“Dana Goia suggested in his lecture that the answer to why literature matters is in what it teaches us: to imagine.
He listed the many kinds of knowledge in the world, scientific, conceptual, spiritual and poetic or artistic knowledge. Scientific knowledge is useful, as is conceptual and spiritual, he said, but life hardly ever is like those kinds of knowledge.
Life isn’t predictable like scientific knowledge. It isn’t always able to be interpreted objectively. Life isn’t all concepts either, like justice and humility. Life isn’t always so broad. Spiritual knowledge isn’t all of life either, though personally I believe that it plays a bigger part than perhaps Goia was allowing it does. However, he said that poetic or artistic knowledge addresses us in the “fullness of our humanity, in images, movement, sound, “ etc. He suggested that even Jesus knew this, and that’s why he told stories, he knew we’d understand.
Most of all, literature shows us options. He talked about how imagination is utterly important in all aspects of life, indeed even living itself. He mentioned how suicide victims often choose to end their lives because “they can’t imagine any way out of their situation.” Literature “awakens us to possibilities and enlarges them,” he said.
Another thing he mentioned that I found really interesting and encouraging, was a survey that was done of some of the most successful business people, to see what their academic background was. The answer? English! He said that to be great leaders, we have to be able to “create a story that other people want to be a part of.” Literature helps us to make the qualitative decisions that are so important in life. He encouraged us saying that if we’re in English or Literature, we can brag about it. We’re most likely there because we love it, and that is a wonderful reason to be studying something, not to mention we are learning skills that we use daily. I loved the lecture, it reaffirmed my decision to be an English major.”

Hooray for literature!

But today is the day before fall break, so that is something to write about! I cannot express how much I am looking forward to a break, a chance to recover from taking exams and the disappointment after receiving them back and finding that the hours upon hours of study didn’t always turn into a good grade. I suppose that something I’m learning to wrap my head around. Hard work doesn’t always get a good result, unfortunately. However, when it does…boy is that satisfying!

Anyway, fall break is most welcome. I plan on visiting a friend at another school and heading to an amusement park nearby for some rollicking roller coaster fun. Even as a write, I’m getting butterflies. I have a strange relationship with roller coasters. I love them, yet I fear them greatly.

One more thing I’m looking forward to: reading what I want to read. My choice? Children’s literature of course! I need a break from academics. I will finally get a chance to finish From the Mixed of Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, which I bought at the Metropolitan museum of art a few weeks ago on an art trip.

Yep. That’s what happens when an English major goes to the Met. I looked at art, of course, but the whole time was thinking “I wish I had a copy of that book by E.L. Konigsburg.” Thankfully, the museum gift shop was able to satiate that desire. Next time I go, I’ll have to make a list of the places in the museum mentioned in the book and go look them up! If I was ever to write a unit study on that book, I would include a field trip to the Metropolitan to do just that. Ha ha.

Have a good break, fellow Messiahians!

I just got back from an incredible week fellowshipping with other believers and hearing some great challenges from speakers Joy Moore and Tony Rohrer, not to mention many others like Paul Rader of the Salvation Army, Brian Ross, Eduardo Llanes and others.

A quote was read by Tony Rohrer one evening; something said about the BIC by bishop Perry Engle: “The BIC is conservative in morals, but liberal in love.”

That is a description that I am proud to be a part of.

It deserves a nice write up, so here we go…

First off, I liked Jane Eyre better, I think…There was a little more character development I feel, at least in the main characters. I feel like the reader was able to enter into the heads of the characters more. Granted, Jane Eyre is written coming from the voice of the main character, rather than from the voice of an outsider looking on like Wuthering Heights.

However, there is something underneath Emily Bronte’s characters as well.
Heathcliff for one, is a very layered onion. For some reason, I found him extremely fascinating. A friend who recommended the book to me said that he was the most horrible, wicked person you could think of, but for some reason she loved him.
I found that this was not far from the mark. It was interesting, Bronte was almost able to make the reader feel for Heathcliff like Cathering Earnshaw/Linton felt for him. She knew he was awful, but she couldn’t seem to let him go. He had a sort of sinister power. To me, though he is a much worse character than Severus Snape, it felt a little like that ‘Oh, please be redeemable!’ feeling you get for the bad guys sometimes. (Side note: I was never so happy when I found out that Snape was a good guy! I love when that happens-the seemingly unredeemable becomes redeemed!)
So, I was kind of disappointed that Heathcliff never came around in the end.
However, the manner in which he dwindled and then finally died started me thinking about who the real antagonist in the story is. Heathcliff definitely is one of them, one of the worst, but it because of Catherine Earnshaw that he finally dwindles into a deadly madness. However, I can’t decide whether or not that is because she, like him, had a sort of power of people, or if Heathcliff’s madness is actually brought on by himself–He is too passionate, too clenching; if something is to be his, it must be completely and utterly consumed by him. He loves too much, so that it isn’t love any more but obsession.
What I want to know it, where did this come from? He was spoiled by his adoptive father, and mistreated by his adopted brother, but it seems to me that these things should not have made him into the sort of man he became. The only thing that stands out to me is that in the midst of Heathcliff’s mistreatment, Catherine was a friend to him. His only friend, really. Perhaps the whole ruining of character began out of fear of losing the one thing that was solid in his life.
So really in the end, all he needed was a hug. :-p I’m still not sure if he is a tragic figure though, because he is so terribly bad…

