have they crashe

d yet???Honestly, I have nothing else to say about this text. I feel like there should be some resolution but I’m not sure what it is. The characters are and they do. They coexist, they become and they develop. To understand who they become we must examine who they were at the beginning of the novel. They do each develop in their own ways. They seem to move and grow with the times. Well not all of them. Bernard for instance seems to remain the same but that is because there is no necessity for him to change. He is developed enough as the leader of the group. It does seem as if Jinny and Susan seem to change positions. Jinny becomes less concerned with the social world and instead replaces that with an obsession of self. However, it is not an unhealthy obsession. Instead she becomes more self-aware than anything else. Susan also realizes that she need not be concerned with a life he already has. She is able to step away from the life of being stuck in the home. While Rhoda does come into herself, she does not lose the idea that she is still not a part of the society she lives in.  
 Overall the novel is good but it isn’t the typical novel but the way things occur it is easy to see the characters have their own actions and those are the plots. The growth becomes the plot. What happens between and inside of each character makes the novel a typical novel. However, the way each character is a part of Woolf makes it seem more like a false autobiography.  

The Waves...

 So we’ve just been talking about character development so far. I guess I’ll continue with that. As far as the characters go, I think it’s important to see the characters as there seem to be dichotomies in sets of characters. I think Susan and Jinny contrast one another because Susan is more concerned with developing a family life while Jinny is more concerned with the life of a social mistress. Susan wants to be a slave to traditional life at home while Jinny is a slave to traditional social life. This shows both their similarities and differences. This is so interesting because while they seem different, they are actually two sides of the same coin. They are both victims of tradition. Neville and Rhoda also seem very different yet similar to me.
 Neville is weak while Rhoda seems strong, physically. Neville however does seems to have a good sense of self. Rhoda on the other hand is lost in the world in which she resides. Instead of developing her own perspective on life, she becomes lost in everyone else’s shadow. Another reason they are similar is because of their sexuality. However, the difference in their manifestation of their homosexuality truly makes them opposites. While Neville seems comfortable with his sexuality, Rhoda instead goes through the motions of heterosexuality before she develops a better sense of self.  
 Bernard and Louis function as opposites because of their existence in England. Bernard represents the typical male. He is dominant and observant while Louis is not the typical British male. He is an outsider. While Bernard is comfortable being around everyone, Louis doesn’t exist the same way. However, people are drawn to him, because of his exotic nature. The dichotomies between the characters serve as a way to bring them together and develop a plot that exists between the characters. The text becomes a plot about characters now about actual conflicts.

The Waves...1 Time

The Waves is much more interesting than I thought it would be. At first, I was a little put off by the lack of development, but I can appreciate the random bits of facts. I’ve never read a book in this style but I like the way we get a look at the characters from their own eyes and others eyes. It is as though they exist together in a soap opera or something. I really like how different the characters are. It helps not only to distinguish them but also develop.  
 Of the characters, my favorite is Jinny. I appreciate her free spirit. It seems as if she is more attached to the situations around her than she is given credit for. She reminds me of Mrs. Dalloway who is stuck in the being a part of the social aspect of life, but not because she is forced to but because she wants to. In Jinny, I see someone who craves attention not for her sake but for the purpose of having a way to truly enjoy life. To me, she is in stark contrast to Rhoda who seems completely unaware of her femininity. In this way, Jinny to me becomes the true feminist, because she is able to rise from the ties that life puts on her by using her femininity to her own advantage. What is most interesting to me is the way Woolf develops the characters and molds them to reflect people in her own life. Not only do I see reflections of people around her but also how they reflect her. It is so interesting the way she can take bits and pieces and split them up. It almost emphasizes and deemphasizes her mental issues all at once.  

The Last 2 of the Big 4

These two poems seem so much more detached from the whole of texts. In “Dry Salvages” you can see the structure that seems to come over the poem in a way that we don’t usually associate with Eliot or this series. What I found most interesting about this poem was the transportation reference. I’m not completely sure why he chose trains of all things. Also, the use of the Italian in stanza IV reminds me of the beginning of “The Wasteland”. The same way he makes the poem out of reach, it seems he makes the end of the poem the same way. He leaves the conclusion out of reach to the normal reach despite the fact that the poems are supposed to be relatable in a sense.
 In “Little Gidding” the idea of time brings me closer to the poem again. I think it makes it timeless and relatable. I also think this poem is interesting because it has so many conclusions. Not only does he conclude things seemingly in his own mind, but also in the poem. He provides resolution for the reader as well. He effectively brings together all of the quartets, which makes me feel like the series of poems has a purpose. I like the way it seems as if he effectively brings love and religion together. Like “Dry Salvages” the resolution occurs in stanza IV also.  
 Of all of the poems in the series, “Little Gidding” is my favorite. I think the way the moving out of the seasons brings about epiphany is interesting. It is as though Eliot himself and the reader are able to move out of the regularity of the poem and of life and achieve an understanding. It’s almost as if the poem is an unsolved resolution.

