Metafiction Piece

     "It's a very exciting day when the land of the free, none other than the United States of America is the first country to land humans (and sponge) on the moon. This monumental day, July 24, 1969, three brave men have successfully landed on the moon: Commander Neil Armstrong, Command Module Pilot Michael Collins, and Lunar Module Pilot Spongebob Squarepants. In our previous interviews, we spoke in depth about Armstrong and Collins, but did not get to really touch base and dig deep into Mr. Squarepants's past and interest in spaceflight.
     Spongebob Squarepants was born in the small town of Bikini Bottom, raised very traditionally. Starting in elementary school, his love for space developed, growing into something that interested him more than just a hobby, but a career. Working hard in high school, Squarepants worked at town favorite place to dine Krusty Krab where he earned high honor throughout the town for his friendly demeanor and flamboyant personality. Recruited by Nichelle Nicols, NASA Recruiter, Squarepants made his way to NASA for extensive training to eventually make it onto the first successful human/sponge mission to the moon. Squarepants is very proud to be supporting his family, his parents Harold and Margaret Squarepants. 'Some people might think,' Squarepants explains, '...that a sponge going to space is odd, perhaps the readers of this very article in an advanced English class in in Florida circa 2014, but i'd just like to set an example for all of the sponges out there who want to make a life for themselves and really make a change, besides being used as a kitchen supply.'
     Mr. Squarepants sets an example for all sponges and humans out there in the world who want to make a change: 'with hard work and determination, you can do anything,' he coins. We at the HSA, Human Sponge Alliance cant wait to see the future that not only Squarepants holds for us in space travel, but Armstrong and Collins in all of their near and far endeavors."
--- HSA

Satire in Persuasion

Jane Austen's Persuasion revolves around Anne Elliot, reserved daughter of fatuous and snobbish Sir Walter, and the trials and tribulations in both her family and love lives. Jane Austen focuses on satire in many of her great works, from Pride & Prejudice to Sense & Sensibility to her latest work Persuasion, where she pokes fun at the social extravagance and absurdity of her time. Many characters in Austen's Persuasion encompass the satirical ideas that she was looking to shed light on. Firstly, Anne's father, Sir Walter could most likely be the most satirical character in the entire novel for a few reasons. Firstly, Sir Walter is extremely vain and has multitudes of mirrors set up in his house, showing Austen's mocking of her society's complete arrogance and conceitedness. Sir Walter is also a satirical character due to his constant obsession with class and/or rank. This obsession is exemplified in a few of Walter's actions throughout Persuasion: initially, Sir Walter's favorite book is the Baronetcy (a book of all of the class and ranking of people in his society). Also, Walter refuses to associate with a man of the navy due to both their low class and ugly, worn out features. These both show satirical elements as he was so obsessed with rank, yet he frivolously spent money to the point of him moving out of his own home to control spending: clear irony (as well as showing his obsession with the superficial through his hatred of Navy men, Austen's way of satirizing the vanity of her time). Sir Walter's vanity (in both physicality and ranking), a purposely satirized element in his character is obvious throughout the text, very directly characterized by Austen: "Vanity was the beginning and the end of Sir Walter Elliot's character; vanity of person and of situation. He considered the blessing of beauty as inferior only to the blessing of a baronetcy; and the Sir Walter Elliot, who united these gifts, was the constant object of his warmest respect and devotion" (Austen 6). 
Other satirical characters include Elizabeth Elliot, much like her father, vain and arrogant, who although is so full of herself and obsessed with her "beauty", as well as being the older sister, is still single and quite lonely. This ironic element Elizabeth exemplified shows Austen's twisting of a usual family's values and practices back in her day. Overall, it's clear that Austen uses satire to poke fun at her society's slightly twisted and self-absorbed ways in Persuasion. By bringing out characters' flaws such as vanity and class-hunger, Austen successfully portrayed these foibles as crucial elements of her satirical games she so greatly demonstrates so very often. 

