A Tale of Two Earnests

In many works of literature, a physical journey - the literal movement from one place to another - plays a central role. Choose a novel, play, or epic poem in which a physical journey is an important element and discuss how the journey adds to the meaning of the work as a whole. Avoid mere plot summary.

You MUST choose from the following list:

The Importance of Being Earnest

     Many of the characters in Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest partake in physical journeys throughout the course of the play. Whether it be traveling to lie about a fake brother being ill, a fake friend being gravely ill, or the matter of giving condolences to a close friend who tragically quite exploded, the journeys taken in the novel represent the character, as well as the social customs in general. The movement of Jack Worthing and Algernon Moncrieff are significant to the meaning of the work being to vastly ridicule the Victorian age upper-class customs and lifestyle.

     Both characters live by the societal standards set by the bourgeoisie during that time period, but feel overwhelming restrained by the preposterous principles they are inclined to worship. Wishing to not become a social outcast, a status worse than criminal in that upper class, they travel to a different location to perform the act of "Bunburying", which can be defined as changing one's identity in order to live freely and recklessly. The fact that the characters who should be considered lucky to be a part of the vastly wealthy class feel chained down by the society that they need to change who they are in order to enjoy what life has to offer is a shot at how that society worked at the time.
     Not only was the journey away from the social norm a chance to get away from the stuffiness and rules of the upper-class, it was also used in the evasion of social obligations that followed with high status. In Algernon's case, he used his "friend" Bunbury  as an excuse to get out of an engagement with his mother for dinner. Whenever his mother planned to make a visit, he would tell her that his poor friend Bunbury was sick and that he had to go and visit him. Algernon wishes to avoid engagements with his mother, because Lady Bracknell represents the quintessential member of the bourgeoisie, taking everything at face value and living strongly on superficial concepts, mainly being the status in society. Wilde uses the physical journey of "Bunburying" to emphasize the point of even members of the upper-class wishing to escape from and not have to deal with the social customs and orders brought about during that time period, even if it means continuously lying to one's mother.
     The movement of the characters in Wilde's play take on a significant meaning to the meaning of the work, being to ridicule the customs and standards set by the Victorian Age upper-class. Both Jack (Ernest) and Algernon (Ernest) go on physical journeys to escape from the customs of the society, whether it be to live in a reckless style or to avoid engagements with family members. The entire work has practically no plot, but rather is used to criticize the upper-class and the customs they held during the Victorian Period in Great Britain's history.

And yes, I am aware.

It's almost as if he's my long-lost twin brother.

...born 143 years before me. 

...poor Mother. 

Poetry Analysis

"What the Motorcycle Said" - Mona Van Duyn, pg. 416

     One of the techniques used by Duyn in this poem is the repetition of the sound effects or onomatopoeia made by the motorcycle that start half the sentences. The repetition of the "Br-r-r-am-m-m-m" can give a sense of implying a person revving up the engine on a motorcycle, in a effort to show off or make others jealous, giving the characteristic that the motorcycle is conceited, feeling that he is better than everyone by constantly showing off. The repetition of the "Br-r-r-am-m-m-m" could also imply the fact that motorcycles then to make the most amount of noise than any other frequent road travelling vehicle, giving a sense that whenever one hears this noise, they get ticked off and display a sense of annoyance towards the motorcycle or specifically the person riding the motorcycle. This makes the motorcycle appear as somewhat of simply an annoyance to all of its on-lookers.

