Wednesday #35 - The Real New Year

Hey guys!
     You know how the year begins in January and ends in December? Well, as far as American culture is concerned, that's really not true. From what I have observed, the year begins anew around now, at the end of summer and the beginning of autumn. But why do I think this? I'm glad I pretended that you asked.
     My reasons are quite simple. First, the American school system is based around summer and fall, and while the home schooled, private schooled, and contradictory people may say that school doesn't follow that system, I have to say shut up it does. If you don't believe me, look at the cultural aspect know as Summer Break, or look at the vast number of public schools and institutes of higher learning that follow the fall to summer system. This means that all of the students, parents, teachers, faculty, board of education people, and office supply companies base their lives around the school year, and when it starts back up again, everything begins anew. This also translates into the working world, because college students typically graduate in the spring, and then start up work in the fall, which means that there is distinct change from year to year.
     School isn't the only thing in America to take a hiatus during the summer. Look at television. No, not at the television. I meant figuratively. As in consider the system for seasons for television programs. They start up in the fall, and they run until late spring or early summer, at which point they shut down for several months. Now, I know that there are those people (we all know at least one of those people) who don't own a TV, or don't watch TV (which is fine), and you can ignore them for that right now, because they are such a minority compared to the number of people who watch, write, shoot, edit, produce, direct, perform, critic, and host television shows. TV is a massive part of American culture, just like the radio used to be, and before that shoddily built apartments built for 4 people that can (somehow) fit 20. It is the pop cultural glue that holds us together, and have memorable moments that affect us all, like The Wizard of Oz, or the lunar landing of Apollo 11, or the ending of MASH, or any of the various disasters that happened between 2000 and 2010? Whether you watch it or not, it's a part of America, and one of the reasons why the year really starts in fall.
     Finally (I'd give you more but they'd get redundant and boring), there is a much more distinct feeling of change at the end of summer. If you're in school, the people who graduated last year are gone, and there are new people to take their place. The weather takes a much more dramatic switch going into fall then is does in January (winter to winter doesn't do too much). Because of summer traveling or something similar, people you normally see have changed, both physically and mentally, so you're almost meeting them for the first time again. You notice when it changes from summer to fall, but if we didn't make a bunch of fuss about it being a new year, most people wouldn't notice anything except the lack of a nasty headache striking in the late afternoon of January 1st and the fact that they'll need a new calendar. Even though there are calenders that go September to August.
Well, that's all I've got this week. See you guys next time, and Happy New Year (kinda)!

Year's End
by Richard Wilbur

Now winter downs the dying of the year,   

And night is all a settlement of snow;

From the soft street the rooms of houses show   

A gathered light, a shapen atmosphere,   

Like frozen-over lakes whose ice is thin   

And still allows some stirring down within.

I’ve known the wind by water banks to shake

The late leaves down, which frozen where they fell   

And held in ice as dancers in a spell   

Fluttered all winter long into a lake;   

Graved on the dark in gestures of descent, 

They seemed their own most perfect monument.

There was perfection in the death of ferns   

Which laid their fragile cheeks against the stone   

A million years. Great mammoths overthrown   

Composedly have made their long sojourns,   

Like palaces of patience, in the gray

And changeless lands of ice. And at Pompeii

The little dog lay curled and did not rise   

But slept the deeper as the ashes rose

And found the people incomplete, and froze   

The random hands, the loose unready eyes   

Of men expecting yet another sun

To do the shapely thing they had not done.

These sudden ends of time must give us pause.   

We fray into the future, rarely wrought

Save in the tapestries of afterthought.

More time, more time. Barrages of applause   

Come muffled from a buried radio.

The New-year bells are wrangling with the snow.

 

"Let us speak courteously, deal fairly, and keep ourselves armed and ready." Theodore Roosevelt

Wednesday #34 - Narrator Reliable

This is an essay that I wrote for my AP Literature class:

Narrator: Reliable?

            In narrative, all the information is given by narrator (hence, narrative), and therefore all the information passes through a single filter. In novels such as The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien, the narrator is fairly reliable, because of a 3^rd person perspective, or in Jane Austin’s Pride and Prejudice, where the narrator has little bias to the story, leaving little room for doubt in whether or not the reported events are true. And then there are narrators of questionable reliability, such as Bromden of One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey. With his statement at the end of the first chapter, “it’s the truth, even if it didn’t happen,” leaves a certain wanting for clarity, but his reliability is can be argued based on his bias, his mental and emotional stability, and his personal significance in and towards the events he narrates (8).