WAYGWHYB Movie vs. Story Comparison

     "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?" a story by Joyce Oates follows the stories of the murders of three girls from Arizona. After the popularity of this story (which was based off of a true story), a movie recreation was born. A product of the 80's: Chopra's "Smooth Talk". In WAYGWHYB, Oates ends the story with Connie, the protagonist, freeing herself from all of her restrictions and letting herself go to Arnold Friend's control. Although the gruesome details are not written about at the end of WAYGWHYB, it can be assumed that Connie is murdered due to the story being based off of a news article about the murdering of three girls, one being Connie. On the other hand, "Smooth Talk" portrays a different story as the movie comes to a close. After Connie gets into the car with Friend and they "go for a ride", Connie is suddenly returned home after a, literal, drive around in his car. As a reader of WAYGWHYB and the news article about the killings of these girls, I was, as a viewer, expecting a completely different ending and was shocked and confused about why Chopra decided to end "Smooth Talk" on a different note: returning Connie to her house as if nothing occurred. Whether Connie was raped or not can't be assumed, but the fact that she returns to her home a changed woman is apparent. Connie's development before and after this climactic (or anti-climactic) moment is discussed in Brenda O. Daly's "An Unfilmable Conclusion: Joyce Carol Oates at the Movies".
     At the beginning of the movie, Connie is demonstrated by Chopra as trapped: trapped by her mother's always overbearing grasp on her life and obsession with finding little things to reprimand her on, and trapped by her obsession with love and sex, causing her to almost feel overwhelmed with unsatisfied feelings. This is directly correlated in not only the story, but also physical and cinematic aspects of the movie as Daly explains: "Every time Connie is on screen, she’s shot in close-up...with no space around her, pinned to the tiny unmovable frame”. This supports the idea that Connie was literally not only, as she felt, trapped emotionally, but also physically in her life which is reflected through the metaphor of the actual shot that Chopra used in the movie. The eventual development of Connie's character is next seen through Arnold Friend's shots. Friend is shot in very wide shots, a metaphor, as Chopra explains, for the freedom that Friend gives Connie; a chance to be herself, and not worry about the restrictions that she feels are on her life put on by her family and friends. 
     Through this, it's clear that Chopra intentionally did not shoot the gruesome ending to the story, because it was not important to the point of the story that she intended to get across. Connie's development is shown as she leaves Friend's shiny gold car and realizes that her dependency on men was not as required as she once believed; that freedom and a world open for her taking was up to her. Overall, it's clear that through Chopra's interpretation of Oates' story, the crucial theme of independence and Connie's constant search for it is gotten across and effectively establishes a successful bridge between the text and cinematic version of this iconic and classic piece of literature.

Parallels in "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?" & "Dont You Know Who I Am?"

Oates's Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? tells a haunting story of a typical teenage girl whose love-obsessed personality gets the best of her when she is thrown into a truly "life-or-death" situation with an unknown man. Inspired by three Tuscon, Arizona murders, Oates garnered her inspiration for this work from a Life Magizine article profiling the killings. A common theme in both WAYGWHYB and Joyce Wegs's critical paper "Dont You Know Who I Am?"... is religion: themes through Connie's interests in music and daily actions. Music functions as a bridge for Connie to escape from reality to fantasy, away from her overbearing mother to a world of pure bliss: “The music was always in the background, like music at a church service; it was something to depend upon” (Oates 120). Connie explains that music is her religion, the object of worship at the service that completely takes over her existence. Wegs further explains Connie's attachment to music as her religion through her embodiment of the superficial, love-obsessed characteristics in much of, specifically, Bob Dylan's lyrics. Connie's complete infatuation with love comes to surface when Arnold Friend approaches Connie, a seemingly youthful and experienced lover, embodying all of the characteristics Connie and other girls her age at the time swooned over. Through this, it is understood that Connie's religion is not only music, but the perfect boy that music spoke of at the time, leaving her so vulnerable and able to be taken advantage of: "...her first glance makes Connie believe that a teenage boy with his jalopy, the central figure of her religion, has arrived; therefore, she murmurs 'Christ, Christ' as she wonders about how her newly-washed hair looks (Wegs 103). In conclusion, it's clear that Connie's disregard for typical warning signs due to her unchangeable goal in life being finding love get her into trouble, making her the target in Arnold's sick game. As music runs her life, as well as the themes the music Connie listens to brings, a complete disregard for the reality of a situation and the growing oddity of Arnold Friends persona, is clear in her choices. As Arnold's true identity is slowly revealed to Connie: the makeup rubbing off, the wig falling off, the seriousness of Connie's obsession with love, is revealed as she lacks the judgement to stop herself from completely letting herself go to a man she is completely fooled by: "She watched herself push the door slowly open as if she were back safe somewhere in the other doorway, watching this body and this head of long hair moving out into the sunlight where Arnold Friend waited" (Oates 131).

 

Works Cited:

Oates, Joyce Carol. “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” Where Are You Going, Where      Have You Been? Ed. Elaine Showalter. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2002. Print.

Wegs, Joyce M. “‘Don’t You Know Who I Am?’ The Grotesque in Oates’s ‘Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?’” Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? Ed. Elaine Showalter. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2002. Print.

Consumed by Consumed

Benjamin Barber's Consumed is a tale of capitalism: the complete distaste of the commercial culture 

that it has created and its tendency to reduce people, to mere consumers. He takes an almost offense 

towards privatization in his argument that it gives us what we want, but does not give us what we 

"want to want", which is a democracy. He explains that capitalism "...seems quite literally to be 

consuming itself, leaving democracy in peril and the fate of citizens uncertain" (Barber 89). With this, 

he breaks society into two spheres: the child and adult cultures. Children are completely engulfed by 

brand: “They get up in the morning, put on their Levi’s and Nikes, grab their caps, backpacks, and

Sony personal CD players, and head for school" (Barber 52). Their daily lives are so constantly

 bombarded by brands that, in a way, they become the brand itself. On the other hand, adult culture, 

