What do I gotta do, to make you love me?

Dear indecisive fool,

Listen. You are 37, you’ve never been married and you’re quiet, shy and overweight. That’s a rotten luck you’ve got there, darling. There are a few things that you can change about your situation though:

You’re quiet? Get louder. Drinking helps. Just have a few drinks the next time you’re about to see your boyfriend, and tell him about your feelings.

You’re shy? Stop it. If you can’t change, try drinking wine and you’ll see that you’ll become much less shier.

You’re overweight? Darling, go to the gym. Stop eating and just have a smoke instead once in a while. If you want the men to love you, you gotta start working the booty.

You’re plain? Put on a nice dress, some make-up, and stop feeling sorry for yourself.

Now to your question, if you should wait for your Prince Charming or if you should marry your best friend. Don’t marry. Why would you? Stay with your friend until you’ve found someone better because there’s nothing worse than being alone. Rot! If you can’t have sex with your friend, then have sex with someone else. Who cares? A woman’s gotta do what a woman’s gotta do. You don’t have to love someone in order to feel a little secure and safe. If you want to be sure that you can rely on someone, I’d say marry the guy. Only because you’re married, doesn’t mean you’ve settled, so don’t worry about that. When it’s time for your Prince Charming, you can still get a divorce, it’s really easy, trust me I do it all the time.

Now darling, have a drink, dress up and go dancing. There’s nothing like a good night at a pub, where you can meet a lot of potential Princes.

Brett

Fighting the bull

Emotions are often avoided in The Sun Also Rises. In this book, emotions are commonly related to alcohol, and there aren’t a lot of things that can emotionally shake Jake up. One more thing that has the same effect on Jake is bull-fighting. It says on page 168: “We had that disturbed emotional feeling that always comes after a bull-fight, and the feeling of elation that comes after a good bull-fight”.

The reason why Jake feels so moved is that he believes that no one ever lives their life to the fullest like the bull-fighters. Bull-fighters impress him and he’s the most amazed by them. I think that that might have something to do with the fact that when he went to war, he was always fighting and risking his life, and he sees a part of that in the bull-fighters. They risk everything for the rush of the moment and the amusement of the audience. The bull-fighters have the ability to engage the audience like no theatrical performance can. The aficionados in the arena live each move the bull-fighter makes, with him, and that’s how they evaluate whether or not a bull-fighter is a real star or not. Jake is proud to be seen as an aficionados, and the fact that his friends were far from being as passionate as him about bull-fighting makes him superior to them in one area.

Jake is jealous of Cohn because he can get closer to Brett physically. Cohn has money, and he’s a fairly successful writer. He’s a boxer, which makes him more masculine than Jake by far. Jake needs this superiority of knowing so much about bull-fighting, to make him feel special.  He needs to be part of the audience to feel the passion and the rush of risking your life for something bigger than you.

Bull-fights, like fishing, are a form of escape for him. It seems as though when he focuses on what’s going on in the arena, he can forget about his inability to have sex, he forgets that he’s lost, and he might for a second even forget about Brett.

If bull-fights are the only thing that mixes someone’s feelings up like this, it proves that they are seriously having problems finding their place in the world. Jake is seen as being part of this ‘lost generation’, and as the story progresses, it is clear that Jake finds some ways of escaping from his ‘not belonging’, which involves things like bull-fighting, fishing, reading, nature and drinking. 

A passage

The passage I chose goes from page 18 to page 19 in Chapter 2 from where Robert Cohn says that "I can't stand it to think my life is going so fast and I'm not really living it", to when Cohn says that "This is a good place.". Robert and Jake talk about 'living life to the fullest', and I think that this passage is important because it conveys two different perspectives on life and it explains certain behaviors of the characters.

Jake says that "Nobody ever lives their life all the way up except bull-fighters."
This explains Jake's fascination with bull-fighters and bulls. The tone of this line is a little melancholic. He doesn't believe that he'll ever live a moment to its fullest. I think that this line also refers to his time as a soldier, because that's the closest he's ever gotten to resembling someone as powerful and reckless as a bull-fighter.
Robert on the other hand is in a state where "[he] can't stand it to think [his] life going so fast and [he's] not really living it."

