Earnest

Physical journeys in novels are the ultimate adventure stories. From Homer's Odyssey across the Mediterranean fighting mythological beasts, to Jack Kerouac's On the Road featuring a beatnik trek along the highways of America, a physical journey can be used to create the most enthralling tales. In The Importance of Being Earnest however, the physical journey is not used to tell the story of an adventure or spiritual journey, but as a means for the characters to work their way around the social norms of the Victorian era.

The Importance of Being Earnest is a social commentary on the norms of 19th century England. Throughout the play the trivialities and social nuances of the time are satirized and exaggerated; being exposed as vain and stupid. The characters physical movement alternates between two general places the "town" and the "country". The people living in either area were largely ignorant to the goings on in the other, so taking advantage of this ignorance Algernon and Jack both develop alter egos as "Bunbury" and "Ernest" respectively. Algernon uses Bunbury as a means of avoiding social situations that displease him, whilst Jack does the same with Ernest, he often leaves the country for the town proclaiming that he has to tend to his black sheep of a brother that he has to worry about. This in of itself is a criticism of Victorian morals. They are so stifling to both Jack and Algernon that they are forced to create different personas just to live their lives as they please. 

This "journey" that exists between the town and the country creates some comedic situations as the play progresses. Jack claims in Act II that his brother Ernest has in fact died in Paris from "severe chill", yet Algernon later arrives pretending to be Ernest himself. Eventually both men are found out to be frauds. The physical journey and how the two male characters used the ignorance associated with the travel (or lack thereof) of information is an important factor in their bids for marriage - which are not based on love but rather prestige and status. That is ultimately Oscar Wilde's critique of the society and distance plays a large role in that. 

Two Poems

The first poem I chose was "Riddle"(238. pg 300). Riddle is a pretty straight forward poem asking us "Who killed the Jews?" the poem recalls the holocaust and uses it's refrain to ask a rhetorical question as to who is to blame for the genocide. The poem points out how Germans in the time period all claimed to have no direct involvement with the holocaust itself and the killing of the Jews. However, the poem lists the various things that people had done during the time that lays the blame on all of them in an equal manner. "and some had planted the wheat, and some poured the steel, and some cleared the rails, ... Who killed the Jews?" It uses repetition in multiple stanzas to emphasize and drive home the fact that so many people didn't want to garner blame for the horrific deeds of the Holocaust but as with all rhetorical questions the questions "Who killed the Jews" implies that in pouring the steel or laying the wheat all of the German people have to accept some sort of blame for what went on.

I agree with the poet in some respects that all of these people have something to own up to in a way, and that few Germans were really rushing to save the Jews and rather carried on in assisting a regime (albeit indirectly) in the mass killing. It seems that the poet is critical of people like Albert Speer who were "just doing their job" yet helping to arm Hitler's forces- who betrayed their conscience to adhere to an immoral authority. However even with that I think that some common folk who were just "clearing the rails" or "raising the cattle" really had much of a choice when it meant that or survival.

 The second poem I analyzed was "The warden said to me" (250. pg311). I chose this poem because it is straightforward, short and sweet. Magnificent to the English student. Ok, well this one has an easy meaning. A man is in jail and he asked by his warden why the Black prisoners don't run away from jail like the white one's do. The prisoner answers "...we ain't got no wheres to run to." This is obviously Alluding to the fact that pre-civil rights America was essentially a prison for African-Americans, as their rights were limited in ever aspect of their lives. So, being in jail or being "free" wasn't much of a difference for them. The line "innocently, I think," is repeated twice before the two characters in the poem speak. I think this just emphasizes the fact that neither of these characters feel much animosity towards one another but more of a general frankness and perhaps even the beginnings of empathy in the warden (Who's inital question to the prisoner is an interesting thing to ask given their setting.).

I like this poem. It's straightforward and get's to the point. I'm kind of a fan of John Steinbeck so I appreciate colloquial diction like "suh" and "got no wheres" + "why come". I feel like it just gives you a much better feel for the setting in a poem, and helps illuminate the time period and the relationship between the two guys.

