In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida, Baby

During my sophomore year of college I was taking an online Lit class in which I had to do a lot of writing. One of the papers I wrote was about a piece we had just finished reading titled The Coquette. I was pretty happy with what I had done and it's pretty rare that I get lower than an A on a written assignment because I am an English major.

That being the case, when I get my graded papers back, I usually just look at the grade and skim the teacher's comments to make sure I didn't make any silly mistakes. I got an A on this particular paper, so I proceeded to the comments when my eyes fell on one.

I had made a comment about In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida, because what other parallel can you draw to a short novel about the imperialism of Great Britain still prevalent in Americans' lives in the 18th century?

The comment read: "The correct title of the song is "In the Garden of Eden".

I was shocked. Also disgusted.

I wasn't referring to some lame cover, or even talking about the stories about how the song came by it's name. I was talkin' original, Iron Butterfly version. I couldn't believe then, and have a hard time fathoming now, that my professor wasn't familiar enough with this song to know the difference.

In my mind's eye (because, being an online course, any encounter we had happened in my mind), my professor had at least been old enough in the late '60's to know about such things; that was her generation! Or should have been, had she really been what I imagined.

Still, come on! I was born in the '90's and I know about it. It was only rated the 24th greatest rock song of all time by VH1 in 2009. Between that and the wicked drum solo, how can you not know about it?

But I guess some people are just raised differently. And by differently, I mean wrong. My professor should be ashamed of herself. And her family.

For those of you who are interested and/or familiar with both The Coquette and In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida--i.e., those who were raised right-- I've posted my paper here.

"Grow up, Eliza!"

13 February 2011

I watched a show on TLC today about wedding dresses and the girls who buy them. On this particular episode, the camera crew was in the alterations department to document a nervous bride’s first dress fitting. This bride wasn’t so much anxious about the big day as she was about the tent-like fit of her gown; pretty common fare for ladies about to take the long walk down the aisle, I’m told. When she decided on that dress, based on a sample gown she tried on during a previous shopping trip, the people in charge of such things advised her, normally a size four, to order the dress in a size twenty. The reason? This bride was pregnant. Six months pregnant at the time of her first dress fitting, to be more precise. Watching her walk down the aisle at the end of the episode, dress altered per her specifications, I couldn’t help but shake my head and yell to the screen, “You shouldn’t have got knocked up before you were married!” I realize that in this day and age, according to society, it’s not such a big deal for your groom to have to climb over your stomach to kiss you when the minister gives the okay. Heck, it’s not even that big a deal to never get married; instead, opting to be some guy’s “woman” and share his house and his VW van and have his babies, all the while working together to grow your own food. (If In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida isn’t playing in your head right now as you imagine the montage of Phil and Rainbow’s life together, I haven’t done my job.)

While I don’t support such things as cohabitation and premarital sex, society as a whole tends to care less these days. What is considered “appropriate” or “acceptable” or “decent” isn’t the same today as it was ten or twenty years ago; in fact, these terms all seem to be quite fluid. In my twisted mind, as my mind always ties everything I encounter in the real world back into literary issues, I thought about Hannah Webster Foster’s Eliza Wharton and how the coquette would stack up in today’s world. While Eliza probably wouldn’t have died an ignominious death if she were impregnated by her married lover today, I kept coming back to my initial reaction that she probably wouldn’t have been happy, either. I am confident that Eliza brings her horrible predicament upon herself through her naïveté and immaturity, making said predicament all the more tragic.

On first reading The Coquette, Eliza seems like a fun-loving gal who just wants to after the fortuitous death of her much-older, well-respected, long-time fiancé,

Mr. Haly. She is, in her own words, “[n]aturally cheerful, volatile, and unreflecting” and wants nothing more than to mix “in the busy scenes and active pleasures of life” (Foster, 808). If we were choosing literary characters to hang out with in a social setting, I would be the first to pick Eliza Wharton for my team. She’s witty, energetic, and by all accounts, a fun girl. That being said, I would also probably be the first one to tell her to reign in her volatility where interpersonal relationships are concerned. “Grow up, Eliza!” I can picture myself saying.

