Gravitating Towards Gunnar

Books are very unpredictable, sometimes they are just awful, other times a book just clicks, and you can’t put it down. For me, The White Boy Shuffle clicked in an instant. I’m not trying to be cliché, but Beatty’s use of humor and Gunnar’s sarcastic joking character really made the book come alive. For me most fictional books and characters seemed so distant. Good authors, like Wright for example, are able to create situations where I can feel emotion or create situations that I can relate to, but Beatty does this and more. Beatty goes the basic empathetic style, and creates a character that we really want to be around, someone that we want to get to know better.

People in this class describe him as the “funny, cool black guy” (28). Characters in the novel gravitate towards Gunnar and I seemed to be drawn to him as well. Within the first few pages, I already knew I loved Gunnar. Gunnar’s book “Watermelanin” had me laughing from the first page. While the title in and of itself is funny, it has also “sold 126 million copies”. Beatty surrounds Gunnar with an incredible aura of satire that makes every scene seem like an occurrence that we see every day. We know that a book of poetry would never actually sell 126 million copies, but because the way he presents it is so nonchalant and direct we end up wanting to believe him.

I also feel Gunnar’s character is very tailored to our generation and age range. Gunnar uses “swear words” to the point that they seem normal. In high school I feel this same way, I hear the language so often that it feels normal to hear it every day. Gunnar even uses the language in a way that I hear all the time. His purpose for using foul language isn’t exclusively to insult or belittle others. Most of the time it is for comedic value. Like when he writes his letter to David Schoenfeld he ends the letter with “Shalom, motherf***er” (40). This is exactly the type of language I see every day in high school.

Also the fact that Gunnar uses such language at such a young age makes it seem even more satirical. Gunnar seems to be so mature, and instead of using his maturity as a way to put himself above everyone, he uses it to make everyone like him. Gunnar, despite his very nonchalant carefree attitude, is very intelligent which furthers my respect and attachment to him. In the third grade Ms. Cegeny asked Gunnar “what was the last thing Melissa read” (29), and even though Gunnar was daydreaming and talking to Cecilia he was able to summarize the passage Melissa read. All of Gunnar’s qualities make him a very entertaining character that keeps me turning. While I am curious to see where the plot takes us, I am more interested in the humor and witty comments that Gunnar is sure to keep bringing to the table. 

Is love a choice or a feeling?

Janie's view of love and sexuality is constantly changing and adapting. When her story begins Janie is first discovering her sexuality. As she is sitting under the pear tree, she sees the bee pollinating the blossoms and she enters this stupor and for the first time she understands that love and marriage are a natural occurrence. This view is contrasted very heavily by the view of the Grandmother. Because of the Grandmother's experiences as a child, she sees that she needs to protect Janie and marry her off as soon as she reaches womanhood. She the Grandmother see's Janie kissing Johnny Taylor, she knows it is time for her to marry someone safe. The grandmother views marriage and love as something that should be arranged, rather than something natural.

When Janie marries Logan Killicks she says "He look like some ole skullhead in de grave yard". She associates Killicks with death, as opposed to her view of love which is full of life and nature. When Joe Starks comes along, he is the better option by far. While she knows their love isn't perfect, she is willing to give it a go, rather than living and working for Killicks her whole life. For the first few years of their marriage it is implied that they had fun. But now that fun had begun to dwindle. " The bed was no longer a daisy-field for her and Joe to play in. It was a place where she went and laid down when she was sleepy and tired." Janie's expectation for love had been fulfilled for the first seven years, but now that Joe has begun to mistreat her she begins to look for something else.


After Joe dies, she immediately feels like a large burden has been lifted and that she has a lot more freedom. Janie has felt the two extremes of a marriage. Killicks worked her too hard and treated her literally like an animal-- something to do the farm work. On the other hand, Joe treated her too "special" and she felt isolated from the town and she still had to work too hard. Even though Joe mistreated her she still learned something in their marriage. As Joe was dying, Janie tried to mend their relationship even though she didn't feel that spark of love like she did initially. When she tries to help Joe it is showing that she is trying to love him out of a choice, instead of pursuing love just as a natural feeling. This shows that maybe Janie's view of love is beginning to change.  
I bet as we see the relationship between Janie and Tea Cake progress, we will see Janie's view of love change even more.