He believes that if he would just go to some other place like South America, he would find this satisfaction of living everything he could possibly be living. It seems as though Jake thinks that this only comes from the reading Robert has been doing about intensely romantic stories, and that Robert is just looking for crazy love adventures. He even goes as far as to say that the reason Robert doesn't want to go to British East Africa is "Because you never read a book about it. Go on and read a book all full of love affairs with the beautiful shiny black princesses."

The last part of this passage is interesting as well, because just after talking about something so meaningful and  deep as the importance of living life to the fullest, they go downstairs and have a drink at the bar. Cohn then looks at the bottles and says that "This is a good place", perfectly displaying how dependent both of them are of alcohol and Jake is trying to avoid their emotional conversation by offering a drink to Cohn. Once again, alcohol is associated with emotions, which I find is a very pertinent motif of the book.

Becca chose a passage that goes from page 24 to 25.
What I find most important about this passage, is the contradiction in Jake's need for company. He says that he picked her up because he had a vague sentimental idea that it would be nice to eat with someone, displaying that he's lonely and needs someone to love, but then a few lines later he shows that he doesn't care about her at all. He says "Better than you eat in Liège" and she responds, "Brussels, you mean". This shows that he wants company, but he doesn't care who the company is. It could be anyone.

I also found his remarks about the war interesting. Becca thought that Jake hates the war and it should (as he says) have been avoided, but I think that he's just being sarcastic. I feel like the lines about the war (25) are pretty bitter, and it's hard to define whether Jake mocks Georgette's perspective, or if he's talking about his opinion.

Becca also says that when it says that "We had another bottle of wine and Georgette made a joke. She smiled and showed all her bad teeth, and we touched glasses", it reminds him that no one is perfect, which makes him feel better about himself. I find this interesting because it could in fact be related to his injury, but I hadn't thought of it this way. I thought that he was just repulsed of her and that in this moment he realizes that he'd rather be in company of someone beautiful like Brett. I like Becca's interpretation though. In this quote I find the fact that they're having another wine bottle very important, because it relates once again alcohol to emotions.

I find the connection Becca made between Jake and Jacob quite interesting. Seeing it as she described, his name being ironic to his situation, is a very good thought and I hadn't considered that before.

Blog Portfolio

Blog Portfolio

Welcome to my first Blog Portfolio in senior year. Enjoy!

Coverage

1)      Dance in the Dark

2)      We Are Family

3)      Rescue Me

4)      As You Wish

5)      Hey Mr. Thompson

6)      Turning Tables

7)      Comic Life

8)       Blame it on the A-A-A-Alcohol

9)       Director's cut

10)   Allusions

11)   Route March by Charles Hamilton Sorley
And the wildcard: Can girls and guys be friends?

Depth
 Allusions

In this post I went into depth about different key words of chapters 11 and 12, researched them and explained their situation in the text.

Interaction
 Blame it on the A-A-A-Alcohol

I attached and discussed Monique’s idea to my blog post. I found her idea, of nature and reading being an escape for Jake besides alcohol, very interesting. 
I also referenced Saumya's blog, to show her perspective on the matter, and kindly disagree with her point of view. 

Discussion
 Can girls and guys be friends?

Naoise, Anuraag and I had a deep discussion on my wildcard, debating whether or not girls and guys can be friends. We all formed some strong opinions and it was interesting to see that in the end we all agreed a little bit with each other. 
 Blame it on the A-A-A-Alcohol

Monique, Saumya and I had a discussion on my blog about alcohol, which brought up some different interesting ideas.

Xenoblogging

 Ending the day comments (Saumya's blog)

I  commented on Saumya’s blog to show her my perspective of Jake’s behavior towards alcohol. I disagreed with what she said, and gave her some examples in the text that explained why I felt that way.
Naoise's Blog: What's next?

I was lucky to be the first to comment on Naoise's wildcard about the future and the idea of living each moment to the fullest. I hope that I could give him another perspective on his already well developed idea.

Wildcard

 Can girls and guys be friends?

I discussed the question of whether or not girls and guys can be friends. 

Route March by Charles Hamilton Sorley

This is how I would go about approaching to write a commentary about this poem (or prepare for an oral commentary):

Step 1 : Read the poem carefully at least twice

Step 2: Identify the whole and the part

What is the nature of the whole? It’s a poem about war, about marching and singing in the face of death.

