Entry 23: The Metamorphosis

"Then all three of them left the apartment together, something they hadn't done for months, and took the trolley out to the country on the edge of town. The car, in which they were only passengers, was brightly lit by the warm sun.  Leaning back comfortably on their seats, they discussed their prospects for the future, and it proved that, on closer examination, these were not at all bad, because the jobs that all three had, but which they hadn't really asked one another about before, were thouroughly advantageous and particularly promising for later on."

Page 52

This quote is from the last page of this short story.  When Gregor realizes the strain he is causing in his family he basically gives up his will to live.  Gregor's death allows them all to leave the apartment together because they don't have to keep someone in the house at all times to insure he stays in his room and that no one discovers this secret.  Finally gathering outside in a calm way they are able to realize they no longer have to worry about surviving without Gregor, who was their main source of income.  They all have picked up jobs they can handle and their daughter has taken steps for future advancement. Life goes on.

Entry 22: The Metamophosis

"But perhaps a further element was the romantic spirit of girls of her age, which seeks for satisfaction on every occasion, and by which Grete now let herself be tempted to make Gregor's situation even more frightful, so that she could do even more for him than hitherto-because nobody except Grete would ever dare to enter a space in which Gregor on his own dominated the bare walls."

Page 34

I like Grete, being the younger sister of Gregor she reminds me of myself.  The story is kind of her own coming of age tale so that makes me think she is the protagonist of the story.  She is 17 so Kafka is explaining the attitude of a young woman pretty well.  Teenage girls are known to act for self satisfaction.  She is also cunning in knowing that if she made this decision she would be the only one in control from that point on. That is a very teenage thing to see as a good situation for one's self.

Entry Sixteen: The Metamorphosis

"If she didn't do so of her own accord, he would rather starve to death than call it to her attention, even though in reality he had a tremendous urge to shoot out from under the couch, throw himself at his sister's feet and ask her for something good to eat."

Page 26

This sentence on its own testifies to Gregor's separation of brain and body.  His mind is still very human despite his new form. Although he tries to be considerate of his sister as she is trying to figure out how to feed him, his instincts are telling him to act very much like a bug. He feels the urge to scamper towards her just as we fear bugs will do when we see them ourselves but he resists knowing innately that doing so would prevent her from coming back with more food.

Entry Fifteen: The Metamophosis

"...Grete! Grete!" she then shouted. "Mother?" called his sister from the other side.  They were communicating across Gregor's room. "You must go to the doctor's at once.  Gregor is sick.  Fetch the doctor fast.  Did you hear Grogor speaking just now?" "That was an animal's voice," said the chief clerk, noticeably quietly in contrast to the mother's shouting...And already the two girls were running down the hallway with rustling skirts-how had his sisters gotten dressed so quickly?-and tore open the apartment door. There was no sound of the door closing; they had most likely left it open, as is the case in apartments where a great misfortune has occurred.

Page 19

This is the moment the family realizes something is horribly wrong.  Hearing the voice of their brother and son as a monstrous vermin sends them over the edge. The sister's ability to get on task to help him so quickly testifies to the important role Grete will play in caring for Gregor as the story goes on.  Open doors usually invite people in with hospitality but in this case I think it is both a plea for anyone who can help to come in as well as an emergency exit route for the people in the apartment.

Entry Fourteen: The Judgement

"Georg stood in a corner, as far from his father as possible. A long time ago he had firmly decided to observe everything with complete thoroughness, so that he might not be somehow taken by surprise in a roundabout way, from behind, from above. Now he once more remembered that long-forgotten decision and forgot it, as one draws a short thread through the eye of a needle."

Page eight

I initially marked this quote in my collection of Kafka's short stories because I really liked this metaphor for a quick inconsequential thought.  It reminds me of watching Sponge Bob and seeing sounds travel in one side and out the other of Patrick Star's head.  I liked this because it was so much more eloquent then that cartoon.  Looking back this passage made me think that Georg had once been too cunning to be lead into a trap. The fact that he remembers being this way but then quickly forgets it in the middle of a conversation made me think he would be tricked soon.  And he was.

