Justineb426's Blog

Revision Of Full Metal Alchemist Paper

justineb426 — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 19:02:01 +0000

The manga series Full Metal Alchemist, deals with many philosophies that can be true to life. One of these philosophies is that a human life is unique and valuable to the point that it encompasses more than the body. This is shown by how the characters feel about killing and death. Explaining all the characters and the whole series would take more than six pages so I am going to only focus on a few. Edward Elric, Alphonse Elric, and Izumi will be three characters that try their hardest not to take a life but when they do they feel bad about it. And Shou Tucker, and Solf Kimblee are two men who either don’t care if others die or derive pleasure in others dying because they are so twisted and crazy. So throughout this manga they show good characters as caring for life and only the worst of the worst of characters disregarding life all together. This shows that the manga values life highly.
The first characters I am going to look at are Edward & Alphonse Elric, they found out the hard way that a life was much more than the body. They are two teen boys who’s father was an alchemist and left their family when they were young and who’s mother died of some incurable disease when they were little kids too. They trained hard to be perfect alchemists in the hope that they would be able to bring their kind mother back to life. They use a type of science called alchemy, where if you have the items for equivalent exchange and an alchemy circle drawn, you can use energy and the items to create or reshape or destroy something. They used this concept to try and bring their mother back to life. They found out exactly all the parts of a human body, how much is salt, water, other components that make up the flesh, and some of his own blood, etc and put it in the middle of a drawn transmutation circle. All the items that would be needed for equivalent exchange was there. But the two brothers forgot one thing, creating a life has to do with more than the components of the body. It has to do with the soul, which was not equivalently exchanged. So when he put his energy into it and got the transmutation to start, it failed. This left the components into a pile of lifeless flesh and since there was still an unbalance due to no soul being given, Edward lost his leg to portal that was created by his transmutation. His brother, Alphonse, lost his body to it as well. In a quick act of desperation, Edward traded his arm to attach his brother’s soul to full body armor. Since the transmutation failed, even though the got all the components for a body right, this shows that in this manga a life is much more than a body. It has a soul which makes it valuable. Alphonse himself is proof that a life is special and more than a body. He is connected to the full body armor and it moves like there is a person in it, yet there is not. His soul being sealed to the armor makes an inanimate object human or valued as much as a human, whereas it normally would be worthless. The brothers loosing their limbs did not kill them and they can still go on. It is harder for them but they are still alive. So they can lose part of their body and still be the same person and have all their worth. Their limbs can also be replaced by an artificial one or in Alphonses case, a whole artificial body. But if you lose your soul, then you die. There is no way to put an artificial essence of a human being into a body and technically have it be living. It will be just a pile of flesh. This proves that it is the life that makes human beings special not their body. The life cannot be replaced but the body can be.
Throughout the manga the two brothers run into villains that try to hurt and kill others and even though themselves and others are put in danger, they try their hardest not to kill people. They only kill someone if they have no other choice. The two brothers are often very upset and traumatized when someone is killed, be the characters good or bad. This is because they know how precious a life is no matter who it is. They also know what a burden it can be to have a life lost, which makes the knowledge of the importance even greater. They have also seen the burden taking a life can have on other soldiers in the army that are their friends. One time, in the first volume of the manga, chapters 1 & 2, Ed and Alphonse get tangled in the middle of scheme of an alchemist, Cornello, who is pretending to be a messenger of the Sun God, so he can create the perfect army. Cornello tries to kill them when they find out his plan and try to debunk it. Instead of trying to kill him to defend themselves, Ed and Alphonse, trick him into admitting to the whole village what his plan was and then just left him there to reap his consequences. They could have killed him in self defense without anyone coming after them since they were upholding the law but instead they did everything they could to fix the situation without killing Cornello. This shows how these characters value life.
Even when they run into this evil demented man named Shou Tucker, who uses his family members and pets for his own experiments, they don’t kill him. Shou even has the audacity to say that Edward and himself are alike because Ed tried to bring his mother back from the dead which sent him into a frenzy and got him to beat on Shou. After a little while, Alphonse grabs Ed’s arm and tells him if he beats Shou any further he will die and Ed stops immediately. He calms down because he doesn’t want to take a life unless there is no other choice. Even though Shou is a twisted bad guy and should be punished, Ed & Al don’t dare take his life because to them life is precious. When they go back to headquarters to report what they found out, Edward says he is only a mere human would could not save Shou’s daughter Nina. He blames himself and feels real bad that she is experimented on and could lose her life because of it. When Ed and Al find out later that Shou and Nina were killed by some serial killer they are very upset and traumatized at the loss of both of their lives. They even want to see the scene and find out who did it so they can bring them to justice.
