Watch your @#$%ing Mouth!

When Suzanne first started relating Leaves of Grass to our image of the body, sexuality, and the like, while I honestly enjoyed the conversation, I really didn't see how it connected that well. It wasn't until after class when I really tried to decipher more of Whitman and the points made in the facilitation that I began to see this message of freedom and clarity or satisfaction of ourselves. In a way, I took Leaves of Grass like I took Emerson's Self Reliance(although I was far more inspired by Emerson), in the way that it gave insight on how to free yourself from the cares of others. Whitman took a risk for the time and let out his own thoughts, whether society approved or not. Now we consider books, movies, and other things that cause controversy to be interesting, even refreshing. They are more of a good thing! Just take "banned books" for example! Some of the greatest, thought-provoking novels have been put on that list because people are "afraid" to open themselves up to other possibilities than the ways they already know. It's like how in Dead Poets Society, the student wouldn't "yarp" or express himself until pushed to his limit, but then he just let it out and felt good about it, as did the others in the class. This reminds me of how in the film Pleasantville, everyone there lived life perfectly the way they knew it would be, but as soon as the brother and sister came, rubbing their new ways onto the people of the town, things began to change from black and white to color, literally. Then when things started to change, the young people accepted it while the older generation were concerned and didn't like the change.

    
His sense of freedom comes off a bit patriotic, but not in a "better to be an American" way. He treats it as more of a whole, "one of the great nation, the nation of many nations--the smallest the same and the largest the same," like it should be, with beauty in freedom, saying that of these people "such as it is to be of these more or less I am".  But in this way it was also about his freedom of speech. Although for that time, many people found his words too outspoken and his images vulgar, like the man when "his blue shirt exposes his ample neck and breast and loosens over his hipband." His work was edited because people were offended by some of it(What does this say about the first amendment?), where as now, like we seemed to agree in class, there wasn't any part of it that we found a bit risque. While the perspective seems dated, there will always be something that we find vulgar for our taste, we even have vulgar quirks about ourselves, although it seems we are much more tolerable about it now. I've seen that now we even find pleasure in some of what was once considered vulgar. Fear Factor comes to mind! Signing up to and watching people eating disgusting things and doing strange stunts for enjoyment!

Haha! The classic "hold your nose so you won't taste it" trick! Lies.....

Why is it that we can even find pleasure in vulgarity or the risque or even just the new? How does this relate to our freedom? It seems we fear what gives us freedom and pleasure because it is so different to us and to others, but once we experience it we no longer feel that way, even more so when others join in. We don't realize other people are the same way, questioning and trying some of the same things we are, "these are the thoughts of all men in all ages and lands, they are not original with me, If they are not yours as much as mine they are nothing or next to nothing," even if some of it may seem a bit strange. It's the fear of stepping out of our element in front of everyone else that gets us. If we all can find something we enjoy out of these things, is it really even vulgar, strange, or risque to begin with or is it just our morality getting in the way? 

In my opinion, I feel that there is a right time for things to be serious, but if you can lighten up something by finding a joke or play with a situation somehow, it isn't as threatening anymore. When my grandfather passed away, we were all so close to him, but instead of making his funeral sad, when we gave our respectful words about him, we made jokes, poking fun at him as well as giving our memories of quirks he had. Some people might think that is strange or disrespectful, but it's the way he was and we all thought he loved hearing those things. It was our way of shedding light on an event that was dimmer on one side, but light on the other. I still remember how he used to hunt squirrels, but then as a nature loving man would feed them out of his hands later in life and how he would fall asleep while watching the news, but as soon as you tried to change the channel to cartoons he would say, in his sleep, "Hey, I was watching that!" Haha! I feel people take things far too seriously now, even when they don't need to, we still have problems accepting change and new things, but doing this takes away the fear or scandal of it, what was it that Hermione said in "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets?" "Fear of a name, only increases fear of the thing itself"...............Voldemort haha.

 Well I have to say this class has been very enlightening and interesting! I can honestly say I enjoyed everything we read and all topics covered. I noticed the whole way that my blog topics always seemed to be a step ahead of the subject focus for the next week of classes and while I first I thought it wasn't a good thing, I realized it just proved how well everything can flow into each other. I learned that everyone is obsessed with something, we all have and should accept the darkness inside of us, and that we are all insane and animalistic. Pretty dark stuff, but I love it! It makes me realize and appreciate myself more because we are so complex as humans, even on our most seemingly boring days, and you know what? It feels great to be a freak of nature, through the good and the bad inside us, because we are all freaks together! "You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one. I hope some day you'll join us, and the world will be as one."

Whitman, Walt. Leaves of Grass. Original 1855 Edition. Mineola, New York: Dover Publications, 1855. Print.

Once Upon A Time, We Were Grown Ups

     When we are children, we are used to wanting and then getting what we want. We are brought up to believe we will fall into some easy fairy tale romance. Our knowledge of survival is knowing we are being taken care of completely by our families. But as we do grow up, these freedoms become restricted. Society begins to put a pressure on us that makes us feel there is less hope in our childish dreams. The 'responsibilities' society puts into our heads can become very overwhelming and sometimes makes us want to abandon it all together, much like Emily Dickinson did. Some of the strengths we had as a child, seemed to be viewed as weaknesses when we are adults, but the poetry of Dickinson and Sexton show that as adults, we still have that wanting that we did when we were a child, only it has become more of a longing.

