Post for 12-7

What a strange, strange story. I have so many questions about this story and don’t really have much more to say than just questions. First of all, why did he have wings? And is that a normal thing for people to have wings? In my opinion if I go next door the woman living there would have no idea what to do if a winged old man came down into my yard. So it must be more common than it is now for people to have wings. Secondly why didn't the old man take the child if in fact he was an “angel of death” and who came for the child. And are people really that stupid to think that a cage or bars could contain a supernatural being? There must be more to this story because at this point in the semester I know Professor Corrigan and he would not give us a story that was meaningless. So obviously I am missing something big. But what if I’m not what if it is just a stupid story and I am spending all this time trying to figure out what it means when it was just written for entertainment?  Oh, and what about the spider girl??? What was up with that? Obviously this is not the earth we live on because there are no spider girls so I am surprised that the people are so shocked by this angel. I can’t understand why people would come so far just to see what a fake was very possibly or an imposter angel. But I suppose my view is slanted because if anything big happened I could just turn on Bay News 9 and see it from my living room. All in all I did not like this story. Maybe once I have Professor Corrigan’s input my mind will change.

Special Post for 12/9

The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas by Ursula LeGuin starts off by describing a almost perfect world. The story tells of the people of Omelas and the joy that they have and how wonderful of a city it is with the horse races and other festivals. The people are happy and all seems great. The author then prods the reader several times asking them if they believe in the city of Omelas and then the author continues to describe the city as if the reader had answered no. Later in description of Omelas the author asks the reader the same question and then says since you do not believe yet let me describe one more thing. Here the author describes a basement room or better yet a closet where there is a child living, if one could call this living. The author goes on to describe that this child can never leave the closet and that the happiness of the city thrives off of this child’s complete and utter misery. At the end of the story, it is described that people often come to visit or see the child. However they are not allowed to say a kind word to it. The story continues to tell of the reactions of the visitors and how many go home weeping or angered. And then the story finishes by saying that there are some who just continue walking straight past home and out of the city and past the next town off into the horizon.

                At first my interpretation of this story was pretty basic and simple, sacrifice. Now to many people this means different things. Some people view it as a savage thing where people tie someone up to a pole and burn them for the gods. While many people first think of a willing sacrifice where one person gives up their lives for the sake of another. When I first read The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas I tried to view this sacrifice as the willing sacrifice and I tried to relate it to the sacrifice of Christ. My reasoning behind this was that the suffering of this one child will save everyone else for eternity and even though the child cannot understand what was at stake that if the child did understand then the child would agree. Now you are probably thinking why the child would ever agree to this even if it did understand. That is a good question and I asked myself the same thing. My answer is simple, this is a utopia for the most part and in a utopia the child would understand and be more than willing.

                However I recently, upon writing this blog, have changed my reasoning. At first I viewed this sacrifice as a good sacrifice and that it was for the greater good. However as I looked upon the types of sacrifice I see that this is the savage type of sacrifice. The author doesn’t really touch base on gods or anything but it is the savage type in that the people of Omelas are locking this child in a closet and feeding it slop and the child never gets to see the light of day. In my opinion this is worse than death.

                To me this is one of the most trivial points in the entire story because if the sacrifice was the good willing sacrifice I described above then there should be nothing wrong with this story and the reader should not feel upset or angered toward the story. However for some I felt disgusted and angered with this story and that is because the sacrifice in this story is not the willing type of sacrifice, it is the savage type of sacrifice. To me this probably the most important interpretation in the story because if it was the willing sacrifice then the story would be meaningless and it would just be another story about a hero who laid down his or her life to save his or her people. But since this is a savage type of sacrifice the story is open to much more significance as opposed to a story about a hero.

                So what significance does this story of savage sacrifice have?  After talking with several class mates I agree with their interpretation. I think that in order to know happiness and joy one must know what suffering is. Since I love food let me relate this explanation to food. If you have eaten nothing but lobster every day of your life then lobster is your standard in food and you would think of lobster as many of us think of chicken. However after eating lobster everyday of your life you try eating cockroaches, now you have a new found respect for the taste of lobster and will not forget it. The same is true with Omelas they have it great all the time and they see nothing but great until they look upon this child. However without this child they would not know how great they had it, it is the same as the lobster explanation I shared earlier.

                This is my personal interpretation of the story and what I thought when I read the story and started to dig a little deeper and think about it more. Most of my views changed from what they were when I first read the story but I feel as that I now have a better understanding of the story.

