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British Literature 353: A Woven Mind Amongst Six Flourishing Women -…

- - - - "She was gracious and yet fading, like an old statue in a garden, that symbolizes the weather through which is has endured, and is not so much the work of a man as the work of wind and rain and the herd of the seasons, and though formed in a man's image is a figure of doom" (barnes 45).
  - - - In “The Great War and Modern Memory” Paul Fussell writes, “what is most disquieting on such a visit is to realize how little space…separated the line, the soldier’s troglodyte world, the world which might have been another planet, from home, from England, from Sanity” (Fussell 70).
        
        The line between what we want and what we have is completely invisible, it is the mental blocks that withhold us.
      - The nineteenth century did not have the correct tools to deal with mental health
    - - Some doctors and authority figures do know best and are able to speak their own truth. The doctor in Nightwood appears to be a trusting figure because the readers were able to see him in his most vulnerable state, dressing up in makeup and women's clothing. Based on the doctors own experiences he says, "there is no truth, and you have to set it between you; you have been unwise enough to make a formula; you have dressed the knowable in the garments of the know" (barnes 145).
        
        In Walter Benjamins piece "The Storyteller: Reflections on the Works of Nikolai Leskov," he argues that the art of storytelling is coming to an end. He thinks that the modern man no longer works for what cannot be abbreviated and the struggle we have to listen and truly hear what the other is saying. I am enamored how Benjamin describes the ultimate storyteller as "the man who could let the wick of his life be consumed completely by the gentle flame of his story" (Benjamin 378). This implies that a man who is able to cultivate his own flame is the type of person who will continue to persist a healthy, fulfilling life.
        
        Benjamin says, “the storyteller takes what he tells from experience,” (Benjamin 364) because it is evident that story telling is a direct reflection of our lived journeys, however I wonder about the individuals who are not quite ready to express their truths. Novels do powerfully provide an outlet to look through the lens of another’s life - even when fictionalized.
        
        I have an incling that the doctor in Nightwood would agree with Woolf's idea in Jacobs Room that there is "no use trying to sum people up" (Woolf 287). Since the doctor is able to vulnerable, I wonder if he would agree that humans are driven by this "unsiezable force" (Woolf 291) that makes us each act in a certain why. Can we only lean into this force if we are vulnerable with ourselves?
      - The power of the novel is that it can take us away from our own issues momentarily – similar to peeping into a friend’s fridge, an intimate feeling of knowing order and regiment in another’s life. Relating to one’s life is a gift, as Benjamin puts in, and we must not take that fact for granted. I do love the line, “The storyteller is the figure in which the righteous man encounters himself,” (Benjamin 378), but I do hope people do not forget that this takes time, and thus the novel should not be shamed.
- - - - People appear in our lives during different moments of personal emotional turmoil: we have a choice to treat them with gratitude and respect or bring them down with us.
        
        Nora's personality as a giver:
        "Nora robbed herself for everyone; incapable of giving herself warning, she was continually turning about to find herself diminished. Wandering people the world over found her profitable in that she could be sold for a prove forever, for she carried her betrayal money in her own pocket" (barnes 57).
        What can be done once over-giving tendencies are recognized from within? If women are not given the toolbox on how to communicate, stand up for themselves or empower our individuality, then women will continuously be viewed as people who can easily be walked all over.
        
        Why do we feel anxiety at times over those who we presumably love and cherish?
        
        Nora feels extreme anxiety over Robin because she know's that her presence is only temporary. If Nora were to live in an ideal world then her and Robin would die together to attain eternal love. Each time Robin goes out to get drunk and talk to different people that she doesn't know, Nora anxiously waits for her return, never sleeping - mentally consumed with thoughts on Robins whereabouts.
        barnes writes, "as an amputated hand cannot be disowned because it is experiencing a futurity of which the victim is its forebear, so Robin was an amputation that Nora could not renounce" (barnes 65). Relating love to an amputated arm shows the extent of Nora's obsession.
        
        This anxious feeling is often combatted with substance abuse. We turn to substance when we want the pain or current unpleasant emotion to subside. There are certainly healthier ways of dealing with these emotions, however, our society is in constant 'speed mode' and deep breathing is only accessible for those who make time for it.
        
        Substance abuse in Brave New World is the daily ritual of 'Soma' which makes the each participant significantly happier. After Lenina views the Indians way of living, a lifestyle far too different than her own, she is unable to cope with the emotions she feels. Huxley writes, "Lenina felt herself entitled, after this day of queerness and horror, to a complete and absolute holiday. As soon as they got back to the rest-house, she swallowed six half-gramme tablets of soma, lay down on her bed, and within ten minutes had embarked for lunar eternity. It would be eighteen hours at the least before she was in time again" (Huxley 140). This is how many of us cope with pain.
        
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        Do humans only know what they want based on what they are told they should have? If all that is striped away, what would we need?
        
        Other people deal with emotional baggage by inflicting self pain, another form of getting outside of ones own head. In Samuel Beckett's book "Murphy," the main character Murphy enjoys tying himself up which is interesting because he enjoys being inside of his mind rather than experiencing the outside world.
        
        In Jacobs Room, Florinda's character is prominent because she is women who is considered improper: in chapter five, Florinda and Jacob have sex and Woolf writes, "Florida could no more pretend a feeling than swallow whiskey" (Woolf 138). As a woman who is not afraid to sleep around, I wonder if she feels she must uphold this expectation by pretending that she has no feelings, and thus turning to the bottle to numb the pain.
        
