In Bram Stoker's Dracula, sleep is a prevalent theme throughout the novel. The characters of have a large connection with sleep. Although sleep is part of life, for the characters of Dracula it is much more. Sleep is rest, it is peace but it is also fear and unease.

Dracula gets his guest, Jonathan Harker, on a nocturnal schedule and speaks of sleep several times through out his visit to the castle.  After talking to Jonathan all evening about London, Dracula's future home, Dracula says, "Why there is morning again! How remiss I am to let you stay up so long. You must make your conversation regarding my dear new country of England less interesting so that I may not forget how times flies by us" (Stoker, 55). This happens several times. This shows that Dracula does what is in his control to have Jonathan on his nocturnal schedule of being awake in the evenings and asleep during the day. As a way to discourage Jonathan from exploring more of Dracula's castle, Dracula warns Jonathan by saying, "Should sleep now or ever overcome you, or be like to do, then haste to your own chamber or to these rooms, for your rest will then by safe" (Stoker, 64). By saying this to Jonathan, Dracula sends the message to Jonathan that he can not safely sleep anywhere else within the castle walls besides the room Jonathan has for his stay. Sleep does not come easy to Jonathan in the castle, this can be determined by his journal entry that states, "I shall not fear to sleep in any place he is not. I have placed the crucifix over the head of my bed - I imagine that my rest is thus freer from dreams; and there it shall remain" (Stoker, 65). This shows that Jonathan can not sleep peacefully if Dracula is present; instead he worries and keeps himself awake.

Dracula proves his nocturnal existence as readers learn his habits through the journaling of Jonathan Harker. Jonathan's breakfast would sit on the table awaiting for Jonathan to wake up for the day and Dracula could never be found during the light hours to keep Jonathan company as he did during the evenings.  In the evenings they do not stay up speaking of England, Jonathan sees Dracula crawling in a lizard like fashion along the exterior castle walls. Jonathan does exploring through the castle to find, "There is one of the great boxes, of which there were fifty in all, on a pile of newly dug earth, lay the Count! He was either dead or asleep, I could not say which -for the eyes were open and without the glassiness of death - and the cheeks hard the warmth of life through all their pallor, and the lips were as red as ever. But there was not sign of movement, no pulse, no breath, not beating of the heart" (Stoker, 80). This shows how Dracula rests, whether it is defined as sleep or not we can determine that this takes place during the day. This shows the nocturnal pattern Dracula takes on.

For Lucy, sleep is a constant battle. Mina learns that Lucy is walking in her sleep through Lucy's mother, "Lucy, although she is well, has lately taken to her old habit of walking in her sleep. Her mother has spoken to me about it, and we have decided that I am to lock the door of our room every night" (Stoker, 105). This quotes shows that Lucy has sleep-walked throughout her life by the word choice of old habit meaning that it happened long ago and frequently. Mina sees this herself when she visits Lucy and notices, "It is a strange thing, this sleep-walking, for as soon as her will is thwarted in any physical way, her inanition, if there be any, disappears, and she yields herself almost exactly to the routine of her life" (Stoker, 12). After Mina leaves, sleep becomes more difficult for Lucy as she becomes ill.

Lucy expresses her fear of sleep when she becomes ill. As Dr. Seward stays to keep Lucy company, he notices, "After a long spell she seemed sinking off to sleep, but with an effort seemed to pull herself together and shook it off. This was repeated several times, with greater effort and with shorter pauses as the times moved on" (Stoker, 161). This shows Lucy fighting off sleep the best she can even though she is exhausted. When Dr. Steward questions Lucy about her sleep, she says it is a "presage of horror!", and, "All this weakness comes to me in sleep; until I dread the very thought" (Stoker, 161). This shows Lucy is afraid and uneasy when it comes to sleep because as soon as she feels better, he strength is taken from her during the night. Lucy expresses her fear again in her diary when she writes, "How blessed are some people, whose lives have no fears, no dreads; to whom sleep is a blessing that comes nightly, and brings nothing but sweet dreams" (Stoker, 169). This shows Lucy's unrest even when she does sleep. Here she implies that she is envious of people with sweet dreams.

