Blog Portfolio Quater 7

This is the penultimate blog portfolio. This quarter, we spent the majority of time on three plays. These plays were The Heidi Chronicles, A Streetcar Named Desire, and Hedda Gabler. All three books were radically different, in both style and tone, but all had similar themes and messages.

Coverage:
Gender Descriptive Words in A Streetcar Named Desire

This blog entry describes the use of gender specific language in the play "A Streetcar Named Desire".

Poetry In Streetcar

This entry describes the significance of The Portuguese 43 in " A Streetcar Named Desire".

Poker And Bathing

This entry describes the significance of bathing and poker in "A Streetcar Named Desire" and how they characterise Stanley and Blanche.

Itallics In Streetcar

This blog describes the use of itallics in "A StreetCar Named Desire", and how they help define the style of Tennesse Williams

A Streetcar Named Desire Film Comparison

This blog describes the comparison between the film production of Streetcar, and the play version.

Streetcar Set

This blog post describes my own invention of a set for Streetcar, and how it would be used.

The Scoop On Scoop

This blog post talks about the character of Scoop, and how he acts as a foil to Heidi, in the Heidi Chronicles.

Scoop Vs Stanley

This post talks about the contrast and comparison between Scoop and Stanley, from "The Heidi Chronicles" and "A Streetcar Named Desire", respectively.

Hedda As Modern Woman

This blog entry is my response to an article written about Hedda Gabler. I very much disagreed with the article.


Depth:


I feel that the blog that I spent the most time on, and the one that showcases my abilities as an in-depth literature analyser is the comparison between film and play versions of Streetcar. I found that it led me to analyse different points, in a lot more detail than I would have if I had just watched the play.

Film Comparison

Interaction:
This article shows me disagreeing with what Gautam said about Hedda Gabler, and also disagreeing with his interpretation of the article.

Hedda As Modern Woman

Discussion:

Scoop Vs Stanley

This blog launched a discussion between me and Saumya over the negative portrayal of Scoop, and the similarities between him and Stanley.

Xeno-Blogging:

In this post, I commented on Saumya's interpretation of art in Heidi. I disagreed with some of what she was saying, but thought that she made some good points.

Art In Heidi

Wild Card:

This post is a short story that I've been working on, which is based on a recurring dream that I've been having recently. Its fairly graphic, but its been helping me to deal with it.

Dream

Dream

This is a little story that I've been working on. Its based on a recurring dream that I've been having recently. It does get a little graphic, so don't read, if you're squeamish.



My eyes began to open, my head feeling groggy and weak. This confused me, I didn’t remember drinking anything last night, and I would have remembered taking a sleeping pill. I thought about this for a moment, and then it hit me. I couldn’t see anything. My eyes were wide open now, and there was a blackness that scared me. It was right then that I noticed that something was covering my face. I reached up, horrified. Or at least, I tried to. As I raised my hands, a searing pain ran up arms. I couldn’t move my wrists, it was as if I had been handcuffed. I moved my arms, testing what was keeping them still. I HAD been handcuffed. My arms had been pulled behind me, and handcuffed through the back of the chair, which seemed like one of my dining chairs

My body went into shock. Why was I handcuffed? I didn’t have any enemies. I didn’t know anybody that would want me taken. I didn’t know any girls. Nobody would want me handcuffed.  What was going on? I began to struggle. My legs began to kick. My claustrophobia began to close in. I couldn’t see anything, and my arms were trapped. My chair was rocking now, my movements taking it from side to side. My arms were hurting, but I needed freedom. I need to get that mask off. I had to. It was right then that my chair fell over, and I slammed my head into the ground.

Sometime later, I woke. I could feel a sticky liquid on my scalp, sticking the mask to my head. Blood, I knew it. I felt woozy. I also noticed that I was sitting up again. Somebody had come and checked on me, while I was unconscious. I grimaced. It was right then, that the mask was pulled off my head. The pain, from the mask ripping away flesh on my head as the blood went away with it, burned, and I screamed in terror and pain. I was blinded as bright light flooded into my eyes, and I felt woozy, as if I had a concussion, which I was certain I did.

I felt a shove, and fell to my knees. My head rung, and I turned around, a grimace on my lips. A man was standing there, a pistol in his hand, and a balaclava over his head. He pointed it at me, with the .45 barrel staring me in the eye.

“Get up.”
I did so.

“Come here.”
I did so.


The man smiled at me. “Look, kid. We have a job to do. Your father sent us to get you to do something. We have permission to do whatever we want, until you do it. So you’d better listen up.” That was who was behind it. My father. The man behind all my misery. I nodded. There was something about this man that I recognised, but I couldn’t tell what. I would have to bear with him, until I could figure it out.

“Your father wants you to learn what its like to kill. So that you can get into the family business.” I knew that this was going to go bad, quick. I used to refuse to kill, back then. “We’ve got somebody here, a young woman. Nobody you know, your father needs her in the ground. We figured we would kill two birds with one stone.” He snickered at his extremely unfunny pun.
“Why don’t you follow me? And don’t think about running. Those handcuffs are set to explode. You make a break for it, and we’ll blow your hands off. This gave me pause. I needed my hands. Couldn’t really do much without them, could I? I fell into step behind the man, as he walked out of the room, and down what seemed to be a stone corridor.

His hand was clutched tightly around the pistol, as if he was nervous. Maybe he didn’t want anything to do with this either. I figured that this was the time to ask. “Who are you?” I stammered, my nervous teeth chattering together.
“You don’t want to know, kid.”
That made my fears worse. I did know this man.

