The Cat and the Mouse

Ganeku, Samantha
English 313 Th 4:20
Professor Wexler
23 October 2008

In Tennessee William’s Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Maggie is often times like a cat in heat; whereas, Nora in A Doll’s House by Henrik Ibsen is a timid mouse. Both women, however, help keep their households stable while trying to support their family in the present, as well as in the future. The portrayal of these two women is often times a role reversal of traditional notions of the role of women within the family.

Maggie tries to seduce her own husband and offers him a shoulder to lean on physically and metaphorically. Brick gets hurt jumping the hurdles because “people like to do what they used to do, even after they’ve stopped being able to do it” (Williams 44). Maggie tries to care for Brick by offering to help him move around when he drops his crutch. Similarly, Nora tries to take care of her husband Torvald when he becomes sick by taking him away from the stress of their current lives. In both of these situations Simone De Beauvoir would argue that the women are getting their role from the male, such as in a master slave relationship. They are acting on the values that have been ingrained in their psyche as the role of the women in a marriage, that they need to take care of their man when he is down to ensure they recover quickly and then will be able to take over the role once again as the provider.

Ferdinand Saussure’s “Course on Linguistics” can be applied to say in conjunction with De Beauvoir that the values of a traditional wife/mother are a sign and signifier relationship. We hear “wife” and “mother” and automatically get an image of the homemaker. Saussure says the “sign unites, not a thing and a name, but a concept and a sound-image” (78). When the audience is taking in both Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and A Doll’s House, they come to the plays with ideas of a “good” wife as “domestic, attractive, home-centered” (Barker 307) and a “good” mother who provides for the children and watches over them. When they see Nora and Maggie on the stage they are satisfied and shocked because these characters do not always conform to the audience’s ideas. Maggie and Nora are the signified aspects of the sign; whereas the concept of the mother/wife is the signifier. It is the crashes between traditional values and what is being performed that make the audience reject the characters because of their behavior. Maggie is then called a bitch because of the way tries to better her family’s future and she presents herself as a “sneak, cheat, manipulative” (Barker 307). Nora on the other hand is a Barker’s decoy an “apparently helpless, actually strong” (307) for part of the play while she plays a victim for the later half because of her guilt.

De Beauvoir points out that the woman plays a different role in the master-slave relationship than the “normal” slave, “she is the Other in a totality of which the two components are necessary to one another” (Beauvoir). Both Nora and Maggie are important to the future of their family because without them, the men would not be able to procreate. For Maggie however, it is more important for her to have children because it would help ensure her family’s inheritance when Big Daddy passes away. Maggie tries to keep herself looking attractive for Brick in hopes that one day “[he’ll] see [her] again like other men see [her]” (Williams 32). She becomes the cat in heat because of her need to provide another generation that will ensure the future of her family in a physical way, as well as in an economic way.

Instead of being strong like Maggie, Nora in A Doll’s House looks after her family and strives to save her husband no matter the cost. She takes it upon herself to get a much needed loan, without permission from her husband and knowing how he dislikes loan and how he will eventually feel about her. Nora goes outside of her home and defies her husband, as well as going as far as flirting openly with a family friend. She opposes the will of her husband, even if she is trying to help keep him alive. When she is confronted by her husband she becomes weak. Nora does not stand by her husband after her realizations about her marriage, she leaves. She becomes a timid mouse that runs and hides instead of standing strong. The way Nora is portrayed allows the audience to be able to relate more because of the “circuit of culture” as outlined in Chris Barker’s Cultural Studies. Everyone and everything plays a part in culture and this outlines the interconnected roles going from identity to representation to regulation to consumption to production (60). In Nora, it is easier to relate to the identity created in the representation of a devoted and stressed wife who wants the best for her family. This representation is then regulated and modified in the eyes of the consumer, thus producing a response or critique to the work so more identities can be created or enhanced.

Maggie and Nora both challenge the traditional views of the woman, wife and mother. Together they help reshape the public’s view by presenting an over sexualized cat and a timid, skittish mouse.


Works Cited

Barker, Chris. "Cultural Studies." London: SAGE Publications Ltd, 2008.

de Beauvoir, Simone de. “Introduction: Woman as Other,” The Second Sex. 28 Jan 2006. Marxists.org. 13 Oct. 2008. (Williams)

Saussure, Ferdinand. “Course in General Linguistics,” Structuralism and Linguistics.

