Emily: The Other Perspective

From: Google.com

Critical Lens Expert

Text: Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov

Lens: Feminist

Google’s definition of Lolita is “a sexually precocious young girl.”

Elizabeth Patnoe questions why the definition of Lolita is not “‘a molested adolescent girl’  instead of a ‘seductive’ one?” in Lolita Misrepresented, Lolita Reclaimed: Disclosing the Doubles (Patnoe 82). Her answer: lack of perspective.

Lolita is told in Humbert Humbert’s perspective, who is an unreliable narrator. Humbert wants to prove that Lolita, not him, was the instigator of this relationship and that she was to blame. Lolita’s feelings are only described through the filter of Humbert’s retelling of the story. The critic pulls out examples of Lolita’s abuse “we see in her crying every night after she thinks Humbert is asleep, in the scratches she leaves on Humbert's neck while resisting sex with him, and in her escape from him” (82). Patnoe closely reads the passage in which Lolita and Humbert are together in the hotel room the first night after he removes her from camp. By imaging Lolita’s perspective she is able to gain a different understanding than what Humbert wants the reader to read. Humbert leaves out details as of who started the first kiss, what Lolita’s game was, and cryptically hides Lolita’s true intentions. This missing perspective further demonstrates Humbert ability to objectify females. Patnoe reveals that an entire other story is missing, Lolita’s. 

From: fanpop.com
Lolita Crying

However, this missing perspective leads to sympathy for Humbert. Some men that the critic spoke to “defended” Humbert and “understood” him (86-87). Yet, when reminded of situation in relation to their life, they were reminded of a different perspective. “He said, ‘If my daughter ever fooled around at that age,’ and stopped short. I replied, ‘If your daughter were Lolita, you'd call it rape.’ He shook his head, exhaled audibly through his nose, and said, ‘Touché. Now I see what you mean’” (86). There is a disconnect between the book and the meaning of the book in relation to life.

From: wordpress.com
How can a movie be made exclusively
from the perspective of one character?

Throughout the book, Lolita appeared to be older than her age, 12, which is the same age as my sister (*shudder*) even with Humbert reminding that she is of “pubescence” age (Nabokov 161) and “a child” (41). He calls her a “Pubescent sweetheart!” reminding me more of an older girl than of a pre-teen (161). This off kilter perspective is what Humbert wants me to think, although it is more clear to me after I have read this passage. So, I understand Patnoe’s statement of “Perhaps these issues have not been adequately addressed because readers who do not have such disturbing desires cannot imagine, cannot bear or bare the thought of them in themselves or others, and so deny or minimize such imaginings” (Patnoe 86). I, for one would rather not think of these issues, yet I understand that for a comprehensive view of this fiction, a look into life as we know it must be looked upon, so I will continue to ponder Lolita from Lolita’s perspective.

Emily: Nymph or Demon?

Close Reading

Text: Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov

Lens: Feminist

Humbert Humbert enjoys the company of young girls, a little too much. He attempts to explain his infatuation to the reader.

From: wordpress.com

Now I wish to introduce the following idea. Between the age limits of nine and fourteen there occur maidens who, to certain bewitched travelers, twice or many times older than they, reveal their true nature which is not human, but nymphic (that is, demoniac); and these chosen creatures I propose to designate as "nymphets."

It will be marked that I substitute time terms for spatial ones. In fact, I would have the reader see "nine" and "fourteen" as the boundaries--the mirrory beaches and rosy rocks--of an enchanted island haunted by those nymphets of mine and surrounded by a vast, misty sea. Between those age limits, are all girl-children nymphets? Of course not. Otherwise, we who are in the know, we lone voyagers, we nympholepts, would have long gone insane. Neither are good looks any criterion; and vulgarity, or at least what a given community terms so, does not necessarily impair certain mysterious characteristics, the fey grace, the elusive, shifty, soul-shattering, insidious charm that separates the nymphet from such coevals of hers as are incomparably more dependent on the spatial world of synchronous phenomena than on that intangible island of entranced time where Lolita plays with her likes… the little deadly demon among the wholesome children; she stands unrecognized by them and unconscious herself of her fantastic power. (Nabokov 16-17)

Humbert Humbert’s taste in females ranges from the age of “nine and fourteen” when he is at least “twice or many times older than they.”

From: images.fineartamerica.com
A Nymph (which I assume
is the root of Nymphet)

Humbert admits that his taste in female entities is a bit strange. He calls himself and other like him “bewitched travelers” and “ lone voyagers.” Both indicate that he realizes that his behavior is not in the societal norms. However, he attempts to lessen his guilt by dehumanizing his objects of desire. 

