The Arranged Marriage

I particularly enjoyed the short story “This Blessed House” from Interpreter of the Maladies. I was able to relate to the story in some sense because my parents met in almost the same exact way as Twinkle and Sanjiv. My mother and father met because their families were good friends. In India, people still refer to this kind of arrangement as an arranged marriage even though it is definitely a more modern version. Traditionally, arranged marriages implied that two people were put together by their parents early on in their childhood and were to be married when they reached a certain age. The kind of arrangement ( the one between Sanjeev and Twinkle and my mother and father) is different because both individuals had a choice to decide whether or not they were interested and wanted to get married. I feel like, from the bits and pieces that I have heard, the early years of my mother and fathers relationship (and the context in which they got married) was similar to the relationship of Twinkle and Sanjeev in “This Blessed House”.

We talked about in class how Sanjiv seems to already have his life planned out for himself. From what I have gathered through personal observations from my father, most Indian men seem to have a stage in life when they deem it “time” to get married and start a family. Aside from the obvious similarity, my father’s name is Sanjiv and Sanjeev is the name of the husband in the story, both my dad and Sanjeev were in a similar stage of life when they got married .My father was 28 years old and had just completed his second degree and had settled down and was working a job when he started searching or opening up to the prospect of getting married. Sanjeev, who is 33 years old, also seems to be reasonably successful in his job as he has a secretary working for him as well as a dozen people under him. Both Sanjeev, and my father Sanjiv, had completed their education and had settled down and reached some success with their jobs. In Indian culture, it is rare for men to marry before they are in their mid twenties. It seems as if there is the sense that Indian men should have a job and have some financial stability before they find a wife. 

Throughout this entire story, I kept thinking about how risky a marriage like this seems. Meeting someone and marrying them only a few months later doesn't sound like a good idea to me. I feel like people should have a period of time where they live together to determine if they are a good match. When I was reading the story, I kept thinking that Sanjeev and Twinkle don't seem like a good fit because of how opposite their personalities and interests are. My parents were married only two months after them met. In this story, Sanjeev and Twinkle married within a few moths as well. My parents have told me that they, similar to Sanjeev and Twinkle, did experience quite a bit of tension and conflict during their first few months as a couple. They then realized that they will each have to give up certain things in order to be happy. It does seem like Sanjeev and Twinkle are slowly starting to make compromises as well. I think if they continue to do so, they can have a long relationship just like my parents. 

The American Dream

The idea of the American dream is very fascinating to me. As a young kid, I was made aware of what it mean’t and I began to appreciate it more and more as I got older. This semester, I am taking Mr. Leff’s Race, Class, Gender class. We talked about the American dream and what it means to different people. For most immigrants, the American dream is the notion that if you work hard and play by the rules, you will be able to live respectability (maybe even comfortably) and support a family. In Mr. Leff’s class, we studied the American dream during different time period in American history. We debated whether or not the American dream was even possible during low points on American history like the great depression in the 20s and 30s. Was American society hindering individuals from realizing the dream? Or was the American dream achievable for all who putt in the effort? When I was younger, my father would tell me how he came to America after he finished college in India. He tells me that when he came, he had two hundred dollars in his pocket. No family, No resources, No plan. Just a dream. I found his story to align similarly with Ramon’s story in  “Negocios”, Junot Diaz’s final story. 

While I read “Negocios”, Junot Diaz’s final story, I kept debating whether or not Junot Diaz was doing all he could to realize the American dream and bring his family to the United States. Was he playing by the rules and working as hard as he could? Initially, Ramon’s time in the US prove him to a hard working, relentless individual. He works several different jobs, sleeps minimally, saves as money as he possibly can by cutting his living expenses and making other people pay whenever possible. He even walks by foot all the way from Miami to New York in the bitter cold in an attempt to save money. He seems motivated by something bigger than himself as he sends most of the money he makes back to his children and wife, leaving him broke. 

Even though Ramon does work hard and seems to genuinely want to bring his family over to the States, he does still find time to go to parties and go to bars. After Ramon moves in with Nilda, I found his motivation and drive to realize the American dream slip. He doesn't seem nearly as dedicated or motivated with his work as he is when he first moves to the States. He buys new and expensive clothes mentions how he has to pay for eighty-eight light bulbs in his new house. He doesn’t seem nearly as focused on saving up money and sending some to his family back home. I think part of this has to do with the fact that with Nilda, he has a reliable place to sleep, a food source, and another income to support him. When Ramon is living with Nilda, he stops responding to the letters from his family back home. He reads them but it seems like he is dispatched and doesn't have the same drive to help his family back home.