Anyway, here are a few more things that I liked/noticed in the book:

* I was somewhat consoled in my disappointment that Heathcliff died unredeemed by the fact that Catherine Linton/Heathcliff and Hareton Earnshaw were. That was one of the things that began to make me dislike Heathcliff at the end, was his ruining of Catherine’s good character. I was glad that those two were able to become friends. I think Hareton is one of the most pityable characters in the book, and his redemption shows that a bad character brought on by mistreatment as a child could be amended (so if Heathcliff had allowed himself to be reached by someone else besides Catherine Earnshaw, perhaps he could have come around after all).

* I noticed a pronounced difference in Emily Bronte’s female characters and Charlotte Bronte’s. Jane Eyre is a strong character, and I found the Catherines in Wuthering Heights to be rather lacking. Bother were so easily manipulated, and could not put aside pity long enough to use good judgment. (Side note: When Cathering Linton/Heathcliff first began visiting with Linton Heathcliff, it reminded so much of Mary Lennox and Colin in The Secret Garden! I mean, wow!)

* Just to throw in a little Post-colonial look at the story, I noticed that Heathcliff, the ruiner-of-happiness in the story is portrayed as dark; he is a ‘gipsy’ child that Mr. Earnshaw Sr. finds in the street and takes in. In Jane Eyre, Mr. Rochester’s mad wife whose existence creates a great deal of heartache is also dark, described as a creole. What’s with foreigners being the bad guys?
I have some possible ideas about why Emily Bronte made Heathcliff ‘foreign.’
1. She was racist, but that isn’t very much fun to analyse, is it?
2. She needed a character who didn’t have a traceable background, (Though that could have created a cool twist in the story) and making him an abandoned gypsy child would have made is near impossible to find out what his real lineage was, since his parents were most likely long gone, and had no way of being tracked. It added a bit of mystery to his character. In Emily Bronte’s day, my guess is that foreigners were just that, foreign and a bit mysterious. I’m not convinced that Bronte was thinking “I need a bad guy, so I’ll make him dark skinned, because dark skinned people are bad.” I think more likely she was looking for a way to make her character more mysterious. But of course, you can’t know anything for sure.

Well, I think that is all I have to say about it for now.
It was a good read.

I won’t summarize it, you can read the plot on sparknotes or something, or actually read it yourself if you want to know that. However, I will tell you the question I couldn’t help asking myself at the end:

Was shooting Lennie the only option for George? or rather, was it the only option for Lennie?

I guess I’ve been trying to get back to some of my BIC roots, but every time I read a book that ends like this one did, I always try to think about an alternate ending that doesn’t involve violence. Lennie obviously was not completely in his right mind, but he definitely wasn’t mean.
In a way, his whole character was a contradiction of itself. He was harmless but dangerous, the opposite of murderous and yet killed many things by loving them too much. What can be done with someone like that?

My conclusion: Yes, there were other options. But none would have made such a potent ending, so Steinbeck, I forgive you.

Today I also discovered some books that I really need to add to my library. A few years back, while in Borders with friends, we discovered Dr. Haggis-On-Whey’s World of Unbelievable Brilliance series. At the time, the only one of the shelf was the Ocean Floor one, and only one copy at that. The three of us went together and bought the thing, so I own 1/3 of “Animals of the Ocean, in Particular the Giant Squid.”
While looking online today, I discovered that there are three other delightful titles in this series and they aren’t too expensive either! so pretty soon I will be ordering
* Cold Fusion
*Giraffes? Giraffes!
*Your Disgusting Head: The Darkest, Most Offensive and Moist Secrets of Your Ears, Mouth and Nose

I think I can get all three for under $40, and they are hardcover at that!
These books are hilarious, I highly recommend them to anyone.

Well. That is all I have to say right now, but who knows, if I get bored I may be back later.