Becoming Invisible

The concept of invisibility and the narrator’s self-awareness are very tightly related. From the prologue we learn all about the concept of invisibility, but it doesn't totally make sense to us. We only start to understand the idea, when we look at the narrator’s realization of freedom and agency. At the beginning of the novel the narrator seems absolutely clueless. When he gives his speech at the Battle Royal, he doesn't understand that the audience is messing with him. When he gets kicked out of the school, he doesn't realize that Bledsoe is setting him up for failure. Even when he joins the brotherhood it takes a long time before he wonders if he was being used as “a natural resource”. In all of these instances we see no thoughts on "invisibility" and he is still oblivious to everyone shaping his life for him.

The first steps to his realization start in the hospital. After being subjected to the machine, the narrator is very disorientated but he has a brief moment of clarity after the nurses made him angry.

“And suddenly my bewilderment suspended and I wanted to be angry, murderously angry. But somehow the pulse of current smashing through my body prevented me. Something had been disconnected. For though I had seldom used my capacities for anger and indignation, I had no doubt that I possessed them; and, like a man who knows that he must fight, whether angry or not, when called a son of a bitch, I tried to imagine myself angry -- only to discover a deeper sense of remoteness.” (p 237)

Before this point, we have never seen the narrator express a whole lot of emotion. Maybe a few instinctual feelings of fear and panic with Mr. Norton, but they were natural feelings that everyone in that situation would feel. This is the first time where we see individual thoughts and emotions that were personal to the narrator. He even says “I seldom used my capacities for anger and indignation”, so we can recognize that he is making some headway into making his own decisions.

Later when he first joins the Brotherhood he gives a speech that is emotional, but is criticized for not being scientific enough. The Brotherhood’s ideology states that people need to think for themselves, rather than just being energized into a thoughtless mob. This is ironic, because by forcing the Narrator’s speeches to be scientific they are taking away his personal thoughts and replacing them with a concrete strict set of rules. The Brotherhood is taking advantage of the narrator and it is a while before the narrator realizes he is being used in this way.

The next turning point for the narrator is the scene of yams. This is scene is very consequential because it is shows that the narrator is doing what he wants to do. This scene contrasts with the scene in the diner where the narrator refuses the pork chop and coffee and instead takes the toast and orange juice. In the diner he is only taking the toast in order to defy the stereotype. This time he eats the yams because he wants to. “I walked along, munching the yam, just as suddenly overcome by an intense feeling of freedom -- simply because I was eating while walking along the street. It was exhilarating. I no longer had to worry about who saw me or about what was proper.” (p 264) As the narrator begins the realize that he should be making his own decisions, he starts to question everything else. Around this time the narrator wonders if the Brotherhood was just using him “as a natural resource”, and he starts to realize that people don’t see him as a person and are using him for their own self interests. This begins the path to the narrator becoming “The Invisible Man”.  

Steps towards the Prologue

In class we have discussed the prologue and how it the Narrator seems completely different in the prologue compared to the other chapters of the book. On top of that it seems that after almost every chapter our Narrator seems to be a different person. There is of course the idea of "invisibility" and you could argue that the Narrator progresses from a very eager member of society who is ready to enter the field of established power to a person who is seen but really is "invisible" and falls from the world of recognition and power. While his argument is totally valid, I would just like to look at the smaller changes between chapters and look at his character development.

In the opening chapters it seems that the Narrator is on top of the world, in his opinion. He is very optimistic about life and is pretty naive in the the sense of "the game". In the battle royale scene, he doesn't really notice that the audience is messing with him. He gives his speech with the intent of impressing all the important people in town, but he doesn't realize that they are there for entertainment -- that he is being mocked as a form of that entertainment.

