Heyyy Nacirema

Americans are strange. We have weird habits and are very hypocritical. In fact, we always judge other people for taking part in activities that are out of “our norm”. I searched up “cultural traditions around the world” on Google and every search result talked about “bizarre” or “weird” customs. Using these words to describe such traditions seems sort of disrespectful. Usually these words are connoted negatively and associate with oddities that might be in a circus, not a traditional custom. Why do these things have to be "weird" as opposed to being admirable or cool? Plus, who are we to judge these people for doing “strange” things? Americans gather in a city every December 31^st to count while people in Denmark throw utensils at their neighbors’ doors. We have no right to say that one thing is weird when we do some pretty strange things ourselves. After all, for 364 days a year, all children are told to not take candy from strangers. But suddenly, if it is October 31^st and you know how to say “trick-or-treat”, your parents encourage you to roam the streets at night going up to strangers’ houses. We can’t say that this is perfectly normal and that finger amputations in the Dani tribe to express grief at funerals are “bizarre”. Horace Miner, the writer of “Body Ritual Among the Nacirema” has already deemed that Americans express “the extremes to which human behavior can go”. It is believed that there is no way for anybody else to be more eccentric than us. Who else would keep “magical materials… for certain ills, and… real or imagined maladies”?

The only search results that came up had to be associated with something "weird" or "bizarre".

Finger cutting to express grief is normal.

Tongue piercing to show religious devotion is normal.

Not being able to use the bathroom for 3 days after marriage is normal.

The "Content"ious Book (hopefully in the style of David Foster Wallace)

Reading is such an enjoyable hobby. Those hours spent snuggled up reading magical stories and engaging in the lives of heroes. You can travel anywhere in those stories, and often times, they are much better than reality. Just the sight of books shelf after shelf in the library can make toes curl.

Because of how much paper is used.

Just imagine how many books are in your local library. There are about 18,000. Think about how many pages there are in 18,000 books. There are a lot. Assuming that there are approximately 250 pages in the average book[i], that would make about 4,500,000 sheets of paper per library. The average tree produces around 8,333 sheets of paper. So basically, a lot of trees are cut down to make books. When lots of trees are cut down, another woodland animal loses its home and dies. Think about all the squirrels whose dreams you’re crushing. Literally. [ii]

With new technological advances these days, there are many more ways to still be able to read a variety of literature without having to keep killing trees. About 85% of American households own computers. Guess what computers can do- access the Internet. Hence, if you can go on the Internet, you could always check out E-books online or read books in PDF files. There are many more ways to access a wider range of literature without the use of books. Instead, books and such can be recycled to be made into paper that people can reuse over and over. Paper production could diminish drastically, reducing the need to deforest the world. Because at the rate that we’re going through forests at, soon there won’t be enough land for us to even live on to read books. Would you compromise books for your life? Yes, of course.

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[i] Most childrens stories are 20 pages long but young adult novels like Twilight are 500 to 800 pages long, which is about 500 to 800 pages too many. I mean, the whole series itself is 2458 pages long and over 120 million books were produced. That’s over 294,960,000,000 total pages of book produced for this series alone, which in my opinion is a waste of paper.

[ii] Althought, I wouldn’t really mind having the forest from Twilight cut down. It might actually be more beneficial to the world.

We don't need this.

But we do need this.

The [two] Hours [of film]

“Leonard, always the years between us, always the years, always the love, always the hours”

The Hours was definitely a very emotional and impressive work of film. Actually, before I even knew that we were going to watch this movie in class, I had heard of this movie and read the plot synopsis on Wikipedia and everything. However, even that was still not enough to prepare me what was to come. I knew that Richard was Laura’s son and that he was going to die, but actually watching the scene was so difficult to bear. The creators of this movie, which is actually based off the book The Hours, stayed true to Mrs. Dalloway despite some differences in the story. All the characters’ personalities and symbols are still present, but just in different places.  For instance, Clarissa is actually partners with Sally rather than Richard, but she still enjoys parties. Also, when she visits Movie Richard, she takes the characteristic of Book Richard by separating the flowers she brings him between the white ones and the red ones. Plus, while there is no Septimus in the movie, his presence still thrives in the movie, as Richard is sort of crazy with voices in his head that lead to his suicide out of a window. The theme of time was still overwhelming in the movie from the very beginning to the very end. At the beginning, the clocks and alarms chiming bring all three characters away from their dreams and snap them back to reality. Near the end, there is a clock when Virginia and Laura go to bed, sort of like their death bed, perhaps? Also, just something I thought was absolutely clever in the film is that when Virginia talks to Leonard, she says that “the poet must die” and Richard is a poet and so is she. Also, Movie Richard jumped out of a window, and the first time Virginia tried to kill herself, she jumped out of a window. So basically, Virginia Woolf is Book Septimus and Movie Richard. People are such geniuses in creating literature! I can’t even.

