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I thought I was a cat person

I’ve had a couple of pets during my life, but most of them are dead now as they were fish or birds who were eaten or killed by my cat. Currently, I only own a dog and as mentioned before, a cat. Obviously the whole family cares for both pets, but we each have our preferences; I prefer my cat because I was the one who wanted to get one in the first place. I like dogs too, but only the large kind, so I thought a cat would be a more appropriate house pet, as I had to find one way to convince my mom of allowing it. My dog is some sort of mix of Labrador and Pitbull so he’s fairly large and muscular. When you add in a mix of high energy and stupidity, he can become pretty dangerous and you can begin to see why he wouldn’t be fit to be an indoor dog. Unlike my cat though, he doesn’t mean to be an annoyance or cause harm. As I and my cat have gotten older, he’s started to become more and more of an annoyance and I’ve started to get more and more annoyed. The thing he always does ...
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The Importance of Names

As we noticed early on, the characters in Song of Solomon all had very peculiar names. Whether it be very unusual like First Corinthian or whether it be more of a nickname like Milkman, Morrison has hidden a much broader and deeper meaning behind many of the names she assigns the characters. Perhaps the most important idea Morrison attempted to convey was the idea that the more familiar/popular name is often more descriptive than the more original or recorded name given to places or people. We can see several examples of this throughout the book, starting with Milkman himself. While Milkman's official name is Macon Dead III, that doesn't show much other than his biological relationship to his ancestry. However, his nickname Milkman provides us more than that, giving information on the nature of Milkman's unusual relationship with his mother, being breast fed way past the age one usually stops, which everyone in the town seems to pick up pretty quickly from this nickna...
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Rochester vs. Antoinette

I've heard several people talk in and outside of class on their opinions of whether or not Rochester and/or Antoinette deserve sympathy. For one, I think it's very important to look at their past to explain their actions in the present. For both of them, they clearly had family issues, with Rochester feeling undervalued/disowned because of his father giving everything to his first son according to their family tradition. For Antoinette, we can clearly see that her mother doesn't seem to care about her, not even knowing or caring where she is or who she's with. In addition, Antoinette unlike Rochester doesn't actually have her real father, instead she gets Mr. Mason, who only seems to cause more problems upon his arrival. I think that this similarity in their past is crucial to even start comparing how bad their actions are later in their life. When it comes to deciding who is worthy of my sympathy, the past can be used to explain the reasoning for why it was done,...
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What's wrong with Meursault?

Meursault has a very iconic nonchalant response to just about everything he is presented with. As much as I'd like to believe Meursault is the most chill person ever known to man, I don't think that's the case. For someone to think nothing matters and be indifferent on such heavy topics like extreme violence and love shows some kind of mental problems. Most "normal" people would agree that murder is a terrible thing and should never be an option, however, for Meursault, he seems to see it as an acceptable choice, saying you either shoot or don't shoot. The fact that Meursault fired four extra shots into the Arab confidently in comparison to the first one truly shows some When asked by Marie if he loves her and wants to marry her, he replies "I don't think so, but that doesn't mean anything." Such lack/difference of understanding of human feelings and humanity in general is a key aspect of mental disorders. So where did this mental disorder ...
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Kafka's choice of transformation

We have already discussed Kafka's reasoning for turning Gregor into a bug in class, but I'd just like to share my opinion on the matter. I think that the main reason Kafka turned Gregor into an insect was to serve as a metaphor for Gregor's lifestyle. We know from all kinds of insects, especially ants and bees,  that they live a very systematic lifestyle, mindlessly working until they die. Sounds pretty familiar doesn't it? This description portrays Gregor's life as we know so far very accurately. He wakes up, goes to work, gets his money for his family, similarly to insects working for the greater good of the colony, and then goes to sleep only to repeat the same thing the next day and so on. The day he wakes up as a bug, he doesn't even think about the other millions of complications it will bring him, he just thinks about how he's going to be late to work. Even when something completely supernatural happens to him, he only has work in his mind. As I ...
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A Test of Masculinity

Right from the start of The Sun also Rises, we are introduced to Jake's "alpha male" attitude. He makes fun of Cohn for being a loser and is extremely upset at the sight of Brett hanging out with a group of gay guys. However, we also come to learn about his vulnerability, losing probably one of the most defining members of his masculinity. We see him cry at night, while also informing us that it's not a rare sight to see. We see him downing drink after drink trying to refrain from thinking about being with Brett. So what can we make out of all of this? For me, Jake is going through a very common human instinct of attacking others because of one's own insecurities. After losing such a large factor in what identifies him as a man, he feels the need to compensate by being an asshole. The only reason why Jake doesn't look that terrible is because a good portion of the other characters in this novel could be considered assholes too based on personal opinion. I fe...
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Septimus's Sexuality

We dedicated a lot of time in class on the topic of Septimus's relationship with Evans and whether or not it's homosexual. I don't completely discard the possibility of Septimus being homosexual as we have already seen an example in Clarissa and Sally, in addition to the similarities Woolf draws between Clarissa and Septimus's suicide near the end of the book. However, I don't think that the stressful situations in the trenches during the war should be used as a primary piece of evidence for this argument of Septimus being gay, perhaps a little side note if used at all. For me, I just can't see it any other way. During rough times like a war, emotions are most likely running rampant, people don't know what to do, people start to panic. It seems clear as day to me that Septimus was in this position and was looking for someone to guide him. It's only natural, we all do it as well. When we have no clue what's going on or don't know what to do, ...
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