¡Viva Las Vegas!

Las Vegas: Home to Casinos, Various Forms of Entertainment, and Wedding Chapels.  Lots of wedding chapels.  At these chapels, you can choose a theme, like Star Trek or Hawaiian; a language for the ceremony, like Japanese or French; or even a drive-thru option, so you don't have to get out of the car!  The number of unique and absurd options is endless.


In "Marrying Absurd," Joan Didion describes the process of these weddings, as well as various scenarios from them.  She exposes their trivial nature through her ridiculing diction; phrases like "what happens there has no connection with 'real' life" (Didion 102) and "There are nineteen such wedding chapels...each offering better, faster, and, by implication, more sincere services than the next" (Didion 102-103) contribute to her mocking tone.  In addition, the examples of couples that have participated in these wedding "ceremonies" help add to her point that most of the people who get married this way are "children who do not know how else to find it, how to make the arrangements, how to do it 'right'" (Didion 103).

Vegas weddings, with their extremely short ceremonies, ridiculous options, and inexpensive costs, are hardly weddings at all.  On a couple's wedding day, they are pledging their lives to each other, telling each other that they will stay together "in sickness and in health," and promising their love for eachother "from this day forward until death do us part".  However, Las Vegas weddings take the focus off the true meaning and significance of marriage by emphasizing the unimportant elements of the wedding and rushing through the meaningful ones.

Fish Cheeks? I'll pass

One of the most distinguishable characteristics of a culture is its food.  Most cultures have a staple food like rice or pasta that has been eaten at almost every meal for generations.  This often makes it tough when a family relocates because they have to choose between assimilating and sacrificing part of their own culture or maintaining their own cuisine in the new place.

In "Fish Cheeks," Amy Tan describes a Christmas Eve dinner scenario from her teenage years that involves a white boy named Robert (whom she had a crush on) and his family coming to her very Asian household for dinner.  In addition to her father's loud belch at the dinner table, Amy's mother serves traditional Asian cuisine rather than the usual ham or turkey dinner that Americans are accustomed to.  She finds this very embarrassing and worries that Robert won't like her because of her family and culture.

However, there are numerous things that can be taken away from other cultures.  If you think about it, the American lifestyle that most of us have grown up with is really just a combination of a bunch of other cultures.  Rather than being ashamed of the way your family acts and what your family eats, take that as an opportunity to teach those around you about your background.  And if you're in Robert's shoes, enjoy the learning opportunity that you've been given.

Disabilities in Today's Society

What is your reaction when you see people who are different from yourself?  Have you ever judged them?  To be frank, you would be lying if you answered, "No."

What if the person was very small in stature, in a wheelchair, or mentally retarded?  Generally, there is a reason for these things, like a birth defect or disease the person has.  However, we tend to ignore that and still judge the people in some way.  In addition, maybe you would think that they aren't as good as yourself since you don't have any physical issues like they do.  However, these are the people who have been through the most in life and are the strongest because of it; often, they have been teased and ridiculed and laughed at and bullied for their entire lives.
                    
In Disability, Nancy Mairs discusses our society's response to people with impairments.  In the piece, she highlights one point that really stands out to me.  She wrote that when she asked why disabled people are rarely used in advertisements, a local advertiser told her that, "'We don't want to give people the idea that our product is just for the handicapped'" (Mairs 14).  When I read that, I instantly loathed the advertiser.  To be honest, I really don't think having a disabled person on a box of Cheerios or a billboard for McDonald's would stop people from buying something they like or have any negative effects at all.

You might be thinking, "In what ways would society benefit from people with disabilities being included in advertisements?"  Well, the most important thing that would do is provide people who have these disabilities with role models who are in similar situations and have overcome the hardships that their condition has put them through.  This would provide these people with a source of strength and give them perseverance to keep fighting through their disability.  Also, it would mark an important milestone in our culture.  It would be the day that companies stopped letting their desired success trouble them so much and focused on something even more important, which is showing people who are disabled that they care about them.

Used in a Derogatory or Joking Manner?

As a child, most are taught that there are some words that they might hear around them that are not appropriate to use, from words like "stupid" to simple expletives.  For example, everyone in my family knows the story about how my uncle used to tell his big brother and sisters that "Stupid's a naughty word".

However, everyone has their own idea of what sort of language is acceptable.

In "A Raisin in the Sun", Lorraine Hansberry employs the "N" word multiple times.  Now, every critic has their own idea about this word being used in literature: some think it should be taken out, others think it should be censored, and many think it should stay in the literary work like it originally was.

The thing is, African-Americans call each other this frequently, so why is it socially unacceptable for people from other races to call them that?  If they found it that offensive, NOBODY would call them that even if they were also from African descent and using it in a joking manner.  I don't mean to affront anyone here, however it seems hypocritical to me for whites to be criticized if they were to use a word such as that.