By looking at Jonathan, Dracula and Lucy, sleep is shown as a love-hate relationship for the characters. For Johnathan, it is the matter of being kept up all night with the company of a vampire and sleep during the day is interrupted by the thought of Dracula's presence or where within the castle he is permitted to sleep. Dracula is a prisoner to his nocturnal lifestyle of being a vampire that includes being away during the day a coffin and soil setting as he rests with his eyes open and at night hunts or keeps his guest company by speaking of London. Lucy, even when asleep, is up and changing clothes or walking around the house. When she gets ill, rest does not come easier even though her exhaustion and need for it is greater. Instead, she feels all her strength leaves her during the night and experiences only horror during sleep.

Stoker and Catholicism

In Bram Stoker’s novel Dracula, the protagonists use a wide range of weapons to fight the vampire menace plaguing London. The weapons range from garlic and rose branches to crucifixes and holy wafers. By giving Catholic artifacts as much power over the undead as superstitious artifacts, Stoker equates Catholicism to superstition. Throughout English history Catholicism and Protestantism have been at odds with each other. Dracula was originally published in 1897, only 68 years after the Roman Catholic Relief Act of 1829, which emancipated Catholics throughout the United Kingdom and repealed laws which required Catholics to swear allegiance to the crown and prevented them from being elected to parliament (Roman Catholic Relief Act 8).

Since the famous split between Catholic Church and England led by King Henry VIII, there has been much tension between Protestants and Catholics within Great Britain. Queen Mary I, daughter of King Henry VIII, was originally removed from the line for the thrown by her brother, King Edward VI, due to her Catholic views; however, she took the thrown after his death. During Mary I’s reign she revived a law making it a crime “to believe in a different religion than the sovereign,” and burned around 300 Protestants in 3 years (Mary I). After the reign of Queen Mary, the Church of England was restored by her successor, Queen Elizabeth I. Along with the revival of the Church of England came “the arrival of Jesuits and Catholic ministers  from  the  European  continent…  coupled  with  a  national  anxiety  and  fear  of continental  Catholicism  and  the  papacy…  the  English  government  [began] persecutions  against Catholics” (Scott 6). Even today, “No Roman Catholic, nor anyone married to a Roman Catholic, [can] hold the English crown” according to the Act of Settlement passed in 1701. The split from the Catholic Church along with the retaliation of Queen Mary I led to distrust and enmity between Catholics and Protestants in England.

Throughout the novel, Stoker dances with the reader on the line between faith and superstition. Before Jonathan Harker leaves the inn for the Borgo Pass and, what is meant to be his final destination, Dracula’s castle, he is begged by the inn keeper’s wife not leave on St. George’s day, and given a crucifix for protection. Harker writes in his journal, “as an English Churchman, I have been taught to regard such things as in some measure idolatrous”, and in the same entry he notes that he is unsure whether his feeling of uneasiness stems from the strange traditions of the village or the crucifix (Stoker 4).  Later in the story, Van Helsing plans to place a rose branch on Dracula’s crate to prevent him from getting out. Similarly, while attempting to slay the vampire who had been Lucy, Van Helsing places clay containing a holy wafer around the door to prevent Lucy from getting into her tomb. In the Catholic faith, it is the believed that bread is turned into the body of Christ through transubstantiation. The rose and the holy wafer that is thought to be the body of Christ both have equal power over the vampires.

The history of Catholics in Great Britain is one full of enmity and persecution. Although the world is a different place today and tolerance is easier to come by, the tradition of distrust and tyranny of the majority can still be seen in England’s Act of Settle. Stoker’s Dracula is another reminder of the attitude towards Catholics that was so prevalent in his time. While Van Helsing discusses the the rose branch, he says “to superstition must we trust at first; it was man’s faith in the early, and it have it’s root in faith still” (Stoker 281). Perhaps Stoker believed that the Catholic ideology was applicable before, but felt that it was time for a more efficient form of Christianity, such as Protestantism.

