Same person. No difference at all... Just a different sex.

I'm going to have to have you go back a little ways, back when we got to watch a few clips from Orlando (based on the novel by Virginia Woolf). Since Dr. Hague offered to let anyone borrow it if they wanted to watch it, I just had to. For all of you who have yet to see it, you are missing out. The story alone is a good reason to watch it, but the added cinematics, the things they do with costumes, scenery, everything is well worth the 94 minutes of your life. Also, random fact that floored me (and could attest to the differences between men and women if you so please) is the fact that even though Billy Zane's Character, Shelmerdine, only has 12 seconds of screen time, not only is he one of the two highest paid actors, but he also has the spot right underneath our leading lady for Orlando.

Now, onto what I really wanted to talk about. This conversation may seem odd, but if you just watch the movie, I promise a conversation like this may not seem as strange any more. My boyfriend was not here to watch the movie with me, but I gave him a run-down of the movie and we got into the hypothetical conversation of what it would be like if we magically switched genders. I felt that if I were to magically wake up one morning and be a guy, my personality and interests wouldn't change. However, when I see my boyfriend magically waking up as a girl, his personality and his interests change. My boyfriend didn't see either of us having a change in interests or personality. He looks at his sister and sees a girl who hates shopping, loathes dresses, plays video games, and can't cook to save her life. He sees me, and though I have a handle on all the domestic things (like cooking, sewing, and taking care of kids), I love to skateboard, go adventuring, play video games, and taking me out to see a horror movie on Valentine's day is a completely appropriate (and fantastic) idea. I asked a guy at work if he thought his personality would change. His answer was yes, because he would have, and I quote, 'girly hormones and PMS'.

I tried to figure out why I thought about this the way I did.One reason for this could be the generic things that are supposed to apply to the different genders. A lot of people think of video games, horror movies, and skateboarding as a 'guy' thing. Sewing, baking, and being good with kids is seen as a 'girl' thing. For some, that could be the reasoning. However, that doesn't make sense, because I like to do 'guy' things, Andrew can cook, sew, and make clothes shopping bareable (I abhor clothes shopping), and I know plenty of people who think that one gender who likes to do things generally liked by the other gender is one amazing catch.

I think my personal reasoning for thinking that if I were to change into a guy my personality and interests wouldn't change is because the few boys that are born into my family (we're largely populated by girls) are taught that they need to know how to take care of themselves. They are taught how to sew, cook, take care of munckins, and end up spending a lot of time with girls, so I don't see guys doing 'girl' things as immasculating. However, when I think of a guy turning into a girl, I see them being surrounded by 'catty' girls. They get caught up in dressing just right, hanging out with all the right people, and getting wrapped up in soap opera-esque drama, even though I don't even possess or condone that mentality. One of the best Lines throughout the movie was when Orlando awoke and found that he was now a she, “Same person. No difference at all... just a different sex.”

What do you think of someone waking up one morning as the different gender? Do you see them as keeping their personality and interests, or do you see them as changing? Why?

  

I feel certain I am going mad again...

        Seeing as how we'll be starting on Virginia Woolf's works and she happens to be one of my favorite writers, I figured we could do a little context on her. I think that knowing the context of the writer can bring a better understanding of the literature. I have done my own work with Woolf, in and out of class; Her story has always interested me. Her life was so tinged with sadness, tragedy, and even mental illness, yet she still managed to push through. Suicide frequents her writings and she did not find it a sin or cowardice. She was a feminist (you'll get to read more about that tomorrow in class), and people still constantly talk about her writings. Any of the information I did not know I got at www.online-literature.com/virginia_woolf/

 

          Virginia Woolf was born Adeline Virginia Stephen in London, England on 25 Jaunary, 1882. She was born into a rather privelaged family, and her father was the first editior of the Dictionary of National Biography. She was one of eight children, four of whom were her half siblings. She was very close with her older sister Vanessa. Their home was frequented by many successful Victorian authors and they had a massive library that helped to add to the children's home education.

