What a Way to End

     Angry Black White Boy ends in a manner that isn't very stereotypical of a book that otherwise follows the hero's journey. I would go as far as to say it is quite the outlier. I've always been an avid reader I have to say of all the books I've read that follow the hero's journey narrative almost none end with the death of the protagonist. More often if there is a death it will be the death of a friend or a love interest. However, I can think of one book in which the protagonist dies at the end and looking back at that book it shares some themes with Angry Black White Boy.
     The first book is called The Midnight Star and it is actually the final book in a trilogy called the young elites. The trilogy begins in a similar way to Angry Black White Boy. While part of this simply has to do with the fact that they both follow the hero's journey, I think it goes a little further than that. The premise of the trilogy is that a plague swept through the nation killing any adult that got it and giving life long markings to any children who survived it. Some of those children then developed powers while others didn't. The ones who did become known as the young elites and the government created an inquisition to find and kill them all. As a result, any child with markings from the plague gets treated horribly by most people. The main character, Adelina, is someone who got the plague and got powers. She ends up joining a group of people like her who seek to overthrow the government and stop the injustice. Thinking about it, the people she joined up with were very similar to Andre and Nique. They were skeptical about her at first but later more or less grew to trust her. Their goals were also similar to Macon and his group's goals with both groups of people wanting to end some form of injustice. While the methods they chose were different I still find it interesting that the pushing force behind those methods was the same.
     It is at this point that I think the similarities really start getting interesting. Like Macon, Adelina goes too far with her goals. Take Macon's Day of Apology as his example. The idea behind it to get white people thinking about their race and the privilege that comes with it was a good idea but he implemented in a way that went too far and didn't accomplish his goal. Adelina ends up completely overthrowing the government and institutes a dictatorship with herself as the leader. Once again the idea of overthrowing a bad government isn't bad but becoming a dictator is going too far. Interestingly part of her process of becoming the dictator was betraying the group she found. I thought this was interesting because it meant that when both Macon and Adelina didn't achieve what they were trying to they betrayed their friends. That brings me back to the last book in the trilogy and what I consider to be the most important similarity. In the stories, both heroes make bad choices and become somewhat of a villain. However, in the end, they both sacrifice themselves to save someone else. Adelina gives up her life in exchange for her sisters and Macon puts his life on the line for Leo. I think that speaks to how books, where the hero makes questionable decisions, can try to redeem the character through self sacrifice.

JackJack Attack

     In the first part of the book, Jack is a hero of sorts. While it is up for debate how much he should be praised for his actions, seeing as he didn't seem to truly understand what he was doing or why he was doing it, he definitely goes through a journey that could be recognized as a traditional hero's journey. He is also a hero using the definition Grant used in A Lesson Before Dying; that a hero is somebody is does something for other people. While Jack is also unaware that he did something for Ma, his birth was very important to her well being. Before he was born she had stopped taking care of herself after a certain point but he gave her a reason to take care of herself again. Once again this brings up the question of whether or not Jack should get credit for something he didn't know he was doing but nonetheless, it is undeniable that he was doing something.
     However, this changes after they escape from Room and the fact that Jack doesn't understand why he had to play dead and get the police has its consequences. This first shows up when the police break into Room and the first thing Jack wants to do is go back to Room with Ma. This shows he fails to understand Room as a malevolent force. This becomes a problem for Ma when Jack keeps wanting to return to Room. There are several occasions when Jack brings up going back to Room and Ma tells him that they are never going back. I think what it comes down to is that Jack thought of Room as his home while Ma thought of it as a prison. While she was in Room Jack helped her, but now that she is out it seems like Jack can't help but remind her about Room. Given that I think Jack had something to do with why Ma tried to commit suicide. However, I would say the interview was more the trigger that caused it and Jack was just a slow burn added to it.