Stoker, Bram. Dracula. London: Constable & Co., 1897. Print

Act Of Settlement. The Royal Household, 2008/09. Web. 18 November 2012.

http://www.royal.gov.uk/historyofthemonarchy/kingsandqueensoftheunitedkingdom/thestuart                s/maryiiwilliamiiiandtheactofsettlement/theactofsettlement.aspx

Roman Catholic Relief Act 1829. National Archives, n.d. Web. 18 November 2012.

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/Geo4/10/7/contents

 Mary I. The Royal Household, 2008/09. Web. 18 November 2012.

http://www.royal.gov.uk/historyofthemonarchy/kingsandqueensofengland/thetudors/maryi.aspx  

Scott, Mitchell. “The Marian and Elizabethan Persecutions: How England Was Prepared for Persecution

and Defended From Martyrdom.” Diss. U of Louisville, 2002. Web. 18 November 2012.

http://digital.library.louisville.edu/utils/getfile/collection/etd/id/569/filename/570.pdf

dracula and the devil

Count Dracula and the Devil

Eugene Hernandez

                Who could Bram Stoker’s evil antagonist, Count Dracula, be compared to in the Bible?  In many ways Dracula is very similar to the bible’s adversary Satan. Dracula and the Devil, these immortal beings that torment humanity, share specific similarities by the way they are depicted and of their desperate attempt to capture human souls and lead them in a path away from God.

In the novel Dracula, the vampire named Count Dracula is a very powerful creature who feeds on human’s blood but he does so especially on the women of the novel such as Mina Harker (Stoker 307). Satan from the Bible is also a powerful immortal that thrives on taking human’s lives.   In Christianity it is believed that he derails humans from following God’s ways, thus denying their chances of living forever.  He too went after Adam’s wife Eve as stated in Genesis 3:1-5 where Satan influenced Eve into disobeying God by eating from the forbidden tree. It is interesting to see the comparison of how both Dracula and the Devil went after the women first to get to the men as well.  Dracula sucked Lucy’s blood several times prompting the men in the novel to give blood to Lucy as well (Stoker). Dracula ended up consuming their blood as well through Lucy.  Eve was able to convince her husband Adam to disobey God as well, but Satan had only spoken with Eve.

Both Dracula and Satan are described as beings that can transform into different kinds of animals.  The Devil transformed himself into a serpent when he talked to Eve.  In the novel, Van Helsing describes Dracula, “He can transform himself to wolf, as we gather from the ship arrival in Whitby… he can be as a bat, as Madam Mina saw him” (Stoker 259-60). Whenever it was necessary, Dracula would transform himself into a bat or wolf to his benefit.  In the Romanian language, “Dracul” means dragon (Ioana) and this is important as in the Bible, Satan is described several times as a dragon. “The great dragon was hurled down—that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray. He was hurled to the earth, and his angels with him” (Rev. 12: 9, NIV).  Here Satan is described as a serpent and a dragon.  Stoker may have used the name Dracula to compare the Count to the Devil.  Author Bram Stoker also described vividly Dracula’s face to that of Satan as “His eyes flamed red with devilish passion the great nostrils of the white aquiline nose opened wide and quivered at the edge; and the white sharp teeth, behind the full lips of the blood-dripping mouth, champed together like those of a wild beast” (Stoker 307).  In this dramatic description of the Count, Stoker uses the color red to convey the image of the vampire.  The Devil has also been depicted as being red in a burning inferno.

These are some comparisons of the Devil and Dracula. Why would Bram Stoker consider it important to describe Dracula as this evil demon who is the opposite of God?  Was Dracula forgiven when he was killed?

Fear of Religion

In Bram Stoker’s Dracula, the character of Dracula is often seen depicting the devil or in some cases God, but Dracula more accurately represents Stoker’s fear for organized religion with the showing of the dangers in spreading yourself around and using women to put children under Dracula’s spell in blind faith.

