Hepzibah

This morning (in an hour and a half, woohoo!!) I wrote a paper for my American Literature class doing a character analysis on one of the characters of The House of the Seven Gables and telling why I identified with that character. I chose Hepzibah Pyncheon, because I like her the best, and I thought I might as well post the essay. (Keep in mind that this is a very informal class and the last two paragraphs are in a perfectly acceptable style for the assignment.)

                                                                          Hepzibah

            First, Hepzibah has a very melancholy personality. She's regretful as she opens the shop, even melodramatic. On the day that she opens the shop, she spends longer than usual on her devotions and on her personal duties, trying to put off the task as long as possible. When she has arranged the shop as needed, she lingers for a moment at the door, hesitating. She opens the door. Then "she fled into the inner parlor, threw herself into the ancestral elbowchair, and wept." (page 42) To her melancholy personality, the opening of the shop represents not prudence, involvement with the world, and a new activity to master, but the debasement of her aristocratic family and of herself.

            She's also quite a loner. The only human contact she has before Phoebe comes into the house is with Mr. Holgrave and her brother, Clifford. The people in her community have seen her as bad-tempered, scowling, and reclusive, and she has come to believe them. As a result, she removes herself from the world, choosing not to interact with other people. She does this out of fear that the people she meets will treat her badly, as if she were bad-tempered, scowling, and reclusive. She also does it out of pride. The Pyncheon family is part of the landed gentry of old. They must not mix with the commoners.

            Consistent with her melancholy, lonely personality, Hepzibah is very hesitant. She finds comfort and security in routine, and doesn't wish to disturb it. When Phoebe comes to the house, Hepzibah welcomes her warmly, as a cousin should. She offers Phoebe her hospitality and does everything in her power to help her. However, she hesitates to allow Phoebe to stay in her house indefinitely. This hesitancy mainly comes from practical reasons, but she is also afraid of the change that Phoebe's presence would bring. Another instance demonstrating many facets of Hepzibah's personality is her flight upon finding Jaffrey dead. Instead of calling for help and bringing other people to help her, she takes her brother Clifford and simply leaves. She's afraid of what will be said about her, afraid that justice will not prevail, and she is also afraid simply of the task of interacting with other people.

            Hepzibah's shyness makes her difficult to understand, but she has many good traits if one cares enough to see them. She is good-hearted, and has nothing but goodwill for the customers of her cent-shop, though she is afraid of them and they are afraid of her. She has a perpetual scowl on her face, not from any ill temper, but from the unfortunate circumstance of being near-sighted. Page 36 says this about her heart, though she is always frowning: "But her heart never frowned. It was naturally tender, [and] sensitive...." Her hospitality is evidence as well of her good heart. Although she describes Mr. Holgrave's friends as disreputable, and she suspects him of illegal activity, she willingly allows him to remain her boarder, and harbors no ill will towards him.

            Another distinct virtue of Hepzibah's personality is her loyalty. She is entirely devoted to caring for her brother, recently released from prison. Although he treats her with disdain, her primary aim remains to make him as comfortable and happy as she possibly can. When we first meet Clifford, it is at breakfast the first day Phoebe arrives. Hepzibah is visibly upset and nervous about whether or not he will be pleased and contented by the breakfast, but she makes her utmost effort to effect his comfort. She knows that "he always liked bright faces" and "could never abide tears" (page 94) so she tells Phoebe to smile and be cheerful, and she herself almost hides from him, as not to upset him with her face, which is neither bright nor cheerful. She is willing to put Clifford's comfort before her own.

            I don't identify fully with any of the characters of The House of the Seven Gables, but Hepzibah is the best fit, I think. I can certainly identify with her shyness. We both are afraid of people and develop very small circles of close friends. I can also identify with her loyalty. I care very deeply for my friends and would do anything to make them happy, like Hepzibah would do anything for her brother Clifford. I'm willing to overlook people's faults and give them the benefit of the doubt, as Hepzibah did for Mr. Holgrave.