Another person who values life is Izumi, Ed and Al’s teacher. When herself and her husband were younger they really wanted a child so they tried for one. After Izumi got pregnant she was overjoyed, but, it ended up being a stillborn. This upset her so much that she did a human transmutation to try and bring her child back. To make the equivalent exchange, she used parts of her internal organs. This made it so she would not be able to ever have children again. But since her child’s life was so precious to her it was worth it in her mind. She also was not able to bring the baby back because she couldn’t trade anything equivalent to the babies soul. Now she is not able to create another life and did not get the old one that she lost, which plagues her every day. She wanted a child so badly and feels even worse that she did something that led her to not be able to create a life ever again. Later she takes in Edward and Alphonse to teach them alchemy but stops helping them as their teacher once they do the same act as she did when she was younger to try and bring back their mother. Even though she saw them as her own kids she was deeply upset with them since they tried to bring her back. She could both relate to how they felt but also knew the foolishness of trying to bring her back. So when they did it even though she did not approve of it and knew what the consequences might be she got mad and stopped training them. She values life so much that she wanted to get he lost child back and even takes on children that aren’t hers and treats them as her own. But she won’t teach them things if they go against things that show the value of life.
The good characters in Full Metal Alchemist are always trying to protect life and help others while only the bad of the bad and most vile try to destroy it or have no disregard for life in any shape or form. This is one way how the author of this manga shows that is life is important. If you are trying to preserve life or have regard for life you are shown as good and if you don’t care about life or want to destroy it you are shown as vile, evil, demented, and insane.
Shou Tucker only cares about his job and going forward in life with his studies about alchemy. Nothing else matters to him. Human life, animal life, his family and pets are all just test subjects to him. Shou used his wife two years prior to the story, as a test experiment to create the first talking Chimera through biological transmutation. Eventually his wife died and Shou was not upset at all about it. Two years later, he had to get another evaluation and do well or they would kick him out of being a national alchemist. He decided again to save his career and work further on his studies by biologically transmuting his own daughter and their pet dog to create another talking Chimera. This shows how he doesn’t care about life at all. The ones closest to him are just pawns and bodies for him to use to further his career and use as experiments. I believe the author used Shou to show that people who don’t value life are twisted and evil. That killing is not necissarily what is a disregard for life but how you do it and feel about it. The fact that Shou didn’t care about anyone’s life, even his family and wife, who are people that you should love and want to protect, makes him prove the point that he is insane and has a disregard for life. Shou is the perfect example of an evil mad scientist with showing that his work is his life and he will hurt anyone and anything to do his next experiment. I believe the author picked his personality for the manga because he was someone who treated his family members like ingredients in an experiment instead of him just being a mass murderer. This shows that he doesn’t hold any worth to things that he even should care about, that he sees all humans as toys to play with and that have no other meaning besides that. I believe the author used this type of extreme to show that, only the worst type of people don’t believe that life is sacred and worth more than its physical body. And in doing that the author pointed out that, good characters try to avoid killing others at all costs and when they do have to kill someone they feel remorse because they had to kill someone. Shou doesn’t get that remorse when he kills someone close to him, instead he feels proud about his creation of the Chimera. This shows how truly abnormal he is in the fact of not thinking that a life is important and sacred and how twisted his mind is.
Another psychopathic and twisted man who has no regard for life is Solf Kimblee or otherwise known as the Crimson Alchemist. He gets the name the Crimson Alchemist because his special power is to be able to turn anything he wants into a bomb and he loves using his power. The sight of blood and death thrills him to the point that he often goes out of the way to try and kill others. He earned his fame and name when he was sent to the Ishbalan Civil War to stop the rebelling people but he just went through and slaughtered as many people as he could find and get into contact with. He never had any remorse when he blew up that many people. Instead he enjoyed the sight and wanted to do it more and more. He was given a ring to enhance his powers during the war but at the end of the war, since he loved killing people so much he didn’t want to give it back. So instead he killed his superior officers who knew that he had the ring so it would be a secret and he could keep the ring. This man has no alliegence or regard for others and does things just so he can kill and see more blood. I believe the author used Solf to show that once again it is not just the killing that is the bad act, but how they feel about it. Solf enjoys killing others. He derives pleasure and thrill out of hearing explosions and seeing and smelling corpses. Instead of feeling horrified of so much death, like most people would, he wants to see it again and again. He will kill whoever he can to get more power so he can kill more people and he will work for whoever he can to just have the chance to kill more people. This is another extreme example that shows only the most deranged people disregard the value of life so life must be valuable.
This Manga series shows that life is special and more than just bodies, it has a soul, something that cannot be duplicated or replaced. It is shown through the characters Edward, Alphonse, Izumi, Shou, and Solf. As well as the fact that you can’t transmute people because there is no way to do an equivalent exchange for the soul or bring the person’s soul back after they died. The good characters that like to help and protect lives and feel terrible remorse when they kill someone or can’t save someone from being killed. The bad characters either don’t care that they killed someone or take pleasure in killing others, even people who they should be close to such as family members and co-workers. The author used this to show that everyone except for the most evil of villians value a life and feel bad if they take one or hear that someone dies. That proves that life has high value and is more than a mere body.

