The Bear: Part III

Having come to an end in reading the story of The Bear the question asked at the end of every book is whether or not the story is representative of a Bilingsroman? Every story in order to fall into this category has to show that the character and their environment have affected them in such a way that it has changed them. At the same time this change has to happen throughout the course of time. In The Bear we do happen to find a particular character who goes through transition and growth in a peculiar way. At first we don't know much about the character but are in a way experiencing the woods with him. Instead of reading discriptions about what the woods were like for him I felt that i was walking through them at the same time he was. When he was going out without a compass or anything manmade it was an experience for me as well to imagine being in the middle of no where without anything to guide me but intuition. This boy, Isaac, learns about himself while experiencing nature. He chooses the path of going out there and discovering what there is to be discovered. He ventures into the unknown with fear, yet he does so because he feels that is his calling. These experiences marked him in such a way that made him the man he grew up to be. Being this man helped him understand the burden of recieving an inheritance which he felt did not deserve and thus did not accept. He showed us truth, understanding and humanity at its most natural level. We don't need philosophy books to explain to us what is right or wrong, moral or immoral, we need to connect with our true selves in a true setting such as nature to help us gather our thoughts and understanding of a real world. So, the Bear in this case has proven to a Bildingsroman as well because of what he teaches us about himself and also about ourseleves as a human society as a whole.

The Bear: Part II

The question which we were left with was what is myth? Dr. Larson told us that this whole story was surrounded by the idea of myth. Yet, when myth comes to mind, I immediately think of Greek and Roman stories. Then I think about mythical creatures like the Lock Ness Monster or dragons and the sort. Yet in reality our conceptions about what a myth is couldn't be any further away from its true meaning. A myth is actually a sacred story concerning the origins of the world or how the world and the creatures in it came to be in their present form. Hence when reading over Faulkner's story we indeed do come across mythical beings in it. First off we have the Bear. How more mythical can we get than that? The bear is the legend of the being who roams the forest and cannot be killed. At the same time there is so much more surrounding the existance of the bear. This meaning impacts the lives of these men who travel for the sole purpose of seeing him. This reminds me of a pilgramage people traditionally do in the name of religion. These types of pilgramages are used to guide people and their spiritual experiences, much like these men that go hunting. To them, nature, the bear and hunting is in their spirit.

The Big Scary Bear

I started reading this story it struck me as being completely diffrent than any of the material we've been reading throughout the semester. I had never before read anything by Faulkner so when I picked up the book it was quite different and didn't think I would like it. But once I started getting through the descriptive part of the novel and focused on the actual situations it was a lot easier to understand. The story so far introduces us to a group of woodsmen, campers, or something along the lines of. Their annual trip into the woods consists of attempting to see and possibly kill a bear that has been around for ages. Within the group there is a young boy. This boy has a different connection with the woods, he enjoys it, some would say he has a bond with it. Due to this bond, as he grows he gets better as finding his way around the woods without compasses or any other manmade instrument. This surprises the rest of the group since they're older men who have more "experience" than the young lad. Another surprising fact is that the boy is the only one who has ever actually gotten close to the bear. While the others go for the sole purpose of finding the bear, the boy actually goes out and encounters him. This is facinating. A mix of nature and innocence meeting in the wild. We'll see what the rest of the book brings along and just how much this boy learns to develop in this world.

There Eyes Were Watching God: A bildungsroman?

I must say that it is a bildungsroman book. Why? Well in the first place the book presented us with Janie, a character who has several layers to her and who throughtout her life was able to discover the different layers she had. She was able to enbark on a path of autodiscovery due to the choices that she made. Now, the choices all characters faced in the past novels are what make their novels bildungsroman. These decisions are what ultimately guide them to find a life of meaning and fulfullment. If it were otherwise, then I don't think we'd be interested in reading the lives of people who choose to stay on the safe side of things in order to avoid struggle, conflict or even change. Janie to me represents a character who doesn't want to stay on the safe side because throughout the whole novel she's given the opportunity to do so, but she knows something doesn't feel right about it. In a way she knows deep down that she's meant for so much more. She truely wants to achieve happiness and goes out to find it, in her case it kind of found her ;).

Their Eyes Were Watching God: The meaning in the title

In the literary since, this expression is used in the book to describe the expressions that the people had during the hurricane disaster. It describes it as them looking up at the sky with a look of wonder. Yet, there is an underlying meaning underneath this which evokes a much deeper meaning. The problem here is to try and understand what its saying and at least try to hit within the ballpark. The title, this very expression is very emblematic. Why is it that these people’s eyes were watching God? As explained before there is a bit of an explanation but it’s not very satisfying. In that case, was Janie’s observation of this representative of her life? I believe that the context in which she would use it is probably used to describe the way people behave. Especially when referring to her town. What first came to mind for me is that people look up to the sky as to blame God for anything that might be going wrong or out of control. As in the case of the hurricane people looked up as a way of pleading for help or asking Him why did he allow for this to happen? Yet sometimes when it occurs that something within our hands happens, we like to not take responsibility and just blame God for whatever is happening. Also, it might refer to the fact that many people claim to be righteous when in fact they are not. People have the tendency to become preoccupied with showing off how religious they are and always in a way “watch God”. Yet they tend to forget that there’s a physical world to which they are bound and have responsibilities in it as well.

