Closely Reading Paintings By Rene Magritte

The surrealist artist Rene Magritte often painted scenes of events that you most likely wouldn’t see in your life, like a giant apple filling up a whole room, or a toy train hovering in midair. By closely reading his paintings, I learned a lot about Rene Magritte’s work and messages.

Though I have observed his paintings before, there are several small details I never noticed before. For example, in The Son of Man, the man’s left elbow is bent slightly backwards. This bend contributes to the mystery in the painting, showing that everything is not as it seems in the strange portrait. Another thing I noticed in Not to Be Reproduced is that even though the man’s reflection that ‘should be’ his face is actually his back, the book sitting on the ledge is reflected ‘normally.’ This shows that, like the reflection, reality and perception are distorted.

Another thing I noticed by closely reading Magritte’s paintings was the reoccurring background of a light blue sky with white clouds. As mentioned before, many of Magritte’s paintings include “out of this world scenes.” They are teeming with mystery and so-called impossibilities. In my opinion, the typical “sunny day sky” shows the observer all the crazy things that could happen in a seemingly normal environment. Throughout the paintings, the clouds seem to link our perception of reality to the happenings in the paintings.

I discovered a lot about Rene Magritte and his paintings by closely reading his work. There are so many mystifying details, perfectly placed, to make the observer question the reality of the world in the painting, or maybe their own reality.

Closely Reading The Stolen Party

The book The Stolen Party has many powerful themes. When closely read and analyzed, I noticed many deep issues and found out a lot about the characters. In my opinion, the two most interesting themes were class system and misunderstanding.

Class system was acknowledged from the very beginning of the story when Hermidia was introduced as a rich family’s maid and Rosaura as the maid’s daughter. They are both very proud characters but sometimes in different ways. Rosaura for example, seems embarrassed by her lower class ranking, while Hermidia is very dignified about being a maid. She told Rosaura to tell people at the party she was going to that she was proud to be “the employee’s” daughter. Class system also made boundaries between Hermidia’s family and the family of Herimidia’s employer, Senora Ines.

Misunderstanding plays a big role in The Stolen Party. When Rosaura was invited to the birthday party of her rich “friend,” the daughter of Senora Ines, she was thrilled. Throughout the party, Senora Ines asked Rosaura to help her with a few small things, like carrying a jug or serving cake. At the end of the party, Rosaura was eager to receive her party gift, a bracelet all the other girls who were leaving got. However, Senora Ines handed her money, and thanked her for the good work. Rosaura was distraught and confused. She thought she had a real friendship with Senora Ines’s daughter, but she was really just seen as the maid’s daughter.

The Stolen Party is a very sad story but also very true to life. In the world, families are separated by class just like Hermidia’s family and Senora Ines’s family. People tend to stay in the community of their class system, but Rosaura was young and naïve. She loved the way the rich lived, but she didn’t understand how divided their two societies were.

Best Book of 2013, The Fault In Our Stars by John Green

Out of all the amazing books I read in 2013, my favorite was, hands down, The Fault In Our Stars by John Green. It is one of those rare perfect books that combine many different themes and conflicts that make you never want to stop reading. The main character, Hazel, and her boyfriend, Gus, are very complex and interesting characters that made me connect to their lives and get lost in the book.

One of the things I loved about The Fault In Our Stars was its use of metaphors, like the reoccurring grenade. Hazel compared herself to a grenade and tried to avoid people to “minimalize the casualties” of her death. In the end, Gus actually ended up being more of a grenade than Hazel, leaving all his friends and family devastated. The characters lived by their own metaphors as well, like Gus and cigarettes. Gus always had a cigarette between his teeth but never lit it. “They don't kill you unless you light them," he said as Mom arrived at the curb. "And I've never lit one. It's a metaphor, see: You put the killing thing right between your teeth, but you don't give it the power to do its killing.” Gus did this because he felt the need to have power over something in his body, considering the fact that he had no control over his cancer.

Another thing I loved about The Fault In Our Stars was how truthful it was. For example, Hazel and Gus were obsessed with the fictional book An Imperial Affliction, and couldn’t wait to meet the book’s author Peter Van Houten in Amsterdam. Unfortunately, when they finally met him, he turned out to be a rude alcoholic that almost ruined Hazel and Gus’s love and appreciation for An Imperial Affliction. Another example of truthfulness displayed in the book was when Hazel was investigating Gus’s ex-girlfriend, Caroline, who died of cancer. On her social media profiles, she was preserved as a nice girl with a lot of friends, but when Gus spoke truthfully about her, he said she was actually just plain mean. Though these occurrences disappointed the characters and readers, they were realistic and pulled me into the book even more.

The Fault In Our Stars by John Green was a phenomenal book, and my favorite book of 2013. This book was intriguing on many levels, ranging from sad one moment to hilarious in the next. It was so thought provoking that I still think about now! If you haven’t read this book yet, I strongly recommend it along with anything else by John Green.

Inequality in Looking for Alaska by John Green

Looking for Alaska, by John Green, is centered around main character, Pudge, and his group of friends at Culver Creek boarding school. Though the book isn't focused on inequality, two of the characters, Alaska and the Colonel, are very affected by it.