Instead of describing Lolita and other girls that catch Humbert’s fancy as just young girls, he instead calls these girls that he craves so much as “nymphets” and “fey.” These two words are connotatively positive words for magical creatures, which removing the image of a feminine entity and replaces it with a less human identity. His allusion to these magical creatures takes the girls out of the normal world and turns them into more of an animal to capture.

In his entire explaination about “nymphets” he only thinks of Lolita and other people like Lolita as girls to be dominated over -- girls to please him. His sexual fantasies include a paradise island where he protectively keeps his “nymphets of mine” on “an enchanted island… surrounded by a vast, misty sea.” He wishes to be surrounded by the objects of his fancy.

From: polyvore.com
A demon

At the same time, Humbert realizes that his desire for these girls is evil, calling them “demoniac” and “insidious.” He places the blame on the girls, not himself stating that it is “her fantastic power.”

Humbert Humbert dehumanizes the young girls by calling them nymphets and turning them into objects of affection, but blames the nymphets for his desire.

Entry 4

Chapter 
Lens: Reader Response
Prompt: Responding and Reflecting

Is it true? Is Sean going to write a serious entry? Well, I'm feeling super cereal right now. So maybe.

So far, I've managed to read the remainder of the Sparknotes for "Scarlet Letter," (I know, I know, I deserve a round of applause), and I now feel like I can respond adequately to this prompt. Throughout the story, we see people who are punished, either by society or by themselves, for the sins they have committed. From my own personal experiences in religion, this has not been the case. We don't go around branding people for their sins as the Puritans of the past did. Today, Christianity is much more focused on the forgiveness, rather than condemnation. The advantage to this would be that people are living more like the Bible intended. Now, I don't claim to know the Bible word for word, but what I do know that Jesus Christ, the base of Christianity, was a very forgiving person. In fact, there was one point in the Bible where a woman was about to be stoned, (like, have a bunch of rocks thrown at her until she died, not offered marijuana), for adultery, and Jesus stated that he who was without sin would be allowed to cast the first stone. As a result, no one was able to condemn the woman, because none of the people in the crowd were without sin. The story of Scarlet Letter is very similar in many ways. Hester was a woman who committed adultery, and was a sinner in both her own eyes and the eyes of the town. However, instead of forgiving Hester, the town decided to condemn her by forcing her to wear a scarlet "A" on her clothes at all time. In addition, they also shunned her from society, claiming that she was under the control of the devil. I believe this is the main source of conflict in "Scarlet Letter." When people are ignorant to their own religion, they begin to act out in the name of said religion, without actually following what it teaches. Now, I'm not saying that what Hester did was correct, but it was hypocritical for the people of the town to condemn her. Here's a quote from the Bible that accurately describes the situation: "Or how can you say to your brother, 'Let me take the speck out of your eye,' and behold, the log is in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye." (Matthew 7:5).

Emily: A girl should be seen and NOT heard.

Emily: Critical Lens Expert

Text: The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne

Lens: Feminist

From: UNWomen.org
Real Google searches show the sexism still prevalent today. 
Women are still silenced.

“A girl should be seen and not heard.” Of all the books I’ve read, not a single one says “a boy should be seen and not heard.” The Chaos Walking series by Patrick Ness takes this saying to a literal meaning -- all men and boys’ thoughts are able to be heard by everyone else, but women and girls’ thoughts are not. Women have been censored throughout literature.

Yet, a critique of The Scarlet Letter, Hester’s Revenge: The Power of Silence in the Scarlet Letter by Leland S. Person, Jr. applauds Hester’s “strategy” of silence while noting her inability to change society.

From: wordpress.com
Hester's promise not to reveal
Mr. Chillingworth's real identity.

Hester refuses to condemn her lover, she promises to never reveal the father’s name to Mr. Chillingworth, and keeps her husband’s real identity a secret. Person comments, “It is both fitting and ironic that Hester's revenge should take a ‘silent’ form: fitting because of Dimmesdale's own silence; ironic because, as feminist critics have argued, women are customarily ‘silenced’ in male-authored texts in order to be rendered powerless” (Person 470).  The critic later states that all these actions punish the characters: Mr. Dimmesdale suffers alone, and Mr. Chillingworth and Mr. Dimmesdale do not know each other’s relationship to Hester. Instead of viewing Hester’s silence as a feminine trait, it is argued that she used her silence as a punishment to both Mr. Dimmesdale and Mr. Chillingworth. 

Where is the line between oppressive silence and rebellious silence? Although, I do not see Hester as a feminist -- her unwillingness to break her silence is more a sign of her oppression by the two men, than of rebellion. Hester could have voiced her opinions starting with the recognition of her husband or with Mr. Dimmesdale beckoning her to release the name of Pearl’s father (Hawthorne, chapter 3), but Person states “given her circumstances, a strategic silence is the most appropriate form for Hester's exercise of power to take” (Person 471). Those circumstances are the societal norms of women.

