Meaningful Connections

So after Wednesday’s discussion, I discovered that most of the class is trying to put together the idea of what the class is actually about. Basically, it seemed like everyone was tossing around the question, “What the hell is the point?” That’s really what sparked this post. I think that the point is to find a point! So I guess I’m going to delve into my own thoughts and questions about the roller coaster ride we’ve been on in this class thus far.

Let me elucidate for here

Are there any borders anymore? Are there still boundaries left to break? Or is it simply that we have some perception that there are boundaries, when really there is nothing at all? I used to think that we could slap a definition, a hard definition, on just about anything and everything. Now, I’m just not so sure.

I actually wrote a post about this for my digital rhetorics class the other day (follow the link to read the full post), so I’m just going to steal a few points from that before I delve into the rest of this post. I looked at the rules and conventions of writing and compared them to a boa constrictor. Having hard and fast rules about writing, have a way of restricting what we can do with our writing. We place ourselves within some set of rules depending on what we are writing for, or who we are writing for, or how we think something is supposed to be written. From there, those very rules that are supposed to give us a structure and guide to follow for our writing actually begin to choke us out and constrict out ability for fully delve into the piece. If we strictly define the way that writing is supposed to be done, we cut ourselves off from deepening and improving our writing.

I think that this same point can be carried over to this class. We like to put labels on things. Boa constrictor. We like to place everything in its proper box. Boa constrictor. We put names on things like “genre,” “literature,” “action,” and “medium” but those labels only serve to inhibit our ability to more deeply look at a text (in whatever form it may come). Boa constrictor. If we label everything, if we limit the text to a singular definition, we bind that text and our minds to only one pathway of thought. I feel that we can’t open our minds to the many different ways of interpreting something if we stick it inside a small metal box and don’t allow it any room to expand, grow, or change. BOA CONSTRICTOR.

Let’s go back to the very beginning of the semester. Probably on day one, Dr. T asked us to define, or rather try to define, literature. I spent some time thinking about what I considered “literature” and what I didn’t consider “literature,” and really thought I had a pretty good understanding of what “literature” was to me (which, by the way, was a pretty rigid definition). Then Dr. T said something that basically shattered my entire understanding of “literature.” She stated, “In this class, literature is anything that tells a story.” Immediately I found myself ready to push back against her, ready to say, “HELL NO! NO NO NO! Some really shitty song written by Justin Bieber cannot and will not be deemed even a little bit equivalent to a beautifully written Jane Austen novel! JUST NO DR.T!” I panicked, I honestly freaked out. I wasn’t ready to break out of the box. I wasn’t equipped to shake off the labels and let literature be anything that tells a story. I wasn’t prepared to defeat my literature boa constrictor. Yet the more the idea sunk in, and the more I read in my other classes, the more my definition of literature started to soften, and the borders started to blur, and I started to see why we were “reading” the “texts” that we are, and what “the point” of the class was.

The problem with slapping labels on things, with giving them definitions and names, is that we are not just one. To quote Bernard from Virginia Woolf’s The Waves, “. . . then it becomes clear that I am not one and simple, but complex and many” (Woolf, 76). I feel like this quote can easily be translated to talk about genre, mediums, action, etc. We can’t use one definition or one label for everything we cover in class. Each of us is going to view literature differently. We are each going to have a different definition of genre. No two people will have the same view on medium. You see, there is a unique definition for everything we have covered in class for every different person in class. There is not just one singular, overarching definition for anything, but rather there are 30-40 definitions for any different topic. Trying to reconcile these different definitions and get each other to understand them is where the discussions come from.

It seems to me that the one thing we are struggling with the most is that we have this notion that there is a point to it all—that there is something Dr. T wants us to get out of this class. But it seems to me, that the point of the class is really to find meaningful connections between the class texts and the “texts” of our lives and find meaning out of those connections for ourselves. Dr. T can’t tell us what to take from these texts, from this class, it is our job to discover what this class means to us and what we can learn from it. For ourselves. We cannot expect the answers to be given to us, we cannot hope that Dr. T will tell us where the texts should take us, we just need let the texts take us wherever they take us.

We’ve got to shake the boa constrictors. We have to step outside of the box, and break the labels. The sooner we allow ourselves to just read the texts and not put hard labels on them, is the moment, I think that the point of the class becomes the most clear. Let the texts teach you what you value. When you are talking about the things that you like and why you like them, you are learning about why you value the texts and what you value in them. You have to learn what you like, and understand why you like them so that you can truly discover what you don’t like and understand why you don’t like them. Talking about those things, discovering what makes you passionate and why can take you down whole new roads of thinking.

Woolf, Virginia. The Waves. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1978. Print.

The Netherworld

Genre: Young Adult

Story: Suspenseful love

Characters: Supernatural

The two most basic things that you need to know about me and my favorite things is that they tend to fall within the genre of young adult, and they tend to tell a suspenseful love story. Within these parameters I can find almost all of my favorite things. I love all things supernatural, all things that reside within the world apart from ours. Demons, angels, Timelord, Nephilim, vampires, Dalek, witches, werewolves, Ood. If it isn't human, and you can name it, it lives within this world, and within this world my heart also lays. I call it the Netherworld. A world that exists within our own but is hidden from all of those who are not a part of it.

