Fight Club

Fight Club is a movie that has become somewhat of a classic.  I never knew that it was actually a book before this class, and it was interesting to learn more about the author behind the book.  Fight Club is not one of my favorite movies, but I do like and appreciate it.  I enjoy the mix of humor, irony, and violence within the movie, especially its focus on consumerism and the growing feminist movement.  For instance, the narrator is obsessed with IKEA, making sure that his apartment looks great because he has been told through different types of advertising that he needs it.  His job represents the greed of America, as his job is basically to determine whether a defect is worth recalling or letting people die, depending on the cost.  The movie highlights the increases in consuming of Americans, who are never satisfied, no matter how much they spend.  Then along comes Tyler Durden, who defies society and helps the narrator delve into his "manly side."  He tells the narrator, "It's only after we've lost everything that we're free to do anything," meaning that our obsession with useless objects is a continuous circle that restrains our freedom. Their obsession with fighting demonstrates man's attempt to rediscover what it means to be masculine.  Tyler says we are "generation of men raised my women."  Fight club is about regaining that primal manlihood that has been lost because men have been oppressed by the feminist movement.

Fight Club also has many Gothic elements, such as the use of setting and doppleganger.  Tyler's house can be seen as an old, rundown plantation.  His house is trashed, the water doesn't work, and is in a forgotten place where Tyler and the narrator can hit golf balls at houses and no one even knows.  The overall movie has a dark mood and the characters are only really alive at night.  The use of the doppleganger is Fight Club's largest Gothic element.  The narrator's doppleganger is Tyler, who is basically the man the narrator wishes to be and eventually becomes.  Tyler is free from consumerism and lives life on the edge, where the narrator is drained from Western society and its consumption obsession.  His loss of purpose and manlihood forces him to make drastic changes to be like Tyler and rediscover what being a man is about.  Overall, I enjoyed watching Fight Club, as it is a modern representation of Gothic right before the 21st century.

Streetcar Named Desire

Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams is a play that revolves around Blanche, a southern spinster who cannot adapt to the changes occurring in the South.  I read the play in an Intro to Theater class here at TCU, and I really enjoyed Streetcar.  The relationships between characters and events that occur create an excellent storyline that ultimately leads the reader capitvated and astonished by the ending.  I have also seen the movie, and I think they do an excellent job of showcasing the strengths of the play.  The play really concentrates on discussing the adaptation of the old South to the new South and pokes fun at the "blue-collar man."  Blanche centers her life around creating a perfect world, with courting and mystery.  When she loses Bella Reuve, she almost loses a part of herself.  She then goes on basically become a prostitute at "the tarantula" as she calls it, and loses her teaching job because she has sex with a 17 year old boy.  She never really recovered from the death of her lover, when she discovered he was gay and he then committed suicide.  Stanley, on the other hand, represents the new South, which Williams protrays as brutish and demanding.  Stanley is a dominant character who is selfish, strong, and powerful.  He uses the "Napoleonic code" to tell his wife and Blanche's sister, Stella, that what is hers is his.  However, that does not necessarily work the other way around, showcasing the new South is still a patriarchial society where the man is in charge and the wife is submissive.  Stanley, the new South, ultimately crushes Blanche, the old south, through what Blanche calls "deliberate creulty."  Stanley ruins Blanche's relationship with a man she may marry and eventually rapes Blanche.  The rape can be seen as the new South raping the old South of its qualities and traditions, in order to make it disappear, which happens to Blanche in the end when she is sent to a mental institution.  Stella is the bridge between the old and new.  She understands Blanche's need for tradition and old customs, but has experienced the new South.  She eventually chooses old over new, because unlike Blanche, she is able to adapt in order to survive.

When converting a play into a movie, some things are lost, but the movie uses a few techniques to keep the Gothic feel alive.  Though the movie is black and white, the shadowing of the setting and characters creates an eerie, dark feel.  In addition, the setting looks old and tattered, which is similar to the old Southern Gothic plantation.  Since there are no stage directions, the characters must act out the directions, which is done successfully be all the characters.  Overall, I really enjoyed Streetcar Named Desire.