Where to Turn in the Face of Death

     Something that is thoroughly embedded in A Lesson Before Dying is the question of mortality and what can be done when you know death is inevitable. This is an especially important question within the context of Jefferson's situation because not only does he know he is going to die (more so than just the knowledge that everybody dies eventually) he also knows the specific day he is going to die. That means he has a set deadline for himself to get anything he wants to get done or for anything other people want him to get done.
     However, Jefferson is also in a situation where knowing he is going to die is empowers him to some degree at least. Because he lives in a place where barely stepping out of line could easily lead to severe punishment like death his ability to be free to do what he wants or what others want him to do is limited. But, because he is already facing the death penalty this threat has been eliminated because he no longer has to worry about punishments in the sense that he is already facing the harshest of them all. This is why he the the one who needs to step up in the book, not Grant. even though Grant is the one who has the education that allows him to do so. One good example of this is Jefferson's journal. The way he writes about how the sherriff told him to write about how good he treated him seems to undermine itself and allmost makes fun of the sherriff. There is no way Jefferson could have written that if he was just serving a time sentence because there could be severe consequences in the sherriff some how read that. So I think it is just interesting how the person who is in the position of least power, locked in a cell, actually holds the most power of all of them.

Heroic Clowns

      Thursday in class we discussed whether we found the Bundrens to be heroic of clowns. That really got me thinking. Because on the one hand, working as hard as they do to fulfill the wish of their dead mother is an inherently heroic thing to do. And in most other stories that have a parallel to that, it is solely portrayed as a heroic thing. However, in this case, the heroic aspect is undercut by two things. First of all, Addie, who is essentially the one who sent them on this quest, did it simply to get back at Anse for Darl. The other thing that undercuts the heroic aspect of their journey is the way Addie's body is being treated in the progress. Even though it was her wish, ignoring the fact that it is her revenge, they try to complete her wish to a ridiculous degree. At some point, the way her body is being treated should outway her wish. But it never does. The drag her around for days, she floats down a river, is in a burning barn, and more. This failure of accomplishing a heroic goal through effective methods really undercuts their goal.
     That's when I started to think about how often the Bundren's attempted heroics resulted in them becoming clowns because they tried to be too heroic. That isn't to say they don't have their moments in which they are solely portrayed as clowns. Those can be found throughout. One example is when Anse doesn't even remember to bring shovels to dig Addie's grave and they have to borrow some from a family that lives in the town. However, many other moments like that are driven by an urge towards heroism. Take for example the all the shenanigans with getting the new mules for the carriage. Anse is forced to give up his teeth money, Cash's money, and Jewel's horse just to get the mules. All the while he could have just borrowed them but because he thought Addie wouldn't want them to be beholden to anybody he refused to. So I think that the Bundrens are mostly clowns with a heroic goal that gets taken too far (mostly by Anse).

Oh Brother it's the Odyssey

     I'm clearly not making any wild claim here seeing as we have constantly talked about how the movie is based off the Odyssey and the fact that it is is even stated in one of the title cards at the start. That being said I just wanted to go through all of the connections that I saw as well as connections that I wasn't sure about but that I thought might be there. Also fair warning, these might not follow the plot of the movie or the Odyssey because my notes merged the two. 
     First of all, and by far the most obvious, the movie invokes the muse at the start just like the Odyssey. Soon after that, we see the three main characters escaping the chain gang, which I think is supposed to represent Calypso's island. Moving o, the next connection that I noticed was that Wash Hogwallop seemed like Melanthius because just like how Melanthius betrayed Odysseus, Wash betrayed Everett. If that's the case then Everett assumes the role of Odysseus and Pete and Delmar assume the roles of Eumaeus and Philoetius. This makes sense given the way they are portrayed in the movie. That means, assuming that the Soggy Bottom Boys match up with the four who partake in the slaughter of the suitors, that Tommy is Telemachus. Going from there I think that the KKK were the suitors. This makes sense to me for two reasons. First of all, they plan to kill Tommy like the suitors planned to killed Telemachus.  And second of all, when Everett, Pete, and Delmar they are armed qith shields and a spear (the confederate flag) just like how Odysseus and the rest are armed with spears and shields when they go to kill the suitors. Soon after that is the scene when Everett tosses the flag into the air and it heads towards the radio station man. This of course seemed to be referencing the scene where Laertes throws his spear into the air and it kills Eupeithes. 
     After all of that I've got a bunch that don't really connest in any particular way so this is basically just going to be a list. First there is Big Dan Teague who is Polyphemus. He has an eye patch, is bigger that Everett and Delmar, squashes "Pete" and uses a stick like a club. Then there are the three women in the river who are a combination of the Sirens and Circe. The entrance Everett, Pete, and Delmar with their singing like Sirens and turn Pete into toad like how Circe turned Odysseus men into pigs. Then there is Penny, who is Penelope (I don't think the name similarity is an accident) becuase she is the wife of Everett who is the Homer of the story. There is also the guy on the pump trolley who is supposed to be one of the prophets because he issues a prophecy. And last is the cop with the dog and sunglasses. However, I'm not actually sure if he has a counterpart in the Odyssey, I just thought he had a weird emphasis put on his like there was a connection.