Entry Thirteen: A Report to an Academy

"I can only sketch from hindsight, and in human words, what I then felt as an ape, and therefore I am sketching it incorrectly, but even if I can no longer attain the old apish truth, my description isn't basically off course, and no doubt about it.
     And yet up to then, I had had so many ways out and now no longer one.  I had boxed myself in. If I had been nailed down that couldn't have subtracted from my freedom of action.  Why so? Scratch the sink between your toes till it bleeds,  and you still won't find the reason.  Press yourself backwards against the bars until they nearly cut you in two, you won't find the reason.  I had no way out, but I had to create one for myself, because without it I couldn't live.  Always up against the side of that crate-I would definitely have dropped dead.  But, for Hagenbeck, apes belong at the side of the crate- so I stopped being an ape.  A lucid, elegant train of thought, which I must have somehow hatched out with my belly, because apes think with their belly."

Page four of eight

A Report to an Academy is a short story by Franz Kafka in which the narrator, an ape who has gained attention for becoming human like in thought and action, describes his transformation in a letter requested by an academy.  This text reminded me greatly of a book I read in elementary school, The Music of Dolphins by Karen Hesse,  in which a feral child, raised by dolphins, is put through rehabilitation only to return to life in the sea.  In this story the ape is looking for a way out of capture rather than complete "freedom on all sides." In order to get his way out he preforms tasks for human amusement until he can completely imitate them and they let him live as one.  In the Music of Dolphins the narrator, Mila, tries to appease her doctors by becoming more like them, reading, writing and playing music, but is tormented by locked doors and closed spaces.  Mila does not see the appeal of a way out, she desires the freedom the ape thinks is impossible to find again.

Entry Twelve: Siddhartha

The two old men were silent for a long time.  Then as Govinda was preparing to go, he said: " I thank you, Siddhartha, for telling me some of your thoughts.  Some of them are strange thoughts. I cannot grasp them all immediately.  However, I thank you, and I wish you many peaceful days."
Inwardly, however, he thought: Siddhartha is a strange man and he expresses strange thoughts.  His ideas seem crazy. How different do the Illustrious One's doctrines sound!  They are clear, straightforward, comprehensible; they contain nothing strange, wild or laughable.  But Siddhartha's hands and feet, his eyes, his brow, his breathing, his smile, his greeting, his gait affect me differently from his thoughts.  Never, since the time our Illustrious Gotama passed into Nirvana, have I ever met a man with the exception of Siddhartha about whom I've felt: This is a holy man!

Page  120

     This is a passage from the last scene of the book.  I think this provides closure in the theme of finding one's path.  Although Siddhartha has gone a different way than the Buddha and denied his teachings he has still found a path to enlightenment.  I feel like Siddhartha knew the way to his awakening from the time he left his fathers village therefore he had been holy sense his journey began.  In a broder sense this passage tells me that all paths are correct, that if you follow the little voice inside of yourself you can accomplish your goal.

Entry Eleven: Siddhartha

"As he went of talking and confessing, Siddhartha felt more and more that this was no longer Vasudeva, no longer a man who was listening to him. He felt that this motionless listener was absorbing his confession as a tree absorbs the rain, that this motionless man was the river itself, that he was God Himself, that he was eternity itself. As Siddhartha stopped thinking about himself and his wound, this recognition of the change in Vasudeva possessed him, and the more he realized it, the less strange did he find it; the more did he realize that everything was natural and in order, that Vasudeva had long ago, almost always been like that, only he did not quite recognize it; indeed he himself was hardly different from him.  He felt that he now regarded Vasudeva as the people regarded the gods and that this could not last."