There really is no definite line between joking around and actually trying to offend someone by using that word.  So what's the solution?  The best thing to do would be for everyone to refrain from using words that most people would find offensive, leaving the world a much friendlier and positive place.

Unrequited Love

We've seen it before: someone falls in love with someone outside their grasp and it makes that person absolutely miserable when they aren't loved back.  From Romeo and Juliet to Gone With the Wind, there have been countless books, movies, plays, and songs dealing with this.  But now, we can relate it to Jay Gatsby's situation in The Great Gatsby.

Fitzgerald portrays Gatsby as a character who has been longing to have Daisy, the love of his life, back for years.  When Gatsby went off to the war, Daisy decided she could not wait for him to get back so she ended up dating, and eventually marrying, Tom instead.  He has longed for her, the part of the American dream that he seemed to be missing, and this longing is even represented in the book by the scene where Gatsby reaches out towards the green light.  The feeling of unrequited love wore on Gatsby for 5 years before he finally made a move to see if Daisy would take him back.  However, she said she could not leave her husband Tom, leaving Gatsby hopeless.

A lot can be taken away from what happened to Gatsby.  Although he did not end up getting Daisy, the persistence he showed by having feelings for her for so long is commendable.  It showed that he was not going to give up on his dream until he did his best to try to get her back.  Also, the fact that he did whatever he had to do in order to get her attention is laudable.  Sure, he didn't attain his wealth in an honorable way, yet that isn't the point; he still did what he had to so he could throw the extravagant parties in hopes of Daisy seeing and deciding to stop by.

While some of Gatsby's actions in the book definitely are not respectable, you have to consider that the feeling of unrequited love can change a person into something that they are not: It can annihilate any confidence you have.  It can make you bitter and cynical.  It can hurt your feelings more than almost anything. So no matter what you think about Gatsby, one thing is for sure: his commitment to trying to win Daisy back is admirable and more people in real life should be committed to love as much as Gatsby was.

Right of Interpretation

Any piece of literature can be interpreted in countless ways, as we learned about The Great Gatsby by reading articles that explained different "lenses" that can be "looked through" while reading the novel.  We focused on five distinct interpretations: psychoanalytic, African-American, feminist, historical, and queer.  By reading about these, we gained insight into the novel and learned about different ways that Fitzgerald might have intended to portray characters and topics.

Many of us have said that we think the critics who wrote these articles about The Great Gatsby are just reading into what Fitzgerald wrote too heavily. While some of the textual evidence could support these viewpoints, in my opinion, the only possible realistic interpretation was the historical one that related Gatsby to a self-made man, but even that might not have been a conscious effort. In reality, however, Fitzgerald could have subconsciously included phrases or scenarios that reveal his opinions of these topics.  Because we can't just call up Fitzgerald and ask what his intentions were with this novel, the only thing we can do is believe what we want to believe, as long as there is support for it. It's open to our own interpretation.

No matter what, many things are going to be subjective. How many feet does someone mean when they say something is "long"? Or what is the real definition of "pretty"? Both of these words are abstract; there is not only one "correct" answer to those questions. This is like many things in life. There is no way to define beauty, love, success, or hope since they aren't concrete objects.

Just as the articles about different interpretations of The Great Gatsby show different analysis of the text, these words are up to your own interpretation. No two people are going to interpret text, abstract words, or pretty much everything else in the world in the exact same way, but everyone is entitled to giving their own take on them.

Preserving Innocence or Setting Back A Child's Education?

In general, children tend to be portrayed as angels who are always happy and innocent. But do children fight on the playground?  Do they tease one another if they don't own the newest fad?  Do they argue over irrelevant things?  Of course they do.  So are they really that innocent?

Recently, we read "The History Teacher" by Billy Collins for English class. As far as the poem itself goes, it was wonderfully written; however, its topic is extremely controversial.  It is about a history teacher who, rather than telling the truth, teaches his young students incorrect information about historical events in order to preserve their "innocence".  He tells them that "the Enola Gay dropped one tiny atom on Japan" and "The War of the Roses took place in a garden" so they won't be exposed to the cruelties and casualties associated with actual wars and fighting.  But by doing this, is he really helping?

Children aren't as fragile as adults seem to think; they can grasp bigger concepts than most grown-ups realize.  Although telling them about the millions of people who died during World War II and other traumatic experiences that the world has experienced probably isn't a good idea, telling them blatant lies about what happened isn't the right thing to do either.  Children deserve to know the truth, no matter how young, and teaching false information would just confuse them when they grow up and are forced to learn the correct information.

What happened happened. It is what it is.  There is no justification for teaching the children false history since it isn't going to change what actually went on.