So I’m writing my next English paper at the moment. It’s a much clearer topic, and I’ve done a fairly good job at papers like this in the past, but I just thought a quote and some ranting might go a long way to explain the problem I have with this guy. So here goes nothing:
The general purpose of a close reading essay is clear: If you can read a paragraph in a book, you can read the entire book; if you can read one poem by an author you can read other poems by the same poet; if you can read a soliloquy or other speech you can read the entire play. This is not to say that writing a close reading essay automatically means you can immediately understand every work by the same author. Few people would insist that reading a passage from a short story from James Joyce’s Dubliners makes it possible to read Finnegan’s Wake. What a close reading essay gives you is the skill upon which you can build, an approach to any other text you will encounter.
Ok. Well thatís bullshit! But then it’s literary criticism, so that goes with the territory I suppose. But I think there’s something wrong with this idea. I mean it basically means says that practical analyses of literature can happen without context, which can’t be the case.
Can you read and understand paragraph or even a page from “To Kill a Mocking Bird” and understand the book? Can you read a paragraph from Carl Sagan’s Contact (ok, perhaps not a favorite of Literature teachers, yet, but it’s a great book in my opinion) and understand what he’s talking about. Can you read a passage from Galileo (by Brecht) and understand the play. (I’d argue that it would even be possible to understand the play, from a literarily perspective even after you read the whole damn thing, but that’s an aside.) And Ellison’s Invisible Man is very similar. The analytical perspective required to take on a short passage of prose (now, poetry is obviously a little different), will grant you the ability to look at other short passages of prose, but entire works must be approached differently.
I mean the most important thing is that in a short passage, themes and motifs and other literary embellishments that may be present but completely unrecognizable as such in a shorter section. Literature is ultimately about contexts, so critical schools which are anti-contextual seem especially pointless and particularly stupid.
Anyway. Back to the Grind.
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I have mixed feeling about the whole gay marriage debate. On the one hand, I really support gay marriage and how I would very much like to live in a society that would allow me to marry in the manner of my choice. On the other hand, as gay youth, marriage isn’t something that’s incredibly important to me at this point. I’m supportive, but I don’t feel like this is my fight, given my situation. My other feeling about the fight for gay marriage is that it’s lead by a certain group of people whose hearts may not be in the right place.
A friend of mine once said that the HRC, which is the de facto leader of the mainstream fight for gay marriage, is a group of white gay men who don’t what their sexuality to interfere with their other assorted privileges. They’re not homophobic, granted, but I don’t feel they’re inclusive of non-gay queers, and I think that’s a *real* problem. I’ve been known to say, that I haven’t heard an argument for gay marriage (or similar HRC issue), that I disagree with. Granted, some are better than others but that doesn’t mean that on some level they are all right. The other thing I don’t like about the HRC is that it’s fairly indifferent towards gay youth. Organizationally, I can see why this is the case, but at the same time I don’t approve.
Having gay sex legalized, legitimizes the culture, and that’s something that is unbelievably important, but having marriage rights are a really logical extension. Itís also an extension that is desperately needed. At least right now, I think that the gay rights like marriage are going to be won in the courts rather than in the legislatures, because it’s a hard issue to pull the politicians around, but the issues have fairly sound legal arguments. Perhaps the courts aren’t the best venue to achieve social justice victories, but since it’s the only venue, it’ll have to do.
The other thing about gay marriage that gets left out too much is that ultimately the issue is a matter of church and state. Religion has the right to dictate what happens within their faith, but they don’t have the right to dictate the policy and behavior of this government. Let the religions marry whomever they want or don’t want, but it’s not the business of the church to dictate who the state marries. And the fact that secularist activists haven’t joined forces with the gay marriage movement, is quite troubling.
So regardless, Bush has declared a Marriage Protection week. I’m appalled, and there’s no other way to say it. I mean really now, how dare he. How dare he?!? It’s appalling for all the normal, “marriage is about heterosexuality” reasons, but it’s also appalling that he has associated breading with marriage, when this isn’t even a truth in heterosexual relationships. Thus, he’s extremely short sited or he’s downright malicious, and I’m willing to bet on the later.