What kind of work is it? It’s poetry

Fiction? No. It is a realistic poem about the events of war

What is the audience? Anyone that has anything to do with war, or that just enjoys reading poems about it.

What is the purpose of the poem? The purpose is to bring people to sing while marching towards death, because we walk towards it no matter what.

Where is it set? Most likely in between fields, on the way to a battle.

What’s going on? Soldiers are marching and singing.

Given circumstances: are unclear because it is a poem that has a specific meaning and theme but doesn’t give anything about what happened before or what will happen after. One could imagine that previous battles have been fought and most likely lost because they know they’re likely to die. It seems as though they’re marching towards a failure.

Step 3:

WHO is speaking? A soldier, maybe an officer since he has the right to animate people to sing.

TO WHOM is he speaking? To the other soldiers.

WHAT is their situation? They’re at war, they’re about to fight and die in battle.

WHERE is the setting? In the fields

Tone? Joyous: O sing etc but also a bit cynical: Give your gladness to earth’s keeping, so be glad when you are sleeping.

Diction: positive ‘blossomed’, ‘glad’, ‘joyful’….

What patterns? Structure? Rhyme scheme, not on the same level.

Contrasts: between death and sleep

PURPOSE?SO WHAT? The importance of the above is that the speaker tries to make something sad such as death make sound lighter and more bearable by singing.

Step 4:  Organize the close reading questions.

Step 5: Implication of dominant effect

Step 6: Outline of the commentary

Thesis: The poem shows the unbearable lightness of being of a soldier that is about to go towards a possible death. This is shown through the use of tone, diction and contrast.

First paragraph: The use of diction shows how the speaker is trying to convince his comrades to lighten up and sing even if death is laughing in their face.

-          ‘bursting’ into song

-          ‘singers are the chaps’

-          ‘O sing’

-          ‘gladness’

-          Sing with ‘joyful’ breath

-          All the ‘gladness’ that you pour.

-          Earth that ‘blossomed’ and was ‘glad’

-          Be ‘merry’

Second paragraph: The speakers tone lightens the darkness of death.

-          ‘so be merry, so be dead’

-          ‘little live, great pass’

-          ‘So be glad, when you are sleeping’

-          ‘So sing with joyful breath’

-          ‘On the road to death, sing!’

-          ‘shall rejoice and blossom too when the bullet reaches you’

Third paragraph: The contrast between the death and song as mentioned in the previous paragraphs

Allusions

The Sun Also Rises

Ch. 11-12 Allusions

Please research the following items, including MLA citations and discuss relevance and/or significance to the text.

1.      Basques

The Basques are an ethnic population that primarily inhibited the region of the Basque country, a region that is located around the western end of the Pyrenees (chain of mountains) on the coast of the Bay of Biscary and straddles parts of north-central Spain and south-western France. In The Sun Also Rises, Jake refers to the people on the bus as Basques.

2.      Ronceveaux

Ronceveaux is a small village and municipality in Navarre, northern Spain. It is situation on the small river Urrobi at an altitude of some 900 metres in the Pyrenees, about 8 kilometres from the French frontier. When Jake and Bill are sitting on the bus, they mention that Ronceveaux is ‘way off there where the mountain starts’.

3.      Fratellinis

The Fratellini Family was a famous circus family in the late 1900s and 1920s. An engagement at the Circus Medrano in Paris, France, after World War I was so successful that it sparked a strong resurgence of interest in the circus. By 1923, the Fratellini brothers had become the darlings of the Parisian intellectuals. They were lauded in print and worshiped by adoring fans who would show up at the circus just in time for the Fratellini entree, which sometimes ran as long as forty-five minutes. After Bill begins to the sing the song about pity and irony, a reference is made to the popularity of the Fratellinis.

4.      Primo de Rivera

Primo de Rivera was a Spanish general and dictator. After he resigned as a dictator, he went to live in Paris, where he died in 1930. When Jake and Bill are sitting in the dining room of their small hotel, Bill wants Jake to make a joke about Primo de Rivera to the servant to see if she laughs.