Odysseus is a Suitor

     Something that struck me while reading book nine of the Odyssey was how horrible of a person Odysseus could be. There were multiple occasions in the one book where Odysseus did things that most heroes wouldn't have done. For example, when he ends up at the lands of the Cicones he sacks their city, kills their men, and enslaves the women as concubines. The book doesn't suggest that there is any military significance to this so it is just straight up piracy. However, what really seemed weird to me was that they were blown to that land by Zeus and since Odysseus himself said Zeus is on the side of guests, it would suggest that Zeus was trying to make Odysseus's crew guests there. This explains why Zeus was mad at them and why he gave them bad luck in their fight.
     But beyond that, I think it shows something a little more important. It draws a connection between Odysseus, the hero of the story, and the suitors, some of the antagonists of the story. For one, both show up where they don't belong. Odysseus is trying to get to his home but instead ends up at the Cicones and the suitors should probably be at their houses but instead, they are all at Odysseus's house. For two, both commit acts of piracy or similar to piracy. Odysseus raids the town and takes all their wealth while the suitors are at his house taking all of his wealth. And lastly, both try to take the wives of the men who are gone. In Odysseus's case he succeeds and enslaves the women and we see the suitors still trying to convince Penelope to marry them and forget Odysseus. I think it is interesting that so many parallels are drawn especially considering the Telemachus has grown up hating the suitors while wondering who his dad is and it seems like he's going to find out his dad acts basically like the suitors. 

Personal Reflection

     One hero narrative that really has had an impact on me is The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss. The Name of the Wind follows the hero of the story Kvothe, but in a way that is slightly different from most hero narratives. Instead of simply following the hero from the beginning of their journey, The Name of the Wind starts with the Hero's journey already over for Kvothe. He is known as a hero by many people and yet he chooses to hide his identity and live his life as the owner of a tavern. Eventually, a scribe comes to town and convinces Kvothe to tell his story. This results in a dual story where Kvothe is both telling the story of his past while dealing with new problems arising in the present. Something that struck me about that part of the story was that the scribe really had to work hard to convince Kvothe to tell his story. That mixed with the fact that Kvothe was living under the radar despite his hero status was revealing. It showed me that he didn't want to look back because there was some aspect of his journey to becoming a hero that he was ashamed of. And while I certainly am not on some heroic quest it still made me think that whatever I ended up doing I never wanted to look back and hate the choices I made to that degree. 
     Another thing that stood out to me about The Name of the Wind was the fact that Kvothe is seems to be given the chance at redemption. I say seems because the series isn't concluded yet but the build-up suggests that Kvothe will have to once again become some sort of hero. I liked this because it made me think about a sort of comeback story. Like if I dindn't do something right the first time I could always try harder to do better the next time.
     The last thing that really made me think was actually a sort of character in the book. It was basically a demon tree that showed anyone who got close to it a horrible vision of the future. That person would then try with all their might to prevent that future but in the end that would just end up being the cause of the horrible future they saw. I feel like this has really had an impact on what I do, becuase I also don't like to go too far because I often feel like it actually make the problem worse.

