This short story was really fun to read. I kept on comparing it to the movie the entire time. I am not totally sure which one I like better because both are practically completely different. While in the movie, Benjamin is born as an old baby who grows older in thought processes but younger in age, in the short story Benjamin grows younger in age and thought processes.
I wonder what people who read this story for the first time without seeing the movie would think and if they could wrap their mind around the subject of this story without visually seeing it. In all honesty it is easy for me to envision an old man who gets younger because I have Brad Pitt in the bag of my mind going from an old looking man to a young one, but I feel that I would have had trouble doing this if I didn't have that visual in my back pocket.
The plots between the movie and short story are completely different too. While the movie includes so many different plot lines and so many different aspects of life, the short story follows a fairly linear model of birth to death with 1 romance, and Benjamin living a "normal" life. Also, the year is much earlier, mainly because Fitzgerald didn't intend there to be a movie made in the 21st century about his short story. The movie begins in basically the late 19th century instead of directly after the Civil War (like the short story does). I also noticed that in the short story, Benjamin is not adopted but rather is taken care of by his actual father while Benjamin in the movie is born and placed on the doorsteps of a retirement home.
Overall I really enjoyed the short story and I was glad in a sense that I had seen the movie before so I could compare it while I read. I really think it is interesting how the writers of the movie could take this short story and weave such a complicated and long adaptation of this story. I think Fitzgerald is one of my favorite writers and I always think his writing is fresh and unique (and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is no exception to this rule).
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
Araby
This is another great piece of fiction that I also read back in High School. I really enjoy short stories and I think next to poetry it is my favorite kind of literature. I think Araby symbolizes so many different themes such as young love, vanity, desire, and simply the emotion of "want".
The young boy in the poem is a student at a Catholic Boys School and has a infatuation with Mangen's sister and wishes to change his dull life into something with excitement. He follows her around every day after school and describes her as an "image" that accompanies him "even in places the most hostile to romance".
The most interesting thing about their relationship however is that even though he has a romantic passion for Mangan's sister, he "had never spoken to her". This is the symbol of desire and young love. Basically this young man is entangled in the passion of romance and even her name is "a summons to all my foolish blood" (even he himself calls him a foolish youth). The theme of foolish young love is also shown in this young man when he doesn't even want to deal with the "innumerable follies" of waking and sleeping. I think this is ridiculous that one man can be so obsessed with a woman that he doesn't even want to sleep.
Ultimately though, his desires are crushed when he travels to Araby to buy his love a gift from the bazaar. This trip to the bazaar is a symbol of the relationship ship between him and Mangan's sister. He arrives the bazaar right before it closes and is unable to buy anything (not out of cost, but because of the saleswoman and how she is acting with the two men in the shop). The young man leaves the shop and is left alone in the dark of the closing bazaar, cursing himself for thinking things in his life would be different.
I love this short story and I think Joyce truly captures the essence of youth and a failed love. Even though I feel that the reader can see there never really was any hope for this young love's romance, the reader feels pity and empathy towards this young man, because we all know how it feels to lose a love that you never had.
The young boy in the poem is a student at a Catholic Boys School and has a infatuation with Mangen's sister and wishes to change his dull life into something with excitement. He follows her around every day after school and describes her as an "image" that accompanies him "even in places the most hostile to romance".
The most interesting thing about their relationship however is that even though he has a romantic passion for Mangan's sister, he "had never spoken to her". This is the symbol of desire and young love. Basically this young man is entangled in the passion of romance and even her name is "a summons to all my foolish blood" (even he himself calls him a foolish youth). The theme of foolish young love is also shown in this young man when he doesn't even want to deal with the "innumerable follies" of waking and sleeping. I think this is ridiculous that one man can be so obsessed with a woman that he doesn't even want to sleep.
Ultimately though, his desires are crushed when he travels to Araby to buy his love a gift from the bazaar. This trip to the bazaar is a symbol of the relationship ship between him and Mangan's sister. He arrives the bazaar right before it closes and is unable to buy anything (not out of cost, but because of the saleswoman and how she is acting with the two men in the shop). The young man leaves the shop and is left alone in the dark of the closing bazaar, cursing himself for thinking things in his life would be different.
I love this short story and I think Joyce truly captures the essence of youth and a failed love. Even though I feel that the reader can see there never really was any hope for this young love's romance, the reader feels pity and empathy towards this young man, because we all know how it feels to lose a love that you never had.
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