The Art of Literature and the Literature of Art

In my opinion, I would probably join Fight Club because it would give me a way out. I would be able to vent physically to other people, get all of my frustrations out on other people. And that’s what I think is drawing all of these people to the club; everyday life of course will bring troubles, and frustrations, and suffering. Fight Club gives regular people from everyday walks of life a way to forget and get those frustrations out. The modern life of an average person usually consists of the same old thing everyday: you get up, go to work, come home and sleep. Life revolves around getting a job and being able to support yourself. So people that probably work office jobs, that go through the daily grind of filing papers, drinking way to much coffee, are most attracted to the club. I mean, I don’t think I have ever met a person that did like doing all of that stuff, but that’s just my assumption. The way Fight Club is run sort of reminds me of a cult following. You usually do not hear too much about these underground clubs or groups, which is why the first two rule of Fight Club is that you DO NOT talk about it at all. It also reminds me of a potential radical group that would start a take over of the government. The goal is the absolute destruction of civilization, so Fight Club is essentially a group of radicals wanting to destroy how civilization is run by the government in order to create anarchy. 

1. Old books. I love the smell of the really old pages. And I also love getting brand new books as well.                                                                                2. 

2. Ballet. Either watching it or performing it brings me more joy than anything else in the world.   

3. Cooking. I love cooking, baking, creating delicious food! I love finding new recipes to create and try to master.       

4. Music, especially instrumental music. I think every piece of music I find evokes some kind of emotion in me that I can’t resist. I also love the classics from those awesome rock bands. They’re so iconic and they allow me to feel like that bad-ass rebellious teenage rocker girl.

5. Playing piano. My favorite piano piece of all time is Clair de Lune by Claude Debussy. I have been trying to master it for at least 3  years now. It’s absolute perfection and when I play it makes me feel like I’m falling in love in France.

6. And that’s another thing. Love. I believe love is really the only force strong enough to pass through all dimensions of time and reality. (If you don’t get this reference, we are not friends.) Love is the thing that makes us human.

7. Cheese. It makes you constipated, but its still pretty awesome.

8. Movies. Especially the ones from my childhood. I’m a disney/pixar kid.

9. Pierogis. My great-grandmothers famous pierogis that I get the honor of making every year at Christmas.

10. Old pictures. So I can reflect on old memories. 

We humans are all the same. We are made up of the same stuff, our organs work in the same ways, but, when we get down to the things that make us different, we can no longer rely on our biology. We of course have our DNA that contains traits that are parents pass down to us such as eye color, gender, hair color, etc. And we all have the same “survival” instincts that have been passed down throughout our evolution. These characteristics shape us into humans: living, breathing animals that survive in the world. However, what defines us as people is the way we see and think about the world, and of course, by the way we feel. It may seem that our biological characteristics do not contribute to “life” in the existential meaning of the word. But, the human brain is a magnificent creation; it sustains us both biologically but also accounts for our emotions, our beliefs and morals and how we perceive the world in general. This allows us to be individuals, to be different from all the other humans we see everyday, while also allowing us to survive as a creature of the Earth. We make decisions everyday that affect what kind of person we will become. Some of these decisions may be solely biological: for example we might choose a certain partner in life based on our biological instinct to pick the best mate with the best traits to be passed down to offspring. However, this is an unconscious decision. The conscious decision would be to pick a person that you connect to on the emotional level, the person that you love. So in a way, our biology does account for some of our decisions and does contribute to the way we live, but its also the other side of the spectrum that allows us to actually “live”, in the existential meaning of the word. 