In looking back on the events leading up to her tragic, yet predictable demise, it’s fairly easy to see where she went wrong. Most critics read the novel and cast Eliza as a proto-feminist, at odds with the antiquated ideals of her family members and friends and a “powerful champion of personal freedom” (Korobkin). I read it and thought she was immature, which is really the festering sore from which all of her other problems stem.

Take, for example, a scene described in Letter III: Eliza, with the Richmans, attends a party at Col. Farington’s. After dinner, all the guests go for a walk in the garden. Eliza walks a little distance away from everyone and is followed by Mrs. Laiton, who takes the opportunity to offer her condolences at the passing of Eliza’s fiancé, Mr. Haly. Eliza proceeds to cop an attitude and throw a silent hissy fit

(Foster, 809 ). Don’t remember this scene? That’s probably because Eliza is the one describing it in the novel. It’s easy to side with the narrator, or in this case, the letter-writer; a reason I think most people mistake Eliza’s spirited “sense of entitlement” for freedom-loving and patriotic early feminism (Korobkin). When you do take the time to step back and evaluate the situation as an impartial observer, a few things come into focus: “As an acquaintance, Mrs. Laiton has no reason to know either that Eliza had no warm feelings for Mr. Haly or that she would not welcome condolence at the loss of a presumed loved one. Mrs. Laiton's expression of sympathy, which she waits to deliver until Eliza is walking alone, is not necessarily inappropriate or empty, nor is it clearly critical of Eliza” (Korobkin).

Eliza seems to make it a practice to run from responsibility, and fly off the handle when others mention it. But she’s not purely selfish and self-serving; if she were, we as readers would catch on pretty quickly and take an instant dislike to her, which isn’t the case. Along with her Peter Pan-like desire to avoid responsibility like the plague, there also seems to be an element of uncertainty underlying all of Eliza’s actions. She is a woman torn; torn between what she knows she should do (what her family and friends advise her to do) and her desire to do what she feels like (whatever vague or sudden inclinations her volatile disposition points her towards).

According to Laura Korobkin, modern readers tend to read Eliza’s materialism and preoccupation with hilarity and frivolous social pursuits as forward-thinking, glossing over “her hostility toward anything that interrupts her fun or smacks even minimally of middle-class adult responsibility” (Korobkin).

Representative of these two conflicting ideas are her two most ardent suitors, Mr. Boyer and Peter Sanford, and each has his pros and cons; hence the indecision. Marrying

Boyer would create the stable, dependable, and respectable life Eliza’s reason tells her she should want. But her materialistic, social-climbing self doesn’t see much insinuation into the glamorous upper echelons of society that she craves if she marries Rev. Boyer. Eliza is the daughter of a country minister herself, so an alliance with a man of the cloth wouldn’t be much of a step up for her. Peter on the other hand, is handsome and fun-loving. But he is a known rake which pretty much puts to bed (literally) most chances of having a respectable relationship (i.e. marriage) with him. Eliza’s indecision about these two suitors is the first tragically fatal mistake, stemming from her immaturity, that she makes.

Practically the entire first half of the novel is composed of her bouncing back and forth between Boyer and Sanford. In one letter, she’s decided to give up Sanford and cultivate her relationship with Boyer and in the next, she’s writing her girlfriend that “‟a reformed rake makes the best husband‟” (Foster, 835). Things finally reach a climax when Boyer, tired of being treated like a yo-yo, gives Eliza a deadline to give him a straight answer about their finally being engaged. On the day she is to give Boyer an answer, he finds her alone in her mother’s garden with Sanford and breaks off their relationship on the spot. After he’s gone, Eliza is sent into a profound melancholy because she realizes that she really did want to marry him. She laments to Lucy Sumner: “we know not the value of a blessing but by deprivation”(Letter XLIV). Eliza finally writes Boyer, offering herself to him as a wife, but he has already become engaged to another girl. This sends Eliza further into a spiraling depression. Ironically, one of the things that kept Eliza during their courtship was that she imagined a life with Boyer would be “dreary and confining” (Korobkin). But after she realizes she can’t have him, she becomes depressed and confines herself, mostly to her mother’s house. She no longer takes pleasure in parties or and it’s like pulling teeth to get her to talk to anyone. Up until Boyer dumped her, everyone thought that he and Eliza really were engaged. Being jilted by Boyer, therefore, somehow makes Eliza damaged goods. Apparently, because of some unwritten rule, and through mutual nonverbal agreement, all of the many admirers Eliza was “pestered with” at the beginning of the novel have all made themselves scarce now (Foster, 811).