            There are some facets of Hepzibah's personality with which I don't identify. If I had been in Hepzibah's position and had been forced to open a cent-shop, I believe I would have thrown myself into it. I would have been excited for the change, for something new to do. I am not nearly as dependent on routine as she is. When I discovered Judge Jaffrey dead in the old Pyncheon's office, I would have first screamed very loudly. Then I would definitely have gone to get someone to help me. I would never have run away; I would be too frightened that they would assume my flight meant I had killed him. I can't identify with her family pride, likely because I'm not from a proud, aristocratic family and don't live in an awesome house with cool architecture. But I can still identify with Hepzibah much more closely than I can with any of the other characters. Phoebe is too perfect; Mr. Holgrave is too secretive; Clifford is too feeble and particular; Jaffrey is too cruel. Hepzibah is my favorite character of all of them, and the one I think I'm most like.

The Word "Love"

Here's my problem with the word "love." There's only one of it. If you think about it, the word "love" can be used to describe a multitude of emotions that are entirely different from each other. We "love" pizza. We "love" our boyfriends/girlfriends. We "love" our siblings. We "love" our best friends. We "love" our parents. We "love" shopping. We "love" our country of origin. We "love" our favorite television show. We "love" skydiving or rollerblading or music or football. The emotions we feel for the aforementioned people and objects are quite different from each other, but we use the same word to describe all.

Of course, we could rephrase some of them. Pizza tastes good. I enjoy shopping. I like to watch White Collar. I am loyal to America. But there's no other way to say that I love my mother and my boyfriend. The emotion is completely different; the word is the same because there is no other word for either feeling. We could qualify it: I romantically love my boyfriend. But how many people say "I romantically love you!" when they leave for work in the morning?

And sometimes, we love one thing in different ways. I like to watch tennis, but I also enjoy playing it. However, I still only "love" it. I love my brother both as my brother and as my friend, but I still only "love" him. There aren't two different words.

I'm out of words and have homework to do. Much love.
ZB

2011 Book List, or, My Love for Persasion

At the end of 2010 I made a book list composed of about twenty-five books or series that I would like to read. As many of the items are quite long, I told myself that I would only read ten of the items on my list, and continue working on it next year.

One of the items on said list is all the Jane Austen novels: Pride & Prejudice, Sense & Sensibility, Emma, Northanger Abbey, Persuasion, and Mansfield Park. I will also likely read Lady Susan and Sandition, two of her shorter works, sometime, but they're not on my list. I own all of Jane Austen's novels except for Mansfield Park. I can't find it anywhere! I've looked at four different bookstores in my area, and none of them carry it except for one, but it's a copy of Mansfield Park in a volume with all Austen's other novels. As I have all the other novels already, I am definitely not spend thirty-five dollars on a book that I already have most of. The fact that I can't find it disappoints me. I haven't read it yet, and will probably just borrow it from the library to read it, and buy it from Amazon.com later, but it bothers me that I can't find it. I don't like reading library books. Somehow the fact that it doesn't belong to me makes it difficult to read.

Since I haven't yet obtained Mansfield Park, I started the next book on my list: Wuthering Heights. Now that, I must say, is a strange book. All the characters are either complete idiots or complete demons, except for the narrator, Ellen Dean. I like her; she's sensible and practical. It's a well-written book, and difficult to put down, since it's so interesting. The events of Wuthering Heights are violent and strange, and seem surreal. Contributing to the sense of surrealism is the fact that Wuthering Heights and the Grange, the two main places of the action, are entirely isolated from the world. They are miles away from any civilization, out on the windy moors of England. Emily Bronte chose this spot for a reason. It emphasizes the loneliness of the characters, and their helplessness, so far removed from any other person. The unpredictable weather is also key. It reflects the extreme moodiness of the characters, and their constant warring with each other. As I said, it's a well-written book, but a little frightening and I dislike the characters. It's hard for me to like a book if I don't like the characters, so I don't think I like Wuthering Heights, per se, but I don't dislike it, either. It fascinates me.

