The Jungle Cast

If a film adaptation The Jungle By Upton Sinclar were to be made, how would that piece of film look like? Well the story itself has a feeling of grittiness and sadness. Makes me think of the first Rocky film and how that movie was filmed with certain grittiness and sadness. Obviously in this adaptation it would be based in the early 20th century. I feel like 1980’s Arnold Schwarzenegger would my choice to play Jurgis. Jurgis presents himself as this macho man figure, no matter the condition he’s in he gonna tough through it because he’s a man and has to care for his family. I feel like Arnold in the eighties was the embodiment of macho. I also find it an interesting juxtaposition as Jurgis and his family came over to Chicago in hopes of a better life, living the “American Dream” whereas Arnold is someone who is also a European immigrant who came over to America to chase that dream, and achieved it to the highest level. As for Ona, I feel that Florence Pugh would be great for that role. Ona is described as a beautiful woman who is very feminine, and complete 180 contrast from Jurgis tough masculinity. The movie would still be placed in Packing Town and would be shot in complete Black and White, to fit the time.

Blog Post on The Souls of Black Folk: Defining Freedom through literary devices

“Hark! was it music, or the hurry and shouting of men? Yes, surely! Clear and high the faint sweet melody rose and fluttered like a living thing, so that the very earth trembled as with the tramp of horses and murmur of angry men.” (XIII. Of the Coming of John) 
In this moment, John is confusing the trample of horses as something that is alive to a melodic rose. The fluttering strikes me as the most distinct part of this metaphor. Living things that flutter aren’t horses, they are usually butterflies or something more delicate. However, when thinking about the language used, one’s heart can flutter when excited, nervous, or fearful. So at this point, John’s heart is fluttering but also recalling his most fond memory of the theatre. It is described almost like a near death experience in the sense that John is essentially dissociating from his current circumstance: death by lynch mob. I felt like this passage perfectly encapsulates the struggle that black men faced at this time. Even someone as educated as John is facing the end of his life because of a lynch mob. The whole story up to this point is to emphasize the tragedy that is happening. John was doing something most people would consider the right and just action of defending his sister from assault, but in defending her he sealed his own fate. This highlights the inequality in the eyes of the law that Black people faced constantly, and DuBois was trying to highlight in the south particularly.  In this sense, Black people were not joining America or becoming citizens.  They were being hunted down for any and all excuses during the Nadir.

Welcome To The Week – The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gillman

1) Role of the woman. What can a woman know about her health or well-being when two well-educated men (doctors) say she is fine?
“John is a physician, and PERHAPS—(I would not say it to a living soul, of course, but this is dead paper and a great relief to my mind)—PERHAPS that is one reason I do not get well faster.
You see, he does not believe I am sick!
And what can one do?
If a physician of high standing, and one’s own husband, assures friends and relatives that there is really nothing the matter with one but temporary nervous depression—a slight hysterical tendency—what is one to do?
My brother is also a physician, and also of high standing, and he says the same thing.
So I take phosphates or phosphites—whichever it is, and tonics, and journeys, and air, and exercise, and am absolutely forbidden to “work” until I am well again.
Personally, I disagree with their ideas.
Personally, I believe that congenial work, with excitement and change, would do me good.
But what is one to do?”
The passage of The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gillman is an ideal illustration of the woman’s perception at the time the story was published. The woman did not have to have a personal opinion, even on her health. If the man said she was fine, her ideas on that matter were rejected because of a so-called lack of expertise. The story’s heroine instinctively knows what would be better for her, to have some reading or writing, the trip to her friends or renovation. However, her opinion does not bother her husband, who thinks that he knows better because he is a physician of a high standard, so the narrator/main character devalues her feelings by repeating the same question, “what is one to do?” over and over again, introducing the readers to the situations in which women of that time were, they did not have a say even on their own bodies, even inside their family.

2) The use of forced treatment. How helpful was mental health medicine when The Yellow Wallpaper was published?
“John says if I don’t pick up faster he shall send me to Weir Mitchell in the fall.
But I don’t want to go there at all. I had a friend who was in his hands once, and she says he is just like John and my brother, only more so!”
A fast Google search can lead us to numerous articles on who Weir Mitchell was and what his treatment of women involved: “Women most often received the Rest Cure, which typically involved six to eight weeks of isolation, bed rest, a high-calorie diet, massage, and electrotherapy.” (the information from nyamcenterforhistory.org). The women who did not act as men wanted, being overly emotional or depressed, could be placed in so-called medical institutions for the forced treatment of their disorders. Whether this treatment had any positive results was questionable since it had little to do with helping patients with their mental diseases, it was more a tool for making women act appropriately.