All of these factors contribute to Eliza’s emotional and psychological condition at the end of the novel. Eliza just can’t pull herself out of her depression. She wants to feel like her old self, but she doesn’t know how, so she begins grasping at straws. Sanford is the one person who makes her feel like she’s still Eliza, that girl who was “the toast of the country”, the one who everyone wanted to be around (815). Naively, she lets him insinuate himself into her life again, a recurring theme in the plot. Her immaturity causes her to play right into Sanford’s hands.

Throughout the novel, Sanford says whatever he thinks she wants to hear and does whatever he thinks he needs to do to seduce her. He keeps coming to Eliza and trying to redefine their relationship because the seduction takes longer than he thought it should. Edison only needed one way to make a light bulb, right? If one way doesn’t work, abandon it and try another. This pattern keeps repeating itself throughout the entire novel: Eliza lets Sanford in a little, and then because of advice from friends she holds him at arms’ length. Then he comes to her and says he wants to redefine their relationship (i.e. to get serious, to just be friends, to be close friends, like siblings) so she lets him in a little more. But, more advice from friends persuades Eliza to be wary of him. While she does occasionally try to distance herself from the rake, Eliza can never seem to fully disentangle herself from Sanford. In Letter X, she says, “his assiduity was painful to me; yet I found it impossible to disengage myself a moment from him .” In Letter XIX, “My heart did not approve his sentiments, but my ear was charmed with his rhetoric, and my fancy captivated by his address.” Eliza’s immaturity, once again, aids and abets her downfall. She suffers from bad-boy syndrome, a malady common to females. She knows she shouldn’t like Sanford or have anything to do with him because he is a known rake. But that knowledge just adds a rush of adrenaline to her system every time she sees him and every time he talks to her. There’s probably also a little piece of her that thinks Sanford really will change for her, and become a reformed rake.

After Boyer breaks off their relationship (part of Sanford’s twelve-step seduction plot), Eliza turns to Sanford, who has reappeared, married, and with pretensions of being like a brother to Eliza. Elizabeth Dill in her “A Mob of Lusty Villagers” submits that this is part of a deeper, more sick and twisted psychological issue of incest, and apparently there are other people in this incest camp as well. I’m not saying that incest wasn’t on Hannah Webster Foster’s mind when she wrote The Coquette, but to me, that seems like a bit of a stretch. I think Sanford is just trying to lull Eliza into a false sense of security while he tries to insinuate himself further into her life and figure out his next move.

When she finally is seduced by Sanford, I think it’s because Eliza wants to be the old Eliza again so badly that she starts grabbing at any semblance of her old life, any vestige of herself. That, unfortunately, means Sanford and his attentions. Eliza learns too late that he is, both literally and figuratively, an empty shell of what he appears or professes to be. He’s not really rich and he’s just a lech, though he does in his own sick, perverse way love her.
Eliza is repeatedly described as “volatile”, and her volatility, I believe, is a by-product of her immaturity. Korobkin notes: “Chemically, a substance that was volatile showed a readiness to vaporize or evaporate, [a] tendency to be readily diffused or dissipated in the atmosphere, especially at ordinary temperatures‟ (OED); by analogy, a character similarly constituted has no independent central core holding it together, but dissipates itself through social interactions.” Had Eliza not invested herself so fully in superficial and inconsequential pastimes, perhaps she would have been able to be more serious or at least give more thought to serious subjects, like her relationships. She would have been more able to make an accurate appraisal of herself and her long-term goals and aspirations, and thus have realized before it was too late (1) that she wanted to marry Boyer, and (2) that Sanford was a rake and everything he supposedly had to offer her wasn’t enough to make her happy.

In the end, Eliza goes into self-imposed exile, leaving her mother a letter of apology and asking for her forgiveness. She gives birth to a baby who dies and shortly thereafter dies herself. All of this could have been avoided if she had reigned in her materialistic desires; if she had taken the time to make an accurate appraisal of herself and her real feelings and desires; if she had severed all ties with Sanford immediately upon hearing of his reputation; if she had realized that he hadn’t changed and was never going to change; in short, by simply being a little more mature. While I have no doubt that Eliza’s terrible, embarrassing end predicament would be substantially less so in today’s culture, I’m also fairly certain that her outrageous level of immaturity would prove to make her just as miserable carrying her married lover’s baby.

