Final Paper

Katherine Alvarez
Eng 313 Tu, Thu. 11:00am
Professor Wexler
12/13/10

Timeless Love

If time determined love, and love determined time, would it be possible for love to last forever? In Audrey Niffenegger’s debut novel The Time Traveler’s Wife, published in 2003, the interrelatedness of both time and love is deeply and articulately addressed, as she fuses the grounds of science fiction and romance. The ideas of love, loss, and free will are the themes rooted in the novel as the main characters Henry DeTamble and Clare Abshire undergo episodes of “timeless” love that has no boundaries, and leaves these two lovers to rely on their unconditional love for one another. Within the context of my paper, I will discuss the story line and it’s take on the subject of a love connected through time. The radical aspect of the novel encompasses the relationship that is seemingly fiction when compared to modern day couples connected by other meaningless desirous incentives other than love. Clare Abshire, a very patient damsel living out a troubled life who is married to a husband who’s genetic disease allows him to time travel, and subsequently hindering the outcome for a stable relationship to blossom between her and her unpredictable lover. This is definitely not your typical love story. Whatever happened to the boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl back storyline observable in almost every traditional Romantic movie? That is exactly what makes this novel radically exhilarating, with an unconventional twist. What is more radical than having a husband that time travels and trying to keep a stable relationship with a man that literally vanishes from your life in unpredictable patterns and comes back randomly?

The book focuses mostly on themes dealing with love, loss, freewill, marriage, and time. The two characters Henry and Clare, break a distance stereotype or assumption that implies distance is a problematic factor in relationships. It is nonetheless a victory of love over time and their ability to stay united and loyal to one another even during the worst of circumstances. As impossible as that may sound, through all the hardships and pains the two protagonists of the story endure, they still have the deepest emotional attachments to one another, something rarely accomplished in modern day society. The divorce rate in America is higher than 50% (marriage101.org) , which is astoundingly high when the mediocre reasons for marital separation cannot compare to the fictional consequence of time traveling added into a relationship. This raises the question of what's the implausible occurrence that provokes the need to disagree among American married couples. Are people more infatuated than they are in love in contemporary America, or are they influenced by other derogatory personal desires that shadows the importance of love? How can Henry and Clare keep their marriage going for so long even with Henry’s genetic disorder to time travel? How can their love stay strong and endure that type of distance away from each other? What keeps Henry and Clare united is the fact that they have known each other most of their lives, like childhood friends. They are connected through the past, present, and future, which is essentially the way their love fabricates into something more than friendship and subsequently end up knowing everything about one another. When modern couples meet or date, they are meeting for the first time, making it difficult to realize what that person is truly like. Their flaws stay inconspicuous in the beginning of a relationship and thus they make opinionated first impressions. Henry tells Clare, “That’s what I love you for: your inability to perceive my hideous flaws.” In his perspective he believes Clare is blind to his flaws, but perhaps it’s that she loves him regardless of those flaws. This is an unconventional love with an unconventional ending even though they do end up staying together like most sex comedy movie genres that end with a happy ending (McDonald, pg.38). But The Time Traveler’s Wife explores life after marriage unlike the sex comedies of the mid century. They have problems conceiving a child, and Clare has to live with a disabled husband after he suffers hypothermia and both his feet are amputated. The radical part of the story is, that regardless of everything they go through, they stay together when any other modern couple would probably end up in divorce. After Henry’s death Clare never finds another partner because she knows she will never find another Henry. He’s the only man she ever loved.

I am able to connect with the character of Clare due to my own personal experiences with love, that are exemplified in the books reflection on a typical relationship that evolves around waiting for your partner in extreme conditions. As a Salvadorean, my family traditions and values are highly taken into consideration and thus leaves my family to depict what you could call a conservative kind of lifestyle. I eventually went outside of my “comfort zone” to break this cultural barrier by finding love with someone outside my own ethnic class. To my father this was considered an unfavorable situation to name the least. In light of this, my adventure with a new type of love began to venture on the reality of a rocky unstable path. My partner had recently moved from Jamaica, and so the introduction to racism was very new and impacting on him. His mindset had changed after I told him about the reality of our situation and the hardships we may face; like, my fathers inability to accept someone with dark skin. Thus began my period of waiting that manifested because my partner found it difficult to function normally and openly with me, as he let the views and thoughts of people determine his love for me. He was not able to give me the full and complete love that I was yearning for, so I went through a very long time of back and forth comings and goings, with disappointments that led me to wonder why I was waiting on him to begin with. He was basically an almost mirrored version of Henry who kept leaving me, yet always coming back to me. I was patient like Clare, always waiting and waiting yet never giving up. Subsequently my partner and I were slightly similar images of the novel as we faced the problems of love with a barrier, loss without truly being lost and free will without being able to let go. The infection of love is a glorious yet impalpable feeling to have. On the first day of my Eng 313 class, Professor Wexler wanted us to give our own definition of love, so I wrote that love was a wonderful feeling, almost in ecstasy where all your senses are lost; you can't eat, sleep or listen to anyone but your heart. I'm almost sure that's how Clare felt for Henry, almost like they were just one person at times. Through time, the love that Clare and Henry felt grew so strong, almost nothing else mattered beside their love. Progressively, that's how my own love grew to a strong and powerful hold like the one Clare and Henry shared. Like Shakespeare wrote in the Merchant of Venice, “love is blind, and lovers cannot see”, a very true signifier of the effects of love on people. I myself feel this very way, blinded by my own ecstasy. Although I previously compared myself to Clare and Henry, I know very well that's impossible, although I would like that not to be the case. The love Clare and Henry shared was a different, more radical and uncommon type of love, one incomparable to anyone or any other couple I have read about or watched in any movie.