The critic discusses Hester’s impact on her society -- which is little, “she does not change Puritan values, nor does she alter the balance of power between herself and Puritan authority” (471). Some recent books feature a strong woman protagonist, who saves the world; Hester did not save her world, in fact her actions have destroyed some of it, both men die because of her silence.

The criticism has opened my eyes to the “other” side of the feminist lens. My focus had been on the occupation of women compared to men and the sheer number of females compared to males; Hester’s silence did not appear significant until looking over this scholarly article.

From: birminghammaple.com

On Friday I will be participating in the Day of Silence to raise awareness of the silence of many LGBTQ people due to harassment. However, contemplating silence in a literary context, I am wondering if it is better to speak about the LGBTQ community in order to protest their harassment or hold a silent “rebellion”?

Sean- Entry 2

Chapters: 1-4
Lens: Reader Response
Prompt: Critical Lens Close Reading

So for chapters 1-4, I read the story from a much closer distance than I'm used to, and I must say, it was rather strenuous on the eyes. I don't recommend Critical Lens Close Reading to the faint of heart.

Alright, so apparently what I'm actually supposed to do is pick a paragraph from the chapters I read, and analyze it. Here's a paragraph:

" Could it be true? She clutched the child so fiercely to her breast, that it sent forth a cry; she turned her eyes downward at the scarlet letter, and even touched it with her finger, to assure herself that the infant and the shame were real. Yes!- these were her realities,- all else had vanished!" (53).

This may be a short paragraph, but as they say, a word is worth a thousand pictures. This being true, this paragraph contains 55 thousand pictures! That's enough for almost 40 minutes of film in a single paragraph. It's a wonder that people are ever able to condense entire novels into a two hour movie.

Ok, now to analyze the paragraph itself. Hester asking herself, "Could it be true?" shows that she still hasn't come to terms with her child, which she has known about for at least a few months now. She's quite slow when it comes to this kind of thing. Then she goes and squeezed the child until it cries, like its the baby's fault. It's not the baby's fault that Hester went around sleeping with the pastor (spoilers). She's a jerk, end of discussion. The moose is nicer.

Sean- Entry 1: Why I Chose This Lens

I chose the reader response critical lens for reading "Scarlet Letter." I did this because it sounds like the easiest critical lens. I don't have to do any extra thinking, and all I have to record is my own personal response. Sounds simple enough. Here's a picture of a moose.

Emily: The Inequity of Number of Superheriones Compared to Superheroes

Emily: Responding and Reflecting

Text: The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne

Lens: Feminist

From: craveonline.com
How many women can you count?

Women aren’t superheroes. Not often at least. It’s all about Superman and Iron Man and Batman and Spiderman. How often is Catwoman mentioned? Or Wonder Woman? According to my calculations, a little under 34% of superheroes are female. And it’s not like women are portrayed as villains either -- only 17% of villains are female (based on character lists from www.superherodb.com). It’s as if the 50% of the world’s population that is female only exists as tiny fraction of this other world.

From: wordpress.com

Likewise in The Scarlet Letter, 3 characters are female (Hester, Pearl, Mistress Hibbins) whereas 4 to 5 are male (Mr. Chillingworth, Mr. Dimmesdale, the Governor, Reverend Wilson, and the narrator, if you count him). The three women all are somehow all discredited by their society. Hester committed adultery and considered “the reality of sin” (Hawthorne 71), Pearl is just an illegitimate child, and Mistress Hibbins is a bit crazy. However, Mr. Chillingworth is considered to be a great doctor, a “man of skill” (Hawthorne 114) and Mr. Dimmesdale a “miracle of holiness” (129). The Governor obviously had power, and the Reverend Wilson a clergyman with sway over the minds of others.

Again there is a discrepancy in how many women are portrayed and what a woman can do. There are so few women superheroes, and even fewer women villains, it’s as if women cannot do anything. Hester found work sowing and mothering Pearl and Mistress Hibbins was just as lame with her witchcraft. That is not the woman I want to be.

This is a story written about the 1600s where women were more confined to their traditional roles, but now, even in superhero stories, males outnumber the females. Other popular books have more male characters than female characters (And I thought we were being more progressive.)

But then again, some parts of the book I do connect to Hester. Even though Hester Prynne is outcasted, she keeps her head high. She is not quite proud of the scarlet letter, but does not hide it either. It is somewhat of pride, but also love. She does not want to be seen as broken by the general populace so that she can protect her daughter, nor does she desperately denounce Mr. Dimmesdale so that only she suffers and does not have Mr. Dimmesdale hurt by Mr. Chillingworth. 

Even after that, so that she does not suffer as much as Mr. Dimmesdale and Mr. Chillingworth. Mr. Dimmesdale health falters under his sin. Mr. Chillingworth goes crazy in revenge and jealousy. Only Hester Prynne manages to survive the ordeal. Here, she is a strong woman who I can look up to. 