Works Cited
Dill, Elizabeth. “A Mob of Lusty Villagers: Operations of Domestic Desires in Hannah

Webster Foster's The Coquette.” Eighteenth Century Fiction 15.2 (2003):

255-280. Wilson Web. Web. 8 Mar. 2011.
Foster, Hannah Webster. “The Coquette; or, The History of Eliza Wharton. A Novel.

Founded on Fact. By a Lady of Massachusetts.” The Norton Anthology of American Literature: Vol. A. Ed. Nina Baym. 7th ed. New York: W. W. Norton & Company. 2007. 807-904. Print.

Korobkin, Laura H. “Can Your Volatile Daughter Ever Acquire Your Wisdom?” Luxury and False Ideas in The Coquette.” Early American Literature 41.1 (2006): 79-107. Wilson Web. Web. 8 Mar. 2011.

Trends That I'm (Almost) Violently Opposed To...

...But Which Look Pretty Cute on Babies

I believe most of you are familiar with this post. This is a follow-up post. Which is not happening because I promised myself I would write at least one blog post a week and am currently two posts behind.

Rompers

Don't put this:

on your body.

Put it on your baby instead:

Infinitely cuter. And an easy diaper change when the time comes; which it invariably will.

Overalls

Not this:

Or this:

 

This:

Or even this:

Leggings As Pants

I didn't mention this one in my original post, but I should have. LEGGINGS ARE NOT PANTS. I get it-- they're easy and comfortable. But, ladies--please, I implore you-- let's be mindful of the length of the tops we're wearing with them. It should be more on the tunic-y side and at least cover your butt. If not, it's supremely trashy.

So unless you want to look like this:

Or this:

Hello, Camel-toe!

Don't do it. 

Unless you look like this:

Because it's not a big deal if people can see your diaper.

While we're on the subject, 

these are leggings:

 

These are not:

legwarmers

So, in closing: do not ever, ever, ever, like, EVER put any of these articles of clothing on your own body, unless you want to look trashy or take longer going to the bathroom; you may, however, put them on your baby; leggings are not pants and legwarmers are not leggings. 

Stay classy, my friends.

You Have to Be One Sick Puppy

For some reason I've been thinking a lot about Chitty Chitty Bang Bang recently. It's probably because I've always wanted a name like Truly Scrumptious, even though Truly Scrumptious could just as easily be a stripper or a Bond villain; which makes sense because the guy who wrote Chitty Chitty Bang Bang is the same guy who wrote the James Bond novels.

While I love this movie and hold that no home's DVD collection--and no one's childhood-- is complete without it, it is a supremely strange movie. Though it did give us a glimpse into what Michael Jackson's life would be like ten years before Michael Jackson was even born.

I just question some peoples' world view, I guess. Though some people are definitely more off than others.

This past week, as I was eating bags of day-after-Halloween-super-sale-candy, I saw at least two different videos on Facebook of people finding razor blades in their kids' candy. Who would do something like that? It just boggles my mind that there are people out there who go to all the trouble of unsealing individually wrapped candy, slipping razor blades (which they have been saving, presumably, for months to have enough) into the candy, sliding the candy back into their wrappers, and resealing them so that they can hurt children who they have probably never met and will never see again. WHY? You have to be one sick puppy.

I wonder what these peoples' reality is like, you know? It's like those people who think that Josh Hutcherson is more attractive than Liam Hemsworth. It's a Hemsworth, for Heaven's sake! Though I do feel badly for the third Hemsworth brother. On his own he's a reasonably attractive fella; but up next to his brothers he's markedly less attractive. And shorter.

Idiosyncrasies

I love Aldi. For those who don't know, Aldi is a grocery store with crazy low prices. One of the ways they keep the prices down is that you have to put a quarter into a mechanism on the shopping carts to take them out of line. When you're done shopping, you put the cart back in line, chain it to the others by the mechanism, and reclaim your quarter. It works; there are never ever empty unattended carts in the Aldi parking lot.

I have a whole theory about this that I'm currently working on. Either, it restores my faith in humanity because we only need a very small incentive to do the right thing; or, it reinforces my negative perception of the human race because we will do anything to get back what belongs to us, even if what belongs to us is only worth 25 cents.