        Fussell says that during the time of war, humans believed it would really never end and it would become “the permanent condition of mankind” (Fussell 77). The main point that I will choose to take away from Fussell, is his overall take on perspective. The length of tragic events are the most daunting; whether it’s a marriage on the brink of ruin, or a deadly disease hidden in every shop, the way that we perceive these situations are detrimental to our own happiness. Fussell categorizes these feelings as an “intolerable suspicion,” which perfectly describes Nora's state towards Robin.
        
        In “Modernist Fiction, Cosmopolitanism, and the Politics of Community, “Jessica Berman explains how women who are seen as being both indifferent and pacificist in life are typically most accepted.
        
        This reminds me of Otto and Christoph's relationship in Goodbye to Berlin. Compared to the other texts read in class, Otto is actually able to express at times exactly how he feels to Christoph, who appears to show up in his life at a time they need each other most: Otto says, "my nerves are breaking down. Very soon they'll come and take me away. They'll put me in a strait-waistcoat and feed me through a rubber tube. And when you come to visit me, I shan't know who you are" (Isherwood 136).
        In terms of mental health, it is important to see Otto's character as someone who understands that his mental health is wavering. Being able to express this valid fear allows Christopher to understand that Otto probably needs help.
- - - - Harold Nicolson’s describes this image of conforming womanhood notions quite well as, “battering restlessness” (Berman 117).
      - Woolf’s thoughts from the convention of the Women’s Co-operative Guild where she explains the “weight of discomfort” that comes with questioning true changes in society, rooting us down indefinitely is moving: to talk of reform and speculate problems of education and voting is one thing, but to act on them is an entirely new animal.
      - Through the incorporation of the third person narrative the readers are dragged along to watch the reality of dread come to fruition as Clarissa forces herself to throw this party that makes her feel stingy and egotistical. The back and forth of the minds internal thoughts are headache inducing for the readers, because the sympathy is present, but it doesn't seem like Clarissa would change her life in any real way.
    - - The Doctor and Nora's conversation about love and life makes Nora realize humans eternal conditioned state:
        barnes writes, "conditioning himself to fear, made God; as the prehistoric, conditioning itself to hope, made man - cooling of the earth, the receding of the sea. And I, who want power, choose a girl who resembled a boy" (barnes 145). Nora has been conditioned to look for a man, but since she is in love with Robin, she believes their must be some manly qualities about her that drew her in, in the first place.
      - We are primed through childhood experiences from only watching the Prince and Princess interact.
        
        Our parents were primed while watching the Tiller Girls perfectly hit each beat on television: In "Girls and Crisis," Siegfried Kracauer explains how the girls leg speed correspond to the ideal of the machine and "all the parts begin to roll the waves fall into their cycles" (Kracauer 565). Similar to the viewing the class man/women relationship, the Tiller Girls represent the speeding up of the economy - if you cannot catch up, you will fall behind.
- - - - Two people in a relationship who are both unhappy in their own bodies and personal livihoods will be unable to show up for themselves or each other.
      - What happens to the fairytale if love is not between man and woman? The Doctor in Nightwood explains how books only speak of romantic heteronormative ideas, which may make those who are part of the LGTBQ+ community feel like they are partaking in something wrong. The Doctor explains how our "miscalculated longing" has created the Prince/ Princesses dichotomy. He explains how the ever-present love narrative has been generationally passed down: barnes writes, "they are our answers to what our grandmothers were told love was, and what it never came to be; they, the living lie of our centuries" (barnes 146). It is interesting to note how the Doctor understands the lies of these unrealistic myths, yet still feels he can only cross-dress in secret.
        
        Similar to Lenina's struggles of only wanting to be with one man. Her friend Fanny scolds her and commands her to be more 'spontanous,' essentially telling her that the way she is choosing to live is incorrect. If we are consciously choosing to live a certain way because it is what we want - how could it be incorrect?
        
        This connects to Bernards character in Brave New World because he constantly feels like he is an outsider solely because he is uninterested with sleeping with as many women as he can and then bragging about it. Huxley writes, "the mockery made him feel an outsider; and feeling an outsider he behaved like one, which increased the prejudice against him and intensified the contempt and hostility aroused by his physical defects. Which in turn increased his sense of being alien and alone" (Huxley 65). Huxley thoroughly explains the connection between people telling us what we are and in turn, we act with the characteristics pin on us. Our self worth drops dramatically if these traits are negative.
        
        I argue that each human has felt lonely during periods of their life for different reasons, which makes the standard of sameness that much more ironic because no two people are the same.
        
        Do societal expectations make us all feel like an outsider? If we try to conform we will probably still feel lost, yet if we don't try at all we may also feel discontentment. If we unite together to gain a collective consciousness that civilization acceptance is futile, we have the opportunity to cultivate a new peace of mind.
        
        Harold Nicolson’s review of one of Woolf’s novel is perfectly described as “the flux and reflux” (Berman 117) of livlihood. The term 'flux' adequately describes societal life: our actions flow in and out, similar to ocean waves. Therefore, it seems impossible to have a singular identity – a dangerous notion to begin with.
      - Since the beginning of time, we are taught that everything has one definitive answer, a deadline and a purpose. Fussell writes, “the idea of endless war as an inevitable condition of modern life would seem to have become seriously available to the imagination around 1916” (Fussell 80). Decades later, we are still riddled with the same anxiety: the fear that our misery is endless. Most of the characters that we read in class felt that their position in the world was definitive and unchangeable. What if education taught us that we have the power to make small steps each day to cultivate the life style we yearn for?