Williams, Tennessee. Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. London: Signet Drama, 1958.

Spokespeople

Watching the news lately one can't help but notice with the type of stories that are being aired, that there is an abundant number of spokespeople that have no clue what is going on. In particular an officer acting as a spokesperson during a high speed pursuit cannot confirm anything about the pursuit, the suspect, or the events leading up to the chase, all he can say is "i have no information"....what is your job? Is it not to provide information to the public in hopes of helping ensure their safety as well as satisfying our nosy/curious natures? I thought so, in fact, I assumed that was part of the description of the job. But you know what they say about assuming things...

What happened to happy news?? We have fires, dead bodies in pools, suicidal car chases, but nothing about furry animals (happy news...not of them being beaten or killed) or some outstanding citizen or young adult.

"it's the mother f---ing times" for sure that can explain this I suppose. but is that in no way an excuse to be slacking on your job if you are hired to provide information to the public.

Luda to Tina

After a few days of recovery, I've had time to reflect on my recent concert experiences. It's funny really because of the two extreme experiences that were not entirely what I expected.

First I went with some friends to the Big Show 8 concert at CSUN featuring Ludacris. While the company was great...the crowd was a severe pain in the ass. Never have I met a group of people that were rude or so friendly. Either people were pushing you or standing on top of you to get closer or they were yelling at those people along with you. Either way the concert was pretty good and was pretty much what one would expect.



Tina, Tina, Tina...what a river. That woman is amazing. How old is she and her body looks that good? AND!! she can jam in heels for 3 hours?!? I wish I could do that now! The concert was great. Tina was great. The dancers great. The crowd?? More drunk and rude people than you would expect. "Bitch" being thrown everywhere. More beer and seat hoppers than the most out of control hip-hop concert. It was pretty amazing.

One would think that between the two concert the Oxygen masks and the Back Boards from the Ludacris concert...well my dear friends, you would be wrong. They had to bust those out for those crazy Tina fans! Seriously a once in a lifetime experience. =D

i was hoping to share some videos but blogger.com isn't responding. so check back a little later. meanwhile, i'ma go eat some ice cream!!

Someone to Watch Over You

Though I'm not a very spiritual or religious person, some conversations make me believe that some people have guardian angels or someone looking out for them. Recently a family member of one of my mom's co-workers got in a horrific accident that could have taken many lives. This woman blacked out (how or why, yet to be determined), drove into a gas station, hit a gas pump and her car lit on fire. Even though she was trapped in her car for about 3 minutes, she came out without a single burn on her body, though her shoes and purse were completely charred. On any other day there would have been bikers taking their normal route and possibly someone at that gas pump. Luckily, that day was different and because of it, everyone came out relatively okay. It is amazing that she came out alive and yet even more amazing that she is physically unharmed. Yet another family friend has had tragedy strike his family and had an almost near death experience himself this year. He has done the unthinkable, stayed strong, and stood by and lent aid to someone who could have caused his death due to her distraught emotional state to carry on his son's legacy. Things like this makes me realize that we have someone looking out for us from time to time or even that we have another purpose that has yet to be fulfilled. They even make me have faith that there are good and strong people out there that will remain optimistic

In times like this last week where wildfires are rapidly spreading, numerous properties are in danger, and the economy on extremely shaky ground, we need to be thankful for what we have and if you will, what we are blessed with. Whether you are religious or not, thankfulness, gratefulness, and understanding are valuable qualities and assets to hold onto when the safety and security of more physical assets are in danger. Lets be thankful for what we have today because we never know when it might be taken from us.

Kanye West and Patrick Bateman

Funny enough, today in my Literature and Film class we briefly brought up the discussion of Patrick Bateman in American Psycho. We briefly touched upon the idea that no one actually wants to be Patrick Bateman but the movie portrays an interesting view of Dystopia. It's kind of funny how we don't want to be Bateman as a psycho killer but we will become a version of him as a byproduct of consumerism.

Today, relaxing at home, I turn on the Ellen DeGeneres Show. None other than Kanye West is sitting in the chair next to the host talking about the influences for his new music video Love Locked Down. Interestingly enough, he says some of the influence came from Patrick Bateman.




