East of Eden Blog

My walk-up song would be The Big Big Beat by Azealia Banks, and my pre-test ritual is to just find a quiet place in my head to rest before I have to use my brain.

The quarantine that consumed my life back in mid-March included a toll of other perspective-altering circumstances. During my stay in, while I was painting, I got some grave news that turned my quarantine from frustrating to depressing. I got a call that one of my closest friends had passed away. Not only did this mean she didn't get to see what life was like after this excursion, but that I never truly got to say goodbye to her given the circumstances. And at first, it hurt really bad. I couldn't get anything done or even talk to my family. I just sat and kept alone with my thoughts. I asked the universe, "How? In this time where I am already vulnerable, you take more from me?" And then I realized that this was going to be my 'dark place'. I refused to go any deeper out of fear of disappointing those around me. And then it really hit me. I felt as though I was living in the world of Lady Bird, where she just cannot catch a break in the time where she is tryin...

Along the lines of the prompt, I am going to incorporate the media I chose to tell a story about how to overcome a challenge when something bad happens to you and relate it to events in my own life. In all my movies and books I chose, something traumatic happens to every character (Lady Bird coming of age and struggling to accept her true self, Jane Eyre enduring abuse from her aunt, Bauby having a stroke, etc.) So I'm using these to relate to my own recent struggles.

When a person enters a stage in their life when their paradigms shift, this causes them to change, whether it's involuntary or not, it creates a path from the universe to transform and become an elevated version of themself. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (Bauby) The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald) Jane Eyre (Bronte) Midsommar (Aster) Lady Bird (Gerwig)

I asked myself after reading Beloved, "How does Beloved represent past traumas?" To put it in a simple way, she represents trauma because she is the human embodiment of everything that Sethe is running away from. But it goes deeper than that. Beloved represents past traumas by parasitic force. Foster described this phenomenon as 'vampirism', however, Beloved reminds me more of a parasite. She takes from Sethe and makes her feed her constantly, energize her and give her 100% of her attention. As this went on, Sethe looked more and more dead inside every day, an obvious sign that her trauma is taking hold of her. Towards the end of the book, Sethe is possessed by Beloved and begins to act out violently towards others. Sethe is running away from her past and is repressing what she did to Beloved in order to forget her days as a slave girl. But eventually, her trauma has to catch up with her. Not to mention as soon as Beloved left her, she began to slowly heal, with the h...

In a Midsummer's Night Dream, the dominance of feminine passions of romantic love overpowers male subordinates in MSND through the power that Hermia and Helena have over their lovers.  The power of the fairies gives an influence on the value of women, such as when the spell when the switch was made. Demetrius and Lysander found themselves fighting over the women because their love is worth fighting for because it is so powerful.     The value of a woman's love in the play is so powerful that the men who raised them have to control who they marry and the women who portray love ultimately get their way. And both Helena and Hermia ultimately get what they want due to the fact that their fathers and suitors know that a woman's love is so powerful that they need it to live a purposeful life in their society. The romantic love overpowers the male subordinates ultimately because, at the end of the play, Hermia's father, Egeus decides to cave in and let Hermia marry Lysander b...