The Complete Persepolis | Chapters 9-14

How are the Islamic fundamentalists portrayed in the book? How does Marji communicate her internal conflicts and confusion about what's going on?

Marji portrays the fundamentalist men as having full beards, uni-brows. and untucked shirts, while the women are covered head to toe so that the only thing showing on their body is their face. Other men, however, are mostly clean shaven with a possible mustache and tucked-in shirts, while the women are not as covered and will have a little bit of hair falling out of the front of their veil. The Islamic fundamentalists also speak more curtly and harshly, as opposed to the people Marji was closer to, like her parents, who spoke more openly and kindly.

Marji communicates her internal conflict by, for example, portraying her rejection of God in a panel with mostly black background and by having the panel in which she wallows in despair take up an entire page. Marji also displays the conflict she faces by contrasting what she learns at home versus what she shares with her friends and their subsequent reactions. Marji is often extremely blunt with other children her age and is open to sharing her knowledge of the revolution which she has been taught by her parents. Marji will sometimes embellish her stories since she is trying to cope, but also because she wants the other children to like and respect her. Marji also communicates her confusion at that age by showing her seeking knowledge and understanding in books about revolutions and communism, even going as far as pretending to be a revolutionary when playing with her friends.

The Complete Persepolis | Chapters 1-8

Satrapi's images and drawings often convey more meaning than her text does alone. Since she is writing a graphic novel, she had a a limited amount of space for her text, so she relies on her art to speak for her instead. The larger panels will often display a scene, generally one that is a bigger picture and larger than just Satrapi's story on its own, more likely portraying the Revolution as a whole. The images are all in black and white, so the panels that are from outside what would have been Satrapi's perspective tend to mostly use black, while the other images are a stark contrast and use mostly white space. Satrapi uses text bubbles to explain thoughts from the timeline of the story, while the captions tend to be from the older Satrapi, who speaks with more knowledge of the Revolution and also knowing the effect that it will have on her and her family late on and than the timeline in the story. Together the dialogue and images work to create a complete story. Trying to understand the graphic novel without both dialogue and the images would leave large pieces of the story missing since the two are intricately woven together in order to tell Satrapi's story during the Revolution in Iran.

Perfume Chapters 1-10

1) Describe Grenouille so far; how does Suskind begin creating his character (in other words, how can you justify your understanding/interpretations of Grenouille using the text itself)?

Grenouille seems to be neglected and has spent most of his life being treated as an outsider because most people view him as different and something to be feared. His own mother cast him aside at birth, choosing to not acknowledge his presence, and then his nurses all gave him away because they believed he was too greedy. One wet nurse went to the priest and he dismissed her claims at first, but once he saw the baby and the way its nose twitched, and the priest sent him to an orphanage where his likelihood of survival was slim. The other children were also afraid of Grenouille and tried to kill him, although they were never able to kill him. Suskind sets up Grenouille to be someone who very much should not be alive at this point in his life and story, but due to a series of fortunate circumstances, he was able to survive. Suskind also often compares Grenouille to a tick, which further sets up Grenouille as a greedy and parasitical character. Grenouille also often reads as lacking empathy, most likely because he has never experienced love himself. This is especially apparent in his comparison to a tick and his general lack of emotion, except for when he spells something extremely pleasant, specifically the young girl he murders.

2) We've never really read about a main character whose chief trait is his superhuman sense of smell. What is this all about? What might we learn from this character or story? Is scent a symbol for something else?

I think the author uses scent as a way to both connect the reader more to Grenouille while also setting him apart from any other character out there. Most readers can relate to the most extreme sensations from smell, when there is a truly repugnant or delicious smell, so the readers can relate to some of what Grenouille is feeling and experiencing. However, readers do not have the superhuman sense of smell that Grenouille has, so they will never be able to truly be able to feel and smell what Grenouille has and the relation only goes so far, but this makes him a somewhat sympathetic character (not entirely, but at least a bit). Scent, so far, seems to symbolize a more primal human instinct (at least to the priest), while Baldini, someone born upper class, is a perfumer and seems to hold scent above other senses generally.  

The Glass Menagerie Symbol

Jim is a symbol for reality. As Tom puts it in his opening monologue, the gentleman caller (Jim) is an "emissary from the world of reality that we were somehow apart from" (p. 23). Jim is a stark contrast to Amanda, Laura, and Tom, who all looked to escape in some form. Amanda lives in the past and reminisces her glory days when she had seventeen gentleman callers; Laura avoids confrontation and reality by polishing her glass menagerie and playing the Victrola; Tom escapes reality by going to the movies every night. Jim serves as a wake-up call, since his visit triggered Tom leaving and escaping the monotonous cycle in which he was trapped. Jim was the catalyst that made Tom truly realize that there was a whole world out there that he was missing. Although it is less concrete, Jim's visit may have also given Laura more confidence and caused her to take action in her life, and Jim breaking her unicorn could have represented Laura's fantasy world being broken, exposing her to reality.