The Time Traveler's Wife does not deal with any political, racial, class or even gender issues so it’s difficult to try and connect it to other readings or movies that have been viewed during Eng 313 of my Fall semester. The main theme or topics focused in the book is love and time, a love incomparable to many works of literature due to the science fiction of time travel. It may not be as radical as Romeo and Juliet killing themselves for love, but the love that Henry and Clare share is timeless, even after his death. Clare tells her friend Gomez “I can reach into [Henry] and touch time...he loves me.” Due to Henry's tangible love for Clare, she finds the concept of time to be just as tangible to her, like she’s living the past and future in the present with the man she loves. Time and waiting are always an issue in the book as Clare says herself, “Its hard being left behind. I wait for Henry, not knowing where he is, wondering if he’s okay. it’s hard to be the one who stays.” There is a strong motif dealing with the hardship of distance and waiting for the one you love to come back. In the movie “Dear John” waiting is also the impacting issue, where the heart-felt female protagonist has to wait for her love-interest John for years to come back while he’s at war, but the plot thickens as the female love interest leaves John for another man . She couldn’t deal with the pain of waiting, watching time pass every day, every hour, every minute. It was too painful for her to stay and endure the anxiety of waiting. Clare, on the other hand had the willpower to endure, through better or for worse she endured. This book is true love at its most passionate and problematic point, unlike most Romantic movies in the past and present. That is what makes this novel exceptional and different. The theme of love, and human emotion is portrayed in a deep, passionate and emotional level.

What if the deep passion and powerful love felt inside your heart was hindered by the absence of choice? That's the struggle Henry DeTamble had to live with everyday of his life, including during his married life with Clare. Unlike the average citizen in America, Henry didn't have the privilege of free will that many people take for granted. The undesired ability to come and go at random periods of time has no lustrous appeal, because the only thing Henry wants is to stay with Clare. Since Henry doesn't have the free will to travel where he wants to be, ending up in very dangerous situations making him terrified and vulnerable, which makes him react as a criminal, thief, and barbarian without ethics just mere survival in his mind. No matter how much he wants to make time stand still, he knows he doesn't have any control over his genetic disorder. Clare asks Henry, "If you could stop now… if you could not time travel any more, and there would be no consequences, would you?" Without any doubt or hesitation, Henry says “yes” to her question because he knows time traveling has no exciting allure to him since he met his true love. What's most important to him now is to stay with Clare in the present, but he knows he cannot. He's a tragic figure like Benjamin Button from The Curious Case of Benjamin Button who also suffers a genetic disorder. Benjamin is able to better cope with his disorder of aging backwards but he doesn't get the girl in the end because she can't accept him the way he is, even though she always loved him she couldn't endure the estranged difference. Love, loss, and freewill are reoccurring themes in the Time Traveler's Wife, making the novel a radical experience with romance and tragedy. Some characters actually have the option to choose what path to take like Benjamin Braddock from The Graduate, where he is seduced by an older woman but chooses out of his own free will to fall into her seduction and have an affair, acknowledging the fact that she was a married woman. He did it anyways knowing it was wrong, but that is the power of free will. You have the power to choose your path in life, while on the other hand Henry had no such control over his path in life. It's a tragic tale with a very radical sequence of events, making the paths of Clare and Henry unpredictable.

This tale of love versus time that Clare and Henry face is a consequently tragic romance in the end, unlike most neo-traditional romantic comedy films that end with a happy note, usually with a reconciliation and “ever-lasting” love like Kate and Leopold, Hitch, You've got Mail, The Wedding Planner, or How to Lose a Guy in Ten Days. After Henry's death a reconciliation with Clare was impossible due to the reality of mortality. After death, Henry is still able to travel his life time-line, going back in time to re-live memories with Clare while at the same time re-opening wounds of a harsher reality; not being able to see his daughter grow up in the future or grow old with Clare. Clare's burden is just as great, losing a husband and father to her daughter, having to live the rest of her life alone without the man she fell in love with. Tragedy, death and loss are not very common themes in the neo-traditional way of portraying romance in modern society. This subsequently dominant and relentless form of the romantic comedy genre adopts a very conservative and traditional format/ storyline and a usually unrealistic happy ending. This dominant form of the genre emphasizes the same outline over and over, staying with the formidable sequence of “boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl back”. The sequence of The Time Traveler's Wife takes a different route, more in the realms of “girl meets boy, girl waits for boy, boy forgets girl, boy marries girl, boy dies”. There have been other deaths in Romance literature besides The Time Traveler's Wife like Romeo and Juliet and Withering Heights, but never transparent or rarely executed in modern Romance movies. An exception to this modern reoccurring idea is in the film The Notebook that takes a daring leap to extract itself and deny conformity by adding the tragic realities of life after marriage, and inevitable mortality of all human kind. Allie and Noah from The Notebook suffer many problems including Allie's unstable dementia where she forgets who her husband Noah is, and the tragedy of the situation is worsened by the couples death together. They die quietly in their sleep while holding hands, making this film tragic in essence, yet not as eloquent as the mutilation and death in The Time Traveler's Wife. Death is always going to be tragic, which incorporates the importance of tears in such a story. Crying is important in a tragedy, which is exactly what makes this non-traditional story line radical, portraying the harsh reality of real life. Not everything can be like a fairytale; a “happily ever after” is a mere myth that is only strengthened by the reassurance of prevailing dominance of the neo-traditional Romance.

The Time Traveler's Wife is radical because it doesn’t have a preconceived “happily ever after” type of ending most people expect from romantic books or movies, but the test of Clare and Henry's love in a real life-like contemporary environment with real and profound problems, dilemmas and hardships that never diminished the love they felt for one another. Their love stood the test of time, through good and bad, something rarely accomplished in present reality. All couples, married or unmarried have many issues to deal with, being their own problems or with their significant other. No two partners in a relationship acquire the exact same characteristics as the other because all human kind is different from one another somehow. We are all driven by either our own internal thoughts, the environmental and societal influences that impact our life perceptions or the people we cherish the closest to our heart. We do not share the same ideas, thoughts, reactions, language, or interactions as other people. If all people were the same there would be no such thing as arguments, hate or disagreements, but unfortunately people were not built in that manner. For people, better yet, for couples it's a lot easier to make the decision to leave a relationship, rather than to endure the hardship of staying and working it out. The love that Clare and Henry felt seemed real and true, a genuinely radical sensation . They were never perfect and could never be perfect, but the love they had was the only sure thing in their lives.

Works Cited

"Divorce Rates in America." Marriage 101. Web. 10 Oct. 2010. .

