Blog Midterm Paper

Melissa Brooks

Dr. Paul Gleason

English 303

October 9, 2008

Thinking Critically

Before the semester began, my independent reading responses tended to be at the first level of reading development. When I read John Kennedy O’Toole’s novel A Confederacy of Dunces, my response was limited to the various aspects I enjoyed. The main things I remember about this novel are its strangeness and humor, particularly in the character Ignatius Reilly. I thought about A Confederacy of Dunces primarily as a world in itself, without connecting it to the cultural context in which O’Toole wrote it. Similarly, when I began reading Rushdie’s novel The Satanic Verses, I absorbed the information without really processing its relation to social discourse. Discussing Rushdie in our Nonwestern Literature class, however, helped me analyze the text on the third level. Learning about the basic features of Islam as well as the fatwa against Rushdie, I could place The Satanic Verses in its cultural context. For instance, Islamic belief contends that no one should disparage Muhammad. In The Satanic Verses, Mahound proclaims that a former statement he claimed came from God actually came from Satan. As Mahound represents Muhammad, the idea that he could make such a grave mistake, and the idea that God and Satan could so easily be confused with one another, offends many Muslims. Because I did not know much about Islam or Muhammad before we discussed them in class, I was not able to make this connection.

Currently, I think exhibit all three stages of reading development. In some respects, I seem to fit into the first stage of Text-Self. Most if not all of my responses include the personal pronouns “I” and “we.” While I never discuss whether I like a text or if it is good or bad, I incorporate my personal biases. Some of my blog entries were in part rebuttals fueled by class discussion. When we were reading A Wild Sheep Chase, I perceived a negative response to the novel’s strange elements from my classmates. This offended me because I love reading, especially books that seem to stray for normality. My blog response, then, was a way of defending both literature and my predilection for it. In my first blog entry on Murakami’s A Wild Sheep Chase, I assert that we need to be more accepting of abnormal phenomenon: “The dream world of the bizarre is preferable to the mediocre reality we’ve created that excludes all that is illogical. If we (and the narrator) allow the illogical into our reality, we’d be more content living in it.” This remark contains overt bias, as I portray my personal preference for the bizarre as a social fact: acceptance of the bizarre would bring everyone a higher level of satisfaction. I also project my personal dissatisfaction with normalcy as a universal dissatisfaction, although many people are content with normalcy and prefer it. This response is rooted in the first level of reading development because it revolves around my personal feelings. At the same time, I think it pertains to the third level. I utilize a sociological perspective, implying that our societal norms uphold the logical and reject the bizarre. Yet, things are only bizarre because we define them as such. It may be beneficial then, to view them with a more open mind to broaden our perspectives.

An intermingling of multiple levels of reading development also occurs in my blog response for Indiana Jones and The Temple of Doom. Like the previously mentioned blog on Murakami, this entry was also a rebuttal to a classmate’s comment, thereby applying to the Text-Self category. This particular classmate did not find the racism in the film offensive but humorous because (from his point of view) the racism was intended to be ironic. This comment upset me for a number of reasons, one of which is that my brother carries a similar attitude and at times overtly expresses racial prejudices. “Claiming that he does not really adhere to racist attitudes, he thinks making these jokes is okay…Even if we do not truly believe stereotypes, stating them ironically on a continual basis (as well as hearing them) begins to affect our attitudes.” Once again, my response was a defense of my personal opinions. Yet in this same entry, I also incorporate the second stage of reading, as I relate my belief that ironic racism is a slippery slope to Sterne’s novel Tristram Shandy. Tristram says that entertaining opinions even in jest eventually causes us to internalize them. This entry also incorporates a bit of the third level, as racism and stereotypes pertain to sociological discourse. Sociology purports that racism is something we learn, and by continuously hearing racist jokes or remarks, and even by stating them ironically, we internalize these values.

As the semester has progressed I feel I have increasingly incorporated all three levels of reading development. One reason for this is that in general, discussing novels stimulates responses that are more critical. My independent reading responses have often been at the first level of reading development because I do not have anyone with whom to discuss the text. Usually, no one I know is reading in conjunction with me. Without an outlet for discussion, it is difficult to respond analytically; it often seems that when I read independently, stories sit in a vacuum within my mind, whirling around apart from culture and social discourses. Discussing texts in class, however, makes me think critically about the novels we read and helps me make connections with other texts and discourses outside literature. The handouts we receive in class have also helped me progress in my reading development because they introduce me to new theorists and familiarize me somewhat with existing social discourses. In my last entry on Roy, for example I discuss Spivak’s discourse on the fallacy of essentialism, which I would not have been able to do without the Spivak handout. I cite examples of essentialism in films like Aladdin, The Lion King, and Pan’s Labyrinth, which portray villains as the epitome of evil. I think class discussions and continuously receiving and reading handouts on social discourses will continue to help me progress in my reading development. In terms of my independent reading, I have found that when I write responses to novels, or write comments in the margins, it helps me process the book and respond at the second and third levels. The blog entries themselves have helped me to process the novels we read. If I continue writing responses to the books I read, it will help me to continue thinking about them critically.