Ahh the fantasies of young love!! Can you see society peeking in through the blinds behind them? haha

     Dickinson’s poetry reflects this want in a more personal sense, seeming more childlike in the things see is searching for, such as love and what makes up her true being. Part of the reason it is so personal can also be because of the isolated path she chose to take later in life. By experiencing adulthood, but perhaps not exactly an adult life, she almost becomes needier. Her “Love” sections of poems were true and beautiful, but slightly like broken records in their message. There is the dreaminess of a child’s thought in wanting love, such as “if you were coming in the fall, I’d brush the summer by,” as if she wants the season to pass quickly so she can see her lover sooner. But then she quickly turns each poem around by adding a melancholy tone like “With half a smile and half a spurn, As housewives do a fly.” Here she is not sure if she feels positive or negative about love and relates seeing her lover to something as annoying as swatting a fly away.  Her search for the things she wants most are blocked by her own obsession in finding every one of her own flaws to stop her. When she refers to her lover she relates them to “his porcelain,” says “you served Heaven, you know,” and “Your face would put out Jesus,’” while referring to herself as “condemned to be,” “humble,” timidly,” and says “Nor could I rise with you,” as if she is not good enough. She seems to see love as a burden saying, “I cannot live with you, It would be life, And life is over there Behind a shelf.” Although this makes me think that by keeping herself away from society, I wonder if she stunted her own desires. Do you think she could have come closer to knowing herself and connecting with the wants of her childhood had she embraced society? Do you think, still being the way she was, she could have been satisfied by love?
     Sexton seems to be less naive about childhood and her wants by taking childhood fairy tales and bringing about what haunts her and the longing she has to escape the pressures by relating the tales to her personal life. Her poems also all take a negative tone towards this romanticized vision and suggests "Happily Ever After" is not quite how things end up. The haunts of her past, such as being molested by her father and feeling left out from her sisters seem to have pushed her into adulthood too early, making her revert back to these childish tales in search of who she is. Rumpelstiltskin is all about our selves being divided. When the dwarf "tore himself in two. Somewhat like a split broiler. He laid his two sides down on the floor, one part soft as a woman, one part a barbed hook, one part papa, one part Doppelganger," it related to Sexton's trouble in searching for who she really was in adulthood. I feel her unfaithfulness in relationships, her depression, her sexual demeanor, were all characters she played because she was trying to find the person she really was since her childhood had strayed her so far. The way she describes the princesses also show her confusion and negativity towards love ad trust. Rapunzel calls the prince "this beast, she thought, with muscles on his arms like a bag of snakes," claiming you could "shovel dirt on her face and she'd never call back: Hello there! But if you kissed her on the mouth her eyes would spring open," and describes the 12 dancing princesses fun lives like "falling down into purgatory to let them climb in after with their Lucifer kicking." Her wants to find herself and to be able to find safety and trust in what should have been a good childhood kept her almost wild in her search.

Sexton reminded me a lot of The Runaway Bride persona haha. While much darker than Julia Roberts, the fear and lack of commitment, confusion on love and cynical view of it altogether fit perfectly(even some of Richard Gere's first views on women haha) So here's the movie trailer to recap all of that:

     While I’m no where near the state Emily Dickinson was in and I do not see love as such an ugly ans fleeting thing as Anne Sexton, I can see where she is coming from with not finding love because she found so many things wrong with her. I used to do that to myself and the people I dated. I would find a guy I was attracted to, who was attracted to me, and flirt with them, trying to get to know them, going on dates, but then after a while before things got too serious or when they finally brought the topic of a serious relationship up, I would start to pick out all of the things that were wrong with me until I believed it would end badly anyway or I wasn’t worth it for them or I’d go the opposite and find all of the little things that were wrong with them and focus on those things until I wasn’t attracted to them anymore. I could never figure out why I did that because even at the time I knew it was stupid and wrong, then I was miserable anyway. But “the heart asks pleasure first, And then, excuse from pain” so it took me until only a year or so ago to really make the change in myself and see what was wrong. It turns out I was afraid of losing that freedom and making that change from childhood comfort to actually learning to trust someone I didn’t know fully in the adult world. I knew my family and friends, but to fall in love is opening yourself up much deeper to someone. It's like how in Sexton's Briar Rose story, the princess "woke up crying 'Daddy! Daddy!'" instead of the prince's name. Even with the horror of her father she still felt she knew and could trust what would happen more there than with another in adulthood. So in a society that puts on so much pressure, there is most risk or rejection for who you are and I felt if it happened enough I wouldn’t be able to handle it. But unlike Dickinson, I was able to overcome this and embrace my new life philosophy of adoring flaws and trying to find them in people because that’s what makes us who we are, how we overcome these ‘flaws’ to realize our true beauty and potential. I found I could be myself, it just took the right people to accept this and synchronize with me. I wasn’t losing freedom, I was becoming more free as myself.
      It seems the one thing that still connects us to our childhood is our search to find who we are, although it shows that it is a never ending journey. Emily has done this by relating it to herself personally, while Sexton has chosen to relate childhood fairy tales to the reality of adult life. While it's sad that they could never seem to reach their actual wants and happiness, the journey to find ourselves and learn to keep some of those child-like qualities seems to be what connects all of us.



     Sexton, Anne. Transformations. New York, New York: Mariner Books, 1971. Print.

Dickinson, Emily. The Selected Poems of Emily Dickinson. New York: Modern Library, 2000. Print.