All posts by j.bodeta

CR Post #3, Group A, The Outsiders

The Outsiders CR Reading

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What does it mean to be tough? Does it mean having the strength to endure vigorous pain or to stone faced in the presence of danger? In S.E. Hinton’s The Outsiders, the main character Ponyboy explores what it means to be tough, which can be seen through a comparison of how he handles hostile Socs near the beginning of the novel and how he handles hostile Socs near the end of the novel. Both scenes contain a moment where Ponyboy must hold a broken soda bottle, but the shift in responses to the bottle provide detail on what Ponyboy had learned through the course of the novel.

In the first scene, Ponyboy, along with Johnny and Two-Bit, walk two girls Cherry and Marcia back to their homes when they are stopped by Socs in a blue mustang. In this scene Ponyboy shows his immaturity by dropping the bottle given to him by Two-Bit. Hinton writes, “I pulled her to one side. ‘I couldn’t use this,’ I said, dropping the pop bottle. ‘I couldn’t ever cut anyone…” I had to tell her [Cherry] that because I’d seen her eyes when Two-Bit flicked out his switch” (47). Ponyboy’s actions reflect an attempt to preserve the image of goodness Cherry sees in Ponyboy and in Johnny. While it is good that Ponyboy remains non-violent, given that this event occurs in the immature phase of the hero, Hinton is showing the audience that it’s bad since he can’t protect himself from danger .Even though he say “I could never cut anyone,” one should see that over time he at least becomes capable of know he could through observing someone as kind and pure like Johnny kill a Soc.

At a later scene, where Ponyboy is confronted by Socs after Johnny’s death, Ponyboy exhibits a new look on life. In this moment, it is Ponyboy alone fending off Socs and he breaks the bottle rather than receiving it from Two-Bit. Here Ponyboy shows to pull out references to tough people he knew in his life. He says, “I started toward them, holding the bottle the way Tim Shepard holds a switch—out and away from myself, in a loose but firm hold” (171). He also says the phrase “Get smart and nothing can touch you” (171), words taken from his late friend Dally, described as being one in the same as Shepard in the novel. Ponyboy, by making reference from them, see value in who they are as characters. Dally was a character born without a parents love and raised partly on the streets of New York and what Ponyboy derives from Dally is getting stronger than the world can hit you. This kind of toughness is exhibited in the same scene as Ponyboy says, “I didn’t feel anything—scared, mad, or anything. Just zero (171).” Ponyboy learns that toughness is a hard acceptance of your reality, not a perpetuation of an ignorance to one’s conditions.

After the Socs back away from Ponyboy, he shows that he hasn’t turned completely into Dally by his action of picking up the broken pieces, saying that he “didn’t want anyone to get a flat tire” (172).  Ponyboy exhibits here the goodness that distinguished him from other greasers as described by Cherry.

From these two scenes, Hinton shows the audience Ponyboy’s transformation and hope. Ponyboy like the pop bottle was broken after being subjected to incredible conflicts, but that experience made him jagged to defend himself without breaking him completely.

CR Post# 2

Close Reading on Frankenstein

In her work Frankenstein, Author Mary Shelly perfectly illustrates the human tendency to destroy a resemblance of innocence through the depiction of Frankenstein’s Monster’s first hostile encounter with villagers. In Chapter 11 we find the beginning Monster’s progression in both life and self-consciousness, from his horrid infancy to his current deadly and monstrous adolescence, Here the monster tells of an encounter with villagers, where his bewilderment of his expanding knowledge and subjective universe is immediately overtaken by the fear he now felt of the world after the inhabitants expelled him. One can see that, prior to the attack, the monster saw his new reality with fresh and eager eyes. The monster recounts, “it was noon when I awoke, and allured by the warmth of the sun, which shone brightly on the white ground, I determined to recommence my travels” (Shelly). The phrase, “allured by the warmth of the sun” signifies how excited the monster felt by seeing an invitation by the sun to act the first moment he awakes. Also, in describing the ground as white, not only can one take it as a description of the time of day at noon, but also an illuminated path that the monster sees to continue traveling. The monster remarks in wonder at the culture the villagers have with the phrase, “How miraculous did this appear” (Shelly)! The monster’s choices of description at this point show a thing that views the world as a mainly optimistic; after the monster’s sudden attack however, we see a noticeable change in tone. When he says, “I escaped to the open country and fearfully took refuge in a low hovel, quite bare, and making a wretched appearance after the palaces I had beheld in the village” (Shelly), the use of “escape” and “refuge” show how at this moment the monster realizes a negative force exists in his universe that sought an end to his being. The paragraph concludes with the monster describing a makeshift shack he builds for himself as “an agreeable asylum from the snow and rain” (Shelly). From the sudden alteration of tone in the Monster’s voice one can see how the Monster’s perception of himself shifts from one of optimism and then to one of sad self-awareness about his circumstance. The monster, whom at this encounter but is a child, quickly loses its innocence of knowing hatred against him in the world exists. In this one finds a better understanding of the Monster’s backstory to show how it took humanity to corrupt him before the world could. It is this mistrust in humans that provides the capability of taking human lives at his present stage. In his case it was not any biological impulse that created the savagery in him, but his inability to become self-realized as an equal being through the villagers created the monster within him.

CR Post #1, Group A

What is a Monster?

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In her article “What is a Monster?” Ph. D. candidate Natalie Lawrence argues that society invents and reinforces monsters in order to better define the scope of human rationality and morality. Lawrence uses the example of the death of Cecil the Lion at the hands of Dr. Walter Palmer, where Dr. Palmer received the severe title of monster for committing the heinous act of killing the lion for sport. She argues that by referring to criminals like Dr. Palmer as a monsters, a person attempts to make sense of something that lies beyond the perceived limits of his own moral barriers. Because the individual cannot actualize something so foreign to his norm, he categorizes these things under “other,” reaffirming his own sense of normality and dismissing any infringements on that normality as a part of the supernatural realm. She then articulates how the monsters that we create hold economic value as objects sought after for their oddity.

What I found particularly interesting in the article was the inclusion of the treatment Dr. Palmer received for his misdeed of trophy hunting. According to the article, Palmer was forced to “resign from his practice, flee from his home, and hire armed guards to protect himself and his family” (Lawrence). Here we see how society’s responds to people, things, and ideas that we cannot comprehend to exist in normality: with violence and hatred. Despite people believing themselves constructive and expecting to approach every unknown fact with understanding, one sees that the innate response to something alien is to deny it legitimacy and/or attack it. This can be seen not only in Dr. Palmer’s willingness to shoot a lion because it’s strange to him, but also the crowd’s instinct of attacking Palmer and designating him to a position of “barely human” for his actions. This can be connected to how society views criminals in general: despite being people with thoughts, feelings, and aspirations, they become symbols of degeneracy, caricatures of their sins for people to rebuke.

Questions:

  1. If the “monsters” represent things society cannot accept as normal, are the actions to remove the undesired being justifiable such as the backlash against Dr. Palmer? Aren’t we in danger of becoming monsters ourselves in this pursuit?
  2. As society marks monsters as attacks against normalcy, is “monsterfication” a definite result for those who exist outside of societal norms?