"The Yellow Wallpaper" & "A Jury of Her Peers"

"The Yellow Wallpaper" and "A Jury of Her Peers" are both more modern Gothic short stories that represent the struggles of women in a patriarchal society.  They are much more developed than earlier stories and provide rich descriptions and remind me more of novels that I would read today.  "The Yellow Wallpaper" is a first person narrative that describes her life and her "rest-cure" isolation.  She seems to be going through a depression and as the story goes on, she continually loses her mind and becomes more and more insane.  Her husband, treats her like a child and shuts her up in a room, only to let her out at certain times in the day.  He treats her like a child, as he says "bless her little heart" and "what is it, little girl?" In the end, she ends up crawling over his body, demonstrating her child-like state.  She also starts to see things in the wallpaper.  At  first, she just sees the design, but she then begins to think there is somebody inside the wallpaper trying to get out, which probably represents herself.  The story employs a few traditional Gothic elements, such as the unreliable narrator and the motif of entrapment.  Since the author is losing her mind and her thoughts are changing as the story goes on, she can be considered an unreliable narrator.  The author uses a stream of conscious narration to develop the characters fall into madness.  The wife also feels entrapped, making the reader wonder if they are in some kind of home or a mental institution.  For example, the bed is nailed down, there are bars on the door, and the door is locked.  All these things demonstrate women's entrapment in the home and there loss of power over males.

"A Jury of Her Peers" dealt with similar issues of female submission, but it really discussed the differences between males and females and how they interact.  Ms. Wright is accused of killing her husband, who has an abusive and mean man.  Ms. Hale and Ms. Peters both go with their husbands to look through the house for clues of the death of Mr. Wright.  The house represents Ms. Wright's decline as it is dirty, with everything half done or all over the place.  The men immediately submit her behavior to questioning, but the women try to make the men understand how hard it is to keep a house tidy and in order.  Throughout the whole story, the men continually make judgments and the women try to protect Ms. Wright from there questioning.  For instance, the women stitch the entire piece of clothing because the stitching was not even, possibly representing Ms. Wright's downturn into insanity.  In addition, the women look inside Ms. Wright's "pretty jewelry box" and find a dead bird with its neck broken.  The women know how much the bird meant to Ms. Wright and decide to hide the bird from the men and withhold the evidence.  The story basically shows that men and women sometimes do not understand each other and their situations.  The women side with Ms. Wright because they understand what she had to go through underneath her husband and rationalize her reason for killing her husband.  The men, on the other hand, do not pick up on the clues the women see, showing that the two sexes have a long way to go before they will really understand their interior motives and what makes them tick.

"A Good Man is Hard to Find" & "Where are you Going, Where have you Been?"

"A Good Man is Hard to Find" by Flannery O' Connor and "Where are you Going, Where have you Been?" by Joyce Carol Oates were both modern and disturbing reads compared to other works we have read this semester.  I wasn't quite ready for the shocking endings.  Both novels are part of the "devil" Gothic series, where the Misfit and Arnold are both described with demonic characteristics.  "A Good Man is Hard to Find" has a family on its way to Florida, but on the way, they take a side trip to an old plantation.  However, the grandmother remembers it is in another state, so she accidentally lets the cat out of her basket, which causes Bailey to crash the car.  The Misfit, with his two boys, Hiram and Bobby Lee, end up killing all of the family and then the Misfit shoots the grandmother three times.  "Where are you Going, Where have you Been?" deals with a teenager, who wants to be an adult.  She dresses up and puts on lots of make-up and ends up having sex in an alley with this boy Eddie that she meets at a diner.  However, her world is turned upside down, when Arnold, a "DJ" from a local radio station, comes to her house.  He is very aggressive and assertive and ends up taking Connie out of house where it is foreshadowed that she will be raped and buried in the open land.