In chapter 2, we see him in a similar light. He is super cocky and tries to look good to impress Mr. Norton. He thinks "Of course I knew he was a founder, but I knew also that it was advantageous to flatter rich white folks, Perhaps he'd give me a large tip, or a suit, or a scholarship next year"(p38). Similar to the speech, he just wants to impress people to look like an educated intelligent black student. But again he lacks understanding of the bigger picture, and it seems that his short term goals are going to be his downfall. This want to impress Norton can be seen as the cause for his expulsion. In order to give Norton what he wants and impress him, he takes  Norton to Trueblood, which in the end gets him kicked out of school.

Even after getting expelled he continues the over-the-top optimism. He sees it as a good opportunity to work in New York and gain experience before going back to college. This blind sense of optimism creates a stark contrast to his first personality change. This change happens after the Narrator discovers what was actually in the letters. This event causes the Narrator to switch from the happy-go-lucky optimism to a deep hatred for Bledsoe and him swearing revenge upon him. This very rapid change is rather confusing, and it is the first step, of many, towards the Narrator from the prologue.

Is Bigger Really Human?

Is Bigger Really Human?

I'm not about to argue for some absurd reality or complex conspiracy, rather I would like to take a look at Bigger's "choices" and evaluate whether he is merely responding to his environment or if he is consciously making decisions of his own free will. Conscious decisions are what separate us from animals. A predator displays an imitation of human choices, but they are not really aware of their decisions.They are simply recognizing stimuli and responding to it. Bigger Thomas can be seen in a similar light, and a variety of critics have commented on Bigger’s  inhuman qualities. At the same time Bigger in many instances does exhibit complex thought and unique ideas.

There is an extensive argument for both sides of this loaded coin. After analyzing Native Son in class for a week my gut instinct is to side with the Naturalist point of view, more specifically the "lab rat" analogy. That Wright is simply placing Bigger in a variety of compromising situations and simply observing his reactions and responses to the environment. The principal evidence for this argument is the quintessential scene of Bigger suffocating Mary. As the observer we can’t help but feel sorry for Bigger, he was only trying to protect himself and any action he performed would have ended up in a compromising situation. In those moments Bigger is driven solely by fear and panic. He does not think ahead, rather just responds to each event. The text is filled with reactionary language. There is a common pattern in the way the paragraphs are structured.

(p 85)

“The door behind him had creaked.” “He turned and a hysterical terror seized him, as though he were falling from a great height in a dream”

(...)

“Mary!” she spoke softly, questioningly.” “Bigger held his breath.”

(...)

“Mary!” “He felt Mary trying to rise and quickly he pushed her head back to the pillow”

The pattern continues for the rest of the scene, but it is obvious that every action Bigger does is directly in response to something Ms. Dalton does or says. He makes no independent actions, and his only thoughts during the scene are observations rather than assessments and impressions of the situation. This makes me think that Bigger is not in control of his actions and is just being Wright’s puppet to make a point. I agree with one of James Baldwin who said that the point of fiction is to show the development and complexity of characters. Bigger Thomas is not someone who displays this complexity. At this climactic moment Wright writes Bigger as a visceral character driven out of pure instinct rather than a complex character driven by individual thought.

There are still plenty of instances where Bigger looks like a completely different character. The main example that comes to mind is Bigger’s whole plot to frame Mary’s murder as a kidnapping and make a ransom demand. This plan, even though it spawned from the framework of Leopold and Loeb, took effort to put into place. Even after Bigger was caught people asked who his accomplices were, because no one thought that a black man would be capable of such a plan. This implies that his plan had to involve some careful thought out ideas.Bigger also considered the option of fleeing multiple times, but he made the decision to go through with his plan.