Cult

     Something that immediately struck me about Sorry to Bother You was how much WorryFree resembled a cult to me. And yet despite this and the ever increasing backlash against it, ads for it continued to be run on television and billboards stayed up, albeit often with a little touch of graffiti. Not only that but congresspeople are shown celebrating after it is revealed that WorryFree is turning people into horse people. I think the director, Boots Riley, definitely trying to make a point by doing this.
     But first I want to start with what about WorryFree seemed like a cult to me. First of all, their message is extremely suspicious. They claim that they will solve all of your problems if you just join them and sign a lifelong contract that prevents you from leaving. And if that doesn't sound like a cult I don't know what does. Second of all, it is undoubtedly exploiting people. This made me think of a flowchart I saw about whether something is a cult. One of the questions leading up to the answer, "definitely a cult!!", was do people get exploited. And if the answer was "yes but no stuff" then it was a cult. And this is what is happening in the case of WorryFree. Everybody who is signing up is being exploited for their labor and receiving almost nothing in return. Another sequence in that flowchart was the question "is it a cult" and one of the answers was "it's a movement". While nobody every calls WorryFree a movement, the creator, Steve Lift, calls it the future which is eerily similar. The final thing is about Steve Lift. He just looked like a cult leader to me. I don't know what it was but while watching the movie, the first time I saw him, the first thought that popped into my head was, "he looks like the leader of a cult". 
     That brings me to how despite the obvious signs that WorryFree is a cult, the ads continue to be run and people still continue to support it. I think the most revealing scene in that regard is when the congresspeople are shown celebrating with WorryFree when their stocks increase after it comes out they are turning their workers into equisapiens. My best guess is that Boots Riley is trying to criticize how people are willing to do anything for enough money. This also matches pretty well with how Cassius Green is willing to be a power caller despite how horrible it is simply because it pays enough. 

Unreliable Narrator

     Something that I've been thinking about a lot is how trustworthy of a narrator Gunnar Kaufman is.  The main reason I've been asking myself this question is that the narrative voice is Gunnar from the present when he is the messiah and renowned poet. This means that he isn't telling his story as it happens but what he remembers it as. As such it is vulnerable to him altering memories of the past of even interpreting his experience differently than he did at the time. We had a similar discussion about the Narrator in Invisible Man and how we weren't sure whether we could trust him for similar reasons.
     The other reason I have trouble trusting the narrator is it seems like he is embellishing the story to at least some degree. Take for example the scene when he is recounting how he told his story of his entire family tree when he was in elementary school. For one, I find it hard to believe he can remember what happened in elementary school clearly, because I, for one, know that I can hardly remember anything from them. But putting that aside it is still strange. For one he is surprisingly eloquent for his age. I'm pretty sure there was no one at my elementary school who could speak that well and I'm pretty sure I couldn't even now. The other thing about that story is when Gunnar is telling it he uses words most elementary schoolers would use. Just a few examples are quintessential, daguerreotype, and honeysuckle. One other example of something that seems embellished is his introduction to the sport of basketball. However, at the same time, Gunnar in the present has sold 126 million copies of a book of poetry so maybe his childhood isn't as embellished as it seems.

Confusion

     I'll admit the first thing I thought when I read the first page was, "What?" That confusion lasted until class and we had a chance to talk about what happened and clarified who the characters were. While the readings have started making more and more sense to me as we go on there are still some things that trip me up or have tripped me up. So I thought I'd write about what I found to be most confusing about Beloved.
     The part that was the most confusing was definitely the beginning. I think the main reason that it was so confusing is that the book expects the reader to instantly understand the rules of the world within the book. That would be okay if the rules were the same as the real world. But they're not. So you're entered into a world where it is accepted that ghosts are a real thing. Reading a ghost story that you don't know is a ghost story is confusing because you look for a logical explanation for things even if there isn't one. Combine that sense of not knowing what's going on with the confusing names Toni Morrison uses and that makes for a really confusing first chapter.
     After learning that ghosts were real within the context of the novel everything started to make more sense. However, there are still some things that confuse me while I'm reading. The two things that still get me every now and then are whose perspective the book is being told from and what time is the story taking place. The way Morrison writes it, the transition between both the points of view and between the past and the present is hard to notice. This has caused me to have to reread on multiple occasions because I wasn't sure who was talking or when what was going on was going on. A perfect example of this is when Sethe is heading to the place where Baby Suggs used to preach and it keeps switching back and forth between the past and the present. 

Authentic Voice

      While reading Their Eyes Were Watching God something that really stood out to me was the use of African-American vernacular throughout the novel. The characters used in when they were talking and the narrator even slipped into at times. I found this to be one of my favorite aspects of the book and felt as though it added another layer to the book as well.  However, to be honest, I also found it to be one of the most challenging things about the book. I would often have to reread sections of dialogue to make sure I understood what was being said. I would also sometimes read the words as they were written but try to connect them to the "proper words". I felt like that took away from the novel.
      As a result, I was thinking about ways to deal with that problem. The first thing that jumped into my head was an audiobook. I thought it would be awesome to actually hear the dialogue as opposed to just hearing it in your head. So I went and found an audiobook version of Their Eyes Were Watching God and listened to the part of the book where Janie is in the store listening to people on the porch. I must say that I really liked it. The dialogue just seemed so much more natural when I was just listening to it as opposed to reading it. The only problem I had with it was that all of the characters had a similar voice. Even though the reader was changing her voice a little it was just a little off and I thought that having each character have their own unique voice would be even better.
      That made me remember listening to a radio play a few years ago and how each character had their own voice actor. I think that that would be the best way to listen to Their Eyes Were Watching God. Imagine how awesome it would be for each character to have their own recognizable voice. Because of that, I think that a radio play would be one of the best mediums to experience the story through.

Invisible Man Movie

      After watching the movie about Ellison's life and seeing how they adapted some of the scenes from the book into a short movie scene. This raised the question in my mind of what would stand in the way of making a good Invisible Man movie. We have talked about how there isn't one yet and how difficult it would be but not why, so I thought I would try to write down all the reasons I think it would be extremely difficult to do a good job with an Invisible Man movie.
      The most obvious challenge would be dealing with the narrator's thoughts. Something that a book can do that a movie can't is deal with thoughts. This is something I've noticed when watching movies based off of books I like. None of the movies could accomplish the same sense of understanding a character as the book could. The only movie I can think of that did an okay job was The Martian, but that was accomplished because Mark Watney was alone on Mars. The same thing wouldn't work for Invisible Man. The one thing I can think of that seemed to successfully provided a character's thoughts  is The End of the F***ing World. It lets the watcher understand what the main character is thinking by having him narrate over video that doesn't necessarily match with what he is talking about. However, this also wouldn't work for Invisible Man because The End of the F***ing World is a comedy and the narration aspect is designed to add to that and Invisible Man is not a comedy by any means.
      The other big challenge in creating an Invisible Man movie would be dealing with the fact that the narrator is never described and we never learn his name. For one, not having a description means that it would be hard to pick an actor to play him because nobody looks like him. Giving him a face also takes away from the sense of mystery that surrounds him which would make the movie worse. The other problem is that the reader never learns the name of the narrator but there are several times when Ellison writes someone saying his name. For example, "The boy read my name off a card." While it would be possible to simply omit those scenes it would change some aspects of the book.
      I think that along with how difficult it would be to correctly depict the dreamlike portions of this book, these challenges would make it impossible to make an Invisible Man movie that is the same quality as the book.

Different Chains

Early on in the book, Bledsoe pulls out an old leg shackle and calls it a "symbol of our progress". Later in the book, we see a very similar scene except for that time, it is the narrator who has a different leg shackle on his desk. As such, I think it would be interesting to compare the scenes, looking at the chains themselves and what is done with them and considering the implications of those differences.
When looking back over the scene with Bledsoe and his chain, the first thing that jumped out to me was that he kept the chain out of sight. In fact, he keeps it buried under a pile of papers as is shown when Wright writes, "Suddenly he reached for something beneath a pile of paper, an old leg shackle". On the other hand, the narrator leaves the shackle he has out in the open on top of his desk. This, of course, draws connections between the narrator and Bledsoe. Most importantly it highlights a key difference between the two in what they do with the chain. However, despite the fact that Bledsoe hides the chain and the narrator leaves it in the open they seem to believe that it represents the same thing: progress. After all, the narrator says, "But I think it's a good reminder of what our movement is fighting against" which is very similar to Bledsoe calling the shackle a "symbol of our progress". As such I think Bledsoe choosing to hide the chain is just like him choosing to wear his mask around people like Norton. On the other hand, the narrator leaves his shackle on his desk because he still hasn't learned to wear a mask. As a result, we get the reaction from Brother Wrestrum which is a reaction that I would imagine Norton having if he saw the chain of Bledsoe's desk.
Which brings me to another point. The Brotherhood seems to be a different version of the college. For one, they are both focused on educating people but only in the sense that they want people to follow a specific set of ideas. Another reason is they both are mainly run by white men. The college has the founders and the Brotherhood has all of the brothers, most of whom are white.  The final is that both have a Bledsoe character. The college actually has Bledsoe but the Brotherhood has the narrator who fills a similar role. Bledsoe claimed that he was truly the one running the college and we are able to see that it was truly the narrator running the Brotherhood in Harlem because when he leaves it falls apart. As such, while the narrator has made progress, he has still ended up in a situation similar to the one he was in in college, if not just a little higher up in the system. 

