Breathe Life In

If you go down a slope the second hour you are on skis, you will almost surely crash. The “collision” (Pynchon) is inevitable, it is like you know that it is coming and more than trying to avoid it you are waiting for it to happen. As you know it’s coming, you don’t have to worry about that and you can enjoy the moment. Carpe Diem. “I felt my lungs inflate with the inrush of scenery-air, mountains, trees, people. I thought, ‘This is what it is to be happy.’…My teeth crunched a gravelly mouthful. Ice water seeped down my throat.” (Plath, pg. 79) We have all had the feeling of feelings our lungs inflate, but I think that there is more to this passage than just that. By saying that her lungs inflate Plath might be trying to say more. The lungs receive the most basic item needed for our lives: air. Without air there is no life, and by saying that the lungs expand the author might be saying that the experience and vivacity of life increase as she takes everything around her in. Esther was ignoring the fact that she would come tumbling down any minute, and like she had no worries clouding her vision she could take the time to look around and focus on the now. I believe that by showing us how things can be better if we look at each minute as it happens and not before or after it does Plath is telling everyone of her readers that humans complicate themselves too much and never enjoy what goes on because they are too worried about what will happen tomorrow or what happened yesterday.

Sylvia Plath makes many allusions to subjects like the one above that lots of people can relate to, and I think that they all have something she wants to say about life in general in the, It is not the easiest thing to find, however, and I think that there is where a lot of her talent is found. How, I ask my self, is it possible to insert subtle and almost invisible comments into what otherwise is a funny anecdote? I don't think I can. Maybe I will be able to do it as I get more practice, but right now if I tried to pull off a close writing, I would most probably fail. I hope that as I read more and deeper literature I will get better at this and one day is able to hint at something I want the reader to see without making it obvious.

Literary ADD

I always think about what I will write before I do. Usually I have one idea that is complete enough to constitute a whole post. Today, however, something weird was happening. I decided to call it literary ADD. As I read every paragraph made me think about something different, and while I was trying to decide what this post would be about I decided to include all the ideas that popped into my mind during this faulty concentration period. There is no order to the ideas. No reason for them either. Things just came in and out like an open house, and I will just write it down like that too.

The name Esther does not fit in with my image of the character. I have always laughed at people who say so and so has a Peter face, or a Daniel face, but when it comes to it: names do fit better with some people than they do with others. The disposition of the main character made me think that her name would be something along the lines of Sophie, Alice, or Caroline. Don’t ask me why these names sounded more like her to me. All I know is that as soon as the narrator revealed that her name I felt like the whole story stopped flowing for a minute, and every time the name is mentioned I feel like I’m being slapped across the face.

The style of The Bell Jar is a hard one to give a name to, at least from my limited knowledge it is. Plath writes in a straight forward way that is not that straight forward. The events are easier to understand and imagine, but the feeling she describes are harder to capture. I really enjoy the way she goes off on small tangents that try to put images into the Esther’s emotions, and make the reader understand what is really going on. With this style I get the idea that there is more to every aspect that what I am seeing, but I am also confident that I am catching more things that I would have three months ago.

Criticism seems to seep out of every sentence. Sometimes directed at the main character, sometimes at a specific group of people, and most commonly to the vapid society that Plath seems to think is out there. If asked to place my finger on it, though, I don’t think I could show a specific example of it because there is no clear example of a strong criticism. The clues to map it out are probably there, but I think I get wrapped up in the story and don’t pick up all the evidence that she thinks society is a demoralized and invaluable group. I might be crazy, but that is just what I feel as I pass the pages.

Are Titles Important?

I never really pay attention to titles. Are they really important? To me, they are just a way to identify one book from another in a crowded library. Most of the time, the meaning of the title is very clear: a phrase repeated in the book, a concept which stands out, the name of a character or place in the story, etc. However, sometimes I can’t place the title and these are the cases where I ask myself why the author chose those few words to represent their story. The Bell Jar by Silvia Plath is one of these examples. I have read a good portion of the book by now and I have not come upon any clue as to why the semi biographical book has this name. To be honest, I don’t even know what a bell jar is. Evidently, it is hard to imagine the purpose of a book when you don’t know what the object being referred to in the title is, so I went to a trustworthy source to find more about the subject: Google. I will allow myself to go on a tangent here and add that I have always found interesting how new developments become a crucial part of our life, and our language. The term “Googled ____” is used on a daily basis, we do things thinking on how we can reflect them on Facebook, colloquial chat terms such as lol and XD are now used verbally. Now back on track, what I found about a bell jar was that a bell jar is “A cylindrical glass vessel with a rounded top and an open base, used to protect and display fragile objects or to establish a vacuum or a controlled atmosphere in scientific experiments.” As I read the definition I got some ideas as to why the book could have such a title, based on the object. What it might mean, and I think it does, is that the main character is very fragile and that she feels what she does is open for everyone to see, but she has a hard time letting people in. It might also have to do with the fact that when things are in a bell jar, people really look at them and study them because it is implied that what is in there is important. I will keep on reading and asses the validity of my guess as I move along, but now, at least, I have a faint idea to the main theme in the book: observation.

