A Visit From The Goon Squad Part 2

 Scotty realizes that in the end nothing really matters. In comparison to the whole universe the actions of individuals have almost no impact and he realizes that. He has accepted that no matter what he does nothing really matters and lives his life according to that. The only difference that may be observed has been created by individuals in order to try to find some purpose and reason in the world around them. Another thing is that time moves on even if people don’t. This can be seen when Jules says, “I go away for a few years and the whole fucking world is upside down Jules said angrily. Buildings are missing. You get strip-searched every time you go to someone's office. Everybody sounds stoned because they're emailing people the whole time they're talking to you. Tom and Nicole are with different people...And now my rock-and-roll sister and her husband are hanging around with Republicans. What the fuck!” (123). Refusing to get with the times or being kept back results in being left behind while time passes. This allows one to see how much has truly changed, as opposed to change happening slowly and being barely observed. “The pause makes you think the song will end. And then the song isn't really over, so you're relieved. But then the song does actually end, because every song ends, obviously, and THAT. TIME. THE. END. IS. FOR. REAL.” (281) There are times in life where it may appear over but there is always hope that it’s not the end. Everything eventually reaches it ending whether it wants to or not. “There are so many ways to go wrong. All we've got are metaphors, and they're never exactly right. You can never just Say. The. Thing.” (321) This is a main problem that most of the characters have in the novel. They have trouble truly expressing what they want to. The characters are able to convey the general meaning of what they are trying to say but they can never get it quite right. “Rebecca was an academic star. Her new book was on the phenomenon of word casings, a term she'd invented for words that no longer had meaning outside quotation marks. English was full of these empty words--"friend" and "real" and "story" and "change"--words that had been shucked of their meanings and reduced to husks. Some, like "identity" and "search" and "cloud," had clearly been drained of life by their Web usage. With others, the reasons were more complex; how had "American" become an ironic term? How had "democracy" come to be used in an arch, mocking way?” (323-324) The overuse of words strips them of their meanings and leaves them empty. Time changes things from how they once were.

A Visit From The Goon Squad Part 1

A Visit From the Goon Squad is a novel by Jennifer Egan that is about a group of characters and their lives. The novel primarily focuses on the different character’s perspectives and issues and how the passage of time affects them. I find the switching perspectives to be quite interesting and a way to show how people end up in the circumstances that they are in. Most of the characters in the novel can be traced back to the characters of Sasha and Bennie which shows the connections that people have with each other and the effects that they have on each other. In one section of the book Bosco says “Time’s a goon, right?” (127). A goon is someone who is considered a bully or a thug and may have been hired to terrorize or do away with the opposition. Bosco is trying to say that time has cruelly and mercilessly stolen his youth, innocence, and success. This can be applied to most characters in the novel that either end up unhappy, have their lives spiral into directions none of them had even imagined, or wound up with a limited kind of happiness. As time drags on the characters find themselves with flaws and weaknesses that they did not anticipate having when they were younger but ended up with as time continued to pass and they continued to accumulate wounds that eventually lead them to where they are now in life. Many of the characters don’t have a clue how they ended up in the circumstances they are in which can be seen when Jocelyn says “We stand there, quiet. My questions all seem wrong: How did you get so old? Was it all at once, in a day, or did you peter out bit by bit? When did you stop having parties? Did everyone else get old too, or was it just you? Are other people still here, hiding in the palm trees or holding their breath underwater? When did you last swim your laps? Do your bones hurt? Did you know this was coming and hide that you knew, or did it ambush you from behind?” (85). The characters understand that time passes but not the effect that it has. They try to go back to times when they were young and invincible but the sands of time have forced them to realize what has happened. The only character in the novel who may have accepted the passage of time is Scotty. This can be seen when he says, ““I felt no shame in these activities, because I understood what almost no one else seemed to grasp: that there was only an infinitesimal difference, a difference so small that it barely existed except as a figment of the human imagination, between working in a tall green glass building on Park Avenue and collecting litter in a park. In fact, there may have been no difference at all.” (93-94). His outlook on life is a very existential one where his actions and the actions of those around him have no meaning whatsoever in the end. 

