A culture of poverty, drugs, and domestic violence

As I was reading Sing, Unburied, Sing, I was able to make many connections to a memoir title Hillbilly Elegy, which I read for my non-fiction independent study in AP English III last year. In this memoir, the authors JD Vance tells us he was able to overcome poverty and family crises in the troubled, white, rural working class of Kentucky and Ohio and then pass high school, join the marines, make it into Ohio State University, and then into Yale Law school to become a successful law clerk.

Just like Jojo and Kayla, JD grew up with drug-addicted parents. Contrastingly, JD was physically abused by his mother and father regularly. JD's mother had gone through numerous cycles of relationships with boyfriends and husbands, filled with violence, anger, and abuse with J.D. and his sister as the scapegoats. As a result, J.D. had no real father or mother figure in his life. Instead, he relied on the care from his older sister and his strict-yet caring grandmother. His mother started to take prescription drugs in large quantities in order to cope with the stress of her boyfriends, the death of her father, and duty of parenting her children. The rehabilitation facility she was forced to live in did nothing to stop her addiction, as she later became hooked on heroine.

The area in northern Kentucky and southern Ohio that he grew up in is filled with poor, white families who make their living working in mines or manufacturing plants. This is very similar to Bayou Sauvage, MS made up of mostly farmers and agricultural dependent labor. Almost all of the families from these areas are filled with some form of conflict, substance abuse, or violence, so it is not surprising to see the connection between these two novels.

Vance uses his struggles and hardships faced within his family to demonstrate how much of the rural working class also experiences the same reality. He describes how husbands and wives could not get along, children were physically and verbally abused, and how families were not making enough money to stay out of poverty. Some of the families took to asking for federal assistance and lived on welfare and subsidized housing, while others kept their blue-collar jobs that were slowly beginning to disappear. His main point in telling us his story is to convince the reader that government is not to blame for the terrible economic and domestic problems of his society. While public policy can definitely help, the main problem is with the "hillbillies's" attitudes and values and how they raise their children, which is conflict many do not have the solution to fixing. Where as with Sing Unburied Sing, Ward seems to use the story of Jojo and Kayla to push for racial equality and prison reform and to recognize the drug problem.

Here is an article by the New York Times on the memoir and is worth a read.

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/11/books/review-in-hillbilly-elegy-a-compassionate-analysis-of-the-poor-who-love-trump.html

Auras

A big big topic some of the members of the class have gotten invested in is auras. Auras are defined as “a supposed emanation surrounding the body of a living creature, viewed by mystics, spiritualists, and some practitioners of complementary medicine as the essence of the individual, and allegedly discernible by people with special sensibilities.” It’s basically the vibe you give off when you first meet someone. I’m auras, qualities like compassion, loyalty, stubbornness, logic, and more are assessed. In case you were wondering, because I know you all are,  I have a yellow aura. You can take a quiz to find out what you are too. A similar phenomenon that many people follow in their daily lives are horoscopes. I know that in this particular AP English class, we have a few students who avidly live by their horoscope (*cough cough* Farah). However, horoscopes are different than auras in that they are set and permanent. Auras are opinionable, so you may not exactly have the aura you think you do. Horoscopes are based off of zodiac signs, which are based off your birthday: something you cannot change. Many people check their horoscopes on a monthly, weekly, or even daily basis. It’s almost like a daily prediction of your future. Something one might compare these phenomenons to is prophecies. In Oedipus, prophecies are a huge component to the play. As we all know, a certain prophecy about Oedipus is the whole basis of the story: that he’ll kill his father and sleep with his mother. I think things like fortune telling, horoscopes, auras, and prophecies all are a part of a family that is very catered to the superstitious. It’s a very interesting field of ideas that I’m intrigued by. 

Hello from Ole Miss :)

I missed being in class today, but you’ll never guess what I saw on my way to ole miss this morning. There was a truck on the side of the road with a bunch of people from Parchman working on the highway! I could tell by their green and white striped pants. Aside from that, I also visited the University of Mississippi Museum today and saw some awesome art that not only showed the beauty and history of mississippi, but also some stuff from Ancient Greece! Even a tribute to Dionysus!! I took some pictures of some of my favorite pieces. I hope y’all enjoy!