     The tone of the poem is also rather grungy. The bitter diction contributes to the self-absorbed tone, being that all the motorcycle talks about is all the things it hates passing when riding on the road, such as people in come into contact with, making it seem as if it has a horrible life. However, this is not the case. The motorcycle also describes how much better it is with the haughty diction contributing as well towards the self-absorbed tone, where the motorcycle tells the audience how the motorcycle will "never be mean, tired, or unsexy", which is presumably how all great warriors think as they are approaching into battle

     Personally, I really like this poem. And no, I don't like it just because it has some bad words in there that make me giggle like a 5th grader. I enjoy this poem, because considering what the poem is about, it stands out in meaning from most of the poems we read this year. Considering that the main topics of almost all the poems we read this year were "death", "religion", "coming of age", and "euthanasia", but rather the central topic of this poem is as personified motorcycle telling you how cool it is and how he lives in the now. It gives a sense of "carpe diem", in that one should live in the now, and not worry about what happened in the past or what's going to happen in the future. The motorcycle (while hinting at being haughty and self absorbed) is making the world "his oyster" and seizing every opportunity he gets. However, the motorcycle's attitude is not one of a carefree cheerfulness, but rather displays animosity towards other things he passes and/or comes into contact with, such as helmets, Fords, and middle-class moneymakers living on Dad. The poem stands out on its own, and i enjoy the uniqueness of it the author gave to it.

"The Abortion" - Anne Sexton, pg 400

     Similar to the technique of repetition used by Duyn, Sexton uses the repetition of the like "Somebody who should have been born is gone" to bring across the haunting point over and over that this girl in the poem has killed someone living inside her, and she uses this line over and over, each time building up in intensity, even though it's still the same line.
     There's even an allusion to the old fairly tale of "Rumpelstiltskin" who, in the story helps a lady spin straw into gold for the price of her first born child. In the poem, Sexton emphasizes the point that the man the girl in the poem meets is specifically not Rumpelstiltskin, alluding to the point that the first born child of this girl will never be born. Sexton uses this illusion to constantly drive an uneasy feel of the poem and it being about such a controversial topic.
     As a person, I'm not specifically oriented towards a specific side when it comes to these kinds of issues, but I do find Anti-Abortion art-work a bit fascinating. Most of the times the artists tend to get to the gruesome point of the fact that the mother is destroying the life of her own child even before it gets the chance to breathe in its first breath of life. I tend to find this artwork interesting and moreover the gruesome parts any man can appreciate, such as Mr. Klimas himself and his lack of mercy for any being that walks upon this earth and dares to face him. The poem itself has a flow to it that it builds up in intensity as you read it, but simply glancing over the words as if they were part of a manual will not get you even close to the meaning behind the poem and the energy it stores.

DISCLAIMER: It didn't save. I honestly wondered if somehow it got deleted. I apologize severely for this incident, taking full responsibility. I promise something like this will not happen again.

     Before I begin, I would just like to point out that that this is a bit of an inappropriate image given for the theme. Apparently, according to Margaret Atwood's Wikipedia page, she only experienced about two or three of the experiences shown above, being like a divorce and re-marrying a writer and perhaps owning a cat or two. Or maybe 10...

But, I digress.

      Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale has a very recurring topic of women being oppressed in society (given that that's the plot of the story). In this dystopian society known as Gilead, women are only given three roles to act out in life: The Marthas, who mainly did all the physical labor that comes with being a mother in a normal society, being cooking, cleaning, other blatant female stereotypes; The Handmaid's, whose main purpose in life is to wish that the Commander chooses you to have a baby with, in a giant, unbearably uncomfortable ceremony right in front of his wife, leading to the final roles; The Wives, who are there to be the "trophy" of the Commanders and to look pretty while giving their husband moral support, should he need it. 

     The novel basically takes all the common beliefs of women in society, as somewhat laid out by the bible, and exaggerates them past the point of comfort and exaggeration itself until the ideas evolve into a system, a system in which woman are the lowest and men rank superior, which is exactly as awful as it sounds. (Had these roles been reversed, maybe society wouldn't have been that bad. I mean come on, when do men get anything right?) The novel takes the views of anti-feminism and sprints with them. It goes to the point where rape is the women's fault, reproduction is a giant ceremony in front of everyone with an old dude and a random "lucky" handmaid, women aren't allowed to show any sign of beauty or excess skin, women aren't allowed to read, or rather THINK, period, and women are barely, if at all, able to talk to men or anyone for that matter. 

