Mrs. Havisham - Blog post #2

Have you ever seen the film Great Expectations? Its an adaptation of a novel that was transferred into a major block buster film, that in an odd way reminds me so much of the short story A Rose for Emily. While I was watching the film, I remember having an extremely similar feeling as to when I began reading the novel A Rose for Emily for the class assignment.

Just like in A Rose for Emily, there is a character in the novel named Mrs. Havisham. This character has become so deranged by the failures of her husband lack of arrival at their wedding that she has tried to preserve her wedding in hopes that her husband would come back.

In A Rose for Emily, Emily becomes so obsessed with her husband and the idea of him leaving her that she kills him and keeps his body preserved laying next to her in their bed. We know that she has known of her husbands murder because there is a perfectly indented pillow and a strand of Emily’s gray hair.

In the film, Great Expectation not only does Mrs. Havisham’s obsessions take over her thoughts, but she has never taken off her wedding dress, has left the cake the same way it was left in the corner, the wedding decorations hanging from all sides of the home have never been taken them down.

The town speaks about her, and has hopes of entering the home to see how she is and see the home since most people believe she is deranged and is kept insane, just as the woman in A Rose for Emily.

I found this was extremely interesting because both society’s seem to have similar views on these “crazy” woman. Both of these woman’s homes are “stuck in time” and are derived from their insane obsession with love for the man they believed wronged them.

http://vodly.to/watch-2738753-Great-Expectations

Media Outtakes #2: Fatal Misunderstanding

     “Hills Like White Elephants” by Ernest Hemingway's depicts the fatal miscommunication between a couple who can't manage to make a decision on whether a specific operation should be performed. Katy Perry’s “Hot n’ Cold” closely resembles how the girl felt and gives an insight to the miscommunication in the story.

     Although the story is mainly a dialog between two people, they don't truly communicate at all. Both the American man and the girl talk, but neither listens to each other's point of view. The lines from the song, “You change your mind like a girl changes clothes” and “you're hot then you're cold, you're yes then you're no, you're in then you're out, you're up then you're down” illustrates how the couple continuously changed their opinions about the abortion. The man will say anything in order to persuade the girl to have the abortion and the girl continuously shuffles indecisively around the subject. The man's nickname to the girl is Jig, which indicates that all they do is “dance” around the issue without ever saying anything purposeful. They also seem to be “stuck on a roller coaster” of decisions. 

     The lines, “You're no good for me” and “I should know that you're not gonna change” represents how the gild felt towards the end of the story. Even though the story doesn't completely reveal what happens at the end, one can infer that the couple will go their separate ways and Jig will not go through with the abortion. After endless bickering between the couple, the woman finally makes up her mind to not kill the life within her. When the American asks her, “Do you feel better?” Jig answers with, “I feel fine. There's nothing wrong with me. I feel fine”. The girl meant that there was no reason to kill the child because she felt she was perfectly fine the way she was.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KYh-otnSMNE 

Media Outtake #2: The difficulties of interracial relationships

 

        

               “Black Man and White Woman in Dark Green Rowboat” is about an interracial couple in a trailer community where everyone is focus on their task, but their silence from seeing the couple together shows they are secretly judging the scene. The white woman went on the boat with the black man without saying a word in the presence of the trailer residents. However, once away from the inhabitants, the story unravel to show that their relation is somewhat problematic due to the two couple’s race. The woman told her lover that the mother is okay with the relationship because she cares about her daughter’s happiness. The young female also admit that if her father was alive, he would have forbid the relationship because the young man is black. The man fear that their racial differences and societies negative outlook on the issue will cause more difficulties in the relationship. This becomes evident after the couple parted ways upon returning from the river.

         “Unthinkable” by Alicia Keys depict the social issues of interracial relationship that is presented in the story. In the video, Alicia Keys dates Chad Michael Murray, who is of the opposite race. Society responded negatively to their romantic affair, even her family tried to prevent their blossoming relationship from evolving. The lyrics to the song suggest that she is ready to take a chance and follow her heart, regardless of societal pressure to stay away from Murray. Both the story and the music video shows that maintaining an interracial relationship is difficult, especially, when society strive to hinder their love affair. In the video, Keys’ brother confronted Murray about dating her, which is similar to the white woman saying that her father hated black people. In contrast to the story, Keys is African American while Murray is Caucasian.

 

 

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HhuGQUZJot8

Just Talk it Out- Media Outtake #2

Miscommunication is what can either make or break a relationship. In Russell Bank’s “Black Man and White Woman in Dark Green Rowboat”, he writes of two people who are completely lacking communication. With what little words they do speak, it seems as though they’re talking about an abortion; an extremely serious topic, yet they can’t seem to get their feelings across the table.