Niffenegger, Audrey. The Time Traveler’s Wife. San Francisco, CA: McAdam/Cage, 2003.

Shakespeare, William. Romeo and Juliet. Naperville, IL: Source MediaFusion, 2005. Print.

McDonald, Tamar Jeffers. "Ch. 3 Sex Comedy." Romantic Comedy: Boy Meets Girl Meets Genre. London: Wallflower, 2007. Print.

Dear John. Dir. Lassee Hallstrom. Perf. Channing Tatum Amanda Seyfried. Warner Bros., 2010. DVD.

"Love Quotes: The Time Traveler's Wife." Shmoop: Study Guides & Teacher Resources. Shmoop University, Inc. Web. 12 Dec. 2010. .

The Graduate. Dir. Mike Nichols. Prod. Lawrence Turman, Richard Sylbert, George R. Nelson, Harry Maret, Sherry Wilson, Patricia Zipprodt, and Sydney Guilaroff. By Calder Willingham, Buck Henry, Robert Surtees, Sam O'Steen, Jack Solomon, Paul Simon, and Dave Grusin. Perf. Buck Henry, Anne Bancroft, Dustin Hoffman, Katherine Ross, William Daniels, Murray Hamilton, Brian Avery, Norman Fell, Alice Ghostley, and Marion Lorne. An Embassy Pictures Release, 1967. DVD.

The Curios Case of Benjamin Button. Dir. David Fincher. Perf. Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett. Paramount Pictures, 2008. DVD.

Blog #9

American psycho was the topic of our class meeting on November 16, 2010, or more exact the themes of Consumerism and Identity. I have never watched American Psycho before but from the scenes we watched in class it pinpoints to those very themes. Patrick Bateman is a successful and rich lawyer who has a need to kill other human beings. This is when the problem of identity comes in, that is linked to his consumerism. Patrick is a composite of many things, not really being a person but a result of outside influences like the media, advertisements, magazines, movies, the Internet. He hides his real self through a fake exterior, not showing his inner desire to kill because in our society that is not viewed as a normal way to act. Everything Patrick quotes or uses in his daily language with his friends comes from outside sources. He is a product or assembly of many influences of society, even the people and things around him like his friends, his career, where he lives, etc. He adapts his "normal" persona in order to "fit in" with all the others. He talks about TV shows and music, anything clichéd because he can't find it in himself to express emotion. The only time Patrick has any reaction to anything anyone says is when he analyzes what type of new or expensive merchandise they have. An example is the scene where all the lawyers are showing off their new business cards and when it comes to Paul Allen's extremely classy card, Patrick begins to sweat profusely almost in a trance like panic with shaking hands soley based on the fact that Paul had a better card than him. This says a lot about his character. Even in the beginning of the movie in the shower scene Patrick describes himself as not being there, how he likes having things in order and taking care of himself through diet and rigorous exercise. It's his "regime of the self" where he only cares about himself and is a part of the performance aspect of himself, the side he wants to display to other people in order to be accepted. He even said it in another scene how the only two feelings he ever feels are greed and disgust, which he portrays throughout the film; an example being when he kills the homeless man in the alley for being pathetic and without a job. He is making a socio-economic distinction here where he is the wealthy one flaunting his superiority and money over the helpless and poor man living on the street. Patrick doesn't feel pity on the man, just disgust. He hates and looks down on the excesses of society, who he views as a waste of space. American Psycho's ideas on Consumerism actually reminds me of another movie, Fightclub who realizes and sees the constructs of Consumerism taking hold on our society. Here is a scene that explains:

Here Brad Pitt explains the eroding nature of our modern concept of society and identity. We define ourselves through the things and objects we buy. That is exactly how Patrick is defined, as layers and layers of constructs of a pre-existing world along with the growing philosophies of a modern, media based, brain-washed society. Patrick doesn't have a real identity and he acknowledges that in the beginning of the movie. The same way Patrick hides his inner psychotic and socially unacceptable desires he must hide that side of himself in order to be accepted by the society.

Blog #8

Hello there again! I haven't written in my blog for a while now but i would like to redeem the last two or three blogs i missed by posting them tomorrow. For class this last week there was not a lot to do since we had the veteran's day off, so no school on that Thursday. There was a presentation on Tuesday so I will talk about the presentation. The presentation was on a show I enjoy watching very much! Seinfeld. Jerry, Elaine, George, and Kramer are the main characters, and quite memorable characters they are! For the presentation, the group focused on the language aspect of Seinfeld, and how either they created the language or if it's taken from language from past society?They said that many words that originated from Seinfeld are still used today, like the phrase "yada yada yada". It may not be exactly a real world, but it somehow came about into mainstream society, either from Seinfeld or from our past society, the way they mention in the Cultural Studies book by Barker, page 15-16. The larger community understands what they are saying, but can it be that Seinfeld was the creator of those words or are they reflecting on language from our society? The media, especially mass media like Seinfeld that is broad-casted to millions of thousands of viewers and the general public/ population has a huge influence on the whole society. This show about apparently nothing at all has been extremely popular for some reason. In the past people thrived on learning new things, or reading material that can help increase their knowledge but recently in our contemporary society it seems like man is taking a step backward; more focusing on non-important, vain, materialistic and many times useless information.

In the presentation, the group spoke about homosexuality, and how Seinfeld somewhat explores that topic in one of the episodes. The question was if homosexuality is biological or not? Elaine tries to turn her homosexual friend heterosexual by having sex with him and seeing if he likes it or not. It seems to work at first by saying how he is the perfect man who wants to "have sex and shop all day". After a while the heterosexual high seems to go away due to his "biological" standard of being homosexual. He can't seem to change that aspect of his way of being. Even though he slept with Elaine, he didn't become less homosexual. His biological homosexuality didn't let him.

