On Absence

Dying, I suppose, is an inevitable part of being alive. We write about death all the time; in our speech, we say “I’m gonna kill you”; “Oh, I feel like death…”, and so forth. We never really appreciate the full gravitas of what we say. This isn’t just limited to death however; we misunderstand, or at least fail to appreciate the full significance of an idea, or a word, on a regular basis. We just never realise the full potential of what we are saying.

However, when people do disappear, whether they die, or you just lose contact with them, it’s an inexplicable feeling. It’s horrible, because you feel like something is missing. And that’s reasonable, because something is missing. There’s a part of your life that has changed; that change is often set in stone, and that’s just a part of life. People change on the basis of loss, and how they cope with it.

Humans are incredible to the extent that we can adapt to a hostile environment, and change accordingly. We wouldn’t be able to exist on a planet that fundamentally exists on the basis of change if we couldn’t; we have to just roll with the punches, and salvage what we can from the mess we leave behind us. Even the most hygienic, tidy and scrupulous human being leaves mess in their wake. I’m not talking about leaving tea cups, crisp packets and toast crumbs behind you; I mean emotional mess; the stack of relationships, friends, people that we find in our wake. We always have an impact on the people we care about. We also have an impact on people we barely even recognize.

Equally, our people leave us in their wake; they change our expectations of the world around us, for better, or for worse. We have to know what it means to be sad in order to be a whole, rounded person. People that are perpetually happy, all the time won’t know how strong they are until they have to come back from something vile, something impossible. You cannot possibly know how strong you are until you have to be strong.

So people, in absence, is terrifying, horrible; it is impossibly cruel. Especially when people are young, and they die far, far too young. People lose their kids, their wives, and their husbands. Those people are full of a strength that people have to find for themselves; it cannot be learnt, and it cannot be studied from a book. “A degree from the university of life”, one might say. Because that’s what it is; it’s life, and life is scary. I don’t know very much about life; I’m eighteen. But I know a little bit, just enough to know it’s scary, and the things I have seen barely scratch the surface of the things I may see, one day.

I think then, in conclusion, you should say what you think; appreciate people. Know that you have to be sad sometimes, in order to be strong. That’s the really hard part. Standing up and realising that life goes on, whether you want it to or not. I suppose you just have to appreciate life, and the fact that you’re in it, whilst you can. Do stuff; be something, and don’t waste it.

“Did you say it? ‘I love you. I don’t ever want to live without you. You changed my life.’ Did you say it? Make a plan. Set a goal. Work towards it. But every now and then, look around, and drink it in. Because this is it. And it might all be gone tomorrow.” – Grey’s Anatomy

I realise the quote is horribly cheesy, directly quoted from television drama; but I still think it’s a very nice message to put across.

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Internally Alarming

In light of my recent post, I thought I’d post this diagram about the human body clock. I love the idea of there being an innate schedule which we have to abide by. It’s quite interesting to consider the idea of how productive we could all be if we were all well scheduled individuals, and what we’d be able to do if we could optimize ourselves. I don’t think anyone can ever be completely tuned in all the time though; everyone has to have the leeway to relax; no one can be productive all the time.

I like to think however that one day, I’ll rule the world. (:

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With thanks to http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/5f/Biological_clock

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Adventures In Dreamland

I never quite know how to feel about sleep. Which of course is a very strange statement to make, but its true; I never really know how to feel about it. I’m usually caught somewhere between despising it, and adoring it so much that I’d like to maintain it for a very long time. I seem to swing between four, six, or twelve hours sleep. I love to sleep, and this is often my downfall.

If I allowed myself, I’d sleep from midnight until 11am, every day. In fact, I could sleep all day, and then I’d stay up all night, and this is what I did last year. However, I don’t like not seeing even the smallest amount of daylight; waking at 2pm in the winter means you are essentially nocturnal. Getting up at 7am is however, infinitely harder. It’s like you are trying to rebel against the biological want to stay in bed, all day. I read somewhere that adolescents are prone to this, and as you get older, it gets easier to be up early, and to be early. But this is what I’m trying for. In fact, I was doing rather well until two weeks ago, when I went home for a little while, and didn’t need to be up early at the gym everyday. This is my problem; I’m a creature of habit, of routine.

But now, I’m working hard at crawling back into routine. I’ve broken out my Outlook program again, and started planning meals. I did a nice healthy ASDA shop earlier, and looked at ways of making sleep patterns better. I’ve planned my week out with a colour coded schedule. It sounds so completely over-organised, but it seems to be the best way to make me get things done. I can’t abide not doing anything at all, and so scheduling, well, it gives me goals. Some people hate structure, and routine; I adore it. Have goals and achieving them is by far the most satisfying feeling in the world.

