Black Swan Green

Christopher Soutter

1. Gypsy Chapter

In Knife Grinder, Jason gets a taste of his own medicine by looking down upon the “Gypsies”. Earlier in the chapter, Jason was complaining about how he does not like being looked down upon by Ross Wilcox and Gary Drake and hides deep in a forest when he notices them having a “war”. Jason was scared and intimidated by the site of bullies and went out of his to way to avoid them. Throughout the story, Jason has yet to figure out why he is always the one being considered an outcast. However, when Jason encounters the Gypsies, he automatically classifies the Gypsies as weird people who he does not want to be with. As the chapter progresses, he realizes they are not as bad as they seem and that they hide from people like him who stereotype them without any reason. The irony of Jason turning into the prejudice person is incredible because now he understands the perception of bullies looking at him as an outcast and what an outcast looks like to a dominant figure. Jason learned his lesson about looking down on people to make himself feel stronger even though he is often the one looked down upon.

2. Goose Fair:

In Goose Fair, Jason finally finds himself a sort of confidence and larger presence in his town. Early in the chapter, Jason faces off against Gary Drake in a game of darts and ends up winning. After the game, Gary Drake says “Y-y-yeah, T-T-T-Taylor,” taunting and shaking off the fact that he was just beaten by someone who he viewed as a loser. However, following the comments, a character named Alan Wall stepped onto Jason’s side and offered to beat up Gary Drake. Jason states, “he could beat Gary Drake into a Gary Drake omelette.” From Alan Walls help in intimidating Gary Drake away from Jason, Jason gains a sense of confidence and comfort when he finally finds someone to support him. From this moment on, Jason comes out of his loneliness and begins feeling more confident. Later in the chapter, Jason has the nerve to return Ross Wilcox’s wallet to him, the same person who has been bullying him the whole story. In the act of returning the wallet, Jason matures and does not take any money from the wallet, even though he could.  Jason resists his temptation of theft and is respectful by returning Ross Wilcox’s wallet to him.

3. January Man:

January Man marks a checkpoint in Jason’s life where he learns how he has fixed himself throughout the year. The quotation “Either you suffer the consequences of not noticing your fault forever or, one day, you do notice it, and fix it” from Black Swan Green reflects Jason’s self-awareness and confidence boost in the last year. Since Jason noticed his weaknesses, he has pulled himself out of being bullied and gained the confidence to overcome the bullies, Wilcox and Drake, by confronting them himself. Compared to the beginning of the story where Jason struggled to talk to others, Jason has improved his self-esteem and continues to ignore the negativity towards him from others. Also, Jason’s maturity is reflected when he observes the unfairness in the world. On page 285, Jason states “They fall out of love, Julia moves of to Edinburgh, Mum to Cheltenham, and Dad to Oxford with Cynthia. The world never stops unmaking what the world never stops making.” Jason is describing his family’s current situation and observes the confusion within his family, yet realizes the world is not a perfect place.

4. Disco:

An important message in the chapter disco comes from Jason’s teacher Miss Lippets who connects “Ethics, Batman’s Real Name Is Bruce Wayne, and Reputation”. Miss Lippetts elaborates on the fact that all three topics discussed are connected to each other. However, these three topics are a reflection of Jason in the story. Ethics reflects Jason’s struggle to “with what you should and shouldn’t do.” Throughout the text, Jason is confused with who he is as a person; who are his friends? What is wrong with his family? How is he viewed? From these questions, Jason’s struggles to determine his ethic. Then, with “Batman’s Real Name is Bruce Wayne,” this scenario is similar to Jason, except for that Jason’s secret is out, his stutter. With Batman if people found out his real identity, people would “Blow Bruce Wayne’s mansion to smithereens.” For Jason, people have found out his secret and have bullied him into a point where he feels insecure about the misfortune. Finally, for reputation, the awareness of Jason’s stutter has caused a permanent label on Jason. With a reputation, it is extremely hard to change people’s minds from what they originally thought. Once Jason is labeled for his stutter, people, such as Drake and Wilcox, point out his weaknesses to others and pick on him. Overall, the struggle of Jason’s ethic, secret, and reputation have lead Jason to becoming apart of the lower social class.

