Rick Najera – Captured by Feministas AND You Know How to Whistle Don’t You?

In the plays, Captured by Feministas, and You Know How to Whistle Don’t You? By Rick Najera the audience is able to experience a more contemporary and innovative style of literary genres. Captured by Feministas is without a doubt a tragic comedy. It is a comedic because of the way it was written. Najera captures all the complaints that women have had about men over the years since the beginning of time, and it is funny that Alejandro the main character is begging for a second chance to live and promises that he will change and be a more sensitive man. It is a tragedy because after all, he is fighting for his life and pleading to the Feministas not to be killed. You Know How to Whistle Don’t You? Is a melodrama. The character here, CUBA LIBRE is definitely a victim of circumstance. She lives in the poverty of a communist regime and the fastest and easiest and maybe only way to make some money to provide for her family is to prostitute herself to the American tourists. Her attitude changes from line to line being angry and tough, to seductive, to hopeless and desperate.

The choice of diction in both of Najera’s plays, play a big role in the effect that they bring to the plays. In Captured by Feministas, the name of the play is written in Spanish, “Feministas” means feminists. The names of most of the characters are Spanish names as well and this adds some contribution to the feel of the play. However, I assume that reading this play is a complete different experience than that of actually seeing it acted out, I feel that plays can be confusing to understand and even misleading at times if the option of seeing it acted out is not available. In You Know How to Whistle Don’t You? the choice of diction also has a significant impact on the feel that it gives to the play. Once again Najera uses Spanish slang and terms to give it the ultimate Latin effect he was looking for. You can truly here the Latino influence in the play when you read Spanish words such as “marica” which is Spanish slang for gay, and “pito” which is slang for penis.

There is an obvious feminist theme in the first play. The entire play is about a macho man named Alejandro that is captured by a group of strong feminist women who are about to kill him for not respecting women. He is miniscule and makes himself submissive to the women and is under control by them. There is an overall theme of dreaming about freedom in his second play. Cuba Libre, the name of the female main character in the play literally means “free Cuba.” Cuba Libre dreams to be free of the communist oppression and the nightmare of having to sell her body to American tourists to be able to provide for her mother.

In the first play, Alejandro is the antagonist for disrespecting women and the feminists are the protagonists for trying to bring justice to women everywhere. Cuba Libre is the protagonist, she is the victim, the sufferer, the American tourists, poverty, and communism are the antagonists.

My opinion of these plays is that they are both great. They are contemporary and innovative and I feel that if I were to have seen them acted out, very touching, tragic, and comedic. Najera would’ve got the response he was looking for, of clearly portraying a couple of the day to day struggles that Latin women and men deal with in ordinary life.

To Be, or Not To Be:

To be or not to be, that is the question.
to live or to die, this is how i nterpret it.
in hamlets soliloquy i feel that Hamlet is weighing his options of what is better.
Is it better to live in pain and suffering? or is it better to die? but he doesnt know better
because no one knows what happens after death. His questioning is agonizing to his
own self, the uncertainty kills him, what is better? what is worse? Is living even worth
all his pain? or is it better to go into the unknown alone?
This is the mental and inner battle that Hamlet is dealing with.

But ahh, the beautiful Ophelia! may all his sins be remembered. = to be.


I feel that this solilogquy is very famous and that I and most people can relate with it because at some point in life I feel that most poeple ask themselves a familiar question, or questionare, not if its better to live or not, we just want to know what happens after life.

Is rap/hip-hop poetry?

1. yes i believe that rap and hip-hop are poetic expressions. most songs rhyme, have many similies, metaphors and symbolism all put together to something that flows. Who's to say that a rapper's method of expression is not poetic?

2.this kind of music expresses litereary characteristics such as repetition, rhythm, similies, metaphors, structure, and symbolism, almost all of them depending on the song!

3. im a thematic critic, i truly enjoy trying to figure out the underlying theme and meaning of the song. i dont believe a song has to be deep to be poetic, or full of structre and precision, as long as there is that element of emotion and expression i can apreciate it. :)

Hills like White Elephants part 2

Ernest Miller Hemingway was born on July 21, 1899, the second of six children, and spent his early years in Oak Park, a suburb of Chicago. Growing up with his mother and father, he lived a somewhat deprived childhood because of their strict ways and punishment for disobedience. After finishing high school, Hemingway had two things in mind that he wanted to do: be a writer or join the military. Since his father would not allow him to enlist, he left his home to go report for the Kansas City Star. Some time passed and Hemingway grew anxious and left to do the only other thing he wanted to do most besides writing, which was to join the military. He joined the Red Cross in WWI as an ambulance driver in Europe. He became wounded in a knee over there and fell in love with his nurse Agnes von Kurosky. Their relationship did not last be he did write about their romance in his novel Fare Well to Arms. After recovering, he returned to the U.S to be journalist and married Elizabeth Hadley Richardson but devorced her after the birth of his first son for having an affair with mistress Pauline Pfeiffer. He marries Pauline and has two more children with her and leaves her 12 years later to marry another mistress. This third marriage lasts 10 years but falls apart because he falls in love again with yet, another mistress. Hemingway publishes many more short stories including Hills Like White Elephants. Throughout most of his life he deals with severe problems of alcoholism. After all of his lifes struggles, he is diagnosed with bipolar depression and insomnia. After an unsuccessful elctro-shock therapy session to helps his illnessess, his condition worsens even more and he gets amnesia. The fact of his detteriorating condition and mental health has a serious impact in his writing and life in general. Hemingway commits suicide in the summer of 1961, he was 61 years old.

