miscellaneous iterated circles

The last segment of Angry Black White Boy , chapter 10 through the end of book III, is about the failure and collapse of Macon Everett Detornay. Or perhaps, it's the resurgence of Macon Everett Detornay after Macon's previous experiences and attempts made as The Franchise. The start of Macon's fall is during the Day of Apology. After the Columbia Police shepherd most of the attendees out of the way, leaving only the uninformed, the ones who were in it for the free lunch, and the guilt-laden. Macon tries to engage them, expecting that they are open to receive his message, but he fails, and is left totally speechless for the first time in the whole book. He storms off to one of the bathrooms in a huff, and Andre and Nique are left to try and salvage the Day. Meanwhile, outside, the situation has degenerated. People critical of the aims and potential outcomes of the Day, people disappointed with the lackluster results, people who just wanted the T-shirt turn the situation ...

The story of Room is one of escape, of breaking past confinement to reach freedom. By the chapter 'After,' it may seem that we have reached that point, as Ma and Jack have broken out of Room, but still they are not truly free. One of the first things that constrains Ma and Jack still is their weakened immune systems, due to being totally isolated from the outside world and outside illnesses. This impacts Ma and Jack in slightly different ways. Ma knows and understands the situation and seems to consider more an inconvenience than anything. Jack, on the other hand, has been raised to be pretty much terrified of germs, and early on things the scrape on his knee and his dog-bitten finger are going to be the death of him. Even though Jack has left Room, he still brings it with him. For example, his vocabulary. Even though Jack is a remarkably literate five-year-old, the outside world still has an impossible array of things he does not have words for, so he tries to describe the...

Despite the fact that A Lesson Before Dying is about a boy in a jail cell who physically cannot go anywhere, it is still very much a journey. For Grant, there is still a nontrivial physical journey: around 13 miles to Bayonne. However, this rapidly becomes routine for Grant, not remotely heroic. Instead, the journey is a mental and emotional one, that attempts to reach out to Jefferson and inspire him. At the very beginning, Grant does not attend the courtroom with his Aunt and Miss Emma, instead choosing to distance himself because he already knows exactly what will happen. The first ordeal therefore becomes merely pushing Grant past his attempts to isolate himself from the issue. In the jail cell, there are more than physical walls that separate Jefferson from the rest of the world. Jefferson is silent, seemingly emotionless and ignoring his visitors. He then turns mocking, seeming not to recognize Grant, perhaps trying to drive away his visitors rather than experience/cause the ...

Addie Bundren is a rather mysterious figure in Faulkner's As I Lay Dying . The first portion of the book has her sitting in the death-room not saying a word to anyone, or even looking in Anse's direction. Only at the moment of her death does she call out to Cash. The next portion of the book sees Addie dead, in the coffin (accidentally augured), and on the road. She is very dead at this point, but she still maintains a significant presence in the plot, with Anse's adamant declarations that "this is what she wanted" or the omnipresent stench that follows the cart like a blight on the land. In the paradigm of the Hero's Journey, Addie, residing in her coffin is a Talisman, but she seems to be a bad-luck charm or a harbinger of misfortune as well, given the reactions of people outside the Bundren family. After the river crossing, we get a chapter narrated by Addie herself, even though she has been dead for a week at that point. We learn that Addie Bundren is ...

In O Brother, Where Art Thou , Ulysses Everett McGill is fairly obviously intended to parallel Odysseus. In many ways, they are alike. In others, they are rather different. To me, the biggest difference between Odysseus and Ulysses is their fatal flaw. Odysseus' flaw is pride, that he must reveal his name to Polyphemus, or that his emotions get the better of him and he acts rashly. Ulysses, however, struggles with vanity instead. We can see this with his insistence on getting Dapper Dan pomade instead of Fop, or when he wakes up after the sirens, immediately worrying about his hair. It's implied that the Sheriff was able to track Everett and company because of Everett's distinctive pomade. (At the end, we see the bloodhound sniffing in Everett's massive stash of Dapper Dan). While Odysseus and Ulysses both have a way with words, in general Odysseus is better with them. Odysseus is very quick to fabricate elaborate stories (as much a storyteller as a liar), but Evere...

Odysseus lies a lot. He's a crafty man, deceptive, tactful, calculating. Since he is the only one living to tell his story, we are sometimes left wondering how much of his story is really the truth. In the court of the Phaeacians, Odysseus spends whole books just telling stuff that happened to him. The only others to witness those events were Odysseus' crew, who died. In a number of places, Odysseus portrays himself as being heroic, stronger, able to stay up for days and nights on end, just plain better than his crew. (It's always the crew that wants to stop and rest on the island, that wants to open the bag of winds, that eats the Sun God's cattle.) Yet at the same time, he also portrays himself in sometimes unflattering ways. When Eurylachus leads the rest of the crew to eating the Sun God's cattle, Odysseus gives him spoken lines and reasonable arguments. Or when Odysseus reveals his name to Polyphemus, over the protests of the crew, cursing them and dooming ...

When I was younger, I read the Belgariad  series by David Eddings. It's a five-book series that fits very well into the Hero's Journey archetype. It fits so well that it might sound cliche, but the series' conformance to the tropes and elements of the Hero's Journey is not a bad thing. The protagonist, Garion, starts off as a farm boy under the care of his Aunt Pol. The Call to Adventure first comes with a disreputable-seeming vagabond storyteller who apparently knows Aunt Pol. The three of them, and the reliable smith Durnik set out on a journey (I don't remember to where, it's been a while since I read it). They meet other companions along the way (Silk the thief/merchant/spy, Lelldorin the hotheaded and impulsive archer, Ce'nedra the beautiful but somewhat spoiled Imperial Princess, and others) as they seek out the Orb of Aldur. Along the way, it is revealed that the storyteller is in fact Belgarath the Sorcerer, a legendary figure of incredible magi...

