Brick by Brick

The following is written in the perspective of Walter Jr. at the end of the play:
     Lots of us have got dreams. I had me a dream. I dreamed 'bout opening a liquor store, me and Willy and Bobo with Mama's check. I was sick of the "Yes sir"s and "No sir"s of my job driving around a rich white man. I couldn't sit around all day no more and just "eat my eggs" when I was "choking to death" on the disgust I had for my life.
     You got to understand that's why I did it - that's why I gave Willy the money. I had to hope for something better. But when Bobo came and said Willy done stolen all that money, I finally figured out that life is divided "between the takers and the 'tooken'". And us Youngers, we're the tooken.
      But when I called back that white man Lindner, I just couldn't bring myself to sell him the house Mama bought. Not when Travis, the sixth generation of our family, was there. Not when my father "earned it for us brick by brick". It took me a while, but I've realized that I am proud of my family.
And that pride's the best gift my father gave me.
     Walter exhibits the most development throughout the play; though he knows they will face adversities, he finally embraces the importance of his family over money. The day he stands up for his family is the day he comes "into his manhood...like a rainbow after the rain". -MC

Together, as a family

I Said, "Eat Your Eggs"

What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore - 
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over -
like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.

Or does it explode? 
- Harlem by Langston Hughes (1951)

     I distinctly recall the first time I read this poem; I was in ninth grade when I came across the text whilst idly flipping through my English textbook. The words "fester" and "rotten" are what initially caught my attention and prompted me to read the entire poem. However, it left me dissatisfied with its paradoxical lines. How could a dream crust like a nasty wound but still be sweet? And what was meant by a dream "dry[ing] up like a raisin in the sun"?
     I forgot about them eventually, but these questions were abruptly brought back when we began reading Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun in English class. The title of the play (as I'm sure you've noticed by now) comes from a line in Hughes' poem.
     In Act I scene i, we as readers are already exposed to many dreams that have been deferred; Walter wants to open a liquor shop with his buddies, Walter's mother dreams of purchasing a house with a "little garden in the back" and Beneatha wants to become a doctor in a male-dominated field (45). All of these seem to be pipe dreams, destined to wither up. It's not practical to waste money on a shop or a house, and, according to Walter, Beneatha should just "go be a nurse like other women" or "just get married and be quiet" (38).
     Perhaps the most powerful, heart-wrenching lines, however, come from Walter in response to his wife's skepticism and command to "eat [his] eggs":
     Man say to his woman: I got me a dream. His woman say: Eat your eggs. Man say: I got to take hold of this world baby! And woman will say: Eat your eggs and go to work. Man say: I got to change my life, I'm choking to death baby! And his women say - Your eggs is getting cold!
     As I read these words yesterday I could picture a tired man who craves something better than the life he has lead, but who has little power to change it. It was in this moment my initial questions from years ago were finally answered; a "dream deferred" is the indescribable feeling of being slowly stifled to death with no way out. -MC

The Youngers' dreams are left to shrivel.

A Relationship of Wonder-lust

     I finished reading The Great Gatsby on Thursday evening, and it's left me feeling rather depressed. (Unfortunately, that seems to be a recurring theme in literature these days.) Last week I stated that I'd like to think that Gatsby is a good person, but the ending of the book has got thinking otherwise.
     Yes, Gatsby did nobly take the blame for Daisy's blunder, and yes, he lost his life for it. However, it is his reasoning behind his infatuation with Daisy that really disgusts me.
     This is especially apparent in the passage on page 148:
      It amazed him - he had never been in such a beautiful house before. But what gave it an air of breathless intensity was that Daisy lived there - it was as casual a thing to her as his tent out at camp was to him. There was a ripe mystery about it, a hint of bedrooms upstairs more beautiful and cool than other bedrooms, of gay and radiant activities taking place through its corridors... It excited him, too, that many men had already loved Daisy - it increased her value in his eyes...He took what he could get, ravenously and unscrupulously - eventually he took Daisy one still October night, took her because he had no real right to touch her hand.
     When describing to Nick how the two met, Gatsby claims that Daisy was the first "nice" girl he ever met. That statement itself seems reasonable; Perhaps every girl he'd encountered thus far had been rude or not forthcoming. But he supports this statement by saying that it is the "breathless intensity" of Daisy's HOUSE that impresses him, not Daisy herself. He loves how rich she is, and how everything that happens in the house was "radiant".
     To add on to his shallowness, the fact that other men already love Daisy "increas[es] her value", illustrating his self-centered thinking. Then, knowing full well that he has no right, he deceives and takes advantage of her like a "ravenous" animal with no moral boundaries.
     By no means is Daisy a saint, though. In her own way, she's worse than Gatsby; She feels no remorse for killing Myrtle, nor does she slow down after hitting her. She then allows Gatsby to take the blame for the accident, causing him to be murdered. To top it all off with a bitter cherry, she doesn't bother to come to Gatsby's funeral. So much for loving him.
     I've heard quite a few people say that Gatsby and Daisy's supposedly undying love for each other is the ideal love story. But honestly, if love is based on material goods and selfishness, I don't want any part in it. -MC

The characters of The Great Gatsby in a nutshell.

