Wednesday, October 27, 2010

Knocked up group work!

For me the group all seemed to wait till the last minute to do anything, however once we all stated to get together and try and get things done we all did so good. a few of us took the leader rolls and the rest seemed to be okay with that. i believe that everyone did their part once they were told what to do. i had e-mailed everyone and only 2 people ever e-mailed me back, most of the group waited till the end of the day before to start e-mailing me so it was a little stressful however it turned out pretty good. i think once everyone get the fire going under them they did a very good job. everyone did what they were told to do, and we all came prepared with the materials that we had planed, so that made me happy.

one thing that i was not too happy with was the way our group had their presentation, one of our members decided that he was going to be the main speaker and in a way didn't let anyone else do what they had planed to talk about. we tried yet he over powered the rest of the group. i didn't like this and in a way took offence to it, i had been working hard with the group and he didn't even e-mail me back, yet he made it seem like he was the leader in the group and knew everything when he just felt like if he could talk enough then maybe it would make up for it. but i talked to the rest of the group and they all agree that he just took over and no one was able to even talk about what they wanted and he didn't even do his part before that. so its just a little frustrating.

other then that i was pleased with the way the discussion went. i had a lot to say and i got most of it in. i quoted barker a few times and i know that we related the movie back to the class at hand, and i enjoyed that class participation very much. i think we all did very well.

yay for group Knocked up! :)

Thursday, October 14, 2010

Response paper (essay #2)

Alison Scott
Eng. 313
Oct. 14, 2010

Revolutionary Road

One might say that being in a relationship is always going to make it a radical one, for that there is never such a thing as a normal kind of relationship. Dictionary.com defines radical as, “Favoring or effecting fundamental or revolutionary changes in current practices, conditions, or institutions”. To me this is stating that radical is making something out of the ordinary and changing the ordinary way of one thing to make it seem like something different, and yet in all reality its all the same. A radical romance is a kind that stands out in the crowed and yet they are just like everyone else on the earth in a relationship trying to make it work. In the film Revolutionary Road it portrays a perfect example of how radical romance can still be considered a normal day to day relationship.
In Revolutionary Road the main two characters are in a relationship that seems to be always going down the wrong path. They first fall in love, and then yet they are now stuck in a life that is never the least bit fulfilling to either of them. They finally choose to change their way of life and go forward and pursue their dreams and no longer fallow what is “ordinary” and “normal”. Yet in order to move forward they might end up breaking apart and losing each other. This relationship they have at the beginning shows the normal kind of boy girl actions. Boy makes girl laugh, girl falls for him. Boy tells girl his dreams and how he can make them all come true, and how he is going somewhere in life, so girl goes with him to that dream that they will always just fall short of reaching. Once trapped in a lifeless marriage with a family it’s hard to leave, even more so when you are living in the suburban lifestyle in Connecticut in the 1950’s. April (Kate Winslet) is trying to fit in to role of a perfect house wife for her husband, when in all reality all she wants is to go away and get out of the ordinary lifestyle they are living. She “wanted in”, as she says in the film, there was more out there and they are dreamers. Frank (Leonardo DiCaprio) after a minute to think about it agrees with his wife April and decides to go to Paris, and live out the dream they had always talked about. Once a lifeless marriage now had hope and passion for the unknown, before that everything until then was planned out in black and white just like it was for everyone else. The way they had their life was as Barker likes to call it Social Identity. This means “the expectations and opinions that others have of us”(Barker, ch.7 pg.215). April and Frank were living their lives the way others in the community were and the way they had to in order to be “normal”. People that knew them in the film always said they were special and different, they were always held to that expectation, it was almost like they had a label put on them and they had to live by that label or they were not part of the norm. They even acted as though they were still madly in love with one another, and yet Frank is hooking up with the new girl at work, and April is sleeping with the neighbor. They played the parts well when deep down there was much going wrong.
Derriida (talked about in class discussion) says; the is “always already, always depends on another” from this I pulled that April was always already, a little bit too much of a dreamer and that she let her mind get the best of her. Her sorrow for herself drew her to go “crazy”. Which later Frank defines as “someone that can not relate to another and is incapable of love”. Frank is the one that always depends on another along with the rest of their neighborhood. Without everyone looking the same direction they would not know which way is right. In the film once Frank and April have decided to leave and they are telling their friends, the only person that truly understood them was John the son of the older lady and her husband that sold April and Frank their house when they first moved in, and yet John was in a mental hospital, he was considered crazy, and yet he was the only one that agreed with them on why they wanted to leave. The relationship between Frank and April started to become magical again once they had their dreams back into play, and no longer had to fallow to the rules of the custom of their way of life. As this happens for many relationships after a hard time once a few things start to go your way you feel like there was never a problem and that everything is fixed. Yet in all honesty that was just a blindfold for your true issues to come out and affect the relationship.
Once the dream of moving away from this ordinary, boring, cookie cutter way of living was taken away from the happy couple things started to take a turn for the worse. Their dreams were shattered by an unexpected pregnancy and an amazing job offer that will as they say always help fix anything. Once April had the picture of her new life, she could not let it go; she no longer cared for anything or anyone but her dream. She could see herself away from this world and nothing would stand in her way of getting there. This then lead her to her final death, she had convinced herself that she was no longer in need of anyone or anything to help her and hold her hand, she was “always already” going forward with herself; ever looking back.
The relationship that April and Frank had is relatable to many, they fell in love fast, talked about big dreams, soon fell short of the dreams and become comfortable living the lifestyle they never wanted yet knew they could deal with. They took out their un-happiness on each other, and always had a reason for why they never fallowed their dreams, like getting pregnant, a job offer, these are reasons couples use even today. The way the film went about things on Aprils part becoming so “crazy” and erotic, yet I know many men will say we are like that. She sheds a whole new light on that statement, and with that makes their relationship so radical. Once all that is said and done the relationship is held together like most of the normal relationships that are going on today. Love and hope, you have to work hard, and yes there are things you have to deal with about partner, but that’s what makes them who you fell in love with in the first place. Even though the relationship that Frank and April shared was a hard one and most people will say they don’t relate to them, once you break it down and understand where they are coming from you can see that they are just like everyone else, they are just trying to make it through this life the best way they know how, and some may see them as radical and yet deep down April and Frank are you and me.
















Work cited page
Cultural studies, By Chris Barker, 3rd edition, published 2008
Revolutionary Road, Director: Sam Mendes, Writer: Justin Haythe, Released: January 23, 2009
Dictionary.com, LLC. Copyright © 2010, http://dictionar

Trouble with my Blog

OK! well first of all i have been having a hard time working with my blog website it wasn't existing for a while but i have been writing my blogs down in a journal and i will up date my blog soon. im so sorry i had no idea how to fix it. but for now i will upload my essay, sorry again! hope you all your essays came out great!