My primary topic for this post was going to be the Austen novel Persuasion. Now, this is my favorite Austen novel. (So far. I haven't read Mansfield Park, but I can't imagine I'd like it any more than I like Persuasion.) In fact, it easily makes my top twenty favorite books. It is Austen's best work, the last full-length novel written before her death, and it is impressive. It is a masterpiece. It is subtle but clear in its treatment of the conflict. It is an easy read, but takes time, time to savor and digest and understand. It took me a week to read. (For comparison, Persuasion is one of Austen's shortest novels, and her longest novel, Emma, took me about three days. A week is forever for me to read a book.) I plan to reread it after I finish Wuthering Heights and Mansfield Park, to take it in again. Immediately after I finished Persuasion, I read Northanger Abbey, Austen's first novel, and I was struck by how much Austen matured in her writing style. Northanger Abbey isn't poorly written, in any way, but Persuasion is far superior. The dialogue is well-placed and revealing. The characters aren't static or stereotypical. Each setting is well-described but not too much emphasis is placed on them.

Anne Elliott is my favorite Austen heroine. She is different from the other Austen heroines. She is quiet and introspective, and very observant. She is very much a background person; others rely on her without even realizing how much they do. She isn't free-spirited like Lizzy Bennett, isn't imaginative like Catherine Morland, isn't mischievous like Emma Woodhouse. She represents more the quiet strength of Elinor Dashwood, but she isn't like Elinor, either. Elinor is firm and in control at all times. Anne Elliott is, again, content to let others decide what to do. She is simply there when they need her to be there, and gone when they need her to be gone.

I read in the introduction to Persuasion that Marilyn Butler divided the Austen heroines into two categories: the ones who are always right, and the ones who are always wrong. In the "always wrong" category Butler puts Emma Woodhouse, Elizabeth Bennett, and Marianne Dashwood. These are the girls who through the book learn that they are wrong, that they made a mistake. Then, in the "always right" category Butler puts Elinor Dashwood, Fanny Price, and Anne Elliott. I disagree. Anne is not always in the right. She is often wrong. When she is nineteen, eight years before the novel begins, she gives in to her family's persuasion that she disappoint Frederick Wentworth, though she knew she should have married him. She didn't stand up for herself enough. And again, she was wrong in her perception of Mr. Elliott. She likes him very much, and even forgives him for disowning her father and scorning Elizabeth when he comes back to charm his way into their lives. He turns out to be a perfect scoundrel. No, Anne Elliott is not "always right". However, her imperfections, as all imperfections do, add dimension to her.

I've always been a Darcy girl, ever since I first saw the BBC movie adaption of Pride & Prejudice almost six years ago. However, now I think I'm more of a Wentworth girl. I think I like him better than Mr. Darcy. Mr. Darcy is great. I still love him. But I like Captain Wentworth better. He's more human than Mr. Darcy, more fallible, more real. Mr. Darcy seems almost too good to be true. Captain Wentworth, however, is not too good to be true. In fact, he can be a jerk. But he's so lovable. I don't have time right now to expand on just why I love him, but I do. Go read the book and find out why for yourself.

As a side note, I watched the 2007 BBC movie adaption of Persuasion. While I wouldn't call it terrific, I do say that they did a very good job for the ninety-eight minutes allotted to the film. The book is simply too complicated to be compressed into a movie of ninety-eight minutes, but they did do a good job with what they had. They changed Wentworth's proposal, though, and that I didn't like. Everything else I was satisfied with.

Well, I'm done avoiding homework. Much love.
ZB

Little things. Are they really worth it?

I've always been a firm believer in the My Vote Counts Theory--the theory that I can make a difference in the Big Issues with my little action. That's why I don't download music from the net, why I enter the yogurt-lid ten-cent donation code on cupsofhope.com, why I use cloth shopping bags and ride my bike to the library.

But lately, I've gotten a bit discouraged with all the mayhem around. Even though I do all these things, musical artists' sales are still dropping, the economy is still slumping, and the environment is still choking. And the yogurt lid? Well, how much can ten cents really be worth in the fight against cancer?

Needless to say, I've lost some motivation.

What difference is one decision really going to make? It's not like the glaciers are all melting for the sole reason that some chick in Texas forgot her reusable shopping bags one grocery trip. It naturally follows that remembering my shopping bags isn't going to make them freeze again. So what's the point?

