Heathcliff v. Catherine

I would like begin by saying I had higher hopes for Catherine and Heathcliff’s love and I am deeply grieved that they did not end up together but one can understand why they would have never worked. Catherine is too much of a spoiled brat that cared about her and her family’s social status instead of what she really wanted which was to be with Heathcliff. Poor Heathcliff. He was already abused physically and now he has his feelings manipulated by Catherine just to be thrown to the side when she did not need him. Reading Wuthering Heights was like watching a soap opera, the audience was held in suspense as to what was going to happen next. Catherine and Heathcliff’s tragic “love” is purposeful because Emily Brontё uses these characters to make a social commentary on the times. Brontё was commenting on the fact that many people during the time (cough cough Catherine) cared too much about social classes and what people would gossip about if one decided to marry outside of his/her social class. There is no doubt that Catherine loves Heathcliff but she blames Hindley, “[for bringing] Heathcliff so low, [she] shouldn't have thought of it [because] It would degrade [her] to marry Heathcliff now,” (Chapter 9, page 92). As a child, she ignored everyone else's dislike of Heathcliff because to a child, a social class means nothing. Heathcliff was just her friend and there was nothing stopping them from continuing as friends. Because this lack of restraints, their love flourished. But now Catherine allows Hindley's attitude and treatment of Heathcliff to change how she feels. There is no doubt that Catherine loves Heathcliff but the love she feels differs from his. She loves him but she is not willing to sacrifice everything she has to be Heathcliff while Heathcliff would die for Catherine.  In that sense, Hindley really gets what he wants by having Catherine betray Heathcliff. Catherine also thinks that Edgar is out of her league while she is out of Heathcliff’s but I disagree. Heathcliff is seen as the “villain” of the text but who wouldn’t be bitter if the woman you loved so dearly basically dropped you for a boy who is afraid of his own shadow? Heathcliff may not be rich like Edgar Linton but atleast he rely on papa and mama to defend him. Heathcliff is brooding and moody and he is twice the man that Edgar Linton is. Heathcliff  is far out of Catherine's league because he is (at first) a good person (mostly). He does not manipulate Catherine or use her for any purpose. The only thing Heathcliff is guilty of is loving Catherine unconditionally, and he paid for it.

At Ease, Comrade!

Animal Farm is an interesting story by George Orwell. At a first glance, the novel seems to be a cute story about farm animals that take over a human farm and farm the land for themselves. To any fourteen year old, that is what Animal Farm is. However, to an eighteen year advanced placement literature student, Animal Farm is so much more; it is a work of satire.

A satire is a work in which the author uses humor, irony and/or exaggeration to expose and criticize a human vice and create a social commentary.  Some famous examples are Jonathan Swift’s “A Modest Proposal”. This writing basically got Swift kicked out of Ireland because Ireland was going through a famine and as a response to the excess amount of complaining, Swift wrote a paper about how a solution to the famine and poverty was eating and selling babies.  Obviously, he was not seriously suggesting the people of Ireland eat their babies but it this kind of exaggeration that makes a satire a satire.

Orwell used irony throughout Animal Farm and this irony used was in order to ridicule how the Russian people traded tyrants after the revolution yet nothing changed. For example, the prized boar, Old Major, talked about how he had a dream where all animals were united and how they provided for themselves. After Old Major had died, the two pigs, Snowball and Napoleon, arranged the revolution and drove Farmer Jones and his men off the farm. This symbolizes the Russian Revolution and how the Russian people overthrew the Romanov. Afterwards, Snowball and Napoleon led the people and Snowball really tried to help the animals be productive and be united. however, Napoleon saw Snowball as competition and he tried to kill Snowball with the nine puppies he trained.  Once Napoleon took power, he stopped all committees and all the voting. It was his way or death. The ironic element is that the pigs were supposed to be for the animals and one of them. One of the animal commandments were All animals were equal yet the “milk and the windfall apples (and also the main crop of apples when they ripened) should be reserved for the pigs alone,” (Orwell, 1955, p. 33). The pigs ate like kings while the rest of the farm got slop (or what I think animals would consider slop). This is a direct parallelism to the people of the Soviet Union. Stalin and his men ate all the good food while the people got scraps. The ironic element is that the animals expected the goods to be shared equally because in the rules all animals are “equal” yet the pigs do not share because they are “special”. It is opposite of what all the animals expected and the Russian people went through the same with Stalin. He and his men ended up taking all that was good and valuable and leaving the people with dirt.

Old Orwell Had a Farm

Let me start off by telling the story of why I chose to read this satire book. I have already read it except I was in the seventh grade and k did not even know what satire was. Mr. Reynolds just told my class that George Orwell had a bone to pick with Stalin and instead of saying it to him, Orwell wrote a book about it. Of course, thirteen year old me did not really care. I cared more about why the pig was named Snowball (why I don't know). Now That I am older and have gained a bit more intelligence (at least I think I have), I see now what elements of satire are being used to make a social commentary on how the people in Russia followed Stalin blindly and did not see the signs that he was becoming exactly like the leader prior. 