Towards the end of the story, it becomes clear that Ramon was simply using Nilda when he is with her. His intentions become clear again when he begins to borrow more and more money from Nilda and starts lying to her about what he is doing with the money. After his trip to his homeland, it seems like Ramon is even more motivated to bring his family over. His relationship with Nilda seems to deteriorate slowly as they begin to fight more and more and the dream that he had when he first came to the US seems to be back. 

To Fill Doesn't fit

Self help was my favorite book we have read this semester. I truly enjoyed the second person narrative style that Lorrie Moore used in most of her stories. For all the short stories but the last, I became accustomed to a unique writing style. In my personal opinion, "To Fill" wasn't a great way to end the book. The story itself was very intriguing and rich but the style wasn't distinct. Although the storyline was similar to other stories in the book, the first person narrative style made it seem like it could be from some other collection of short stories. I was hoping to finish Self help off with something that resembled the rest of the book.

The narrative conventions of this final story are different from the other stories in the book. "To Fill" is written in first person and the only other story in this book that is written in first person is "What is Seized". In "To Fill", every couple pages we see stylistic italicized deviations where Riva is writing to Phillip. We don't actually find out what these letters and writings mean but the point is that we never see strange deviations similar to this in any of the other stories. In addition, the pace of this story just seems inherently faster than that of the other stories in the book. In "To fill", Lorrie Moore doesn't use quotation marks when people are speaking so there are no extra "he said, she said" words. The pace seems faster also because Riva seems like a nervous narrator because she is carrying a secret. The narration seems hurried in certain places which is understandable of anyone who is stealing money and who is constantly worried about getting caught. Since the rest of the book is mainly in second person, I feel like there is more of a steady pace because what the narrator is going through is not reflected in the writing. In first person however, the pace changes more as the main narrator is experiencing certain things.

In class on Friday, we talked about how Riva is different from the main characters in other stories in this book. I believe Kate said that she thinks Riva is older than the other women. Riva is the only woman who has a child, which seems to add an interesting and unique dynamic with her husband. We don't see this in any other stories in this book. The woman in other stories are portrayed as younger and more innocent whereas we see Riva as immoral. She is stealing money from her work but also seems to be in love with Phillip while she is married to Tom (I may be interpreting these letters completely incorrectly). In conclusion, I found "To Fill" to be very different from the other stories in this book. This story doesn't seem to go with the rest of the book even though I do believe it is one of the best stories in the collection. I wonder why Lorrie Moore chose to keep this story and why she made it the last story of the book. After all, the last story along with the first are the most important and she must have a good reason for doing this.

"Previos Condition" from last Friday has been my favorite short story in Baldwin's book Going to meet the man and one of my favorites from the first quarter all together. I had the privilege of being a student discussion leader when we discussed the story in class. I wanted to expand on some of our discussion from class and bring back some of the topics  to the forefront because I was intrigued by the conversation we had. In particular, I wanted to address the title of the story "Previous Condition" and perhaps try and better understand what it means and why Baldwin might have chosen it. Second, I wanted to dig into Peter's character and try to understand why Peter is feeling so miserable as we started to discuss before class ended last Friday. 

In class, Timmy brought up the point that " Previous Condition of Servitude" appears in the Fifteenth constitutional amendment which directly states "The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude." Baldwin might not have intended to draw this direct connection to the fifth amendment but the link seems strong. Even though the story has nothing to do with voting, in the story, Peter is denied a place to live by the Landlady who ends up evicting him simply for his color and race. She acknowledges that even if Peter causes no trouble, acts friendly, and follows the rules, that people will fear him because he is black. Servitude implies slavery but I think Baldwin is getting at something slightly different. Previous condition might just refer to his inherent race. He can't change who he is and even by living with white people and having white friends, he is truly black as that is part of his identity. Someone in class brought up, I think it was Alissa that this same sort of thing happened in another book (I can't remember the name of the book) where we see an African-American character trying to escape his people and integrate into white society but is turned down and pushed away.