5. Poem:

Must’ve picked up a nasty stutter from somewhere

Then it’ll be back to five more days like today, worse than today, far worse than today

You’re not a maggot. Don’t let dickheads decide what you are

What’re yer smiling about, yer oily fuckin’ maggot

Or c-c-can’t y-y-yer get the w-w-words out, yer st -st- stuttery bugger

The bride and back! Go!

Where d’ you think you’re going, Maggot?

Yer a laughingstock, Taylor

A piss-flaps toss-pot laughingstock

Well wakey fucking wakey, sunbeam! Life’s a Borstal!

6. Overall:

Over the course of Black Swan Green, Jason has used his weaknesses and turned them into his strengths. For instance, in the beginning of the story in the chapter Hangman, Jason’s weaknesses of stuttering and the hangman are brought to his attention. By the end of the story, Jason is not perfect with his stuttering, but he has dramatically improved his ability to speak without hesitation and with confidence. Also, Jason’s weakness of being an outsider has helped him understand what he really looks like and how he has prevailed to improve himself from a social standpoint. If Jason had not encountered the Gypsies, Jason’s understanding of outsiders would not be complete due to his lack of self -recognition. From the Gypsies, Jason understands that he is in the “Gypsy” group of his school and is considered to be irrelevant.  However, Jason’s ability to grow over the course of the book is in response to a long period of time. In this period of time, he figures himself out and uses Wilcox and Drake’s hate to motivate himself to improve himself.

Act 3 Scene 4 of Macbeth

Contemplate the performance of this scene. Specifically, think about how Macbeth reacts to the ghost of Banquo. Write a brief response on my blog. 

In this scene, Macbeth had recently assigned three murderers to kill Banquo. After Banquo's death, a murderer returned to Macbeth's banquet to alert Macbeth on the death of Banquo but that Fleance had unfortunately escaped. When the murderer left, Macbeth returns to his banquet, yet is greeted by Banquo's ghost who triggers a sudden feeling of fear and scare to Macbeth. Macbeth became so paranoid about the ghosts that Lady Macbeth was forced to cancel the banquet due to the behavior of Macbeth. 

I believe that Macbeth is traumatized by the murder of Banquo. In Act three Scene three, the first murderer was curious to know who had joined the murderers to have a total of three. Macbeth must have been one of the murderers. Based on Macbeth's fear about the murder of Banquo in Act three Scene four, when Macbeth is talking to a murderer at the beginning of the scene, I believe he is talking to himself and is overly freaked out. Once Macbeth was nervous about the murder, he couldn't stop thinking about the murderer and developed constant stress. Also, considering the fact that Macbeth was the only one who could see Banquo's ghost, It determines that Macbeth was overly traumatized about murdering Banquo.

http://www.cottiers.com/uploaded/2011/08/macbeth.jpg

Power

Power is the ability to overturn, control, or influence another person physically or mentally by oneself or through a group effort. Power has a wide variety of categories. There is military, political, mental, and economic power. Military power is the taking over of other forces through the use of modern weapons and large militaries. Political power is controlling or overturning other political parties to help improve a specific party's influence on a country. Mental power is using education, leadership, and common sense to guide a certain audience into believing what another person believes, often used in different forms of media. Economic power is operating off a large sum of money, in most cases, a person or company with more money is considered more valuable compared to a small company or poor person. Overall, in most forms of power, there is a blend of each category to help raise a certain power.

Chapel speech

Turtles and Moths

10/9/14

9:45 PM

Humans typically admire animals because humans often feel guilty for treating animals unequally for the benefit of human power or that humans love how animals look and act. This means that humans have taken a majority of animal’s habitats and feel responsible for destroying nature. Also, humans typically admire animals because humans love studying, looking at or living with animals as pets often treating the pet like another person.