Page 108

Two pages later Vasudeva goes into the woods to die. I think its very interesting that Siddhartha senses a difference in him, but realizes that change had been there the whole time, before he goes.  Vasudeva does not act as one would expect when they are close to death.  He becomes calmer and gentler but also more helpful to Siddhartha's sadness concerning his son..

Entry Ten: Siddhartha

Full of rage and misery, he found an outlet in a stream of wild and angry words at his father. Then the boy ran away and only returned late in the evening.
     The following morning he had disappeared. A small two-colored basker made of bast, in which the ferrymen kept the copper and silver coins which they received as their payment, had also disappeared. The boat, too, had gone. Siddhartha saw it on the other side of the bank.  The boy had run away...Vasudeva said "[Let] him go, my friend, he is not a child any more, he knows how to look after himself.  He is seeking the way to the town and he is right. Do not forget that."

Page 101

I already knew my prediction was wrong when I posted that last entry but this is what ends up happening.  Siddhartha's son runs away and the father can not help but want to search for him.  Vasudeva urges Siddhartha not to follow the boy and after some time he complies.  Vasudeva tells him his son is right because he is following his own path in life.   

Assignment Three: The Bell Jar

Hi Mrs. Clifford I’m like the busiest person on the planet right now so I’m kind of planning to just let my thoughts stream through on this one.  Sorry if its awful.

 What themes do you see in the Bell Jar? Give evidence from the poems. Does the poetry deal with themes related to love, death, war, or peace? What other themes show up in the poems? Are there particular historical events that are mentioned in the poems? What are the most important concepts that are addressed in the poems?

The Bell Jar deals with themes like mental illness and pressure to conform in society. 

The first lines of this story reference a historical event and offers some foreshadowing about her mental illness, “It was a queer, sultry summer, the summer they electrocuted the Rosenberges, and I didn’t know what I was doing in New York.  I’m stupid about executions.  The idea of being electrocuted makes me sick, and that’s all there was to read about in the papers… It had nothing to do with me, but I couldn’t help wondering what it would be like, being burned alive all along your nerves.  I thought it must be the worst thing in the world.”  This historical reference places the story in the 1950s when the Rosenberges were convicted of espionage for passing information of the atomic bomb to the Soviet Union.  The bit on imagining electrocution doesn’t hit you until you have read the rest of the book but it does provide foreshadowing of the multiple electroshock treatments she receives for her depression and their traumatic nature. 

Ester spends a lot of time worrying about what she will do with her life.  She feels pressure to become a housewife, to get married and have kids, but she also wants to peruse her career as a writer and poet.  Another societal norm she confronts is the loss of virginity to become a woman.  She thinks that having sex will have a major impact on her and allow her to really begin her life.  She sees that women are expected to stay celibate until marriage but is angered that men are not held to the same standard.  When she finds out that her old boyfriend was involved with a woman he worked with while they were dating she knows that she cannot marry him.  Her desire to lose her virginity leads her into many dangerous situations and to the spilling of blood several times.  She finally chooses to seduce a math professor when she sees his elaborate library and study, but when they engage in the act she has built up in her mind she is sent to the hospital with uncontrollable bleeding.  Blood is almost always a sign of transition in this novel.

There are some really horrific scenes that deal with motherhood that I would love to write about but I don’t have the book in front of me because my mom is downstairs reading it right now.  She almost never reads so I can’t bring myself to take it from her.

Assignment Two: Things Fall Apart

What passages strike you as insightful, even profound? Perhaps a bit of dialog that's funny or poignant...or encapsulates a character? Maybe comments that state the book's thematic concerns?


