Gender Roles in William the Conqueror

The novel we are currently reading in Professor Bump's World Literature class, The Woman Warrior, has to do in the main with gender roles in Asian/Asian-American Society. In this culture, according to the Author Maxine Hong Kingston, it is "better to raise geese than girls." (Kingston 43) This, in short, implies that woman are nothing but a nuisance and expense to the daughters' families. Patrick Knaeve's William the Conqueror takes a similar approach to the role of woman in society. In the play, my character, Harold Godwinson, is forced to become the King of England in response to the former king, Edward, making him his heir. This was in direct conflict to efforts Harold had made, at the king's previous request,  to make William Duke of Normandy take up this mantle. Harold has a Common-Bond wife, Edith, whom he has been wed to for 20 years. However, when he becomes king, he is told by the Bishop Stigand that he must marry a noblewoman, especially in order to placate certain Earls in the North of England whom were not pleased at Harold's ascendance. 

 

(Hey that's me)

Harold-- now struggling under the burden of his desires versus those of his advisers, wife, and sister (the former queen to Edward)-- explodes in anger at Edith and the Queen. "Because you never have seen war, but only heard it sung of in the halls you think it simple, easily confronted! You Woman were not made to face such things. You both would tremble in the dragon's jaws and beg for death rather than stand and fight." (Knaeve 32) In response, his sister the Queen states, "Mark, Edith, how he treats us womankind. . . we are not spears at their sides in battle heat. . . and thus relegated to lesser loves. Though we see so much more than merely war." (Knaeve 32) 

It is obvious to the reader or audience member that, while the play itself recognizes the repugnance of such views, the characters themselves have very classical opinions of gender roles. Much like the opinions of Kingston's parents in The Woman Warrior, woman are only as valuable as they are convenient and subservient.  They are used in certain cases for political gain, and otherwise should simply obey, even if the man loves the woman involved, as Harold does. "It is not for myself I spurn thy love, which waxes still withing my weary heart. But I must be a king, and kings are thrall to all that their folk need, or else their folk are thrall to them and they deserve no crown." (Knaeve 33) Although Harold makes these decisions because he believes he is doing what is best for the kingdom, he in the end pays for them dearly. By the end of the play, Harold is dead and his former wife is forced to seek out his various body parts strewn across the battlefield. As we all agreed throughout the play, "Harold's kind of an idiot." His first mistake of many was the decision to spurn his wife in order to placate lords in the north, whom in the end are of no use to him. 

Tapestry of Harold with an arrow in his eye.

Woman Warrior Part II

The most striking issue brought to light in this section of The Woman Warrior is the obvious differences in attitude and behavior among Brave Orchid, her sister Moon Orchid, and Brave Orchid's children. In the section entitled "At the Western Palace," Moon Orchid moves from to America, her sister, nieces, and daughter there to meet her at the airport. What is immediately evident in experiencing these occurrences from Brave Orchid's point of view is that she has never accepted American culture as her own, finding it crass, wasteful, its people ungrateful. This distaste for American culture is evidenced through her opinion of her children's actions. "Finally Brave Orchid's children quit wandering and drooped on a railing. Who knew what they were thinking?" (Kingston 114) Brave Orchid's children have adopted the ideals and norms of Western culture. As such they are a constant disappointment for her, never living up to her high expectations. These high expectations and hinted disappointmet are alluded to in "Shaman". Brave Orchid transfers her hatred of her home and lifestyle onto her children by making them feel guilty for any imagined slight they have caused in her eyes. "'There's only one thing I really want anymore. I want you here,  not wandering like a ghost from Romany'. . . The gods pay her and my father back for leaving their parents. . . now they know how [they] felt." (Kingston 105)

This disappointment in her children's adaptation to American culture is further clarified by Moon Orchid's arrival in America. While Moon Orchid has not has time to become prejudiced toward American life, she fails to notice any traits in her sister's children that are undesirable. Instead, she showers them with gifts brought from home, which Brave Orchid promptly confiscates because she believes her children won't take care of them. "We'll put the jewelry in the bank, and we'll buy glass and black wood frames for the silk scrolls." (Kingston 120) As Moon Orchid becomes more generous toward the children and family, Brave Orchid becomes more annoyed and angry at them all, believing they are stupid and lazy. This transference makes evident her bitterness toward her present situation.

Shoes from Brave and Moon Orchid's third sister, one of the gifts Moon Orchid brings to the children.

