Response to Telling is Listening

Ursula K. Le Guin draws several comparisons between humans conversing and other connections in our world in order to highlight the special relationship that is formed when two humans converse. I think this one line in particular explains her thoughts very clearly, "In human conversation, in live, actual communication between or among human beings, everything “transmitted” — everything said — is shaped as it is spoken by actual or anticipated response." It is interesting because there are many different actions one person can take in order to obtain that anticipated response. This made me think about those people who might ask about your day, simply in order to speak about themselves and how their day went. However, this does not make the relationship between the two people conversing any less connected, because the person who is sharing still speaks in order to obtain that anticipated response. Le Guin also writes about how humans change the words. The tiniest imperfection or shift in tone of voice when saying a word can change the entire connotation. I completely agree with almost all that Le Guin has said in the article. It is interesting that the way we transmit information must be tied to some deeper, more intimate part of ourselves. I think it says a lot about humans and shows that humans inherently must rely on others. 

Response to Cormac McCarthy's Punctuation

It seems odd for a writer to have such a strong distaste for proper punctuation, but McCarthy seems to think that anything other than a comma, a colon, or a period is nothing more than "weird little marks" on a page. Punctuation's purpose is to make writing clearer to the reader in order to convey a message seamlessly and with minimal confusion. I suppose McCarthy thinks that his protest to the traditional use of punctuation presents him as a more accomplished writer, one that has enough skill to not have to rely on little marks to get his message across. Although, I think it is a useless skill. All readers have learned the rules of punctuation, and it makes the piece easier to understand, so why not use those weird little marks? Simply because one can understand the work with minimal marks doesn't mean that one should. I've read books before that do not use regular punctuation, and sometimes I become more focused on the lack of punctuation than the actual story. Punctuation is a system that makes reading simpler so that we can understand the ideas and stories of many writers with different styles without having to focus too hard on little things like who is speaking and when to catch your breath when reading aloud.

Heart of Darkness - TGOST

The history house is a place that is supposed to be representative of Kerala in order to inform tourists and natives alike about the history and culture of the Indian state. However, the allusion to Joseph Conrad's novel, Heart of Darkness, shows that the history house truly functions in order to please the tourists. The natives of Kerala do not think very highly of these tourists as they often assume that they are unintelligent. The narrator even goes as far as to compare them to rats, "The rats racing across the ruined landscape with dollar signs in their eyes. The world crashing around them" (223). When the tourists visit the history house they learn about the best parts of the state. They neglect to see the problems in the country and by doing this they make it so that the natives cannot enjoy the best parts of their own country. When telling historical stories it was mentioned that the natives felt, "trapped in the bog of a story that was and wasn't theirs" (224). Not only does the history house give out a false sense of culture in Kerala to the tourists, but it also impacts the natives, because after telling a watered down version of a historical story for so long, the meaning of the story begins to change. The historical stories became partially owned by the tourists since details were changed to make it seem less foreign, and these changes left the natives dissatisfied. Despite the name, the history house seems to be not where Indian history is embraced, but rather where Indian history goes to die.

Quote Analysis - TGOST

"That night in the lodge, Ammu sat up in the strange bed in the strange room in the strange town. She didn't know where she was, she recognized nothing around her. Only her fear was familiar."

In this quote, the readers gain a final glimpse at Ammu's feelings as we learn what is going through Ammu's head moments before her death. These last few moments are somewhat representative of Ammu's lifetime. It seems like Ammu always has something to fear. While she was with Chacko, she constantly feared abuse as he would lash out on her constantly. Then, after their divorce, Ammu took on a fear of society's punishments for her since she had broken the love laws. Just before this quote, the narrator explains a nightmare she had about the police coming to chop off her hair, which is what they do to punish prostitutes, so one can observe that Ammu continued to feel an intense guilt up until the end of her life, and probably struggled with the idea of retribution for her "unlawful" actions.Whether it was fearing a life with Chacko or a life no longer with Chacko, Ammu felt fear regularly. In the quote, Roy uses repetition of the word "strange" to contrast her unfamiliar surroundings with her well-acquainted feelings of fear.

Velutha and Bahka - TGOST

In the novel Untouchable, Anand attempts to create a character who, for the most part, is representative of all the untouchables in India. After being introduced to Velutha from The God of Small Things, my thoughts on the opportunities of an untouchable and Bahka's character had changed. Unlike Bahka, Velutha does not feel trapped by his social status and because of that, he has almost been able to rise above the other untouchables. Velutha has the courage to strive for a position as a supervisor, and even walk in a communist march. Even though both characters share a desire for a better life, Velutha's actions are things that Bahka could never have the confidence to do. The different responses may be due to the characters' different environments. While Bahka is stuck in a dream state, constantly reminded by his father that there is no hope for his future, Velutha doesn't feel the same pressures from his family. Due to my limited knowledge of Indian culture, I am unable to determine whether Velutha is an incredibly positive and motivated character, if Bahka is just someone who gives up, or if these two characters merely represent two extreme cases.

Capitalization - TGOST

Arundhati Roy uses plenty of stylistic techniques like nature imagery, italics, anaphora, onomatopeia, (to name a few) which all help her storytelling to be present and flowing. However, Roy also includes some capitalization of words in odd places, so odd, that it almost seems random. This technique does not help the story flow, but rather causes the reader to pause at the word and wonder, "Is that important?" Obviously, this type of capitalization cannot be seen in most works of literature, though Emily Dickinson seems to be no stranger to this technique in her poetry. When Emily Dickinson capitalized words in the middle of sentences it was to draw attention to them in order to highlight a certain symbol or theme. Roy does this as well, but since her literature is in a form of a novel, she includes foreshadowing as well. For example, Roy capitalized the words, "Good Sign" and "Man" in chapter four. Although I have not been able to verify the foreshadowing yet, those words seem to be setting up a romance that I am looking forward to reading about.

FRQ

In many works of literature, culture plays a pivotal role in the plot of the book. Choose a novel or play in which the main character could not be the same if placed in a different setting. Then, write a well-organized essay analyzing the effects that India's culture has had on Bahka's character and how it influences his relationships with other characters in the novel.