                In Dracula Bram Stoker uses the character of Dracula to represent a new religion just beginning with showing the relationship between using crates of soil to help Dracula travel with mission trips where students will travel around the world trying to convert people to their certain religion. In Dracula Bram Stoker shows that Dracula can only travel and sleep in soil from his homeland of Transylvania making it so he must pack of crates of soil and disperse them across England because that is the territory that he wishes to move to for the fact that he would be able to make more vampires in the area. This brings a big parallel with mission trips made both a while ago when Christian missionaries were exploring new parts of the world and even today with churches of all denominations sending school aged students on missions across the world. Mission trips are used by every large secular religion to spread their religion to all parts of the world but since Stoker was born into an Irish Protestant family church we can believe he is mostly talking about Christian missionaries for the story of Dracula. Christian missionaries are known for travelling to many parts of the world to spread the Christian faith but one criticism that seems to arise from the mission trips is that Christians are westernizing these cultures that did not have Christianity instead of simply teaching the faith. This fear seems to be what Stoker is advising with Dracula showing that if you go around spreading your own culture and beliefs you are taking away the culture of those you are trying to help.

                Stoker shows a fear of organized religion and blind faith by showing that Dracula uses Lucy to bite children and turn them into vampires after she is turned into one herself. When Lucy gets turned into a vampire in the novel and leaves he grave at night she is trying to bite others around her but she isn’t going after older adults that can fight her off she is going after weak and innocent children that she knows she can infect. When children are young they start to develop a personality for themselves but it never starts out as something they really explore more of just adhering to what their parents believe. This is known as a time in development called “Identity Foreclosure” which is defined by “the status of adolescents who prematurely commit to an identity without adequately exploring alternatives” (Feldman 388). This can also be seen as blind faith where children will latch onto the religion of parents and guardians simply because they are in an environment where that’s all they know. Using Lucy to attack children can be seen as making them blindly believe in this vampire way of life with no real idea of what they are doing or trying to accomplish. Using sucking the blood out of children shows the fear that Stoker sees in organized religion being a danger to society.

                Stoker’s fear of organized religion is manifested in the things Dracula does to keep his legacy alive, with sucking the blood out of children and using foreign soil to draw parallels with blind faith and missionaries. One thing I was trying to look at was maybe more of Dracula representing a perversion of religion with Mina drinking his blood against Christians drinking wine at communion, as well as more research into Stoker’s religious background and missionaries in the past.  

Works Cited

Feldman, Robert. Development Across the Life Span. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: University of Massachusetts, Amherst, 2011. 1-724. Print

Stoker, Bram. Dracula. London, England: Puffin Books, 1887. Print

Dracula vs Voldemort

In Bram Stokers Dracula. Dracula needs the soil from Translvania that he was buried in to properly rest and maintain his immortality. In J.K Rowlings Harry Potter, Lord Voldemort puts his soul in seven items of importance known as Horcruxs to achieve immortality. How does Dracula’s Craters of Soil compare to Voldemorts Horcruxes and their effect on immortality.

Dracula is a vampire and eats humans to maintain his power, as a vampire he is immortal and can live forever. But is his immortality limitless? When Dracula travels to England he brings along coffins full of native Transylvanian soil that he was buried in. why does he do this? There is soil in England that he could use, but he brings along his own. There must be something in the soil that maintains his powers and his immortality. If Dracula were truly immortal then he would not have to bring his soil with him.

Lord Voldemort is a powerful and evil wizard, he is so feared that wizards refuse to call him by his name, and instead refer to him as He who must not be named and wants to get rid of Muggles(non-magic folk) in the Wizarding world and be supreme ruler. Voldemort was scared of death, so in order to achieve immortality he put his soul into 6 different objects known as Horcruxes. Helga Hufflepuff’s cup, Rowena Ravenclaw’s Diary, Tom Riddles diary, Marvolo Gaunt’s ring, Salazar Slytherins locket and his pet snake Nagini. He also accidental put his soul into Harry Potter the night he tried killing him. He split his soul 7 times and each time Voldemort lost more of his humanity. By splitting his soul, he was able to achieve immortality.  In order to kill Voldemort you would have to destroy all 7 Horcruxes. He made this task difficult by hiding them in separate areas.