5.      Dred Scott (case)

 Dred Scott v. Sandford case of 1857, popularly known as "the Dred Scott Decision." His case was based on the fact that although he and his wife Harriet Scott were slaves, he had lived with his master Dr. John Emerson in states and territories where slavery was illegal according to both state laws and the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, including Illinois and Minnesota (which was then part of the Wisconsin Territory). The United States Supreme Court ruled seven to two against Scott, finding that neither he, nor any person of African ancestry, could claim citizenship in the United States, and therefore Scott could not bring suit in federal court under diversity of citizenship rules. Moreover, Scott's temporary residence outside Missouri did not bring about his emancipation under the Missouri Compromise, which the court ruled unconstitutional as it would improperly deprive Scott's owner of his legal property. Bill says that the Dred Scott case was framed by the anti-saloon league.

6.      Anti-Saloon league

The Anti-Saloon League was the leading organization lobbying for prohibition in the United States in the early 20th century. It was a key component of the Progressive Era, and was strongest in the South and rural North, drawing heavy support from pietistic Protestant ministers and their congregations, especially Methodists, Baptists, Disciples and Congregationalists.  Bill says that the anti-saloon league was framing the Dred Scott case.

7.      AEW Mason

Alfred Edward Woodley Mason (7 May 1865 Dulwich, London - 22 November 1948 London) was a British author and politician. He is best remembered for his 1902 novel The Four Feathers. When Jake and Bill go fishing, Jake reads a book by A.E.W Mason; a wonderful story of someone who waits for their love for 24 years to return iced and dead, which displays this notion of a lost generation that is constantly waiting for someone.

8.      William Jennings Bryan

William Jennings Bryan (March 19, 1860 – July 26, 1925) was an American politician in the late-19th and early-20th centuries. He was a dominant force in the liberal wing of the Democratic Party, standing three times as its candidate for President of the United States. Bill says that he loved Bryan and that he went to Holy Cross with him and Mencken.

9.      Mencken

Henry Louis "H. L." Mencken (September 12, 1880 – January 29, 1956), was an American journalist, essayist, magazine editor, satirist, acerbic critic of American life and culture, and a scholar of American English. Mencken, known as the "Sage of Baltimore", is regarded as one of the most influential American writers and prosestylists of the first half of the 20th century. Many of his books are still in print. Bill makes a joke about Mencken saying ‘Remember the woods were God’s first temples, let us kneel and say: ‘Don’t eat that Lady- that’s Mencken’.’

10.  Holy Cross

Holy Cross is a university that Bill claims to have gone to with Mencken and William Jennings Bryan and Frankie Fritsch.

11.  Frankie Fritsch (misspelled in text)

Francis “Frankie” Frisch (September 9, 1898 – March 12, 1973), nicknamed the "Fordham Flash" or "The Old Flash", was a German American Major League Baseball player of the early twentieth century. Bill says that he went to Holy Cross with this person. It is interesting because Franke Fritsch was a boxer like Cohn.

12.  Bishop Manning

During World War One he served as a volunteer chaplain at Camp Upton. Bishop Manning was a chevalier of the Légion d'honneur of France and an officer of the Order of the Crown of Belgium. Bill says that he went to Loyola with this person. He’s obviously joking around at this point.

13.  Wayne B. Wheeler

Wayne Bidwell Wheeler (November 10, 1869 – September 5, 1927) was an American attorney and prohibitionist. Using deft political pressure and what might today be called a litmus test, he was able to influence many governments, and eventually the U.S. government, to prohibit alcohol. Jake says that he went to Notre Dame with Wayne B. Wheeler, and then Bill interferes saying that he went to Austin Business College with Wyne B. Wheeler. They’re all drunk and make fun of colleges and important people in history.

14.  Pres. Calvin Coolidge

Sources:

-          "Basque people - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia." Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 Oct. 2011. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basques

-          "Roncesvalles - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia." Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 Oct. 2011. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roncesvall

-          "Fratellini family." Fratellini family - Wikipedia. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 Oct. 2011. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fratellinis

-          "Dred Scott - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia." Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 Oct. 2011. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dred_Sc

-          "Anti-Saloon League - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia."Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 Oct. 2011. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Saloon_League>.

-          "A. E. W. Mason - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia." Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 Oct. 2011. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AEW_Mas

-           "William Jennings Bryan - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia."Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 Oct. 2011. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_J

-          "H. L. Mencken - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia." Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 Oct. 2011. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mencken

-          "Frankie Frisch - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia." Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 Oct. 2011. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankie_