So I’m a little wary of writing in first person because I’ve always been told to never write anything for school in first person. It’s like the golden rule for teachers, but I have decided it’s time. This blog will be shorter than my others which could be a good or bad thing depending on how you look at it. So here it is, my first blog written in first person! Enjoy!

 Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston is often renowned for Hurston’s distinctive use of language, predominantly her mastery of rural Southern black dialect. She uses a remarkable narrative structure throughout the novel. She splits the presentation of the story between extraordinary literary narration and native dialogue. Her long passages of dialogue celebrate the traditionally rich black voices of Janie’s world. These voices are matchless in American literature and their distinctive vocabulary, grammar and tone mark their individuality.

Janie’s quest to find her voice parallels that of Hurston’s use of language. This novel deals greatly with find one’s voice. Jody suppresses Janie’ speech when he stops her from talking after he was named mayor. I believe her hatred for him comes from him silencing her individuality. On the other hand, Tea Cake welcomes her speech by talking with her and putting each of them on equal terms. Her love for him stems from his respect for her individuality. Tea Cake and Jody are similar in that they both have strong personalities and I believe both loved her but in different ways for different reasons. Tea Cake’s love for her build her up, gave her confidence and the foundation to find her true self, whereas Judy knocked her down, keeping her quiet and constantly in his shadow. She was never alone be her own person with Judy, Tea Cake picked her up and set her on level ground with himself.

Now that she has regained her self-worth, she discovers her ability to define herself through her speech and communication with others. She also finds that silence can be a source of empowerment and she learns to control her voice instead of others being in control. I think this concept is best seen when the both the narrator and Janie are silent, neither revealing why Janie isn’t upset with Tea Cake’s actions at the trail. Throughout this whole novel, Hurston lays a massive amount of emphasis on the control of language as a source of identity and empowerment.

Corruption of Power Through Unchecked Ambition

The play begins with a fleeting appearance of three witches and then jumps to a military camp, where King Duncan of Scotland is informed that his generals, Macbeth and Banquo, have conquered two separate invading armies. Following their battle with these enemy forces, Macbeth and Banquo come across the witches. The witches prophesize that Macbeth will become the thane of Cawdor and later the King of Scotland. The witches also foretell that Banquo will never be king himself but one day his heir will be and a line of Scottish kings will be created. The witches quickly vanish leaving the two men confused and skeptical. Then some of King Doncan’s men come to show gratitude to the generals for their victories and to inform Macbeth that he has been named to new thane of Cawdor after the last one betrayed the king and allied himself with the enemy.  Macbeth, now interested in the possible truth of the rest of the witches’ prophecy,  goes to King Duncan and they plan to have dinner together that night at Macbeth’s castle, Inverness. Macbeth writes to his wife, Lady Macbeth, and informs her of his good news.

Lady Macbeth is instantly driven by the desire for power. She craves the kingship for her husband and decides that he should murder Duncan to speed up the process. When Macbeth comes home, she convinces him that he must kill the king that night. They plan to get the chamberlains so drunk they won’t be able to remember that night, and then they can be blamed for the murder of the king. That night while Duncan is asleep, Macbeth stabs him to death. The next morning when the King’s death is “discovered”, Macbeth kills the chamberlain; supposedly out of rage at their crime. Macbeth then easily assumes the throne. Doncan’s sons escape to England and Ireland, fearing their deaths could be next.

Macbeth soon remembers the witches’ prophecy about Banquo and he hires hit men to kill Banquo and his son, Fleance. Banquo is murdered but Fleance is able to escape. Macbeth is furious because as long as Fleance is alive, Macbeth’s place on the throne is not secure. At a feast that night, Macbeth is visited by Banquo’s ghost. Macbeth babbles fearfully, which later leads to a greater increase in the nobles and subjects’ resistance against him and his rule. Lady Macbeth tries to do damage control, but Macbeth is so frightened that he goes to the witches’ cavern. They tell him to beware of Macduff, a Scottish nobleman who was against Macbeth’s ascension to the throne. However, Macbeth is also told that he cannot be harmed by any man born of a woman and he will be safe until the Birnam Wood comes to Dunsinane Castle. Macbeth is relieved and confident that he is secure.  When Macebth learns that Macduff has left for England to join Malcom, he orders Macduff’s castle to be seized and Lady Macduff and her children to be killed.

Macduff is tormented with grief and promises revenge. Prince Malcolm, Duncan’s son, and Macduff ride to Scotland with their army to challenge Macbeth’s forces. Meanwhile, Lady Macbeth has become hunted with the idea that she has bloodstains on her hands. Right before the arrival of Macbeth’s adversaries, he is informed that his wife, Lady Macbeth, has taken her own life. Macbeth is crushed and sinks into despair. He holds on the certainty in the witches’ prophecies that guaranteed his invincibility that is until he sees English army is shielded with boughs cut from the Birnam Wood. The Birnam Wood has come to the castle and the witches’ predictions are coming true again.