Dead Poets Society

An important theme  this film attempts to convey is the extraordinarily detrimental effect that stifling emotion can have on our psyche, especially in children. In the film, Neil's father Mr. Perry forbids Neil from participating in a play-- A Midsummer Night's Dream-- because Mr. Perry believes it is a waste of time. He also decides to pull Neil out of his preparatory school, the first place he has ever felt passionate. "Tomorrow I am withdrawing you from Welton and enrolling you in Braden military school. you are going to Harvard and you are going to be a doctor." (Anthology 2012, 725) Neil is completely devastated, yet finds that he cannot respond with what he really wants. "But I have to tell you what I think! . . . Tell me. Tell me. . . Nothing? . . . Nothing? then let's go to bed." (Anthology 2012, 725) Neil chooses to shove his emotions into himself because he is so frightened of his father. Since his feelings cannot manifest themselves verbally, they do so physically. In desperation, Neil kills himself with his father's pistol. All because he felt he was never given the chance to decide for himself what made him happy. 

This is similar to one of the student essays we've read. In it, a man named Johnny Lee fins out that he is gay. Rather than being able to express this openly with his parents, they completely reject what he has to say, and condemn him for being evil. "Don't you know what God said about the gay. God HATES the gay. They are all bad. They are all going to hell!" (562) As a result, Johnny alienates himself from his family, and is incredibly distraught by their reactions at his revelation. It is not as violent or final action as suicide, but both are caused an inability to express what they want to their family, and their family's attempts to stifle them. 

  

P2 Final: Language of the soul

Timberwolf

11/21/13

Language of the Soul

[1]

“Without music life would be a mistake.”[2] What a powerful, potent expression. Music is the emotive glue that holds every human being together. It can make us laugh and cry at once for no discernible reason. Music has the power to make us feel.  Each person perceives music differently, but all know how it feels to be affected. We understand when someone describes a piece of music giving them chills or punching them in the gut like bullets piercing Kevlar on an Emotion-Proof Vest. It is universal, yet personal. For these reasons and many others, music is my passion.

            I am a passionate person, and claim a multitude of other obsessions. I’m overwhelmed by the act of learning and the inspired creativity it can enact. The way a person lights up when the significance of a piece of knowledge hits them. Learning is something we all can enjoy, in some shape or form. In this way it is like music. But music is the ultimate, defining passion in my life because it is the purest expression of what passion really is: perfect emotion, wordless communication. It fills the void where words and even knowledge fail. One cannot describe a color in words, but Stevie Ray’s guitar can make me feel as blue or as red or as green as a filtered light in a grimy New Orleans jazz club.

            Although I know that my zealous pursuit of music began at a young age, I cannot trace it back to a specific moment or source. It is an aspect of myself as familiar as an appendage or a cognitive language. In truth, it probably slipped into me around the same time as verbal communication. My parents are music fanatics, their home busting at the seams with song. Rushing through the early, developmental stages of life in this climate, I’m told I would bounce in my Bouncy-Saucer to the beat of whatever song was currently playing.

            One morning when I was four I rode with my father to church. I had recently taken notice of the fact that he was perpetually singing one tune or another. I asked him why, to which he promptly replied, “Well, because I’m happy, bud.” It struck a chord in me, no pun intended. From that point on, music was associated with happiness and happy memories. It took on as well a mystical quality. To a boy, anything his father acknowledges as appreciable is thereafter put on a pedestal. So it was with music.

            Flashes of discombobulated color and noise from my childhood are filled with music. My mother has always loved musicals and classical movies, and thus I was brought up hearing Singin’ in the Rain and Que Sera, Sera from the Man Who Knew too much. My grandfather would sing “You are my Sunshine” to me as a child. I had not connected these recollections to my passion for music until now. Yet I see the significance: music has always held a positive connotation.

             As I grew, musical preferences molded into personal taste. This palate has progressed over time from Screamo in those angst ridden years of preadolescence to the soulful, aggressive blues of Dan Auerbach and Jack White; to the jagged, unrelenting poeticism of Marcus Mumford and the simple honesty of the Avett Brothers and Citizen Cope. Some of these artists inspire me at each listen, while others remind me of painful memories I’d rather forget. Either way, the music remains, imprinted in staves. Certain lines remain red-hot in memory, as well as the lives of their creators. “You don't need anybody to tell you who you are or what you are. You are what you are!”[3]. . . “My music fights against the system that teaches to live and die.”[4]

                                                                                                            

      

[5]

 Bob Marley of course, author of the second quote above.

