Paternal Ramifications

           Over spring break, as any teen with my ardor for the written word would do, I read many books. As my friends had scattered to various parts of the world to sojourn in various hotels and houses, I simply lay in my bed and devoured every book available online for free and the books my mother brought me from the library, as well as some old favorites. Among these volumes were the "Pretty Little Liars" series and "Looking for Alaska."
           As anyone who has read these books can tell, they are very different from each other. So dissimilar that it would seem fairly impossible to imply that they had any significant similarities other than they are all about teenagers. The former is about a group of wealthy teenagers living in suburban Philedelphia finding themselves and building their friendships and relationship amid the ongoing murder investigation of their best friend and threatening notes from the mysterious "A." The latter, "Looking for Alaska," is about a teenage boy named Miles finding "the great perhaps" in a Alabama boarding school aided by the Colonel (a brilliant scholarship student with a penchant for planning), Lara, Takumi and Alaska Young ( a sad, clever and beautiful girl searching for her way out of the "labyrinth" after the death of her mother).  One thing that stood out to me with all of these books is the effect of a father figure to the main characters.
           The paternal figure is often thought of as a mentor to boys, but they have an equal impact on their daughters. For example, in the "Pretty Little Liars" series, protagonist Hanna is prodded back into her eating disorder due to her father's new step daughter who "wears a size two!" Hanna even expresses this to her dad, saying, that she is "like a size two...I'm huge!" This is even though Hanna is thought to be thin by her peers. Her father does not respond, furthering her self esteem issues and pushing her deep into a cycle of bulimia and bad relationships. Another girl in the series pushed into bad relationships by her fathers actions is another protagonist Aria Montgomery. After Aria saw her Dad cheating on her Mom, he made her promise not to tell, which she kept for almost three years. When the clandestine affair goes public, Aria gets romantically involved with a teacher, saying, "I was vulnerable and he was there." Her fathers pressuring and extra-marital affairs got her into trouble, her boyfriend arrested and herself alienated.
              In "Looking for Alaska" the protagonist is named Miles, but the subject of the book is (arguably) Alaska Young. Miles is smitten and describes her as effortlessly beautiful, charismatic, intense, charismatic and troubled. Not the archetypal beautiful girl, but definitely worth obsessing over, in his opinion. Alaska's impulsiveness evidenced by her sudden desires to kiss or drive recklessly, is revealed to be caused by her believed causation of her mother's death. Her father reportedly blames her for her mother's demise and she lives with this imposed guilt everyday. It is also this guilt, I believe, that makes Alaska eventually die as she speeds towards her mother's grave after she forgot the anniversary of the death. If her father had made a connection with her after her mothers's death or attempted to remedy his accusations of fault made years ago, Alaska may not have felt such pressure to get to the grave and die.
             I have a relatively healthy relationship with my father. Because my parents are divorced, I get to see him more often one on one and, I believe, get to know him a little better than my friends and their fathers whose parents are still together. However, what someone's relationship with their father is supposed to be is hard to define. What anyones relationship with anyone else is supposed to be is also unclear. Should there be such definitions, such boundaries? How close is too close and how far is to far? These are questions that must be answered on a case by case basis, for as seen in these books, fathers definitely affect so much more than just their children.

Emma

            I have recently begun reading the book, "Emma" by the celebrated and renowned author Jane Austen. Austen has written many classic novels such as "Sense and Sensibility,""Persuasion" and "Mansfeild Park," to name those most widely known. Reading Jane Austen, or most authors from the time period of the 18th and 19th centuries is a unique experience, so different from the one when I read more recently written novels. Because the book comes from a completely different time period, the vocabulary and terms used in the book such as, "profligate" or "shew" as well as food such as gruel and dances like the quadrille that we are not normally familiar with today. Not only does this effect the reading experience because you have to extrapolate the true meaning from phrases you are unaccustomed to, it transports you into a different time where such words were used and truly absorbs you into the book. Another reason Austen's books are an experience is the rich descriptionary tactics that have been lost, in my opinion, in our modern literature. There are few books today in which you will find pages upon pages of description on a building or landscape or even a person's countenance. The same is true for the long paragraphs of dialogue between characters, our modern language and customs have conditioned us to speak in choppier, shorter turns without the flowery overtures found in Jane Austen's world, although in each there is found vehement expression and colorful languages and slangs of the time. This brings me to another point, how similar and different Jane Austen and our worlds are. Specifically in terms of women's place in society.
               Women as portrayed in Austen's works seem to have a great deal of power in terms of their own affairs and often the affairs of their superiors. Now, I have only read "Pride and Prejudice" and "Emma" out of her books, but both depict father figures or elders of authority who bow to the will and respect the minds of their daughters, albeit sometimes condescendingly. This is evidenced in Mr. Woodhouse (Emma's father)'s description of his daughter, "Emma never thinks of herself, if she can do good to others" and describes her intelligence and talents to anyone who will listen. He admonishes himself to a great degree and seems to put Emma on a pedestal, wiser and cleverer than himself and fit to run his estate and take care of herself all in one. This seemed not to fit with what we know of how past societies thought of women- beneath them and only useful in terms of marriage. This is because of the families' social standing. Richer women often had more say and power than poor women, particularly if the family in question did not have a son. Such is evidenced in the fact that Emma's father did not make her get married, even though she was extremely eligible at age 21, and pretty. Poorer families had to marry their daughters in order to gain better standing in society and often used their female offspring purely as a way to get richer, disregarding their feelings and wishes. In wealthier families the need to get married for money is not as great, and therefor women are given more power and leeway over choice. If Austen had written about less endowed families, then the powerlessness over marriage would have surfaced.
                The ideas of marriage in the teens and early twenties and such powerlessness seems silly today. After all, in this day and age we think women are  equal to men in all ways of the world- but are they? Women still get payed less than men at the same jobs and gender discrimination reigns world wide. I observe this kind of misogamy in school and on television. It seems as though women are "supposed" to be stay at home moms, and if they're not, they're criticized and characterized as being distant and cold towards their children. We have yet to elect a female president and it seems like the only position in the white house America will allow women to hold is the office of "first lady." Further proving my point is the term "slut." When guys have a lot of sex they are "players" and celebrated for their interactions. If a woman has a lot of sex she is labeled a "slut" or a "whore." It seems to me that although society has made some progress in terms of how women are thought of in society, we haven't matured as much from the times of "Emma." In fact, Emma seems to be respect and held in higher esteem than many women today.