What I Plan On For My Revision Paper

justineb426 — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 20:20:29 +0000

I am going to Revise my Full Metal Alchemist Shows The Value Of Life Paper. The things I want to work on is changing my thesis so it better fits what I am saying in the essay. When I started I had an idea, but it seemed that as I went on typing it was a bit different than the thesis so I am going to change the thesis and the rest of my introduction to better state what I am trying to say in the essay. I am going to cut a bit down on the plot summary and add more analysis on what makes the evil characters evil with their actions beyond just killing. Why are they worse with killing indescriminantly or their own family instead of for a purpose or to help and save others? And say how these characters act and the loss of limbs from the brothers says something greater about the value of life as a whole.

What I Think Of Literature Now

justineb426 — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 20:11:03 +0000

I still think Literature is something that has an universal meaning and is timeless. I also believe still it can be an entire body of writings from a specific, place, time, language, people or subject. Something that has changed is that it doesn’t have to be something that is written. It could be anything with a story that has universal meaning and reasonates with many people. This can include things on the internet that are typed or done as a video or some sort, movies, and of course there is always books, magazines, graphic novels and comics. But my idea of literature is now more broad than it was before now its more about the content than how it is made. Because no matter the media the point you want can be put through, it may be harder or easier with one media rather than the other but it is still possible.

What Questions and Where would I like to take my literary studies education further?

I am very interested in novels and video’s/film, and other creative writing. Partially want to look at the similarities and differences between novels and movies or shows. See how those two media’s overlap and get points across and how they are different at getting points across. As well how it is easier with one media or the other for people to translate certain ideas or for an audience to recieve certain ideas. Another interesting thing would be which is more effective for teaching or showing others themes and ideas of the author. And which one impacts the audience more. That all would be an interesting combination for learning on how to more effectively get certain ideas and points out.

Theory Essay Final Draft: How Gender Roles Shape The Identity Of The Characters In Bastard Out Of Carolina

justineb426 — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 19:08:05 +0000