Identity in Invisible Man

One of the key themes in Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison is identity. Acting may be a way of gaining power over oppression by taking an art form that is generally based in strict role playing and turning it into a form individual expression. While most types of acting have to do with conforming to certain roles, African culture emphasizes improvisation and the freedom of choice. Ellison stresses that in order for the true self to be created the socially constructed self must be destroyed. When the Invisible Man is giving his speeches, even though they are always influenced by his oppressors in his current situation, the unique way he orates his speeches allows him to take the first step on his journey towards a new identity by taking a tool used for oppression and turning it into a tool for self-expression. Most of the environments in the novel are controlled in the same way his speeches are, by the values, beliefs, and ideologies of society. When he is at the university and the Brotherhood, he becomes trapped in an environment that is detrimental towards his search for self-identity, due to the fact that these environments place a pre-constructed self on him instead of allowing him to create his identity. Although Clifton left the Brotherhood in pursuit of his own identity, he was unable to create an identity of his own. When Tod confronts the stereotypes that are placed on him he allows them to gain power over him and is unable to construct his own identity. “It was Clifton, riding easily back and forth in his knees, flexing his legs without shifting his feet, his right shoulder raised at an angle and his arm pointing stiffly at the bouncing doll as he spieled from the corner of his mouth” (Ellison 433). Clifton has himself become the stereotype instead of forming a new identity. Seeing this causes the Invisible Man to become upset due to the fact that Tod was a projection of his desire for his own identity and upon seeing this realizes this could be his fate. At the end of the novel the Invisible Man follows the example that Tod left by going underground and becoming invisible, a necessary step to creating an identity. This act of going underground allows him to subvert the society above him and create an environment that is free from the social constructs of society. When the Invisible Man enters the dark hole at the end of the novel he brings out the symbols from the briefcase that he deemed important from his life. By burning the papers he is destroying the roles that had been placed on him by others and allows the chance for him to form his own identity. An identity is something that a person must make for themselves in order to assert their place in the world around them. By making an identity they are allowing themselves the opportunity to think for themselves and do what they believe should actually be done.

 

Allusions in Invisible Man

There are many allusions that are present in Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison. One such allusion is the Brer Rabbit. After receiving electro-shock therapy, the narrator was asked “Who was Buckeye the Rabbit?” (Ellison 241) and “Who was Brer Rabbit?” (242). After realizing that the boy did not know anything about himself, the doctor asked him who this character was because he originated from African culture and it was assumed that anyone who was black knew who this character was. The Brer Rabbit stories can be traced back to West Africa, Central Africa, and Southern Africa as the hare figure was featured prominently in the story telling traditions of these areas as the trickster character. The trickster character is a character in African story telling traditions usually succeeded by his brains rather than his brawns, messing with social norms and authority figures as he deemed necessary. Another allusion that is present in Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man is Booker T. Washington. Booker T. Washington was part of the last generation of African Americans that was born into slavery in the U.S. and became one of the leading voices of the former slaves and their descendants. He was a proponent for the advancement of the black educational system and economic advancement in the black community. He wanted the former slaves and their descendants to avoid fighting over segregation and the Jim Crow Laws. He believed that before civil rights could be made equal between races that first the African American community had to grow educationally and economically. Through various rallies and speeches he was able to move a collaboration of middle-class blacks, white philanthropists, politicians, and church leaders nationwide in order to strengthen the community economically and educationally through self-help and schooling. He was able to master the political arena of his time which allowed him to manipulate the media, strategize, network, pressure and raise money while keeping his enemies down. This is not unlike the brotherhood in the novel. The brotherhood made use of rallies and speeches in order to gain allies to their cause and bring issues to light. Another of the many allusions that is present in Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man are Homer and the Odyssey. When he is in the church hearing the sermon that the narrator realizes “It was when he raised his head that I saw it. For a swift instant, between the gesture and the glitter of his glasses, I saw the blinking of sightless eyes. Homer A. Barbee was blind.” (133). The theme of blindness is prevalent across the whole novel and is very important to understanding the book as a whole. The name Homer refers to the ancient Greek epic poet and the name means he who is forced to follow or blind. Throughout the novel blindness is used to show how people can rallied up and fighting for a cause but don’t truly understand what they are fighting for as they have been blinded by the truth by those above them. In The Odyssey Odysseus meets up with a Cyclops who wanted to eat him and his crew. In order to avoid that fate they end up blinding him so that they can escape unharmed. The Cyclops was originally able to perceive the world around him but do to the actions of those around him was left blind and unable to discern things for himself. This represents most of the characters in the novel. Originally they believe that they are able to see what they stand for and what they are fighting for but as time moves on the ones in charge slowly blind them to what is truly happening in the world around them.
 