At some point I realized that while hearing music would leave me awestruck, the creation of it could feed me. It seemed a sin not creating my own interpretations. I sang and eventually picked up guitar, eager to somehow be equal to the musicians I revered. I thought somehow, maybe, that others could be moved by what I created, just as I had been inspired. I daydreamed about one day having a band, how COOL that would be! I wanted to be that front man on stage, kicking out footlights and smashing guitars. Although this dream has not yet come to fruition, I did as much in music as possible while a student. I felt that in some small way my actions could inspire someone. There was an instance, for example, wherein a man who lost his wife to cancer came to me after I had performed in my high school production of Les Miserables. He told me that the finale of that show had given him an image of what he hoped heaven would be like. The experience still gives me chills in recollection. I was so very humbled, to think that a man in such pain could somehow take solace in what we had done.

[6]

Hugh Jackman. He played Jean Valjean in the movie portrayal of Les Mis, and is one of my favorite actors.

I suppose my explanation stands properly, but in the words of Professor J. Gilbert McAllister, “so what? . . . What difference does it make?”[7] What does it matter?  Does any ofit really matter if I don’t use the gifts I have been given to help others? Is this the specific gift bestowed on me for that purpose? Admittedly, to this final question I have no response. I ask myself every day, never any closer to an answer. Of late I have decided that the answer is no. The snarling dogs of reason and logic encircling me, I chose to drop my music major. “I’d never truly make it. I’d end up bitter and unsuccessful, wishing I’d become a lawyer or professor.” This seems sound in reasoning, even still. But then, where has my happiness gone? My cup is no longer full. I debate transferring to Belmont University in Nashville to pursue music and a major in Music Business, longing to be immersed in music again. Could I find something better, or is this my reason for being? Yet, the purpose of this essay is not an existential battle, but the aforementioned question. So what?

            The future that I have always wanted-- desperately so-- has nothing in truth to do with monetary reward or large-scale success. To me, the greatest impact anyone can have on the world is to inspire others. It could be a hundred thousand people, or one. To some the world we live in is arduous, unhappy, and filled with suffering. Yet inspiration can make life glorious. If your actions can move another to trudge one more day through the mire of living, then you have obtained success.

            Bearing this in mind, I feel that there are endless ways I could help people through music. Even without making it my career. For the sake of argument, I will choose to imagine that I make my way into the music industry. In five years, I want to see myself on some sort of stage, be it large or small. The setting is unimportant. I would like to have written music of my own, or possibly to have a group with whom I write. I see myself playing this music in a setting intimate enough for me to connect with an audience. I would love the opportunity to create music with those around me organically. Allowing music to grow from playing together creates something beautiful, and artists such as Bob Dylan were known for coming up with their best records in this fashion. “He just started strummin’ and we jumped in after about two or four bars. . . There’s no overdubbing. There’s no patching up. . . What you heard is what we did.”[8]

To create such a situation would be an attempt to inspire. Playing music for others would become a service. A way for me to give back to others with what gifts I possess. I would not wish to do so for personal vanity, but so that people might be moved by what I or others have written. This also would serve the somewhat selfish notion of helping me answer life’s difficult questions. We are all here, therefore have something to live for. But what I am here to live for? For what purpose was I given life? If I could find the answers, these truths would “set me free”. Art is a way for humanity to do just that, and music especially is an outward cry for answers.

Music is an avenue through which we explore each other and ourselves. It is the bursting forth of those emotions we cannot hope to describe, inspiring us in ways nothing else can. Therefore it would be the greatest achievement to somehow do this with my own music and talents. To leave behind such enduring remembrance of what I stood for could mean that even after I am gone, someone may still be encouraged by what I experienced. That is the torch I would leave behind. A message of compassion and understanding. Life is not easy but it can be beautiful. Just stop and listen.

Who knows if I will amount to these ends? Possibly I will follow a completely separate path. It could be children, a family, and a normal life. Maybe I will become a lawyer or professor in the end. These options seem no less viable, important, or worthy. Certainly they are avenues through which to help and lead others. Music simply brings such helpfulness from another source: different, but no less beneficial to others. No matter what I decide, in my future I will use my life and gifts to make others’ lives a little happier, and a little easier. These ends met, I’ll consider myself a Fortunate Son.

WITH QUOTES: 1773                                        

WITHOUT QUOTES: 1617

---

[1] DMCA, "HD Wallpaper." Last modified 2013. Accessed November 14, 2013. https://webtaj.com/cool-music-14809.html.