     This "Utopian" society has nothing going for it that could be viewed as "not that bad" (I mean OneState had the serpent, that moved people down the sidewalks so efficiently. Just think of that with school hallways!). Even the men, who are supposedly the ranking champions in this society, are having an awful time in Gilead. Not nearly as many of their rights are taken away like the women's, but they are pretty much restricted to doing nothing, anyhow, surrounded by nothing but female oppression and suffering. The novel even points out the widely accepted fact that women are more intelligent than men during the Scrabble scene with Offred and the Commander when Offred figuratively beats the living whatchacallet out of the Commander with her important, symbolic words like "larynx" (symbolizing the voice of women being suppressed in society) and "zygote" (symbolizes the idea of women simply being walking uteruses), where the measly old Commander was only able to put "go" and "home", with little to no symbolism on the words he chose. Atwood included this scene to show that even when women in Gilead (or lesser figures in general) are smarter than their commanding officers, their oppression remains, even given the incompetence of the authority, simply due to a set of rules devised by someone or something (this case the bible) saying that the idiot is in charge. 

     Not only does this novel serve as a prime example of exaggerating anti-feminism to bring forth attitudes of pro-feminism, helping the cause of stopping the oppression and bad views of women in society, it's also full of great quotes! I tried to limit myself to just one quote, but who liked limits anyways? So I chose two. Please don't be angered by this, Sir Klimasthocles the Merciless

"All you have to do, I tell myself, is keep your mouth shut and look stupid. It shouldn't be that hard" (Atwood 236). While out of context, this quote is quite humorous, within context, it conveys a very serious matter. While it seems strange and idiotic to tell yourself to "look stupid", the fact of the matter is certain women around the world, even some in America, are expected to be unintelligent and simply there to look at while the men do all the talking. The hidden attitude behind the quote is basically saying how horrible and stupid it really is for men to expect women to be stupid, since, as we stated before, women are far smarter and superior than men.

"We lived, as usual, by ignoring. Ignoring isn't the same as ignorance, you have to work at it" (Atwood 56). This quote spoke a lot to me when I first read it (Figuratively speaking, of course). It shows the change that the women in this society had to suffer through and still continue to, while simply ignoring how life used to be. The didn't have ignorance. They knew exactly how things used to be, but had to work to forget the old lives they had. This quote could also be taking a shot at men and women in today's society, how women have to work at pretending there's nothing wrong with their representation in society, ignoring the oppression still apparent. It could also be a jab at the men, who know that women are oppressed, but simply choose to do nothing, because ignoring is easier than working to fix it, and if they don't do something, the ignoring will evolve into ignorance, and we'll have an actual Gilead on our hands to worry about. Let's just hope we still get our oranges, should that fate occur.

Personally, I found this book to be quite intriguing. I was certainly shocked with the material locked away in this novel (ceremony scene...*shiver*). Not only was the book eye-opening, but the in-class discussions that arose from this novel were quite enthralling as well (not just talking about Matt's comments, by the way). I naively assumed before the discussions that in today's society, most of the oppression that had originally been placed on women was a thing of the past. But, thanks to our good friend Raylan Alleman of "Fix the Family", I learned that the ideas expressed in this novel are still somewhat believed today by a good percent of the population. And that frightens me. 

And just as a little side-notion to the on-going rumour about the movie adaptation of this novel being the worst adaptation of a novel to ever exist, let's view the first picture off of google images when "Handmaid's Tale movie" is searched.

Well that proved many theories. I mean for god's sake in the novel would they have ever been able to show that much skin or hair in general? And who casted the Patrick Warburton look-alike as the old dude Commander? 

Oh, and speaking of the commander...

...apparently Chris Loos wasn't kidding when he said "Offred kills the Commander". Thank god I read the book instead of watching the movie. I would've failed that essay.