Tough, emotionally speaking

According to what we have been learning in our course of "Northamerican Literature" about the different literary approaches to analize a piece of writing, mixed up with the texts we have read in English literature, I've realized that both Biographical and Psychological approaches as well, have been the most remarkable ones in order to get to know and understand better the main topics of some authors, especially DH Lawrence...what about his real inner thoughts which lead him write all this?

In my point of view, in the last two short stories we have read there are plenty of facts which tell us that DH Lawrence' writing has a lot of drama in terms of psychological issues. There are simmilar topics such as lack of love, but in different ways, or because of different causes, and also the death issue is present as well. However, in The Rocking Horse Winner, death is interpreted as a consequence of dissapointment, frustration, obsesion, even madness, and in the "Odour of Chrysanthemums" it represents kind of a rebirth for the sense of love of this woman after all the bad time she had had before, it was certainly more hopeful in this story.
As an idea that springs to my mind right now, why is it that this author doesn't kill women in his stories, but does make them suffer?

"I don't care if he is good, I care if he is lucky"*

After reading this story by DH Lawrence, I immediately related it to the movie "Match Point" by Woody Allen (the title of the post is taken form there, by the way), where the characters, especially the protagonist gave so much importance to the luck issue. The same happened in this story. All members of the family were so concerned about not having money, and not being able to keep up with the lifestyle they used to have, either, which was a consequence of not being lucky people. This was such a big issue for this family because it made them tremendously unhappy, especially when it is about the relationship between mother and children. How can someone pretend to make a living by taking for granted that luck will be in favor, instead of hard work and effort?

Despite the fact that it seems a clear story, I think it is not an easy reading at all. It has many interpretations; for me, the parents' behaviour towards their children depicted lack of awareness, and love, of course. It is unbelievable that two grown up people have raised their children with those kinds of values and way of thinking. As the case of the mother, it becomes really hard for me to picture myself as a future mother unable to love my children. What this family was invloved in was in a very deep psuchological trouble...

An unseen world in front of

This short story takes place in a restaurant called Bentley’s, where the following characters (who are the main characters in the story) are having dinner; a young and very pretty woman, with blond hair and an oval and pretty face. She is a writer and is about marrying her fiancé, who seems to be a good man because he always cared about not saying anything unpropper to her. There was also a group of eight Japanese gentlemen at the restaurant, who spoke an illegible language; however, they had very peculiar manners to smile and bow to each other.
The narrator is omniscient, he knows everything about the story and is always expecting about the comments that the characters will make, this is one of the observations that influenced my reading, especially when it was about the fiancé’s behaviour towards the woman, which is also told by the way she had to speak. It tells us many things about the cuople, how they get along, the kind of communication, their concerns; which were mainly hers, I mean, about her job. Although I know the narrator is omniscient, sometimes; it seems to me that some of the comments made by the narrator are made by the girl’s fiancé, for example when it says: “The Japanese gentlemen had finished50 their fish and with very little English but with elaborate courtesy they were ordering from themiddle-aged waitress a fresh fruit salad. The girl looked at them, and then she looked at me, but I think she saw only the future. I wanted very much to warn her against any future basedon a first novel called The Chelsea Set....”
The Japanese men are the key to understand the woman’s personality and her behaviour. As long as the story is read, I realized she was a very selfish person, whose goals in life were her books, its publications, and the money she would earned. Even though she seems be toa very good intellectual at the beginning of the story, she hardly paid attention to details indeed, such as the group of Japanese gentlemen, she had only given a “passing glance” which tells us that she wasn’t a good writer at all. Her life and relationships with others were very superficial that she wasn’t able to observe, and appreciate what surrounded her.
Finally, the title of the book reminds me what is called in psychology “false audience”, which is when people, especially teenagers feel that everybody is staring at them all the time, but actually it’s is just a feeling. However, in this story the opposite happens, The Japanese men are the ones who observe the couple, especially the woman, all the time, but she is the one who did not realize this. For her, it was all about her, her books, and only the opinion that her fiancé had according to her job and the way she was handling it. It is really interesting because The Japenese men focused on her and gave the readers all the information about her through the omniscient narrator.

How beyond a story can go?

How different might the feeling of loneliness be between the women from the 18th century, and the ones from the current society? The consequences of a dull and unhappy life should be very simmilar if not the same for themselves and for the rest of the people who surround them. How do they handle life, deal with care, and face love being in that condition? This is one of the interpretations that it is possible to take out from Frankenstein, especially when reading about its author’s life, Mary Shelley since lots “this monster’s” words are the reflection of his creator’s life.