[2] Friedrich, Nietzsche. Good Reads Inc., "Quotable Quote." Last modified November 2013. Accessed November 14, 2013. http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/4590-without-music-life-would-be-a-mistake.

[3] Partridge, Elizabeth. John Lennon: All I Want is the truth. New York: Penguin Group, 2005.

[4] Marley, Bob. BrainyQuote.com, "Brainy Quote." Last modified 2013. Accessed November 14, 2013. http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/b/bobmarley383272.html.

[5] Billboard, "Bob Marley." Last modified 2013. Accessed November 14, 2013. http://www.billboard.com/artist/293509/bob-marley.

[6] iamtwixietops, . Baggage Counter, "Les Miserables (Movie Review)." Last modified January 18, 2013. Accessed November 14, 2013. http://www.iamtwixietops.com/2013/01/les-miserables-movie-review.html.

[7] Oliver, Chad. Some Blues for a Trio. Composition and World Literaure. Edited by Jerome Bump. Austin: Jenn's Copy and Binding, 2013.

[8] Howard, Sounes. The Life of Bob Dylan. New York: Grove Press, 2001.

Woman Warrior Part I

This novel by Kingston I have found thus far to be incredibly disturbing. I had always known that woman within the Chinese culture were considered very much second-class citizens. However, I had never realized the depth to which this culture opinion was ingrained, nor that it persisted in such a blatant way even in our "modern" global society. What struck as most particularly enraging was the fact that the narrator's mother seemed to agree with these cultural stigmas even as much as a man. She is portrayed as an extremely intelligent and scholarly woman: a successful medical doctor and midwife. She even comments on the extent to which she has fallen, having come to American. Yet still she persists in adhering to this backward philosophy that, "There's no profit in raising girls. Better to raise gees than girls." (43) Furthermore, she scolds her daughter, the narrator, for her inherent disagreement with these ideals. "Stop that crying! . . . I'm going to hit you if you don't stop. Bad girl!" Doing so quashing any hope the narrator could have at living an enlightened and  empowered life without alienating herself from her parents. In fact, later on in her life the narrator moves far away from her family, so as to distance herself from the hatred she received simply for being a female.

The narrator, however, refuses to allow her family or her culture's ideals of femininity to stifle or affect her. The only response she musters toward such views later in her life is hatred of her very people, and an abhorrence for anything traditionally feminine. "I refused to cook. When I had to wash dishes, I would crack one or two. 'Bad girl,' my mother yelled, and sometimes that made me gloat rather than cry. Isn't a bad girl almost a boy?" (45) As you can see, the hatred she carries for her family is also riddled with a certain jealousy for manhood. She hates the masculine figures surrounding her, such as her uncle, yet is envious of him and her brothers. As a young girl, she imagines that she is a swordswoman, one whom wins honor and glory for herself and family, yet still is allowed to retain her womanhood through wife/motherhood. The kind of annoyance her family employs in regard to her causes a subconscious self-loathing and a longing to break free from the bonds of her life. The traditional role of the female in the Chinese culture simply expects complacent obedience, yet Kingston refused to allow these views to define her. As such she feels she doesn't belong to any one group, neither truly American or Chinese. Yet the bravery and individuality she shows in defying this cultural order, while it does alienate her from culture and family, allows her the self-respect she was never given by another.

The ACTUAL Fa Mu Lan

Sister Mary Ignatius Explains it All for You and Diversity

The character of Sister Mary of in Christopher Durang's Sister Mary Ignatius explains it all for you is particularly apt to our current discussion of diversity. As somewhat obviously alluded to in the title, Sister Mary is a devout Catholic nun. We learn to our horror at the outset of the play about Mary's views, which is staged in the form of a question/answer lecture she is giving to a group: the audience. "What exactly went on in Sodom? Who asked me this question? I'm going to talk about Sodom a bit. To answer your question, Sodom is where they committed acts of homosexuality and bestiality in the Old Testament, and God, infuriated by this, destroyed them all in one fell swoop. Modern day Sodoms are New York City, San Francisco, Amsterdam, Los Angeles,... well, basically anywhere where the population is over 50,000." As one can readily see, Sister Mary has an incredibly. . . unique and specific set of ideals concerning the modern world. She believes that one way of thinking, one lifestyle, is appropriate and innately "right". She allows no room to sway from her "perfect" path, and anyone who does is immediately written off as a sinner who will from thence burn in hell. In fact, she keeps an ongoing list of people whom she believes will end up there. A pupil of her's, Thomas, reads it aloud, the list including men and woman such as Brooke Shields and Mick Jagger. Sister Mary seems to believe that all diversity need be quashed in the hope for a contrite, Christian World of "sinless" behavior. No room is left for anything creative or unique in her quest for salvation. The image of perfection she attempts to instill in her pupils terrifies them all, whom are silenced. She not only destroys any hope the could have of forming a positive religious perspective, but also their ability to become individuals. Her students at that age would resemble Pecola from The Bluest Eye, who finds herself longing for the image of perfection that society has imprinted on her, and unable to defend herself in any way. 