Bush has every right to believe whatever he wants about marriage, queers, African-Americans, Jewish folks, Asian American’s, Disabled people, youth, Hispanics, Arabs, and women. I’m betting that, his beliefs are *wrong,* but anyone who really wants to remain ignorant and blind to truth in the world certainly may; ultimately it’s his loss. What Bush *does not* is impose his ignorance onto the rest of us. Well he does have the right to do that, but it’s AMORAL. I mean really what’s worse, me and queers everywhere falling in love (and having sex), or Bush degrading the lives and love of fellow humans?
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So my erstwhile friend Eric Otis Scott and I are writing a send-up of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, entitled Guildencrantz and Rosenstern are Still Dead. A Oneact Play, in Five Acts. Characters are Carl Sagan (the cosmologist), Davey Boy Sarte (Jean-Paul’s bastard love child), and Mr. Haney of Petticoat Junction. Eric wrote the first scene, and here’s the second installment. SCENE TWO
[SAGAN is moderately confused for the duration, while SARTE is for the most part annoyed with his companions]
HANEY: How are they cooking this sushi?
SAGAN: But don’t you understand what I’m saying? What do you think?
HANEY: Wouldn’t medium rare be good?
SAGAN: Do you think Fermat’s work is even relevant?
HANEY: Is their broiler gas or wood burning?
SAGAN: Haven’t we been over this already? Does heat generation affect the universe on a fundamental level?
SARTE: (mutters as an aside) God, How did I make such friends?
HANEY: Are your ideas in a communicable language?
SAGAN: How dare—
SARTE: (louder and frustrated) Don’t you realize that you can’t have a conversation if you both talk about different things?
[pause]
HANEY & SAGAN: (surprised, and shocked. The Question is drawn out and over inflected) WHAT?!?!?
HANEY: How were we talking about different things?
SARTE: If you didn’t notice, then can’t you just trust me?
SAGAN: But if the universe is so large, and heat generation is irrelevant, then… wait, how can you cook sushi? Doesn’t that defeat the purpose of sushi?
SARTE: What is sushi anyway?
SAGAN: Don’t you eat? Can’t you see that we’re in a sushi restraint?
SARTE: (annoyed) Do you think that answers my question Mr. Marx?
[pause]
SAGAN: Pardon? Why should we answer your questions, and who is this Mr. Marx character?
SARTE: Isn’t that your name?
SAGAN: My name?
HANEY: (interjects, feeling left out) Do you think it’s my name then?
SARTE: (ignores HANEY). Isn’t that your name?
SAGAN: What’s my name?
SARTE: (irritated). You don’t know your own name?
HANEY: Why should physicists need to know their own names? Aren’t they almost gods or something? Shouldn’t we order our food so they can start cooking it?
SARTE: (sardonically, emphasis on you, a la strongbad) How would you propose cooking sushi?
SAGAN: Are you saying that I’m a god?
HANEY: Do you mean that they aren’t going to cook are food? Isn’t that cheap of them? I wonder if it’s safe?
SARTE: You’re a physicist? Weren’t you a friend of my father?
HANEY: Your father was friends with Marx?
SARTE: Didn’t you know that my father had a lot of friends?
HANEY: I wonder what that says about your lineag?
SARTE: Well isn’t it kind of hard to sink below bastard love child?
HANEY: Isn’t bastard love child, a redundant statement?
SAGAN: Who is this Mark bloke, didn’t my mother always call me Carl?
SARTE: Oh, so you’re Carl the physicist?
SAGAN: Did you think my name was Mark?
HANEY: Didn’t you hear him say Marx, and not Mark?
SAGAN: (confused) Pardon?
SARTE: Don’t you think we’ve spent enough time on this subject? Aren’t you two ready to eat?
HANEY: (annoyed) What have I been saying for the past hour?
SAGAN: (high pitched, fast, moderately insane) Has it been an hour? How do you know that much time has passed? Can you be sure that time is constant?
SARTE: Waiter? Waiter? Can we have a waiter over here?
[blackout… curtain]
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