A Wonderful Life

The film It’s a Wonderful Life is playing on television; it is on that list of top fifty films that we could have chosen to write our essay on. I chose not to watch it, because it is a very sad movie, and I know that I would have ended up crying. Watching it now is reminding me of just how depressing it is. Jimmy Stewart is an amazing actor; I feel bad for him though, because of he always seems to be casted as the guy that gets pushed around. In It’s a Wonderful Life, he gets pushed around by Mr. Potter, and just right now he got punched in the face by the schoolteacher’s husband. Just now his angel found him on the bridge and jumped into the water to save Mr. George Bailey. Is it any mistake that the angel had to change out of his wet, dark clothes to a white gown?

the Motif

The motif that I must research is that of colors. Specifically, I am supposed to research the colors shown in nature. And even more specifically, I am supposed to research the colors of the trees. For example, the blossoming flowers that Paul D follows on his way to the 124 Bluestone Road. I am not that excited to be doing this project, mainly because I am not that comfortable with the people in my group. I do not talk to any of them. Just do my work and I’ll get through it. A lot of these motifs connect; the color white connects with stairs. The color red connects with blood from the bodily fluids group. I suppose the color yellow could also connect with pee from the bodily fluids, but that’s a bit of a stretch.

Notice what you Noticed

The twenty motifs that made my list are necks, colors, hands, birds, rivers, flowers, stairs, trees, clothing, sewing, modes of transportation, rapes, the wrong side of business, reading, fires, beds, eyes, names, aquatic animals, and faces. I’m not really sure if this blog is just supposed to be a list, or if I am supposed to explain each of my choices. Seems kind of lame just leaving it here so I’ll explain some of my choices. Necks, which was the motif that came to my mind first, was chosen because of the incident in the Clearing between Sethe and Beloved, and because that is where Beloved was cut to be killed. Colors came next because of how often it is acknowledged. The color of the steps is known. The colors in Beloved’s tombstone are also repeated several times. I like doing things in odds, so hands was chosen because the reader is constantly told how there are no life lines on Beloved’s hands. Any coincidence?

Biblical Allusions in Beloved

This blog is going to be a bit of a ramble, but it’s relevant, I promise. I had a bit of an internal battle doing this project of finding biblical allusions in Beloved. I did not believe that there could be any biblical allusions worthy of being noted; I thought that it could possibly be counted as blasphemous. Taking the word of God and twisting it in such a distorted way so it would work for this assignment, but It turned out that there are some legitimate allusions. Lot’s wife, fire and brimstone, the horsemen, Romans 9:25, and the loaves and fishes are just some of the major and most obvious allusions. I had a poor perception of Toni Morrison, and still do for using the Gospel in such disturbing ways. Turning Jesus into a baby ghost come to life and getting into the wrong side of business with her step dad. Turning Mary into a deranged former slave who killed her daughter and who tried to kill her other children to save them from the life she had. Jesus and Mary are two people that Christians aspire to become like, but who aspires to become a manifested baby ghost or a murderous mother?

Rememory

This blog is to be about the term rememory. Microsoft Word just underlined it as incorrectly spelled, but not anymore, I am adding it to the dictionary! Toni Morrison used rememory in that weird poem chapter; Sethe was asking Beloved if she had rememory her. The way it is used is unusual and the word is all together original. The first thought that came to me when I firstread the word rememory, was a certain episode of Adventure Time. That is a cartoon on Cartoon Network that shows the adventure times of a boy, Finn, and his faithful dog, Jake. There is one episode called, “A Memory of a Memory,” which basically is my definition of rememory. The show dealt with a whole tree of memories in Finn’s head. Its parallel to the tree of memories in the novel, Beloved, all the different branches that lead you off into different tangents but are all anchored at one memory. Seeing rememory manifested in this episode makes me wonder if the creators of Adventure Time read the novel too.

Blog 4

So this blog is supposed to be my reflection on the definition essay and the description essay. The definition essay was fun to write, mainly because of the word I chose to define: sugar. But it was equally difficult because of the word limit; I had to kill my darlings several times because I could not fit the entire darling in 200 words. The description essay was not so memorable. I am having difficulty trying to remember which picture I wrote about. Now I remember, the steadfast soldier and his ballerina. Honestly, that is my favorite love story of all times. This was also a difficult essay, because I felt so limited to what I could say and what I could not say. It felt like I was writing a biology essay, very straight forward, as if there is some formula I must follow, so all I have to do is simply “plug-n-chug.” Not very satisfying.