Reality vs Truth

Truth and reality is a difficult thing to discuss. What is reality? Is it also truth? There is a very thin and fascinating line between reality and truth. In The Allegory of the Cave by Plato, Socrates attempts to get Glaucon to see from different points of view. He attempts to make Glaucon think of the true differences between truth and reality. Socrates paints the picture of the cave. The shadows and darkness are the reality of the prisoners, but are they the truth? Socrates wants Glaucon to think of this for himself. Is the darkness the truth or the light? Socrates points out that to the cave dwellers, the light is blinding and otherworldly. To the men who left the cave, the darkness is pitch black. The people in the cave can see perfectly fine in the dark, but the people who left cannot. Both are reality. Which is truth? This is Socrates's whole message. Reality is what you perceive. Truth is difficult to profess. Socrates forces both us and Glaucon to think of truth as something undefined. In reality, do any of us know truth? I don't know. For example (spoilers), in the film Fight Club, the narrator and his friend Tyler Durdin join forces to start a fight club. The narrator sees Tyler slowly taking over his authority and his life. Tyler tells the narrator what to say and do. Eventually, Tyler has full control of the fight club and has turned it into an organised crime ring while the narrator sits around wondering what is going on. As an audience, we wonder why the narrator does nothing. Why does he listen to what Tyler says if he does not like it? This is when reality changes and truth is uncovered. The reality that there is a narrator and a Tyler Durdin is false. Tyler Durdin exists only in the mind of the narrator. The truth remains unchanged, but the audience now has a clear understanding. When we look back, we realise that the story wasn't quite right up until our discovery. This ties in with The Allegory of the Cave by showing us that reality is uncertain and truth is hard to detect within our skewed reality. The difference between one man and another lies between who is in the cave and who is not.

An Abundance of Katherines by John Green *AP (also contains a lot of spoilers from The Phantom of the Opera)

I have now just started to read some young adult fiction. I picked up An Abundance of Katherines by John Green. I have only just started, but so far I am enjoying it. I had an epiphany at the beginning of the book actually. I realised that a beginning of anything is either really boring or really confusing. Obviously, I don't mean for books alone, but plays, shows, movies, etc also fall in this category. An Abundance of Katherines was no exception. I found the first chapter a dreadful bore. As I kept reading though, I found the main character funnier and more relatable. I'm really excited to continue reading this book. I have a feeling that the ending will be happy. I love happy endings, even when there is some sadness mixed in. I mean, I saw the Phantom of the Opera on broadway last month, and Christine ends up with Raoul because of the goodness of the Phantom. Of course I was routing for Raoul and Christine, but the Phantom enchanted me with his music and I could hardly bare his sadness as he released Christine to be with Raoul. The ending was bittersweet. I can deal with bittersweet. My problem is when you have these people and everything is awesome (and I'm not talking an action book here) and everyone is picking daisies and then a main character dies. What? I mean if there's gun-slinging across the board at least one of the main characters is bound to die, but when you live in the suburbs with nothing but lame things to do with lame people, you can't turn you're dumb story around by killing the main character suddenly. I suppose it all depends on the book though. If there is a good reason to kill off the character and I believe it, I like it. I guess it is more about perception than the actual book. For instance, I stopped reading Atonement because I heard it was sad in the end. I think partly I just disliked the book and partly I was expecting it to end happily. And so I got bored and moved on. I guess books are really a gamble. You have to be exact so as not to lose your readers. I hope that An Abundance of Katherines continues to make me smile, otherwise it will end up in the back of my mind like its fellow companion Atonement. 

Edgar Allan Poe's The Pit and the Pendulum *AP

When I was in around fourth or fifth grade, I learned about Michael Jackson in music class. We listened to "Thriller" and learned about a man named Vincent Price. Apparently Vincent Price was a well-known horror actor. Thus, our music teacher forced us to watch a film called The Pit and the Pendulum. It was amazing. And horrifyingly scary. In the tradition of me, I decided that I would read the Poe story and re watch the movie in book form. That was a lie. Poe's "The Pit and the Pendulum" is absolutely nothing like the movie. Though, it too is amazing in a completely different sort of way. I think it is easier to connect with the movie because it has a family aspect to the story. It has feelings that most of us can relate to. Whereas in the story, the character is in Spain, ready to die in the inquisition. I admire the story character for his calmness. He faced death with a clear mind and got out of it. I guess the movie character did that too, but the man in the movie was not locked in a cold dungeon for hours, he did not keep getting drugged secretly, and he did not have to face a pit so unknowingly. The man in the movie saw the torture center from the torturer himself, whilst the man in the book was literally left in the dark. The book character could have died several times just by walking around. Had the narrator not fallen with his head in the pit, he would have walked right into it. In the movie, the man was taken into the pit, locked up, forced to be in the pendulum, and then I'm pretty sure he used the rats like in the book and somehow knocked the bad guy into the pit after he was free. Don't quote me on that though. Anyway the man in the book was smart enough to use the rats even though he was about to die, and then he refused to commit suicide into the pit when there was no other way of escaping the closing walls. Thank goodness the French man came to save him. All in all, I thought both the story and the movie were good, but they are good in different ways. They contrast from each other so much that I barely even relate them to each other now that I've read the story. 

The Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar Allan Poe *AP

To begin, I love this story. It's great. Now onto my thoughts. So obviously we know that the narrator is mad, if not by his insane behavior, then by his constant insisting of the opposite. What I wish to talk about is the comedy and the psychological. Poe did a great job with comedy in this story. Of course the whole tale is rather frightening, but the narrator is so odd and horrible that he's actually amusing. Just the reasons he gives for his sanity are funny in themselves. He claims he cannot be mad if he is so ingenious. An example would be "And then, when I had made an opening sufficient for my head, I put in a dark lantern, all closed, closed, so that no light shone out, and then I thrust in my head. OH, you would have laughed to see how cunningly I thrust it in!" This quote actually reminds me of Holden Caulfield. Holden constantly reasons with himself about things that are either ridiculous or unimportant. In the case of this narrator, he makes such a big deal out of thrusting his head in, proving that he is so smart, which is funny. Why would anyone care how he thrust his head in? They don't. This is comedy. The narrator continues on and on to talk of how smart and cunning he is. As the story proceeds, he falls deeper and deeper into madness. Which creates a scarier story, but if you look past that fact, it also makes for a more ridiculous and comedic character. Now I'm going to switch to a more psychological aspect. I know that I've called this man mad , but the truth is he probably is not. The narrator obviously has a psychological problem. That doesn't make him a crazy freak. It means he needs help. Help that was not given in those days without condescension. I almost pity the killer. He thinks he is perfectly fine while the world thinks he is insane. For all we know, this whole story could be a lie. None of the events could have happened. When you are dealing with a disturbed narrator, you cannot trust a thing you read. Is there really an old man? If so did he really get killed? Did police really come? Is this man just having a panic attack due to an unhealthy mental state? All questions that can never be answered. Perhaps not even by Poe himself. It gives you something to think about.

L'Odyssee de Cartier

Do you know what's sad? L'Odyssee de Cartier. Seriously, I love designer stuff. I'd like to think I can afford all of it even though I know I cannot. I would kill for a Cartier watch or bracelet. Cartier has decided to make a little mini movie. This movie is not horrible. It's actually kind of cool with a cute panther (leopards and panthers are the same so just know that I'm right) going on a journey searching for a place after the diamonds that he was once encrusted in fell off, and he becomes real. Honestly, I felt like something was off from the beginning though all I did was keep watching the cute panther. Suddenly, at the end, it hit me. At the end of this little movie, the panther ends up in Paris and walks into a woman's house. This woman is wearing the pendant that was once the panther. The panther, then, just walks up to the woman, she pets him, and they walk off together. The reason this movie was so off putting is because it is about a panther. A panther is a wild animal. A panther should not be walking up to a woman with a bracelet and love her. The poor cats who played this panther had to have been taken from their homes and trained not to be themselves. That panther should not cuddle the woman; that panther should bite the woman's hand off. I know that panthers are not super endangered, but still. Those poor animals were taken from their homes and forced to love humans and for what? A lousy commercial for diamonds that 1 person out of 100 can afford. The commercial was not necessary and neither was the panther poaching. That is all I have to say. **Note I'm sure the panthers were not poached, I don't know how many people can actually afford Cartier. I said these things for emphasis... DISCLAIMERS woo

Atonement *AP

I actually quit reading Atonement before I finished. The reason for this is probably partially because someone told me the ending was sad and partially because the only reason I wanted to read it was so that I could see the ever lovely James McAvoy on the screen in the Oscar winning film. I've been so caught up in doing things that I love right now that it's been hard for me to find a book that could be fulfilling. Anyway, as far as Atonement goes, I thought that it was well done from where I stopped reading. Yet again I have picked a book with multiple points of view. This time I really realised how much I could dig in and get to the reason for perspective. I really felt that all the characters had truly separate yet intertwining lives. Briony caused Robbie to go to get arrested for having a romantic encounter with her sister Cecelia (at least that's where the trouble starts). They all have different tales and sorrows. Briony's, of course, is her absolute knowledge that she knows Robbie has raped her cousin since she had seen him "attacking" Cecelia earlier that same night. While in her perspective, you could see her side of things EVEN THOUGH SHE SUCKS. Then we have Robbie. Robbie has just realised that he is attracted to Cecelia and has been for many years. He decides to act on this whimsical state of passion by writing Cecelia a civil letter apologising for a wrong that had occured earlier that day. Unfortunately, Robbie sent the incorrect letter to Cecelia which Briony read which started the entire event. We then see Robbie's perspective of Cecelia, of World War I, and of Briony. We feel his hatred, his love, his despair, and his pain. While Robbie is at war, for example, he speaks of how he and Cecelia have drifted apart throughout the long process of the war and of their separation. He also speaks of his hatred toward Briony, but makes it very clear that for Cecelia, he would do anything. As for Cecelia' s point of view, the same incident happens and yet we see that she dislikes Robbie even more than Robbie dislikes her at first. When she gets the letter, all of this changes. She realises that she has loved Robbie for quite a long time as well, and at this point, the two sneak into the library where they begin to "wrestle". Briony walks in, sees Robbie attacking Cecelia and is not surprised after seeing his letter. Then Briony's cousin is raped by someone, Briony claims it is Robbie, Robbie is sent to jail and is forced to fight in the war, though he is completely innocent, and we know all of this through bits and pieces of different lives being pieced together like a puzzle. While some feelings are mutual, we get to see others' thoughts and how they lead into peoples' actions. It is quite an interesting thing, and Atonement pulls it off quite well.