After reading Bank’s short story, it instantly reminded me of the movie Hope Springs released in 2012. Hope Springs is about a couple who have been married for several decades and have lost not only the comfort in their relationship, but have a miscommunication issue likewise present in “Black Man and White Woman in Dark Green Rowboat”. In Russell Bank’s story he writes of how the white woman and black man have trouble speaking of their feelings towards the woman receiving an abortion. It is going to happen, yet they cannot speak, or communicate towards each other the feelings that they both inhibit. In Hope Springs the married couple have lost something sacred in their relationship, yet cannot even confront their issues. The wife in the movie Hope Springs, Kay, works on informing her husband about the issue, yet he just instantly turns her down every time. In Bank’s story the girl states, “Listen, I don’t know how to tell you this, but I might as well come right out and say it. I’m going to do it. This afternoon…”. You can tell the girl is trying to express her feelings towards getting an abortion, and confronts the black man, but he almost shuts her down, or doesn’t show much expression. This is exactly the plot in Hope Springs. The wife just wishes to reconcile their love, marriage, comfort, and communication, yet he constantly pushes her away, not wanting anything to do with the problem at hand.

Media Outtake #2: The White Woman's Turning Tables

     When reading Black Man and White Woman in Dark Green Rowboat, I found that the short story connected to the single Turning Tables by Grammy award winner English recording artist Adele. Both the story and song share how someone is tired of being mistreated and decides to leave their lovers. Black Man and White Woman in Dark Green Rowboat is about an interracial couple who has to deal with a pregnancy. The woman already decides to go ahead and get an abortion without consulting the father, this is just one example of how she controls the relationship. This also shows how inconsiderate she is. There are also more subtle hints to the white woman’s narcissistic nature. Such an example being how she was only concerned with herself and put lotion on, while the man rowed the boat in the hot sun. He is also hypnotized by her and realizes how he is basically under her control. Towards the end of their conversation in the rowboat, the man realizes that the relationship is going nowhere as she doesn't listen to him or consider his feelings. In the end, he decides to leave her. In the song Turning Tables, Adele shares the accounts of a tumultuous relationship she is in where she feels mistreated, neglected, and controlled. When Adele sings, “Under your thumb, I can’t breathe,” which expresses how Adele feels unimportant because of his controlling and aggressive nature. “Under haunted skies I see, where love is lost…” shows when she realizes that she deserves to be treated better and loses her desire to be with him any longer. The song shares how she can no longer take her lover anymore and chooses to abandon. Both the song and the short story connect in that both the characters have had enough with being mistreated and realize that they deserve better. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dx7sLNyIeQk

Media Outtake 2 : freedom

When reading “The White Heron” I noticed the most important point of symbolism was the heron. To Sylvia, it meant freedom. She felt so liberated up in the tree next to the bird nest. She made the realization that if she gave up the bird’s location to the hunter, she would not only be killing a beautiful creature, but the idea of freedom. Despite her financial disability, she kept the location secret and the hunter departed from her grandmother’s home. To me, it seemed that the bird gave her a form of release – to feel like she was free.

            While watching TV, I noticed a similar form of found freedom. The name of the movie: “The Birdcage.” The film is about a gay cabaret owner and his drag queen partner who agree to put up a false straight front so that their son can introduce them to his fiancée's right-wing moralistic parents. How can the two possibly relate, you might ask. The answer is simple: dressing in drag. Drag queens are gender-confused people who dress into the opposite sex’s clothing. What on Earth is the point; dressing in drag is a symbol of freedom.

            In the film, a bunch of men dress in drag because they feel that is their true identity. While the film mostly revolves on the conflict of fooling the fiancées parents into believing that they are a normal, well to do, and right wing family in order to get their approval. However, that was not the plot of the story. The plot of the story was that two homosexual men, despite the entire ordeal of attempting a false scheme, was that they stay true to themselves despite what anyone thinks. Being gay and a drag queen instead of straight was their freedom. And they refused to have their freedom denied to them because of close-minded, ultra-conservative republicans.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0115685/

Im Glad You Called

The short story, “Hills like white elephants” by Ernest Hemingway is about a man and women deciding whether or not they should get an abortion. The man is pressuring her to make the decision, although the woman is showing fear. She doesn’t know if she’s ready to be a mom, but she doesn’t feel like an abortion is the way to go. She feels as though their relationship isn’t going to be the same once the abortion is done. It is unknown whether or not this couple got the abortion or not.

In the song, “The call” by Matt Kennon, a teenage couple has taken a kiss too far. Unfortunately, the girlfriend gets pregnant and they are in a horrible situation.  At first, the boyfriend convinced his girlfriend to have an abortion, she agreed. She was scared to death, but only wanted what her boyfriend thought was best. When she went into the hospital to have the operation, suddenly her boyfriend calls her and tells her that they are going to keep the baby. She was so happy that he changed his mind.

The short story, “Hills like white elephants” and the song, “The call” are both very similar. In the short story, the man is putting himself before the baby and the girlfriend. In the song, the boyfriend is doing the same thing. These two couples are both in horrible situations and both of the men are reacting the same way. The two women are also acting the same way; they are scared to tell the men how they really feel about the sensitive subject. The audiences of the short story do not know whether or not the women stood up to the man, it may or may not have happened. Although in the song, the women never stood up to the boyfriend either, the boyfriend came to his senses and decided not to go through with it.

 

http://youtu.be/YK3zs7EV6Tk