Another topic the group explored having to deal with sex is the sex between a man and a woman. In McDonald's book Romantic Comedy, the subject of sexuality is said to not be a barrier in Romantic Comedy movies. Almost all couples in Romantic movies have sex in contemporary films, and it isn't a problem anymore like it was in the old days. It was established in an early work that both men and women desired a sexual endevour, not just men. In Seinfeld, Elaine and Jerry both desired sex but didn't want to ruin their friendship so they set up ground rules with no strings attached. They were basically becoming friends with benefits. In the end the sex ends up complicating the friendship and it seems like they are unable to follow their own rules. When sex is added to the twist it always comes with strings, no matter how much people wouldn't want it to be. There can never be sex without strings. Elaine and Jerry started arguing all the time when they started having sex. Elaine wants more from Jerry. It's a biological fact that women are more emotional than men and can't control their feelings as well as men can. In a couple or relationship, either the man or the woman will grow an emotional attachment toward the other. It's just something that usually happens. Most people define love and romance nowadays with sex included in the package, they just call it "making love" so it won't sound as dirty but more pure. Elaine has sex just as much as her three male friends in the Seinfeld bunch; she is portrayed as being a woman feeling open with her sexuality, yet she is not seen as a whore or a slut, while other women might. Perhaps it's because she is around three male friends who always have sex that the audience don't see it as strange that she would act in that manner. People are so used to men and women having sex in our modern society and it's so frequently advertised everywhere we go that the controversial truth that people discovered in the past article that surprised a society acknowledging that both men and women desired sex is no longer a surprise now.

The issue of other separate, perhaps not well known cultures also comes up during the presentation. There is an episode called Puerto Rican Day, where the gang is stuck in traffic during the Puerto Rican Day Parade ans they absolutely hate it. It could be that the gang is inconvenienced by culture and want nothing to do with it or the Puerto Ricans, or the fact that no one likes being stuck in traffic. Perhaps it's both.

The last topic the group touches on is identity. What is considered normal, and what is not? In the episode "Bizzaro Jerry" Elaine tries to fit into a group that she considers "normal", who happen to be the opposite counterparts of Jerry and the gang. The Bizzaro gang is an intellectual bunch with great manners and proper etiquette. Elaine tries to fit into this Bizzaro world that represnts the opposite of what Seinfeld represents, but since Elaine is so used to fitting in with Jerry and the gang she is unable to assimilate into this abnormally "nice" Bizzaro world. Jerry and the gang are vulgar, unfriendly and get mad at everyone and everything, and Elaine is so used to being around people who are not polite she doesn't know how to act around people with good manners. The question here is, who is "normal" and who is the "other"? The Seinfeld gang or the Bizzaro gang? Seinfeld shows no emotional characteristics and the four characters never learn from their mistakes; they are selfish, self-centered, and greedy. The Bizzaro gang is actually nice, polite, caring (expressed at the end of the show when the friends all hug), and like to share. Both groups share exaggerated qualities, but most students in the class chose Seinfeld to be a more realistic and "normal" representation of our modern society. People see Seinfeld as more relatable, and I would have to agree with them. People are naturally more neurotic than nice it seems.

Blog #7 (another late one, sorry :/)

Well for last weeks class meeting we were suppose to read Romantic Comedy Chapter 4 and also read from the Cultural Studies book. I wasn't able to show up for class on tuesday due to the two finals i was having on that day, so I had to study for them and unfortunately miss English. These were difficult finals but due to the sacrifice of the english class, I believe I was able to pass. I read the chapter from Romantic Comedy that would be dealt in the class discussion of that day, but i will talk about it here in a little bit. I would also like to explain my sudden disappearance from class on thursday. It all started in the morning when I was getting ready to go to school, when I went to take my daily pee I realized I had the curse! So I knew my day would be ruined. I made it through my lab class at 8:00 am but when I came to English class, I could feel the familiar monthly pains seeping through that just make me want to kill myself already (It really sucks to be a girl!) It was already almost 11:30 and I was sweating like a tortured pig, my head was about to burst and with all the power I could muster held in the churning vomit that was about to mess up the professors floor. The pain was unbearable, the pain in my abdomen area. I dislike leaving class in the middle of a lecture but my bladder couldn't hold it any longer so I went to relieve myself but I was still in unbearable pain I just couldn't hold in so I went back to class and left early, and for that I apologize. I appreciate that the professor isn't too difficult with piles of homework and assignments, so my absence from two class lectures is hopefully not a drastic hit on my grade.

Now for the Romantic Comedy! Chapter 4 was about the Neo-traditional Romantic Comedy genre, which adopt more conservative and traditional ending, where the couple in the end somehow reconcile just in time before the films end kind of like in the movie the Wedding Singer, where the girl is on a plane leaving with her fiancé to get married in Las Vegas but the guy goes to the airport and buys a plane ticket to Las Vegas in hopes of stopping the wedding, but what he doesn't know is that the girl is on the plane so he sings a song to her through the speakers and then walks in front of the girl and finishes the song for her. Her bad fiancé is locked into the toiletry and the two true lovers make up and end up together in the last scene of the movie. That's very lucky it would seem, and very unrealistic, but that's part of the Neo-traditional appeal. This genre gets it's references from romantic dramas, not the good old screwball or sex comedies of the past. The neo-traditional romantic comedy genre is the current dominant form of romantic comedy. The definition of the neo-traditional romcom is "it reasserts the old boy meets, loses, regains girl structure, emphasizing the couple will be heterosexual, will form a lasting relationship, and that their story will end as soon as they do so. Examples of the neo-traditional romcoms are Kate and Leopold, You've Got Mail, How to Lose a Guy in Ten days, and many more. Some characteristics of the neo-traditional romcoms are: a backlash against the ideologies of the radical film alongside a maintenance of it's visual surfaces, a mood of imprecise nostalgia, a more vague self-referentialism, and a de-emphasizing of sex. The setting of most of these neo-traditional romcoms are in the city, usually new york city to be exact. These popular films of modern times are not a advancement in the romantic comedy genre, but more of a step back, re-iterating the past views on love. But people like it so for now, this current form of Romantic comedy genre will retain its domination.

The Response paper

Katherine Alvarez
Eng 313 Tu, Thu. 11:00am
Professor Wexler
10/14/10

Response Paper

If love wasn’t complicated already, what would it be like with time traveling thrown in the mix? If you haven’t guessed it already, I will be reflecting on a novel I enjoyed very much due to it’s original story line and it’s take on the subject of love; it’s The Time Traveler’s Wife. What is more radical than having a husband that time travels and trying to keep a stable relationship with a man that literally vanishes from your life in unpredictable patterns and comes back randomly? This is definately not your typical love story. What ever happened to the boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl back storyline observable in almost every traditional Romantic movie out there? That is exactly what makes this novel radically exhilarating, with an unconventional twist.

