Frankenstein...Goblins....What's Next?

Goblins get a bad rap. They are short and ugly and have spawned ideas for other creatures (house-elves, Golem). So perhaps they were the perfect, yet odd, choice for Rossetti's poem "Goblin Market." Over the course of the poem, one girl named Lizzie, gobbles up fruit sold by the goblins. She could not help herself, they kept crying out to her! Her sister, Laura, shelters herself from the advertising in order to not cave herself.

Sounds like marketing today. Can you even watch an hour of television (via actual TV) without seeing the same (usually terrible) ad over and over and over? With technology this has gotten even worse. Billboards, pop-ups, flash banners, special sponsorships, promotions, infomercials--even foreheads-- have become a place for sellers to make their mark. We cannot, no matter how much we may desire, flee the scene as Laura does. And we cannot give into to every advertising ploy or we would be broke (and dead). We must find a happy medium within our own desires.

Of Cupid, Valentines, and Lovefools...

So this week we had the pleasure of reading Elizabeth Browning's "Say over agin, and yet once over again..." I surely hope Browning wasn't as ignorant as the speaker of the poem.

The poem embodies everything I hate about Valentine's Day (except that whole massacre thing). It sounds like a Hallmark card. It probably is one.

Sure, hearing "I love you" is nice. But this phrase is so overused it has lost all meaning. Think walking down the hall and saying "how are you?" to someone. You don't actually expect their response. Or watching a Tarantino film-the language (albeit not "I love you"-except for the Honey Bunny/Pumpkin scene in Pulp Fiction) eventually fades into the background.

The poem ends with the speaker saying that saying "I love you" is not enough. You also have to love them with your soul. Awesome. If only this were possible to express. The last line is the major flaw of the poem. It implies an extreme trust between the two individuals. Except that one of them needs to hear that they are loved all the freakin' time!

The speaker should have focused on the expression of love. How one can prove that they love someone else. Words mean nothing, but a candlelit dinner in France could mean more.

And now I have undermined my entire point. You can't buy love(thanks Lennon/McCartney), but it is an action that somehow shows how much you care. See also: candy hearts.

Everything is ironic when you are exhausted

I am identifying with Shelley's Victor alot today. I am also very tired, so bear with me.

My Frankenstein is a short story. I have devoted alot more time to writing it (an actual rough draft, not the entire thing the night before) and woke up this morning to see just how horrid this creature is. We are talking plot digressions, extranious characters, crappy dialogue, and over the page limit. I really just want to chuck it and do a gut-shot story (and another all-nighter).

But reading about Victor's plight kind of scared me.

Will this story haunt my dreams? Will it result in the death of my loved ones?

Probably not.

I will just spend one more torturous night trying to get it right. My family should thank me.

We've Got Class

What is class? Is it a certain position of wealth? Is is a sense of morality?

It's not something we really consciously think about today. Yes, we have our divisions in society. Some are geological, and some have to do with a certain status of importance. And we all remember sitting at a certain table at lunch. But do we purposely segregate ourselves from those of a certain monetary background? Some do. But with public schools and workplaces blending a variety of backgrounds, this is not really a trend.

Still, there is a percievable amount of tension within our country. We fight everyday on immigration issues. Is this an issue of class (pick a definition) or protecting our homeland?