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LIT 199 Home-Coming and Going (Searching For Escape (From The Haunted,…

- - - - Home as a haunted place
        
        "Stone Animals" portrays a different definition of the "haunted". There are no actual ghost or evil spirits inside the house. However, there is a multitude of paranormal elements throughout the whole reading.
        
        As the plot progresses, more objects become "haunted", culminating with the boy himself ending up "haunted." However, whether there is indeed something wrong with the house or it all happens on a psychological level remains a mystery .
        
        "The thing is, I went in and stood in there for a while and it gave me the creeps, too. So now I can't pick up e-mail. And I had to throw out more soap. And King Spanky doesn't love the alarm clock anymore. He won't come out from under the bed when I set it off."
        
        The unease comes from the implication that objects and even people we have been around all our lives can suddenly become uncanny.
      - The rabbits as central elements
        
        It is obvious that the whole reading revolves around the two stone rabbits outside the house and also around the ones invading them, suggesting that they could be the reason why disturbing things are happening within their household.
    - - As a sign of awareness for important social issues
        
        The movie's impact fulness is mostly created by the fact that it tackles the issue of racism, picturing the way black people were perceived in the past. One of the most obvious references is when Chris has to get cotton out of the armchair in order to save himself.
        
        Moreover, the movie originally had a different, more disturbing ending explained by writer-director Jordan Peele as follows: "There is an alternate ending in which the cops come at the end. He gets locked up and taken away for slaughtering an entire family of white people and you know he’s never going to get out if he doesn’t get shot there on the spot."
      - As a horror movie
        
        The dread escalates gradually from a peaceful, pleasant atmosphere to one filled with terror towards the end. The plot twist is breathtaking, as it represents the fine line between two completely different settings.
    - - The repression off memories and them coming back
        
        There seem to be a lot of memories haunting the main character throughout the plot. First, we find out about her brother, then about the husband. It all culminates with the memory of the rape coming back to haunt her.
        
        “It’s not your memories which haunt you, it is not what you have written down. It is what you have forgotten, what you must forget. What you must go on forgetting all of your life.” - James Fenton
        
        The basement (where she lives) is another key reference to the inability to let go of the past, as it suggests a low psychological level, repression.
      - The state between the living and the dead
        
        The unclarity of the text is created by the ghostwriter's intermediate state. Her death is never portrayed, but there are numerous leads indicating it. However, they might as well be referring to her psychological death, the impossibility to enjoy life after the traumatic event.
        
        " “You died too,” he said. “You just don’t know it.” "
        
        "I wept for him and for me, for all the years we could have had together but didn’t, for all the words never spoken between my mother, my father, and me. Most of all, I cried for those other girls who had vanished and never come back, including myself."
  - - - Longing for freedom
        
        Throughout the whole book the main character's lack of physical freedom is proportional to her lack of freedom of mind.
        
        While her husband doesn't allow her to go outside the house, he also tries to control her thoughts and to persuade her into doing only what he wants her to.
        
        A good example is the main character's desire to write which is constantly being repressed by the man. Eventually, because of his insistence, she gives up on her will to write.
        
        "I did write for a while in spite of them; but it does exhaust me a good deal—having to be so sly about it, or else meet with heavy opposition."
        
        "I am sitting by the window now, up in this atrocious nursery, and there is nothing to hinder my writing as much as I please, save lack of strength."
      - Social interpretation
        
        The book also can be seen as a tribute to women who dedicated their lives to writing before women's emancipation, when they had to face endless challenges because of their gender and the profession they had chosen.
        
        The wallpaper itself symbolizes the limits that these women had to overcome. In the end, the narrator strips it off and declares that she is free, but it is debatable whether or not she really achieves true liberation.
        
        "Sometimes I think there are a great many women behind, and sometimes only one, and she crawls around fast, and her crawling shakes it all over. […]
        And she is all the time trying to climb through. But nobody could climb through that pattern—it strangles so; I think that is why it has so many heads."
  - - - Marriage and women's role in the nineteenth century
        
        Marriage, as presented in the reading, is built on two types of foundation: love and interest. While Elizabeth's and Jane's relationships fall into the first one, all the other characters seems to be guided by the other.
        
        Mrs. and Mr. Bennet's marriage represents a clear example of what Elizabeth is trying to avoid: a relationship lacking love, respect and common ground.
        