Barber explains, has completely withdrawn from the "we", the public sphere, and focused itself 

completely on the individual. Barber insists that whatever the public sector "claims" to be able to do, 

the private sector can do more efficiently and appealingly. Barber revolves all of this around one idea: 

the complete infantilization of our culture and society, as people are portraying children, so easily 

convinced and persuaded; an "I want it now!" culture. Yes, all of Barber's arguments are completely 

valid. He points out some accurate and frightening points that completely identify the problems in our

 society today. But, what Barber fails to do is be direct: something almost crucial in a complex piece 

like this. Throughout the book, Barber never fails to go on complete tangents, straying from his initial

 argument: the infantilization of our society. The page-long tangents on Shaquille O'Neal and the 

Sims completely detract from his argument, making his work extremely unfocused. Usually I finish a 

book with a central idea in my mind, a simple idea that the author tried to get across. With Barber, my 

mind was all over the place. I had to go back, re-read, and completely translate too many parts of this 

book. Overall, Barber has some pretty compelling points: the idea of our society being completely

 turned into a bunch of children running around, buying whatever they please and mesmerized by 

industry. But, his unfocused structure, demonstrated too many times throughout the book, makes 

Consumed one unpleasant read. 

Isaac & Ishmael: a Present Shock

When terrorism-themed episode "Isaac and Ishmael" aired in 2001 on the popular Show The West Wing, fans of the popular show, as well as people simply looking for answers were graced with a decent amount of clarity after viewing. Usually following the democratic administration of Josiah Bartlet, Sorkin decided to shift the scene to possibly answer some of the burning questions all of America had after the devastating September 11th attacks. "Why?" "What did we do to them?" "Do they hate us?" were some of the questions answered during this extremely instructive episode. The constant strive towards rationalism is seen very clearly in this episode, from the hour-long attempt to grasp "a terrorists perspective" to the thought-provoking analogies brought on by characters. "Muslim extremists are to Islam as ____ is to Christianity" one character asks, followed by blank faces. The answer (the KKK), or lack thereof, highlights the bias that Americans put on people of Middle-Eastern descent, one that is clearly demonstrated in this episode. Through this, the apparent rationalism of The West Wing gives not only a fairly unbiased look at 9/11, but a great amount of understanding to the devastating attacks and aftermath. Fast forward to today, society is in what Rushkoff explains as a "Present Shock", an immobile state filled with doubt (in this case, regarding terrorism). This "freeze" that we are in, has caused us to jump to conclusions, to fall back on stereotypes, and push blame on ones who are undeserving. Ever since the attacks on the Twin Towers, concluded to be the doings of middle-eastern terrorist group "Al Queda", Americans have jumped to the safety in which the "Present Shock" resides in. We must understand that terrorism does not stem from just one people, but can come from any corner of the Earth. The rationality and unbiased attitudes Sorkin brought us with "Isaac and Ishmael" shed light on the still fragile topic in 2001, and still shed's light on it today, exuding a rational explanation for the attacks and how us, as Americans, should respond to the tragedy that changed our country forever. The West Wing broke the traditional idea of entertainment ("...'to hold within,' or to keep someone in a certain frame of mind" (Rushkoff 21).) and sparked thought and a new perspective, to consider all sides of the story. "Isaac and Ishmael"'s impact changed Americans thoughts on where to go next, even just for a moment, by not just standing by a group who would be condemned for all time because of an extremist group whom they share a race with, but by promoting rationalistic values for all of its viewers to see, consider, and implement in one another.

A Moveable Feast: Reaction

The clear tone and style Hemingway employs often through his writing is demonstrated in his memoir, A Moveable Feast. About his years in Paris in the 1920’s as a writer, it is clear that with this underlying theme of in a way, a autobiography, that there would be a very casual feel to the writing. Hemingway’s writing style can be seen as very conversational, as he keeps his use of words and grammar to an easily-understood level. One specific element of his work that stood out to me was his inclusion of quoted conversations very often in the memoir; these conversations of quotes would sometimes continue for pages, supporting the previous idea of a very direct and conversational tone employed throughout the memoir. With this in mind, Hemingway’s direct use of language and time causes the work to flee from a strong example of form following content. One chapter in which both Hemingway’s casual and direct tone as well as his continuous quoting of conversations is demonstrated in is With Pascin at the Dôme. A casual conversation goes on with Hemingway, Pascin, and the two model sisters for pages in this chapter: 

“‘You have to go?’

‘Have to and want to.’

‘Go on then’...” (Hemingway 109).

This comfortable writing style makes the literature very easy to read and digest. Besides his large usage of quotes, Hemingway’s bias shines through often in many chapters. One moment stood out to me in Ezra Pound and His Bel Espirit when Hemingway first encounters Wyndham Lewis. Hemingway’s very strong opinions are very notable here and alter the opinion of a reader, as bias often does: “Lewis did not show evil; he just looked nasty” (Hemingway 115). Hemingway’s constant repetition of Lewis’s “nastiness” exemplifies the very prominent element of bias Hemingway uses in his memoir.

Overall, I think we read this book as a part of our AP Language study to get a peer into the daily life of one of history’s greatest writers and the environment he wrote in. It gives you a great perspective on the influences he had of other writers like Ezra Pound and Stein, and helps us further understand how they affected his writing and style. The text does not necessarily present any problems to solve as there is not a concrete plot (as it is a memoir), but readers are still required to make connections between the different authors Hemingway encounters and how his relationships affect him as a person and writer.