In class we talked about the “composite” of Proust’s characters he makes up. These characters are made up to be apart of this “general subject” what ever that may be, but he does this so the reader can relate to these characters/ situations. During seminar “The big truth is suppose to resonate with you ( the reader) was said and this quote ties in with what my smaller workshop discussed about “it being okay to write a story for the ‘entertainment’ or the ‘good story’ but with a little bit of the truth. So then it appeals to the reader. It was also said that literary texts draw readers to ‘relate” using universal aspects. This concept reminds of me other art forms. Such as a musician, and how you’re not a “TRUE” musician if you’re not someone who sings from experience writing meaningful lyrics to draw in your audience (the reader)–> i think it’s all about interpretation then. because the artists interprets their views on the subject (what ever that may be) but if they’re being  a “TRUE MUSICIAN” they leave their audience with an impression giving them something to think about and to draw their own views on the piece.

Tasia asked me if I had remembered the therapies my parent’s put me in and I answered vaguely. But now that I had the time to think about it.

Even though my early childhood is a complete blank, my mother’s passion for recording important and minor moments in our family’s life through photography. With my mother’s great mostly clerical memory   and the pictures to support her recollection, I was able to draw that as a child and to my current adulthood I learned and related better through music. My mom placed me in a private class where my teacher taught children’s basic knowledge. Such as the ABC’s, Counting, body parts, knowing my name etc. but they taught me these things through song and dance technique. This particular learning style helped me excel along with the physical, speech and occupational therapies she said i was in.

Although there were other parts that stood out to me through out the movie, what stood out the most was the “cinematography” aspects.(what i think it’s called). I noticed that in certain points  of Proust’s memory, the setting of the scene would be highlighted by this bright light thats looks like it was coming from the windows and even the lamps in the room or which ever source of lighting it is gets bright and distorts the part of the scene that it’s highlighting. I was wondering if this was intentional?

” I was distressed to see how little I relived my early years. I found the Vivonne narrow and ugly alongside the towpath. Not that I noticed any great physical discrepancies from what I remembered. But, separated as I was by a whole lifetime from places I now happened to be passing through again, there was lacking between them and me that contiguity, from which is born, even before we have perceived it, the immediate, delicious and total deflagration of memory.” (Proust, Vol.VI. 2)

I think this is when the narrator is differentiating his childhood (or early)memory and adult. I also think this passage shows the (lack of better words) evolution of the narrator from “boyhood” to “adulthood.”  I think this is important because yes as you get older and you come back to things that you use to do as a kid or see everyday as a young adult, child, whichever you see as an adult differently. For the narrator it’s Combray  and the paths he took with his family and the people he interacted with such as Gilberte. He even notices the difference in his memory of the church of Combray. I remember in the first Volume when the narrator talks about the church at Combray he talks about it how the steeple looks like a loaf of bread and he describes the cathedral using magical imagery and metaphors. Now he describes it as dull, dark blue and even colourless. When Gilberte tells the narrator that she has liked him all along and that as a child/ “young naughty girl” she gave him signals to convey her attraction towards him. The Narrator then realizes that he not very perceptive of not only of his own memory but women too because he then goes into how he perceived Albertine too.

“But above all we must remember this: on the one hand, lying is often a trait of characters; on the other hand, in women who would not otherwise be liars, it is a natural defense, be liars, it is a natural defense, improvised at first, then more and more organized, against that sudden danger which would be capable of destroying a life: love.”

This passage stood out to me because I think proust is saying that women who are not natural liars, lie to protect themselves from love. Any one lies to protect themselves from love, not just women. It can’t be blamed on a particular sex, it’s the individual. The character that Proust writes about who are “destroyed” by the love of these women characters are dramatic if you ask me. They get so caught up in the obsession that they forget that these women initially ignored them and didn’t show any interest. But they go on and obsess and then eventually lose their minds trying to get over them after the fact or can’t get enough of them. Just saying.

Kindred by Octavia Butler reminds me of a book similar to this sci-fi aspect of traveling back in time to a historical point. The book is called, “Ann Frank and Me.” by married couple: Cherie Bennett and Jeff Gottesfeld, this book was inspired by the life of Ann Frank. The girl goes on a class field trip to the museum for the Holocaust, each student is assigned a person who was alive during that time. Something happens that she is knocked unconscious and when she wakes up, she wakes as her character. She goes through this epic journey being put on the trains, into camps and even coming across Ann Frank.  The girl that travels lived durring the early 2000’s and she also has to adapt to a time and place she is not use to.  Although, Dana traveled to a time where she was some what relevant (her ancestors) so that would be the differences between the two novels, but surviving, sexism, racism and classism definitely come through these books helping me understand the impressionism of these time periods.