My thoughts on "We"

Alright, for my first marking period post I'm just gonna say a little something about We and One State. I liked the book. Dystopia can be an extremely boring repetitive genre of literature in general but We really hit me in the brain chords. Actually made me think about society for a minute or two. Not to mention We is pretty much the great grand-pappy of all these other little piglet dystopia novels running about acting like their cool. I swear to god, Brave New World is literally We with drugs, Henry Ford, and punctual Englishmen. George Orwell literally read We a few months before he wrote his much more famous novel 1984, and out right stated he was using it as "a model".  I could probably write my own dystopia novel in a jiffy. All you need is Communism, adventurous (I'm not like everyone else; ahh!) protagonist, and a dash of futuristic technology and you're good to go!

Back to the subject at hand. I think One State is a good thing. Seriously. I shall hereby dedicate my URL to this notion!

First of all, Yevgeny Zamyatin was inspired to write We after seeing the Russian Revolution. Yevgeny got all frightened his rights were at stake, so he went and wrote a book about it.(Or maybe he was just reading too much Wells)  Lots of folks get scared of the big bad Soviet Union and write books about it (see above); When in all reality, The Soviet Union was the first Russian state to actually utilize the countries vast resources, and in a matter of years, transformed a wayward half-feudal state with Serfs, nobles and czars,  into the world's second largest superpower!  Say what you will about the evils of Communism and Stalin and the like but hey, results can't be ignored. Each place needs a different solution. Not every country can adopt America's great free market capitalist system and be super duper well off...... Just ask the third world.

Rooted fundamentally in the fabric of One State is the greater good and logic. The individual not having any rights in One State isn't because One State is pure evil, it is because the individual is sacrificed for the good of the collective. I think that is a fundamentally good idea. One State doesn't operate on the basis of individual needs, selfishness, or any other petty human emotion. One State operates on the basis of pure efficiency.

Now let's take One State and do a little compare contrast with our society today. The United States is a financial mess, the democratic bodies such as Congress and the like are in a state of total inaction, Special interest groups and billionaires use their economic clout to control the nation's decisions - whilst they accumulate enough money to feed the third world 10 times over. And they are all protected by the sanctity of "individual rights". Individual rights, which protects the billionaires who own this country while the poor starve. Individual rights, which gives the banks free reign on all property in America.  Couple these rights with Democracy and you've got this huge, inefficient mess where very few prosper and billions live in poverty, globally.

This is our perfect system of governance. The capitalist "democracy". It isn't a Republican or a Democrat problem. The problem is rooted much, much deeper than that. Any alternatives to our glorious system is dismissed as Communism or Fascism; which are really nothing more but buzzwords at this point to scare people.

Now take One State. With Individual rights eliminated, there is only the will of the collective. No one man rises above to dominate his peers. No one man manipulates society for his own gain. Everyone works for each other, and by extension for themselves. All as one. Sounds zen to me. One State is governed by pure mathematical reason; as opposed to America which is governed by who has the biggest coin purse, and what number of idiots decided to vote for their favorite millionaire. One State is fluid motion, America is diffuse confusion.

Of course someone would naturally say, "What about Free Will? Everyone's turned to a machine in One State! No freedom! It's inhuman!" I'll respond to this very realistic looking straw man I've created with this: Do you really want to be human? There I said it. I don't know if you've noticed this but being human sucks! Emotions always running through your head, bad decisions, general irrationality, uncontrollable impulses and desires. If you stop and think about all that stuff logically, being human is really restricting. To think with the clarity of a machine.. to act with perfect reasoning.. That is transcending your humanity. It's becoming something more. Just look at D-503. Everything was cool 'till he became human. He was happy. He had freedom FROM worry, irrationality and all those unsavory things. Then he let all that stuff creep back in and BAM life sucked.  Having your humanity torn from you isn't slavery.. It's liberation.

Welp there's my thoughts. Hope it wasn't too preachy.

hi