The two contradictory points of view both have very compelling arguments. It is important to think about the reasons why Wright would include two sides of such a contradictory character. I believe in some instance Wright purposefully trapped Bigger to illustrate that in the real world many people really are trapped and any decision they make leads down a bad path. Wright didn’t want the whole book to be solely based off of forced decisions because then Bigger would cease to be human and the corollary between Bigger and the rest of the world would cease to have value.

Grant for Project Based Learning

Executive Summary:

My name is Ezra Johnson and I am applying on behalf of University Laboratory High school. I have been teaching at “Uni” for over 10 years and have really enjoyed my time here. The students are very intelligent and eager to learn more. As a “Laboratory” school we are supposed to preform many projects inside the class room. This idea has been thwarted by financial issues for a very long time and thus our equipment is often broken and out of date.

We recently updated a single room to be more technology based, with a projector and touch-screen TV. This room has a had a lot of success with teaching and with engaging the students. We wish to apply a similar concept to other classrooms in hopes of encouraging more project based learning. Many of the students have complained that they get bored with lectures, and want something exciting to do. We really want to encourage this enthusiasm and culture it into something that they can use the rest of their lives.

We would like the Toshiba America Foundation to consider a grant of $10,000 to support our efforts of establishing a more project-based learning environment.

Needs Assessment:

One of the areas we are really lacking is the science department. Multiple times this year my colleague in the physics department commented on how old and broken his equipment is. I would really like to see physics be a class where the students can experiment with the information they learn and apply it in structures or machines. Projects like mouse-trap cars, or building trebuchets, any sort of project that would engage the students and allow them to apply the concepts they learn in their science classes.

One of the problems with this new project based curriculum would be creating new lesson plans and adapting them to accommodate these new projects. Some of the grant money would go to the teachers for their efforts in planning out these new projects for the students. The majority of the money would go to buying new equipment for the students to use. The equipment could include but is no limited to:

1.       New Physics equipment. Including new large magnets, new circuitry sets, materials for building bridges and trebuchets and other projects determine by the teacher

2.       *I’ll add more specifics 

Esports Editorial

The majority of parents, at some time or another, have told their kids to stop playing video games and go do something productive. Well, what if I told you video games could become the child’s career. In the not so far future the world of “ESports” could become a whole new form of entertainment. The emergence of massive online gaming has made it possible for people to become Esport athletes and compete at a pro level. MOBAs (Massive Online Battle Area) such as League of Legends and DOTA 2 have risen to new heights. With over 70 million active players, League of Legends is the largest online game in history. Riot Games hosts an annual international competition with the prize pool in 2015 being $2.3 million dollars. Not only are tournaments huge but viewership is also at record highs. The 2015 League of Legends World Championship final totaled at 36 million unique views across the globe. In comparison the 2015 Super Bowl had a total of 114 million viewers. It is shocking to see that a single video game is approaching the viewership of traditional sports.

Even universities are beginning to recruit young talent and offer scholarships to Esport athletes. Recently UC-Irvine announced that in the coming fall they would be offering scholarships to these athletes. UC-Irvine is one of the first offer scholarships to athletes that will compete in the ULoL (U-League of Legends) collegiate series. Many other schools have school teams that also compete in ULoL. Thirteen of the Fourteen Big 10 schools have collegiate League of Legends teams. In fact, earlier this week Big Teen Network and Riot games agreed to televise the Ohio State vs Michigan State League of legends match. This is the first time an event has been broadcasted on a collegiate network.

Many other games such as Counter Strike: Global offensive have also had huge success in the Esports industry. Many of these pro players are payed salaries similar to those of traditional athletes, some making over 2 million dollars a year. In total the Esport industry is predicted to bring in 17 Billion dollars in 2016. These athletes also can get P-1A Visas so that they can travel to other regions when they are drafted by professional teams. These Visas are given to “Internationally Recognized Athletes” and these Esport athletes fall under this category.

This new generation of Esport athletes could really change the way we look at video games and the way we view traditional sport athletes as well. Parents might rethink their statements about video games and might possibly encourage talented kids to pursue careers in Esports.