We can see from the opening scene a resemblance to Bateman's Aparment as in this clip



The following videos is where he talks about the influences,



In addition to the clip showing Kanye's inspiration, here is a quote from an article about today's appearance on the Ellen show:

After Kanye West unveiled the new video
for his single "Love Lockdown" on "The
Ellen DeGeneres Show" on Tuesday (October 7),
he admitted that the clip's modern look
was inspired by a chainsaw-wielding maniac.

"On this album, I kind of embody Patrick
Bateman from 'American Psycho,' " he joked
on the show, adding, "You know at the end
of the movie [that] he didn't really kill
anyone. [I just liked] the clean aesthetic
and the way he was all about labels. I
wanted to express all of that in the video."

from Jocelyn Vena on Love Locked Down

Focusing on "artistic communities" we can see the materialism and consumerism that surrounds these aspects of culture and how it "bleeds" into every day society. For example, the materialism that we see associated to being "popular" and being a "celebrity". Once a name is associated with a brand, such as Michael Jordan, he becomes a commodity, and I think in the business world that Patrick Bateman lives in is very much this. His status as "fitting in" depends on his wearing the right suit and being seen in all the right places. With the "Hip-Hop community" it is also about looks and the right brand, otherwise it wouldn't matter if P. Diddy put his name behind this band or Kanye West decided to produce this song. Without their names on these records, backing these bands, there is a good chance that no one would care or even pay attention. There are so many "underground" and "indie" bands that never see the popular radio waves because they have yet to be discovered by some popular producer or record label.

We as consumers strive for recognition, especially in our teen years for the things we wear, realizing this, ad campaigns such as cigarette ads (in the past), cereal ads, shoe ads, etc. are tailored to appeal to younger generations. We, then become byproducts much like Bateman because some children will do anything to get their material needs met. Watching "Keeping Up With the Karashians" this weekend reminds me of this. One of the younger, less known daughters, Kendall (i believe) was
given chores to earn money to buy the latest thing she saw at the mall. Instead of doing the chores, she hired someone else at a lesser rate to do the same job, thus getting the chores done and making the money she needed to get what she wanted.

The need to have our consumer needs meet and our materialistic needs indulged, does cause us to lose a part of morality and sense of obligation because we become more focused on what we appear to be than what we really are. When people graduate from high school and some times college, the realization hits that we have not really done anything with our lives because we have just been going through the motions and making other people happy with the external self instead of our inner self.

Goodbye Kittens, Hello Broken Heart

Today was one of the hardest days for me. I gave up my kittens to a Cat Rescue lady. It was difficult enough to even find someone to take them. Apparently it's Kitten Season and all the shelters are full or over capacity to store them. My dad and I called over 100 places before we finally found someone willing to take them as long as we paid for the kitty shots.

So we rush to my apartment where I am literally balling my eyes out as I pack them into their little carry box. Of course they knew something was wrong and tried to get away. We make the drive out to Burbank's Petco and hand my babies over to the lady in charge. They take Kibbles and Bits out of their carrying case and already begin to debate names for them. In their new cages, Kibbles and Bits look at me as if I've betrayed them and it simply broke my heart. Standing there sobbing as I lean against their cage, some lady comes up and offers words of "comfort", saying "Don't worry we don't kill them, we keep them until they find a home." As if this is a consolation to my breaking heart. I don't think so.

Now home, I am trying to console myself by lying to myself...makes sense? I worry about my kittens and if they will be able to stay together, will they get a good home, will they find someone who will love them to pieces like they deserve? I tell myself they will, I tell myself it is for the best, and the biggest bullshit lie, that I loved them enough to let them go. I hope this is all true, but right now they all seem like selfish lies that are designed to make me feel better about this decision.

And so I come to these pondering thoughts. Why is it that when my fish died when I was young, as well as a few years ago, I didn't shed a single tear, but now that I give my kittens into the care of another, I cannot help but turn into a blubbering, heartbroken mess? I suppose it is because I felt a certain detachment from Freckles, the fish. I never cared enough maybe. With the kittens, they forced me to care, butting their way into my heart and fussing around in my heart until there was more then enough room to love them. For now, I will continue to miss them, and more then likely continue to cry, but I would like to share some of my memories with you.

Ethnography, Women, Radical Romance

Date: Friday September 19, 2008
Location: My balcony
Time: 6 pm

Groups of people walk by my apartment on a regular basis, so I figure, why not use that to my advantage. So I set up my chair and my laptop and sit back to enjoy the show. Today was a particularly interesting day.

