Role model or Weapon?

     Once upon a time there was a little girl who looked up to an unrealistic idol, Barbie. Spoiler alert: that little girl was me. From the time I was three years old I was taught to love Barbie. Everyone around me played with Barbie's; my sister, my cousin, my friends all had tons of them. In actuality I never saw anything wrong with the dolls until I read, "Our Barbie's, Ourselves." In fact, when I was little I looked up to her. She had everything I wanted in life: lots of talents, great careers, a beautiful house, and much more. But after I read, "Our Barbie's, Ourselves," I began to understand all the controversy surrounding the beloved toy. Emily Prager uses rhetoric, such as allusions and rhetorical questions, to reveal to readers the effect that Barbie can have on women. Girls who play with Barbie at a young age are taught that they should look like that doll. They are taught that in order to be 'beautiful' you must be tall, skinny, and blond, and you must have big breasts and a small waist. But, a girl looking exactly like a Barbie is about as realistic as my friends becoming pink elephants tomorrow. It's very unlikely- dare I say impossible. Today there are so many different people in the world who have such different body types and physical characteristics that the standard of perfection set by Barbie is even more outrageous than it was when she was first created. They say that perfection is in the eye of the beholder, but I think that no one can see you as perfect until you truly believe yourself to be perfect. Perfection is not only about looks but rather about who you are on the inside. Jesus Christ once said, "If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor and you will have treasure in heaven." In this quote, Christ makes no reference to beauty but instead suggests that the path to perfection involves sacrificing your wants for the sake of others. Perfection is a word that can mean a thousand different things to a thousand different people; just as Barbie can be considered a role model or a weapon against feminism (Prager), depending on who you ask.

    

Common Day Nazis

     Throughout the novel Maus, Spiegelman uses different animals to represent the different races and ethnicities of the characters in his book. He also shows some of the animals wearing masks, representing the varying appearances between the ethnicities. But, this also shows that underneath they are all the same. The use of masks serves to prove that a person's exterior is just that, a mask. The poem, "Please hear what I'm not saying," by Charles C. Finn addresses this topic really well.

 "Don't be fooled by me.
Don't be fooled by the face I wear
For I wear a mask, a thousand masks, 
Masks that I'm afraid to take off 
And none of them is me."

Finn is trying to explain that his exterior is not who he truly is; but rather a mask he puts on for the sake of others. Throughout the poem he explains that he is not at all who he appears to be. This really made me think about and analyze the different masks I wear throughout the course of a single day. Think about it. Most people act differently with their friends at lunch than they would with their boss at work. But who is to say which one is real? Each day we put on a series of different masks to try to fit in with the people around us. To try to be the person they want us to be. Although, high school is obviously different than the holocaust, it serves as a good comparison to daily life. In Auschwitz, if you had Jewish characteristics you were punished. In high school, people are judged based on appearances too. Lots of  people are  commonly considered outcasts because they don't look like the "normal" high school student. In essence, they are being discriminated against because they defy the social standard for normal. Most people think that the Holocaust was devastating and unfair. Hitler discriminated against the Jews because they were different. But isn't that what we do each day, make snap judgments based on appearances? Whether it's one person or a complete ethnicity, judging a person by the 'mask' they wear is wrong. In a society that is continuously growing and becoming more diverse, acceptance of others is critical.

Click here: http://www.jwjonline.net/poems/poem/mask/: to read the rest of the poem, "Please hear what I'm not saying."

'Form meets Content'

      As kids, me and my brother read comics together all the time. From the age of five I was reading and understanding them by myself without difficulty. But as my brother grew up he stopped reading them, and so did I. I mean who reads comics in high school? No one. That is until I was assigned Maus to read. But just five pages in I could tell it was so much more than just a comic book. It's a novel that gives new meaning to the term 'form meets content.' Spiegelman explores abstract ways of conveying meaning and dances on the line between visual and verbal art to give life to his Fathers' story. Each page of this comic is filled to the edges with literary devices as well as visual symbols that work together to tell the story. However my favorite of these pages is page 84 (shown below).