Post for 12-1

Wow is all I have to say about this story. I remember reading it in high school and just letting it go and not thinking about it. But this time I knew I had to do a blog on it so I read it out loud and I was really “struck” by the dilemma that this little utopia is facing. Although there are two sides to this story as there are any story. I first thought it was horrible that this utopia would keep this child locked away in a small closet never to see any happiness. But then I got to thinking is the pain of one worth the joy of many. And that lead me to think of Christ dyeing for our sins so that we may have joy. But the main difference I see here is that Christ chose to give his life so that we may come to know him and be happy where as the child was never given the option and was just shoved in the closet and forced into this decision. Though if the child really understood the situation I am curious to know what it would do. Since it is a utopia would it be perfect and chose to live in the closet out of love or because there is no moral would the child choose the selfish thing and free itself only to see the destruction of the entire utopia and everyone is equally as miserable as the child was. I guess what really matters here is all about if the child would choose to stay once they really understood the weight of the situation, and I mean not just have it explained to it but to truly understand what was at stake because of the decision. This is a great story.

Post for 11-29

I read Paul’s letter to the Philippians today and I tried so hard to dig deep into it and pull out figurative language but to me it nothing really came out. I went into it reading it just for the figurative language and by the time I was finished it felt the same as when I normally read the Bible. I tried to dig up some life lessons that can improve my relationship with God. So as for how many figurative language items I got it is in the single digits. And all in all reading Philippians with this in my mind did not in any way change how I perceived the letter. I still saw it as a letter of encouragement and didn’t really pull out much from in between the lines or from figurative language. Although I feel that figurative language would not really change my perception of the story in any way at all. The reason I think this is because all that figurative language does for me is give a better description and here I fell that a better description is not really necessary because I understand what Paul is trying to convey. So after not getting much figurative language the first time around I gave it a second read through as Professor Corrigan asked us to and I noticed more figurative language however it didn’t change my perception of St. Paul’s letter in any way. I still feel like figurative language does not really help what Paul is trying to say.  Hopefully Professor Corrigan will shed some light tomorrow and I will feel like there is more of a reason for figurative language in the Bible. And hopefully I will be more able to find more figurative language and see what it is talking about and how it helps.

Blog for 11-18

Flannery O'Connor’s, A Temple of the Holy Ghost was a very strange story in my opinion. I did not quite understand it but nonetheless I will try to pick out any symbolism and any meaning to it that I can. I will first start with the three stages of reading that we discussed in class. The first stage reading, well is just that. When applied to this story we read about two girls who have come to stay with their cousin and these girls are obsessed with boys it seems. Later on in the story the girls go to a fair where there a he-she reveals him-herself to the crowd. Then the girls go back to the boarding school where they came from. This next stage of interpretation of the story is where I am lost. I have no idea what any of this means or how it is significant. The only “moral” of the story that I could find was that the Church of God is bad and that little girls from boarding schools are annoying and “stupid.” When we move on to the third stage of criticizing I find that I can either be very critical or not critical at all. I feel more that I can not be critical at all because I feel like I did not understand the story and this could be because of my own ignorance or lack of knowledge. However the less likely option is that the story was written poorly and it is not my fault that I do not understand, but I tend to think that it is no one’s fault but my own that I did not get the point to this story. Although there is the third option that this story did not have a point or moral and was just for entertainment. I’m lost.

The Man Who Came To Dinner

I went to the Thursday night showing of The Man Who Came To Dinner.

Post for 9-16

The Man Who Came to dinner in my opinion was a great play. Out of all the plays I have been to it held my attention better than any other. Although the first act was a little dry in my opinion the second and third act made the play. I went on Thursday night which was the student night/ dress rehearsal so there were some things that were not spot on as should be. The only things I noticed were that some of the cues were off, such as the lighting and the doorbell. The lighting was not horribly noticeable but the doorbell rang before the man was even in sight of the door. Other than that the play was amazing in my opinion. My favorite character was Banjo played by Curtis Burkhardt who is a personal friend of mine. Now my view may be slanted because he is a close friend but I found him to be the most comical person in the play. Another of my good friends was in the play also, Micah Buckley. Micah played two roles in this play, he was the man who brought the cockroaches into the house and he was also the man who called the house from the train station pretending to be the fatbottom guy from France. I am glad that this was the play that we were required to go to because I got to see a great play and two of my old roommates act. Although I am disappointed to say that this performance was the last of the legendary Micah Buckley’s performances at Southeastern. I hope Southeastern continues to put on such great performances in the future. This was by far my favorite out of all the previous field trips we have gone on in this class and I have a feeling it will not be topped.