After Okonkwo is banished from his village for accidentally killing a fellow clansman, he migrates to the village in which his mother was born.  When he gets there his relatives notice that he is bitter about his exile.  The day after a wedding ceremony his uncle asks him if he knows the value of a mother and receives no answer.  He calls Okonkwo a child and then explains,

"It's true that a child belongs to its father. But when a father beats his child, it seeks sympathy in its mother's hut.  A man belongs to his fatherland when things are good and life is sweet. But when there is sorrow and bitterness he finds refuge in his motherland. Your mother is there to protect you.  She is buried [here]. And that is why we say that mother is supreme. Is it right that you, Okonkwo, should bring to your mother a heavy face and refuse to be comforted? Be careful that you may displease the dead." (Page 124)

 I really liked that Chinua Achebe chose to reveal maternal importance to Okonkwo, who spends most of the book concerned with his father.  Okonkwo is often concerned with his wives being too nice to their sons. He criticizes them for telling stories that he declares useless to men.  He spends a great amount of time worshiping his male ancestors but never offers a sacrifice to his mother. This passage left me thinking of my own mother and those of my friends.

Entry Nine: Siddhartha

"...you know that gentleness is stronger than severity, that water is stronger than rock, that love is stronger than force. Very good, I praise you. But is it not perhaps a mistake on your part not to be strict with him, not to punish him? Do you not chain him with your love? Do you not shame him daily with your goodness and patience and make it still more difficult for him?  Do you not compel this arrogant, spoilt boy to live in a hut with two old banana eaters, to whom even rice is a dainty, whose thoughts cannot be the same as his, whose hearts are old and quiet and beat differently from his?  Is he not constrained by all this?"

Page 97

Vasudeva is speaking to Siddhartha about his son, who just lost his mother and is now living with them.  He fathered this son as a wealthy merchant so the boy was raised accustom to living lavishly with his mother.  Siddhartha is troubled by this because he feels unconditional love for his son and wants him to teach him how to live a happy and simple life.  Now that Siddhartha sees the error in his ways I think he will take the boy back to his home to let him live with his servants the way he likes.  I don't know if Siddhartha will be able to leave his son or handle the life of materials again.

Entry Eight: Siddhartha

     He once asked him, "Have you also learned that secret from the river; that there is no such thing as time?"
     A bright smile spread over Vasudeva's face.
     "Yes, Siddhartha," he said.  "Is this what you mean? That the river is everywhere at the same time, at the source and at the mouth, at the waterfall, at the ferry, at the current, in the ocean and in the mountains, everywhere, and that the present only exists for it, not the shadow of the past, not the shadow of the future?"
     "That is it," said Siddhartha, "and when I learned that, I reviewed my life and it was also a river, and Siddhartha the boy, Siddhartha the mature man and Siddhartha the old man, were only separated by shadows, not through reality."

Page 87

 uhhhhhhg when this happened I had to put the book down for a second.  When I was just a little younger I concluded that I did not believe in time but when asked about it I could never explain why.  Even longer ago my father would take me to the many lakes and rivers surrounding our city.  When I looked at dams I would often wonder how long it would take for a single drop of water to make it from one side of the lake to the other.  I tried to think of ways to measure it, with tiny trackers or food coloring, but I knew that when they touched the water they would disperse and leave no meaningful data.  The connection of these two ideas came together so well in this paragraph it was kind of overwhelming.

Entry Seven: Siddhartha

But what a path it has been! I have had to experience so much stupidity, so many vices, so much error, so much nausea, disillusionment and sorrow, just in order to become a child again and begin anew. But it was right that it should be so; my eyes and heart acclaim it. I had to experience despair, I had to sink to the greatest mental depths, to thoughts of suicide, in order to experience grace, to hear Om again, to sleep deeply again and to awake fresh again...Whither will my path yet lead me? This path is stupid, it goes in spirals, perhaps in circles, but whichever way it goes, I will follow it."

 A few pages ago Siddhartha was suicidal and cursing the time he spent as a merchant. After repeating Om for the first time in his recent memory, he napped under a tree.  Now that he has literally awoken from a deep sleep, he sees that the time was not a waste but a new experience.  Although I have never felt a sorrow as great as Siddhartha I think this is pretty universally applicable.  If one went through life without trying something new, without feeling sad, without ever feeling the need to destroy one's self they would miss out on the many lessons the world has to offer.  Siddhartha does not desire to learn vicariously from teachers, from another person's experience.  He rejected the Buddha's teachings because he wanted to find his own path, to make his own mistakes and learn from them.  MMMM my mom just brought me up some pudding.