        “You take delight in vexing me. You have no compassion on my poor nerves.”– Mrs. Bennet
        “You mistake me, my dear. I have a high respect for your nerves. They are my old friends. I have heard you mention them with consideration these twenty years at least.”–
        Mr. Bennet
        
        Charlotte marries Mr. Collins out of desire to gain a higher place in society and out of fear that, because of her age, she would not find a better option. This creates tension between Charlotte and Elizabeth as the latter is of the opinion that a relationship should not be born out of settlement.
        
        "I am not romantic, you know; I never was. I ask only a comfortable home; and considering Mr. Collins' character, connection, and situation in life, I am convinced that my chance of happiness with him is as fair as most people can boast on entering the marriage state."
        
        Through Mrs. Bennet's character, Jane Austen managed to offer an accurate representation of most women's place within a nineteenth century household. While her husband holds the power in the family, Mrs. Bennet's main concern is to find the most advantageous matches for her six daughters.
        
        "The business of her life was to get her daughters married."
        
        Sympathy for Mrs. Bennet can arise from the understanding that, since it is not socially acceptable for her to handle other social tasks, she does everything in her power to make sure that her daughters will have a carefree and respectable life.
      - Pemberley as the focal point of the book
        
        Pemberley estate symbolizes his owner, Mr. Darcy, and, implicitly, Elizabeth's desire. It is also the place that makes the main character open her eyes and heart to the possibility of a relationship with Mr. Darcy
    - - Not feeling like you belong in your own home #
        
        Phuong feels a rupture between her and her family (especially her father) as her dreams, feelings and aspirations do not fit in their normal cultural pattern.
        
        "If I stay here I’ll marry some boy with no future and live with his family and have two children too soon and sleep in a room where I can touch both walls at the same time. I don’t think I can stand it, I really don’t."
        
        However, she comes to find a lot of similarities between her and her sister, Vivien, and aspires to become like her.
        
        " “I want to be like you,” Phuong said, gripping her sister’s hands in her own. “I want to go to America and be a doctor and help people. I don’t want to spend my life waiting on people. I want to be waited on. I want to travel anywhere I want, anytime I want. I want to come back here and know I can leave."
      - Escape as a desired, but impossible ending
        
        In the end, Phuong comes to terms with her fate and gives up on the idea of changing it.
        
        The burning scene symbolizes cleansing, transmutation and acceptance, by letting go of painful memories.
- - - - Through Change
        
        Changing people's lives by changing their homes #
        
        Decluttering your home is, once more, tied to decluttering both your mind and life. #
        
        "Tidying is the act of confronting yourself." - Marie Kondo
        
        "Tidying your physical space allows you to tend to your psychological space."
        
        Letting go of unnecessary things in your home teaches you how to let go of anything that is holding you back in your life.
        
        "There are two reasons we can’t let go: an attachment to the past or a fear for the future." - Marie Kondo
        
        Home as a reflection of one's soul
        
        The Fab 5 usually start with a messy home and an insecure person. After the whole transformation, the house and its owner are unrecognizable, both of them being best characterized by a feeling of peacefulness.
        
        "Coming home to a tidy, pulled-together space will help everything in your life feel the same way." - Bobby Berk
        
        Making your body your most valuable asset
        
        Not only do the Fab 5 help people transform their homes, but they also help them transform themselves inside and out, considering that appearance is an essential part of who you are.
        
        Taking care of your body is extremely important, as it is the only home that will surely be yours for the rest of your life.
        
        You cannot love yourself if you don't love your body.
        
        "How you take care of yourself is how the world sees you. It's OK to have a relationship with yourself." — Jonathan Van Ness
        
        "There is a diva in there, but all she needs is a little bit of a bold lip."— Jonathan Van Ness
      - Through Escapes
        
        Using literature as a way to cope with reality
        
        Alison distances herself from reality and then also tries to understand it from a distance by using fiction as a guiding tool
        
        Books are also a way for Alison and her father to connect, even if they do not have a tight relationship
        
        “My mother must have bathed me hundreds of times. But it's my father rinsing me off with the purple metal cup that I remember most clearly. The suffusion of warmth as the hot water sluiced over me...
        ...the sudden, unbearable cold of its absence.”
        
        Queerness and repression
        
        Social repression runs in Alison's family especially in regard to hidden sexual orientation
        
        “I suppose that a lifetime spent hiding one's erotic truth could have a cumulative renunciatory effect. Sexual shame is in itself a kind of death.”
        