The book focuses mostly on themes dealing with love, loss, marriage, and time of course. It is a victory of love over time. As impossible as that may sound, through all the hardships and pains the two protagonists of the story endure, they still have the deepest emotional attachments to one another, something rarely accomplished in real life. The divorce rate in America is higher than 50% (marriage101.org) , which is astoundingly high, making you wonder, “where did the love go?”. Are people less in love in contemporary America, or are they forgetting what love is? How can Henry and Clare keep their marriage going for so long even with Henry’s genetic disorder to time travel, and how can their love stay strong and endure that type of distance away from each other? They are not like most couples. What keeps them united is the fact that they have known each other most of their lives, almost like childhood friends. They are connected through the past, present, and future and know absolutely everything about each other. When modern couples meet or date, they are meeting for the first time, its hard to see what that person is truly like, so they make opinions based on first impressions, while their flaws are inconspicuous in the beginning. Henry tells Clare “That’s what I love you for: your inability to perceive my hideous flaws.” In his perspective he believes Clare is blind to his flaws, but perhaps it’s that she loves him regardless of those flaws. This is an unconventional love with an unconventional ending even though they do end up staying together like most Sex comedy movie genres that end with a happy ending(McDonald, “Romantic Comedy and Genre” Chp. 3). But The Time Traveler’s Wife explores life after marriage unlike the Sex comedies of the mid century. They have problems conceiving a child, and and Clare has to live with a disabled husband after he suffers hypothermia and both his feet are amputated. The radical part of the story is that regardless of everything they go through, they stay together, when any other modern couple would probably end up in divorce, and even after Henry’s death Clare never finds another partner because she knows she will never find another Henry. He’s the only man she ever loved.

The book does not deal with any political, racial, class or even gender issues so it’s difficult to try and connect it to other readings or movies. The main theme of the book is love and time, a love incomparable to most works of literature. It may not be as radical as Romeo and Juliet killing themselves for love, but the love that Henry and Clare share is timeless, even after death. Clare tells her friend Gomez “I can reach into [Henry] and touch time...he loves me.” Due to Henry's tangible love for Clare she finds time to be just as tangible to her, like she’s living the past and future in the present with the man she loves. Time and waiting are always an issue in the book, “Its hard being left behind. I wait for Henry, not knowing where he is, wondering if he’s okay. it’s hard to be the one who stays.” There is a strong motif dealing with the hardship of distance and waiting for the one you love to come back. In the movie “Dear John” waiting is also an issue, she has to wait for John for years to come back while he’s at war, but the difference is the female love interest leaves John for another man. She couldn’t deal with the pain of waiting, watching time pass every day, every hour, every minute. It was too painful for her to stay and to endure the anxiety of waiting. Clare had the will to endure, through better or for worse she endured. If that isn’t radical I don’t know what is! That is true, passionate love! Unlike most Romantic movies in the past and present. That is what makes this novel exceptional. The theme of love, and human emotion is portrayed in a deep, passionate and emotional level.

The novel is radical because they don’t have a preconceived happily ever after type of ending most people expect, but the test of their love in real life with real and unconventional problems and hardships never diminished the love they felt for one another. Their love stood the test of time, through good and bad, something rarely accomplished nowadays. Their love feels real and true. They were never perfect and could never be perfect, but the love they had was the only sure thing in their lives.

Works Cited

"Divorce Rates in America." Marriage 101. Web. 10 Oct. 2010. .

Niffenegger, Audrey. The Time Traveler’s Wife. San Francisco, CA: McAdam/Cage, 2003.

Shakespeare, William. Romeo and Juliet. Naperville, IL: Source MediaFusion, 2005. Print.

McDonald, Tamar Jeffers. "Chp. 3 Sex Comedy." Romantic Comedy: Boy Meets Girl Meets Genre. London: Wallflower, 2007. Print.

Dear John. Dir. Lassee Hallstrom. Perf. Channing Tatum Amanda Seyfried. Warner Bros., 2010. DVD.

blog #6

Well last week wasn't the best of weeks for me, (sighing while typing on the blog) I had written some mighty fine notes that I truly regret not directing, because I even had philosophical questions!! (okay okay, only one was philosophical) but it was a thought provoking question i thought even the teacher would enjoy...Since I didn't get the chance to say anything i wanted to say in front of the class i will type up my potential presentation here so the professor will see how it was suppose to come out:

----When Sula is alive her presence in the community of the Bottom makes all the residents live harmoniously with one another.

===>Ex. Wives with their husbands

===> Mothers with children (ex. Teapots mom treats him better due to her hate for Sula)

===> How families treat their old people

-----------The harmony of the town quickly dies out after Sula's death

Question 1: How does the community define Sula after her return to the Bottom? What is ironic about their attitude toward her?

---------The community defines her as the personification of evil. As their animosity and hatred toward her grow, they impose meaning on random occurrences. They need to do so in order to solidify their definition of her as an evil person. Their hatred of Sula reflects their sexism. A man like Ajax can sleep with whomever he chooses without being condemned. Their horror at Sula's consensual affairs with white men reflects the extent to which racial segregation defines their lives and psychology. Ironically, the community's labeling of Sula as evil actually improves their own lives. Her presence in the community gives them the impetus to live harmoniously with one another. Although the community regards her as an evil person, her return to the Bottom is actually a blessing in disguise.

Question 2: Why do you think that everyone in the community have a strong sense of animosity/hate for Sula Peace but not for her mother Hannah or her grandmother Eva when they all lived unconventional lives?

-----------Sula breaks social convention by putting Eva in a nursing home, having an affair with her best friend's husband, having multiple affairs with other women's husbands, and even her consensual affairs with white men made the animosity of the town grow to the point of seeing her as an evil being without morality.her unpredictable behavior frightened the already suspicious community of the Bottom. In order to understand their fear, they labeled Sula as "evil". Like Eva, they impose order on her influence by retroactively imposing connections on seemingly unrelated events (ex. the "plague of robins" becomes an evil omen of her return) Eva and Hannah were not considered to be serious threats to the social fabric (same as Shadrack) whereas the entire community, including Eva considered Sula a threat.