Assignment One: Things Fall Apart

Prompt #1: Write a detailed summary of the first half of your book; explain the author’s purpose and your reaction to that purpose.

            Things Fall Apart was written in a time when most English literature represented Africa as an antisocial continent deserving of Western colonization and rule.  Chinua Achebe was born of a Protestant missionary in Nigeria and received an English education while absorbing tribal culture, such as oral storytelling.  Achebe wrote Things Fall Apart in order to portray the overwhelming complexities of one region’s tribal culture to an ignorant world.

            The novel begins with a thorough examination of Okonkwo, a native warrior of the Umuofia tribe and the main character.  He lives his life trying to get out of Unkoa’s shadow.  Unkoa was his father, who lived for music and love but left his family in poverty.  “Fortunately, among these people a man was judged according to his worth and not according to the worth of his father.”  Okonkwo builds himself up in the community through his own actions and becomes the opposite of his father.  He is a famous wrestler with a barn full of “yams, the king of crops,” a hut for each of his wives and an obi, or large living quarter, for himself.  The importance of language in the tribe is mentioned several times but Okonkwo is known to stammer when he is angry, unable to get his words out fast enough. 

One night before Okonkwo goes to bed he hears the village crier’s gong and receives the message that all men must appear at the market place for a meeting the next day.  At the meeting a strong public speaker tells the men that a neighboring clansmen has murdered a local daughter.  The orator sends Okonkwo as their fiercest warrior to deliver an ultimatum to the other clan; either offer a boy and a girl of there own or go to war.  Here it is known that, “Umuofia was feared by all its neighbors. It was powerful in war and in magic, and its priests and medicine men were feared in all the surrounding country… so the neighboring clans who naturally knew of these things feared Umuofia, and would not go to war against it without first trying a peaceful settlement.”  Okonkwo’s journey is successful. He delivers the two captives to his village where they give the girl to the victim’s husband.  Although he belongs to the clan, the tribe allows the boy, Ikemefuna, to live with Okonkwo until the gods decide his fate. 

In the next chapter Achebe presents the rich and complicated culture of tribal Nigeria.  He describes multiple shrines in different settings.  One in Okonkwo’s hut designated to worship of his personal gods and ancestors.  One in the center of town designated to an old woman who perfected the medicine of war. And one, which could only be entered crawling on your belly, designated to the Oracle of the Hills and the Caves who communicated with the Gods.  People came to this last shrine for answers, to find out what the future held or why the past happened in such ways.  This last shrine is presented in a story in which Unkoa goes to find out why his harvests had been continually unsuccessful only to be told he must work harder, that the gods have not harmed them.  We then learn that Okonkwo’s father was looked down upon even in death.  “He died of the swelling which was an abomination to the earth goddess.  When a man was afflicted with the swelling in the stomach and the limbs he was not allowed die in the house.  He was carried away to the Evil Forest and left to die there…He died and rotted away above the earth, and was not given the first or the second burial.”  The Evil Forest is another part of their complex culture.  In order not to curse their land they banish those who could upset the gods, such as twin babies and those who commit suicide, to the Evil Forest. 

After his father’s shameful death Okonkwo becomes motivated to live a prosperous life.  He goes to the home of the wealthiest­­ man in town, Nwakibie, and goes through the motions of a formal meeting to ask for a loan.  These motions are are another example of the rich culture presented by Achebe.