East Coker...

 In class we discussed the similarities between “Burnt Norton” and “East Coker” but I think this proved a difficult task because to me, the poems are so different. “Burnt Norton” seems to be a poem very centered on a specific event. It is about the love and the literal and figurative events that prevented it from developing. In “East Coker” it is harder to grasp the event that Eliot is talking about. He seems so detached from the event and its effect on him. In my Romantic Period class we recently discussed the way romanticism is more about the affect of the event on the speaker, and less on the event itself. In this poem it seems as if Eliot is detached from the event and its effect on him. Instead of it being something that is important to him and something that the reader can relate to, it turns into a text that is unapproachable for both the writer and the reader. I honestly could not wrap my mind around the elements of the text.
Unlike “Burnt Norton” this text becomes a fusion of metaphoric ideas without a clear cut resolution. It reminds me of the same confusion that Eliot probably feels at this point in his life as he struggles with his personal and spiritual life. In the fifth section, he seems to allude to the third poem in his series, by stating he is in the middle. The foreshadowing of the middle lets me that something will be resolved in the next poem. It is as though the poem is intentionally written to show the way one can be lost in the spiral.

Burnt What??

 As I sit down to write this I am a little disappointed with the text. I really enjoyed the first part but I find the themes and ideas difficult to remember. I think this is important to point out because we discussed in class that the first part is a reflection of an event that occurred between Hail and Eliot. I think my inability to remember it comes from the personal nature of the section. I think that in Eliot’s distaste for authors and their personal lives being associated with their poems now seems valid. The intimate nature of the poem takes away from the universality of the poem. Unlike the previous poems that we read that drew the reader in, the first part of this one pushes the reader away. In the same way that Eliot was known to push Hail away, so does he push the reader away.  
 Despite the fact that the Rose Garden is supposed to represent love, Eliot’s own personal struggles cause him to write something that does not make love seem like an attainable thing, but instead as a constant struggle between two people. It also seems to become a thing to be challenged. This is evident in part V when the speaker states “Love is itself unmoving,/ Only the cause and end of movement.” This shows the way love takes on a life of its own, as powerful but it also causes movement as much as it ends it. This is very evident of the effect that love had on Eliot’s life. The negativity from this part really disappoints. I prefer a poem with a message that is not as evident or relating to the poet’s life.

To the Lighthouse

 So the end of this novel was like a reading something written by two different authors. Part two seemed very dull and lacked a lot of plot. Instead, Woolf chose to write the section in a way that reflected the section title: “Time Passes”. While I didn’t enjoy it, I can definitely appreciate the method. It definitely clarified the idea that as life ends and begins, time still rolls on. This is especially important in the way Mrs. Ramsey’s death was portrayed. In part one, she seemed to be the focus. Not only was the section predominately about her, but the other characters all existed in respect to her it seems. Without her, Mr. Ramsey had no identity, James had no true place, and all the people she took in wouldn’t have been a part of the Ramsey family. However, Woolf seems to challenge her true purpose by killing her off in a bracket. There is no extra information about her death, yet it just becomes a point of interest without a second thought.  
 This, to me, shows the way women are dispensable. It seems as if Woolf is making a statement that women who do not exist in their own realm of life are destined to be forgotten; to be victims of time passing. It reminds me of the quote “Well behaved women rarely make history.” This passage seems like an affront to women who settle for the way of life that Mrs. Ramsey pursued. As I read through part three I even forgot that Mrs. Ramsey existed. This section showed how she truly meant nothing in the grand scheme of things, as we see James and his father reconciling in a sense, or at least reaching an understanding, because the thing that defined their relationship was no longer around to be factor. On the other hand, it was a little disheartening to see how quickly her memory vanished and her position was filled with Lily, a woman who wasn’t even supposed to be the same type of woman. While she showed genius in figuring out how to step in, she seemed to regress from a modern woman to a woman destined to be lost in time. Who knows…