Metamorphasis

The start of chapter fifteen is eerily similar to the start of The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka. The Metamorphosis starts with, "One morning, as Gregor Samsa was waking up from anxious dreams, he discovered that in bed he had been changed into a monstrous verminous bug." Looking at the start of chapter fifteen the reader can draw several similarities. For one, chapter fifteen starts with the narrator being woken up suddenly by a loud noise. While Gregor wasn't woken upon by a loud noise, he was woken up by "anxious dreams", which seems to mean a nightmare. And in my experience, a nightmare wakes you up suddenly as well. 
Another similarity is that they both wake up and have an itch. Gregor had an itch on his abdomen that was caused by some white spots and the narrator has the old grey skin that's making him itch. Yet another similarity is that they are both in a hurry. Gregor slept past him alarm and is going to be late for work and the narrator says, "I'd have to hurry. There was a lot of shopping to do". The last sort of connection is that Mary and the narrator see and try to kill some cockroaches. While it isn't positive that Gregor turned into a cockroach, the implications in The Metamorphosis makes me believe that Gregor did become a cockroach. As such, the scene where they try to kill the cockroaches made me think of when Gregor's dad tried to kill him.
While many of these similarities could be pure coincidence, chapter fifteen still has its own metamorphosis of sorts. Even though it isn't nearly as drastic as turning into a giant cockroach, the narrator has made a sudden change overnight. The reason we can tell is because the narrator notices the racist statue for the first time. While this might not seem like much, it shows definite change since the narrator hadn't noticed the statue before, not even that night before he went to sleep. The other metamorphosis sort of thing in the chapter is the scratching away the old skin part. That part made me think of a something like a snake that sheds its old skin. So in a way, the start of chapter fifteen showed the narrator shedding at least a part of his old self.

Invisible Bigger

The narrator of The Invisible Man is clearly "invisible", seeing as he states so himself at the very start of the book by saying, "I am an invisible man". And he clearly doesn't mean it in the sense he is unable to be seen because he clarifies by saying, "No, I am not a spook like those who haunted Edgar Allan Poe; nor am I one of your Hollywood-movie ectoplasms". So the question is why is he invisible? As he puts it, "they see only my surroundings, themselves, or figments of their imagination -- indeed, everything and anything except me." What this means is that when people look at him they see a generalization of someone who is African-American, instead of an actual individual person. So what he means by being invisible is actually just hiding behind the fact that people see him as a generalization and therefore don't identify him in their minds as a person. This is shown when the narrator is taking to Norton and Norton refers to the narrator as a cog, showing him he thinks of him as no different from the rest of the students.
Bigger is invisible in the same way. With the exception of Max and Jan, most white people in the book fail to see him as his own person. For example. Dalton sees Bigger as just another African-American he's helped just like how Norton views the narrator. Another example is how during the search for Bigger the mob rounds up lots of other people like him even though they have a picture of him. This is similar to when the narrator beats the man up and the man claims he was mugged just because it fit convention. Another thing to consider about Bigger is that he is written to be invisible. An important part of Native Son was how Bigger was defined by environment more than he was by his actions. So in a way Bigger is meant to be invisible to the reader so that we can look past his character and more at the environment which Wright is trying to criticize.

