Rambling Heroes

I think the cutest thing for me in Room has been how Jack talks about God. He calls the sun "God's yellow face" and the moon "God's silver face," which is such a fun way to combine the idea of God creating the world and the classic drawing that gives the sun sunglasses and a smile (8; 26). Like a lot of the stuff in Room , it's not entirely clear whether Ma gave Jack these descriptions or if Jack created them himself based on his understanding of the world. Either way, it's still a fun description to read. But Jack's connections to deities don't end with the sun and the moon. Baby Jesus is thanked for every meal because food comes from him "in the fields in Outside" (80). The concept of Baby Jesus making all the food Jack ever eats in a field is a fun combination of thanking Jesus for food and a basic understanding of farms (also, it's adorable that Jack says "Baby Jesus" -- perhaps Ma explained Jesus as Baby Jesus t

To be perfectly honest, I wasn't too fond of the reverend when he first joined the team to help Jefferson. It might have been a bit of my own prejudice against religion -- I'm not religious, so I personally can't understand the benefit of meeting with a reverend and preparing to enter heaven if you know you'll be dying soon. And Jefferson didn't seem particularly interested in meeting with the reverend, so I viewed him as more of a nuisance than anything else at the beginning of the book. If Jefferson didn't want that kind of help, why should he get it?  Besides, the reverend wasn't exactly making much progress with Jefferson. Perhaps I'm biased because we didn't really see the reverend's meetings with Jefferson, but the biggest changes we saw in Jefferson's attitude came when he was focused on being a person/man with Grant, not prepping for heaven with Reverend Ambrose. But after reading chapter 27, I've come around to the rever

As we wrap up As I Lay Dying , nearly all of our characters on the hero's wagon failed to get what they were going to town for. Vardaman didn't get his train, Cash didn't get his tools (on top of his foot being amputated soon so he can't even really work on the barn roof), and Dewey Dell didn't get her abortion. Darl's being carted off to a mental institution in Jackson, and Jewel lost his horse. The only person who got what he wanted was Anse. But in the mess at the end of the book, I can't help but feeling that Dewey Dell has been severely overlooked over the course of the entire novel. As I Lay Dying is chock-full of chapters about the men in the book. Darl and Cash get more than their fair share of narration, especially at the end. Everyone's little storyline is coming to a close at the end of the book, but Darl and Cash's are presented in such a way that they overshadow Dewey Dell's. Hers is just as important and impactful, but because it

This whole post originated from a really bad joke I made a few weeks ago about frat boys. You see, I was reading a book in The Odyssey where Poseidon rapes a woman and a few pages later Zeus rapes a woman. With all the talk lately about frat boys raping people, it made me think of a connection between the culture of the Greek gods and frat boys: essentially just that they both rape people. There's not much else to the joke, and the in between steps to show how frats are related to Greek gods are pretty much nonexistent, but you get the point. This terrible joke persisted with me throughout the rest of our discussions about The Odyssey  until I noticed that the suitors are kind of like frat boys (or at least the cultural stereotypes about them). It's a bit of a weird connection, but on a certain level there's definitely some parallels. For starters, it's been well established that there's a certain rape culture of entitlement to women in frats. To be fair, th

One of the things I noticed during the wanderings of Odysseus presentations is how prideful Odysseus is at times. Sometimes he's even too prideful, to the point where it only hurts him and everyone around him. By the time we reached book 13, it was no surprise to me that the Phaeacians got screwed over because that's just what happens to everyone Odysseus worked with on his journey. (Yes, the Phaeacians are different in this case, but that's beside the point.) The standout instance of Odysseus's excessive pride is after he's stabbed Polyphemus in the eye and feels a desperate need to reveal his real name. His men beg him to just shut up and leave quickly, but Odysseus taunts Polyphemus and reveals his true identity, therefore causing his entire return journey to be cursed by Poseidon. During his wanderings, his prideful nature doesn't necessarily fade at all: in book 10, Hermes helps him not fall prey to Circe's potion, but he still claims that he was th

Against my better judgement, I'm adding to the multitude of posts already up about Harry Potter . I know there's going to be a lot of posts out there about Harry Potter , and I honestly did try to find another story to write about. But there was really nothing else. You see, I didn't really engage with the classic hero narrative when I was younger. It might seem odd, because all I did was read in elementary school. (Seriously. I would read ten books at a time. I've been through a ridiculous amount of some of the lengthiest series of children's books.) I suppose I had run into hero narratives before  Harry Potter , considering how much I read. They were much more subtle narratives, and I never really looked up to any of the characters I found in them, but they were there. But despite the excessive amount of literature I went through, I never touched the "classic" heroes. I expressed zero interest in  Lord of the Rings , I avoided seeing Star Wars for 16 y