         Her family had a summer home in St. Ives off the Atlantic Ocean and she had fond memories of her time spent there. It even influenced her writing. They stopped going after her mother died when Virginia was only 13. She had a mental breakdown, the first of many. The death of Stella, her older sister prompted another breakdown, and the death of her father, another one. She was bipolar, and some wonder if she did not have a form of schizophrenia. Her episodes would be so bad she would withdraw from her busy social life and get frustrated that she couldn't seem to focus long enough to read or write. She wrote that she heard voices and had visions and would occasionally go to nursing homes for 'rest cures'. In 1905, living with her sister Vanessa and her brothers Thoby and Adrian in a different neighborhood in London, she started to feel better. She started writing again and taught English and History at Morley College. The very next year when travelling, Her brother Thoby died from Typhoid Fever. 

        After Leonard Woolf (political journalist, author, and editor) proposed to her three times, they finally married in August of 1912 (she was 30 years old). When World War II broke out two years later, they retreated to their country home 'Monk's House'. She was working on a satirical coming-of-age story, her first novel, The Voyage Out. Not long after that, Virginia and her husband founded the Hogarth Press. She wrote seemingly constantly. Leonard was constantly anticipating her next episode. She would get migraines and be sleepless. She eventually drowned herself on the 28^th of March in 1941. She filled her coat pockets with rocks and went into the River Ouse. Her ashes were spread at 'Monk's House'. She left this letter to Leonard;

Dearest, I feel certain I am going mad again... And I shan't recover this time... I am doing what seems the best thing to do... I can't fight any longer... Everything has gone from me but the certainty of your goodness. I can't go on spoiling your life any longer... I don't think two people could have been happier than we have been. V.

        After Virginia died, her husband edited her many unpublished works, journals, and correspondences. Her works are seen to be some of the most important feminist works, and she was among the founders of the modernist movement with T.S. Eliot, Ezra pound, James Joyce, and Gertrude Stein.

Porphyria's Lover

'Porphyria's Lover' is another one of Robert Browning's more famous poems. In fact, before this class, it was the only one of Browning's poems that I had read. Like 'My Last Duchess', it is a dramatic monologue, but still with a rhyme scheme. The rhyme scheme is ABABB for the most part. The person the speaker is talking to is unknown. He could simply be musing to himself about what has happened. The meter is 8 syllables, so, for the most part it is in iambic octameter.

As for the main plot, in the most literal taking, our speaker tells us the story of what recently happened between him and Porphyria. The first five lines have the speaker describing the weather as rainy, windy, and generally dismal. I keep summoning up images of Wuthering Heights. The next four lines describe Porphyria coming into the cottage and getting warm. The next 16 lines explain rather sensually about how she acts towards the speaker. The next lines he starts to think about where they and thinking about the situation they are in and how much love she has for him; how she worships him. The next lines talk about how he takes her hair and strangles her with it. Then, after she has breathed her last breath, he continues to keep company with her in a rather disturbing scene as he opens her eyes, toys with her hair, sits her next to him, and even kisses her dead, lifeless body. He leaves us with the lovely line of “And yet God has not said a word!”.

In the beginning, the weather reflects the speaker's own mood. Then, Porphyria comes. Even though she's soaking wet and cold, she lights up the mood and brings a kind of cheerfulness. It can be speculated that she is married to a wealthy man by the line “To set its struggling passions free/ from pride vainer ties dissever,/ And give herself to me forever.” There is also the line later, “ That moment she was mine, mine, fair,/ perfectly pure and good:..” He then goes off the deep end and decides that the best thing would be to keep her all to himself, to keep her pure and good, and to have her to brighten his cottage and mood forever more.

The way he decides to kill her puts a whole new perspective on the idea of a 'crime of passion.' for those of you who aren't really sure what exactly a crime of passion is, think of something that would require a lot of 'passion' for lack of a better word, to do – stabbing, strangling, etc. not only is the pseaker strangling his lover, but he's strangling her with her own hair. Then he continues on as if nothing is different, even though he has to prop her head on his shoulder, physically open her eyes, and you can bet when he kisses her she won't be kissing him back. Unless we're watching some extra disturbing episode of Supernatural. To top it all off, as he sits with her all night, he muses on the fact that God has not said a word, so obviously, he hasn't done anything wrong, right?