How Gender Roles Shape The Identity Of The Characters In Bastard Out Of Carolina

When I read the book Bastard Out of Carolina by Dorothy Allison, I was struck by many of the points about society and how it effects people were put throughout the book. There were a couple of things that caught my attention. First, how Allison showed through the main character Bone, and her family, that gender roles shape their identity. Second, the how the negative gender role stereotypes placed on Bone and her family get them to feel bad about being themselves and act in a way that makes them and everyone around them miserable. Society tells Bone and her family many ways on how they should be or live in order to be the proper man or woman and this influences their actions greatly.
Daddy Glen is one family members that is greatly influenced by the stereotypes and stigmatisms that society puts on him. The qualities of a “real” man is shown through the example of Lyle Parsons, “Lyle Parsons, Anney Boatwright’s first hus-band, frequently reeks of beer, spends much of his time at stock-car races, and defines his masculinity by “providing well for his family.” He proves himself a man by getting Anney pregnant “almost imme-diately” and doesn’t “want her to go out to work at all”,” (Talking Trash, Talking Back, pg. 19). This is an image Daddy Glen constantly has to keep up with in order to been seen as a man and he has a hard time doing it which makes him feel shameful of himself, his family, and angry that he can’t be a better husband. He doesn’t drink, which Anney’s brother’s find odd, he can never keep a stable job so more often than not can’t provide for the family, he tried to have a baby boy with Anney but it died during birth and made it so Anney could not have children again, and Anney has to constantly work to make up for when Glenn loses a job. Since he fits under none of the categories for what makes a good husband or father he gets really defensive and upset with himself and others easily. This caused Daddy Glen to get angry when Bone’s mother borrowed money from Earle to help,“ Daddy Glen got mad at Mama for taking the money, as if she had done it to prove he couldn’t support us. ‘I’m a grown man,’ he yelled. ‘I don’t need your damn brother to pay my way,’”(pg. 68). Since society expects a man to be able to take of and support his family by himself, Daddy Glen was angered that Bone’s mother, Anney, took money from her brother. It made him feel like he was not doing his job right and was worthless since he couldn’t take care of his family on his own. So, he didn’t want to borrow money so he could prove his worth as a man to his family and society around him. Because of that, Daddy Glen doesn’t embrace the fact that his family cares enough to help him, he just pushes it away, in fear that he won’t be considered a man anymore.
Not only Daddy Glen is affected, but, Anney and many of the other women of the Boatright family get consumed on the stereotype of how to be a woman. As said by Kathlene McDonald, “ ‘Being Pregnant’ proves that their men love them, and a man’s love proves that they are ‘worth something’,” (Talking Trash, Talking Back pg. 20). How many children they had and how they raised them was how their worth was measured. They had their husbands to support them financially and have to stay with him no matter the type of man they are because they need that love from their husband to prove they can be loved. Even though the sisters in the Boatright family were close to each other and always helped each other take care of each other’s kids and helped them get through whatever their husbands said and did, it was not enough for them. They needed a man to make them feel valid and needed.
Aunt Alma is a good example, her husband Wade cheats on her when she is pregnant and she catches him in the act. She tries to leave him but when the pressures of having to take care of and work to pay for her own family gets rough she just goes back to Wade to have him support her again. She ends up falling into the stereotype of a woman needing a man to support her and take care of her. Even when the children are much older and she wants another and he calls her an ugly cow that he would not be able to sleep with even with a bag over her head she doesn’t leave him. She feels so angry she wants to kill him but can’t bring herself to leave him or stop loving him. “‘All this time, taking care of him, loving him, giving him children and meals and clean clothes and loving him. Loving him, and him to talk to me that way,’ she cried deep, broken sobs,” (pg. 272). Alma was always there for Wade, through the cheating, and children and hard times and when he didn’t have a job and supported him and he still treated her badly and talked badly to her. Allison and other scholars point out and explain that women were taught to stay by their man and obey the gender roles, “In an interview with Carolyn E. Megan, Allison described the women’s role as caught up ‘in the things they were supposed to do…keep the kids safe, find a good man, save him, and hang on for dear life’,”(Talking Trash, Talking back pg. 20). Therefore, no matter if their husbands abused the Boatright women mentally or physically they still stuck by their sides. Even if they have children or family to support and love them, it is not the same, and they are not truly loved and are not acting as women if they don’t have a husband to stand by. This makes Alma feel shame when she leaves her husband and shame when she is with him because he treats her badly. So either way she feels badly on how she acts.
Anney, Bone’s mother, is another prime example of how their family’s perceptions of themselves and actions are shaped by gender roles society puts on them. She thinks she needs a man to validate that she has love and that she and her children are legitimate and worth something. She also worked hard so her family would not be categorized as trash or ever go hungry because she knew she would just be though of as another, “No-good, lazy, shiftless,”(pg.3) poor white trash girl. She works hard long days so her daughters and her family can be fed and afford where they live. But having herself work and her husband not being able to keep a job thrusted her into the poor white trash category again. This brings on a vicious cycle of “resisting their appointed roles even as they submit to them,”(Talking Trash, Talking Back, pg. 22). Part of being a good woman is being a mother that takes good care of her children, and keeps them safe and fed. She wants Bone and Reese to be happy and she also wants to stay by her husband as well but that doesn’t work out well. Daddy Glen is always in and out of work, and abuses Bone physically and sexually. This angers Anney and gets her to yell at him, “‘Soda crackers and ketchup,’ she hissed at him. ‘You so casual about finding another job, but I had to feed my girls this shit while you sat on your butt all afternoon, smoking and telling lies,’”(pg.73) but she never was able to leave him for very long. She always came back, even when he beat Bone, she would leave and then come back or send Bone to one of her Aunt’s houses until she thought it was safe again. Since society told her that she needed a man to keep her children from being illegitimate and make them valid, she always went back to Glen and would try her hardest to always listen to him no matter what he said so they would not ever be separated. She was trying to do this for the good of her children and to be a good mother and wife but little did she know that following these stereotypes would just cause more pain to one of her daughters and make her feel more of an outcast than she would ever know. When Bone tells her that she can’t go back home to live with Glen, her mother still ends up going back with him. The pressure from the gender roles are so much that she leaves her first daughter to try and have a perfect family with Reese and Glen.