Questioning Humanity...Again

I am forced to admit, very reluctantly if I may add, that by reading this chapter of The Selfish Gene my ideas about the nature of altruistic behavior were confirmed. I still hoped, in the farthest reaches of my mind, that there was no selfish behavior in altruism: that some individuals really did care for the benefits of others just because. It is truly such a ridiculous idea to help other people simply because? I would think that it is not. After all, I have decided to answer the unanswerable question of what is my purpose in life with this simple answer: to help others. However, when I started reading the book I noticed that everything that was done by unconscious species was for a selfish purpose, the thesis of the book, precisely. As I begun I did question the validness of this thesis, but as soon as I read this chapter I saw that really the nature of altruism was selfish, and that by helping others individuals were just trying to protect the genes they have in common with others to ensure that at least some are passed on. All this brought me to question humanity, once more (a theme that keeps coming up throughout the different books we have read). I started to wonder if it was truly worth it to try to make a difference, to help out in order to establish a better place to live in. How can this be done, though, if humans are the only species, apart from social insects, that decidedly start war? This is further evidence that the attitude man has towards life is a violent one that makes no sense at all, and one that is completely opposite to the selfish gene theory. If the idea of individuals is to maintain their genes for the future generations then going into a war that will kill thousands and probably even you is contrary to trying to live in a stable environment that contains the best genes, namely one’s own.

Male Or Female?

“Suppose a mother invested all her resources in sons, and therefore had none left to invest in daughters: would she on average contribute more to the gene pool of the future than a rival mother who invested in daughters?” (Dawkins, pg.143)When I read this question I decided to stop reading for a minute and discuss this question and my prediction of the answer. What it seems to me is that Dawkins is asking whether it pays off more to have son or daughters. Basically it is asking which is more important for a population. My instinct and my knowledge would tell me to not even regard this question as one that has any validity: of course, both are equally important. And as the author has mentioned many times this is my perspective thinking in the conscientious way humans do. The morality of this question is insulting because I have always been a strong supporter of equality, not only in the gender issue but in every other one there is. However, when I apply my slightly scientifically thinking there has to be a difference in whether a couples offspring are male or female, and I think that the answer will be different to each population based on some specific traits they have or do not have. In the case of populations and species where the females chose the mate out of various who are trying to get the position, then I think it would be a safer and more useful bet to have females. In this population the males have to go from female to female, fighting other prospective mates to get the position, risking their health or the chance to copulate. Females in this specific group are less at risk and almost assured to reproduce, so having females would be a better way to assure that the genes will be passed on. In contrast, when a population demands that the female follows the male, then the various possible mates have to put their lives and energy at risk, and they are not sure they will find a male to copulate with while the male is almost positive that he will find a female and using fewer resources. In this case, the, it would be more productive to have a male than a female. In populations where both parents must include equal resources to have a child then it is equally productive and useful to have a male or a female. I do not know if this is the correct answer, but I do think that it makes sense and that if my answer is wrong the real explanation is not very far from it.

How, Or Actually, How Not?

Is it really possible for a parent to favor one of his children over another? I have always heard comments flying around about how they love this kid or that one better, but I have never really thought that it is meant literally and that instead it is more of a perceptual thing conceived by a child who wants to justify their being mad at a parent. I do understand that in animals (other than humans) some favoritism would be visible because of biological factors that will have an effect in survival, such as not feeding the runts or caring more for the strongest individuals of a litter or a nest, as expressed in The Selfish Gene. However it is hard for me to imagine that, say, one of my friends or relatives lives in a house hold where some siblings are more important than others, and even more so that this happened for arbitrary reasons.

In the case of humans I would think that any being that was born in a family that had more children would be well received and treated equally because of all that playing favorites implies. It does not only say that one child is more loved or more appreciated than others, but it also states that the not preferred children are less important for the community. Is it possible, regardless of this, that I do know parents that have favorites? I probably do. My surprise comes not because I condemn the fact but because it makes me curious how houses hold with this certain benefit for some functions well. Is this favoritism obvious and admitted or is it something that is never discussed but still evident? Is it something that a parent decides or does it comes just like that? I guess I would lean more towards the second idea because it is not hard to see how a mother or a father can pick. We are actually taught to pick what we like best since we are small: our favorite color, the ice cream flavor we like the most, the animal we prefer, our best friend, etc. Looking at the evidence it seems as if the small minds of children were being structured to pick the best thing out of the available options all the time, to find something to identify them selves with. The question would then not be how some parents have favorites amongst their children, but more so how they do not. The question I have to ask myself, I notice, is how is it that some parents, most I would even dare to argue, maintain the strong influence of choosing out of their family lives and give all their children equal and unwavering love.