Mad as a Hatter

In today's political turmoil, words like "racism" and "feminism" are often tossed around. These issues are constantly being evaluated, but what about equality for other minorities?
In her persuasive essay "Disability", Nancy Mairs argues that more representation for the physically disabled is necessary in media for the sake of both disabled and able-bodied people; An increased representation would lessen the "self-degredation" and "self-alienation" felt by disabled people while acclimating able-bodied people to the idea of disabilities, which most will wind up having towards the end of their lives.
However, she does not delve deeply into the effects of misrepresentation, which can be just as damaging as underrepresentation. This is particularly true in the case of mental illness. Even though representation of the mentally ill is present in media, their images are too often romanticized.
This is most apparent in television, which frequently connects mental illness with genius.
Take BBC's Sherlock Holmes, the sef-proclaimed sociopath. He is indisputably brilliant, but is plagued with addiction. Through the course of the series, his need for heroin nearly kills him a number of times. Even so, the show seems to imply that his addiction facilitates his powers of deduction: If he does not get his drugs, he cannot access his "mind palace" (Holmes' personal memory storage) and therefore cannot solve the crime.

Sorry Benedict, but addiction is no joke.

In reality, though, addiction is no laughing matter. In fact, over the past 13 years, the number of overdose deaths due to heroin has increased 6.2 fold while the number of overall overdose deaths has increased 2.2 fold. While this increase is not all due to media, it certainly does not help that addiction is misconstrued as the key to brilliance.
Holmes is not alone. Other characters much like him are rampant throughout television, including Gregory House, who is depressed and addicted to Vicodin, and Sheldon Cooper, who has obsessive compulsive disorder. These men both have potentially debilitating disorders. But, the media says it's a-okay for them not to seek help because they are geniuses.
However, most people don't have the intellect of Einstein. The media's correlation of mental illness and intelligence leaves those who do not fulfill these standards with the "painful...isolation" of their illnesses. They are in possession of a life that is not feasible to others. With one in five adults in the US experiencing mental illness, it's time for the media to change up its view. -MC

Sources:
https://www.drugabuse.gov/related-topics/trends-statistics/overdose-death-rates
http://www.nami.org/Learn-More/Mental-Health-By-the-Numbers

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.