And this is just the breakfast nap... (1)

Sleeping however, allows our minds to flow into the deepest recesses of ourselves. It’s amazing when we consider what can happen in dreams. Dreams are always so much better than television; it seems miraculous that we can create imagery and story lines in such depth. And equally it’s scary, because our minds have secrets from themselves. I find psychology interesting but at the same time, I hate the idea of somebody poking about inside minds. We know very little about the brain, in comparison with what we know about other organs. We know all there is to know about the heart; we know how it works, what happens when we change things about it. It seems vaguely dangerous that we can play with the enigma that is the brain, it’s function, and assume what it can do. Like playing with chemicals that have only just been discovered, you can’t know what the reaction can be. Psychology helps people, but I imagine it hinders them sometimes too.

So really, in conclusion, too much of a good thing is a bad thing. I think that’s a good mentality to have. A little of everything, but an excess of nothing. That whole sentence made me feel so old, and so boring. Oscar Wilde would have been thoroughly ashamed.

(:

(1) http://www.deshow.net/d/file/funny/2009-04/funny-baby-506-2.jpg

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Oh, What It Would Have Been…

The best news arrived on my twitter feed today: the Titanic movie, starring Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio, is being relaunched in April. In 3D. I read this wonderful nugget of information and then starting jumping up and down, because I love that film. Honestly. I get completely caught up in the sentimentality and the opulence, and start wondering whether I would have done well in the aristocracy, being Rose. I very much doubt it however; I don’t like corsets, and am rather comfortable in track suit bottoms, and the dress code would probably prove beyond my tolerance. I think I just quite like the idea of being involved in such a romantic situation.

It wasn’t really romantic, of course, because it didn’t happen in real life. However for one hundred and ninety-four minutes, it seems very realistic. The special effects are remarkable; the ship seems completely real, and even to the most critical film buff, it has some value. It even contains a degree of educational value; the unsinkable Molly Brown was indeed aboard the RMS Titanic, and the crew as stated in the film were largely a part of the create tragedy. I love true stories; and whilst Jack and Rose didn’t really exist, the ship did, and I imagine there were some interesting affairs and entanglements aboard.

So, to belong to the aristocracy; it’d certainly be wonderful to experience if even for a day, because we’d all love to be the elite; not to simply examine them, and watch them like vultures, but to be them: to be the people who are the most talked about in history. I think some of the facets of this world would be luxurious beyond any kind of modern comprehension; for example, dressing in magnificent gowns for dinner, or sailing first class across the world. Being painted, being given extraordinarily extravagant gifts, dancing. That would be fantastic. But, I think only for a week.

As a student of course, I also indulge in the above; I go dancing regularly, and I have a fantastic dressing gown that I often sport in the kitchen whilst I’m making my tea. I also receive extravagant gifts, for example, a huge bar of Dairy Milk, or a nice bottle of wine. But somehow, I think the chasm between the old world of decadence is rather far removed from the one I experience, or in fact the one that any modern person can experience. The old world, although highly romanticized, was wonderfully decadent; it was almost a bottomless pit of beauty and luxury. So much so that it was unsustainable perhaps, and of course it had its flaws; it was horrendously political, and expectations preceded personalities. But undeniably, it would have been a wonderful playground to explore for a month or so.

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It’s Nice to Meet You, Mr. Hyde

The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is possibly my favourite novella, and I only made this discovery on Monday night, having realised, in something of a panic, that I was due to discuss this novella in relation to Freudian psychoanalysis, the following morning, ten am sharp. So, I did what all good students do: camped out on my bed, with a big pile of pillows, and read all eighty-two pages, feverishly, and with fear of my seminar leader deep in my heart. It took about two hours.

Anyway, I finished the novella, and came to the conclusion that I had rather enjoyed it. In fact, I’d enjoyed it so much that I thought I might well read it again, just for fun. The best element though, in my opinion, is the protagonist’s ability to be himself, and yet somebody entirely different, at the same time. In some ways, isn’t this what we’d all like to be able to do? I certainly would.

Book Cover (1)

Dr. Jekyll however becomes a fantastical opposite of what he is in reality; a blood thirsty monster, subject to his own innate impulses.  It can be said however that the Jekyll that is sane, and balanced, is not the true self that exists within him; instead, it is possible that he is in fact the monstrous character of Hyde, by way of the fact that he finds these impulses within what is essentially his soul, however I use this phrase with some apathy.