A thespian's view on Oedipus

I think something that is easy to forget when reading a Greek tragedy or a comedy is that in fact, the many of the dense poems we read are meant to be performed. As a "thespian," it is fun to read the play "Oedipus, the King." This is mainly because the language in it is much more natural than I've read in other plays. It is seemingly easier to perform and therefore, most likely more enjoyable to watch. Language in the play is vivid, containing imagery and emotion that is vital to a memorable stage performance. The way that Sophocles writes out Oedipus's anger, for example would be interesting to watch, and it is nice to read a work in which it is so clear that the characters would be beautifully performed. It is typical that as someone interested in theatre, you default to love modern shows, but after reading a bit of Oedipus, I've gained a significant amount of respect and appreciation for even those works that are ancient.

Tyrants and Memory in Oedipus the King and OHYoS

On page 596-597 of Oedipus the King, the chorus has a relatively long dialogue about the power of the gods and tyrants. This reminded me of One Hundred Years of Solitude and Marquez's political views as well as his points about memory. The chorus says that tyrants are made from people who are too prideful and deem themselves special above others; they say that tyrants bring destruction. Marquez would agree; his characters became tyrannical when they lost their sense of identity and put themselves higher up than others. He would also agree about the destruction; he portrayed tyrants as violent and selfish, not helpful or caring. Oedipus is tyrannical in that he wants his subjects to turn to him for everything and to rely only on him. As we talked about, Oedipus compares himself to the gods and wants to take the place of powerful savior. Maybe the inevitability of his fated fall is somewhat of a commentary on the fates of tyrants. There's a Latin saying that translates to "thus always to tyrants! "The immortality of the gods is also described in connection to their everlasting memory and this reminded me of Marquez's point that memory keeps history and identity alive, which was also important in Sing, Unburied, Sing.

Fun Facts about Freud

Sigmund Freud (1856-1939), the psychologist behind the famous "Oedipus complex," was what we 


would call an interesting character. He hypothesized that males secretly want to have sex with their mothers and kill their fathers (like Oedipus from the myths of Ancient Greece). He created the idea of the three-part psyche: the id (instincts), ego (reality), and superego (morality). Freud also attempted to delve into the ideas of the subconscious and unconscious mind. While his ideas were somewhat wacky, his personal life was just as bizarre. Here are some weird facts you may not have known about Freud.

• He was addicted to tobacco and eventually smoked more than 20 cigars a day. Despite undergoing more than 30 cancer surgeries, he never quit smoking. What a rational guy.
• When he heard about a little-known drug (what we now call cocaine), he tried it and liked its effects. So he then proceeded to distribute it to his friends and patients, some of which developed cocaine addictions and suffered from overdoses.
• Freud was an atheist but was born into a Jewish family. His books were burned by the Nazis in the 1930s, and although he left the country and ultimately died before WWII, four of his sisters died in Nazi concentration camps.

Sources:

https://www.simplypsychology.org/Sigmund-Freud.html 

https://www.history.com/news/10-things-you-may-not-know-about-sigmund-freud 

Oedipus and Arcadio

There have been many similarities between the works of literature we've read so far this year, and one of the biggest ones is the motif of incest. In One Hundred Years of Solitude, Ursula and her husband's relationship is incestuous, and she fears the consequences of incest for the rest of her family members. However, she doesn't even know about one of the potential incestuous relationships: Arcadio and his mother, Pilar Ternera.

Like Oedipus, Arcadio doesn't know his true parentage. He is raised by two Guajiro servants in the Buendia household and later by Ursula. At one point, he even announces, "By my honor, I am not a Buendia," which is ironic because he is actually the son of Jose Arcadio and Pilar Ternera. Because Arcadio does not know his true parentage, he is attracted to his mother, Pilar Ternera, and even seeks her out for a sexual relationship (although it is possible he might have sought her out anyway given the other taboo relationships in this novel). Because she knows she is his mother, Pilar sends Arcadio in the direction of another woman, Santa Sofia de la Piedad, whom Arcadio later marries. However, Oedipus's mother, Jocasta, doesn't have this opportunity. She believes she killed her son, Oedipus, when he was an infant. Oedipus and Jocasta marry, both ignorant of their familial relationship. Oedipus would never have married a woman he knew to be his mother--that is the very prophecy he has tried to avoid his entire life. Both Arcadio and Oedipus are cursed to commit an ultimate taboo as a result of the mystery of their parentage.