Both Dracula and Voldemort hid away the items that kept them immortal and spread them out to keep them safe. So does this make them truly immortal or is their immortality tied to their sacred items? Their downfall was thinking their immortal. Believing your immortal gives you a cockiness that you cant be defeated, but there not Gods, they could be defeated, even though it was extremely hard it was done. Both Dracula and Voldemort despite achieving immortality were killed.

Dracula needed the soil to properly rest and maintain his powers, but it didn’t hold his soul. If it was destroyed he could go back to Transylvania and seek more. But in order for him to travel he would have to have it with him. In my opinion the old Dracula at the beginning of the novel was a Dracula that hasn’t been sleeping in his soil and he starts to age, giving the appearance that he is an old man to Jonathan, later in the novel Dracula is a young, the soil must help with maintaining a youthful appearance and achieving immortality.

Voldemort uses the horcruxes to keep parts of his soul in them to achieve immortality. By doing this he loses his human appearance and becomes more monster than man, the opposite of Dracula and his soil. If the horcruxes are destroyed he cant just recreate a part of his soul, its gone for good. He could always take the risk splitting his soul more but he will continue to lose his humanity. Voldemort does not have to travel with his horcruxes and keeps them hidden. This gives Voldemort the ability to travel anywhere and not be held up with carrying his sacred items.  

Both Dracula and Voldemort go through great lengths in order to achieve and maintain immortality. Unfortunately for them its not true immortality and only limited. Both Dracula and Voldemort have similar characteristics and drive for power that the sacrificed their humanity to live forever.  

hey guys,
It would be nice if we could get that extra credit assignment... the one were we take a picture with all all of us eating together. Anybody have any suggestions on when and where we could this if yall want too?

Bernard

In Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World finding a character that fits under the title of “hero” is a hard thing to do with so many characters doing different things that show signs of being “hero”. But I believe Bernard Marx shows the exact opposite of what Huxley was trying to show as a “hero” in Brave New World by him being a hypocritical character in the use of “heard poisoning” and his reaction to being banished from the London society.

Being a “hero” is a hard thing to pin down especially in BNW because you have to infer with that Huxley would call a hero and if you look at the article he wrote, “Propaganda Under a Dictatorship”, you can see that Huxley places a lot of value in standing out as an individual and keeping independence even in groups. In the article “Propaganda Under a Dictatorship” Huxley refers to Hitler using “Herd Poisoning” as a drug that lets the users “escape from responsibility, intelligence and morality into a kind of frantic, animal mindlessness” (3). Originally Bernard runs away from this and doesn’t want anything to do with being poisoned and using soma, which is one of the reasons he goes away to the “savage” reservation of Lenina but what makes him a hypocritical character is his willingness to always come back to London and the herd poisoned civilization.

 Early in the novel Bernard describes his hate for the people in the society due to his different feelings about soma and he wished people would just take the beauty that the world has to offer and takes Lenina away to the “savage” reservation where he learns that he has been banished to Iceland and becomes upset about this fact. If Bernard can escape from the London civilization and feel free from it what’s the difference between willing leaving the civilization and being banished if he just wants to get away?  This happens again later in the novel when he, John, and Helmholtz are banished for the things they did in the hospital and being seen as non-conformists. Bernard is banished again to an island and instantly begins pleading to stay and has to be dragged to the island. I think Bernard is such a difficult character because he complains and wants to be a non-conformist to the society but also relies on the society to keep him alive. It seems like Bernard wants to pick and choose what he wants from a society and complains when he doesn't get what he wants. Take for example when the Arch-Community –Songster comes to talk with John and John will not leave his room. Bernard instantly begins to complain to John and everybody else around him because this is a time Bernard could finally move up in life but now that he can’t get what he wants he just complains and talks about living free again. It’s difficult to take Bernard seriously and really high lights how much of a “hero” John and Helmholtz are in being mostly free from the herd and thinking on their own. Bernard doesn't stick with one side of his argument and seems to care more about living in the civilization than he actually says making him more into the herd and not much of a “hero” at all.