Question 3:What have been some instances or events in society that people have been viewed as relatively negative or bad but have had some implicitly good consequences like with Sula on the Community of Bottom? (I wont answer this question)

Question 4: Without having bad people or bad things happen in our society, how will people be able to define what is good? How do people define themselves as "good" if there was no "evil"?

Not too bad right?? I really wish things had come out differently, I'm a disappointment onto myself who might not make it in life due to this fear of public speaking, my hands shake, my face turns red like a tomato, my body is nervous, my words come out choppy, and I stutter and say "UMMM" a lot(which I hate about myself). Sometimes I wish i could just kill my self for being such an embarrassment to society. I just don't fit in, no matter how much I would like to, it's hard, it's just so damn hard...but still when things are looking down on me, when I feel like a failure I can't give up either, I need to stay in this game of Chess, I need to keep going no matter how easy it would be to just quit. Life isn't easy, I know that, but I have to stick in there for as long as I can muster. The professor is cool and has taught me to see aspects of life a little more different, and there sure is more to learn! I won't give up! :')

Group Write up

Well everyone in the group did an excellent job! They all had great ideas and presented their parts so well! Everyone e-mailed each other and their binary partners to make sure we all had the cat in the bag, everyone spoke well about their own individual parts, except for myself who still isn't the best of public speakers to exist but I still hope that won't ruin my grade in the class. I would have preferred writing a paper instead since I'm capable of expressing my ideas better in writing than through speech. As an overall group I believe we were all more than adequate, I just hope my own part doesn't mess up the grade of all the others. They were all engaged and highly interested in all the themes in the book, which made the presentation a lot more interesting.

blog #5 (a little late but still here)

well lets see here, last week of class we were learning more about the RomCom genre of movies, and the professor showed us some scenes from "The graduate" and another movie called "10" . The Graduate is considered to be a radical romantic comedy, not the story line entirely but the very last scene of the movie when the two lovers have a look of unease, it's not your typical "happy ending" you'd expect from the average sappy chick flick. That very look in the end of the movie breaks all barriers of RomCom norms! I found it exhilarating! finally a movie that seems more like real life! Not those fantasy love stories that are just as mythical as the theory of Evolution! The story is nice and interesting, but without an ounce of realistic endeavor! Just that look at the end changed the course of Romantic comedies forever! (If u haven't seen the movie, i would recommend watching that last scene ;p) What will we do now? Where will we live? How will we survive? YES! Not typical at all from other lovey dovey movies! There was no fairy tale ending, with a "they lived happily ever after" moment.

For the movie "10" the story is very different from The Graduate, the main character George Webber becomes obsessed with this beautiful woman he only sees once where she is obviously going to her own wedding, but Webber through fixation follows her to the wedding, and ends up following her to her honeymoon where he saves her husbands life and while Webber is making love to her, her husband calls her and when they are on the phone she tells him she is with George, but the husband has no concern or any sign of jealousy. She explains their open relationship and mutual honesty which Webber finds appalling and due to his initial thought of their rendezvous being of "forbidden pleasure" his obsession fizzles out just as quickly as it came. This is another great example of a radical type of romance. here's a fan-made clip i found on youtube if you'de like to see a little of their story and meeting:

Out of topic, but this week I will be presenting with my group on the novel Sula on Thursday, I'm very bad at presentations, so wish me luck! :o

blog #4

in class we had to read the book Romantic Comedy: boy meets girl meets genre. it was quite an interesting read, and let me see those types of movies in a different light that I would not have thought of before. I actually have never been the biggest fan of romantic comedy movies, they are not very exciting for me, even though i'm a girl and should be into those types of movies. The "chick flick" is just not for me. In movies almost anything is possible like rising from rags to riches, thats the work ethic portrayed in movies sometimes, like when the poor woman or man end up getting the rich woman or man in the end. Traditional romantic comedies have the same or similar type of narrative: Boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl back. Those types of movies have always been very unrealistic, they portray a false soul mate phenomena where if you do certain things like buy things (many things) to try and make yourself appealing in order to find love. Traditional romantic comedies focus much subtle attention to advertising, commodities, consumption, selling products, etc. In every movie, the man and woman dress their best when they go on dates, spend a lot to go out, their homes or apartments are generously luxurious with so much glamor and high tech gadgets surrounding the place, with the best phones, laptops, I-pods, stereo surround sound, dimming lights, etc. Movies are always advertising consumption, and they always try and tell you that buying this or having certain types of goods will get you closer to achieving love. even marriage is an industry, almost everything is hung by corporate strings, even love. Have you ever heard of an inexpensive wedding? probably not, right? There's the wedding cost or reception, flowers, food, rings, clothes like the dress and tuxedo. Everything. In order for the capitalist society to work or take hold it relies on monogamy, or heterosexual marriage. That is how they make a lot of money. Corporations use Romantic comedies to advertise what they want the masses to purchase. The way that romantic comedies show a couple that just met and about to go on a date, they must do so much to look their best like buy a new dress, tuxedo, shoes, accessories, make-up, hair gel/ shampoo/ hairspray, perfume, etc. But that's not even it! Going on the date is even more! Paying for a fancy dinner, entertainment and anything else that's going to be done on the date.