"A Good Man is Hard to Find" has some of the traditional Gothic elements.  For instance, the grandmother can be characterized as the "old spinster."  She is stuck in the past, wearing her dress and hat, because if she dies, she wants people to know "she is a lady."  She believes that refinement and manners can save her soul, but unfortunately that doesn't save her in the end.  It is love and faith that save the soul according to O' Connor, which the grandmother satisfies when she counts the Misfit as one of her children.  The issue of race is also prevalent in the story, as the blacks are demoralized, demonstrating that racism is still an issue that must be overcome. The Misfit represents the incarnation of the devil, as he has "no pleasure but meanness" and believes that Jesus resurrecting the dead has led to an imbalance in the world, which can only be solved by killing.  Last, O' Connor uses foreshadowing as one of her main elements in her stories.  In this story, when the grandmother says she wants to "die a lady" if they are killed, it is foreshadowing the family's encounter with the Misfit. 

"Where are you Going, Where have you Been?" doesn't have many of the traditional Gothic elements.  It can be considered modern Gothic, and it focuses on the issue of independence, innocence vs. adulthood and fantasy vs. reality.  Connie is focused on gaining her independence from her family.  She creates an image of a young adult, even though she is just a teenager.  She craves the idea of being an adult and experiencing sex, but still attempts to keep an air of innocence about her.  This mainly revolves around the idea of fantasy vs. reality.  She seems like she is a mature women who is experienced with men, but her encounter with Arnold shows that it is just a performance.  The love and romance in the songs she listens to and her appearance makes her believe that her fantasy of adult sexuality is actually the same as reality.  However, her encounter with Arnold definitely shatters this notion and the way she views the world.  Arnold himself also seems sub-human, which means that he could be a representation of the devil.  His pale skin, over sized shoes, and persona makes it seem like he is something from a fantasy.  Overall, it seems like Connie's quest for independence with lead to an ominous outcome, rape and buried in the "open land."

"Jean-ah Poquelin" & "A Rose of Emily"

"Jean-ah Poquelin" and "A Rose for Emily" are two similar short southern Gothic novels that focus on the disparity between the North and the South after the Civil War.  The North comes in and tries to change the stubborn South.  "Jean-ah Poquelin" is set in the time just after the Louisiana Purchase, where the Creoles are dealing with the changes the Americans are making.  Jean is a slave trader and is considered a hermit and chivalrous.  He is described with military adjectives, just like his house, which is savage and tough.  However, he must deal with the new, American ways, where aristocracy has no bearing on society.  Eminent domain causes him to eventually lose part of his property.  Jean represents the Creoles and the South in general, who are resistant to change, and keep upholding traditions.  Americans and the North on the other hand, represent change and progress, and the two obviously conflict.

"A Rose for Emily" also deals with the old vs. new, North vs. South theme as she does not listen to the new rules established, but instead dwells on the past.  Time is a large part of the story and it is completely scrambled.  At one point, we hear that there is a terrible smell of decay coming from the house, but we have no idea why.  It is not until the end, that we find out she killed Homer, he lover from the North, and his body has been decaying in the house for days.  This idea of time being scrambled can be representative of the South's denial of time. They continue to try to live in the past, and cannot comprehend the new life they must embark on after the Civil War without slaves.  Another theme in the short story that is prevalent throughout Southern Gothic literature is the tragic heroine/old spinster character.  Emily is the old spinster, who is the last in her line and represents her house, an old relic of the past.  She cannot come to grips with the changes occurring in society, just as the South couldn't come to grips with the changes the North was causing.  Overall, I thought the two stories were very good, and a much easier read than The Goophered Grapevine.