This can be related to the Freudian idea of the id, ego and superego, however personally, I’m not a devout follower of this school of criticism. In fairness to the wonderful Dr. Freud though, he might have managed to save us if he’d managed to keep his appointment with Hitler. His neuroses would have allowed the man a significant case study and one heck of a field day.

In a way, the idea of having multiple personalities stored inside you is completely terrifying. There is perhaps nothing so disconcerting as this idea, because according to this hypothesis, nobody is really aware of their limits, or how far they could possibly go. This is true of life however; people are never quite aware of what they can do until they choose to push the boat out and find out. People sometimes overstep themselves, and forget their limits; they do things that damage them. However the idea that we have innumerable possibilities before us is both liberating and horrifying because we can’t ever know what we could do.

Hyde however, is far less enigmatic; he is evidently capable of unrestrained evil, murder and deception. An interesting idea however is what would happen if we could all release ourselves into this world of unmitigated impulse. This idea is reflecting, in two of my favourite texts, of course; (can you guess what they are?) The Wasteland and The Picture of Dorian Grey . The latter is probably the best example however; excess, temptation, and the abandonment of restraint all seem to make rather delectable reading, at least to those who adore decadence and anarchy, like myself.

If you’re in the mood for some light horror, and an evening’s entertainment, then this is the novella for you. Especially if psychodrama tickles your taste buds.

(:

(1) http://sarahalicewaterhouse.files.wordpress.com/2012/02/read-dr-jekyll-and-mr-hyde-online-free.jpg?w=224

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An Overheated Evening In Hell’s Kitchen

So this evening has been eventful, on the basis that firstly, I did lots of work, and finished a presentation. And secondly, because I caused a small pan fire, in the kitchen. Which obviously is not good for the health of a flat, one’s flatmates, or oneself.

Now, you might be wondering how such a magnificently daft feat was achieved, and the only answer I have is that apparently, frozen peas into hot oil causes something of a combustion type effect. However, previous to the frying pan fire, I didn’t realise this, and so when I borrowed my flatmates hot pan to save on the endless pile of washing up, I didn’t quite realise what might follow. However, when I put the peas in, and immediately afterwards, two foot high flames rose into the air, I thought this might be a rather flammable concoction.

A recreation of this evening's events. (1)

As the flames licked upwards, towards the plastic overhang of the extractor fan, I stood there like a rabbit caught in headlights. In fact, I stood there looking profoundly more useless, because I just didn’t know what to do. I’ve never had a pan fire before. Now we know however, that unless it burns out, then a damp tea-towel will (hopefully) prevent your university allocated accommodation from becoming a small pile of cinders, on the floor.

When I phoned my lovely mum to tell her about this, she was both amused and exasperated I think. My dad was less amused; he expressed this by saying “Sarah, I worry you’re going to set fire to yourself, or somebody else one day soon.” I reassured him that it was okay, and that I have learnt, and from this day forth, I shall never put water into hot oil, ever again. I really should have revised basic combustion before bravely attempting to tackle the frying pan and hot hob combination.

And that, dear reader, is my contribution to describing the life of a university student for the day. Now, frankly, I advise you to take heed of these wonderful words of wisdom:

Hot oil + water = two foot high flames.

Ah, university. An endless learning experience.

(:

(1) http://www.bbc.co.uk/learningzone/clips/9151.preview.jpg

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Humanity, 1910

Virginia Woolf is famously quoted to have said:

“On or about December 1910, human character changed.”

This infamous quote is perhaps one of the best summaries of the modernist period; a period in which nothing was entirely certain, and a period which changed the future of English literature permanently. The catalyst for this cataclysmic change can be considered to be any number of things; from Nietzsche’s revelation that “God is dead”, to the emergence of Darwinism. One of the most important facets of this change however is perhaps the First World War, a topic that I have previously discussed, in relation to Wilfred Owen. The nature of this war was destruction, in return for precious little result; indeed it can be argued that the First World War served as a kind of epilogue to the destruction that was to follow, merely twenty years later. Nevertheless however, the First World War altered our perception of mankind, and of ourselves, permanently.

The aftermath of the war was that society had changed in dynamic due to the horrific death toll; hardly a woman in Europe was left with both husband and son. Men were either too old to have fought, or too young to remember. These children however, began shaping the future of literature in a dynamic way; the canon of war poetry was not shaped by its creators, but it’s critics.