A Smile like the Cheshire Cat

     It's often said that a smile is worth a thousand words. In my 16 years of life experience, I've found this to be the case a majority of the time. To me, they are the gateway to a person's heart, and can hint at someone's thoughts and feelings in a matter of moments. For example, a forced smile indicates duress or a degree of unease; A genuine smile paints a picture of comfort and joy; A smile laced with malice serves as a warning to others.
     I like to think that I'm decent at interpreting smiles and the motives behind them, but Jay Gatsby's smile just confuses me. When the narrator Nick first meets him, he is described as having a "rare...irresistible" smile as if he sees only the best in you. It's a genuine smile that makes it seem as though he cares.
     However, the smile abruptly vanishes, and Nick's image of Gatsby is shifted from an ideal, compassionate young man to a "roughneck" who tries too hard to impress others by using formal speech bordering "absurd[ity]".
      So, which is it? Is Gatsby truly a kind-hearted person, or is he just a small man looking to impress others? At this point in the novel, a few chapters in, I'm leaning towards the latter. He learns from an early age that "people lik[e] him" when he smiles, and, since he smiles a lot, he might just be groveling for attention.
     I really hope I'm wrong, not only because it'd make me feel better knowing that not all characters in books are complex but terrible people (see The Bluest Eye for examples), but also because it would be a pity if someone as handsome as Leonardo DiCaprio played such a cold person.

Leo is mocking me with the uncertainty of Gatsby's smile

It's Called a Flapper, Alice

     Last Christmas, I was obsessed with Downton Abbey. For those who don't know, it's a British T.V. show set in the English countryside during and the years following the First World War. It follows the life of the wealthy Crawley family, whose members all live an extravagant lifestyle filled with servants, parties, and more.
      At the time, my absolute favorite part was the way the female characters dressed, especially during the later seasons of the show. Their dresses, which began as long and simplistic, gradually evolved into "flapper dresses", which had ornate beads and designs sewn upon them and were often trimmed with fringe. In later seasons, girls' hair was either cut short or curled and then piled atop the head.

The longer, more simplistic dresses of the 1910's.....

...versus the flapper dresses of the Roaring Twenties

     I was surprised to learn last night (while I was researching the background of The Great Gatsby) that these flapper dresses were a product of women's rebellion against social norms during the 1920's, also known as the Roaring Twenties. Traditionally, dresses always fell below the ankle, and long hair was a symbol of beauty. However, flapper dresses defied these standards; They were shorter than the dresses of the previous decades and girls often cut their hair to a daringly short length.
     I'm sure that was enough to give the older generation a heart attack, but young ladies in the 1920's also began to pick up 'improper' slang such as "the bee's knees" and "that's so Jake". Well, I've never seen the any of the Crawley daughters say any such thing, but that's probably because they were too posh.
     The funniest thing I found through my research, though, is the fact that F. Scott Fitzgerald, the author of The Great Gatsby, wrote a collection of short stories called “A Story of Flappers for Philosophers.” I can't help but wonder what the Crawleys would have thought of such a collection... -MC

Source: https://www.loc.gov/rr/news/topics/flapper.html

I Must be Hallucinating...

I used to smile a lot.
     When I was younger, I nearly always had the beginnings of a smile splashed across my countenance as I walked through the winding halls of Smith Middle School or Troy High. I had little wrinkles around my eyes from smiling so much, so it looked as though I was ready to burst into a full-fledged grin or open guffaw at any moment.
     It was around the November Paris attacks and the ever-increasing police shootings last year that I sobered up and saw the world for what it really is. I saw the violence and death that comes with extreme jingoism; I saw the pain and anger that comes with racism. Everywhere I looked more people were dead or dying, with the world’s most powerful countries seemingly crumbling in front of my eyes. I couldn’t stand it. That was when I stopped smiling as often.
     On Tuesday evening, as I watched ABC News and the electoral college votes piling up for Donald Trump, I thought I was hallucinating. Never in my wildest dreams did I think he would be elected. The rest of the week I didn't smile. Well, not genuinely - just a well-practiced upturn of the lips that did not reach my eyes. I felt defeated.
     The very being that promotes racial intolerance and dangerous hatred is now the president-elect of the United States of America. It is supposedly the land of the free, but we as a nation are now chained to his bigoted views. How ironic.
     The other day in English, though, got me to reevaluate my perspective. We discussed the New York-based painter Kehinde Wiley, who is famous for recreating notable old paintings by replacing the old dead white guys with African American men and women. His subjects are painted with a powerful stance and defiant looks on their faces.