Huxley, Aldous. Brave New World. New York: Harper & Row, 1946. Print.

Huxley, Aldous. “Propaganda Under a Dictatorship.” The Way of Wisdom. Ed. William Brugger, Darrell Hammond, M. Kip Hartvisgen, Anne Papworth and Rhonda Seamons. Rexburg, Idaho: Brigham Young University-Idaho, 2010. 1-5. Print.

Brave New World: Utopia?

Phase 2 Prompt 3

                The society in Huxley’s Brave New World is a utopia in the sense that it was a perfect and ideal civilization, because everybody was content with the role they contributed to the benefit of the community.   Many examples throughout the text highlight this content or satisfaction that each member of this society had, whether they were an Alpha Plus or an Epsilon.  It can be seen as a utopia because everybody had a job and got what they wanted, making them happy.  It was a stable world where nothing was questioned and nothing was out of the ordinary.

                The conversation the world controller, Mustapha Mond, had with Savage really displays how this world could be viewed as a utopia.  Mustapha explains to the Savage, otherwise known as John, how society is in a better place than before due to the fact that everybody is happy now. Mustapha tells John, “The world’s stable now.  People are happy; they get what they want, and they never want what they can’t get” (Huxley 220).  This stability helped the people feel safe.  They didn’t have any desires they could not fulfill. Most of the troubles that real life society has today are due to humans desiring things they cannot have; things such as other’s possessions or wealth.  Some of the lower-class people may envy the upper-class as they feel they have better lives going for them.  Such feelings did not exist in Huxley’s Brave New World because each class of the society was conditioned to enjoy the work of that class and nothing else.  For example, the Epsilons although they were the lower caste of society, they were perfectly happy with their menial work.  Mustapha Mond describes to John, “Only an Epsilon can be expected to make Epsilon sacrifices, for the good reason that for him they aren’t sacrifices…His conditioning has laid down rails along which he’s got to run” (Huxley 222).  Epsilons were conditioned to do Epsilon work, while Alphas were conditioned to do Alpha work.  When everyone is content with their position there is no fighting or chaos.  On the contrary, if an Alpha was given an Epsilon job then some problems would occur. Their society had an “optimum population… is modeled on the iceberg-eight-ninths below the water line, one-ninth above” (Huxley 223).

                Another reason why this society could be conveyed as utopian is there were no strong feelings such as passion for a loved one or extreme hatred for another person.  There were no such things as parents, children, husband, and wives. Thus, there were no such things as a love triangle or war.  In terms of sexuality, kids and adults alike were allowed to do what they wanted without any restraints. “Many of the natural impulses are allowed free play, that there really aren’t any temptations to resist” (Huxley 237).  Without any temptations, humans did not have to go through that self-struggle of controlling their bodies from doing things against their conscience.  If anything did go wrong, there was soma which seems to make the characters in the novel get away from reality.  It also had a calming effect and because of this there was no tension.  These reasons could make any person believe that Huxley’s world was actually a utopia instead of a dystopia.

               

Works Cited

 



Huxley, Aldous. Brave New World. New York: HarperPerennial, 1998. Print. 

 

Brave New World's "Utopian" society

 Brave New World written by Aldous Huxley is about a futuristic society where humans are created not born and the concept of Henry Fords assembly line is the basis of society. People are created in a caste system and a drug called Soma suppresses emotions and not conforming makes you an outcast in society and you are sent away. Brave New World is widely considered a dystopian novel by many.  Brave New World does not fit the characteristics of a dystopian world, but is more closely aligned with a utopian future.