This can be said for all forms of literature, however in this case, it is particularly important, especially when one considers society’s revulsion towards those who had been left behind. Society seemed to abandon the injured, favouring instead to embrace the period of extravagance that followed in the 1920s, before the wrath of the great depression. These factors culminate to a society that was somewhat frivolous towards its criticism of war poetry, especially in England; patriotism was far more popular than the shocking realities that the poems of Sassoon, Owen and their counterparts represented. No nation ever really wants to remember its blackest hour, or relive the memories of it.

However, the idea of the changing human character resonates in one’s ear; that society could change so completely in such a short space of time is shocking. Victorian reserve was abandoned, and staunch Christianity was deeply questioned. Of course, who could possibly blame them for wanting to disband the society that had created the war that killed millions?

However, Woolf explicitly states that this change began to occur before the war began; a mere four years before, but indeed it was before. This early change was perhaps less marked at the time it occurred, and we are all familiar with the power of hindsight in relation to history. Everyone has wondered, “what if I could go back, and tell myself this?”; this is the futile nature of humanity’s retrospect, however.

It is, to my mind at least, completely fascinating that these changes and discoveries across the board colluded to make such a vital, almost fatal, change. The poets, artists, and novelists of the modernist period were unsure how to approach the new attitudes towards society and humanity itself, and this is represented in the deeply experimental nature of their literature, and art. Poetry was no longer of a solid rhyming persuasion; it was chaotic, changing in form, and almost a form of anarchy, reacting to what they saw outside.

Trying to make sense of this anarchy then, was the only way for these poets to progress; they no longer had the certainty that had existed not twenty years before; they no longer had the factual basis that so many great writers before them had, to act as a template. Within this evolving society, they too had to evolve with it; there was no place for the old ways, when they represented so much fear and anxiety. They were forced to push forwards, off the edge of the world, if you like. They had to jump, to find an ocean to which they belonged.

I think it was rather courageous.

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*I was going to find some modernist art, but my image up-loader seems to be affected! I’ll try to edit it tomorrow (:.

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A Blogging Hiatus

Dear Reader,

I return to my little blog today, feeling somewhat repentant, for being so completely neglectful of you lately. Unfortunately, I’ve suffered two main impediments to recent blogging. The first one being searching for a house, in which to reside next year.Working out the demands of both rent and bills are fundamental, and unfortunately, I’m not mathematically or financially blessed as yet. My job search has been as productive as using Dairy Milk as a fireplace, and the demands of adulthood seem to have overridden my aspirations within my life as a student. But no matter; we have resolved the crisis now, and hopefully, someone will one day employ me. At this juncture however, jokes about the employability of English Literature graduates can be made, but that’s another post…

My second impediment however was more serious, at least in my eyes, because, I lost my inspiration to a chronic case of writer’s block that seems to have lasted at least two weeks. It’s rare for me to be completely unable to write for this long; usually a day, maybe three; not usually weeks. I couldn’t even seem to manage a small poem, not even something crude, adolescent and unsophisticated.

I stood in the mirror one morning and said “I have nothing in my head to say. About anything at all.” This was strange, because we studied The Tempest last week, and I adore Shakespeare. We also studied James Joyce, a man I have a love-hate relationship with. Usually, I could have written a lengthy explanation for this feeling of repulsion and adoration that follows Joyce, but this week, I couldn’t do it. It seemed too hard to put fingertips to keypad, and make something coherent, even amusing. But today, it seems much easier, and I think I shall be tackling Joyce, Robert Louis Stevenson, and finishing my T.S Eliot series at least sometime in the near future.

So, dear Reader, I apologise for my lengthy absence; but I promise, I shall be back tomorrow, writing about literary type things, instead of rambling on about why I couldn’t write about them at all.

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Wandering Through “The Wasteland”: Part IV

To my mind at least, Part IV of the poem, “Death by Water”, is the most beautiful. It is composed of only ten lines, divided into three stanzas. As is so common in Eliot’s poetry, there is a huge amount of allusion, primarily to Phlebas, the Phoenician Sailor. As a mythological character, he seems to have influenced authors across the ages, including Shakespeare in his writing of The Tempest; Phlebas as a character is comparable to Alonso.

The most meaningful element of Phlebas’s character however is the way in which he died; he dies as a result of drowning. T.S Eliot uses water as a subliminal metaphor throughout the poem, representing fertility and the ability to resurrect; the dry nature of the waste land as described represents the importance of water. Phlebas’s death therefore is representative of a deeply spiritual death; something that is lacking throughout the poem. There are numerous references to meaningful, spiritual deaths throughout literature; again here, we can consider Shakespeare. Hamlet’s Ophelia drowns herself, her final words having already been mentioned at the end of Part II.