Bone is also affected by the pressures put on her by society and her family to conform. It can be argued that she is the most hard hit by it at first but also the most resilient since she recovers from it by the end of the book. She is greatly influenced by her family and constantly listens to their stories and wants to be like them. This gave her many examples of women who fell into the stereotype of what being a woman is and it made her feel like she was doing something wrong when she knew she didn’t want to be that way. It made her feel like she had done something bad or wrong. Daddy Glen who beat her and made up stories on why he beat her to her and her mother started affecting her as well. At first, she knew he was lying but after a while of him beating her over and over she started to believe how Daddy Glen saw her and it made her feel even worse about herself. “No part of me was that worshipful, dreamy-eyed storybook girlchild, no part of me was beautiful. I could see why Daddy Glen was hateful to me,”(pg. 208). Bone was not a dreamy happy little girl since she was in a poor family with a father who beat her. She grew up to be tough and unhappy and because of that she believed she was ugly and something that should be hated. She was convinced because she was not like the story book beautiful girl that Daddy Glen had a right to hate her and beat her. It was not only Daddy Glen who acted like Bone was the one in the wrong but it was her own mother, Anney. One time, when Glen beat Bone, Anney acted like Bone started it, “Why Honey? Why did you have to act like that?”(pg. 234), And she continues, “Bone. Is it because of Ruth? Is that why you started yelling at Glen? Honey, you know you can’t do that,” (pg. 235). Anney is doing her usual role of supporting her husband no matter what so she can keep him with her to be a good woman and be able to legitimize her family with having a husband. But this compromises Bone’s well being and makes her feel like everything is her fault and shows her that is how women are supposed to be. It ingrains deeper that women should follow their men even if they are right or wrong. And this makes her feel more alone, hopeless, and bad since she doesn’t not agree with her family that this is how things are supposed to be.
Not only was Bone affected by the stereotype that she should be a soft happy little girl but that she needed a father to love her to make her happy and like a normal child. It was similar to what her mom had shown her. That she needed a man to make her feel loved and worthy. “Love would make me beautiful; a father’s love would purify my heart, turn my bitter soul sweet, and lighten my Cherokee eyes. If he loved me, if he only loved me. Why didn’t he love me?” (pg. 209). Bone now feels that if Daddy Glen loved her that she would be valid and a good girl and all her problems would be solved. She just wished that he would not beat her or yell at her or molest her anymore and just treat her like a normal child. She believes that she is the bad kid that needs to be saved by the love of a father. She starts going down a long road of blaming herself because she believes that she is the reason the family can’t have a father to make them valid and worthwhile. At Aunt Ruth’s funeral, Aunt Raylene sees the wounds from Bone being beaten and shows her uncles who beat up Daddy Glen, and in the aftermath, even though Raylene was trying to protect her, Bone feels like she is the reason her family is split up and miserable, “It was my fault, everything. Mama’s silence and Reese’s rage,” she continues later, “I kept trying to figure out how I could have prevented it all from happening, not drunk that beer, not let anyone see, gone to Mama and made sure she knew that I had deserved that beating-kept everything smooth and quiet,”(pg. 249). Bone felt that it was her fault that her mother and sister were miserable and missing a father since she let Raylene see where Daddy Glen beat her and that caused her uncles to beat him up and send him to the hospital. She felt that she was the one dragging the family apart because she was not good enough at hiding her pain from the others. If she had been a good girl and was quiet and went with everything that Daddy Glen had ever said things would be fine. She thought if she was just like her mother their family would still be together. But she was not like that and felt guilt that she caused her family so much heartbreak.
This shows how being different from the gender role effects a person and how society can make them feel like they are not worthy of anything if they don‘t conform to gender roles. It also makes them feel ashamed of who they are and how they act. Then many people try to either conform or resist and often end up conforming in their resistance. This then makes them ashamed that they aren’t the person who they really are and that they are not being true to themselves. Once the cycle of shame gets going it is hard to get out of since as other scholars shame is “an individual phenomenon, family phenomenon and a cultural phenomenon,”(“You Nothing But Trash” pg. 103). This makes Bone hate herself for the longest time until she lives with her Aunt Raylene, who is the only other person in her family who wants to escape the cycle that everyone else is in. Bone has to leave all the rest of her family behind, not live with her mother, and her stepdad and sister to get herself away from the stereotypes and be able to be herself and feel good about herself. This shows how powerful gender role stereotypes applied by society is. The only way to be free from them is to be proud of yourself no matter who and what you are.
Bibliography
1. Allison, Dorothy. Bastard Out Of Carolina, Copyright 1992.
2. Bouson, J. Brooks.”You Nothing but Trash”: White Trash Shame in Dorothy Allison’s “Bastard out of Carolina.” The Southern Literary Journal, Vol. 34, No. 1 (Fall, 2001), pp. 101-123.

