Victor vs. Victor 

Victor is one of Sherman Alexis’ recurring characters in his collection of short stories called The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven. What makes Victor a complex is the polarity of his character within the short stories.  He displays his strength and determination, while also displaying a lack of control and cultural disadvantage.  

Victor the Beast

Victor fought his way through twelve years of education, while strengthening himself with every passing school year in Indian Education.  Starting from his very first school year, Victor found a way to turn things around and take control of his things in his life.  As a first grader, he was in constant conflict with his classmates as they bullied him physically while making fun of him verbally.  Eventually, the inner warrior within victor was released as he turned the tables on one of his bullies and pummeled him into the ground.   Victor becoming his own hero in this situation was a great example of how he was able to take control and stand up for himself within the short story.  In sixth grade, Victor told a story about Randy and Stevie and their standoff they had at the reservation school.  Victor learned that the moral of their confrontation was that the one who throws the first punch wins the fight;   this was a philosophy that Victor carried with him through some of the other short stories as well as the rest of his life.  At his high school graduation Victor managed to finish as his class valedictorian at white school, while obtaining many accolades; this could imply that he will eventually have many opportunities in the future.

Victor the Helpless

Sherman Alexis defined living in a Indian Reservation as a place that is filled with sorrow, alcoholism, and a place where Indians are at an expected disadvantage in life due to their heritage.  Throughout the short stories, there was a common theme of Indians being at a social disadvantage, while being difficult to turn things around. 

In Every Little Hurricane Victor described his family and their problems with money and alcohol as well as some of his own fears and weaknesses.  Nearly all of the characters within the story are drinking alcohol while getting into conflicts; the conflicts chain together and start triggering sorrowful memories for Victor.  On page four, Victor recalls the story of how his father could not afford to buy gifts that year.  Victor father cries and apologizing to his family, while Victor imagines that he boxes up his father tears to gift them to his mother, spreading sorrow person to person.  His family lack of resources and control had a large role in shaping Victor as he developed, making it difficult for him to leave the cycle of alcoholism and sorrow.  

Results

After receiving his seemingly strong Indian education while living on the reservation, Victor ends up in a lifestyle that is similar to the adults of his childhood. He watches other Indians go through cycles that end in unsuccessfully every time.  I believe that the goal of both young Victors was to escape the fate that they believed was predetermined by their heritage, but neither managed to reach their goal and declare victory.

Week 2

Howl  : Ginsberg’s Moonlight Howl

Howl is a play where Allen Ginsberg poetically illustrates many scenes related to society, human imagination, and his own experiences while dedicating it to fellow artist Carl Solomon.  It was written while both artists were at a psychiatric hospital where Allen Ginsberg met Carl Solomon for the first time.  The poem is similar to a serenade where Ginsberg depicts imagery while expressing high emotion that could be compared to the ecstasy inducing effects of taking drugs; there are even references to drugs within the poem.  I interpreted Howl to be exclamatory throughout all three parts of the poem despite the lack of end punctuation and its lack of traditional grammar usage. The poem illustrates its own title, Howl, by having a style that symbolizes a wild animal, such as a wolf, that howls loudly and can be heard at a great distance.   The nontraditional style makes it difficult to understand some of the messages within the poem, but the energy and emotion of the poem are very clearly expressed.  

Part One

The first part of the poem is an epic poem illustrating many different images from the author’s perspective.  It is filled with imagery related to drugs, sex, events within cities, people, scenery and various events.  Each stanza or segmented section contains its own description that contributes to a large tapestry that is woven throughout the poem.  There are many controversial references to violence and sexuality that define the author’s lifestyles and the atmosphere of the poem; these references also are heavily related to stories relate to beat culture and hippie culture.  

Part Two                                       

Part two of Howl is on the subject of society.  It could be interpreted as a verbal howl or rant on society by using the symbol of the Moloch.  A Moloch is a machine that represents industrialized society that is depicted as a giant monster that consumes.  Starting on line 1 of part two, Ginsberg starts to describe imagery of violence of people living within society.  On line 4, the Moloch was introduced with many explanatory sentences.  On line 12, the Moloch is described as a prison implying that it is something bad.  The Moloch is encompassing aspects of industrialized society as if it’s a demon that judges people and causes sorrow.  The rest of this part of the poem is about describing the physical parts of the Moloch; the parts are composed of various different parts of society.  Ginsberg indicates that he himself has left the Moloch on line 12 of page 22 and continues to describe other parts of the Moloch as society.  There is then transition to religion and freedom as the Moloch is lifted into heaven.  

Part Three

Part Three is about Ginseng addressing Carl Solomon directly.  He uses the phrase “I’m with you in Rockland” on line 1 of part 3 and reused the phrase throughout this part of the poem.  Ginseng and Solomon are friends and college poets and this part is how the two poets relate to one another and how they co-exist in the same world.  He also themes the poem based on the health institution in which they met.

There is a final part to the poem, that is representing a religious cleansing to much of the chaos of the earlier part of the poem while celebrating the freedom and intelligence of the human soul.

Week One

 

Setting: The key element to the success of The Piano Lesson?

In the piano lesson, August Wilson creates a story that many find to be deep and complex filled with many metaphoric and spiritual connections that the audience make while watching or reading the play.  It can be observed that the static setting of the play is used to do a lot of things and convey many messages.  Looking at it from a strictly artistic standpoint, the rooms encapsulates the 1930s settings appropriately and its inhabitants are obviously of the same mold.  August Wilsons decision to keep the entire play contained to a small area of a house allows the rest of the universe within the Piano Lesson to be a dark void, where there are loads of things happening out of view that are supposed to define the world of the play.  I see the setting of the play as a tactic that August Wilson employs in order to give the audience an endless amount of things to analyze relating to the world of the play.  The setting allows August Wilson to lose control of the story that he is trying to tell to some extent, and it leads to the audience telling their own stories based on their interpretation of the play.  This voluntary absence of space is a carefully thought-out strategy, that id used to add layers of depth to the universe that surrounds the story.  

An exception could be the concept of ghosts within the Piano Lesson.  Although the ghost of Sutter is not seen through the play, its presence shows up on the second floor of the house, off screen without revealing the ghost physically.  As the play progressed, the ghost was being spotted by various members of the casts upstairs at different instances.  These happenstances were unclear for the majority of the play, as characters such as Boy Willie expressed great doubt that a ghost was being seen within the house.  This also leads to a deeper question to why Boy Willie would acknowledge the presence of the yellow dog ghost that existed elsewhere; Boy Willie was also presumed, by some, to be responsible for the death of Sutter, rather than the actions of a ghost causing the death.  Near the end of the play, there are references to the ghost of Sutter relating to his presence being felt.   But the most important part relating to Sutter’s ghost was the authors’ canonical acknowledgement that the ghost made sound upstairs.  This could imply that the ghost was real, at that particular point of the story, though the specific sound that was made was not clearly defined within the book.  The ghost making an actual canonical sound in the play breaks down many walls, and creates a new perspective of the story once it concludes.  That being said, the small scope of the setting of The Piano Lesson effectively blindfolds the audience and gives miles worth of depth to the characters and the development of the story; But I also feel that it the result of a (voluntarily) blindfolded author who tries to keep things undefined in his story in order to cheaply extend the readers’ interest and to keep them transfixed in the plot, characters, and lore of the play.