I'm an observer of humankind, you see. A student of humanity if you will. You would think I would understand them better after having been raised by them and living among them for so long. I find idiosyncrasies and quirks fascinating. So, for your reading pleasure, I have compiled a list of 13 things about me. Why 13? Because it's my blog and I can do whatever I feel like, that's why.

1. I would be crazy easy to stalk should someone feel inclined. This thought struck me yesterday morning as I was sitting in the same building I always sit in on Tuesday mornings, doing the same thing that I always do. I am a creature of habit. I do things a certain way, usually at a certain time, and therefore am highly stalkable. If the hypothetical stalker didn't die of boredom, anyways; highly probable.

2. I have an unnatural affinity for fake cheese. Not Velveeta, but Ritz bits and Cheetos. Can you imagine the pitch meeting for Cheetos? "Picture, if you will, packing peanuts, sprayed with cheese. But wait, wait! I haven't told you the best part: it's not real cheese. That's right, they're sprayed with cheese-like product." Then the makers would just pause and let that mind-bomb take effect. Obviously it was unanimously approved and we can now enjoy the product in a party sized bag of deliciousness; puffy or squookally variety.

3. I hate Remember the Titans. And all inspirational sports movies, if we're being real with each other; and I know we are. Except for The Blind Side. That biz is poignant. Michael never had a bed before Sandra Bullock gave him one!

4. I secretly want a pot-bellied pig. With the acreage we have, by our city's statutes, we could have two pot-bellied pigs.

5. I hate white chocolate. Unless it's on or in something I think is delicious, like strawberries or cookies. In that case, the deliciousness overpowers and cancels out the nasty.

6. I don't really like to talk but I have a lot to say. I'm really much more reserved by nature, but I'm really opinionated. I usually avoid speaking my mind on little things, like my dislike of white chocolate (which, by the way, shouldn't even be called chocolate; it's nothing more than a chocolate derivative. If you wouldn't feed derivatives to your dog, you probably shouldn't eat them yourself) because I don't want to offend or alienate people. This blog is an exception because, well, you can stop reading any time you want and be offended in private. We'll see how that goes when I'm old, cantankerous, and don't care about other people's feelings any more.

7. I put great stock in Briggs-Myers Tests. They're ridiculously accurate and, therefore, great for personal awareness. They pick up on little quirks in your personality that nobody else would know about; it's scary. If you've never taken one, I highly recommend it. Less than one percent of the population has my personality type. Find the one I took at the link above.

8. I'm a hard money kind of person. If I could feasibly carry around a brick of gold and pay my expenses that way, I'd be all over it. I can't think of a single country that's still on the gold standard, which is tragic. We need the gold and silver standard if we want a stable economy. That's not news to anyone with even a rudimentary knowledge of economics (like me). I just read an interesting article about it here.

9. I am a chronic procrastinator. Give me six weeks to do something and I will show you an all-nighter the day before it's due. This past week I had a Halloween party to go to on Wednesday night. I started working on the costumes that Monday. And we all looked fantastic. Maybe if it didn't work out for me once, I'd stop. I've been that way ever since elementary school, though. Everyone in my family, really, suffers from the same affliction; except my Mom. So, as my Dad says, at least I come by it honestly.

10. I feel like a have some sort of circadian rhythm disorder. Like a blind person. Sometimes, I wake up really early in the morning and am totally awake and ready to get up and start the day. Other days, I can sleep in until noon and still not be ready to get up. Certain nights I can't fall asleep at all, but then I'm fine in the morning. Clearly, my body is very confused.

11. I like knowing. Whether it's how to do something or how something works, I just like knowing. I like to know how to make things from scratch; I like knowing how to jump a car battery; I like knowing how to sew, knit, and crochet; I like knowing how football works. I'm naturally independent and I like to be self-reliant and self-sufficient; like a pioneer. If I had my pot-bellied pig and my brick of gold, I'd be really self-sufficient; like a pioneer.

12. I wish, with every fiber of my being, that I was ambidextrous. Enough said. It would just be undeniably rad.

13. I believe the children are our future. Teach them well and let them lead the way. Show them all the beauty they possess inside. Give them a sense of pride to make it easier. Let the children's laughter remind  us how we used to be.