Powerful Paranoia

Something core to most conspiracy theories is questioning he normality of an event. That being, is something that happened just a coincidence that isn't very unlikely, or does it have some aspect of abnormality to it and as such is of more importance. DeLillo plays around with this idea in several situations. The first time DeLillo brings something like this up is during a Nicholas Branch scene where he is looking at the deaths among those associated with Lee Harvey Oswald or Jack Ruby. DeLillo starts out the scene by writing, "Somewhere in his room of theories, in some notebook or folder, Nicholas Branch has a roster of the dead. A printout of the names of witnesses, informers, investigators, people linked to Lee H. Oswald, people linked to Jack Ruby, all conveniently and suggestively dead. In 1979 a House select committee determined there was nothing statistically abnormal about the death rate among those who were connected in some way to the events of November 22. Branch accepts this as an actuarial fact. He is writing a history, not a study of the ways in which people succumb to paranoia. There is endless suggestiveness." What this does is try to shut down the idea that there was anything strange about the death rates. I find that interesting because Libra is a conspiracy novel, so it shutting down something like that seems counter-intuitive. Still, DeLillo goes on supporting the fact that they weren't anything special by talking about the methods of killing and how they were completely unconnected. My question is, why would DeLillo, after showing how these killing are normal, go on to give details about each one, in a say similar to someone trying to make something of them would? And I think the reason he does so is to show how easily the human mind makes patterns and jumps into paranoia about certain things. Even after he explained that there wasn't anything statistically off, when I read the part where he describes several of the deaths, I can't help by be suspicious. My mind automatically makes the connections and says that there is something going on even though I know there isn't really.
DeLillo also brings up some coincidences during a scene with Lee and Ferries. During that scene he portrays the coincidences as exactly that, just coincidences, and shows how David Ferrie uses them to manipulate Lee. By doing this he is once again saying that these coincidences people point to aren't really all that odd, but at the same time is pointing out the coincidences as if to say, "still it seems like there us something strange about that doesn't it?" This once again shows how we really can't help connecting certain things.

George de Mohrenschildt

Of all of the characters in the book, the strange and interesting ones seem to be the people that DeLillo isn't making up. So I thought I would do a little research on George de Mohrenschildt who seemed to be the most interesting of all of the real characters. As DeLillo describes him he is an international man of intrigue like Lawrence Parmenter but is real. As DeLillo writes George de Mohrenschildt was
A charming and worldly man able to converse fluently in Russian, English, French, Spanish, probably Togo as well, or whatever they spoke in Togoland.  Larry liked the man. He’d known him for some years and was aware that George had been debriefed by the Agency after several trips abroad. But even though their business interests had overlapped once or twice, he wasn’t sure quite what George’s racket was.
This leaves this air of mystery around him because we don't actually find out what he really does for a living. DelLillo also writes,
But his marriages didn’t explain his apparent association with Nazis in World War II, his apparent ties to Polish and French intelligence, his expulsion from Mexico, his apparent communist leanings when he was at the University of Texas, his Soviet contacts in Venezuela, the discrepancies in his stated history, his travels in West Africa, Central America, Yugoslavia and Cuba.
While I was reading this I wondered how much was true, so I did some research. I found that there were in fact rumors that he had ties to foreign intelligence and that he admitted he had ties to French intelligence. I also found that he was born in Mozyr, Russia and was part of the Dallas Russian community that had shunned Lee because of his background. I also found that there were, in fact, allegations of Nazi activity on his part. Crazily enough he also did get kicked out of Mexico. According to him it was might have been because General Maxino Camacho of the Mexican Army, was jealous of his relationship with Lilia Larin, a Mexican citizen he met and fell in love with.
I found various other things that match with DeLillo's short summary of what he has done and I must say I was expecting at least some of it to be made up.

Playing a Character?

In Kindred, Dana has talked about how she and Kevin are just playing characters and aren't actually a part of what is going on many times. In class, we also talked about how she is pretending to be someone she isn't and that she understands that. An example of this is when Dana says, "we humored the people around us by pretending to be like them. But we were poor actors. We never really got into our roles.We never forgot that we were acting" (Butler 98).  This shows that while they are playing characters they are still separate from their characters. This becomes apparent in this scene that followed when Dana talks to Kevin about what is wrong with the game the children are playing and even says that she breaks character herself. But at the same time, the understanding that she is playing a character enough to separate her from her character. This is true both mentally and physically. Take, for example, the scene where Tom Weylin sees Dana leaving Kevin's room in the morning. Even though Dana knows that there is nothing shameful about what happened in her time, Weylin is able to make her feel ashamed because of the character she is playing. But on the other hand, Dana is still susceptible to physical threats and pain because even though she is acting, the consequences are all too real. This becomes apparent at the start when the patroller tries to rape her and continues through the book. These difference to Dana just being an actor made me think of a book I read several years ago. It was about a detective who went undercover as a girl who had been murdered (because she looked very similar) to try to find out who murdered the girl. During the book, the detective knew she was playing a role but was still in danger. I think that that is a better analogy to Dana's situation. She isn't an actor as much as she is an undercover detective.