“You shall love, whether you like it or not. Emotions, they come and go like clouds. Love is not only a feeling; you shall love. To love is to run the risk of failure, the risk of betrayal. You fear your love has died; perhaps it is waiting to be transformed into something higher. Awaken the divine presence which sleeps in each man, each woman. Know in each other that love never changes.” -To the Wonder

My first quote is from one of my very favorite movies, directed by Terrence Malick. It is my favorite monologue, spoken by Javier Bardem who plays the role of a Catholic priest who is questioning his own faith in God. I chose to put this quote up so people will think about love. Love is often a subject that not a lot of people talk about anymore because it’s too cheesy or it’s not real. Through this quote I wanted to let people know that even if you think love has died or that it doesn’t exist, it is the only thing that makes us human, that shapes us and binds us together. 

“There’s a feeling I get, when I look to the west

And my spirit is crying for leaving

In my thoughts I have seen rings of smoke through the trees

And the voices of those who stand looking” - Stairway to Heaven, Led Zeppelin

My second quote has a totally different message from my first in that it doesn’t have any message at all. Stairway to Heaven is one of those great pieces of music where many people do not know the reason for its existence. They do not really know what the artists were trying to say by creating this song. I put up this quote at the school I took the ACT at and I actually did see a boy read it. He got the biggest smile on his face and as he passed by I could hear him humming the song. That is what I wanted to happen. Even if someone didn’t know the song at all, I wanted them to at least look it up because the lyrics were so intriguing they had to find out the meaning of it all. 

“We are the champions, my friends.

And we’ll keep on fighting till the end.” -We Are the Champions, Queen

Everybody will probably hear this song at least once in their lifetime, whether it be after a victorious sports game or on the classic rock radio. To me, it’s one of those iconic rock songs that brings everyone together because of its lightheartedness. It’s sort of a confidence booster, too, not only for being victorious at a basketball game or something, but at living. We do so many things throughout our lifetime, we have to be proud of what we’ve accomplished. I decided to put up this quote to let people know that they can be confident about anything they do. I wrote at the bottom of my post-its “Think about how far you’ve come in your lifetime. Be proud of that. You are a champion. my friend.” 

All of my “words of wisdom” carry different messages, but I hope that they made at least someone think about their meaning and how it can apply to their own lives, even if it was a realization that they are a champion. 

For a really long time growing up, I hated, no not hated, disliked visiting family members. This did not really occur until I was about 10. I didn’t hate the people I was seeing; they were family, my grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins and whatnot. I just didn’t like being bored. Most of the people we went to see were great aunts and great grandparents, older relatives that were just a little bit boring. There was nothing for my younger sister and I to do, so we just sat around, carried on the usual old conversation about how school was and how, yes, we had grown since the last time they saw us. It didn’t seem like I had any kind of deeper connection with any of those relatives. Some of them I couldn’t really relate to at all, since they all lived in a different state. We only visited every so often since it was a 5 hour car drive to Buffalo, New York. This was good for the Zglinicki girls because it meant more time at home with friends, and more time to play and not have to behave like good little children. This phase I went through carried on for a couple of years, up until I was around 14 years old. At this point, I had started to discover that there was a deeper connection between a relative and me. And that person was my great-grandmother, Helen Rutkowski. She was a little old white haired lady with big glasses, bright pink lipstick, wearing pastel colored pant suits. She had lived in her little house for as long as I could remember, always living alone because my great-grandfather had died when I was 2. Whenever we visited “the old broad” as my dad would jokingly call her, she would always have massive amounts of food. “Would you like a sandwich? How about some ice cream?” We always of course said no because we didn’t want this frail old lady to run around the kitchen making all these things for us. But, she still would manage to make a feast of salami sandwiches, polish dill pickles, chips, ice cream, cookies and whatever else she could find. I remember her wonderful smile that would appear on her face every time she opened the door to see it was us visiting. Even when she was put into a nursing home after she fell and broke her hip, Helen always managed to keep a smile on her face. Even at 88, that “old broad” drank beer and ate pretzels while watching football in her little room at the home, sometimes even drinking a little brandy from the stash she kept in her bedside drawers. These visits were my favorite. This is when I really got to connect with my great grandma. She gave me her old recipes for polish pierogis and cookies, and she always joked around with me, making me laugh. As we both got older, we visited Buffalo less and less, only around 2 times a year. When I came home from school in August of my sophomore year, my mother sat my sister and I down. And with tears in her eyes, she told us that my great grandma had passed away. She said she just, closed her eyes and went. I was definitely in shock. I cried and cried, not knowing what to do, feeling so utterly terrible for not being there with her. My mom and I went to the funeral together, my first one. The wake was especially hard. Walking into the room and seeing her, sleeping so peacefully, I broke down. Never again would I see her smile when we visited, and never again would I get to tell her that I loved her. After this all happened, my family felt empty. Helen was gone, the woman who was gonna outlive us all, the person who held our family together. This event changed me too. I realized that one day I could come home and another loved one could be gone. And that I wasn’t there for them, not just physically, but emotionally. I cherish every minute I get to spend with someone, and the older I get, the more and more time I want to spend, because time eventually runs out, and we disappear forever, leaving only memories to be cherished.