Another connection between Virginia Woolf and Richard: They are both sitting and next to windows #twins

Ebbing Elizabeth

"Who is that lovely girl? And suddenly he realised that it was his Elizabeth, and he had not recognised her, she looking so lovely in her pink frock!... Richard and Elizabeth were rather glad it was over, but Richard was proud of his daughter. And he had not meant to tell her, but he could not help telling her. He had looked at her, he said, and he had wondered, Who is that lovely girl? and it was his daughter! That did make her happy. But her poor dog was howling." (Woolf 194)

To ebb-(of an emotion or quality) gradually lessen or reduce

The true Elizabeth is ebbing. Her desire to assume a profession is receding like a wave. In this passage, her father is shown dousing away her unique qualities until she is nothing left but a “lovely girl” like her mother. On page 136, Elizabeth decides that she “would become a doctor, a farmer, possibly go into Parliament”. These aspirations are what make her different from Clarissa, which Miss Kilman likes about her. However, at the end of the book, all Richard acknowledges about Elizabeth is her aesthetics. Elizabeth loves her father very much, and is “devoted” to him; having him be proud of her for anything makes her feel so happy that she would probably attempt to look her best more often to gain his approval more, never mind studying to become a doctor. Elizabeth’s dog, symbolic of her inner intelligent self, howls and is shut up, not to be shown to the rest of society. The old, innocent Elizabeth who wore pure white dresses is now replaced by this girl who wears pink frocks “well above the ankles” with her hair “done in the fashionable way” (169). Surely, at this time in history, females like this won’t be wishing to have day jobs. Clarissa doesn’t work, though unattractive women like Miss Kilman do. Elizabeth is seemingly doomed to be like the former. Just when it seems like she’s about to make it out of the water, Elizabeth’s individuality ebbs back, as her ocean of a mother consumes her.

Septimus & Shakespeare & Sordidity

“Here he opened Shakespeare once more. That boy’s business of the intoxication of language- Antony and Cleopatra- had shriveled utterly. How Shakespeare loathed humanity- the putting on of clothes, the getting of children, the sordidity of the mouth and the belly! This was now revealed to Septimus; the message hidden in the beauty of words. The secret signal which one generation passes, under disguise, to the next is loathing, hatred, despair.” (Woolf 88)

This passage helps the readers truly experience the change that Septimus had gone through due to the war. His current analysis of Shakespeare makes him hate it, as his views on life become more pessimistic and bitter. The “secret signal” described is like the codes that he hallucinates now, as on page 21. With his PTSD, Septimus applies his wartime codes that he had received to his current life events. The “message hidden in the beauty of words” is what his life used to be like. Pre-war, he was a charming young man in a promising world, which is the beauty of words. However, after going to the war, Septimus finally finds the hidden message that discloses the reality of human nature and what the world is actually like. Cold and cruel.

I also think it’s strange how he uses the word “sordidity”, even though it is not a real word. However, sordid is a word and means “to be dishonest or dirty”. It’s symbolic of how Septimus is immersed in his own world that he built off an established environment. He is living off his own creations, like his vision of Evans and codes that are taken out of the context of the past.

On a less dramatic scale, I sort of feel the same way as Septimus- kind of, not really, but a little bit. In freshman year, when we first began reading Shakespeare, I was really excited because his works are universal, and I thought it would be so cool to be reading such high level of literature like the older students. The more analysis (or hidden messages) our class covered about the book, the more depressing the work seemed to be. Like Septimus, I soon developed a more dark perspective on life and society. Needless to say, Romeo and Juliet did not seem like such a cute love story, after all.

Septimus is absorbed in his past and the war.