Some interesting information:

From: goodreads.com

I asked a few people about books with more females than males. I came up with this list.

More Females:

The Selection

Beauty Queens

Grave Mercy

Some Isabel Allende Books

Little House on the Prairie Series

All of a Kind of a Family

The Help

Fangirl

Howl's Moving Castle
The Book Thief

From: goodreads.com

However, it was much easier to name off books with more male characters than female characters.

More Males:

Harry Potter

Maze Runner (one female main character in the first book)

Percy Jackson

Twilight

Lord of the Flies (no female characters)

The Demon King (Male: 76, Female 42, approximate, all characters)

I Hunt Killers  (Male: 8, Female: 7, main characters)

Also TV Shows/Movies/Other with more females than male characters: Gilmore Girls, The 100, The Witches of Eastwood, The Parent Trap, Wicked, The Fosters, and Orange is the New Black

Please correct my numbers and guesswork. This is going off a personal recollections of the books. Notice how the books in the more male characters than female characters are big name books whereas I had to dig into the recesses of my (and others’) memory for the other books. Just because there are more females than males or vice versa, does not indicate the worth of the books, in fact some of books with more women characters portray women in a relatively negative light.

In a study about number of male vs. female characters in picture books the researchers found:

• Males are central characters in 57 percent of children's books published per year, while only 31 percent have female central characters.
• No more than 33 percent of children's books published in any given year contain central characters that are adult women or female animals, but adult men and male animals appear in up to 100 percent of books.
• Male animals are central characters in more than 23 percent of books per year, while female animals are in only 7.5 percent. (McCabe et al, Scientific Daily)

Honestly, I thought that by the 21st century we would see more gender equality in our literature. Unfortunately, I was wrong, but I hope that as feminism and gender equality is pushed to the forefront of our minds, more books will represent the true population of the world.

Emily: A Single Mother?

Emily: Close Reading

Text: The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne

Lens: Feminist


According to My Safe Harbor, “70% of high school dropouts, teen pregnancies, teen suicides, juvenile murderers, and runaways come from single mother homes” (My Safe Harbor). If this statistic is true, then should Hester Prynne, a single mother be allowed to continue to mother Pearl?
After learning that Pearl is to be taken away, Hester pleas to the Governor, Roger Chillingworth and Mr. Dimmesdale to let her keep Pearl:

From: catalog.lambertvillelibrary.org

Hester caught hold of Pearl, and drew her forcibly into her arms, confronting the old Puritan magistrate with almost a fierce expression. Alone in the world, cast off by it, and with this sole treasure to keep her heart alive, she felt that she possessed indefeasible rights against the world, and was ready to defend them to the death.

“God gave me the child!” cried she. “He gave her, in requital of all things else, which ye had taken from me. She is my happiness!—she is my torture, none the less! Pearl keeps me here in life! Pearl punishes me, too! See ye not, she is the scarlet letter, only capable of being loved, and so endowed with a million-fold the power of retribution for my sin? Ye shall not take her! I will die first!”

“My poor woman,” said the not unkind old minister, “the child shall be well cared for!—far better than thou canst do it.”

“God gave her into my keeping,” repeated Hester Prynne, raising her voice almost to a shriek. “I will not give her up!”—And here, by a sudden impulse, she turned to the young clergyman, Mr. Dimmesdale… (Hawthorne 101)

Although Hester’s reputation is tarnished forever, she — like any loving mother — wished to rid remove that blemish on her child, Pearl. A pearl, is a precious jewel from an ugly oyster. Hester wish in naming the child Pearl, was to use the connotation to remove her sins from her child.

Hester is painted with many traditional feminine traits. Her expression is not described as fierce, but as “almost a fierce expression,” demonstrating that Hester is still attempting to exhibit the womanly trait of calm and composure. Her necessity of the child even drove her away from some of the calm and composure. However, her role as a mother overshadowed expectations to behave ladylike, but she still did not shriek, instead “raising her voice almost to a shriek.” The use of “almost” in front of a particularly strong adjective reverts the masculine word of fierce and the idea of being loud back into a feminine characteristic.

Hester main role is to be a mother; her “sole treasure” and her happiness depends upon her child. She believed that she “possessed indefeasible rights” as a mother and the repetition of “God gave [her] the child!” By appealing to higher entities, one that gives rights and God, Hester evokes the traditional roles of females — child rearing. Both of which reveal her belief that as a female, she is to care for her child. Pearl means to her so much that Hester pleaded with the clergyman, which could potentially betray her secret to her “husband.”

Nathaniel Hawthorne portrays an outcast woman as feminine, detailing Hester’s motherly attachment to Pearl.