Religion vs. Spirituality

            When reading The Moonstone you quickly begin to see (or at least you should be seeing) plenty of things throughout that could be seen as opposites or juxtapositions; subjective knowledge vs. objective knowledge, belonging vs. otherness, men vs. women, and the list could go on. However, one of the juxtapositions that really caught my eye, especially in the end of the story, is the idea of religion vs. spirituality. In the novel this drastic difference is portrayed by Godfrey Ablewhite and Miss Clack for religion and the Indian trio for spirituality.

            Despite Miss Clack constantly referring to Godfrey as her ‘Christian hero’, throughout the novel we see that he simply cannot fill those shoes. In the beginning we are led to believe that he is at least an okay guy; he is well educated, a philanthropist, helps lead women’s charity groups, and may actually really love Rachel (though we know we were all rooting for Franklin). The evidence against him culminate throughout the novel as we see that the charities he is helping with are not that charitable, he has been embezzling money from a boy he has care over, he wanted to marry Rachel for the money, and to top it off, he is the one who truly stole the Moonstone! He uses his ‘Christianity’ as a cover for all the deplorable things he does. If he were not involved as he was, he would not have the opportunity to misuse the amount of trust placed in him.

            Miss Clack seems to be more consumed with religion and gossip than anything spiritual. She makes sure that she always attends church. She always leaves obnoxious pamphlets all over her friends’ and family’s homes in an attempt to save their immortal souls. She has no drama in her life and enjoys snooping into others at any given moment. She also makes sure that she helps out with charities, even though her main one is not that charitable. All the children have plenty of pants (too many actually), but the men have none and have to spend more money that they do not have to buy more, or miss work because they have no pants. Then we top that wonderful character off with a plentiful helping of piousness.

            At the end of the novel when we get to see the true sacrifice that our Indian trio went through is when we get a real picture of real spirituality. These men sacrificed their rather important stations in their society to act as performers to get closer to the precious relic. They sacrificed the comforts of their homeland. These misfortunes they whole heartedly accept for the good of their religion. Self-sacrifice was a necessity for the good of their religion. Now they will have to part ways and wander the land as pilgrims for the rest of their days, even though they succeeded in their quest. They were well aware of the consequences when they set out for the moonstone. None of this mattered. Could we ever see Godfrey or Drusilla (Miss Clack) ever going to these lengths for something spiritual, even though they parade themselves around as such spiritual people?

Emotional Memory

These beauteous forms,

Through a long absence, have not been to me

As is a landscape to a blind man’s eye:

But oft, in lonely rooms, and ‘mid the din

Of towns and cities, I have owed to them

In hours weariness, sensations sweet,

Felt in the blood, and felt along the heart;

And passing even into my purer mind,

With tranquil restoration: -- feelings too

Of unremembered pleasures…

-          William Wordsworth, ‘Tintern Abbey’, Lines 23 – 32 

            Some of the most important roles of a poet, according to Emerson, are to be able to not only see into the soul of man, but also be able to interpret it and share it with others. In some ways, it is his job to be able to recognize those things that connect us all; things we do, see, or feel. In these specific lines from one of Wordsworth most famous poems, I believe it brings to light the idea of what I like to think of as an ‘emotional memory’.

Wordsworth, in so many words, describes that feeling that we have all experienced at some time. It starts with a quick sense; a smell, a sound, or as in the case of this poem, at sight. For this particular entry I will be using one of my own emotional memories. When I was about 7 years old I had a secret spot. It was part of the river at the end of my grandparent’s property on their farm. Since they have moved, I have not seen it in about 15 years. I do not remember much about how it looks, but I can recall the sound of the river, children’s laughter, the smell of wet earth, the picturesque way the light would stream through the trees, and the beautiful swan. But above all else, I remember how it made me feel. It is a place that has calmed my anger, roused my spirits out of sadness, and given me a feeling of tranquility and uplifting.

Even though Wordsworth has not seen his perfect little spot in nature in over 5 years, he still feels that while he was gone it still gave him a feeling of ‘tranquil restoration’. This poem, to me, presents the perfect idea of what an emotional memory is. It is a memory of a person, place, thing, or even event that seems to be ‘Felt in the blood, and felt along the heart;’ even more so than you specifically remember the memory itself. It is that amazing feeling it gave you when you got to experience. I find that this was one of Wordsworth’s goals in this poem; to be able to show people that you can internalize those feelings and can draw from them when you seem to need it most.