We kept walking down the corridor, me stumbling a little, my head aching, and what seemed to be vertigo settling in. We reached a large wooden door, and the man pulled it open. He pushed me through, and I fell to my knees, grazing both of them. I stood up, stumbling to my knees, and felt blood dripping down them. I grimaced again, knowing that that wasn’t the worst of what was coming.

Still on my knees, I look ahead of me. There was a girl sitting there. She was about 5’7. Maybe four or five years older than me. She was gagged, but her eyes were wide in terror. She had long, blonde hair, which was grimy and tangled. She must have been in here for a while. Her eyes were blue, and she was quite a pretty girl. How could my father do this to somebody?

The man turned to me. “That’s her. She was giving your father some trouble. Snooping around, something about the college paper. He needs her gone.”

I shook my head. I wasn’t going to have a part in my father’s twisted games. I’d escaped him once, and I didn’t know how he’d found me this time. I wasn’t going to get back into this. “I’m not going to kill this girl for you.” The girl shrieked at this, or tried to, as her gag muffled it. The man smiled. “Oh. You’re going to want to, soon enough. Just to end it.”

The man nodded behind me, and I felt a massive pain in the back of my knee, as a large wooden object slammed into it. I cried out in pain, and looked down, my leg bent at an awkward angle. It wasn’t broken, I could tell that. But I couldn’t put weight on it. The man smiled at me. “Do it. Or it’ll get worse.” I looked at the girl, and I could see tears welling up in her eyes. I shook my head again, and again, the object, which I thought to be a bat, slammed into my leg. This time, from the front. I felt my knee crumple under the blow, and I bit down on my tongue in pain. Blood began to drip out of my lips, and I feel to the ground once more.

“I won’t do it. You’ll have to kill me.”

“Oh, you know we can’t do that, boy. Your father will kill us. And this girl still needs to die. So even if we killed you, we would still have to off her. Might as well do it yourself, and save yourself in the process.”

I shook my head once more.

“I admire your bravery, kid. But I can’t have any of that. Stan, take off his handcuffs. I don’t want to wreck his legs anymore. Let’s deal with his hands now. “

The man with the bat, standing behind me, chuckled, and removed the handcuffs from my wrists. I rubbed them, feeling the raw skin hurt as I touched it. I felt my hand being grabbed, and the man behind me saying, in a slight Irish accent, “Your last chance. Either you do it, or I’ll break your fingers.” That gave me pause. I needed my fingers for my job. Without them, I would be nothing. I told the guy to wait a moment. To let me stand, and catch my breath.

I stood, or tried to, as I had to catch myself when I tried to put weight onto my left leg. I looked at the girl. She couldn’t have done anything that awful. She was young. My father was evil. I couldn’t kill her. I turned to the first man, who’s name I still hadn’t figured out.

“I’ll do it.”

The girl shrieked again, and began to shake. I looked at her, sadness in my face. I had to do it. If I didn’t, they would hurt me more, and kill her anyway. I might as well come off ahead.

Hedda as "Modern Woman" response

The first part of the article that I tend to agree with is the fact that people say that Ibsen was writing Hedda as an "international" play, and to an extent, an "international"woman. I believe that Ibsen wrote Hedda as a modern day Norwegian heroine, and that it is only because of the way that the world was changing. It enabled people to make parallels between Hedda and their own societies, but I don't believe this was Ibsen's intention. I agree with the article, in that it is obvious that Ibsen wanted the play to be Norway-centric, due to the fjord references, the very Scandinavian appearance of Thea, and other factors. Hedda can appear to be an international woman, but I don't believe that was the intent of Ibsen, when he wrote the book.

What interests me more is the fact that the author constantly refers to Hedda as the "modern woman". I don't know how much I agree with this. Hedda seems to have some modern day thoughts, that the majority of women have now-a-days, but I disagree that this makes her a unique character. Throughout literature, we see women using their power to manipulate, and to better themselves. Hedda is simply another example of this. In As You Like It, we see Rosalind using her beauty and her power of Orlando to get what she wants, and we also see her expressing herself how she wants, although she does need to dress up as a man to do this.

Another example of a woman that uses her sensuality, and her mind, to manipulate men is Lady Brett Ashley from The Sun Also Rises. Brett manipulates Cohn, manipulates Mike, and manipulates Jake, simply because she can. She doesn't seem to get any feeling of success or accomplishment after doing this, she just does it. This is almost exactly like Hedda, who simply does things for the sake of it. When Hedda destroyed the manuscript, she did it simply to mess with Mr. Elvsted. Not to gain some self-satisfaction from it.

The author of this article, William Arthur, states that Ibsen has no heroines. I disagree 100% with this. Ibsen shows Hedda in a spotlight, and seems to make it as if she is a shining symbol of the woman. He doesn't make her a simple woman, but glorifies her, and idolizes her. All of the other characters do this, which makes it hard to ignore. It is as if Ibsen is TELLING us to worship Hedda.

In Gautam's blog, he agrees with this fact, but says that he feels as if Ibsen is portraying Hedda in a bad light. He says that he tries to make her seem as bad as he can, and says that he uses her to show the class struggle going on in Norway at the time. I disagree with that, and say that he glorifies her, and uses that as a way to show the fact that all fantastic people have a dark side.

I don't really like this article, because it seems that he doesn't support any of his arguments, and it kinda seems as if he is pandering to defend Hedda, without any basis for his arguments.