As I Lay Dying can be read as a religious text in many ways. One big factor that makes it a religious text is the incorporation of southern folk culture into the story. This means the traditions and ways of the south influence the characters; these traditions and ways were heavily based on values found in Christianity. One example of this is the affair between Dewey Dell and Lafe, which Dewey Dell knows is wrong. She is currently pregnant with Lafe’s child, an illegitimate pregnancy due to the fact that the two are not married. In Southern culture, a woman is to refrain from sexual activity until she is married, which can also be seen in Greek culture. The Odyssey demonstrates the value that women are to remain abstinent from sexual activity, creating a parallel between the two stories. Another way in which As I Lay Dying can be read as a religious text is the allusion that the family is going on a journey. They are essentially making a pilgrimage to take Addie to Jefferson, referencing or symbolizing the journey that the soul takes after death to go to either heaven or hell to eventually be at peace. Throughout the story, there are also many references to Christian duty. With Cora especially, the Christian duty is the act of helping someone in the community. Southern communities were bound close together, even if families lived far away from each other, like the Tulls and the Bundrens. Cora says its her Christian duty to go to the Bundren’s after Addie’s death in order to help the family. Cora also talks a lot about having a strong faith, an important aspect in the southern culture, especially when someone is experiencing many hardships, like the Bundrens. She says after Addie’s death “ I have bore you what the Lord God sent me. I faced it without fear nor terror because my faith was strong in the Lord” (Faulker 73). 

teacherswank:

Explain if As I Lay Dying can be considered an existentialist novel. In what ways, so far, does it meet the criteria? Use specific examples from the text to support your argument. 

DUE THURSDAY. 

In my opinion, I do think that As I Lay Dying has some existentialism ideas included in the story. Two characters that I really see having some big questions regarding existence are Vardaman and Darl. In class, we discussed the main ideas of existentialism, which includes questions about what happens after death and who we are as people and what our actual purpose is in the world. In As I Lay Dying, there is a major relationship between Vardaman’s fish and his mother, Addie. When Addie finally dies, Vardaman is unable to grasp what has actually happened, due to his lack of knowing about how death works. He compares his mom to the fish by describing the fish as “not-fish now, not-blood on my hands and overalls” (p 53). He knows that Addie and the fish are dead, but they are still there, which confuses him. The bodies of both still exist, but the people themselves cease to actually “be”. He refuses to accept that the person that was his mother is actually gone, yet her body still remains. Darl talks about what it is to “be” in one of his chapters when he says “Addie Bundren will not be. And Jewel is, so Addie Bundren must be. And then I must be” (p80). He questions if he actually does exist, and how even Jewel does not know that he does not know if he is or not. Both Darl and Vardaman ask these questions and think about what it means to die and what it means to exist. Existentialism asks these same questions, even asking about what happens after death, if there is some sort of afterlife, so spirits or souls of those who have passed on can still exist.