3. McDonald, Kathlene.‘Talking Trash, Talking Back: Resistance to Stereotypes in Dorothy Allison’s “Bastard out of Carolina,” Women’s Studies Quarterly, Vol. 26, No. 1/2, Working-Class Lives and Cultures (Spring – Summer, 1998), pp. 15-25.

Rough Draft Of Theory Essay

justineb426 — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 18:16:52 +0000

When I read the book Bastard Out of Carolina by Dorothy Allison, I was struck by many of the points about society and how it effects people were put throughout the book. There were a couple of things that caught my attention. First, how Allison showed through the main character Bone, and her family, having their identity shaped by gender roles. Second, how the negative stereotypes from gender roles placed on Bone and her family get them to feel bad about being themselves and act in a way that makes them and everyone around them miserable.
Society tells Bone and her family many ways on how they should be or live and this influences them greatly. Daddy Glen is one family members that is greatly influenced by the stereotypes and stigmatisms that society puts on him. The qualities of a man is shown through the example of Lyle Parsons, “Lyle Parsons, Anney Boatwright’s first hus-band, frequently reeks of beer, spends much of his time at stock-car races, and defines his masculinity by “providing well for his family.” He proves himself a man by getting Anney pregnant “almost imme-diately” and doesn’t “want her to go out to work at all”,” (Talking Trash, Talking Back, pg. 19). This is an image Daddy Glen constantly has to keep up with in order to been seen as a man and he has a hard time doing it which makes him feel shameful of himself, his family, and angry that he can’t be a better husband. He doesn’t drink, which Anney’s brother’s find odd, he can never keep a stable job so more often than not can’t provide for the family, he tried to have a baby boy with Anney but it died during birth and made it so Anney could not have children again, and Anney has to constantly work to make up for when Glenn loses a job. Since he fits under none of the categories for what makes a good husband or father he gets really defensive and upset with himself and others easily. This caused Daddy Glen to get angry when Bone’s mother borrowed money from Earle to help,“ Daddy Glen got mad at Mama for taking the money, as if she had done it to prove he couldn’t support us. “I’m a grown man,’ he yelled. ‘I don’t need your damn brother to pay my way,’”(pg. 68). Since society expects a man to be able to take of and support his family by himself, Daddy Glen was angered that Bone’s mother, Anney, took money from her brother. It made him feel like he was not doing his job right and was worthless since he couldn’t take care of his family on his own. And on top of that it made them look like they were leeching off of their other family members which would make society look down on them as white trash. Thus, he didn’t want to borrow money so he could prove his worth as a man to his family and society around him. Because of that, Daddy Glen doesn’t embrace the fact that his family cares enough to help him, he just pushes it away, in fear that he won’t be considered a man anymore.
Not only Daddy Glen is affected, but, Anney and many of the other women of the Boatright family get consumed on the stereotype of how to be a woman. They needed a man to be married to and love them to prove what they were worth. They also had to stay home and have many children so show how much their husbands cared about them. How many children they had and how they raised them was how their worth was measured. They had their husbands to support them financially and have to stay with him no matter the type of man they are because they need that love from their husband to prove they can be loved. Even though the sisters in the Boatright family were close to each other and always helped each other take care of each other’s kids and helped them get through whatever their husbands said and did, it was not enough for them. They needed a man to make them feel valid and needed.
Aunt Alma is a good example, her husband Wade cheats on her when she is pregnant and she catches him in the act. She tries to leave him but when the pressures of having to take care of and work to pay for her own family gets rough she just goes back to Wade to have him support her again. She ends up falling into the stereotype of a woman needing a man to support her and take care of her. Even when the children are much older and she wants another and he calls her an ugly cow that he would not be able to sleep with even with a bag over her head she doesn’t leave him. She feels so angry she wants to kill him but can’t bring herself to leave him or stop loving him. “‘All this time, taking care of him, loving him, giving him children and meals and clean clothes and loving him. Loving him, and him to talk to me that way,’ she cried deep, broken sobs,” (pg. 272). Alma was always there for Wade, through the cheating, and children and hard times and when he didn’t have a job and supported him and he still treated her badly and talked badly to her. This is something that is taught to the women in the Boatright family in society. That women should be submissive and listen to and stick by their husband no matter what they do. No matter if they are getting physically or mentally abused or cheated on, they have been shown that staying with their husband means they are loved more than when they are without a husband. Even if they have children or family to support and love them, it is not the same, and they are not truly loved and women if they don’t have a husband to stand by. This makes Alma feel shame when she leaves her husband and shame when she is with him because he treats her badly. So either way she feels badly on how she acts.
Anney, Bone’s mother, is another prime example of how their family’s perceptions of themselves and actions are shaped by what society thinks they are. She thinks she needs a man to validate that she has love and that she and her children are legitimate and worth something. She also worked hard so her family would not be categorized as trash or ever go hungry because she knew she would just be though of as another, “No-good, lazy, shiftless,”(pg.3) poor white trash girl. She works hard long days so her daughters and her family can be fed and afford where they live. But having herself work and her husband not being able to keep a job thrusted her into the poor white trash category again. This brings on a vicious cycle of “resisting their appointed roles even as they submit to them,”(Talking Trash, Talking Back, pg. 22). Part of being a good woman is being a mother that takes good care of her children, and keeps them safe and fed. She wants Bone and Reese to be happy and she also wants to stay by her husband as well but that doesn’t work out well. Daddy Glen is always in and out of work, and abuses Bone physically and