With a title like Animal Farm one would think a novel would be filled with fun and cheerful farm animals like cows and horses. However, George Orwell takes a more realistic take to Old MacDonald’s farm in his satire since all the animals decide to gang up against their farmer. Mr. Jones is a mean drunk but that was his farm that he and his men were chased off of. Similar to how the people chased the Romanovs out of power. The Tsar was not the drunk Mr. Jones was but he was kind of blind and just plain dumb. He didn't see how miserable the people were and the people would have done anything and followed anyone to stop their suffering, similar to how the animals on the farm followed the pigs around. 

This work of literature being a satire and keeping that in mind, one has to remember this is a social commentary on something happening society. This book Was written during World War II and Orwell was a British writer. I am not exactly sure how people know that Orwell was making fun of Stalin and the Soviet Union but he was and it is even brought the characters of Snowball and Napoleon. These two pigs (yes pigs and they are not sweet like Babe) become the leaders of the farm. The same way Stalin and his men took over the Soviet Union. Snowball calls everyone “comrade” which is something frequently used in the red community which also alludes to that fact that Orwell was talking about Stalin. 

I Can Only Be Me

An identity is defined as a person's conception and expression of their own self but what does that mean? Richard Wright poses many questions of finding ones else in his stories. The main question is who is Bigger Thomas? He has a name, a family and a house but what is his identity? The funny thing is is he does not even know the answer to that question. Throughout Native Son, a bildungsroman by Richard Wright, Bigger struggles to find himself in an oppressive white society. We know he is a black and that he hates his family. He hates his family because he cannot help them. Bigger cannot succeed  in the world that he lives in because he is a black man and the whites only see him as what his stereotypes are. Eventually, Bigger became his stereotypes and bottled all his anger from years and years of being oppressed. Many say that an identity is what someone makes for himself but I do not think that is the case here. Bigger is product of his environment. This environment is the source of his fear. Bigger is afraid to be anything other than the stereotypes the whites set because he was told his life that he could not be anything else. People are what society wants them to be. Society influences people more than we realize because there are so many aspects to it. Teenagers are influenced by social media. Parents are influenced by bills and so on. Bigger has so much fear in his life that his only outlet is violence. Everything he does is because of how he grew up. He grew up being told that he was had to be and never given the opportunity to show any other side of himself. That is not a real identity. That is not a choice. The audience does not know the real Bigger Thomas because Bigger does not know who he is. We all have an identity but is it our own or the one society made for us? My mother used to tell me that I could only be myself in this life but I do not really believe that is the case. There are so many influences in the world around and society creates the people that are "needed" in the world. In Bigger's world, someone had to be the person everyone hates and could be a scapegoat for things not going as planned and unfortunately that scapegoat was Bigger. Society created the monster we all saw him as but he did not start that way. Monsters are created not born. People start out good but when society touches them, everything is changed.

Making a Change One Book at a Time

What is literary merit? It is lesson or a value that a reader takes away from a novel. This value is something the author intended on the audience learning and it is usually a subtle lesson. Not a moral but something similar to it. Literary merit is something the reader can apply to the world around them but it does not come from every single book. Books like Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets and Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief are fun to read but their sole purpose is to entertain the reader.

 

A reader could pull lessons out of the adventures and disasters the protagonists face but there is no concrete evidence and these books are fantasy fiction. However, Go Set a Watchman by Harper Lee is a high achievement of literary merit. This book is a continuation with the beloved characters from To Kill a Mockingbird and I have never read a better book. Scout has finally grown up into a young woman and goes by her birth name Jean Louise. When Jean Louise returns to her childhood home, she finds that Maycomb has changed. But no real changes have occurred because Jean Louise is the one that has changed. she grew up thinking her father, Atticus, was a god and he never made a mistake. She comes to find that her father is no god but he is human and he has made a lot of mistakes. Many of his decisions she does not agree with. Harper Lee uses Jean Louise's struggles to create a theme of one may find it difficult to find reality when they are still holding on to the past. This book can be considered literary merit because Harper Lee creates a protagonist that is so wrapped up in the past that she cannot see how her world as it is now and that was a lot of people are like. Many people do not see the reality of the world but only what they want to see. This is why this kind of books gets taught in school because the students analyze what the authors are trying say about the world and the students are the ones who try to make a change.

Every Road has a Beginning

Hi guys, my name is Sam. Well, really it's Samantha but Samantha is too long to say. I am a student athlete and emphasize on athlete because you name it and I have probably played it. But I am not all brawn. I secretly love to read. It is a hobby of mine that I sadly do not have time for anymore but when I was ten, I was reading 3 books a week. The book series that really peaked my reading interest was Rick Riordan's Percy Jackson series. That series was absolutely amazing. I stayed up until 3 in the morning finishing each book. At the end of book five, I did not know what to do. I legitimately cried my eyes out because I felt like a piece of me was missing. I moved onto another series he had written called the Kane Khronicles  and that was a trilogy. I flew threw those books and was on the search for another series. A couple years ago, Riordan wrote a sequel series to Percy Jackson called the Heroes of Olympus and I have yet to read all the books so that is my goal for next summer. These books is where my road began. My love for reading blossomed from these books. My favorite book I have ever read was To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. I thought that book was just fantastic. I was so sad that Harper Lee was not going to write another book until I had heard she wrote one a couple months ago. There was so much controversy so obviously I had to read it, and this is the path that I am on right now.