Unclimactic War

There is no question that the goal of the Slaughterhouse-Five is for it to act as an anti-war novel. The narrator himself promises that it will be when he is talking to Mary in chapter one. He makes his promise by saying, "I give you my word of honor: there won't be a part for Frank Sinatra or John Wayne" (Vonnegut 19). What he is saying is that the story isn't going to be about the "glory" of war but instead about the inherent truth. But that raises the question is it possible to write an anti-war book? That question has to be asked because of so many movies and novels that show war as a glorious thing.
But despite that, Vonnegut definitely succeeds in making Slaughterhouse-Five an anti-war novel. To do so he uses several techniques that make the novel incredibly anti-climactic and makes the reader feel uninvolved. He does this by making Billy Pilgrim the epitome of a horrible soldier. He writes it so that Billy is seen as a joke, often because he acts like one. He picks out the most ridiculous jacket, he puts on silver boots from a play and even gets asked if he is trying to make a joke. When combined with the way Billy acts disconnected from everything around him, for example, smiling at the weirdest times, the war-like scenes in the war don't seem exciting. An example of this is the scene where the two scout gets shot. While there is action going on, the tone of the book and the straightforward way it was narrated was able to make the scene not interesting in terms of action.
Another strategy he uses is irony. The book is absolutely full of irony and most of it is built around the same idea: those that are ready for the war and want to live, tend to die, while Billy who is not prepared whatsoever and makes no discernable attempts to stay alive continues to live. Once again a perfect example is the scene when the two scout gets shot. The two scouts who know what they are doing get shot and die but Billy somehow makes it out alive. What this does is show that war isn't a chance to prove yourself at all. You can prepare all you want but when it comes done to it the nature of war is so brutal that it doesn't matter.
Another thing Vonnegut does is using soldiers that don't match the stereotype used in typical war movies and books. Instead he follows up on his promise to Mary and portrays the soldiers as children and other people who don't want to be there. By making the soldiers in the war children like Roland Weary and Werner Gluck, or farmers like the soldiers that found Billy and Roland, or teachers like Edgar Derby, Vonnegut creates absolutely no character that would be played by Frank Sinatra or John Wayne. This shows that wars weren't actually entirely fought by people who were seeking honor and glory and instead shows the hard truth.

The Sun Also Rises Through Reed Glasses

In class, we talked about what we thought the world would look like today if we thought about it in the context of the atonists and Jes Grew. We talked about how the Black Lives Matter movement could be seen as the black empowerment part of Jes Grew. We also talked about how academia had become much more atonist. Overall, I thought that the discussion was very interesting. But something during the not so brief recap of the entire known history of Jes Grew caught my attention. Reed writes,  "When he heard of this, old Set ordered the murder of the Bulls and being a particularly mean cuss, ordered that they be tortured 1st. (This led to the sport that the American writer Ernest Hemingway took such delight in)" (Reed 167). This, of course, reminded me of The Sun Also Rises and made me wonder what it would look like if I thought about it in the context of Mumbo Jumbo. As I was skimming through the book to help refresh my memory I noticed how atonist the book seemed so it made sense that Reed referenced it. For example, there is the romanticization of the Basques. But thinking about history in the context of Mumbo Jumbo, The Sun Also Rises could have been an Atonist novel similar to how Harding could have been an Atonist puppet even though his slogan, "a return to normalcy", wasn't in reference to Jes Grew.
Since the overall plot of The Sun Also Rises is clearly Atonist, I decided to try to look at some of the main characters and judge where I think they would land on a scale from Hinckle Von Vamptom to Papa Labas. I started with Jake and decided he would land towards Hinckle Von Vampton simply because he is quite racist and homophobic and is one of the biggest fans of the bullfighting . For example, he makes fun of an African- American's speech and is called an aficionado. As for Bill he is around the same as Jake but is a little more outwardly so. Then there is Brett. Unlike the other two, she isn't racist or homophobic. She even defends some people from Jakes at times and seems involved in the culture in France. However, she doesn't really respect the culture in Spain. As such she is more towards the upper-middle of the scale. As for Cohn, I don't really know where he would fit because his role in the novel was mostly related to Brett.