In a sense, I feel like Peter embraces the white ideas and racist notions towards black people. He blames his race for the all the misery he goes through in his life and he says that he doesn't like the way African Americans live. I even recall him saying that he isn't fond of the idea of playing a black man in one of his plays. His actions show us that Peter is a black man who wants desperately to be a white man as he associates with white people, and only goes to segregated places. As we see in the book, white society don't embrace Peter. In his apartment, he is scared. He can't sleep and doesn't feel comfortable. Peter is trying to escape his African- American roots because he is ashamed and humiliated, but he doesn't escape the fear and humiliation that he inflicts upon himself by trying to integrate into white society. He gets rejected when the landlady kicks him out and only has shame and more misery when he has nowhere to sleep.

After reading all of the stories in Nine stories, I personally enjoyed “A perfect day for a Bananfish” and “Teddy” the most. I found it fitting that Salinger would use both these stories to start and end his book. The end of “A perfect day for a Bananfish” is surprising and shocking because there is no buildup or hint that Seymour will shoot himself. It draws the reader in and makes them want to read more stories. The end of “Teddy” is perfect because it keeps the reader wondering why the girl screams. Needless to say, both these stories have a very similar ending. I think both these stories play off each other well. As discussed in class on Friday, both stories have similar settings, and characters.

The endings of “A perfect day for a Bananfish” and “Teddy” resemble each other very closely. In “A perfect day for a Bananfish”, Seymour kills himself by “shooting a bullet through his right temple”. In “Teddy”, the ending is somewhat unclear. We aren't sure what Seymour’s sister, Booper, is screaming about. Is she herself falling into the pool and killing herself? Or, more likely as we concluded in class on Friday, is she reacting to Teddy after he is pushed into the pool? If Teddy dies at the end of the story, then the main character in both stories dies rather mysteriously. Needless to say, if this is what Salinger intended the reader to conclude (as it would seem from Teddy’s journal entry that his death will either happen today or February 14, 1958), the deaths at the end of these stories could undoubtedly be describes as surprising and unexpected. 

Both these stories have very similar settings. They both take place on a vacation. In “A perfect day for Bananafish”, the story takes place at a hotel. We have scenes inside the hotel as well as on the beach. In “Teddy”, the story takes place on a cruise where there are scenes in a room and others outside on the deck. The weather in both stories is portrayed as sunny and warm. However, there is an underlying tension in both stories that somehow transforms this image of happiness into one of gloom. In “A perfect day for “Bananafish”, Seymour and Muriel never actually talk. They seem rather isolated and distant due to Seymour’s erratic and unpredictable behavior. From Muriel’s call with her mother, we learn that Seymour is having problems and that Muriel’s mother seems uncomfortable with them being together. Based on my interpretation, their relationship doesn't seem like one of a happy young couple. In “Teddy”, when Teddy is with his mother and father, they bicker aand make some very hateful comments directed at one another. When Teddy is standing on his parents bag, his dad tells demands that he get off immediately whereas his mother tells him to stay putt. It seems as if Teddy’s mother is trying to make her husband mad by saying this. All things considered, the mood doesn't seem like one of a happy family. 

In my personal opinion, Seymour and Teddy share some similar qualities. Both these main characters see the world differently compared to the other characters in their stories. In “A perfect day for a Bananfish”, Seymour is talked about by Muriel’s mother, father, and various physiatrists for his mania. In “Teddy”, Teddy is well known around the world for his genius and his “out of the box” ideas which some people think are crazy. Additionally, Teddy and Seymour seem to call upon their own death in the stories. Seymour kills himself. We don't know what happens to Teddy but he seems fond of death and understands it to be part of a larger cycle where humans are reincarnated many times. In class on Friday, someone brought up the idea that Seymour might be a reincarnation of Teddy. I wonder if that’s indeed what Salinger was getting at. 