In the battle, Macbeth fights viciously but it’s not enough; he and his army are overcome. On the field Macbeth encounters Macduff, who declares that he is not “of woman born” but was ripped from his mother’s womb (cesarean section). Macbeth realizes he is doomed, but continues to fight until Macduff kills and beheads him.

One of the main themes of Macbeth is the destruction formed when ambition goes unrestricted by moral limitations. It is clearly expressed through the play’s two main characters.  Macbeth is a courageous general who would not normally commit evil deeds; however he deeply craves power and advancement. His wife convinces him to kill Duncan and against his better judgment and he does. Afterwards, he is trapped in guilt and paranoia. Throughout the play, he makes more and more choices in favor of his desire for power but each is farther for any type of moral constriction. At the end of the play, he has descended into an agitated, big-headed madness.    Lady Macbeth, in contrast, goes after her goals with more determination, but she is less adept to withstand the outcomes of her corrupt acts. She is one of Shakespeare’s most forcefully drawn female characters; she provokes her husband ruthlessly to kill Duncan and then urges his to be resilient in the murders aftermath but she is ultimately driven to her own death as a result of Macbeth’s constant bloodshed on her conscience.   In each circumstance, ambition – though helped by the damaging prophecies from the witches – is what motivates the couple toward more and more appalling atrocities. The lesson to be learned here is that once one decides to use violence to promote one’s search for power, it is nearly impossible to stop.                                       

The American Dream

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald gives a behind the scenes look into the lives of a small group of people living the 1920’s. Fitzgerald tells the story through a young man named Nick Carraway. Nick moves to New York in the summer of 1922. He rents a house in the West Egg district of Long Island. This area is populated by the “new rich”, a group who have made their money too recently to have built social connections. These people are prone to to show garish displays of wealth. Nick’s neighbor is a man named Jay Gatsby. He is very mysterious and lives in a huge Gothic mansion, in which every Saturday he throws an extravagant party.

Unlike the other people of West Egg, Nick attended Yale and has social connections in East Egg, a more classy area of Long Island home to the conventional upper class. Nicks goes to East Egg to have dinner with his cousin, Daisy Buchanan and her husband, Tom, who was a classmate of Nick’s at Yale. Tom and Daisy introduce Nick to Jordan Baker, a beautiful young woman.  They begin a romantic relationship. Soon Nick learns from Jordan that Tom has a lover, Myrtle Wilson. She lives in the Valley of Ashes, which is an industrial dumping ground between West Egg and New York City. Not long after this discovery Nick travels to New York with Tom and Myrtle, where Tom keeps an apartment there specifically for the affair.  While there at the apartment, Myrtle begins to taunt tom about Daisy. Tom losses it and breaks her nose.                                                                                                                                

Later into the summer, Nick is invited to one of Gatsby famous parties. When he meets Gatsby, Nick is surprised to see a charming young man with an English accent, who calls everyone “old sport”. Nick learns through Jordan that Gatsby knew Daisy in Louisville and fell deeply in love with her and still is in love with her. Nick is asked by Gatsby to arrange a meeting so he and Daisy can reconnect. After what started to be an awkward reunion, they reestablished their connection and their affair began.

After only a short time, Tom becomes increasingly suspicious of Daisy and Gatsby’s relationship. At a luncheon, Tom realizes that Gatsby loves Daisy. He is deeply outraged even though, he too is involved in an affair of his own.  He forces that whole group to take a drive into New York City. Tom confronts Gatsby in a suite at the Plaza and then tells his wife that Gatsby is a criminal; his self-made fortune having come from  bootlegging alcohol and other illegal activities.  Daisy chooses Tom over Gatsby but then Tom forces Daisy to drive home with Gatsby, possibly attempting to prove that Gatsby can’t hurt him.

When Tom, Nick and Jordan drive through the valley of ashes on their way home, they discover that Gatsby’s car has hit and killed Myrtle. They rush back to Long Island and Nick learns from Gatsby that Daisy had been driving when Myrtle was hit. Gatsby loves Daisy so much; he intends to take to blame. The next day Tom tells George, Myrtle’s husband, that Gatsby was driving the car. George concludes that whoever was driving the car must have been Daisy’s lover. He goes to Gatsby’s house and finds Gatsby in his pool. George fatally shoots Gatsby, and then turns the gun on himself.

