M. Butterfly

I think if we had known Song's gender from the get-go, we would have felt frustrated, duped, and thought less of the play.

First off, Hwang clearly wrote the play knowing the events that occurred. Most likely, a theater-goer would have also known the events surrounding this topic. It wouldn't have been a secret that Song was a man simply because of the real events that the play is based on. 

I feel that I would have been frustrated by the ending if I had not known that Song was a man for the whole show. Maybe it's something to do with our fascination at seeing others fail, but I enjoyed seeing Gallimard struggle through three affairs and eventually divorce his wife for a man. It's sort of like reality television: we are fascinated by these people's lives, but ultimately their lives are filled with unrealistic drama and we cannot turn away. I felt the same with Gallimard. I cannot imagine how he did not know that the person he was sleeping with was not a female, but I couldn't help but sit back and see what G did to S knowing that S was a male the entire time. 

I also feel like if we had not known until Song strips at the end of the play, we would have felt just as duped as Gallimard. I do like the occasional romantic movie, and I want to believe in true love, but knowing that their love was true through the entire show and ending with us knowing that it wasn't would have made it less fulfilling for me. I actually enjoyed seeing Gallimard fall for this man and then read his reactions to Song's lack of vagina. I definitely wouldn't have appreciated seeing this love story and then find out it wasn't a love story in the long run. Again, I really enjoyed knowing that it wasn't a love story from the get-go. I felt that the play was well-written as it is and I would have thought less of it if I had been duped and frustrated by the ending. Instead I was able to see the beauty in the ending because I did not feel those emotions. 

StOoPiDDDD

Throughout Flannery O'Connor's "Good Country People" we get a sense of who is a good country person and who is not. The ultimate thing here is that they all seem like hillbillys. The characteristics they hold dear often have to do with talking back, eating, and sitting in random places, such as the top of the fridge.They also rename themselves so their mothers will hate them.

Even though these characteristics do not seem desirable to someone like me, they are desirable to someone. Which leads me to the point of this blog-the moral of the story. I think what should be taken away from this story is that you actually cannot trust "good" country people. They abscond with your wooden legs and leave you in such a position in a barn that you cannot get down without your leg that is also far away from your house so it would be impossible to get back. I cannot believe I just typed that sentence, but it's true. These "good" country folk are untrustworthy and difficult to deal with.

Not only was Manley Pointer a phony bible salesman, but he was just phony in general. He is the reason why you cannot trust good country people. They take advantage of you and never leave you alone. This is what I took away from the story: "good" country people are untrustworthy, difficult to deal with, and annoying.

Joy (aka Hulga) should have been able to detect that something was wrong with this guy. Her P.H.D should have given her a distinct advantage at noticing the warning signs such as being annoying and merely staying for dinner to get know the mother of the woman with a fake leg. I think I can add that stupidity is also on the list of moral take aways from the story. Good country people are stupid too. They don't notice their simple surroundings and are unfortunately taken advantage of because of this fact.

The Twitter Experiment

I personally found great fun in the twitter experiment. I really appreciated getting to know and use a tool I was not familiar with.

I think that another great thing about the twitter experiment was that I did have to get my responses to be rather short. Although it was difficult and daunting at first (which caused a greater time span between my responses), I got used to it and that made my responses feel clearer to me. Once I got in the habit of responding concisely, it made my points more valid.

Another benefit to the twitter exercise was that I felt more vocal. I felt more comfortable knowing that I could respond. I really don't know what it was, but I tweeted 22 times and that is certainly much more than I speak in class. Perhaps this is because I couldn't rely on other to speak what I'm feeling. I had to speak it myself-which is not always the case in class.

I did think it was hard to do this using literature as our discussion topic, but I do feel that it went well. Clearly, we weren't engaged with talking about the Hart Crane epigraph, but once we talked about casting characters with real actors and what these characters mean, the conversation was sparked. The use of twitter did make the discussion seem more choppy, but using this medium for discussion was really unique and brought a new perspective. I laughed a lot at how responses were phrased and I felt that this was really valuable.

I think one thing that can be improved is having a clear starting point. Yes, it was obvious that the casting with modern actors was the starting point, but I think maybe giving the class a head's up of where we'll be starting would have been beneficial. I could have thought more about my decision and I actually did not even respond to this question because I was so busy trying to narrow my thoughts down to certain actors.