Alaska's character comes off as a strong feminist, who has many opinions. I noticed, surprisingly, that her actions aren't true to her stated opinions, and she instead reacts hypocritically. For example, at Thanksgiving (perfect timing, right?), Alaska points out that it's really stereotypical for the women to be preparing the meal. However, she cooks anyway, stating that she wouldn't want "crappy boy-prepared food." This reveals that Alaska is very aware of gender inequality but does no more than verbalize her opinion. 

The Colonel, whose real name is Chip, grew up with his mother in a trailer park with close to nothing. He never needed more than he had, but he started a completely different lifestyle when he enrolled at Culver Creek.  Culver Creek is divided into two groups: half of the kids have scholarships, and half are wealthy kids who pay full tuition. The wealthy kids, nicknamed Weekday Warriors (because they go home over the weekend), are despised by the Colonel. The Colonel hates the Weekday Warriors because they are wealthy, and they typically don't respect anyone economically below them. This situation represents two forms of inequality. One is the huge difference between the Colonel's economic stature compared to a Weekday Warrior's, and another is the fact that the Colonel hates all rich people, even beyond the Weekday Warriors, due to his specific past. It is unfair for Chip to judge people by their wealth and not their personalities. 

This book showed me that inequality appears in ways that I had not previously noticed, and I am motivated to act on my opinions. I find it interesting that many people talk about social injustice, yet change is slow in coming. Being true in our actions to our opinions is a solid first step to making changes. 

Social Justice in Wintergirls

Have you ever felt unhappy with your body image? The book Wintergirls by Laurie Halse Anderson is about what happens when you become too caught up with your weight.  Unsatisfied with their figures, Lia and Cassie decide to have a competition for who can loose the most weight. This conflict really shows how affected people are by what the media portrays as right or good.

As the competition endured, the girls developed anorexia and bulimia, drinking problems, and got in huge fights. They completely forgot about their strong friendship and the reason they even started the competition. They were constantly depressed, all because they thought they weren't good enough for the media's image of a women. This is really upsetting to me because it is common in our current society for people to focus on what is wrong about themselves because they think they aren't good enough.

This is an important issue of social justice because what the media puts out is a negative influence on confidence and overall happiness. How can we be happy if, like Lia, we are too busy counting calories to notice how much our friends and family love us? I hope that one day, body image won't be an issue of social justice.

Darkness Too Visible

Megan Cox Gurdon’s article Darkness Too Visible, published in the Wall Street Journal, discusses what the author considers to be the overly gruesome and inappropriate nature of young adult literature. After introducing the topic, Gurdon writes about how Y.A. lit affects teenagers emotions and spreads the likelihood “self-destructive adolescent behaviors.” She proves her point by mentioning many Y.A. books, such as Rage and Scars and how they may negatively impact teenagers.

There are many craft moves used throughout the article. It starts out with a small moment to make the reader relate to the cause and simultaneously tries to put an opinion in their head – Y.A. lit is too dark. The author addresses the counterclaim, that Y.A. lit “validate[s] the teen experience.” She immediately makes the counterclaim seem foolish by using a situation that is obviously unreasonable. Gurdon also uses many big words such as “acquiesce” and uses a sophisticated and domineering tone to make the reader agree with her point.

I disagree with the author’s claim that Y.A. lit is too harsh for teenagers. Gurdon argues that Y.A. lit books with violent and dark issues make these topics more plausible. In my opinion, Y.A. lit reflects our teenage generation, not the other way around. Changing the content of Y.A. lit wouldn’t change the behavior of teenagers. You would have to change them.

Identity

“[Irene] slowly ran her pointer finger along the stripe. It made my arms and legs goose-bump…liking the feel of that finger but afraid of what it meant…Irene kissed me again. And I hadn’t dared her to do it, but I was glad that she did.”

Have you ever questioned or tried to change your identity? In The Miseducation of Cameron Post, by Emily M. Danforth, the 7^th grade protagonist, Cameron, began questioning her sexual identity after she kissed her best friend, Irene. Cameron wasn’t sure if she was a lesbian. This is an important topic because a lot of teenagers think about their identity and try to change who they are.

           

In the book, Cameron was worried that people would find out that she kissed Irene and tried to convince herself that she wasn’t a lesbian. Cameron was afraid of other people judging her. Let alone other people’s thoughts, I think that Cameron was also afraid of what this meant for how she looked at herself. She was in complete denial. Cameron thought that she wouldn’t be a lesbian if she didn’t admit it to herself. This connects to the real world when people, especially teenagers, try to hide their true selves because they feel insecure.

I can relate to Cameron because, in the past, I have tried to change myself for other people. I was afraid that other people wouldn’t like me and that I wouldn’t even like myself. Because of this, I adjusted myself to other people’s wants. By reading this book, I realized that if I have to change myself to please people, they aren’t worth pleasing. I like myself and I’m proud of who I am. Cameron needs to be herself and not feel intimidated by judgment.