A guy and a girl walk by holding hands, maybe in their late 20s wearing some baggy sweats. They just walk on by, not noticing the person walking the dog at the end of the leash who won’t stop barking. The couple is so engrossed in each other, they don’t notice anything going on around them.

Oh my here comes a good one. There is a girl that is walking over to a blue truck (make and model? Who cares?!?!) and starts yelling at the person within. The window rolls down as she steps next to the driver side door revealing a guy possibly in his early 20s. Something along the lines of him being a jerk and a lying bastard…of course. He doesn’t say much, in fact, he is dealing with a woman screaming at the top of her lungs in a very public place, in a pretty calm fashion. She yells at him for quite a while, never once letting him get a word in, telling him he’s all kinds of screwed up. After a while he rolls up his window, starts his car and drives away. She of course, throws her phone at his car. The phone misses the car and shatters on the pavement, at which point she starts cursing the cell phone maker, whom she is sure is of the male sex.

A guy is walking down the street and coming towards him is a girl in a really (and I mean really) low cut shirt with white pants so low that I swear I can almost see her butt crack. It is hard to say if they know each other or not, but they stop and talk…well flirt, for a little while. He pulls out his phone and most likely gets her number (there’s no way that he’s checking his text messages people). They briefly say goodbye and she walks away. As she is walking away from him, the guy turns around to check out the view.

Analysis.
Well I must say, today was rather odd. Normally I don’t have so many people arguing outside of my apartment, couples are usually like the first one I observed. They are a perfect example of the kind of relationship that most of us ideally want. A calm situation in which we are so into each other, we don’t really have a care in the world. Who knows, maybe so, maybe not. Either way, this is why the romance genre is so popular with women because they want that kind of relationship. They want to be swept off their feet and romanced like there is no tomorrow and in romance novels, they are able to experience this vicariously through the characters in the novels.

The second couple is why so many corporations stay in business. Like the diagram located in our book, the base is supported by those above it, and those above it support those below. The girl will probably go home and eat some comfort food in the form of Ben and Jerry’s ice cream while she curses the male population in general. Let us not forget that broken phone lying on the pavement. She, as a consumer will be supporting Ben and Jerry’s and the phone company, with likely another purchase due to her frustration and anger. On the discussion of high and low, privileged and not, comes the concept of high class and low class. It was once privileged to keep all your family problems inside the home, those that “aired their dirty laundry” in public were considered to be of a lower, less privileged class. Watching the girl reminded me of some elements we watched of Jerry Maguire where his first wife, played by Kelly Preston was getting mad at him when he reveals that he has changed his mind about how he is going to be a sports agent.

Lastly, the two people who met on the street. This is a demonstration of de Beauvoir’s Second Sex. The girl in the white pants is getting her roll from the male. She finds herself attractive because the guy pretty much says she is it is from this that she understands her role in society. It is not because she makes her own destiny or path, rather, she makes herself a commodity in the eyes of the male sex by dressing the way she does. You cannot dress that way and expect no one to check you out or look twice as you walk by.

Ethnography

Northridge Mall
Saturday September 20 2008

Sitting outside of the Orange Julius/ Dairy Queen around mid afternoon

A mother and her child walks in. Both appear to be of Caucasian descent wearing nice clothes. The mother is holding her sons hand as the child struggles to get away from her. He points at the coin operated rides just under the elevator but his mom refuses to let him go. She tells him because he’s been a bad boy, he won’t get an ice cream. He pouts but she doesn’t give in, buying one cone and sitting at a table where she eats the cone while her son watches.

A little girl and little boy walk in with someone who appears to be their father. The children stand in line with their father. They appear to be of Asian descent. The father does not hold their hand, nor does he scold them in line, instead the children stand there quietly as their father orders his ice cream. When he is finished paying, his children go to the napkin dispenser and grab enough napkins for each of them and their father. They sit at a table inside, setting the napkins up like a place mat and begin to eat in a meticulous fashion. As they walk out,
each cleans up their own area and throws away the trash. Walking through the entry way, the children walk several steps behind their father who doesn’t hold their hand or keep looking over his should to check if they are there, rather it is like he knows they will always be trailing after him.