            As far as heavily involved characters go, Bromden does seem to lack a large amount of bias in his retelling of the events in the psychiatric ward, giving what would appear to be a fair account. While yes, he does view the Big Nurse and her Black Boys with distaste, he doesn’t use malevolent language in describing their actions towards the patients, instead favoring more bland language initially, but as his exposure to McMurphy increases, his view of Nurse Ratched alters to one more berating, referring to her treatment of the patients during the Group Therapy sessions as less helping them and more “rubbing [their] nose[s] in [their] weakness[es]” (137). This shift in descriptive diction is symptomatic of a change in bias, showing the changing view Bromden has for the nurses, and as far as narrator reliability is concerned, that means he will be less reliable, and more inclined to alter the events in his retelling to show the nurses in a darker light, showcasing any and all potentially negative aspects

            Bias, however, is not the sole cause in Bromden’s questionable truths, but the personal significance of the events he narrates require inspection, if he is to be determined as either a reliable, or unreliable narrator. If he were not so profoundly affected by McMurphy’s actions in the ward, Bromden could just be written off as an observant bystander, and his reliability would not be an issue worth discussing. He is however, deeply altered by McMurphy, and so it changes his narration. Before McMurphy came to the ward, Bromden pretended to be deaf and dumb, ignored by others, seen not as a person sweeping a room by the staff, but a broom the moves through the room, but after McMurphy, Bromden felt the inclination to talk, to think for himself, and go against the orderlies and nurses (a truly crazy thought). This translates towards a more reliable narration, as Bromden becomes more involved with McMurphy, he becomes more “sane,” and therefore more reliable as a narrator.

            Sanity is a definite factor in reliability, which is why Bromden’s increases as the story progresses and the “fog” he professes to see dissipates, leading to clearer and more honest narration, because his perception of events isn’t being altered or effected by mental instability. This is pivotally important in regards to trusting Bromden as a narrator, because he is not the most stable or sane of individuals, due to shock therapy and psychoactive drugs, both of which damage his brain, and cause disconnects in his thought process that could result in an incorrect and non-neutral observance and recounting of events. These problems, however, resolve over the course of the novel, due to Bromden’s positive changes from McMurphy, making the events at closer to the end of the novel more likely to have happened as described then those events occurring at the beginning (except for the first chapter, which is given from a perspective akin to hindsight, and is technically an instance of omniscient narration).

            It can therefore be assumed that Bromden’s reliability as the narrator of Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest is non-constant trait, but instead something that ebbs and flows with his mental state, attachment to the events, and emotional bias to the people involved in his retelling. The simple thing to do would be to write him off as unreliable on a whole, but that is unwise. Instead, the correct and accurate thing to do would be to examine each scene in question for his reliability, as it is in flux throughout the entire novel. 

April Rain Song, by Langston Hughes
Let the rain kiss you
Let the rain beat upon your head with silver liquid drops
Let the rain sing you a lullaby
The rain makes still pools on the sidewalk
The rain makes running pools in the gutter
The rain plays a little sleep song on our roof at night
And I love the rain. 

"You know you're in love when you can't fall asleep because reality is finally better than your dreams." - Dr. Seuss

Wednesday #33.1 or something - A Lot Going On

Hi, Claire here! JD has asked me to make a quick post about why there hasn't been anything up lately. So, the last two weeks have been band camp (which was explained in the last post). Two weeks, 9am to 9pm. Band camp was fantastic, but it sure does keep us all occupied. As if 9 days (108+ hours) of band wasn't enough, I believe JD is now hiking a portion of the Appalachian Trail. So, he'll be back soon enough. Until then, have an excellent day!

Here's a fitting quote:
"I want to climb a mountain. I always want to climb a mountain. We should all go climb a mountain." - JD Galuardi

Wednesday #32 - Band Camp, Week 1

Hey Dreamers! This week  (and next week) is band camp! What's band camp you ask? Well, I'll tell you. Band camp is 8 12 hour days of marching band practice. And I've just finished up the third day. I've got a lot farther to go before it's done. And I'm so tired to the point that I really don't want to write much of anything on this post, because I know it'll be complete crap... but I still will write it all the same.
    Now, I did come up with a post idea for this week, but I never got anytime to write it up, but I do have most of Friday free, so I will write the post I wanted to write for this but never got to then, and I'll feel less guilty about this. I hope that sates your hunger for Across 53 Wednesdays for now, and check back in at around 20:00 on Friday the 8th of August on this post for the continuation... See you all then...