A definition of a relationship?

Alfred Hitchcock’s “Rear Window”

Each apartment window offers Jeff a different interpretation on ideas of marriage or single life. Let’s take a closer look at each:

The couple with the dog: Outwardly seem very content with life and marriage which Jeff interprets as a bore. There is a climax in the story when the couples dog is also murdered (straggled to death in the Thorwalds back year) everyone comes to their window except Thorwald which remains mysteriously in his apartment with all the lights out except the bright red burning end of a cigarette . Jeff knows right away that Thorwald did it, which leads him to his next conclusion about the flowers and something being buried there.

Miss Torso: Throughout the whole movie Miss Torso is portrayed as a beautiful, carefree, single ballet dancer who dances throughout the day and entertains throughout the night. Many man lusts after her and Jeff is annoyed by her ability to eat all the time and seem so carefree. However, at the very end of the movie it is revealed that she has been waiting on a solider to return home from war.

Miss Lonelyhearts: Jeff might perceive Miss Lonelyhearts as a future Lisa if he chooses not to marry her. She will be very sad, lonely, and broken hearted.

The Composer: The composer starts to write a song at the beginning of the movie which Lisa is very intrigued by and tells Jeff that the song is meant for them. At the end of the movie the song captures Miss lonelyhearts and brings her back from the brink of suicide, brings pride to the composer with the knowledge that it changed Miss Lonelyhearts life and together they find comfort in each other. I image that the success of the song, the fact that he finishes it, and that Lisa feels like it is meant for her and Jeff might allude to the idea that Jeff and Lisa are meant for each other. In the credits for the movie this song is called “Lisa’s theme.”

The newlyweds: The newlyweds might have given Jeff the idea that at first they were so sweet and perfect for each other. They spent almost the entire time in the bedroom with the blinds drawn. Jeff sees them and envies that for a moment and thinks maybe he wants that. However, by the end of the movie Jeff can start to see that his wife nags too.

The Thorwalds: To start with Jeff relates to Mr. Thorwald and maybe even feeling sorry for him because of his nagging wife. Jeff’s idea of marriage is reflected back from the Thorwalds marriage. Mr. Thorwald murdered his wife which actually brings Jeff and Lisa together. Lisa takes several risks to help Jeff prove the murder but I think she was also trying to prove something to Jeff as well. 1. She brings one suite case to live out of for a night. 2. She sneaks into Thorwalds back yard to dig up the flowers and when she doesn’t find anything she breaks into his apartment. 3. Thorwald catches her and Jeff is beside himself –a moment of clarity for his feelings for Lisa- Jeff is willing to risk life and limb to protect Lisa and to bring the murderer Thorwald to justice. Many things happen with the development of the story and Jeff and Lisa’s relationship.

By the end of the movie each apartment is defined by some sort of relationship or lack of, although Hitchcock leaves his audience still hanging on the definition of Jeff and Lisa’s relationship. It is evident that they are content and that the hunt to bring Thorwald to justice did bring them together, however to what extent, and will marriage be in future? If one was to consider that Hitchcock leaves everyone’s relationship as together and on good terms then one might interpret that as marriage for Jeff and Lisa.

Take me on a journey!

Geography III by Elizabeth Bishop

The title of the book, Geography III, and the pictures portrayed on the cover of the book leaves much to be questioned. This is after all a book of short poems and when I saw the title and the cover that was not the first thought that came to mind. After reading the epigraph and the poems the concept was a bit clearer. Many of Bishop’s poems talk about places in the world like in the instance with “Poem” or how she cleverly introduces geography with her national geographic magazine in “The Waiting Room”. I thought also that the pictures on the front cover were also an indication to imply or relate to the reader to explore. Books, protractor, a map, telescope, a globe, and writing essentials all stand alone on one thought to explore. The epigraph asks “What is Geography? A description of the earth’s surface. What is Earth? The planet or body on which we live. What is the shape of the Earth? Round, like a ball. Of what is the Earth’s surface composed? Land and water” all questions that are related to a child like state. I felt that all of her poems were almost from a child like state. Bishop also uses a lot of imagery in her poems and I think she does an excellent job of describing what she sees in a manner that her readers can not only relate to but envision. Bishop mentions specific places in her poems a lot as well such as “Worcester, Massachusetts” in “The Waiting Room,” “Bass River”, “Tantramar marshes”, and “The New Brunswick woods” in “The Moose.” Maybe that is another reason why she named her book Geography III because she talks about specific places in the world. Which leads me to ask what is relevant to those specific places? Maybe also her use of imagery in her poems is her way of directing you to focus on that area and maybe lead you to further exploration. A literally meaning of geography is to study land, features of Earth, people, and nature. Most of these aspects Bishop covers in some way in her poems. She studies land in “Poem,” she studies people in “The Moose,” and features of Earth and nature are mixed within the two as well. I think there is both a literally meaning to her using Geography as the title of her book as well as a metaphoric meaning behind the literally meaning. Bishop is asking her reader to question what the world is, how does it affect us, and to understand it. I think a great example of this is “Crusoe in England” he lives on an island for many years and has to learn from it and about it. Know is inside and out...mapping out the island with his mind and memorizing it. “I had to live on each and every one, eventually, for ages, registering their flora, their fauna, their geography.” Another reason that I think she chose to title the book geography-to enhance one of the major underlying themes within and throughout the book of short poems.  

 

Is it love?