Wiley's paintings replace white men with strong African Americans.

     It goes without saying that African American culture is not well-represented in the fine arts. It's far easier to find a painting of a white man than of an African American man. Even so, Wiley still paints with his own flair. He says that in "going against the grain" of what is commonly accepted in society, he is "finding value" in things that aren't always appreciated.
     His words have helped liberate me from the grasp of Trump. If this painter can make a stand for himself and what he believes in through art, then I can do the same. I will stand through the next four years of wind, rain, and snow with the rest of the nation, and I will fight harder for all the things I believe in.
-MC

Today is the one-year anniversary of the attacks on Paris, France, which resulted in 130 unnecessary deaths. Please take a moment out of your day to acknowledge all those who have lost their lives through violence. 

Free to Be Me in my Wonderland

When I was in elementary school, I was free.
     I was free from the prejudice that is too often acquired as people age; I was free from the hurt that comes with it.

Those were simpler times.

     I still remember running around the grassy playground on a warm school day, pretending I was the Pokémon Pikachu battling my friends Charmander, Bulbasaur and Squirtle. Our role- play was complete with lively sound effects and hand gestures. None of us cared what others might have thought. In fact, being the curious toddlers we were, our classmates were more likely to join in than to judge us.

But that was when we were all naïve. 
     As I got older, I began to notice more differences between myself and my classmates. It was small at first: asking to borrow scissors from a particular person or sitting by a particular group at lunch. But, this chasm inevitably grew wider as I progressed through elementary school. By the time I hit middle school, distinct groups formed - the Asians, the Populars, the Outcasts, and so on. Sure, there was some overlap, but people almost always reverted back to those groups.
     Usually this grouping didn't bother me. I was content with sitting with my fellow Asian friends. Even so, sometimes I couldn't help but look over at the group of popular girls who all looked so incredibly happy in their Ugg boots and tons of friends and wonder "What [is] the secret? What [do I] lack?" 
     Fortunately, these thoughts were never more than a small nag. Unlike what happens to Pecola in The Bluest Eye, they never became an obsession. It took me a few years, but eventually I came to the conclusion that it's okay to be different. I've learned to be proud of who I am, and to not be ashamed of how others may see me. -MC

Alice, the Blue-Eyed Beauty

In this post I attempt to move away from first-person. Enjoy!
     Toni Morrison has seen the damage societal norms can do; At an early age she encountered a fellow African American girl who wanted more than anything to have blue eyes. Eventually this desire to conform and look "beautiful" overtook the girl, who serves as inspiration for the main character of The Bluest Eye, Pecola. In the novel, Morrison examines the events that lead to Pecola's demise.
     The foreword takes on a memoir-like quality in which Morrison explains how she came about writing the novel. Her goal in profiling her young friend and using her story is to achieve verisimilitude and to truly "move" people, rather than just to "touch" them (xii).
     While others might say that each person has the power to change our views about ourselves, the novel shows just how much influence society can have on the manifestation of "racial self-loathing" (xi). But really, who can blame the young girl for her self-hatred? She was raised in the 1960's, when life was a casino; You never knew exactly what would occur, good or bad, and you were forced to gamble against the odds of being discriminated. At the same time, the malicious fire between races was raging and the most representation colored people got in television was as the incompetent sidekick of the valiant white Lone Ranger. This racial intolerance and hatred is what Pecola deals with in The Bluest Eye.

The valiant white guy with his dumb sidekick

The Melting (Tea)pot

     America is famous for being the "great melting pot", a place where people from all over the world come together and unite as Americans regardless of differences. But that's a far too idealistic picture of this nation. In reality, race creates a massive schism in the US. Ultimately, race relations come down to nature versus nurture.

     Genetically speaking, human beings of all races are nearly identical. Sure, there are a few genes that express our phenotypic differences, such as the color of our skin, but at our core we are all the same species: Homo sapiens. In fact, over 99% of human DNA is the same as chimps'. If this is true, how different can races really be genetically? It's difficult not to lose sight of the fact that we are not so different after all.

A Chinese Market

     What really shapes our racial identities is the "nurture" aspect, meaning our environment. This includes our culture - foods eaten, languages spoken - as well as our own individual values. As a Chinese American, I can attest to the impact of cultural differences on my life. Since I was born here, I've acclimated to American life, where our main method of transportation is driving and our main diet seems to consist of hamburgers and French fries. Whenever I visit relatives in China, however, I'm immediately struck by the cultural differences there; People walk everywhere, speaking rapid-fire Chinese, while purchasing fresh ingredients from small stands on the streets. The two nations are starkly contrasted in terms of culture, which makes the racial barrier that much larger.
      In the end, it is humans' hubris and obstinacy that creates divides between races. It's so much easier to put on blinders and go about our daily lives than it is to take the time to try to understand others' perspectives. As David Foster Wallace said, "getting free of [our] natural, hard-wired default-setting" to be selfish is the largest battle. If we all stretched our minds to be more empathetic, the world might just be less hateful and racist.
     I'm often asked by relatives in China which nation I like better: China or America. I always smile and answer honestly - I love them both. -MC 

Où est Ma Chatte?