Three things that I feel that greatly influenced Hemingway's style for his prose where deffinatley:

1. His learned style as a reporter for the Kansas City Star, which was short and to the point.
2. His experience in the military, which I feel made his style even more masculine.
3. His difficult time staying in a meaningful relationship, which might reflect his trouble understanding women as shown in his short story, Hills Like White Elephants.

These three things deffinitaly affected and influenced his unique style of writing.

works cited

"SparkNotes: Hills Like White Elephants: Context." SparkNotes: Today's Most Popular Study Guides. Web. 05 Apr. 2011. http://www.sparknotes.com/short-stories/hills-like-white-elephants/context.html.

 

Shelokhonov, Steve. "Ernest Hemingway - Biography." The Internet Movie Database (IMDb). Web. 05 Apr. 2011. <http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0002133/bio>.

 

 

Hills Like White Elephants part 1

     The setting takes place in Spain, the American and his girlfriend sit at a bar outside of the trainstation. The narrator mentions that there are no trees or shade on the other side of the two tracks and that the sun is brightly shinning on both of them and the weather oustide is hot. This is a very interesting and clearly symbolic setting. For one, they are in a foreign land this means they are somewhere experiencing something that is out of the ordinary, a different language is spoken around them, but only the man knows what they are saying, this lets us know that the girl is confused or perhaps lost about something. Also they are waiting for the train to take them somewhere, in other words symbolizing their future, but there are TWO tracks. This might imply there are separate roads in their near future, they both want different things. I also felt somewhat when the narrator says that there are no trees on the other side and that the sun was shining on the tracks and that is was hot, I felt that they were being watched by God, being put on the spot by Him on the desicions that they were about to make and the directions those desicions would take them.
        The point of view of this story is third-person limited. Limited only to what he can see, but not to what they both feel or about the future that lies ahead of them, he is not omniscient. His attitude seems to favor more with the girl, making the reader sympathyze with her since she is so clueless, like how would the man know that the "operation" is just a simple procedure? He's a man for Christ sake! he will never have to endure that type of pressure of making that kind of desicion, and it seems like if he will tell the girl anything to just convince her, and makes it seem as if he really doesnt care if she goes through with it or not to make her feel better, but clearly he does.
       I would say Heminway's style is overtly masculine. Short, short sentences, plain, simple, and to the point. Just like a man, not explaining himself, not sugar coating anything like a woman might tend to do. I also feel that he leaves it up to the audeince to decide the outcome of his story, he allows us the readers to interpret.

"The Lottery," -- Shirley Jackson

 I am still confused as to what the purpose of the lottery was in Jackson's short story. Could it have been to control population back in the day, a religious sacrifice to have an abundant corn harvest? lol I am not quite sure. I believe that the reason why Jackson wrote this fiction piece was because only something as exagerated as this can send the message out to her audeince at the time that there is a big danger in blindly following traditions and that we need to change how we go about persecution, at least at the time.

"Everyday Use" -- Alice Walker

1. The term "everyday use," comes from the line in the short story where Dee, the arrogant and confused daughter states that her sister Maggie whould be backwards enough to put the "priceless" quilts from thier grandmother to everyday use. I feel that Walker chose this as the title of the story to engage the audience to go deeper into the meaning of the short story and decide for themselves what is the best way to honor ones heritage, whether is be by perserving it and displaying it, or by putting it to everyday use.

2. Dee, Magie and Mama all define heritage differently. Dee doesnt quite understand it and becomes ironically "lost" and ripped away from her roots by her education. All of the African clothing and new name that she gives herself are meaningless because she has no true knowledge about Africa, so her true heritage is actually empty and lost, she is reluctant to accept her real past, and where she comes from. Maggie views things in the same manner of Mama's persepective. She might be slower and softsppoken, but she understands the true meaning of her heritage by living in the same old ways of her ancestors. I believe that by the way that Walker portrays Dee, which is arrogant and lost, she wants her readers to agree with Maggie's and Mama's point of view of their heritage.

3.The irony about Dee changing her name to "Wangero," her new "unassimilated" name is that she fails to realize that her real name, Dee, has more meaning, heritage and depth that she can imagine. The name Dee traces back in generations so far back in her family that even her own mother cant recall how far back the name had been carried since.

4.If Mama was not the narrator, the story wouldnt have changed much only if Dee was the narrator not so much if Maggie was the narrator. If the case was that Maggie was the narrator, there would be a drastic change in the tone of the story and would be much more passive, but still Mama's view of the defenition of their heritage would remain the same. If Dee were to be the narrator, the story would end on a cold note that education and books are the proper way to honor ones heritage and to forget your old ways.