From this point forth, this blog is now dedicated to The Hero's Journey instead of 20th Century Novel.

The protagonist of Song of Solomon  is Macon Dead (the third), often known as Milkman. His name is the same as his father's, who has the same name as his own father. For much of Macon Dead III's (abbreviated to 'MDIII') life, the names he is called (and by whom) have had significant impact on him. As Macon Dead, son of Macon Dead, son of Macon Dead, his father's name overshadows his, leaving MDIII an ineffective teenager in an adult life, running errands for his father. "Milkman" (a nickname given by Freddy aimed against his mother), on the other hand, is how he is known in places like the Blood Bank, fitting in with people like named Guitar or Empire State or Railroad Tommy. When MDIII sets out in search of his origins, the narration calls him Milkman, but he introduces himself as Macon Dead, or just Macon. Initially, when he meets the people his father grew up with, he plays up his status as Macon Dead, son of Macon Dead, basking in the attention of pe...

The characters of  Wide Sargasso Sea  can broadly be divided into two groups: those native to England, and those native to the West Indies. One the major themes that results from this is the nigh-insurmountable divide that exists between the two. Antoinette and Rochester are two characters who attempt to cross this Wide Sargasso Sea. The West Indies and England are depicted as being near-literally separate worlds. Those in one world find it hard to comprehend the reality of the other. Sometimes it's simple things, like how Rochester feels that the West Indies are too brightly colored, the hills and mountains are too big, how nature itself seems to hold hidden menace. In contrast, Antoinette thinks England must be impossibly dull and gray, and is only vaguely familiar with seasons from the books she reads (and many other facts that have no real meaning to her). Rochester and Antoinette both think the other's world to be surreal, like a dream. Rochester thinks the environment ...

In The Stranger , the court in which Meursault is tried is as absurd as Meursault's crime. Even before Meursault enters the courtroom, we see the absurdity of the machinery of justice. From the very first moment, "Nobody seemed very interested in [Meursault's] crime" -- the magistrate who examines Meursault only does so because he is "curious" a week later. The judiciary system pays absolutely no attention to the dead Arab, or his family. Even before the court meets, "there had been some investigations into [Meursault's] private life," asking about Maman's funeral. When Meursault tells his lawyer that he will not say things that are not true, his own lawyer becomes almost disgusted with him, insinuating that things "could get pretty nasty for [Meursault]." However the most condemning thing about this court is shown when Meursault, like many of us, points out "none of this had anything to do with [Meursault's] case....

In addition to the literal reading where Gregor Samsa one day turns into a monstrous insect, I think that a more metaphorical reading can also be done. Looking at it from this perspective, The Metamorphosis  is the story of a overworked businessman who one day suffers a breakdown and becomes a complete shut-in, who becomes a burden to his family and eventually dies alone, unmourned. At the start, Gregor is under rather a lot of pressure. He is the breadwinner of the family, not only putting food on the table but bailing out the family's debt. Despite this, the rest of the family does not help him at all with this. He is also under a great deal of pressure from his job. We spoke about how insanely controlling his job and bosses are, from the boss who physically lords over his employees, to how missing a train is enough to send the chief clerk to Gregor's house, to the debt Gregor's father owes, to the chief clerk himself. The chief clerk is controlling and manipulative, ...

Looking back from the end of the book, I think Jake might possibly be an introvert. Jake's happiest, most relaxed moments are when he is by himself or with a single friend. For example, when Brett goes to San Sebastian, or Jake and Bill's week in the mountains, or Jake in San Sebastian at the end of the book. During these times, he is content, calm, motivated (fishing, swimming, newspaper-ing), and enjoys life. For example, when Brett and Cohn are in San Sebastian, Jake remarks "I rather enjoyed not having to play tennis", and Jake also describes himself as being productive at work -- even getting ahead so he can take more vacation time. In contrast, his friends bring with them turmoil. Brett showing up in the middle of the night, Cohn's romantic worldview clashing with the rest of the group, the fiasco at the fiesta with Romero, Mike's belligerence, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. It's during these times where Jake thinks things "to hell with yo...

One of the things I like about Clarissa's party at the end of Mrs. Dalloway  is the fact that it's not just people easily and perfectly flowing, mingling, and talking. People at the party feel awkward, out of place, and other feelings that don't fit into the normal conception of a "party". We see this quite a few times, from multiple characters -- Peter, Ellie Henderson, Clarissa herself (multiple times). My favorite awkwardness of the party is when the party is just getting going, when Clarissa is greeting guests but she is worried that the party might not take off properly, and she notices Peter out of the corner of her eye. As with so many other Peter-Clarissa interactions, Clarissa feels like Peter is judging, criticizing her, that she is being insincere and superficial. This is partly what Peter is thinking, but he's also thinking about how he doesn't fit in with the other guests, how he doesn't know anyone at the party, and he ends up standing ...

One of the big points Virginia Woolf is trying to make in the essay "Modern Fiction" is that each character is a world unto him- or herself. In Mrs. Dalloway , this is especially true of Septimus Warren Smith. Septimus's introduction is when he stands in the way of the motorcar. He does not do this intentionally; in fact, he does not notice the motorcar at first. Rather, what he notices is how the world around him seemed to come to a standstill, and that they all seemed to focusing, looking towards, being drawn to some point. His realization that he is in the way of motorcar is detached, not connecting the idea that he should get out of the way until Lucrezia tells him several times. Before Lucrezia interrupts him, he feels as though he has some great or grand purpose in that moment, but he has no idea what the purpose is. The other defining characteristic of Septimus's world is that he appears to hallucinate. When blocking the motorcar's passage, "The wo...

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