Kindred shows a reoccurring theme of sexism and classism but also racism thats been through out Prousts “In Search of Lost Time.” The male characters come off as dominant, over compensating and frightened of a woman with any time of power. Particularly  “black women” but also “Black women who are educated.” Men during this time and in Prousts book believe a woman’s place is only in the household, to bare children, to be silent and submissive to them. The female characters are everything but those characteristics. My favorite character through out the volume of Swann In Love was Odette. She had such a hold on Swann and it came off to me as a powerful attraction that she used to her advantage. Another female character that seemed “dumb” to the male character of the narrator, but was beyond that, was Albertine. These characteristics were apparent in the character of Dana in Kindred.   She obviously came from the 1970’s and during that time in the US women have rights, interracial relationships were more open (shammed but opened) and being plunged into the antebellum south during the 1800’s from such a time would be a great slap in the face. It’s like starting all over again, when she wasn’t even alive to “start” you know?  I couldn’t imagine this, one I’m not black, but I am a woman and having been raised to be independent and not rely on a man for anything, but also that i can date which ever man no matter their skin color  would be a hard thing to learn to not do. So Dana definitely had to adapt to survive. Not only did she have to adapt, but once Kevin traveled in time with her she stressed about his survival. I thought it was weird, that he seemed fairly comfortable living durring this time period because he’s white and a man he had more power than he had when he was in the 1970’s.

“I was so much in the habit of having Albertine with me, and now I suddenly saw a new aspect of Habit. Hitherto I had regarded it chiefly as an annihilating force which suppresses the originality and even the awareness of one’s perceptions; now I saw it as a dread deity, so riveted to one’s being, its insignificant face so incrusted in one’s heart, that if it detaches itself, if it turns away from one, this deity that one had barely distinguished inflicts on one sufferings more terrible than any other and is then as cruel as death itself.”

Habit has been a reoccurring theme through out the different volumes. In the first Volume it was the narrators habit of endearment from his mother for bed time. During that point, I wasn’t sure if it was for the habit of “routine, a bed time story, a good night kiss” or if it was just the habit of seeing his mothers face as the last person before he shut his eyes. Then as the book goes deeper, the habit grows deeper as well. To me the theme outlines neurotic habits, i didn’t see the anxiety of the habits when the narrator was younger and wanted nothing but his mothers kiss goodnight. But when he gets older, the understanding of the habit grows as well. Which brings me to the reason why I picked this quote, because it shows the development of the narrators understanding of not only habit but habit as a whole (himself, the habits and the people he associates with the habits)

On page 195 of the sexual politics of female criminality there is a cartoon titled “Feminist demands…” It shows the male and the female role during this time but switched up because the female role has a man’s face and the male role has a females face. In this section it is being said that the modern woman was winning her freedom but also being masculinized. Even before I saw the comic strip I automatically thought of the Rosie the riveter poster from the 1940s  and how shes showing off her muscle while she has her bandanna on her head from working at home but it’s her elbow and hands that’s dramatized and looks rough “like a mans.” Representing feminism and women’s economic power.

“Society is afraid of both the feminist and the murderer, for each of them, in her own way, tests societies establish boundaries… Nor is it surprising that the panic provoked by feminism and the alarm at female criminality coincide almost perfectly, as though according to some plan.”
Ann Jones, women who kill, 1980

I’m not sure if this is right but what I drew out of this quote is that society is afraid of women and what they’re capable of and the power that women have beyond their own home. And from my interpretation I thought of how society today looks at women in power. It’s ironic and quite sad when women in a high position in the work place is categoriezed/looked upon as if we either A) slept our way to the top or B) worked so hard that we are considered a bitch/prude/ and sometimes masculine etc. i feel that women are only looked at this way because it is men who are intimidated by such success in a person of the opposite sex. I also was interested in this quote because it reminds me of the power dynamic of female characters through out In Search of Lost Time. Several women such as Odette and Albertine have this hold on their men  and it makes the male characters crazy-obsessed not only with them but with getting the upper hand on them. There was a time in “The Guermantes Way” when Odette says that men can be manipulated to do anything by a woman. If this is so, it makes me wonder and its unfortunate to say that women who are aware or have this power over any male or even another individual can use this to their advantage for the good or for the bad.