Buddy, Buddy, Buddy

Something that we talked about in class recently was the fact that Esther is in a sort of emotional and mental bell jar that kind of distorts her view of people. Going along with that, I wanted to address that point and it in relation to how she portrays Buddy. These are just a bit of my (unorganized) thoughts to the topic.

Primarily, pretty early into the book, from the first moment we see him mentioned, Esther doesn’t depict him as that great of a person. Esther explained that from the beginning she had adored Buddy from a distance for a good number of years, and during that time, I think in her mind she kind of set an impossible standard for him to meet, and when he didn’t, she disliked him more and more. Also, I think like anyone his society molded him to be the person that he is, and the fact that Esther doesn’t really appreciate society that much, kind of translates over to her perception and description of Buddy. She depicts him as this dull, sort of awkward guy. One of those examples of disillusionment she gets with Buddy is right after she hears about his previous affair. “What I couldn’t stand was Buddy acting so pure, when all the time he’d been having an affair with that tarty waitress...” (Plath 71). She considers him a hypocrite because he makes himself out to be this really innocent person, but he really isn’t. I think she liked the idea of Buddy that she made in her head, because everyone was always telling her he was this great guy, but at the end of the day, she just didn’t find him compatible at all.

If we actually try to observe the parts where Buddy is mentioned in the books in an unbiased way, he doesn’t seem so bad. He reminds me of a sort of stereotypical average good guy of his time. He got good grades, went to a good school, and followed a solid profession. I’m not saying Buddy is perfect, because no one is, but he’s not this dull, phony person she makes him out to be. If feel kind of bad for Buddy when he asked Esther what is was about him that made women so crazy. For the first time we see Esther being in a better state mentally and emotionally, and it’s then that we see the first instance where we see Buddy show actual emotion and almost remorse. This sort of demonstrates that mixed with the fact that she was going through a lot of emotional turmoil and confusion, she slightly overplayed her distaste of Buddy,

Overall, this is just a bit of my muddled, and slightly unorganized thoughts on this topic. I think that Buddy wasn’t the persona Esther depicted him to be for the entirety of the novel, but he also wasn’t perfect, and he did have his questionable moments, but Esther’s bell jar did distort her perceptions of others.   

Esther is relatable

I was reading through some of the blog posts, and it kind of inspired me to talk about something that I’d picked up on about Esther as a character. My idea is pretty basic, but I wanted to develop it further.

There are aspects of Esther’s personality and circumstances that I find to be pretty relatable. One of the reasons why I’m enjoying this book a lot is because I feel like I understand Esther. Our reactions to certain situations are similar, and although I’m not always going through everything she is, I feel like I get where she’s coming from.

The first reason why I feel I can connect to Esther is because of her fear of deciding what to do in life. The conversation she had with Jay Cee kind of mirrors how I feel about choosing a major for college. “What I always thought I had in mind was getting some big scholarship to graduate school or a grant to study all over Europe, and then I thought I might be a professor and write books of poems and be an editor… ‘I don’t really know,” I heard myself say. I felt a deep shock, hearing myself say that, because the minute I said it, I knew it was true.” A lot of adults lately have been asking me what I might want to go into, and when I was little, there were so many things that I had in mind. I wanted to be a linguist, a software developer, a doctor, or an engineer. Now I’m not so sure. I’m not against any of these per se, but now there are so many factors involved. Do I see myself doing this? How many years of school will I need to have done? What’s the average annual income of said profession?  

A second smaller aspect that I found relatable between us is our mutual need to excel academically. "I was taking one of those honors programs that teach you to think independently...Well, I studied those formulas, I went to class and watched balls roll down slides and listened to bells ring and by the end of the semester I had a straight A." Esther mentions that she is a hard worker and gets perfect grades and earns scholarships. We both a similar motivation in life when it comes to school. I found a parallel in my life through the fact that I’ve always pushed myself to be the best I could be in every academic scenario I was in. I feel like I understand her a bit more because we both started out as teacher’s pets and being goody-two-shoes.