A mother and her daughter walk in to the store holding hands. They patiently wait in line to have their order taken. The daughter looks up at her mom and asks if she can have certain toppings. Her mother replies that her daughter will get whatever she orders for her. The daughter appears to be sad but doesn’t comment back to her mother. When it is time to order the daughter stands there hiding her face from her mother when she orders a cone with no chocolate dip but nuts for toppings. When
the mother hands the cone to her daughter, she accepts without a complaint. While walking out of the store, both mother and daughter eat their cones.


Watching the interactions between the children and their parents was interesting because it presented a dystopian element. The dystopian element is that several of the children accepted what their parents said to them, accepting that it is the law; however, the first child noted, tried to rebel against his mother and had to face the consequences of his actions. Furthermore, while the last little girl did not rebel in the sense of making a scene, she did have a hidden show of displeasure
towards her mother.

As a child, your parents word is the law, there is no deviation from it without clear consequences that will be devastating to a child. It is a law that has been programmed in them, literally since birth, and one they know they must follow, similar to Orwell’s dystopia. LikeWinston in 1984 by Orwell, if a child goes against the law, they are broken down until they can then be rebuilt to know the right side of the law. Their law is a law that we don’t question because we don’t know any better because that is what we have been taught all of our lives is the right
law. We learn from our parents what is right because we don’t want to be punished, to have our Gameboys or our Wiis taken away. Once we realize that there is a consequence to our sever misbehavior, we immediately rectify the situation so we no longer have these privileges taken away.

While these conditions may create a utopia for the parents, could it be considered a dystopia for the children? I suggest this because the children are not able to follow their instincts or natural wants for fear of getting into trouble...or at least in most cases.

Cat On a Hot Tin Roof

So we just presented. I must say that it was one of the most laid back and easy going presentation I have had in a while. My classmates definitely helped make the presentation the best it could be. Their willingness to participate and add their opinions really makes this class more enjoyable.

For this presentation I researched our library database for an article that stood out by bringing up a topic that had yet to be discussed and did not focus on the ambiguity of Bricks sexuality. While it is an intriguing aspect of the play, I feel, like the author of the supplemental reading, that it is really only one part of a complex play. There is so much that Tennessee Williams packs into this play, that there is really a lot of material to cover. So the fact that this article presents so many topics was the deciding factor in picking it.

I personally can identify the idea of being sad about death of innocence and childhood. It is something we all face at some point or another. For instance, in Jack and Kate Plus 8's episode last night, the family took a trip to Disney World. In one of the sit down portions, Kate said that she like going to Disney World because something about it made her embrace her childhood again. But once again, this idea of never growing up and embracing our childhood for a little bit longer is something we face, maybe even for just an instance in our life.

Brick's refusal to embrace his adulthood, as pointed out in the article is something that most teens face upon entering high school, sometimes even college because we gain more responsibility. We loose the possibility (in general of course) that our parents stop taking care of us, babying us, and feeling sympathy over the smallest things. As we are on the precipice of entering the "Real World" we, like Brick, become overwhelmed with the reality of the harsh world. As we venture farther and farther into the world and each year passes, we become more aware of our own age and thus our own morality.


please tell me, I did not talk about Jerry Springer like I watch it every day. =[ I really don't.

1984

As we prepared for yesterday's presentation, I kept finding myself making obscure connections in my head. Hate Week reminded me of this and that. My particular favorite reference was Disneyland's Small World ride. Don't ask me how or why. I doubt I could make an understandable argument at the moment, funny yes, intelligent, possibly not.

So when we first got into our groups I knew right away that I wanted to help with the academic journal article because I could keep my ramblings to a minimum. SO i set off that night in search of an article that I would be able to tie into the class. I managed to stumble upon Robert Paul Resch's "Utopia, Dystopia, and the Middle Class in George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four" on J-Stor. One thing that really drew me to the article was the focus on Utopia and Dystopia, but the authors use of charts really help visualize what he was talking about.

Within our actual presentation I did not have that much to contribute because of the article issues. You know the funny thing about it is that I was seriously technologically clueless and semi-lazy to actually figure out the best place. It provided a decent laugh and an indulgence in some triple chocolate ice cream to realize that the whole situation was in a way ironic for me.

I hoped everyone enjoyed the presentation and the article, though I realize it was a tad long. I personally am looking forward to participating and viewing other groups presentations. =]