Chapter 23: The Great Rooted Bed

I am almost sure that this was the shortest chapter in the book. In it, Odysseus and Telemachus wrap up the slaughter of the impolite suitors and Odysseus is finally welcomed into his own home. In what one would expect to be a heart warming reunion, Penelope is quite cold to Odysseus, his nurse, Eurycleia, and Telemachus as she believes in her heart that it is still impossible for him to have returned. Penelope appears to be excessively stubborn when it comes to hearing news of her husband. However, things take a turn when Penelope slyly comments on having some one move their wedding bed to a more suitable place, "move the sturdy bedstead out of our bridal chamber-", a test to see if it was the true Odysseus, for only he would know that their bed was the ultimate wood bed, carved out of a tree, and still planted in the ground as they built around it.  By trying to pull a fast on the unsuspecting Odysseus, Penelope not only manages to prove she is quick thinker, she angers Odysseus. He views it as a slap to the face of Odysseus implying that he would not know the most private details of their relationship, but if Penelope had thought further she might have realized that it would anger him, proving she is not the wittier one. In order to protect herself and cover up for her mishap, she begs mercy from exclaiming about how she is so happy to see him and how the gods' plans stressed her out. Ultimately, in the end the two become reacquainted in that marriagey way. However, this chapter did bring up the importance of trust and openness in a relationship. If you think about it, any sort of inside joke or connection you have with only a specific group or person strengthens your bond .

Guiding Question: If you were stuck in a situation were you trying to identify a stranger, would you be as cautious and cunning as Penelope? What would you do if the stranger knew your most personal secrets?

Once again in this book Homer refers back to the history of  a specific object, in this case, Odysseus's wooden bed. While the history of the bed is intriguing, it isn't used to add some flavor to the situation, like the history of Odysseus's bow a few chapters before. The history of his bed is used in order to show the deep relationship it symbolizes between husband and wife. It adds a sense intimacy with the characters, letting the audience know about how much Penelope mattered to Odysseus.
Along with his use of history, Homer uses irony, but not of the dramatic sort. In order to spice up the story, Penelope uses wit to make sure she protects herself from a rouse. The ironic thing is that she attempts to out wit the most cunning man in Greek mythology.
The translator's notes were incredibly valuable in this section as the non existent entries explained everything. :D
Guiding Question: Throughout the Odyssey, histories have been the main source of description of objects and people. Is that the same in today's society? Is it possible to understand anything past or present with out knowing its history?

This chapter revolved around the reunion of Odysseus and Penelope and the return of the palace to the rightful order of things. As for themes, Penelope's trick reminded me of every movie that involves a sense of identity. There is always that moment when the person is tested to see if though who they really are. First example that came to mind was the opening scene of Inception, where Leonard DiCaprio is being tested about how he knows that the person's dream is under attack, Leonardo answers wrong, and the whole world collapses. While I don't believe that the world would just spontaneously combust in the Odyssey, I do believe that it would not be the story it is if Odysseus failed to convince Penelope that he was her husband.

Similarly, I found me listening to Rimsky-Korsakov's Scheherezade while writing. The symphony  is based of the story 1001 Nights, a story were a young girl, Scheherezade, wins the king over by telling him enticing stories, always stopping halfway through to get him absorbed in the story, and craving to hear the end of it. In the end, they fall in love due to the shared nights together. It reminds me of the Odyssey in the fact that Scheherezade won her  man over in a cunning fashion. However instead of testing the bond, she created the bond. BUT, in both cases, the couples had a shared history that drew them together and instilled the king with enough trust in Scheherezade to make her queen much like answering the question gave Penelope enough faith in Odysseus to let him reclaim his throne.
Guiding Question: Do you believe the use of Penelope's suspiciousness is a reflection on human behavior? Can you have blind trust in human society, or must you have a background?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ajnnCN_tFp0
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scheherezade

Bringin' Home the Bacon

Nora Helmer just wanted to provide for her husband. Unfortunately that was not a possibility back in "those days". These days however, its not common, but it is occasional that women are the primary providers of the family. For example my friend Chris's dad is now "retired" but I'm not sure, while his mom is a lawyer downtown and works for one of the major hospitals. However a lot of families are like my own were both parents now work. Like the previous posts, I asked the almighty google what it thought. Gave me an article from New York.http://nymag.com/nymetro/news/features/n_9495/ (p.s. sorry for any awkwardness that comes from the article it was the best I could find)
Apparently women are now becoming successful, but men are not welcoming the change as well. In most cases when the woman earns more, the woman loses respect for the man and the man feels emasculated, destroying any resemblance of the relationship. By switching the roles, the author points out that it causes an identity crisis for those in a relationship.
I found this really interesting.when you compare it to the saying, "You can't teach an old dog new tricks." Society has been so ingrained with stereotypes and traditions, that despite everyone's desires to change things, it will take a long time for things to change. " A Doll's House" was released in the early 20th century, that article comes from the 21st. There has been improvement, but we as a culture are far away from complete conversion.