Love is the main feeling, theme, even the issue that rules each one of people’s life. It can be felt and expressed as freely as wished. Most of the time there are not much reason, but experience, dreams, authenticity, and the willing to say or do what our inner thoughts ask to. So, according to Mary Shelly’s life, what could have been the personal love pattern that she followed when writing Frankenstein? What can be deducted from one of the essays written by Kim A. Woodbridge, devoted to M. Shelley’s different aspects of her life, including as a writer, is that she was very pasionate, and really went into the pursuit of her happiness. “At the age of sixteen Mary ran away to live with the twenty-one year old Percy Shelley, the unhappily married radical heir to a wealthy baronetcy. To Mary, Shelley personified the genius and dedication to human betterment that she had admired her entire life. Although she was cast out of society, even by her father, this inspirational liaison produced her masterpiece, Frankenstein”.
What she did, was an impressive act of bravery in those days. Going away from home to be with a man to get married but everybody who does something like that, it is only because of love. In the case of Mary Shelly, it was love for the man she loved, and love for herself. By this I mean that while being away from home she had the liberty to write and give birth to all of her masterpieces. However, little did she know about the emotional weight that she had to carry, then. Suicides, the trauma that the deaths of her two beloved children produced on her, and finally the fact that Mr. Shelley left her totally moneyless and hopeless. Accoding to the way a woman deals with her feelings, it is undoubtedly that these were the facts which disturbed her and led her to create Frankensktein.
This last point tells us about how she faced the idea of feeling herself helpless. Maybe she never thought about finding herself in those conditions, which finally were her main base to start being the creator of a monster. She started expressing her love in the way it had been expressed to her up until then, which means that, as it happened to her, she gave life to a creature, but then she took out all what could have made him feel happy, such as company and education.

M. Shelley’s experience is very simmilar to what happens nowadays. Although mortality rate in under two year old children were much higher in those times than now because of hygenical and technological reasons , current lost and sometimes unloved women have managed other ways to “kill” their children. These are the mothers of children who, as long as they grow up, they have trouble at school, reject studdying, and very unfortunatelly go into drugs; there is no support for them, most of the time, not because they want their children to be like that, but because they are not that different. If we relate Frankenstein story, we can realize that he did not want to have trouble with people, he didn’t want to threat, either to fright; he wanted to be loved; however, he was made that way. It was not his fault.

Hopefully, this issue’s overview has been changing little by little. There are children who are really loved by their mothers. Even if they have to live against suficient life conditions, and carry out their daily activities within a drowned world, there are mothers who do find what is good enough for their children to emerge and have all the necessary skills such as social, learning, etc in order to face up the world that they want to.

References:
http://www.kimwoodbridge.com/maryshel/life.shtml
http://www.kimwoodbridge.com/maryshel/birth.shtml

Essay on Frankenstein.

Outline

“How the lack of love can bring up a monster”

 Overview to Mary Shelly’s lonely and unhappy life. Leave open questions about how similar it is nowadays.
 How different her times were in terms of treatment to new born babies. Frankenstein’s first approach to society and people.
 How he started realizing his lack of love. Comparison to what happens “today”
 Consequences on his behaviour and life perspective.

The "accidents" that damage society

So far, it has been almost impossible not to relate and to complement what we have learned in our both courses of literature. How much can we get to know an author since his/her work? Is it really necessary to read their biographical background first in order to get the main points of their writing, in this case? According to our experience up to now, it seems that yes, it is necessary. That is how we’ve had the approach to Mary Shelley, and Poe as well.
As long as I read “The Signalman” by Dickens, I could see a very lonely Dickens in that kind of job, in which the train and its atmosphere represented nothing but his life; but also his lacks, fears, pains, etc all what he wanted to be dissapeared. This is why all what was harmful for his feelings, became ghosts. Isn’t it that simmilar to real life? Even though those things that the Signal Man saw were ghosts, indeed, we’d wished our problems and frights were ghosts as well.
I hoped that it was easy to relate this Dickens’ piece of writing to a social issue, as it was with Oliver Twist, however, both show how decadent society might turn into, which was mainly depicted in the accidents that the Signal man frequently saw.

Who is the monster, then?

What are the feelings that pregnant women have when they are about giving birth? We all know that they feel nervous, scared, and worried. The situation is more or less as similar to a surgery, so it really is a matter of insecurities and fright. They just want their babies to be born healthy, without any complication, etc. But what would happen to a mother whose most of her births have failed? A mother whose most of her children are dead? What are the feelings that she should have?
After reading the article based on the creation of Frankenstein, I realized that his birth was the result of what happened to Mary Shelley. She was so frustrated about all her failed previous births, that she transferred all her dull feelings to her literary creation, and definitely didn’t love him. The fact that she created him as a monster was enough for people to reject him. Of course! Everybody would feel scared and threatened by the presence of a monster.
Even though she (as the author) didn’t really have the control of what she had created, didn’t even the power of love worked for her. She (as Victor) left him alone; he didn’t have anyone to get love, either company from. Can’t we think therefore that this is a current issue which still happens in our society? How many times have we heard, watched or read in the news that newborn babies have been thrown away by their own mothers? So, where are the limits there? Are there any limits to set for human beings? Where does “the power of love” can get to?