa when he is in doubt about the organization of the Brotherhood and when he was searching for a job on his own. People piss him off and he learns to control himself, just like a child growing up, which is really apporpriate because society (the white man) made him feel like a child, an imcomplete human being. And people don't realize, this happens to us all the time by others making us feel inferior in some way. They try to exhert their power over others because of various reasons, or just a plain "I think I'm better than you" attitude so that they can push others around. IM feels the pressure of this from all around him, especially when he learns that to be a Brother is to be disciplined.

House of the Spirits

I thouroughly enjoyed the type of story telling Allende used in this text. She kept things mysterious yet did it push it too far to make it rediculous and evoked great feelings at different points in her book. Unfortunately, I felt that during the military coup, the book took on a more historical factual setting rather than still telling a terrifying story of the military uprising sponsered by the Conservatives. It also reminded me of the installment of Soviet Russia and how its people were governed with fear and hostility. The beautiful mystical tale of generations became nothing but unknown terror coming from every level. The way the novel ended seems like it was trying a bit too hard to leave the reader with a bit of the unknown or something to ponder. It could have gone on strong and ended more poingointly than lamenting the possibly of history repeating itself, that Fate was in control and there was nothing Alba could do about it but except that it was going to keep happening over and over again and that there was really no change at all.

Allende Blog 3-30-2005

One of the ways Allende presents foreign ideologies is in how the traditional political parties treat the newer ones of Socialism and Communism. Convinced that those Marxist ideas are creeping into every mind in the country, Senator Trueba’s friends assure him that those political ideas will never take over because they don’t allow for magic. It seems to the people of Chile common sense that magic must be included and allowed for in the country since it is so rampant and influences many people who influence others with it. Magic seems to be an integral part of their society, something we Americans do not account for. We seem to allow for unknown, unexplained phenomena or we want to break it down to the facts and uncover what really happened and who was using parlor tricks. To Americans, magic is a game for mostly children to enjoy.
Another example is the earthquakes. The earthquakes are, of course, major event turning instruments in this novel. Earthquakes in the US, for example, are only limited to the west coast and particularly for this student and in this area, earthquakes are not a concern. The earthquakes in Allende’s novel provide vital turning points to the story and catastrophes that we would not experience or even expect in this area. If there was a large earthquake in the US we would probably only feel it economically and not be subject to its destruction.

Rachel Blau DuPlessis

I personally didn't like DuPlessis work. It wasn't her style that through me off, the choppiness of it, but rather the lack of meaning or a focal point. It seems that its just a collection of words and fragments running together that don't go anywhere or mean anything. It seems as though she chose this style, not that it chose her, so there is lack of emotion or feeling put into it. It seems to be produced just to be produced and in such an odd setup of form, just to be represented in that form. There just seems to be something important lacking from her work, like she's holding back or isn't inspired. There's not artistic pleasure in her words.

Antigone

Antigone is full of symbolism, actually it seems to be a recurring theme throughout history of different rulers and the meaning of their roles. Antigone, The Elders, and Kreon are all excellent representations of such and explanations follow.
Antigone: Greatly represents the logical, moral, thinking human being. She does not care for customs or laws and decides what to do and say based on her own volitions. She does not take the word of others for their face value. She realizes there is more going on than is being let on and tries to reason with the brute of a leader.
Kreon: He represents the unthinking brute force, the muscle, the body. He composes himself of brawn, not brain, saying the might always win and that a strong hand makes a good leader. He demands the surrender of Antigone's mind in the form of her obedience. He cares only about the material assests the war will bring and how their society must rejoice and not hear Antigone's truthful warnings.
The Elders: They are those without action only using their minds to think with no follow through. They got Kreon to fight their war because their way is not action. They encourage Antigone's death to erase her logical mind from the rest and because they hold death as something honorable and to appease their gods.
Both the elders and Kreon want Antigone to surrender because they think their brains or muscles are superior and that all others should fall to their will. The Elders and Kreon also conflict against each other in the end, also because one thinks brawn and no brain is the key, and the others think brain and no brawn is the way.
Antigone's form of selfishness, of her desire to live, and her thinking mind and actions would have caused her to live if she wasn't dealing with unjust anti-people.

Cortez: Variants

This section of reading was definitely much more enjoyable than just reading one text alone becuase of the signification of the themes that popped up in the majority of them. It was also interesting to notice what certain people had changed or added to their telling of the legend and to note the various things about them. For instance, certain town names would reappear, the differing of the bounty on Cortez's head, the relation and idolization of Cortez as a star, the Mexicans vs. Americans theme and much more. The comparisons of the different variants made the over all story much more in-depth to me and I was able to relate more with the characters. The oddest thing I noticed, though, was the occasional omittance of the horse trading section of the story.