Possessive nouns

Ok so this post has nothing to do with possessive nouns but since Nora is always reffered to as a pet or doll I figured I would google "women as possessions". Of course today I chose to "feel lucky", and I do get lucky as looky here, I stumbled upon another blog.http://cynjonnoah.blogspot.com/2010/02/women-are-possessions-or-gi-joe.html
Even though I'm now blogging, I felt this blogger was just complaining.
Yes, gi joe was a bad movie.
Yes, the army has a tradition of degrading men by calling them ladies. Has no one seen Full Metal Jacket? That movie spends the first have degrading a man until he goes postal.
Are you really going to call G.I. Joe sexist for that?
There is a difference between calling making your wife your pet or trying to lord over her, and saying poor story writing is sexist. Nora left Helmer cause he was a chauvenist, even if unintentionally. G.I. Joe was trying to be different by adding women into the mix other than the original G.I. Joe nurse. In fact they are making progress in the movie compared to the original G.I. Joes series.
I guess the point of this post is even though feminism has a role in modern day society, complete fanatics like this blogger don't always have to be right despite good intentions. While "A Doll's House" did a great job of showing the oppression of women, this blogger fails and just makes herself look like a bleeding heart that doesn't even take time to do her research.

Marriage and oppresion

So I went through and googled some more articles in order to get some more thoughts. Struck gold on the first one :). On an interesting website, divorceonline.com, I found an insightful relationship article. Ashton Applewhite, a divorced woman, made some reflective commentary  on the institution of marriage and the mechancics of a healthy relationship. I understand her to believe that the reason for most divorces is an unbalance in a relationship, and the unbalance comes from the fact men are given more power from society. While that may be a fact, she still believes that it isn't an automatic lose, but even though "The world is a sexist place... if each of us responds to it in a nonsexist way, society will accommodate us because it must: individual action sparks social change."
Nora's individual action is one that sparked change as seen by the influence Ibsen's play had on the world. Ever since then women's suffrage and equal rights has been on the move and improving society.
BUT does that mean Torvald was in the wrong?
Yes, he was a traditionalist. Yes, he reacted harshly. But the blame can't be laid on him only.

Blaming men for the sorry state of gender relations is as easy -- and unconstructuve -- as blaming marriage for the unfulfilling nature of many unions. The point is not that husbands are brutal and wives hapless, or women righteous and men inadequate; if men are self-centered, it is in large part because women are socialized to let them get away with it. Asking less of men is one way to reconcile differing expectations, but one that demeans both men and women. Because we are stuck with the very human tendency to get away with whatever we can

The failure of a relationship might be because of personal failures, but the real blame should be put on society. So yes, Torvald was wrong, only because society was wrong. As stated by Applewhite, and I'm just going to post the article cause it struck a chord with me, http://www.divorceonline.com/whats-new/2007/5/6/making-relationships-work-better.html, an infinite amount of things can be done to solve divorce on a case by case basis, he should do this, she should do that, but to end it completely, we need to make societies expectations of the genders equal. Over the last 2 post I've come to realize that while in my area and life experiences, I haven't ever seen women being opressed, based on the amount of articles, it still must be a problem some where. SO in conclusion, and this is a bad ending to a blog, sorry all who end up reading this, the world has just got to be more accepting and allow women to have the same oppurtunities and responsabilities of men, and hopefully that will make it easier on individuals and improve everyones relationships.

1st attempt

After reading " A Doll's House", I've got this strong sense that it was play arguing for the equality of men and women. In the modern day, people always talk about the inequality of men and women in the work force, but I quite don't understand what they mean other than the trend that men are often promoted and paid more then their women counterparts, put couldn't that just be explained by the greater number of men in the work force? Then you hear about the women in third world countries. When I think about those women, I think that is more a circumstantial thing, that there forced into traditional roles because it is what they need to do to survive. I realize that " A Doll's House" was written back in a time when women had to fight for an education and work opportunities, but in this modern day, how is it still applicable to me in the modern day North Shore? Ofcourse I turned to the answerer of all questions, the mighty google, and just typed in "women's suffrage in the twenty first century" to see what I could stumble upon.

I found an article, " Feminism and Women's Suffrage in the 21st Century" on associatedcontent.com. The author S.Rodriguez was a good writer, but after reading it twice, all I could get out of it was that feminism in a modern sense is a desire to be considered equal to men, and that means to be as well educated and considered as smart as men and that the real revolutionary idea is that its fighting what society dictates for women.
I guess that is similar to Nora, the female lead in "A Doll's House", who left her husband Helmer in order to explore the world, find happiness, and not live what she felt was a lie.
But then I looked back on Rodriguez's article.
I am confused as to the point she is now making.

"But didn't we, like, settle that issue like, a long time ago?" About 90 years ago, yes. That being said, women's suffrage is still being brought into question. Shocking, right? John Derbyshire of the National Review found it perfectly reasonable. He recently released the book "We Are Doomed: Reclaiming Conservative Pessimism," containing a section called "The Case Against Female Suffrage." In an interview, he agreed that the U.S. would be a better country if women could not vote, and stated that while he acknowledges it's "a hope I do not realistically nurse,"* he hopes female suffrage will someday be repealed."

To me that says "Women have all their rights, and they are only questioned by crazies." 
I understand that women still face more adversity in the work force and social life than men, but I am having a hard time relating Nora's story to the current status of women. Instead, I feel the story of ADH is more representitive of abusive or opressive marriages. I think my next blog will probably end up being on opressive relationships and divorce or similar subjects.