“He took a pot of palm-wine and a cock to Nwakibie.  Two elderly neighbors were sent for, and Nwakibie’s two grown-up sons were also present in his obi.  He presented a kola nut and an alligator pepper, which were passed round for all to see and then returned to him.  He broke the nut saying: ‘We all shall live.  We pray for life, children, a goof harvest and happiness…’
“After the kola nut had been eaten Okonkwo brought his palm-wine from the corner of the hut where it had been placed and stood it in the center of the group.  He addressed Nwakibie, calling him ‘Our father.’…The younger of [Nwakibie’s] sons…began to pour the wine.  The first cup went to Okwonkwo, who must taste his wine before anyone else. Then the group drank, beginning with the eldest man.”

The drinking of palm wine and the splitting of kola nut are repeated almost every time a man enters another’s home.  To me these customs represent a society that cares for each other.  Presenting the social characteristics of this misrepresented region forces the reader to re-imagine its people and history.

            This is getting really long so its time to focus more on plot than purpose.  In the Umuofia tribe farming is the way most families eat and they place a lot of its outcome on the gods.  They practice a week of peace to calm the land before each planting season and before the harvest they celebrate with the Feast of the New Yam to give thanks to the Earth Goddess.  In a bit of foreshadowing, Okonkwo breaks the week of peace by beating his wife after she prepares his dinner late.  After following a priest’s demands he is forgiven of his misstep.  His inability to control himself when commanded to is what will lead elder named Ezeudu visits him. Ezeudu takes him from his obi and says, “That boy calls you father. Do not beat a hand in his death…Umuofia has decided to kill him… They will take him outside Umuofia as is the custom, and kill him there.  But I want you to have nothing to do with it.  He calls you his father.”  When the men come to take Ikemefuna away they act as if he will be taken back to his village so as not to scare him. Okonkwo is forced to come along to avoid suspicion.  When the precession is in earshot of his village a man takes his machete to Ikemefuna but he survives the blow.  The boy runs to the back of the line, towards Okonkwo, screaming for his father.  “Dazed with fear, Okonkwo dew his machete and cut him down.  He was afraid of being thought weak.”  Ikemefuna’s death brings the first half of the story to an end

Entry Six: Siddhartha

"He wished passionately for oblivion, to be at rest, to be dead.  If only a flash of lightning would strike him! If only a tiger would come and eat him!  If only there were only some wine, some poison, that would give him oblivion, that would make him forget, that would make him sleep and never awaken!...Was it then still possible to live?  Was it possible to take in breath again and again, to breathe out, to feel hunger, to eat again, to sleep again, to lie with women again?  Was this cycle not exhausted and finished for him?"

Page 71

     In my last entry I saw signs that Siddhartha was no longer happy with his life as a merchant.  He has now left the town where he grew affluent, leaving behind his lover and riches.  He is travelling but without a destination, as he had as a Samana.  What's different now is that he feels as if the spiraling path he once accepted is coming to an end.  He sees no hope for the future.  He feels as if he has made such a huge mistake in living a life of material and sense that he has lost himself for good.
I mostly chose this quote because oblivion is one of  my favorite words.  One of my favorite authors, John Green, used fear and acceptance of oblivion as major themes in The Fault In Our Stars, his newest book.

Entry Five: Siddhartha

"At times he heard within him a soft, gentle voice, which reminded him quietly, complained quietly, so that he could hardly hear it.  Then he suddenly saw clearly that he was leading a strange life, that he was doing many things that were only a game, that he was quite cheerful and sometimes experienced pleasure, but that real life was flowing past him and did not touch him.  Like a player who plays with his ball, he played with his business, with the people around him, watched them, derived amusement from them; but with his heart, with his real nature, he was not there."

Page 58

This small voice reminds me of the way depression is described in other books.  It usually begins as small and easy to ignore until it consumes a person.  I think that Siddhartha could be experiencing this great sadness as he participates in a world he has little interest in.  He finds it strange that day after day he is preforming repetitive tasks towards a goal that he did not set for himself.  He feels as if he is playing while his true self is elsewhere. I don't think Siddhartha will continue to be a merchant for much longer.