For me, ”A Perfect Day for Bananafish” was a great way to start Salinger’s book Nine Stories. I thoroughly enjoyed Salinger’s dialogue in this particular story. I thought that the dialogue had a nice rhythm and pace throughout the story. Based on this story alone, I think Salinger incorporates more dialogue between characters than any other author we have read this year. Dialogue seems to be a critical aspect of Salinger’s stories. There wasn't much story telling or narration in ”A Perfect Day for Bananafish”. In The things they Carried, relationships are a huge part of the story, but dialogue is not nearly as common or as important to the plot of the stories. In Hemingway’ s book, In our Time, some stories that were situated in nature and isolated from society did not have very much dialogue at all. I haven’t read any other stories written by Salinger yet, so I can’t say for sure but it definitely seems like Salinger emphasizes conversations between characters. 

I find dialogue in short stories, especially Salinger’s dialogue, to be easy to read and follow. For one, I find stories with dialogue are easy to follow and not as complicated to the non-dialogue books. Second, dialogue allows the reader to interpret the way they think the character would speak. This allows the reader some originality and freedom to visualize the voices of the character, according to their own imagination.  The characters reputation and actions will obviously guide the reader to visualize the way the character speaks, but nevertheless, the reader still retains some originality of interpretation. This facet of short stories makes this book seem more engaging for me. 

I think its amazing how Salinger is able to convey so much information and set up so much of the plot of the story, strictly with dialogue. The initial conversation between Muriel and her mother set up the entire story. Without Salinger telling us directly, we learn that Muriel is a materialistic girl, who has a strange relationship with her protective mother. Without even meeting Seymour until later in the story, we already know that he is an unstable personality and that his marriage with Muriel is unsteady. When we meet Seymour later in the story, we already know he is having emotional problems. In the initial dialogue between Muriel and her mother, I found the part where they are interrupting one another to be extremely effective in understanding their relationship and their feelings towards the topic of conversation. Often times authors don't emphasize tone and interruptions of speech in their dialogues but Salinger seems to. Interruptions in everyday speech are actually very common and they say a lot about the characters. The way Muriel’s mother talks about Seymour and the fear in her voice, gives the reader an idea of the extent of Seymour’s issues. 

I cant wait to read more of Salinger’s short  stories. I am curious see if Salinger uses other interesting techniques in his dialogue in other stories. 

How Does O'Brien Portray War in "The Ghost Soldiers"

Yesterday night, I was reading the short story "The Ghost Soldiers" in Tim O'Brien's book "The Things They Carried". In this particular short story, when Tim O'Brien is away from Combat, he seems to miss it deeply. On page 181, O'Brien says "

"there were times when I missed the adventure, even the danger, of the real war out in the boonies. It's a hard thing to explain to somebody who hasn't felt it, but the presence of death and danger has a way of bringing you fully awake. It makes things vivid. When you're afraid, really afraid, you see things you never saw before, you pay attention to the world. You make close friends. You become part of a tribe and you share the same blood—you give it together, you take it together."

After finishing the chapter, I started grappling with the question "How Does O'Brien Portray War in the story The Ghost Soldiers?" Does the book make me want to experience war on not? The quote on page 181 makes me feel like Im missing out on a life changing experience. I've never felt the presence of death and danger so close to me. I've never been afraid for my life like O'Brien has. It seems like these experiences are thrilling and self-revealing for soldiers. It makes me want to go through these types of experiences to see a world I've never seen before. I've played team sports all throughout my life and I have felt the brotherly bond that is developed. War is a whole new level. Being together in the face of death and fighting for each other can't even be compared to team sports.

At the same time, O'Brien also portrays war negatively in several revealing instances. On pages 190 and 191, O'Brien talks about how he had come to the war as an innocent, quit, thoughtful, young person who had just graduated college. He says that over the course of the war, he had "turned mean inside". He says that he "now felt a deep coolness inside, something dark, and even". Then he goes on to say that he is capable of evil. He implies that before the war he would never have felt the need to hurt Bobby Jorgensen after what happened on the battlefield. O'Brien makes it clear that these feeling he feels are a direct result of the war. The word evil that O'Brien uses is powerful. The war brought out an evil in him. This self-analysis that O'Brien does makes war seem especially unattractive and cruel. I would never want to experience something that would harden me to a harmful level.

Throughout the book, each story that O'Brien writes seems to portray the effects of the war differently. O'Brien never seems to mention whether or not the war was "worth it" or "not worth it". There are several positive things about the war and several negative ones and O'Brien doesn't chose a side. Going back to my question"Does the book make me want to experience war on not?". I'm not sure.