Saturday, April 4, 2020
be thy self
So this is the initial reaction to the story: the guy is gay and he cannot come to terms with his sexuality. When the narrator has a wet dream about Nutella, this should solidify to the reader (and the narrator) that he has some feelings that are not frat approved. In fact, when he made the comment, "If a man kisses Newton, he'll turn into a beautiful woman,"(211) the narrator already had thoughts about probably being that man. I do not like how the author puts this imaginary person in a position that he is so clueless about what and who he likes. If this person, "Oprah", were real, would he not have already made some sort of decision as to what he likes? I think that college is a place to find ones' self. If this is when Oprah finds out that he likes guys, great. But I disagree with him having to be placed in a situation where he must go through having sex with someone that is not who he is attracted to and only doing so to advance the plot. If the poem in the movie is to be some sort of aphrodisiac for him, let him have it as his own. He does not have to, "memorize it by accident."(212) I would feel better if the main character did not have to embarrass himself before finding out who he really was.
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Hi Ashley: This is a very sensitive reaction. It's hard to see characters that we're trying to empathize w/ "embarrass" themselves. However, as a reader I feel very sympathetic toward Oprah. There is a lot of pressure in US culture for young men to "perform" masculinity. Sometimes, this plays out in very ugly ways: men in packs who harass women on the street is an obvious example for NYC women. For me, it helps me that the frat boys seem to be mostly respectful of women in the story. They're not calling them "bitches" or bragging about having sex w/ women or trying to get girls drunk in order to take advantage of them (stuff that is probably pretty common in real frat houses). I wondered if ultimately this story isn't about Oprah finding out who he was. He doesn't seem to be that surprised that he's had a wet dream about his brother. Although he doesn't come out and say it, he gives many hints that he knows that he's gay, that he knows that he's in love w/ Nutella. I think the reason he doesn't directly speak these words is b/c he's so deeply in the closet. (Being in the closet doesn't mean that you don't know you're guy; it just means that you don't want other people to know.) Even his fantasy, though, about the whole frat working together at the same firm is naive and absurd. Does that happen? An entire group of friends in college all working together at the same place after school? No, it doesn't. He's obviously very happy in this life and doesn't want it to change. In some ways, the story is about resisting change. Obviously, if he comes out, things will change. If he and his friends graduate things will change. I think it's telling that the insignia for the firm is a clockface in the talons of an eagle (an absurdly comical image).
ReplyDeleteStill, I don't want to ignore a very important issue that you bring up. It seems that a lot of women in the class feel sympathy for Melanie rather than the narrator. I do too, but I wonder if our genders as readers affect our feelings about the characters in this story?