sexually. This angers Anney and gets her to yell at him, “‘Soda crackers and ketchup,’ she hissed at him. ‘You so casual about finding another job, but I had to feed my girls this shit while you sat on your butt all afternoon, smoking and telling lies,’”(pg.73) but she never was able to leave him for very long. She always came back, even when he beat Bone, she would leave and then come back or send Bone to one of her Aunt’s houses until she thought it was safe again. Since society told her that she needed a man to keep her children from being illegitimate and make them valid, she always went back to Glen and would try her hardest to always listen to him no matter what he said so they would not ever be separated. She was trying to do this for the good of her children and to be a good mother and wife but little did she know that following these stereotypes would just cause more pain to one of her daughters and make her feel more outcasted than she would ever know. When Bone tells her that she can’t go back home to live with Glen, her mother still ends up going back with him. The pressure from the gender roles are so much that she leaves her first daughter to try and have a perfect family with Reese and Glen.
Bone is also affected by the pressures put on her by society and her family to conform. It can be argued that she is the most hard hit by it at first but also the most resilient since she recovers from it by the end of the book. She is greatly influenced by her family and constantly listens to their stories and wants to be like them. This gave her many examples of women who fell into the stereotype of what being a woman and it made her feel like she was doing something wrong when she knew she didn’t want to be that way. It made her feel like she had done something bad or wrong. Daddy Glen who beat her and made up stories on why he beat her to her and her mother started affecting her as well. At first, she knew he was lying but after a while of him beating her over and over she started to believe how Daddy Glen saw her and it made her feel even worse about herself. “No part of me was that worshipful, dreamy-eyed storybook girlchild, no part of me was beautiful. I could see why Daddy Glen was hateful to me,”(pg. 208). Bone was not a dreamy happy little girl since she was in a poor family with a father who beat her she grew up to be tough and unhappy and because of that she believed she was ugly and something that should be hated. She was getting convinced because she was not like the story book beautiful girl that Daddy Glen had a right to hate her and beat her. It was not only Daddy Glen who acted like Bone was the one in the wrong but it was her own mother, Anney. One time, when Glen beat Bone, Anney acted like Bone started it, “Why Honey? Why did you have to act like that?”(pg. 234), And she continues, “Bone. Is it because of Ruth? Is that why you started yelling at Glen? Honey, you know you can’t do that,” (pg. 235). Anney is doing her usual role of supporting her husband no matter what so she can keep him with her to be a good woman and be able to legitimize her family with having a husband. But this compromises Bone’s well being and makes her feel like everything is her fault and shows her that is how women are supposed to be. It ingrains deeper that women should follow their men even if they are right or wrong. And this makes her feel more alone, hopeless, and bad since she doesn’t not agree with her family that this is how things are supposed to be.
Not only was Bone affected by the stereotype that she should be a soft happy little girl but that she needed a father to love her to make her happy and like a normal child. It was similar to what her mom had shown her. That she needed a man to make her feel loved and worthy. “Love would make me beautiful; a father’s love would purify my heart, turn my bitter soul sweet, and lighten my Cherokee eyes. If he loved me, if he only loved me. Why didn’t he love me?” (pg. 209). Bone now feels that if Daddy Glen loved her that she would be valid and a good girl and all her problems would be solved. She just wished that he would not beat her or yell at her or molest her anymore and just treat her like a normal child. She believes that she is the bad kid that needs to be saved from the love of a father which is how the woman being dependant on a man stereotype begins. She starts going down a long road of blaming herself because she believes that she is the reason they can’t have a father to make their family worthwhile. At Aunt Ruth’s funeral, Aunt Raylene sees the wounds from Bone being beaten and shows her uncles who beat up Daddy Glen, and in the aftermath, even though Raylene was trying to protect her, Bone feels like she is the reason her family is split up and miserable, “It was my fault, everything. Mama’s silence and Reese’s rage,” she continues later, “I kept trying to figure out how I could have prevented it all from happening, not drunk that beer, not let anyone see, gone to Mama and made sure she knew that I had deserved that beating-kept everything smooth and quiet,”(pg. 249). Bone felt that it was her fault that her mother and sister were miserable and missing a father since she let Raylene see where Daddy Glen beat her and that caused her uncles to beat him up and send him to the hospital. She felt that she was the one dragging the family apart because she was not good enough at hiding her pain from the others and that if she was just a good girl and was quiet and went with everything that Daddy Glen had ever said things would be fine. If she was just like her example that her mother gave her. But she was not like that and felt shame that she caused her family so much heartbreak.
This shows how shame of being different from society affects a person. It can make them feel horrible for who they are and hate themselves and think that they are not worthy of anything more than what they have. And once this cycle gets going it is hard to get out of since as other scholars shame is “an individual phenomenon, family phenomenon and a cultural phenomenon,”(“You Nothing But Trash” pg. 103). so it is hard to escape from. This makes Bone hate herself for the longest time until she lives with her Aunt Raylene, who is the only other person in her family who wants to escape the cycle that everyone else is in. Bone has to leave all the rest of her family behind, not live with her mother, and her stepdad and sister to get herself away from the stereotypes and be able to be herself and feel good about herself. This shows how powerful stereotypes and how society perceives us can be in our lives. The only way to be free from them is to be proud of yourself no matter who and how you are.
Bibliography
1. Allison, Dorothy. Bastard Out Of Carolina, Copyright 1992.
2. Bouson, J. Brooks.”You Nothing but Trash”: White Trash Shame in Dorothy Allison’s “Bastard out of Carolina.” The Southern Literary Journal, Vol. 34, No. 1 (Fall, 2001), pp. 101-123.