Hamlet Act 3 Analysis

The third act of Hamlet is the climax of the play where everything will be put on the table. This act includes the famous To-be-or-not-to-be speech which kind of comes out of the blue. The monologue being where it is is odd because it sort of slows down the action of the play just as the action just starts. The out of placeness of the speech can be attributed to Hamlet becoming lost in his own thoughts and being better at short term thoughts than long term ones. The most simple meaning of the speech is that Hamlet is contemplating suicide. But within that he goes further to examine how the human mind works and why people put up with the injustices that surround them. He realizes that people are afraid of the unknown and would rather stick with the injustices they know rather than go to an unexplored place that cannot be returned from and potentially be in for worse suffering. The theme of theater is then explored more as Hamlet attempts to expose Claudius's guilt through the play he has set up for him to watch. After the play seems to reveal the guilt that Claudius possesses Hamlet is presented with the option of finishing off Claudius once and for all. However he does not take the chance and allows Claudius to live. This could be for a variety of reasons. One is that he thought that Claudius was praying and if he murdered him there Claudius would be assured to go to heaven. Hamlet wanted to wait for an opportunity to present itself where he could punish Claudius to eternal damnation. Another possibility is that Hamlet is content with the knowledge of the king's guilt for now. He is more at home in the contemplative realm than in the one of action. He is now ready to once again bide his time until he is ready to settle things once and for all. Hamlet also speaks both to Ophelia and Gertrude in this act. When he speaks to Ophelia he accuses her of having a dishonest heart and a deceiving appearance. He says that women are the reason that make men act as monsters and is due to the deceit that is within them all. He then tells her to go to a nunnery and abstain from being a breeding place for sinners. When he talks to Gertrude he is incredibly cruel towards her. He makes many remarks about the corruption that she has allowed to spread within herself and the kingdom by sleeping with Claudius and allowing him to reign as king. It can be interpreted that there is a lot of sexual tension between Hamlet and his mother here. He accuses her of having an impure heart and pleads with her to attempt to become more pure. While speaking with his mother Polonius reveals that he was hiding and Hamlet murders him which leads to the revelations that occur in act four and act five.

Hamlet as the Fool

One of the ways in which Hamlet's character can be read into is as the Fool. The definition of the fool is One who subverts convention or orthodoxy or varies from social conformity in order to reveal spiritual or moral truth, someone who deceives or tricks, and to feign or pretend. Hamlet fits into these definitions of the fool in a variety of ways. Throughout the play it can be seen that Hamlet appears to be the moral judge and who primarily decides if what someone is doing or has done is right or wrong. Hamlet gets his point across of what he believes to be right or wrong by making the other party feel inferior to his intellect and revealing what he believes to be a common problem that all of humanity shares. He also feigns what he is doing for most of the play. After meeting the ghost at the end of act one he proceeds to put on a persona of someone who is crazy and has completely lost his mind. He adopts this persona in order to hide his true intentions of what he actually wants to do. He only seems to be crazy instead of him actually ising crazy. He dons this persona in order to gather information on Claudius, lower everyone's guard, and keep others from seeing what he is truly hiding. Hamlet can also be seen as the fool in the fact that he went into the forest and just blindly listened to the ghost and agreed to avenge him despite the fact that the ghost may just be a devil who is attempting to lead him astray. When he goes into the forest and meets up with the ghost instead of it being the ghost of King Hamlet it may just be a manifestation of his subconscious. Before he entered the forest he already had some ideas mulling around in his head but in the forest the manifestation just helps him to affirm himself and clear his thought on what his clear course of action should be. Hamlet also deceives and tricks others along the way of his path of revenge. He gets everyone to believe that he is crazy and has something wrong with himself when in reality it is all just a calculated plan in order to get everyone to lower their guards. He uses tricky language and speech in order to reveal things about others and in order to insult people without them realizing it. Hamlet is also a fool in the fact that occasionally his cold and calculating demeanor gets replaced by one that is clearly over taken by emotion and all rational goes out the door. He utterly drops his calm and collected persona and becomes consumed by emotion and acts solely on that without thinking of the consequences or planning it out ahead of time. Throughout the play hamlet can be seen as the literary fool in a variety of ways which helps to show the depth of his character and how widely it can be interpreted as.