For our thursday class we were suppose to read chapter 3 of the Romantic comedy, but let me talk about chapter 2 first. In chapter 2 they focus on the screwball comedy that does not follow the traditional boy meets girl format. The screwball comedy was popular during the 30's where the couple in the movies we're already each others adversaries or equals, where they make fun, hit each other, scheme, and fight with each other, but they always have an intimate relationship, unlike the sex comedies of the 50's that do not focus on that, but more the woman's abstinence or willingness to withhold sex before marriage. Screwball comedies usually start with a "meet cute" where the couple meet in a cute way like they're about to reach out for the same merchandise at the same time. Screwball comedies also do a lot of mistaken identity and cross-dressing. The couple is very hostile with each other but they usually end up together in the end. The Sex comedy came about due to three events in time, (1) Playboy magazine introduced the urbane purchasing persona for men, like the "bachelor pad" or "lair", (2) the movie The Moon is Blue in challenging the PCA's strict movie making codes by freely discussing sexual topics in films more frankly, and (3) Alfred Kinsey's report on the Sexual Behavior in the Human Female which announced, much to the publics surprise, that women actually had sexual desires and impulses just like men. These three reasons led to the creation of the Sex comedy genre. I read the chapter about sex comedy but I didn't attend class that day so I wasn't able to watch any movie clips that day and won't be able to discuss them in my blog, but i will be attending class this coming tuesday September 28. I'm actually a little bit nervous because I will be presenting on the book Sula the next week on October 7, Thursday; I have never been good at presentations, so this one will not be an exception. I will take diligent notes this coming week and blog about the results or what I've learned next weekend. Thank you for reading!

Ethnography

Ethnography
Eng 313, 11:00am
9/21/10

Well just through observation there is a clear distinction between every human being, always something physically that makes them different than another. When it comes to different races, people always believe them to look like one another, like “all Asians look alike” but that’s not necessarily true. They may have similar characteristics in basic features but there’s always something that distinguishes one from the other. The observation spot that i chose was at the Glendale Galleria food court, where many people go. In my opinion the area where the most people gather at the mall is the food court. It’s always full. Food seems to be a significant way for humans to interact with one another. No wonder there are so many holidays that focus more on the sharing and making of food than anything else. There are several families, sometimes lacking a mother or father figure to make a complete pack (perhaps due to work or un-involvement or disinterest). There are several teenagers all around usually with friends, never alone. Going to the mall is never fun when alone, so attachment to peers is common and reasonable. No one seems to be alone at the food court today, it’s not like there frequently is that type of phenomena. It’s a basic fact that no one in this planet like to be alone, unless that certain individual lacks social interaction, or is mentally ill somehow. But most people with sense clearly do not like being alone. I have seen a few couples pass by, not as many as I might have thought to roam around the mall, but some are holding hands but there are also those serious indifferent looking couples that don’t even seem to like each other, but are merely together just so they won’t be alone in this world. I have seen several of those types of couples. Perhaps they were in a fight or they haven’t been having the best of days, I cannot be too sure of that. I can personally put myself in that position because I have also been “that” serious couple that isn’t talking to my significant other, just walking looking ahead with apathy in my face. I can never tell what another human being is thinking, but maybe they are happy but just don’t show it. Humans are extremely emotional beings but somehow our society makes it difficult to convey that aspect of our deep down selves.

There were various ethnically different people at the Glendale food court from Asians, whites, a particularly high percentage of Hispanics, very few African Americans, and the rare Indian person. There are several branches of every ethnicity but it’s cumbersome and very difficult to actually know what specific ethnicity someone belongs to, so large groups of various people are categorized and stereotyped into easy to remember titles. Most people seem to express usually a couple of emotions and expressions like being happy, nonchalant, young teens with parents always look bored with their parents, while in contrast older teenagers look happy with freedom when around their own friends, probably because they have more in common with their peers than their parents. Most of the people at the mall seem to be middle class people. All or most are in appropriate going out garments, not many eccentric people, everyone looks fairly normal from their outer exteriors. But you never know what is under the hidden interior, just like in the film American psycho where Patrick had a disturbing way of thinking that he did not portray in his exterior.

Like I said before, everyone at the mall do not seem particularly fond of being alone. No one likes to be a loner, and I know too well what loneliness feels like, and it is definitely not a walk in the park. Like it says in the book “Cultural Studies by Chris Barker, we are people that live with an ideology of consumption. People seem to define themselves best by how they present themselves physically, by what they wear, or what brands they must have in order to fit into the society they belong to. One common brand of clothing I observed people wear were Abercrombie and Fitch, Hollister, Aeropostale, Gap, American eagle, and so on. I can tell what brands they wear by the company logos they advertise on their clothing. People nowadays love to look good, they like spending money to have new clothes, perfume, cosmetics, shoes, hair care and accessories. Consumption or capitalism is part of the American identity or more its ideology, because when the media and government try to influence the masses and throw advertising at them at every corner in every place they go its difficult to actually say no, especially when everyone else is jumping the bridge. The modern people, regardless of race or gender, have a common ideology of consumerism.

Why are people so keen on pleasing society? The rules that it has set on the masses? My opinion is (like I have mentioned before) is the fear of human loneliness. That fear of being alone makes people want to please others, to fit in, and not be seen as “others” or different somehow, or unacceptable. It is a lot more challenging for colored people to have a slice of acceptance from society so it is usually those people that must assimilate to the standards of a white supremacist land in order to “fit in”. The white powerful leaders are the ones who have dictated every aspect of our society and the rules and regulations that people must follow. Marxists always believed that whoever has power has control over society, the rich and powerful are the ones who decide what kinds of products are produced, imported, what important events in history get published in History books, what speech or words the masses use to communicate have certain meanings or value. All of us like in a pre-existing world with no say in what rules would be established in our society, so in the book Cultural Studies, what Barker says is that people do not have a true self identity, no matter how much we believe we do or know ourselves, our “identities” are always adapting to our current situations, environments, people interactions, it is never set or absolute. We are all layered selves, no true self. We are all mere products of capitalism.

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Blog #3 :)

Hello there again if there is anyone reading any of the blogs I have written. In Eng 313 the professor gave us an assignment for an ethnography that we are suppose to write and turn in on Tuesday. I just have to pick a place to sit and observe people for an hour and write about it. I hope it's not too difficult. But anyways this week we discussed the play Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, and one of the questions that came up was if the play was a radical representation of love? In my opinion it wasn't very radical, I thought there to be more a lack of love in the play. Maggie tries to make Brick respond to her in any way possible so he will pay her just an ounce of attention, since he portrays an apathetic persona throughout. Even Big Daddy doesn't love his sons, grandsons, or his wife Big Mamma. Perhaps the lack of love or care throughout the play can be considered radical?