The Goophered Grapevine and The Sheriff's Children

We have now entered the Southern Gothic portion of the course, and I was surprised by the similarities, but also the differences in Southern Gothic compared to the traditional American and British Gothic stories.  The Goophered Grapevine by Charles Chesnutt was one of the first Southern Gothic stories, written in 1887, and was a difficult read.  The story talks about the history of a grapevine plantation and how it was "goophered."One of the slaves, Henry, and been goophered because of magic and his body was like the life cycle of the grapes.  When the vines were healthy during the spring and summer, he was strong, but by winter he would be weak and old.  His owner would always sell him for a high price and get him back for a low price.  The story had many elements of the Southern Gothic, including the plantation, decay, and slaves.  The plantation is the heart of the story, and is described as "decayed" with "broken-down arbors."  Like the South declined after the Civil War, so does the plantation, a relic of the past.  However, the story was written as written from an old black man's point of view, and he speech was downright impossible to understand.  I'm not sure if that is how they really talked, or if it is a form of condescension.

The Sheriff's Children was an excellent story, with an ending that represents how many blacks and people of color felt in the South, even after they were "freed."  The story is set in North Carolina in the village of Troy, where apparently a "negro" killed Captain Walker.  The townspeople decide to try to lynch the man, but the Sheriff tries to protect him.  It is not out of kindness, but out of duty.  However, he later learns that he is the father of the mulatto man, and sold his mother and his son.  The man escapes and tries to kill the Sheriff, but his daughter comes in the nick of time and injures the mulatto man.  He man is left in the jail cell overnight and dies in the morning because he tore his bandage off and bled to death.  This story most directly looks at racial barriers and interracial sex.  I was completely thrown off when I found out that the man in jail was the son of the Sheriff.  This relationship is used to directly talk about colored people's rights.  For instance, the mulatto man says, "I learned to feel no degree of learning or wisdom will change the color of my skin and that I shall always wear what in my own country is a badge of degradation."  The ending is almost shocking has the man decides to bleed to death, demonstrating that he, like many others in his position, feel hopeless and would rather die than face the consequences of being black in what was and partially still is a white man's world.

Edgar Allen Poe and Behind a Mask

Edgar Allen Poe is one of my favorite authors.  Ever since I read his stories for the first time in sixth grade, I became engrossed by his vivid, rich detail and grotesque, but intriguing stories.  "The Fall of the House of Usher" and "Ligeia" were the two short stories we read.  "The Fall of the House of Usher" is about how the narrator visits his old friend Usher, and stays with him because he is very sick.  Usher ends up burying his sister, Madeline alive.  Madeline escapes to fall into Usher's arms where he dies and the house begins to split in two and crumble as the narrator escapes.  "The Fall of the House of Usher" has many Gothic elements.  First, the house can be considered a doppelganger.  The house is mirrored in the water, so there are two houses, and when the house splits, the "blood-red" moon shines through, demonstrating how death prevails over life.  Edgar Allen Poe vividly personifies the furniture in the room, giving it lifelike qualities.  The House itself is almost described as a person, and is very spiritual.  Where traditional Gothic has supernatural elements, Poe concentrates on the psychology of the mind, and Usher's begins to whither away at the beginning and is totally destroyed by the end.  The Fall of the family, or the death of Usher and his sister at the end, signify the fall of the family because there is no one left to carry the line.

Ligeia is a longer story that is centered around Edgar Allen Poe's love interest, who dies.  Ligeia dies in the book, and the narrator continues his fantasies about her even though he remarries.  His addiction to opium makes him an unreliable narrator.  For example, when his second wife is poisoned, he believes that the poison appeared magically in the wine he served her, but in reality, he most likely poured it in himself.  His obsession of Ligeia mirrors Poe's obsession over his lover in real life.  Behind a Mask by Louisa May Alcott is so far the most interesting book we have read in my opinion.  The character development of Jean Muir is extraordinary and she is cunning, deceitful, but so clever that she is instantly likable.  Her performance to the family in order to gain their trust and manipulate them is very entertaining and I cannot wait to finish the book.