"The Road Not Taken" Analysis

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that, the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,  

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

"The Road Not Taken" is a poem by Robert Frost that was written in 1920. The poem consists of four stanzas of five lines. The rhyme scheme is ABAAB; the rhymes are strict with the notable exception of the last line.The poem begins with the speaker standing in the woods, considering a fork in the road. Both ways are equally worn and equally overlaid with un-trodden leaves. The speaker chooses one, telling himself that he will take the other another day. Yet he knows it is unlikely that he will have the opportunity to do so. And he admits that someday in the future he will recreate the scene with a slight twist: He will claim that he took the less-traveled road. The speaker talks about the two roads and says “the passing there / Had worn them really about the same.” and also “that morning lay / In leaves no step had trodden black.” This shows the fact that neither road is the less traveled one, they are both traveled just the same amount. The poem is primarily about the dilemma of being presented with a choice that most likely will not be able to be made again. Paths in the woods and forks in roads are ancient and deep-seated metaphors for the lifeline, its crises and decisions. Identical forks, in particular, symbolize for us the nexus of free will and fate: We are free to choose, but we do not really know beforehand what we are choosing between. Our route is determined by a combination of choice and chance, and it is impossible to separate the two. The primary concern of the poem isn't to take the road less taken as that is not even an option that is available to to them being traveled the same. Rather the concern comes from how each road will look from a future standpoint. The speaker than says “I shall be telling this with a sigh / Somewhere ages and ages hence.” This is very ironic in the fact that the speaker realizes that he will have to change some of his story in the future in order to get his point across. His retelling of this will either be inaccurate or hypocritical and he predicts that his future will betray him. The sigh highlights how he will not believe what he is saying himself about taking the road less taken because he himself knows that both paths were equally less traveled. The title of the poem "The Road Not Taken" helps to infuse some remorse into the poem. The speaker realizes that somewhere in the future he will second guess his choice and imagine how his life would have been if he had taken a different path through it. He will regret not having chosen the other path even though there is no such thing as the right path, just the decisions we make that combine to make our life as time passes. These decisions mark the passing of life itself as everyone's time gets closer and closer.