Media Essay Remix Project

justineb426 — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 09:42:22 +0000

Author’s Note: I did a music video to the anime Full Metal Alchemist The Brotherhood as my essay remix. My essay was on how the Full Metal Alchemist Manga shows that life is precious, sacred, and more than just a human body. In it I explained that one way this was shown was through the charater’s attitudes. I showed that the good characters cared about perserving life and the bad ones were insane and evil and just wanted to destroy life. I tried to get the same feel in this video, showing the personalities of the same characters that I used in my essay. I stuck Ed and Al together to the song Wind Of Hope by Andru Donalds because they are like hope and happiness to many people they come into contact with. They are always trying to help others and I got some clips showing this. I used the song Unwinding Cable Car by Anberlin for Izumi because I believe that she is softer than she puts out and that she is a kind person who believes that your actions define who you are so she tries to help people as much as she can. For one of the bad guys, Shou Tucker, I used the song Weird Science by Oingo Boingo because that is what he sees everything as, experiments, even his family he turns into an experiment. And last but not least, I used the song Getting Away With Murder by Papa Roach for Solf Kimblee because he just loves killing and blowing up people. This shows how crazy and evil he is. He enjoys killing others! How sickening is that? I hope everyone enjoys my video!

Theory Essay Proposal

justineb426 — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 17:28:22 +0000

A book I read recently had been stuck in my mind and it was Bastard Out of Carolina by Dorothy Allison. This book is very deep and brings up many tough issues about the main character Bone and her family. I was thinking about for the research essay bringing up a couple of the issues in the book that I think the author intended to get through to thier readers that was connecting to Hermeneutics. I also was thinking about going on how the author used imagery to get a point across that other’s might not necissarily think of. Since I can’t use all of her themes in the novel I decided to just focus on a couple. One of the main themes I want to talk about that I believe Dorothy Allison was trying to convey through her book was: How being an illegitimate white poor girl and how her family and other’s treat her shapes Bone’s identity. I would also point out how it makes Bone think of herself and other’s due to how she is treated. So basically, that one of the concerns that the author has is how social constructions and how society percieves a person shapes their identity. I believe that Dorothy Allison was trying to show how badly effected Bone was by other’s labelling her as “white trash”, “Illegitamate”, or “Different.” How she can feel as an outcast not only with the state and country she lives in but her own family. I own the book and have read it so I am going to look through that to get examples to back up all of my ideas and I will also probably look at other articles or journal’s to help back up my claims on what I thought Dorothy intended as a message from her novel.

Paper Remix Brainstorm

justineb426 — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 19:38:48 +0000

I could add some of the anime of Full Metal Alchemist in the further prove the point and even make a video of different parts of the anime where it is similar to the manga proving my point that there is a theme that life is precious and more than just a body. It can also back up how bad the bad characters are and how good the good characters are and how they value or don’t value life and think its more than a body or not. That or I could do something as simple as making the characters who are bad be something characteristically evil or without concious or a soul like a devil or vampire or zombie. And I could make the good characters look as good or pure like an angel or an innocent child or a martyr. Or I could even have images from the manga or anime put up as I have voice overs of my paper in the backround. I could have images that pop up of the other characters doing good or bad things or valuing or not valuing life while I explain the essay in the backround or what is going on in the picture and how it backs up the point in my essay.

Tools to Use for Writing or Research

justineb426 — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 18:36:57 +0000

Many tools can be used for writing or research, there are things such as dictionaries, thesauruses, a computer, the internet, books, journal’s, movie’s and television. Though some of these things need to be picked carefully because not everything on the internet or television is valid or correct. You can also use different literary devices for writing, description and emphasis, imagery through words or pictures themselves to help us understand what is going on. Spell checkers and grammer checkers are also very useful. Electronic databases for reference.

Missolonghi 1824

justineb426 — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 19:28:02 +0000

The story’s style was confusing because you couldn’t tell what was real or a lie. This story is about Lord Byron telling stories about his life. He seemed to be dying or sick or both so things he said as stories seemed unrealistic and could have been made up. He seemed repressed by society and maybe the stories that were made up to help him satisfy his repressions. He wanted to be a hero, so, when he saved the god/supernatural creature he was able to fullfill that in his story. The way the story is written makes it almost sound like he is making everything up on the spot-the main character-rather than recalling it from a memory. Seems like the main character is spouting it as he goes along. And maybe these are things he told stories of to help let out the repressions of his desires. Such as talking about the woman who had an affair, since he often did that, he did many things that weren’t allowed to be talked about. Such as being bisexual and an adulterer. So he could get that out through his stories without getting in as much trouble as actually doing it. But it is still a pretty good way to vent out his desires.