The Drummer Boy of Shiloh Reading Response

The Drummer Boy of Shiloh is a short story written by the author Ray Bradbury featuring a drummer boy by the name of Joby, during the time of the Civil War, before the battle of Shiloh. The story opens on a peach orchard near the church of Shiloh, where a restless army waits for dawn, and closes on the same orchard. It would seem that nothing has changed in the orchard, but it has. Or shall I say, Joby has. Joby has gone from a scared and lonely child to a purposeful and ready young man in time for the upcoming battle. This change comes courtesy of the father figure General. Bradbury shows how important a strong father is to a pubescent boy in this coming of age story.

            The General, his name and allegiance unspecified, is introduced as a person of great importance, but is then shown to be a father figure. When Bradbury introduces the General as a character, he includes a detailed description of his scent. “He smelled as all fathers should smell, of salt-sweat, tobacco, horse and boot leather and the earth he walked upon.” This describes the General as what any man in the orchard at that moment may have smelled like, as they all probably wore leather boots and had become sweaty from marching in their uniforms. However, Joby interprets this scent as the scent of a “father,” and therefore he sees the General as such. Joby needs a father figure because he does not have his parents with him. He says that he feels his parents “go farther away into the dark,” showing that either they or he left the other and that he feels the absence of parental figures.  Before the General comes Joby is “mak(ing) himself small.” He is trying to hide from the world. However, when the General comes to talk to him, he draws back out from his shell and sits up, not hiding from the world anymore. The General is a father figure to Joby because Joby interprets his scent as such, which begins to draw Joby out of his shell because of his need for a father figure since his parents are both absent.

            The General is definitely a father figure to Joby, and having a strong authoritative yet caring presence in your life is important to a young teenager. An example of the importance of a strong father figure in Bradbury’s is the change that Joby goes through, The act that initiates and brings upon this change is when the General comes to Joby and sits beside him to talk to him of his importance, which Joby has very much doubted. Before the General comes to Joby, Joby is described as thinking of himself as “no more than a toy,” as compared to the other men in the army who he believes can defend themselves with their swords and shields and guns while Joby only has a drum which he sees as a handicap. He does not want dawn and the battle to come; he tries to hide by “living small” and folding himself up noiselessly so that nobody notices him. He is “crying before a fight,” a mess before the battle, lost and confused. He needs someone to show him which way to turn and what his purpose as a soldier is. This is where the General comes in. After the General speaks to Joby, Joby slowly arouses himself from the self-pity and despair he is feeling about what is to come. The General sits down and talks to Joby about how important he is to the whole army. The General describes him as “his (the General’s) right hand and his left.” He says that Joby is like “the heart of the army” who “sets the pace,” of the morale and therefore the army’s prospects. The General invokes the confidence in Joby that Joby did not know existed. Slowly Joby begins to right himself and pull together. He realizes that he can’t just hide, that he needs to be there for the army. He “swallows” and “wipes his eyes.”  The change is clear. Joby needed someone to help him get back on his feet and point him in the direction to go, and a strong father figure like the General did just that.

            Bradbury’s story proves that a strong father figure is important to teenagers like 14-year-old Joby. The General is a father figure because of Joby’s interpretation of him and because of his need for one. This presence helps change Joby from a hiding scared boy, to a stronger and ready young man. The General as a father figure gives Joby direction, and Joby is ready for the dawning battle.