Jim is slightly more complicated than just symbolizing reality, however. Jim, as a character, hopes for the future, and even has some slightly unrealistic expectations. Jim longs to achieve the "American Dream," which is extremely unlikely and improbable during the Great Depression. Even though he is more present in reality than the Wingfield family, Jim still lives in the future and thinks too highly of himself to be entirely planted in reality. Therefore, Jim does represent reality for the Wingfields, while remaining a slightly unrealistic character himself.

Amanda's Apologia | The Glass Menagerie

To my children, Tom, Laura, please do not resent me. I know that you have made your feelings for me clear on more than one occasion, but please try to understand that I am just a mother who loves her children too much and is fearful for the future. Maybe one day you children will understand what it is like to be a parent, but even then I do not know if your love will run as deeply as mine does. I simply want the best for you children, and without my guidance, Lord only knows what would happen to you two? You need me to guide you, and I want more than anything for you two to be independent children, but until that day comes, I will continue to pester you two to improve your lives because you only deserve the best.

Laura, sister, I love you dearly, but you need to find a husband, if not you will become dependent on family and be resented. I fear for your future, you're so nervous all the time, and all you do is play with that glass menagerie and Victrola. That darned Victrola! I don't know why you insist on playing those old records all the time because that is not going to bring him back, and I need you to realize this and step out of this fantasy world that you're always living in. Laura, I do not want you to end up with the same fate as me, so find yourself a man, and never let him leave you, you won't survive otherwise. I am an old woman, and I am sure my time will come soon enough, but, Laura, you have a full life ahead of you and you need to take advantage of that and plan for the future, otherwise the past will be filled with regret.

Tom, I know that the two of us don't always get along, but I want the best for you, too. These days, you're becoming more and more like your father, and I want you to be a better man than he was. I know I may nag, but I see what a good man you've become, and I just want even more for you. I fear some days that you will just walk out with little more than a post card sent our way to tell us of your departure. I fear that you will become too much like your father, a drunkard who didn't understand family responsibilities, and I do not wish that fate upon you. I know that those genes will have their ways, and sometimes you can't help it, but I need you to try and think about sister at least because I won't always be here to protect her and remind her to come back to the world. Even if you leave us, promise that you'll come back for Laura, alright? 

With much love and regret that I have made myself hateful to my children,
Amanda 

The Glass Menagerie Scenes 1 and 2

Questions I Have So Far:

Why is Tom choosing to tell this story?
Why does Laura not have any gentleman callers/suitors?
How did Laura become crippled?
Why does Amanda want Laura to have a gentleman caller so badly?
Why does Amanda continue to reflect on the past?
How long ago did their father leave?
Does Amanda work, and if so, what does she do?
What is the D.A.R. society?
How does Tom tell the story of Amanda and Laura's encounter if he was not part of it originally?

Thoughts on the Play So Far:

I think that the stage directions in this play are actually really useful besides just staging since they provide insight into the story. This is different from the only other plays I have read by Shakespeare, which have minimal stage directions and rely more on the dialogue to tell the story. Tom seems to have the most poetic dialogue so far, with Amanda and Laura being a little more straightforward, which is most likely due to this being a memory play. I really enjoy Williams writing style so far, especially when Tom speaks and even in the stage directions as well. I am interested to see where the story goes, and I am interested to see what kind of impact the gentleman caller has on the family. 

The Nightmare of Romantic Idealism

"The Nightmare of Romantic Idealism" by Paul Cantor

In this article, the author argues that by ambiguously using myths and their characters the shape her own owns characters of Victor and the Creature, Mary Shelley has made Victor and his Creature "mirror images" of each other, and she creates a myth in which the ideals valued by Romanticism (pursuing greatness and knowledge) the downfall of her characters. The author begins by explaining how both Victor and the monster break the roles that they are supposed to play, since they both display some Satanic characteristics from Paradise Lost, and they both display some characteristics of Prometheus from his myth, which makes Victor and his monster doubles for each other. The author then discusses how Shelley's novel serves as a myth about Romanticism, and that the central conflict is centered around the flaws of humans in Romantic literature. Ambiguity is extremely important here because ambiguity in Shelley's characters also leads to moral ambiguity and a deeper, more complex conflict between the characters. Victor and the monster are not clear-cut or straight-forward characters by any means, which allows for the readers to decide for themselves who the true "hero" or "villain" in this novel are. This aids Shelley's commentary on Romanticism because instead of having her characters be a hero or villain, it is instead the broader spectrum of their pursuit of knowledge and their actions, which reflect Romanticism, that she was commenting on in Frankenstein.