Centenary Film Society- Vitus 2/26/07

I enjoyed this movie very much. It was an interesting look into the life of Vitus the 6 year old piano prodigy. Vitus had a lot of pressure thrust upon him at an early age. I believe he was able to take him self away from the world in order to stay grounded. His parents especially his mother was very controlling of his talent. His mother wanted him to practice every hour of the day and spend all his time playing the piano. Vitus just wanted to be a normal kid. I thought it was interesting how Vitus in order to change the way his mother treated him had to jump off his balcony. After his accident he pretended to be just a normal kid. The way it affected his mother shows how dependent she was on his talent. She broke down and started watching videos of the past. I think that said a lot about the mother and how her life depended on Vitus being an expert piano player. Vitus' grandfather plays a big role in the movie. He enables Vitus to think for himself. The grandfather is the only one that allows Vitus to decide what he wants to do on his own. I think he provides what Vitus needs, an escape from the pressure of his mother. I am glad that Vitus made the decision he did in the end. I think it was the right thing for him to do he just needed to make the choice on his own. My favorite line in the movie was at the end in the grandfather's letter to the family. The grandfather wrote "Vitus continue to follow your star". This shows how the grandfather would support any decision Vitus made. The message I got from the movie was that your family is your main support. They will always love you no matter your decisions.

Readings for the week of Feb 19

This weeks readings centered around slavery and race. Thomas Jefferson's Notes on the State of Virgina was a far cry from The Deceleration of Independence. It was kind of the oppsite of what he was fighting for in D.O.I. Also, regarding Jefferson's relationships with his slaves it was ironic that he would have those feelings toward slaves.
I throughly enjoyed Margaret Fuller's The Great Lawsuit: Man vs. Men. Woman vs. Women. I liked how she goes through the four different types of "equality". My favorite is when she talks about "men engaging in public life" but, "in the course of things the intellectual development of woman has spread wider and risen higher". The husband and wife can work together to form a "harmony of mind". Another quote from Fuller I enjoy is from The Great Radical Dualism is where she speaks about the writer from the New York Pathfinder. She says "he views woman truly from the soul, and not from society" this shows how women can be viewed in a non worker/servant way.
In the Harriet Beecher Stowe reading I was surprised to see that she was a white women abolitionist writing about a slave escaping. Uncle Tom's Cabin was an interesting story of a mother trying to save her son from being sold to a different family. All the things Eliza had to go through to keep out of reach of the slave hunters was intense. The descriptive narrative of Eliza journey added to the story. Uncle Tom's religious belief is a big part of this story.
Fanny Fern's "Fresh Leaves, by Fanny Fern" was a very refreshing read. I enjoyed how she was able to show her critics how idiotic they would sound when they critique her work. My favorite line in the reading was "We imagine her, from her writings, to be a muscular, black-browed, grenadier- looking female, who would be more at home in a boxing gallery than in a parlor." I think it is good she can laugh at her self but at the same time prove a point. Another quote I like is " She should be oil upon the troubled waters of manhood" I think this shows how she is pushing limits with her writing . I also think it shows how others are worried about her ideas being published for others to read and think about.
In the Harriet Jacobs passages I enjoyed the glimpse into a slaves life. I liked how it started out with background information about her life. I liked how she pushed what she knew she should not and ended up getting what she wanted. I think this story shows how strong willed women are and also what women slaves went through. I loved how she hid in her grandmothers attic while her owner searched every where for her and she was right under his nose. It was very intelligent of her to take the risk and hid there. The ending to this story was perfect I enjoyed it very much.
I enjoyed the theme of women writers taking a stand in what they believed in. My favorite readings were Fanny Fern's .

The Confidence Man

The Confidence Man By: Herman Melville
This text is a moderate text that broke certain conventions when it was written. It is a very interesting moral novel with psychological aspects. It ends up being an argument that goes around in circles. Melville satires human optimism. In The Norton book in Emerson's bio it says that "At one extreme, Melville reacted so hostilely to the optimistic side of Emerson's thought that he satirized him in The Confidence Man as a great American philosophical con man." Melville saw the world as a bad dark place. He did not want to see the good side of things. There was always something that could go wrong. Melville says "To do, is to act; so all doers are actors." He is saying every person is essentially playing a different role in life. No one is immune to being behind a sort of mask during their life. He is using philosophy as a negative thing in society but he ends up conveying his message in a very philosophical way. The way Melville wrote this book it ends up being self reflexive it ends up exploring its own making. The Confidence Man is a very shocking book for this time period Melville was writing in. A confusing part of this book is distinguishing who is speaking and which character the "confidence man" is at one time. There are many symbols that point to the "confidence man" being a devil figure. During one or two characters he is carrying a black book in which he records names. This to me is a parallel to people selling their souls to the devil in a way. The "confidence man" quotes a lot of sculptures which is ironic due to him being a Satan like character. He ends up finding each of his victims weakness if not the first time he eventually does. There are many times the "confidence man" refers to confidence one example is "did you never observe how little, very little, confidence, there is? I mean between man and man- more particular between stranger and stranger. In a sad world it is the saddest fact. Confidence!...by way of experiment, simply have confidence in me?" The "confidence man" ends up conning his victims into feeling safe with him. He ends up gaining their confidence when in reality he is lying through his teeth. An interesting name he gives one of his past characters is "Mr. Truman" = true man which he certainly is not. One character that questions the "confidence man" is Pitch. He does not trust the CM he refuses to have trust or sympathy for another human. Pitch ends up being tricked by "the devil". This trickery leads to the "confidence man" being seen as a "trickster". If one never trust another human they end up not having human connections. This leads to Alfred Lord Tennyson's quote "'Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all." I would rather have human connections and take the risk of trusting someone rather than not having a human bond.