                                                                

     In just this one page Spiegelman incorporates multiple motifs. The first one is the stripes shown on the wallpaper in the background. These stripes most likely are meant to represent the stripes worn by the Jewish prisoners in the concentration camp. These are shown in background of the boxes where Vladek is telling Artie about how these events still make him sad. Spiegelman is using the visual of the stripes looming over Vladek to further demonstrate that these memories will never go away. The other motif shown on this page is that of the smoke. In the box in which Vladek is asking Artie not to smoke, the smoke rises from the bottom of the box to the top, separating the two men. In this visual alone it is clear that the smoke bothers Vladek and forms a barrier between him and his son. It can also be inferred that there is some lasting damage related to smoke from Vladek's days in the concentration camps. These visuals work alongside the words to help convey to the reader a deeper understanding of the story. One that could not be achieved using only words.

     Spiegelman helped me to have a new outlook on comics. Before reading Maus, I thought comics were solely for the purpose of entertainment and laughter. But I now understand that comics can reach new levels of literary complexity that normal novels cannot.

              

Civil Disobedience vs. Rebellion

       Throughout Thoreau's speech, "Civil Disobedience," he suggests that sometimes the only solution to a problem is to not follow the rules. This is essentially the meaning of "civil disobedience." After looking up the definition in a dictionary I realized that it is eerily similar to the definition of rebellion. So I urge you to think about when civil disobedience becomes rebellion? Most people would say that civil disobedience is acceptable and rebellion is not. Why is that? Perhaps it is the word civil. Or maybe it's the fact that civil disobedience is associated with many famous protesters such as Martin Luther King Jr. Whatever the reason may be it's important to remember that there is a fine line between the two. When people remember the Freedom March and the French Revolution, they have very different opinions of the two. Both of these movements included an act against the government ruling them. But the Freedom March is regarded as a brave and noble protest against segregation. Whereas the French Revolution was a bloody and horrific time where many lives were lost. It was a tragic battle fought for a good cause. Now these examples are extremes, but they serve their purpose. Many people would argue that civil disobedience is a better approach to solving problems than rebellion is. Martin Luther King Jr. once said, "I became convinced that noncooperation with evil is as much a moral obligation as is cooperation with good.” In this quote he is suggesting that it is a moral obligation to object to unfair treatment. But it is important to remember that while it is right to protest unfairness and violation of rights; when doing so you must not infringe upon the rights of others. So once again I ask you: When does civil disobedience become rebellion?

What does it mean to be free?

    For the majority of my life I thought the answer was:  being able to say and do what you want. But after reading "This is Water," I now understand that the word freedom can have multiple definitions. Wallace argued that being free is having ,"attention, awareness." At first this quote didn't make an impact, until I remembered one of my favorite quotes.

"The aim of life is to live, and to live means to be aware, joyously, drunkenly, serenely aware,"

~Henry Miller

The reason this quote is so powerful is because it states a simple fact that is assumed to be general knowledge. "The aim of life is to live." Stating this seems redundant since most people know that the point of life is to live it. People won't argue that isn't true. But the part that makes this quote controversial is that it suggests that living is being aware; just as Wallace stated. Miller suggested that to live you must be aware. Wallace suggested that to be free you must be aware. Many people would say that freedom is a necessity to living an enjoyable life. Therefore being aware is essential in life. Now another controversial aspect of this quote is the meaning of the word aware. Like the word freedom, the word aware can have many definitions. Dictionary.com defines aware as: "having knowledge; conscious; cognizant." But for Wallace, being aware is understanding and caring for others. He also stated that to be truly aware you must care about things going on with others, rather than just noticing that they are there. "This is Water," prompted me to question what freedom really means. I still haven't come to a solid conclusion, but through the readings in class I have come to understand that freedom can mean one thing to one person, and the complete opposite to another. It all depends on what you believe being free really means.