I’m going to piss you off when I say this (and please don't stop reading right here because of it) but it’s the honest truth for me: Twilight is where all of this fascination really began. I was 15 years old when one of my good friends started reading Twilight in our biology class. I read the back of the book, and thought “Hmm, maybe I should give this one a chance. It could be good.” To me, it was radical. It was almost earth-shattering. I know the critiques of this series are vast, but for 15 year old Megan this series really sparked an interest in the genre that is now the home of so many of my favorite things. Stephanie Meyer wrote in such a way that I could relate to as an adolescent, and frankly can still fully delve myself into as an adult. The story was intriguing, the characters were detailed enough that I liked them, yet vague enough that I could fill them with my own personality. I was deep into the Twilight fandom. I was a Twihard, and not even a little bit ashamed to admit it. To this day I am still proud of my connection to the series, because not only did it bring me to some of my very best friends, but it has allowed me to live so many different lives through the world of young adult supernatural fiction.

In the same way that Twilight fascinated me, it lead me down a quick and winding road of other avenues of supernatural fiction. I think most prevalently, it has led me to vampire novels and shows. Right after I finished the Twilight series, I jumped right into just about any novel that had vampires in it. I started reading The Vampire Diaries, a long standing series about vampires, humans, other worlds, and everything that comes with it. I read the Vampire Academy series, the House of Night series, the Vampire Kisses series, the Bloodlines series, the Sookie Stackhouse novels, and the Nightworld series. These were only the beginning for me. The fascination with vampires and the Netherworld only served to spark a deeper interest in all things supernatural. I then launched myself into the world of angels, demons, and Nephilim. For those of you who don’t know, Nephilim are the children of angels and humans, and they tend to be basically a superhuman. This fascination went deep, I started reading the Fallen series, and then the Mortal Instruments series, the Hush Hush series, the Infernal Devices, the Immortal City series, the Immortals series, the Unearthly series, and The Goddess Test series. This has just kept on spiraling and spiraling and half of my world revolves around the Netherworld and all of its inhabitants. I think what I liked most about these, when I started reading them, was that there was an element of mystery, love, and suspense in each one. I was learning more and more about the Netherworld and the dark and twisted things that go with it, but also the beautiful things that come with the territory as well. I’m also a huge fan of characters that I can connect with, and find myself within—and within this genre I have found that there is almost always a character that does that for me.

This overall fascination with the supernatural managed to continue culminating for me in the tv shows I then began to watch. Supernatural was the first show that I really got into that involved the same Netherworld as the books that I read. Supernatural is basically a tale of two brothers who travel around in a 1967 Chevy Impala and hunt all things supernatural that plague the world. This is where I got my exposure to the many different types of creatures—aside from demons and angels, vampires and werewolves, and ghosts—that could dwell in the supernatural world. I would give you some examples, except there are really too many to give. I would advise watching a few episodes, if you haven’t already, and you’ll see what I mean. This show is kind of a thriller. It’s got a lot of moments where you’ll scream or jump or press your back as hard as you can against the wall, because the show kind of has a frightening tone to it (especially during the first two seasons). This would not have normally fallen within the range of things that I watch (I don’t do scary . . . ever!), but somehow it got me hooked—honestly it might have been the beauty of the brothers that kept me watching at first!

All of this enthrallment with the Netherworld eventually, years and years later, bled into my love from Doctor Who. It took me a while to get into this one(like maybe a full season), as it’s just so far off the wall at the beginning, but once I started, I simply couldn't stop. This show took everything I thought I knew about the supernatural and the Netherworld and threw it out the window. Doctor Who is essentially about a man who travels around in a blue police box saving the world from eminent destruction. This show takes the supernatural to a whole new level—again, if you want some examples just watch a few episodes because there’s just too much to explain. This one didn't really have beautiful men (at least until David Tenant became the Doctor, and then it was like, “Oh, hell-lo!”) it just had a weird and captivating story. Doctor Who isn't terribly suspenseful (it is sometimes but not always) and there isn't too much of a deep love story (I mean there is, but it’s not the sole focus). What really got me excited was the weirdness of the story, and the intrigue I had for the characters and creatures the show brought into existence in the Netherworld. And even then, maybe these creatures don’t even reside in the Netherworld. Most of the things that come into Doctor Who are from outer space. They come from different worlds, planets, and universes so maybe they aren't even from this world at all. If those that reside in the Netherworld, dwell upon Earth and simply live in a state of alternate existence from the human world, then maybe the things in Doctor Who are something else. Maybe they aren't even from the Netherworld. And I could go on for ages about what that could possibly mean for me in relation to what I like and what gets me interested in the stories that I love. 

In all reality, I think that the final photo on this blog post really describes exactly why I love the stories that I hold so dear to me. It's not even the story itself that gets me, it's what is underneath each story, that deeper part of myself that I access only when I am connecting to these pieces of literature (whatever medium they may come in). It's this that I love about the pieces of literature that I love. These pieces of literature aren't really about the content of their stories but the deeper lessons that are embedded within the stories--and those are the things that I really love.