Meghan’s Lit Blog

Prior to this class, I have read several books/novels dealing with, integrating and/or containing tricksters. Whether it was Celtic lore or a Native American Story, I have known about the myth, spirit, being, and tales for quite some time. Within in each of these stories the tricksters appear to posses the same qualities. In some stories they are animals, others they were human and sometimes they have obtained supernatural powers. Majority of their powers are strange and seemed of no use besides causing some mischief. Also these beings always arrive and leave by themselves, leaving a path of mischief stirred emotions, disrupted comfort with no solutions or conclusions.

An example of a trickster in The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fist Fight in Heaven can be found in the story entitled The Approximate Size of My Favorite Tumor. In this story Jimmy is hitchhiking down the highway to after his wife, when out of nowhere Simon drives up in his car. I believe his a trickster for he shows up, talks to Jimmy and disrupts his mind set and then leaves down the same highway leaving him second guessing his thoughts and actions. Additionally, Simon has this strange quirk, power, or ability, I guess you can say, where he only drives backwards. I feel Simon is a good example of a trickster for he posses several qualities of one.

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest seemed to have several underlying debates and issues that Kesey was grasping at through his characters and plot lines. The one that grabbed and held my attention the strongest was the one being portrayed through McMurphy and Nurse Ratched. These two characters throughout the novel can be representing numerous different items. For instance, the nurse could symbolize feminism, power, or societies’ leaders. Personally, I interpreted the conflict between the nurse and McMurphy as a struggle over women in power over men. Throughout the novel, McMurphy constantly states in one form or another how he can not understand how she has so much control over all in the ward. It appears that the nurse serving as a power figure instead of a thing of sexuality truly irks McMurphy. Kesey could have written a novel of a man in charge of a men’s ward or a woman in control of a ward containing both sexes, but instead he choose and focused on how one woman was in charge of several men, comprising of patients and workers alike.

In class, we watched, read, or experienced, depending on the audience, a handful of electronic poetry. Out of the three we discussed, only one, did I understand the intent and meaning. The other poems if I had to describe how they are poetic, I would just be making things up because I could not find the art within the creations. With the poem, Faith, I understood how the author was describing faith, leaps of faith, how logic can not affect it, and so on…I thoroughly enjoyed this one because I could relate to it some how. Unfortunately, I do not perfer the others, Marsha and Storyland. Marsha’s web pages seemed very twisted and dark, with the designer being verbally attacked by either a hacker or “angels” depending on how you perceived it. Storyland reminded me of Mad Libs and Manic dotes. After I realized that a program was just generating these stories or poems, it left a bad taste in my mouth, because it was the artwork of a computer program not a person per say.

Within this play several different items caught my attention but one did so more than the others. Whether to call them a theme or topic I am not sure but the roles of women in this play caught my interest greatly.
At the start of the play the mother goes off on tangents on how girls are not violent but instead are calm and proper. Also, the play frequently inserts comments on how wives should act: obedience and loyalty.
After all these comments and standards are told, every one of them is shattered by the acts of the women within the play. For instance, the mother becomes blood thirsty and the bride runs away with another man. In the beginning the mother says how she wishes she had granddaughters for peace and quiet while the end of the story it is the women who are the catalyst to the drama.

This book has caught my attention and interest creately. Especially since it is part fantasy. I believe that Clara herself lives in here own fanstasy world. What I mean is that the things that are abnormal aren’t actually happening but are her imagination going wild and trying to create a world she would like instead of the one she is in. Also how the story is being told and written from other stories that were told and written give it a different atmosphere that i have not read before and it catches my attention greatly. I have never read a book like this one before, it is very unique.

For the game I believe the creator just took two things he liked and combined them into one. It did not appear to have any intentions besides amusement to me or maybe he likes to give people head aches. I liked the lieing booth beacause it is many voices from different people. She probally did not intend for people to mess around with it but actually take it somewhat serious but the joking lies just make it more interesting. I like this new form of literature because it is something different besides reading Shakespeare or Robert Frost, not saying they are not good, but it is nice to see newer things, a change of pace.

The corridos of the story of Cortez is a perfect example of how stories are changed over time. When each story was retold the narrators, little parts of the story were dropped and added depending on what reaction they wanted or way they wanted to portray Cortez. For example, the major difference between the first song written that we recieved in class to the last song is shear length. The last song was about six lines compared to the first which was near a page in length. We will never no the true story that occured for every version is different and every person tells it differently. If you think about that, it is actually true for everyone. If an event occurs and several people are there to witness it, each person will have a slightly different version because it is from their point of view and how it affected them most.

Within the novel Ceremony one of the most important ideas was the act of story telling. At the end of the novel Tayo’s acceptance and completed ceremony was shown by him telling his story, ceremony, to the elders. Throughout the whole book, story telling was occuring whether it was noticed or not. For example, throughout the book the main plot of Tayo and his ceremony were halted for a brief page or two for another story to be told. The short stories within Tayo’s journey were fantasies but, were telling their own story as well as telling what was occuring in Tayo’s story without truely doing so.
Personally, I felt as if someone was telling me the story instead of me reading it by the way it was written. One of the main reasons for me feeling this way was how no chapters exist. Also the stories within the story felt as if the teller was taking a small break. If that was the author’s intention or not that is what i recieved from it.

I believe that literature and lyrics can be forever compared and contrasted. In some circumstances I do believe that lyrics are literature. For instance, there are numerous artists/musicians who have taken parts of their journals and created songs out of them. Also, a majority of songs contain stories and tales of lost love or hard times for instance.

Although there are many songs that I could think of as being literature, there are several that I do not believe cross that area. For example there are many songs specifically made for dancing with no real literary aspect at all, just the goal of getting everyone on a dance floor.

When you sit down and read, what I consider, a fairy tale today, their setup and themes have commonalities. For instance, most tales will take you off into a magical land of unordinary people and creatures with uncommon abilities. Most stories that I have known have underlying meanings, morals, and/or lessons to be learned from reading them. Personally, I did not realize until I was older and reread the stories for children I babysat that there was anything there. “Little Red Riding Hood” for example, all I thought of that story when I was young that wolves are bad and don’t skip through the woods by yourself, while totally being ignorant to the fact that the common theme was do not talk to strangers.
Comparing Grimm Fairy Tales to the similar stories today, several features have mutated. One of the major differences that I notice between the two well known versions is the ways and types of morals that are being pushed forward. In the stories written by the famous Grimm brothers, their morals and lessons are blatantly visible throughout the tales. For example in “Cinderella” when the step sisters are brutally punished for their acts, that lesson grabs your attention contrary to updated versions of “Cinderella” where she finds her prince charming and lives happily ever after and it is unknown the end result of the sisters.