3) Love or abuse? Is John Action out of love?
Throughout the reading of the story, I was catching myself on the idea that the heroine’s husband was doing that on purpose. He did not seem to be interested in her feeling better. The heroine says that herself.
There was a romanticized perception of men-woman relationships where a man should take responsibility for a woman and ensure they figure out all the problems. Still, from today’s point of view, the situation in which we see the heroine is disastrous. She suffers from postpartum depression, and her husband does everything to make her feel worse: he isolates her in the cottage far away from her family and friends, not allowing her to visit them or even write a letter.
The heroine tells the reader how her husband loves her so much, but the evidence she uses to support that statement shoves the opposite. He loves and cares for her, but he will not let her choose a room where they will live; he does not even want to find a compromise and renovate the room he chose so the narrator would feel comfortable there. “He is very careful and loving, and hardly lets me stir without special direction.
I have a schedule prescription for each hour in the day; he takes all care from me, and so I feel basely ungrateful not to value it more,” she says about him, saying that he controls every aspect of her life, and she feels guilty for not appreciating his care.

The Sea’s Image in DuBois’ “The Souls of Black Folk”

“Then, as the storm burst round him, he rose slowly to his feet and turned his closed eyes toward the Sea. And the world whistled in his ears” (DuBois, Chapter XIII).

The sea is a representation of freedom in DuBois’ The Souls of Black Folk. It cannot be bound by chains or shackles and moves as it pleases. This imagery can be interpreted as both a spiritual and physical uprising; it discards the Veil and unifies the double consciousness.

In the passage above, the sea can also represent the unknown. With “closed eyes,” John’s sight is controlled by people who tell him who he is and what he can be. Those in power condemn him based on his complexion, and only on what their eyes perceive of him. The shift from slavery to citizenship maintains that ocular demarcation and attempts to confine John when it cannot. John sees no change in the world, but he’s entitled to the same freedom the sea possesses. He represents more than just his experience—he is the sea that cannot be silenced, blinded, or disregarded.

The image of waves crashing as the “storm bursts round him” and the “whistling” he hears calls for an uprising against his oppressors. DuBois explains the Sorrow Songs are songs slaves sung when “weary,” but a breath of hope always seeps through (Chapter XIV). The whistling can be a reference to that. Ultimately, this supposed “shift” is not a positive one. Slavery was not eradicated, it just evolved with Jim Crow laws. The freedom illustrated with this image is a human right that must be fought for.

The Souls of Black Folk Post

It is very evident that Du Bois knows the social difference first hand adding a contributing factor when reading the novel, “The Souls of Black Folk”. In the first chapter Du Bois states his thesis and main claim of what this novel is meant to be; his famous rhetorical question ” How does it feel to be a problem?” encapsulates how many African Americans feel when going about their day to day lives. In chapter one, Du Bois states, “In a wee wooden schoolhouse, something put it into the boys’ and girls’ heads to buy gorgeous visiting-cards⁠—ten cents a package⁠—and exchange. The exchange was merry, till one girl, a tall newcomer, refused my card⁠—refused it peremptorily, with a glance. Then it dawned upon me with a certain suddenness that I was different from the others; or like, mayhap, in heart and life and longing, but shut out from their world by a vast veil. I had thereafter no desire to tear down that veil, to creep through; I held all beyond it in common contempt, and lived above it in a region of blue sky and great wandering shadows.” This quote also drives another key term that is associated with Du Bois which is “the veil”. This interaction that Du Bois had as a young kid cemented the idea that not everyone is part of the same team, he discovers here that his physical and biological state will have a drastic impact in his future life. This idea of “The Veil” that Du Bois uses is a prime example of a metaphor; almost making this idea poetic. This fact of “The Veil” that is depicted here; which will interfere and even prevent opportunities in his and many African Americans lives; must’ve in some way or form have been liberating to express confidently in this novel to the readers and to the African American community. This powerful metaphor without knowing carried and carries significant weight till this day.