 The effects of her tyrannical teaching is evidenced when a group of Sister Mary's students visit her. Each of the students had her in grade school, and each in turn has his or her own story of how they had been tormented. At the outset, the Sister has no idea of their intentions. The students told her that they were there as a sort of reunion that she herself had requested. They soon ambush her, using the Sister as a source of blame for all of their misdeeds and misfortunes, including rape and spousal abuse. For the latter case, Sister Mary states that his abuses are "venial sins, which can be forgiven with an act of contrition". The others however, whom have had abortions, illegitimate children, or are homosexual, are simply "bad people". Rather than attempting to accept her former students for their different lifestyles, she chooses to label them abominations, thus destroying any hope for catharsis between herself and them.

At the climax of the play, one of the students pulls a gun on Sister Mary. At this point, the audience expects her to either be killed or to have a change of heart in order to save herself. However, she pulls out her own gun from beneath her skirts and shoots the other woman, and the homosexual man for good measure. At one point she even has Thomas hold the gun on another of the group. In Sister Mary's mind, she has not committed an unforgivable sin, as they would only have done further wrong anyway. There is no room in her now openly maniacal mind for other points of view or any lifestyle different from her own. Thus, the play concludes, in utter horror. What we can glean from this in regards to diversity is that it is something we must accept about the nature of humanity. Others will think differently than us, and attempting to block out these views will leave us immovable and bigoted, willing to commit murder to sustain our righteous beliefs. I suppose, in the end, two more deaths add but a small percentage to the longstanding tradition of religion's ability breed violence, in opposition to its very teachings.

The Bob Bullock Museum and Diversity

There were multitudinous exhibits regarding diversity in the Bob Bullock Museum. The first of which struck me was on the topic of woman in Texas gaining the right to vote in elections. On the plaque entitled "Woman Win the Vote", it states that "The Constitution of 1876 banned "idiots, imbeciles, paupers, and felons" were prohibited from woman, and that "Woman. . . were not even mentioned." This struck me as incredible, that woman in the state of Texas at this time weren't even considered on the level of "idiots and imbeciles". However, the woman in Texas did not take this issue lying down, and campaigned for decades for woman's suffrage, to eventual success.

Another exhibit which struck me as interesting was one "All for One and One for All" which talked about LULAC, or "the League of United Latin American Citizens." According to this exhibit, LULAC was "the first nationwide Mexican American civil rights organization." In a state that historically had been extremely racist and conservative, I was inspired by the fact that this organization developed in Corpus Christi. It spoke volumes about the nature of diversity in Texas at the time, who has always been and ever shall be heavily influenced in culture and in population by Mexican and Mexican-Americans. The question remains, however, whether or not we heed the needs of these peoples.

an image of the first held LULAC meeting

A third exhibit which explained most expressly the origins of the sheer volume of diversity in Texas was entitled "A Hundred Origins, One New Hope". The plaque for this small part of the all but labeled "Diversity Area" explained that "'To live well in Texas' was the hope of thousands of immigrants who flocked to Texas . . . seeking economic opportunity and political freedom." Texas at this time was a beacon for the American dream. As such, countless men and woman of all manner of race and religion rushed to the newly prosperous land. Their descendants help to make up the vast numbers of diverse peoples Texas holds within itself.


One exhibit which astounded me was called "Fly Girls in Texas". The plaque accompanying stated that, "Because of a shortage of male pilots, the Woman Airforce Service Pilots (WASPs) was formed in 1943 to ferry military planes, deliver cargo and passengers, and test aircraft." Why do more people not know of this? It happened in Texas for God's sake! I had never known that there were female pilots in the military during WWII, much less that they were trained here. It seems to me that more should know of these unsung heroes, whom in service defended their country with valor to equal their male counterparts. Why is such diversity not talked more of at this time? It is commonly known that woman took up vacant industry, but not that they flew! A still predominantly male profession in the hands of woman at the outset! What a happy thought indeed.