"The great city lies trembling, panting, quivering in her wild, white heat of intoxication, excitement, madness, drunken and devilish pursuits of power, pleasure, and gold."(miller some page number)
Now normally...it sounds like a intro to a adolescent teen movie where these students are trying to have a good ass time in times square but instead run into doctor doom and the sinister six. which sounds like a movie i would watch but that's not the point
What the quote from the passage is indicting is that there is more then just a city here. Its a city, indulged in its ecstasy of high unknowing to it that there is a epidemic running rampant and running wild because its lies engulfed in unawareness . This isn't just any epidemic that is spreading in the city. These are plagues of self interest pushed and motivated by its pursuits of vices which is afflicting upon the city as a whole. In that quote a word that stands out for me is the fact that the city is know as a her as if it is being represented as a female. The ideal people associate a female are with words like faithful, beauty, graceful, kind, and etc. But what happens when you take those words out and replace it with words such as "intoxication" or "drunken". The result is she becomes exotic ,wild, engaged in her on desire but the downfall is that she is vulnerable making herself open for any attack of any form or matter that can be considered an evil intent against her will and she is defenseless against these acts and all she can do is tremble and quiver in her exhaustion while the pursuit of vices have ran amok of a strain on her possessing the strength of power and motivation of madness . Which is the case and point of this quote i may add so dearly
(now this is the part where i have no clue to little of what i am doing here)
that whole paragraph of awesomeness right there relates to the second chapter of the book the destruction of Gotham by bruce wayne because that whole chapter is of a girl who is lost in her own self with little to no direction,she is torn up from the floor up chased by some wild evil wicked step grandmother throughout a city ..which presents itself to the reader as a hopeless place for her. There is no safe point for her to run to, nothing is ever what it seems and everyone is in it for themselves focused on there own self interest like the authority and the evil step grandmother cause they want to use the girl for evil intent against her will. A quote that stick and relates to the quote up top to me due to the nature of tone and characteristics of unawareness is "This girl did not know whether or not she was being borne in the right direction, yet she could have not ask anyone in the dense crowd if it had been to save her life and would anyone had stop to answer if she had?" (wayne 20)
kiite kudasatte arigatou(thank you for listening) :D
Hey Gerald! Your blog is absolutely hilarious lol I think your decision to include humor within your blog definitely makes it an interesting read and makes the source material (the novel The Destruction of Gotham in this case) easier to digest.
ReplyDeleteI think by claiming that the author is implying that the city is in many ways just like a woman, you offer in your writing a deeper level of thought. I liked how you were able to zero in on a key word and from that magnification, you were able to extract a deeper thought or meaning. A question that I have for you is: did prostitution come to your mind as you began reading this novel? I found myself, several times, comparing not only some of the characters, but the city itself, to that of a professional sex worker.
You make a great claim in this blog post, however I feel that if you included maybe some more background information, it would help the reader understand better your point of view.
Another question I thought about was: did something else come to mind when first reading this text? Were you able to connect this to another writing or movie or video game or just anything else that sounded similar to this novel or had similar elements? I think if you include some more connections, you would definitely make your argument much stronger.
Finally, amazing job Gerald! You're writing is deep, but I like the way you present your ideas in the form of humor. Keep up the great work!
Hey Gerald!
ReplyDeleteYour word choices in the blog post really created a powerful image and having your point come across. I love the idea of a city's vices turning into a plague that only inflicts the people that enter the city. I feel that you are even relating to New Yorkers that are the way that they are because of the what the city does, not necessarily bad things. New York is just like Gotham where there is so much to offer and so much is going on that it can effect people in either a positive or negative way.
Isolating the city's gender and associating it with the words that the passage gave was really clever. Personally, I would consider the city as a her but in a literary perspective the words that are being used to describe a city aren't necessarily how a female would be personified. The city is really created into this untamed female.
The way that the city is personified could have to do with the way that women are viewed and treated in the novel. The author could be making a statement on the way that women are seen or maybe even suggested that this is an image that he has of city women in general. Obviously, more information would be needed on the author such as his background in order to go further with these ideas.
However, great job and I loved reading it!
I enjoyed reading your blog, you did a great job labeling the disfunction's of the city as well as its inhabitants and succeeded in adding a small comedic aspect to it. I see the points you are making and i understand where your coming from, you make it clear on where you stand on the topic of city life back in the earlier days of the city.
ReplyDeleteHowever I have to agree with Alex on the part of personifying the city as a female. Although women are known for their gentle touch and care, we can see a lot of the derogatory female stereotypes being brought up such as an unbalanced nature and a feeling of unpredictable chaos.
Great read, keep up the good work!