William Shakespeare Much ado about nothing

“Friendship is constant in all other things
Save in the office and affairs of love:
Therefore all hearts in love use their own tongues;
Let every eye negotiate for itself
And trust no agent.”  - William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing

 

Am I satisfied by the ending of the play? Yes I had already pegged Beatrice and Benedick as a couple from the start. I thought the relationship between Hero and Claudio was a filler and also an introduction for Beatrice and Benedick to consider the other side of what love has to offer because Hero was close to Beatrice and Claudio was close to Benedick. I don’t think really anything was lost during the translation if anything it was all over dramatized. I think that the relationship between Beatrice and Benedick was the one that Shakespeare wanted you to be the most focused on and in a lot of ways Hero and Claudio were the distraction. The trials that Hero and Claudio are put through are the common ground that Beatrice and Benedick meet on. It was during this most trying time that their true feelings were brought to light. Beatrice was afflicted the most and when seeing this affliction brought Benedick to his knees because it hurt him to see Beatrice this hurt. I think that both couples were much befitting for each other. Beatrice and Benedick Hero and Claudio were both very complimentary to the other. In the end I think that both women were satisfied in how everything ended up. I image that Beatrice will be happier only because I think that their love came from true feelings were as Hero and Claudio’s love came from superficial things. Both Beatrice and Benedick start off with the most negative aspect of love and getting married while Hero and Claudio were all too eager to enter into marriage. Shakespeare uses both ideas of marriage to almost poke fun at the idea and I think he was very clever in how he made sure all the characters came across to the reader/audience. This was a very short, sweet, to the point play there wasn’t much time to waste, therefore you lose all the fillers that maybe some people feel like is missing from the play.

I enjoyed watching the play a lot more than reading it. I felt like through it all I got way more out of watching the play than reading it. Plays are in my opinion always harder to read than to just watch and enjoy. When you have to pay attention to when someone leaves or someone enters it takes away for really getting into it. Also, my biggest compliant I have is that you lose so much from the characters when you are reading them. When you are watching and you have all of the facial expressions, movement, they way they say what they say all adds tremendous value to the overall experience of the play hence why you get way less when you are reading it. Shakespeare can also been hard to understand what he is exactly saying while reading it but in the play all of the other context helps the audience to know what it going on even when you might not understand a word.

"A picture can say a thousand words"

I have been converted! Let me state that while at first my impression was a bit skeptically but I really enjoyed reading this book and also watching the movie of Persepolis 2. There were many images and many words that resonated deeply with me but the one image that struck me the most without any words is on page 140, top image. It is just after Marji learned that the recent bomb that went off was on her street. She is walking down the street with her head low and very distraught. She can’t bring herself to lift her head and look and her legs are trying to fail her as she walks towards the wreckage. In the background there is widows busted out and glass everywhere from the impact. She keeps saying over and over again “Let them be alive, let them be alive.” This for her was her worst nightmare coming true. I think that I can speak for everyone when I say that in her shoes we would all feel the same. I too have had a close to home experience were something terrible happened to my loved one and I had no idea if he was alive or dead. It took several hours of waiting, which was the longest hours of my life, for my family to receive confirmation that my loved one was in fact still alive and in very critical condition, then came the waiting again to see if he was going to pull through. I cannot image what growing up for Marji was like in this type of environment. This for me was the one moment where things got really real for Marji and maybe because of my own experience really hit home. I was glad to continue reading and to see Marji reunited with her family unharmed.

The Search

The Moviegoer by Walker Percy

The “search” for Binx is his way of life. I think that this is his way of coping with the world and the everydayness of it. I have the inclination to say that on some level Binx was aware but also unaware of the fact that he was just like everyone else in the world. I also think that for Binx maybe he falls back into that saying were if you lie about something so much you actually start believing it. For Binx as long as he was aware of his “search” he was content with the way things were in his life. This was mostly an internal battle more than a worldly battle for him. He convinced himself that he was onto something and anytime that idea was challenged in his mind…well there he went again on the “search”. I do think that Binx found something in life as to his “search” because he did finally settle down with Kate and made the decision to go to school to become a doctor (both are positions of helping and thinking about others). Maybe he realizes to some degree that he has moved forward in life and has others to consider and gives up on his “search” altogether. He realizes near the end what it is that he wants more… desire. “Nothing remains but desire, and desire comes howling down Elysian Fields like a mistral. My search has been abandoned.” (228)  Or when he says “now in the thirty–first year of my dark pilgrimage on this earth and knowing less than I ever knew before” that he has realized all this search has answered nothing and left but more to be questioned. (228) Therefore why not abounded the “search” and hop on the first train to a different everydayness? At the end when he says “as for my search, I have not the inclination to say much on the subject” I think is because he knows that he has found something but he might not be able to recall exactly what it is or even maybe he isn’t fully aware of it. (237) Or possibly that day he did in fact abounded the search and didn’t much think of since. Kind of like when you make a life changing decision you say now if I do this I won’t look back and you really mean it.

For the majority of the book Binx is in the aesthetic stage but by the very end of the book he has moved into the ethical stage. According to Kierkegaard the ethical stage is “making a commitment to one particular role, in relationship to persons and life” which I saw this transition in the book a little bit with the way Binx really starts to care about Kate and from where he leaves off and picks up in the epilogue he definitely has made huge progress in that direction. I can’t say how much into one or the other he might be or if he is all the way into the ethical stage but he is there. It is doubtful that Binx will move into the religious stage considering he leaves of on “it is impossible to say why he is here (talking about the black man going to church on Ash Wednesday)…Is it because he believes that God himself is present here at the corner of Elysian Fields and Bons Enfnats? Or is he here for both reasons: through some dim dazzling trick of grace, coming for the one and receiving the other as God’s own importunate bonus?...It is impossible to say.” (235) The last line implies more to Binx than the man I think.