Phlebas- the drowned sailor (1)

Eliot makes reference in this passage to the idea of wealth, and material happiness, the very idea of which he attacked in Part III. “Forgot the profit and loss” is very striking, and contains a kind of ethereal quality; this feeling of floating continues in the second stanza of this section; “he rose and fell”, for example. The idea of a spiritual death adds a feeling of gracefulness to the passage, instead of the previously decadent and yet acerbic tone that precedes this section. This passage really compounds the feeling of change that has been, slowly, creeping into the poem; the change of descriptions occurs very slowly,  creating something comparable to a phoenix rising from the ashes.

The final line of this part is perhaps the most important however, almost serving as a warning for how people are living; how they are neglecting their spiritual lives, and how they are no longer as human as they once were. They are being degraded and being eroded.

“Consider Phlebas, who was once as handsome and tall as you.”

Eliot’s warning reverberates in the air here, it is perfectly clear, and unlike Eliot’s usual style, it is not a riddle; it seems clear that Phlebas is the example; an example of a lack of spirituality, and what becomes of those who waste themselves. Eliot tended to feel as though society was, as a whole, neglecting it’s duty to a God.

And so it seems that we are coming to the end of our little exploration through The Wasteland; the final part, Part V, “What the Thunder Said” compromises the last piece of the puzzle.

(:

(1) http://www.tendreams.org/gleeson/Phlebas%20the%20Phoenician,%201951%201ac.jpg

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Wandering Through “The Wasteland”: Part III

So, today I continue my wander through T.S Eliot’s poem, after a short hiatus, and a busy period of reading. Charles Dickens’ Hard Times was simply screaming for my attention. Part III of the poem then, is perhaps the pivotal point; the point at which the meaning within the poem shifts, and begins to take on a more complex one, moving beyond simple descriptions of degradation and corruption, to a kind of death; a death of the spirit. The title itself, “The Fire Sermon”, is inspired by the Buddhist scriptures, something that Eliot himself was very familiar with, because of his excellent understanding of Sanskrit.

Tyne Cot Cemetery, Belgium (1)

The beginning of this section very much focuses on sexual degradation, a theme that began to emerge in “A Game of Chess”. There are some hidden references to the lifestyles of “the bright young things”, for example, “the loitering heirs of City directors,”; they lived lives of such huge excess, based around material happiness. This crisis of human nature emerged in the aftermath of the First World War; these young men saw their fathers and brothers die terribly, and in huge numbers, causing a crisis of character, to a certain extent, and therefore their indulgences can be seen as a social reaction in their memory; making up for lost time, even.

The following stanza contains more obvious references to the trenches and battlefields across Europe; an example of this is “White bodies naked on the low damp ground”. Alongside the references to rats, there is a feeling of damp, dank, desperate places. The graveyards of the First World War are somewhere that everyone should see at least once in their lifetime. However, juxtaposed against this rather dark image, is the reference to prostitution; this returns the theme of the poem to sexual degradation, positioned against the images of the Great War.

At this point however, a drastic change of pace occurs, because alongside the reference to the secretary (at the time, a secretary was a lower class worker, subservient essentially to all authorities), there is the influence of mythology, and Tiresias, a mythological character caught between two genders. This detracts from the distinct realism of the passage, and gives it an almost divine quality; a shift from the obvious ramifications of promiscuity towards the spiritual ramifications, something Eliot was supremely concerned by.

The passage is classically full of allusions; we have allusions from Greek mythology, The Tempest, Baudelaire, and the allusion to Tudor England. The allusion to Tudor England is significant in that Queen Elizabeth I was a virgin queen; she allegedly never engaged in any kind of sexual activity, because decisions were entirely political, even the business of love and marriage. Therefore Eliot returns to this period as a kind of juxtaposition; the Elizabethan’s also lacked the spirituality he coveted, but in an entirely different way to the twentieth century. They were simply mercenary, not necessarily corrupt.

The final stanza instigates the beginning of the theme of death, in order to resurrected; the word “burning” is constantly repeated, and the speaker in the poem asks “pluckest me out” of God. This is significant due to the strong theme of realisation; it is as though he has realised the importance of the social change happening around him. The finality of “burning” is also a reference to the Buddhist practice after a death; cremation is said to release the soul, into another life. By destroying this shattered world, there is space for it to be rebuilt. At this point, this part ends, leaving us on something of a cliff hanger, waiting to see what the outcome of this burning really is.

I hope you’re enjoying the series so far; Part IV to follow!

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(1) http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/archive/

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