Nick holds a small funeral for Gatsby. He then ends his relationship with Jordan and moves back to the Midwest to escape the disgust he feels for the people who surrounded Gatsby’s life and the repulsion he feels for the emptiness and decay of all morals in the lives of the wealthy. Nick reveals that just as Gatsby’s dream of loving Daisy was corrupted by money and dishonestly, so has the American dream been corrupted by the pursuit of wealth. Even though Gatsby was able to transform his dream into reality, the era of dreaming, both Gatsby’s and the American dream, is over.

The American dream was all about discovery, individualism and the pursuit of happiness. However, in this novel, it is corrupted by easy money and the absence of social values. Gatsby’s dream of loving Daisy was first ruined by their differing social classes. He then resorts to crime to make enough money to elevate his social standings to impress her.

Americans give meaning to America through their dreams. Similarly, Gatsby infuses Daisy with an idealized perfection that she neither possesses nor really reserves. Gatsby’s dream is dashed by the unworthiness of its object, just as the American dream is ruined but the unworthiness of its object, which would be the pleasure and money. Gatsby longs to re-create the past- his time with Daisy in Louisville- but just as the 1920s Americans fruitlessly seek an era in which their dreams still have value, he is incapable of doing so. When Gatsby’s dream collapses and he is killed, all Nick can do is move back to Minnesota where American values have not been lost.

A Feminine Perry Smith

            In Cold Blood by Truman Capote is about two men who murder a family in cold blood. Dick Hickock is a stubborn, bombastic, “real masculine type”, smooth talking petty criminal; whereas Perry Smith is sensitive, thoughtful, creative and high intelligent. These two opposing personalities create an image of the stereotypical male and female roles but with two men instead of a man and a woman.

The first scene of Perry is with a guitar and a set of road maps. The guitar appears to function as an image and symbol of femininity. It is later mentioned that Dick feels “totally masculine” when around Perry which is one of the key traits that attracts Dick to Perry. In another scene, the contents of the criminal’s car are examined. Perry’s main possession is the guitar and Dick’s is a twelve gauge pump-action shotgun. Perry is seen as artist, sensitive and intelligent and his possessions mirror this. Dick on the other hand is bombastic and very masculine type of person.  Even their names, Dick Hickock and Perry Smith, farther contribute to their opposing gender roles. Dick Hickock's name  is quick on the tongue, has rough edges, and is filled with hard “k” sound and sharp “i”s. Perry Smith is a softer name. Perry’s feminism is most clearly seen in Dick’s constant addressing him as “sugar”, “honey” and “baby”. Perry never takes charge and always what Dick says, even if he does not agree. All of these examples are congruent with the stereotypical female image of that time.

There are many scenes in this novel that indicate that Perry had homosexual tendencies. Perry states that he was “attracted to” Dick because Dick was so “authentically tough” invulnerable and “totally masculine”. This was a huge contrast to Perry himself. Perry, though he had dates several girls, had never married and his behavior towards Dick seems to imply he is attracted to Dick in a more than friendly way. When Perry describes Dick, he uses words that suggest a physical attraction such as “smooth” and “smart”. He repeatedly uses these kinds of words, leading to the conclusion that he admires Dick in a physical or sexual way. At one point, Capote even encourages this idea of Perry’s femininity when he continuously references Perry’s feminine, quiet voice and is loopy and neat handwriting. At another time, Capote describes the detective’s reaction to Perry’s signature: “The ornateness of it, the mannered swoops and swirls, surprised him”. After the murder, when Dick and Perry traveled to Mexico, they stayed at a well-known gay resort. Even if Perry is not completely gay, he is defiantly conflicted. Earlier Mrs. Hickock had made a snap judgment of Perry, of his oily hair and perfume, which alienated him from her household. These traits marked Perry as different and symbolically divorced from the family and the middle-class values that they upheld so carefully.

Perry’s feminine side adds dimension to his character. He is not just a killer. He was smart, artistic and creative. He had a rough childhood and constantly viewed as different when he reached adulthood. If he had been accepted as an individual he may not have turned into a killer. Unlike Dick, he did have a softer side, he cared but no one cared for him. He was alienated by so many people he slowly got to the point where he snapped. His intention was not to kill the Clutters, they were just there when Perry lost it. Perry’s feminine side showed a glimpse of who he would have been, had he not been corrupted by being pushed to the outside by everyone he ever knew.

Perry’s feminine side, though unwelcome in that time, was a better person than Dick’s socially acceptable masculine personality. There were times when he was true to himself and times when he became lost. This is the perfect example of gender roles and the sex of a person. One does not have to parallel the other. If Perry had been free to express his gender role, the murder in cold blood may have never happened.