Hamlet Act 1 Analysis

The first act of Hamlet serves to introduce us to the play and the problems that will occur. It also introduces how the play is a play of questions. In fact, the first lines of the play are "Who's there?". This question has many levels to it and shows just how deep and philosophical the play is. On the first level it is just a simple question about wondering who is actually there. But as the question gets deeper it is one of the most basic questions in philosophy. Who is there? Who am I? Who is anyone? What is anything? The play begins with a simple question on the surface but the more it is looked into the deeper it becomes.  In Hamlet's first soliloquy it can be observed that he is often distracted and side-tracked by his own thoughts.  At the same time, Hamlet seems somewhat aware that he is playing a role on stage. He notices his own costume and makeup “’Tis not alone my inky cloak, good mother”,  he refers to specific areas in the theaterwhen he notes that the ghost is “in the cellarage”. He seems at once to be the most typical of types, and to be an audience to his own typecasting and he appears to be distressed about being so typecast, and anxious to prove that there is something genuine behind his theatrical veneer. Hamlet is a play about plays, most specifically a revenge tragedy about revenge tragedy, and the pretzel-like self-referentiality of the protagonist is the main reason why. Also in Act 1 we meet Polonius, Laertes, and Ophelia. Polonius is long-winded, pedantic, and meddlesome. He is always interested in being “in the know,” whatever the occasion. Notice, for instance, how eagerly he questions Ophelia about her earlier conversation with Laertes. Before Laertes leaves, Polonius gives him an advice speech  that ends, “to thine own self be true”. One can weigh the various maxims here offered on the basis of their individual merits. Polonius’s speech begins by telling Laertes to rush off to catch his boat, and then detains him from doing just that. He also begins by declaring that he will offer Laertes a “few precepts,” then goes on to ramble for thirty lines. Polonius, in short, never misses an occasion for a speech, and follows his own advice creatively if at all. Hamlet learns that his father's ghost has been spotted and wants to go on watch so that he too can meet the ghost. When the ghost arrives it tells Hamlet to follow him, but the other guards urge him against it saying that it might be an evil ghost and drive him to madness which is left for the reader to decide. It is revealed that Claudius is the one who killed the king and in order to exact revenge against him Hamlet decides to put on a facade to try and make his move against the king. The way he speaks and acts after meeting the ghost encourages the fact that it may have driven him to madness.

Age of Innocence Chapters 25-34 Analysis

Chapters 24 through 34 are chock full of symbolism, themes, and motifs as well as character development and plot development. In chapter 25 Archer meets M. Riviere again and learns that in a sense it is right for Ellen to stay in America instead of moving back to Europe. Riviere even says “Tenez-the discovery, I suppose, of what I’d never thought of before: that she’s an American. … If Madame Olenska’s relations understood what these things were, their opposition to her returning would no doubt be as unconditional as her own; but they seem to regard her husband’s wish to have her back as proof of an irresistible longing for domestic life”  (Wharton 214). Riviere provides an objective outside force to further the idea that it is right for Olenska to stay in America. He is able to objectively say that the way Ellen is living now is much better than the life she was living back in Europe. Also in the chapter it is revealed that May has been keeping negotiations away from her own husband because the others have advised her not to. This shows that May’s ties to society are stronger than the ties to her own husband. In chapter 27 the Beaufort’s are experiencing a downfall due to Mr. Beaufort’s despicable business practices. The power of names is shown when Mrs. Beaufort is talking to Catherine. She asks to be considered a Dallas as opposed to a Beaufort in order to try to prevent her downfall and retain her status. This shows that a person cannot choose their own name and that it is in fact determined by society itself. Chapter 28 highlights how odd high New York society’s code is. All the higher ups in society are capable of overlooking, or at least tolerating, marital duplicity but are flabbergasted by financial duplicity. When Beaufort’s financial practices come to light everyone is stunned and it becomes the talk of the town for quite a while. The financial dilemma that ensues becomes quite a fiasco overshadows every other event that occurs during this time. In chapter 31 Archer convinces Ellen to meet up with him at the Metropolitan Museum. When they meet up at the museum they discuss the relics of old and how there known uses have been lost throughout the flow of time. This helps to reveal that the conventions of New York society will eventually be lost in the sands of time and become completely unknown to those in the future. However, even though they both have realized that eventually the conventions will become merely relics and hold no meaning, they still feel bound by the chains of the society despite its fleeting relevance. In chapter 32 Archer goes to an opera. However it no longer holds the sway over him and he now finds it boring and predictable. This symbolizes that romance no longer means that much to Archer and has become an illusion. Also May wears her wedding dress in this chapter, which she has been doing less and less frequently over the two years they have been together. This symbolizes that she believes there will be a kind of resurgence in their marriage. However at one point in the night her dress becomes ripped, symbolizing how their marriage is scarred. In chapter 34 twenty six years have passed and Archer is reflecting on the life he has lead. Ironically the things that bound Archer in the past no longer exist and did in fact become like the relics in the Metropolitan Museum. It is shown that his son Dallas is living the life that Archer always wanted to. This is showing that society is what places restrictions on people in life. People need to become free of the chains of society and live life the way they want to.