Hoagland and Woolf admire turtle and moths’ natural lives. Hoagland and Woolf put themselves in a turtle and moth’s shoes to understand what it would be like to be a turtle or moth. In both stories, Hoagland and Woolf are faced with a moth and turtle struggling to survive and decide to let the animals suffer and die. The reason why Woolf and Hoagland let the animals die is because nature is not fair, death occurs and there is nothing humans can do to cure the wild from death. On page ¾, Woolf states, “One’s sympathies, of course, were all on the side of life”, admitting that Woolf wanted to save the moth from death but did not want to interfere with nature. Also, in Hoagland’s story, Hoagland admits that humans have disrupted the way turtles live their natural lives by capturing the turtles from the wild and bringing turtles back to the city.

            I admire Osprey because of their ability to adapt to human’s invasion of their habitat and food source. Ospreys are large water birds that only eat fish and migrate from New England to Florida for the winter. Often, humans have developed buildings on most coastlines and marshlands interfering with osprey’s nesting habitat. Over the last few decades, ospreys have developed nesting on top of human objects. For example, ospreys have designed nests on football stadium lights, abandon water shacks, and even cellular towers. I admire the osprey because they have adjusted to the human’s construction and adapted by discovering places to take advantage of a safe, out of the way habitat. Also, ospreys do not create trouble, osprey mind their own business by fishing in the ocean or ponds and bringing the fish back to their nest to feed their families. Ospreys do not create trouble in the wild, osprey stay out of other animal’s lives and try to survive on their own.

Osprey Picture: http://savetheeaglesinternational.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/osprey-with-bass.jpg

Total Eclipse

(Pg. 489, lines 14-20)

“We never looked back. It was a general vamoose, and an odd one, for when we left the hill, the sun was still partially eclipsed- a sight rare enough, and one which, in itself, we would probably have driven five hours to see. But enough is enough. One turns at last even form glory itself with a sigh of relief. From the depths of mystery, and even from the heights of splendor, we bounce back and hurry for the latitudes of home.”

The importance of this passage is that the passage represents the story as a whole. The passage stands out because it is recapping why the trip to Yakima was worth it. In addition, the phrase “We never looked back” means that their journey was successful because she had seen the eclipse like she planned and was ready to head back home. Also, stating “One turns at last even from glory itself with a sigh of relief ” supports the theory that Dillard was only in Yakima to see the eclipse and once the eclipse occurred, she wanted to head home. Dillard’s goal in writing this passage was to reflect and describe how grateful she was to see and be apart of a total eclipse in person. Dillard does an unbelievable job using her senses to paint the scenery and moments in my head helping me understand what it is like to be in an eclipse. The passage fits into Total Eclipse as a whole because the passage values the importance of experiencing the total eclipse but also, the best moments don’t last forever and that good moments always come to an ending. In Dillard’s case, the total eclipse ending and driving back home is when the good moments end. Overall, this passage emphasized the great experience Dillard had visiting Yakima and seeing a total eclipse.

Once More to the Lake

E.B. White’s Once More to the Lake, is structured in the way of a reflection. White releases his memories about the lake he visited as a kid and currently as an adult. White’s love for the lake causes him to write Once More to the Lake, in the view of himself as a kid with his father and in the present as a father with his son. The first sentence of the story states “…my father rented a camp on a lake in Maine and took us there for the month of August…. We returned summer after summer.” This sentence is expressing how White loved going to the lake and after he went the first time, he never stopped going. Also, E.B. White stated; “My boy loved our rented outboard, and his great desire was to achieve single-handed mastery over it, and authority…” This quotation elaborates on the fact that like White himself, his son loves engines as well, and reflects on the fun he had discovering engines while he was a kid. Basically, White puts us in his shoes as himself as a kid on the lake, then puts us in his shoes as a father bringing his son to the lake to enjoy the summer.

E.B White is noticing his family is continuing a tradition that he started with his parents. He reflects on the moment when he states; “…the children screaming with delight at the new sensation of bathing in the rain, and the joke about getting drenched linking the generations in a strong indestructible chain.” He emphasizes on his generation of the family connecting with his son’s generation. By “a strong indestructible chain”, White means that the tradition of going to the lake will continue and nothing is stopping him from going to the lake every year. At the end, White is struggling to see his son jump into the water during the thunderstorm like White did as a kid. White was remembering when he was a kid and had fun while his father watched him. In this last paragraph, White is elaborating on the father like son characteristic and family traditions will always continue.