I don't have any inspiring insights for this blog post. This isn't an "I thought this, but then I thought of this" post. This is an "I thought this and can't find any evidence to the contrary" post.

Why should I even make the effort? Why should I go to the trouble to do all these good things if it's not going to make a difference? I used to think, "If everyone thinks that, nobody will do anything, and nothing will ever change, so I'd better get a move on saving the world in my small part." But really, I don't affect anyone else's decisions. It truly won't make a difference in carbon emissions if I ride my bike to the library one day instead of driving. My small decision is not going to influence the rest of the world to do the same. So why should I even bother?

This is a pretty depressing blog post. Oh well. Much love.
ZB

Fanfiction. The Amazing, the Weird, and the Nausea-Inducing.

I like fanfiction. There, I've said it. If I were just discovering it, I probably would be derisive, condescending, perhaps even mocking of fanfiction. However, I have a long and complicated history with fanfiction, filled with sleepless nights, dried-out contacts, and, more recently, cast-off homework, and so am already entrenched in its grasp. Fanfiction is what I read when I just want something light and nonsensical to read, something that I don't have to think much about. I already know the worlds of fanfiction, so I have no introductions to wade through as with a new fiction book.

However, it is very difficult to find good fanfiction. I have come to the conclusion that there are three classes of fanfiction: the Amazing, the Weird, and the Nausea-Inducing. Most fanfiction falls into the last of these categories, Nausea-Inducing. Most fanfiction is poorly written, unimaginative crap in which the characters defy their natural personalities in favor of the ones the writer wishes them to have. It is imbalanced, depending on whether the writer prefers to write action or dialogue (or--shudder--description). The plot is so messy and uncreative that the poor reader can't tell what has happened or what is happening, but can tell precisely what will happen. Still others in the Nausea-Inducing category have no plot whatsoever and are simply unorganized bits of random action and dialogue that point to no purpose at all.

The Weird category is small, but sufficiently popular to merit mention. The Weird category mainly consists of badly written humor or alternate universes. The humor is not necessarily written poorly, in the prose itself; it's simply not funny. The writer obviously has such a quirky sense of humor or such a bad case of insomnia that whatever they label "funny" is simply not funny at all, and merely Weird. The alternate universes are even Weirder. They may make sense, but the events that occur in these alternate universes are so strange that the reader shakes his head in befuddlement and moves on to the next piece in hopes that this one will finally be in the last category, Amazing.

The Amazing category is the smallest of these three categories. The snippets referred to in the fanfiction community as "oneshots" make up the bulk of this type. These are short pieces of prose. Many are small happy or humorous moments in the characters' lives, or small unhappy moments that are nonetheless touching. Others expand on unexplained moments in the character's canon lives.

And then, once in a while, you stumble across a fanfiction that is not a oneshot that still falls in the Amazing category. These are the best kinds of fanfiction. They are long, often novel-length. They are well-written and, most important, connect you to the character on an even deeper emotional level than the original work did. Although the characters stay within their natural personalities, the reader gets a glimpse of a side of them that he hadn't seen before.

What, you ask, has possessed me to write this exposition on the three types of fanfiction? Well, for one, nobody is going to read this blog, so it doesn't really matter if I reveal my love of fanfiction to the internet. My primary reason for choosing this subject is, however, that I am in the middle of one of those fanfictions that fall into the category of Amazing. It's actually the first in a series of three fanfictions, and I hope that the second two are as good as the first. Combined, they are over 250,000 words, so I have quite a bit to read. The writer's style is unusal, but suited to the main character's personality. That is something I find particularly attractive, as his personality is difficult to write. (I would know. I've tried.) I am writing this blog, and not reading, because I decided it would be a good idea to get away from it for a few minutes. I've read the bigger part of the first in the trilogy today, and think it it would be wise to set it aside for a while, to make it last longer. That's the problem with fanfiction--I speed through all the Amazing ones I can find and then have to spend at least that much time again searching for another Amazing one. So, I'm trying to make this one last.

That's all for now. I'm off to play a game with my family. Much love.
ZB