Their Eyes were watching God: Part I

Their eyes were watching God seems to me to be a different story than the rest we have read so far. The characters are passionate and set in their own ways and thoughts. The main character Janie starts off the narrative as a little girl describing how she saw herself for the first time and didn’t consider herself different from the rest until others pointed it out to her. But it’s not just a story about identity it’s a story about survival and about finding the true meaning of life through its various stages. Janie is faced with a series of obstacles that she must overcome differently each time. She thinks about what is best for her and does it but then realizes that she can do so much more and decides that happiness is what she really wants to pursue in life. Yet, like all humans, we are afraid to face the unknown and actually venture into this quest for happiness. We fear the unknown and decide that stability is the best to lead a happy life. This stability we see is not enough for Janie until she meets Tea Cake. He becomes the one man whom treats her the way she should be treated and discovers the true meaning of love.

Room with a view: the finale

Having finished a room with a view and having heard all the different experiences from my fellow classmates, supported the idea behind the title of this book. Why? Well because we were able to establish a little bit of a view into people’s lives. How many times do we know people but not really KNOW them? This was in my opinion the essence of this book when it came to Lucy, George and even her ex fiancé. Everyone seemed to know everyone else and their characters, yet at the same time these characters did not seem to know themselves from time to time. That is probably because in life the only thing that remains as a constant is change. Everyone changes as well as everything and as human beings we adapt to these changes loosing a little bit of the view of ourselves in order to gain new perspectives and change some views. This was the case with Lucy, she had to get out of her comfort zone and adapt to the changes that were occurring, she didn’t like those views that went along with such changes so she changed in order to become truer to the self she had evolved into. Thus, because of these views and changes and choices made by her this book falls into a true bildungsroman.

Lucy's Wedding

So today's conversation in class brought up the topic of Lucy's marriage within the book. While for the majority of the time i thought that she was sure to wed Cecil, in hopes that maybe while she was changing he would change as well, that did not seem to be the way the story was going. On the other hand we have George, dreamy bad boy George. The guy that no mother wants her daughter to marry because he's beneath her status or is just not good enough. Yet, what makes another person capable of determining who's fit to marry someone else. Why is it that back long ago ( and even some cases today) society was the one to put dictates over a woman's life with regard to marriage? This is something that puzzles me, yet is all not to unfamilar for just a few months back I was found in a very imposed engagement which seemed like the adecuate choice to remedy all problems and secure an easy life. Well, relating with Lucy, I knew that there was more to me than a marriage and this man who didnt even know truely who i was. Heck, from time to time even I seem to still question if I know myself entirely. And I think this is where the root of this book lies. Lucy, her family her fiance all seem to know who she is, what she wants and whats good for her, yet finally she discovers through George that theres more to her than she even knows and thats the beauty of love. This is why she knows that he's the one for her and goes on to live her life with him in the end. Love, the unexpected passion that rushes through your veins and makes you feel queezy and excited. This should not just be the norm for finding love but for living life, everything should undoubtedly make you feel this way just so you know that you are truely living. Was it once said by Socrates that the unexamined life is not worth living?

A Room with a View: Part I

A room with a view is a very distinct reading in which we are introduced to complex characters. One of the most complex, and also the main character of the story is Lucy Honeychurch. From the beginning of the reading we’ve seen that she has a long way to go with regards to growing and finding herself. Thus, this book plays perfectly well with our other readings about young people who are on a quest to find themselves. The difference here is that Miss Honeychurch does not realize that she is venturing on this quest until she is confronted to think on her own. For her, the capacity to maintain her own opinion is a hard one since everyone around her tells her how to act and behave. Among one of the most influential persons in her life during the first part of the story is Miss Bartlett, her cousin whom traveled with her to Italy. This is a very enthralling story which I cannot wait to read the ending and see if indeed there is a growth, not only in Lucy but in those around her as well.

Huck Finn: Part III

Finishing this book one can definitely see the changes that Huck went through in this book. Thus due to these changes we are able to incorporate it into our list of books representing a bildungsroman. During the first part of the book we see that Huck is more of a sidekick to Tom Sawyer, (as mentioned by Dr. Larson). Huck would in a way glorify anything that Tom did believing it was the best way of doing it. Yet in the end we found that although Huck would listen to Tom, Huck would have his own idea of how things would work out best in the end. Having had this personal growth with regards to his way of thinking helped him decide later on that he would; “prefer to go to hell!!” in order to help Jim. This is the most important aspect of this novel, making it a blidungsroman because despite adversity and despite the decisions that Huck could have made, he chose those options which undoubtedly changed him and made of him who he was supposed to become.