The Help by Kathryn Stockett*AP

Christmas break was absolutely amazing. I actually had time to READ over said break. I didn't even have to stress over it or anything. It was fabulous. So for Christmas, I got The Help. Honestly, I chose to read it because the movie is nominated for five Golden Globe awards and hopefully will be nominated for Oscars. As soon as I started to read I was worried. The book is stream of consciousness. I thought "Not more Faulkner! This stinks!" I was wrong. The Help makes me appreciate the way Faulkner writes. I realised that stream of consciousness doesn't have to stink. This book helped me look into the lives of people I would never in a million years be able to understand. Not only did the book take place in the '60s, but the racial tension between blacks and whites was at a disturbing level. It disgusted me. I think I took from this book everything I was supposed to. It just seemed so unfair that the poor maids would get nothing but trouble through all of their effort. I found myself wanting to punch many of the characters multiple times. How could they think this way?! I pulled myself back, thought about the time period, was still disgusted as I tried to understand, but I took hold of the hope that was presented in this book. Mae Mobley, Miss Skeeter, Aibileen, Minny. They gave me hope. Mae Mobely was disliked by her own mother. I could cry just at that, but her nanny sweet (black) Aibileen would tell her everyday "You is kind, You is smart, You is beautiful." Mae Mobely learned that "Green Martian Luther King" was disliked just because he was green. Mae Mobely even saved Aibileen's job for her by not telling her father that Aibileen had been teaching her about equality. Did I mention that Mae Mobely is 5? Miss Skeeter writes Help, a book about the lives of Mississippi maids. Though her reasons are selfish in the beginning (first she "borrows" the idea from Aibileen's dead son and she only starts writing it because she wants to get in good with a big time publicist), she soon learns that the way maids are treated is horrible and actually begins to believe in her cause. She ends up caring more about just the book; she starts to care about people. She was very close to her old maid, Constantine. Skeeter was separated from her for reasons unknown to her and us for most of the book, and she took this thought with her as she wrote the Help. She wrote for Constantine and all of the other maids that loved their white babies and lost them to the prejudice of Jackson Mississippi's culture. Miss Skeeter helped people in Mississippi see what they do to their maids. The ones who love their maids are happy; the ones who don't are angry when they read what their maids have said about them. (Even though they aren't even sure if the maids of Jackson wrote the book) Aibileen cared for her white babies so deeply that she was like their second mother. Mae Mobely told Aibileen that she was her real mother. Aibileen tried to bring Mae Mobely up to realise that different colours are not impure, different colours make people different only to the eye. What lies within the heart is the more accurate way to judge a person. Aibileen is unjustly fired because of a lie  told by the worst woman on earth, Hilly Holbrook. That last thing Aibileen says is that her son always said there'd be a writer in the family. She supposed it had to be her. We end with hope that she will become a writer, because we know that she wrote her section of Help herself. Minny is a back talking maid who gets fired constantly, but she is also the best cook in Jackson. Everyone knows this. She finds a job with an out of touch woman called Celia Foote, and she learns to actually trust white people. Through the duration of the book, each actually saves the life of the other. Celia and her husband Johnny offer Minny a job for life. Minny also finds the strength to leave her abusive husband Leroy. The Help is filled with more hope than what I have mentioned. It is dark at times, it is suspenseful, it is hopeful. Don't get me wrong, this book  does not end with everything changing and everyone happy. Aibileen is out of a job, Mae Mobely has lost her mother figure, Skeeter lost her boyfriend, and Hilly is still the leader of the town, but it is apparent that times are changing in Mississippi. even though many problems go unresolved in this book, enough little changes are made for the reader to have at least a little hope for the future at the end of it. Now I must end this blog, but if I have time I am going to write a movie review because I have so much to say about the movie.