Utopia is an ideal community or society possessing a desirable perfection.  The very definition of Utopia describes Huxley’s society in Brave New World. The future in this novel everyone is happy with their work, no one gets old and everyone looks perfect thanks to genetic engineering. It’s a society where no one is lonely and the government supplies you with the drug soma to make you feel better. One of the biggest things people in our society worry about today is getting old and not fitting the “perfect image” that television or magazines broadcast to us. If you ask anyone if they would want to live in a society where you will never get old, and never have to worry about what you eat again, I guarantee you that 99% of the population would be all for it.

There are a few characters in the novel that are not completely happy with how society is run. Bernard Max and Helmholtz Watson both reject the perfectness of society, but instead of killing them to end the problem Mustapha Mond the Resident World Controller of Western Europe exiles them to islands where people who also rejected society live and they can live out the rest of their days as they please and speak against the government and no harm will come to them. Mustapha Mond even lets them decide which island they want to go too."I should like a thoroughly bad climate"(229) This society wants you to be happy no matter if you completely disagree with them. If this was a dystopian future they would of killed the non conformers an been done with it. As seen in The Hunger Games and many other dystopian novels.  

There are many people in this world who are unhappy with their current jobs; the people in Brave New World are created in a caste system where you are either an Alpha, Beta, Gamma Delta or Epsilon. Each class is created in a different way and conditioned to love their class and hate the others. They’re assigned jobs that they were created for and are conditioned to be happy with it and hate every other job. In doing this, the government makes sure everyone is happy with his or her place in society.

One of my favorite books when I was a kid was The Giver by Lois Lowry I immediately became interested in dystopian type novels and movies. I’ve seen numerous dystopian films and not one shows a future where everyone is happy like in Brave New World. Most of them involve a lack in technology, a Wild West type environment and widespread famine. Does any one these sound like Brave New World? No, in Hunger games you have the Capital, which I consider the most like the society of Brave New World but that’s just the one city, all the other districts are forced to watch 12-18 year old kids kill each other for entertainment. And if you go against the capital you are disposed of.  The film Looper takes place in a near future. The United States has suffered economic collapse, causing severe social decay and growth in organized crime. This is what I picture a dystopian future to look like, not like the one described in Brave New World. 

Reservation Realism: A Hard Look at Reservation Life

In Sherman Alexie’s “The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven”, Alexie uses what he refers to as reservation realism in his stories. From the evidence provided in the stories, reservation realism is the incorporation of events common to or typically associated with Indians and reservation living in order to make the story seem more real or complete.

The Fun House is a short story about a mouse running up the pants leg of the storyteller’s aunt, causing a dramatic scene between the woman, her husband, and their son. The woman, upset that neither her husband nor son tried to help free the mouse and instead made jokes about it, walks down to the creek, swims for hours, and chants at them “One dumb mouse tore apart the whole damn house” (p. 81). Alexie admits in his introduction that he “wildly exaggerated” the story, and that the only truth in the story lies in the mouse running up his aunt’s pants, therefore it can be assumed that examples of reservation realism can be found in his exaggerations (xx).  Before going down to the creek, the woman says to her son “look at you, thirty years old and no job except getting drunk. What good are you” (78). This example of reservation realism shows a major issue which plagues reservation life: alcoholism. Native American alcohol abuse, while stereotypical, has some truthful ground. According to Fred Beauvais of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, “some Indian youth become heavily involved with alcohol and illicit drugs at an early age and continue that pattern into at least young adulthood. Approximately 20 percent of Indian youth in 7th to 12th grades fall into this category” (254). The history between Natives and alcohol dates back to the arrival of European colonists, who would trade alcohol to the Natives. When strong alcohol was first introduced, “tribes had little time to develop social, legal, or moral guidelines to regulate alcohol use,” thus resulting in alcohol abuse (Beauvais 253). Alcoholism is one of Alexie’s examples of reservation realism because it is associated with the day to day lives of Indians living on the reservation.