Another question asked, that I also wondered about was why Big Daddy preferred his alcoholic son Brick and his wife Maggie to his other more "loyal" son Gooper and his wife Mae. In the play when Big Daddy is talking to Brick he tells him he hates his son Gooper and his wife, and their 5 little "screecher's" (Gooper and Mae's children), but he actually likes Brick because he is honest. Big daddy doesn't believe Mae and Gooper to be honest people, that they are manipulative and merely after his fortune and land. To Big Daddy his son Brick is like the "all-american guy" who played football and took a job as a news broadcaster. In contrast his other son gooper was just as succesful as a businessman, but Big Daddy still prefers Brick. Gooper always listens to his mom and dad and never talks back at them the way Brick did, but thats exactly what makes him honest. He doesn't want or care for his fathers fortune, unlike Gooper who yearns for it waiting for his father to fly the coop. In the end of the play he admits he doesn't like his father and that his great empire be passed down to capable hands. Even with Goopers superior qualifications big Daddy still prefers Brick. Both Brick and Big daddy despise mendacity! They believe everyone around them to be liars. Perhaps their mutual agreement in their idea of mendacity is what makes Big daddy have more of a preference for Brick. Every time people bring up Brick's deceased best friend Skipper, it always hits a nerve in brick and his indifferent tone becomes defensive, due to the implication of Skipper and Brick's relation when they were friends. No one ever specifically says he is gay but they imply it. Mostly Maggie tho. She's the one who began the implication when she told Skipper to stop loving her husband(pg. 59-60 Cat on a Hot Tin Roof). In the film version of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, they take a more conservative take on the film. In the film, Brick is portrayed as sectretly longing Maggie. Since gayness wasn't a touchy subject at the time when the movie was made a more conservative take on the play was taken to action. They focused more on the materialistic aspect of the whole situation. Perhaps the radical part of the story is the fact that we cant tell if Brick is actually gay or not. He claims he isn't but his alcohol addiction implies otherwise.

We began to read the book Romantic Comedy that does an in-depth study on the most looked down upon genre of movies: the Romantic Comedy genre. The author believes that "Romcoms" are a facade for industries and capitalism to take hold of americans idea of what they need to purchase in order to achieve finding true love. Romcoms always show how a woman needs to dress, put on make up, buy new clothes and shoes for a first date, how the man needs to pay for dinner and flowers, chocolates, gifts, all expensive things for a good date. Even marriage is an industry. Just one wedding takes thousands of dollars to put together. Most romcom movies portray or even encourage those types of "advertising" that sticks in the minds of people who watch these movies and believe that is the way love is suppose to be. The basic narrative pattern of romcoms is (1) Boy meets girl (2) Boy loses girl and (3) boy gets girl back. I'm sure you're nodding with me at this point. I never liked romantic comedies because i always thought that all those movies followed the exact same pattern described above. Nothing more and nothing less. There's always a guy running to the airport trying to stop the girl from leaving, and in the end they end up together. Thats why I was always more of a action genre type of girl.

Blog #2

It was the first time I had ever heard the term Semiotics, or perhaps i have heard it before but i didn't know what it meant at the time, I can't be 100% certain. Semiotics makes the whole foundation of language and communication a more complicated and deep-rooted and philosophical reasoning to it. Semiotics is "the study of signs and symbols as elements of

communicative behavior;the analysis of systems of communication,

as language,gestures, or clothing". In signs there is the signifier and the signified. The signifier creates a visual aural or gives a word its meaning, a mental conception that the signified will be able to understand. This arbitrary relationship is founded on the signifier who has a more powerful authority about which words have what meaning. The signified has no say upon the matter, just what they are told. Who would have thought that even the very language that we speak can seem like a conspiracy, a peek hole to the intensity or gravity of a dominating few?? Power leads to authority and what rules are put to play on the game board of Chess, we the people are mere pawns and only move through our puppet strings by the puppet master. How sad, that we have the freedom of speech but sad to know that we never had a chance or vote on what that speech was to be. Binary signs in language like cat/dog, big/small, black/white, Christian/Jew,or fat/thin were said to not live alone, it is always dependent on another to define the former. Derrida believed in a "Presence X" where all signs are unstable, where they do not have an absolute presence, where one word is dependent on another, and that other word in dependent on another word, and so on and so forth, the pattern continues in an endless pattern. This was revolutionary thought and is still used today by high up people like lawyers and legislators. Derrida always thought that ideas could fall into deconstruction due to their instability.

One of the most famous written binaries by Simone DeBeaure was called "The Second Sex" which dealt with man vs. woman. She wrote about an unevenness between them, how women are seen as the "Other", the oppressed one, the imperfect ones, who depend on the men to keep order. She believes the man/woman relationship is a hierarchical one, with the oppressor(man) and oppressed(woman), similar to the master/slave relationship. Man enjoys higher power, positions, better jobs, authority, privileges, all of which are proven throughout history. Men see themselves as a definite self, where they have their own identity, while women are the "other" who are defined by man. The same way that a slave master depends on the slave in order for the master to uphold power, the man is also dependent on the woman to have power but the difference is that a slave can, in a hypothetical type of way, get rid of the slave master and still live life normally but it would be unthinkable for a woman to be able to get rid of all the men. Women are biologically bound to men, women are born women and cannot change that. In the movie Jerry MaGuire, Jerry's wife suffers through the unstable and mentally abusive antics of her husband, but the minute he apologizes she has completely forgiven him because she depends on him. She saw him or men as the enemy, but unfortunately she loves the enemy. She cannot live without the enemy, consequently incapable of getting rid of him.

In Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, there is a lot of communication problems. The same way Derrida linked the derivative understanding in all meanings of words in language where they are always changing, meanings in cat on a Hot Tin Roof were always changing. Maggie compares herself to a cat on a hot tin roof throughout the whole play who can withstand the heat of a hot roof the same way she can endure the apathetic behavior of her husband. She says its very difficult to love someone who doesn't love you back, but she stays with him due to economic stability. She is an over-bearing and "needy" woman, she's portrayed as aggressive but vulnerable and her husband is passive throughout the whole play except at the mention of his deceased best friend Skipper. Those are the rare times he shows emotion. He is unresponsive and uninterested in anything but his drinking. He removed himself or any type of relationship with his wife Maggie after his best friend passed away. More talk about the book will be discussed in the next class meeting. Until then, see you! :)