        “My homosexuality remained at that point purely theoretical, an untested hypothesis. But it was a hypothesise so thorough and so convincing I saw no reason not to share it immediately.”
        
        Alison and her dad have more in common than she would ever like to admit #
        
        “Perhaps I identify too well with my father's illicit awe. A trace of this seems caught in the photo, just as a trace of Roy has been caught on the light-sensitive paper..."
        
        #
        
        Using money and fashion as a distraction
        
        Anna is obsessed with money and clothes as these are some of the few things that help her escape her agoraphobia and claustrophobia, making her feel happy and secure.
        
        “This is a beginning. Out of this warm room that smells of fur I’ll go to all the lovely places I’ve ever dreamt of.”
        
        The need of guidance triggering the need to fall in love #
        
        Anna tries to convince herself to fall for Walter, even if, at first, she is disgusted by him.
        
        “He kissed me again, and his mouth was hard… and I hated him.”
        
        “Soon he'll come in again and kiss me, but differently. He'll be different and so I'll be different. It'll be different. I thought, 'It'll be different, different. It must be different.” #
        
        "Bifocal vision"
        
        Not being able to fit London and the Caribbeans together, but also not being able to tell them apart.
        
        Trying to make sense of the world by putting it in binary opposites.
        
        I would never be part of anything. I would never belong anywhere, and I knew it, and all my life would be the same, trying to belong, and failing… I am a stranger and always will be.” -Rhys
    - - A representation of the hardships that come with immigration.
        
        “Paddington’s story is that of the modern migrant” - Colin Yeo
        
        The beginning is the toughest for Paddington, as London is far from what he was expecting, anxiety presented in the first letter to his aunt.
        
        He is facing the need to adapt to a whole new world:“It’s rather hard drinking out of a cup. I usually get my head stuck, or else my hat falls in and makes it taste nasty”-Paddington
        
        An encouragement to not be afraid of immigrants and to treat them kindly
        
        "We only have to see that bear to see the predicament of a Syrian child. The Brown family adopted him, it was a messy adoption but it gave the bear a home. It delivers a very strong message about how we’ve grown away from the kindness to which we once aspired." - Michael Morpurgo
        
        At first, Mr Brown is skeptical about Paddington, forbidding his children from talking to the homeless bear. However, their relationship grows throughout the movie and the man ends up loving and accepting Paddington as part of his family.
        
        The ending pictures Paddington having found a new family, writing to his aunt on a cheerful tone. #
        
        This feeling of belongingness comes with self-acceptance: “I’ll never be like other people, but that’s alright because I’m a bear” -Paddington
- - - - Dorothy doesn't realize how much she loves her home and her life until she gets stuck in a whole different world, unable to find her way back #
        
        The two worlds are represented in an obvious antithesis
        
        Her hometown is colorless, safe, and boring
        
        “No matter how dreary and gray our homes are, we people of flesh and blood would rather live there than in any other country, be it ever so beautiful. There is no place like home.”
        ― L. Frank Baum, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
        
        Oz is full of color and excitement, but also full of dangers
    - - The movie accentuates the importance of true friendship, the fact that every challenge is easier with people who love you by your side
        
        Dorothy's friendship with the Scarecrow, the Tin Woodman and the Lion makes her feel more protected and less lonely in the dangerous world of Oz
        
        One of the most important friendship acts in the book is when Dorothy frees the Cowardly Lion and helps in repairing and rebuilding the Tin Woodman and the Scarecrow.
  - - - The book pictures the main character searching for ways to survive on another planet all by himself while trying to figure out a way to go back home.
        
        He finds himself having to create everything from scratch, thus becoming a God in his new world. He grows potatoes by using feces as a fertilizer and produces water by extracting hydrogen from rocket fuel.
        
        Because of this, "The Martian" is considered to be a rewriting of Robinson Crusoe, “That mythological figure who changes shape according to what we need him to be.” Derek Walcott
    - - We can observe Mark's perseverance and his burning desire to make it back to Earth throughout the entire book. Even when the situation seems hopeless, he stays optimistic and always finds a way to overcome the obstacles.
        
        His positive attitude derives from his constant thinking about the people back at home whom he loves.
        
        “I guess you could call it a "failure", but I prefer the term "learning experience".”
        
        For example, on Sol 37, when there was a lot of unburned hydrogen in the air and the Hab could have exploded, he used the regulator to absorb the oxygen in the air so that the explosion wouldn't occur.