Journal Entry 2/10/16: Cat On a Hot Tin Roof

"Brick, y'know, I've been so God d*** disgustingly poor all my life! - That's the truth, Brick! . . . You don't know . . . how it feels to be poor as Job's turkey and have to suck up to relatives that you hated because they had money and all you had was a bunch of hand-me-down clothes and a few moldy three-per-cent government bonds . . . So that's why I'm like a cat on a hot tin roof" (Williams 54-55)!

     The author presents us with this powerful monologue revealing the full details of Maggie's anxiousness to be intimate with Brick and what she truly feels when she refers to the "cat on a hot tin roof." The metaphor itself can be applied outside of the text as being in a harmful or tense situation with confusion on how to escape. However, Maggie the Cat leaves little question about her feelings in this monologue, exposing the true meaning behind her character and the majority of the text.
     Many readers up to this point could translate Maggie's extended metaphor and anxious attitude as being frustrated from pure lack of intimacy or even total loss of chemistry with Brick. It's here that she reveals more than just what we can infer. While Big Daddy had been dying of cancer, the couple had been battling the rest of the family for his wealthy inheritance. However, he, like most traditional fathers, doesn't want to pass on his legacy to a branch of the tree without future generations. Maggie, with her poor background, just wants to feel rich, and Brick is refusing to give her even that. In conclusive reality, this is her "hot tin roof."

Word Count: 200

An Instance of Verisimilitude: The House of the Seven Gables

"But, besides these cold, formal, and empty words of the chisel that inscribes, the voice that speaks, and the pen that writes, for the public eye and for distant time, - and which inevitably lose much of their truth and freedom by the fatal consciousness of so doing, - there were traditions about the ancestor, and private diurnal gossip about the Judge, remarkably accordant in their testimony" (Hawthorne 123).

     In analyzing this novel, I have noticed many passages hinting at an inner reality extending beyond just what can be read in the text. However, up until now, I had not found a true instance of verisimilitude that I could tie in to the work's inner theme. This passage, however, connects right to a certain suspected theme. There is a common thematic idea throughout this novel of letting one's superstition and ancestry reflect the lives of a family's descendants. A lot of this novel's inner passages hint at past history, family traditions, and fear of superstition. The previous passage cited takes these ideas and connects them to reality, going almost unnoticed as Hawthorne slips it in with Judge Pyncheon's character description. 

     The passage occurs in a chapter almost wholly comparing Judge Pyncheon to the accursed ancestor, Colonel Pyncheon, who was just as greedy and corrupt. As the narrator begins to discuss the Judge's past, this passage occurs, as if transitioning from an overall successful outlook into the bitter reality of his stature. In modern English, the passage says no matter what people say about someone, how many achievements that someone earned, or even what's engraved on that someone's tombstone, it's what people gossip about and establish as true that really matters. In reality, if someone has a great number of achievements but have bad stories spread about them, people will listen to the stories first. For example, Michael Jackson was one of the world's greatest entertainers, but people now pay more attention to his acquitted court charges than his success. 

     One of the biggest possible themes for this novel is the fact that superstition supersedes reality always, as revealed by this verisimilitude. People can achieve great success destined to sink by rumors, as the Judge's superstitious stories suggest about himself. 

Word Count: 300

Journal Entry 11/16/15: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

"My friends, thou protest too much to believe the protesting. You are all believing deep inside your stingy little hearts that our Miss Angel of Mercy Ratched is absolutely correct in every assumption she made today about McMurphy. You know she was and so do I. But why deny it? Let's be honest and give this man his due instead of secretly criticizing his capitalistic talent . . . He's a shrewd character with an eye out for a quick dollar. . . He has a healthy and honest attitude about his chicanery, and I'm all for him, just as I'm for the dear old capitalistic system of free individual enterprise . . . for him and his downright bullheaded gall . . . (Kesey 253 - 254)"

     In approaching this passage, one would notice that this isn't a quote by the novel's novel narrator. This quote isn't from our narrator, Chief Bromden, but from the most dynamic of all the Acutes, Mr. Harding. In summary, Mr. Harding was the "elected leader" before McMurphy entered the institution and was almost one hundred percent against him, as supported by him calling McMurphy to "meet him in the main hall at high noon and . . . settle this affair once and for all, libidos a-blazin' (20)." The substantial passage cited at the top of this post shows how Harding has changed throughout the novel as a dynamic character, in contrast to his feelings toward McMurphy at the beginning of the novel. 

     In the beginning of the novel, Mr. Harding had established himself as a sort of "elected leader" under the rule of the Head Nurse. In reality, he and the rest of the patients bend over backward in service to the Head Nurse. All Harding really did was restore happiness when necessary and observe the Nurse's actions. Harding, in the beginning, believed there could be no other leader than the Head Nurse, until McMurphy proved him wrong. 

     Now, Harding's opinions on leadership and the question of rule are completely altered. As evident by his tone in the passage, Harding has been led to believe that McMurphy is the all-powerful, omniscient ruler in place of the Nurse, even though the Nurse had attempted to turn the Acutes against him. It's clear that Harding believes solely in McMurphy's unalterable rule through his exaggeration of the Head Nurse as "Miss Angel of Mercy Ratched". McMurphy has taken the lead so securely and twisted the minds of the patients so cleverly that their "former leader" sees no fault in his actions. McMurphy clearly robs the patients of their cash every chance he gets, but Harding and the rest of them can see no fault in him, but praise. They give him his due for being a con man. 

     In conclusion, Harding has changed to believe only in McMurphy and his desires. He's no longer scared to stand up for himself as long as he has a dynamic leader like McMurphy. His mind has been crafted, formed, and manipulated in such a way that he can only think McMurphy is key. In fact, this seems more of a move from isolation to freedom, through McMurphy and his rebellious liberation.