Overall, this was just a small rant of how I see myself mirrored a bit in Esther, as we see her in the first half of the novel. She and I have similar motivations and issues in life. I also don't think this is something particular to just me, but I think others can connect with it as well. 

The Catcher In the Rye vs, A Portrait of An Artist as a Young Man

So in this blog post I just wanted to compare the two books that we’ve been reading so far. I’m going to start out by saying that I was pleasantly surprised with both books, but if it came down to choosing just one, I would automatically have to say that The Catcher in the Rye is my favorite. It really came down to two major reasons though, which were readability and the main characters.

First of all, when it came down to it, The Catcher In the Rye was just so much easier to read than A Portrait of An Artist as a Young Man. This had to do with the authors’ choices in writing styles, and both were very different from one another. Salinger wrote directly to the audience and he chose to be concise with how he depicted scenes through Holden’s eyes. Going along with that, Holden’s thought process was easy to follow, and he is so open and direct with the reader about his feelings. The majority of the books that I’ve read don’t directly address the reader at all, and the fact that Holden does so, so matter of factly, makes me feel like I’m one of his close friends. I loved the fact that Holden would say stuff like,“...oh, you’d like her..” or something along the lines of, “...you’d believe me if you saw him...” Joyce, on the other hand, chose to fill the pages with nuances and subtext, and because of that, I didn’t feel as big a connection with Stephen as I did with Holden. There would be times when I would read and get lost in Joyce’s extremely complex sentences, so much so that I wouldn’t even catch on to what was actually happening to Stephen in real time. Take Stephen’s epiphany scene on the beach, for example. It took me longer than it should have to differentiate Stephen’s thoughts and actions, because in Joyce’s writing style he kind of melds those together. Don’t get me wrong, it was a good chapter, but it was kind of annoying having to read over sections multiple times to make sure that I hadn’t missed any of Stephen’s actions or thoughts.

Another thing that I enjoyed more about Salinger’s book was the main character. Surprisingly, both Stephen and Holden are quite similar as they face some sort of inner turmoil and depression, but even then, I enjoyed Holden as a character more. Holden was more genuine, down to earth, and selfless than Stephen. And Stephen on the other hand was self-centered, caused problems for himself, and didn’t care about anyone. I know this might sound terrible, but Holden actually did have more of a legitimate reason for which to be sad. The fact that Allie died really took a toll on Holden, and we see him being depressed and referencing the days when he was happy, which was when he was with Allie. Another thing was that even during his low points, he still cared about his family and others. He wanted to help out those nuns, although they weren’t even asking for donations, and he always cared for and thought of Phoebe. I’m not going to discredit Stephen journey to self-realization, but, in the end, he really made a lot of problems for himself. Although Stephen’s family did have monetary issues, he chose to seclude himself, make bad decisions, and he thought way too highly of himself (more than he should have). Both didn’t make the wisest of choices, but I liked Holden more because he just seemed like a better person in general. 

Overall, both books were pretty good, but I was able to more fully appreciate The Catcher in the Rye because it was so much easier to follow and the connection with characters was more tangible than with A Portrait of An Artist as a Young Man.

Stephen vs. Religion

While I was reading A Portrait of An Artist as a Young Man, I saw the recurring theme of religion as a big, and complicated part in Stephen’s life. I’ve thought for a while now that Stephen’s faith in the first half on the book, even during his extremely devout stages, is fueled not by religious devotion but by fear (of going to hell). The first mention of this I saw in the book would have to be at Clongowes right before he goes to bed. He said he had to,”.. undress and then kneel and say his own prayers and be in bed before the gas was lowered so that he might not go to hell.” I interpreted this passage as Stephen feeling as though he must do this because his teachers have scared him into believing. I mean, at this point, Stephen is a little kid, and I bet that if you tell a six-year old about how he should behave and that he might go to hell, it would obviously frighten them. Even when he prays you can tell that it’s not genuine, and “from the heart” per se, but more like repeating something absent-mindedly.