In the story The Trial of Thomas Builds-The-Fire, it can be assumed that no right minded judge, or court appointed attorney, would allow a man to be sentenced for war crimes committed by another man over 100 years earlier. The reservation realism in this story lies within the wrongful sentencing of a man who could inspire his race. Thomas Builds-The-Fire was originally arrested for holding the “postmaster hostage… with the idea of a gun and [he] had also threatened to make significant changes to the tribal vision” (93). Indians have been oppressed since the arrival of European colonists in America. As colonists came to the new world, the Natives were pushed further and further west, until they were assigned places to live, what we now call reservations. The arrest and sentencing of Thomas Builds-The-Fire can be compared to the arrest of Martin Luther King Jr. in Birmingham during the civil rights movement. Both races have a history of oppression, and both men are punished for attempting to make a change and inspire their race.

Sherman Alexie draws inspiration for this book from his experiences on the reservation, but he only gives the “biased, incomplete, exaggerated, deluded, and often just plain wrong” perception of a single individual recalling events from the entire reservation’s lives (xxi). Reservation realism is Alexie’s way of filling in the gaps with logical and likely details.

Beauvais, Fred. “American Indians and Alcohol”. National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. Vol. 22, No. 4 1998. Web. 27 Sep. 2012. <http://pubs.niaaa.nih.gov/publications/arh22-4/253.pdf>

Phase 1: Prompt 3

            When I came to Texas Tech University in the summer of 2009 for Red Raider Orientation, I was given the class novel and was told I needed to read it before school started. We never ended up using the novel for anything in particular, however, I did read and enjoy the book. The book was The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie. Now I have read two of his novels. Sherman Alexie confesses that there is some autobiographical nature in the introduction of The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fist Fight in Heaven.  I think maybe what Alexie meant by reservation realism, is that it has the potential to be true. The stories have concepts that any Indian could have experienced or can relate to by living or growing up on the reservation.

         In his introduction Alexie writes, “When I write about the destructive effects of alcohol on Indians, I am not writing out of a literary stance or a colonized mind’s need to reinforce stereotypes. I am writing autobiography” (xix). The main character in The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, Arnold or Junior, has a father that is an alcoholic. Victor’s father in The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fist Fight in Heaven, is also struggles with drinking. Victor shows the alcoholism in his family by saying, “I was conceived one of those drunken nights, half of me formed by my father’s whiskey sperm, the other half formed by my mother’s vodka egg. I was born a goofy reservation mixed drink, and my father needed me just as much as he needed every other kind of drink” (27).

         The game of basketball is present in both The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian and The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fist Fight in Heaven. Alexie himself also played basketball, “But I missed those fucking free throws, clanging the ball off the rim twice” (xxi).  Arnold eventually plays varsity basketball for Rearden High School, a school of rich white people that he transfers to. The only other Indian at the school was the mascot. In The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fist Fight in Heaven, eleventh grade happens and, “Last night I missed two free throws which would have won the game against the best team in the state. The farm town high school I play for is nicknamed the “Indians,” and I’m probably the only Indian to ever play for a team with such a mascot” (179).

         Alexie mentions in his introduction to The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fist Fight in Heaven that, ‘”Indian Education” is a true (and truer) account of my public school days” (xx). However as I read about Indian boarding schools in the mid-1900s, Alexie’s experience seemed different than most of the experiences I read about. According to the California Indian Education Organization’s webpage, Indian students were forced to wear the same clothes as white people and cut their hair. However in “Indian Education” of The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fist Fight in Heaven, there is not any mention of the assimilation that was the main objective of the U.S. government at the time. Alexie and the Victor graduate from farm town high schools. In “Indian Education” Victor says, “I walk down the aisle, valedictorian of this farm town high school, and my cap doesn’t fit because I’ve grown my hair longer than it’s ever been” (179). So obviously his hair was not cut and he was not apart of this before and after boarding school portraits. And not a thing was mentioned about high school Indian basketball heroes. But maybe this is a part of the reservation realism…it’s possible, just not typical.

http://www.californiaindianeducation.org/indian_boarding_schools/

P.S. sorry for the mega early post...just wanted to knock this out before tests start next week...but this is phase 1 so don't feel like you need to comment on this now.