     The phrase "Où est ma chatte" is French for "where is my cat?" In Alice in Wonderland, Alice offends the small mouse she is talking to when she asks him that question. In a sense, the quote ties into the allegorical graphic novel Maus. In the two volumes, Art Spiegelman anthropomorphizes mice as the Jews and cats as the Germans. Just as in real life, the German cats terrorize the Jewish mice, effectively making their lives a living hell.
     Maus follows the story of Art Spiegelman and how he learns about his father Vladek's horrific but amazing survival as a Jew during World War II. It is a story within a story, a piece of meta-nonfiction. As readers, we immediately sympathize for Vladek and his bitter story of survival. However, after the war, it is evident how hypocritical Vladek truly is.
     As a victim of the cruelties of the Holocaust, he knows firsthand how destructive racism can be. Even so, when he, Art, and Françoise encounter a homeless colored man, Vladek protests his son and daughter-in-law's kindness to the man. He even goes so far as to say that Jews are far more superior to blacks.

 

     In an essence, Vladek's time as a victim of the war turns him into a Nazi of some sort. He believes his own race is better than others. It is darkly ironic, considering that this was the Nazi mentality that caused so much death to the Jews in the first place.

     So, as much as the war may have made Vladek stronger, it also shaped him into a more hateful, racist person. 

     You may think that I've put too much thought into analyzing one page of some random graphic novel. But, if there's one thing I've learned in my life it is that graphic novels can carry so much more weight than picture-less novels. Maus, in conjunction with Alison Bechdel's memoir Fun Home, are the two graphic novels that have changed my opinion on books with pictures forever. -MC

Alice, Housework is Degrading

     Last night, as I stood amid the eardrum-bursting, claustrophobia-inducing gym of Troy High's homecoming dance, I couldn't help but think about the copious amounts of homework waiting for me at home. I figured I might as well kill two birds with one stone, so I began to contemplate the meaning of feminism. This was all while carefully maneuvering myself around the sweaty bodies of my classmates. Let me tell you, it's not easy.
     Anyhow, the first thing I considered was the various issues at the core of feminism. The ones that automatically came into my mind were the wage gap and the high cost of child care. These things are always plastered throughout headlines and TV shows, a call to action for the supposedly wronged women of America. Don't get me wrong - of course I believe that these issues are important. But, like many other political and social movements, feminism has lost its way in the journey to universal recognition.

     Feminism has gradually evolved into a somewhat passive aggressive movement where if you don't agree, you can be considered a misogynist. Personally, I am a believer of gender equality. Notice how I say "equality" rather than "femininity". Too often in the fight for women's rights, the perspectives of men are forgotten. This results in a misunderstanding that causes people to unnecessarily take sides - the feminists versus the misogynists.

 

     So, take a moment to consider the other side's perspective the next time you want to voice your opinion about the feminist movement. After all, perspective has had the greatest impact on society's view of women. If girls grow up thinking that the tasks they do in life are "demeaning and degrading," as bell hooks said, they will forever resent their designated role in society. In reality, women who are able to do housework while maintaining jobs and taking care of children are the ones who are kicking ass and taking names. That difficult balance is what makes women so phenomenal. -MC

The Sunrise of Wonderland

     In English class on Friday, we were asked to bring in a quote that represents our life: a mantra, so to speak. The one that immediately came to mind was "It's always darkest before the dawn", a line of the Florence + the Machine song "Shake it Out". I first heard this song when I was about 12, during my tumultuous middle school years and I've since outgrown the Indie rock genre of music. However, the quote has always stayed in my mind.
     Believe it or not, those words are what motivate me through the seemingly never-ending nightmare of difficult classes combined with hours upon hours of sports and homework as the school year slowly drags on. I don't consider myself to be an optimist (more of a pragmatist), but the quote reminds me that no matter how hellish my life may seem, it will certainly get better. And it will get better far more quickly if I give whatever I'm doing at the moment my best effort. The sun will rise eventually.

It's always darkest before the dawn

     I was once again reminded of my mantra as I was reading an excerpt from David Foster Wallace's This is Water earlier today. In the piece, he discusses the importance of changing our own perspectives in life and how we as human beings have a penchant for falling into our default setting of selfishness. He goes on to say how enduring everyday nuisances are where "the work of choosing comes in" (Foster Wallace). This ties in to my own perspective on life; Life is what you make it, and you have the power to push through to the dawn. - MC