Another scene further on in the book that I think that ties in nicely with this is the incredibly intense, graphic, and terrifying sermon and the confession following it. Dedalus feels so impacted by the sermon, so much so that he even threw up. He felt as though the sermon had been directed towards him and repents and ends his sinful ways rather abruptly. The chapter ends with Stephen sighing in relief that his soul is being saved. We also have talked about Stephen wanting things for all the wrong reasons, and I think this is an example of this. I mean, of course we see that he highly regrets his actions, but I feel that a bigger part of him having repented was just to know that he was safe from going to hell, almost protecting himself. He does this for himself and not as much for the whole religiously deeper meaning of, “I changed to please God and to be able to do God’s bidding.” And also, when he is acting pious after his confession, he goes overboard, and I perceived this as him doing it just trying to please God, and kind of make the argument that he still feels bad about his sins, so he is still worth saving, and doesn’t have to go to hell.

This was just my interpretation of Stephen’s take on religion in the first part of the book. As he gets older, particularly towards the end of the book, his views become more complex, but earlier on in the book this idea was something that really caught my attention. The way Joyce described it seemed quite personal, and one of the things that I think Joyce wanted to say with this was that being forced into believing eventually unconsciously pushed him away from the religion.

Coming of Age

I’ve always wanted to grow up. There was always something so fascinating about being an adult to me because I loved the idea of things like getting to drive and work, of being independent and having money to buy things. When I was little, I idolized the mere idea of coming of age because I thought one day everything would magically come together and I would live the ideal life, like someone on TV. To my little five-year old self, coming of age meant getting to live the perfect life, own a big house, have a glamourous job, wear makeup, and even own a pet. I realize now that it’s much more complex than that. 

I agree with a point we had during class discussion that went something along the lines of, “...the majority of the change that happens with coming of age is more internal than anything else...” Like we see with Stephen, most of his changes occur within himself; how he sees himself and how he sees himself in relation to the world. He started out quite innocent and inexperienced in mind and body, but then later on his mind and actions get tainted and unchaste. I can relate to this change in perspective and actions, obviously not to the extent at which Stephen took it, but in small changes that I can see in myself. For example, I’ve lost my childish perceptions on vocabulary, in particular, swearing. Now, I hardly ever do this in general, but it isn’t at all the unspeakable act it used to be when I was a kid. When I was little, I was told that the word “stupid” was the foulest thing a human being could say, and I used to call it the “s” word. Now I know that that’s just silly, and I’ve grown up to be more accepting of different aspects of the world, like crude language, although I don’t try to swear.

Another significant point that shows the complexity of this idea was the something else that stood out to me in our coming of age discussion. I can definitely relate to it and it’s the fact that you don’t know when this process is happening to you, but when you reflect upon it, you recognize that you went through changes and aren’t the same person you were two years ago, or even a few months ago. Something small for me would probably be about getting my license six months ago, and the fact that I’ve had to be a lot more responsible. Starting even sophmore year I was still nervous about the idea of driving alone and going places without a family member because I’d never done anything like it before. Now, driving alone isn’t something that makes me uneasy at all, and I enjoy it. I don’t think once in this past year did I think, “Oh my gosh, I am undergoing emotional development on a path leading to adulthood!” I kind of just had to step up and be more independent because I was required to. I just think that it is so amazing how oblivious we can be to something so huge that is happening in our lives. At least for me, I couldn’t tell because these small changes manifested themselves in the small, everyday parts of my day. 

I could go on and on about this, but I’ve come to the conclusion that coming of age is really complicated, not in a bad way, just in a way that makes it hard to come up with a perfect definition that fits everyone. And, like I can see within myself, and we have seen with Stephen Dedalus, it’s also something not entirely visible to the naked idea, but more intrinsic to our souls/ minds.