Mark Twain Quote

Looking for Mark Twain quotes, I found that I had heard (and liked) many before. One such quote was: "The reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated." For some reason, when reading this, I think of Paul McCartney! Apparently rumours marked Samuel Clemens as dead (much like the "Paul is dead" myth that circulated widely once upon a time and is still being told by some people today). Like a lot of the Mark Twain quotes I read, this one is funny because the way he says it makes it so blatantly obvious.

Another quote I really like (and I know we are only required to write one) is " Don't say the old lady screamed. Bring her on and let her scream." Mrs. Pitman had this on her wall when I was in sophomore English. It actually did impact me in my writing. What I think Twain means by saying it is that narratives tend to be disconnected from the story they are telling. By giving characters their own voices, the story is more believable and seems to come alive.
(I do wonder, though, if he meant that saying "The old lady screamed" would be worse than trying to vocalize her scream, like "The old lady said, 'Aaaaaaah!'," which, to me, looks a little silly.)

Jim Crow

(The caption, though fuzzy because of Blogger, reads: "THE JIM CROWS ARE BACK." Picture from http://filipspagnoli.wordpress.com/2008/05/08/human-rights-cartoon-75/)

This cartoon portrays one of the trees that anti-African-American groups, like the KKK, would lynch black people on. In the picture, there are crows in the tree--an allusion to the Jim Crow laws mentioned in the caption. The Jim Crow laws oppressed people of colour and segregated them--giving them "separate but equal" facilities in comparison to white people. When put into practice, though, this resulted in a lot of racism and abuse of African-Americans. It also kept the racist attitude in the South and other areas in the country, which in part led to the lynchings.

This relates to the Delaney sisters' book because they spoke at length about Jim Crow laws. Also, one of the sisters claims to have been nearly lynched this way (she thought she would be, at any rate).

Having My Say

AKA "ranting as long as I like and actually having permission to." Oh man, this'll be fun!

I keep mental lists of all my rants. Um... the first one that comes to mind is my Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde rant, so I guess I'll do that one.

A year or two back, I finally picked up the book Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and read it. Of course, like most people, I'd seen it referenced in a lot of other places. I knew it was about the nature of people and good and evil and split personalities and all kinds of fun things, so I was eager to read it. When I did, though, I was sorely disappointed.

The main story goes something like this: Jekyll brews a potion that turns him into a monster and all. He likes the freedom of being a monster but, when he actually has to be accountable for the things his monster side, Hyde, does, he can't stop changing into him!

It's been a while since I read it, so forgive me if I get details wrong.

But the thing that astounded me was that apparently, Hyde was supposed to be the evil one.

Come ON!

Look, Hyde is described as giving off an aura of unpleasantness (maybe he doesn't bathe...?) that everyone else finds repulsive. He's kind of rude to people. He also once, while turning a corner, accidentally ran over a little girl (who was not even hurt. In the least. She started crying because she was freaked out. Pft). Yeah, he killed someone, but I'll address that later.

But JEKYLL is the one who let him loose! Jekyll, as a scientist/doctor guy, doesn't take ANY responsibility for Hyde at all! He's perfectly fine with letting Hyde do whatever he wants, until Hyde DOES actually kill someone.

And when Hyde's murdered the guy, you might expect his good side, Jekyll, to, y'know, REGRET it a bit. "Oh, no! What have I done!? How could I unleash this monster that is me upon the world? I only wish I could pay back this life that I've stolen in my selfishness! These hands--MY hands--have shed innocent blood!!!"

But no!

Instead, his reaction is pretty much, "oh dear, I guess I just committed murder. The police are gonna be after me now. I'd better go on the run. Darn it!"

I find it hard to believe that Hyde's the evil one!

And as for that murder thing in the first place--This is how the murder scene went down.

Setting: a nearly-empty street on an ominously dark night.

Hyde walks down the street, shaking his cane scoldingly at puppy dogs and flowers and everything that's not as cranky as he is.

A Random Dude walks up.

Random Dude: Hi there!

Hyde: (angry grumble)

Random Dude: Do you have the time?

Hyde: ...Wait, you're TALKING to me? I thought I gave off some kind of aura that warded off everything with the slightest bit of sense.

Random Dude: Sense? Huh? No, I don't have SENSE. I'm oblivious and annoying.

Hyde: What a lovely combination.

Random Dude: So yeah, what time is it?

Hyde: It's the middle of the night! Why are you wandering around asking me what time it is?

Random Dude: Do you have the time?

Hyde: I'm not going to tell you the time, you cretin!

Random Dude: PLEASE tell me the time?

Hyde: No.

Random Dude: Pretty please?

Hyde: NO!

Random Dude: Pretty pretty pretty (this goes on for a while) PRETTY please with a cherry on top?

Hyde: NO!!!!!!

Random Dude: Pr--

Hyde: (whacks him with a cane, like every reader has been wanting to do ever since he showed up)

Random Dude: (dies)

Hyde: ...Aw crap.

...I think that's about all I have to say about that.

But in conclusion:

The story was written as an allegory for good and evil. To me, this does not work at all--mostly because the "good" side was morally ambiguous at best and completely corrupt at worst, and because the "evil" side's worst crime was crankiness and not knowing his own strength. And when your characters are as annoying as the guy Hyde killed, can you really blame your audience for sympathizing with your villain?

The story might read better if you take Jekyll to be the Superego, who is concerned with society's rules and how he will be perceived; and Hyde as the Id, who does whatever he feels like doing without letting other people dictate his actions. But if this is how the book's supposed to be read, what's the moral?

Disclaimer: As I've said, I haven't picked up this book in years. I just picked out the rant from where I stored it in my brain. If I'm inaccurate in my recollections of the plot, characters, etc., I beg your forgiveness.

Walt Whitman Connection

I do find this poem interesting, not because of the many details that Whitman includes to broaden the scene (I, myself, find that repetition tedious) but because of the main idea of the poem. Whitman says that whatever the boy in his poem looks at, he becomes. At first this sounds pretty odd, but as Whitman continues with this idea, it starts to make sense. A lot of who we are can be attributed to our environment. Therefore, the things around us do change us, at least to a certain extent.

Whitman especially makes this clear when speaking of the boy's parents. The boy gleans all of his outward personality from his parents because he's around them the most.

There was one line that I did connect with in particular:

"...the sense of what is real, the
thought if after all it should prove unreal..."

I have spent a good deal of my thought life wondering the same question. To see it referenced really did touch me, I guess. Most people take what they see in their day-to-day lives for what it appears to be, on the whole. This is necessary, or they could not function in our world (for example, if you wander around trying to prove the world to be real, and not working or something, you could lose your job. If you question whether your food is poisoned at every meal, you may never eat at all). However, I think many people don't even recognize the possibility of our world being illusion, since it's so rarely referred to outside of philosophy and sometimes poetry. I think it's refreshing that Whitman did recognize this--although I'm a bit puzzled as to how it fits into the poem's context.

I guess Whitman is trying to speak for all people, again, and assumes that everyone questions reality at some point in their lives, which for all I know is true. It would make sense.