Poty is a Pony

"The daughter of Araken then went and sat afar off on the root of a tree, like the solitary doe who has been driven forth from the sunny plain by her ungrateful mate. The Pytiguára warrior disappeared in the thickest of the foliage." (Alencar, Iracema, 60)

AWKWARD!!!! That feeling when the third wheel is witnessing a lovers' quarrel, blech. I would disappear too. But I'm not really blogging about this. I just needed to get that out...

"Hunting and excursions in the mountains with his friend by his side, the tender caresses of the wife awaiting his return. . . " (Alencar, Iracema, 83)

Professor Mack asked last week if there were any Louis L'amour fans in the class. I do like Louis L'amour but my mind was having a debate if I met the qualifications to be a fan or not and my opportunity to be one passed. But I think it brought cowboys to the front of my mind so when I read this line, all I could think of was this nice cowboy song I like from the John Wayne movie, Rio Bravo, that demonstrates this idea of being a manly man with his pal while his sweetheart waits faithfully at home.

It connects like this. Martim is the cowboy. Poty is his faithful pony pal (not much personality, but always reliable and he's there right when you need him). Iracema is obviously his sweet darlin'. Obviously. And his rifle...is...his...bow and arrow. Yeah, I don't know if that's as cool as a rifle but there it is.

What is it that romanticizes this idea of going out in the frontier with your weapons and your sidekick? I mean, I love westerns but I want to know why this concept is so appealing. There's this part of my brain that thinks that secretly all men would love to be a cowboy. I know my brothers would. Why do men love this idea so much? Why is it so manly?

Aaaand, why does Martim tire of it??? Is he not a real man? Or could it be it's because he was induced into this life by Iracema? Questions, questions...

Iracema, Hungry Like the Wolf!

"Iracema, the virgin with the honey lips, whose hair, hanging below her palm-like waist, was jetty as the Graúna bird's wing.
The comb of the Játy-bee was less sweet than her smile, and her breath excelled the perfume exhaled by the vanilla of the woods. . 
Fleeter than the wild roe, the dark virgin wandered freely through the plains and forests of Ipú. . . . Her subtle, naked foot scarcely pressed to earth the thin green garment with which the early rains clothe the ground." (José de Alencar, Iracema, 9)

Iracema. Iracema, the lovely Pocahontas/what's-her-name-from-Avatar figure. I was trying to imagine what it would be like to meet her and I couldn't think of anything to compare her to except...a wolf.

Wait, wait, wait! Stop thinking that is a super random comparison! It's not and I'll tell you why. It came to me because of my Alaskan heritage. So here it goes...

See? Do you see the resemblance? Ok, let me help you out. Wolves just have this majestic, natural, beautiful, yet deadly spirit to them. They are incredible creatures. They are just...like, really cool. And Iracema is like that. They both have this very pure, uncontaminated quality. They are both very intelligent. But even though both wolves and Iracema are beautiful and pure, I would not say that they are innocent. 

Wolves have the ability to be...not very nice. Sometimes they kill animals for sport when they don't need food. And we got to see a little bit of Iracema's lack of innocence. Getting Martim drunk? How angelic.

When Iracema was introduced, I felt kind of mesmerized by her grace and perfection, but she also has this really lethal side. Yeah, don't surprise her, you might get shot. And don't make a wolf mad, they might eat you up, as they say, haha. See the resemblance now?

Ohhh Martim! Where are you going, you White Warrior???

Levinas on Love

Sudden realization: I haven't blogged this week. Good thing that revelation just came to me...otherwise...my life would be no fun...

Ok, so in our class a week ago, Professor Mack brought up some neat philosophy from a French/Jewish philosopher named Levinas. Basically, his philosophy is that when we see people, we look at them in one of two ways: totality and infinity. I wanted to blog about this because it's been inspiring me with uplifting thoughts.

Totality
With a totality perspective, I see someone like a pie chart. For example, I met a guy at the bus stop yesterday. I asked him how he was doing. He said well. If I had a totality view, I would have thought, "Bingo! I know this guy half a percent! Only 99.5% to get to know! Cool!" So then I asked what his name is. It is Minh. (Sweet! 99% left!) And I continued talking with him. He's a finance major. (5% down. 95% left) He lives near me. (90% left! Yessss!) And I continued getting to know him with my objective of knowing him 100% coming closer and closer. And then, when I feel like I know him 100%, I can slap a label on him because I totally know him completely. Soo, I could say, "Minh is from Vietnam. Asian! I get him! *Assumption, assumption, assumption because I know Minh completely now*, blah, blah, blah..."

The unfortunate thing about totality view is that when I slap that label on, I stop seeing Minh as a person, I see him as an object. And that's bad.

Infinity
I see people as infinite beings. I can't label them because I understand that I can never really get to know them 100%. It's impossible. So I do my best to get to know someone, but not as an interrogator. I become familiar with them in gentle, loving ways. It just allows a lot more room for love.

Ok, so thoughts inspired by this philosophy:

1. First Thought: RELIEF. I don't know why, but when I make comments in class I'm scared because I feel like people will interpret my comments and make judgments about me. Ok, actually I do know why I'm scared. I'm just really bad at expressing myself so I feel like everything I say comes out wrong, therefore everyone will have a skewed perspective of who I am. But after this explanation, I relaxed a bit because I hope that people would view me as an infinite being and wouldn't slap a label on me from one comment. Yeah. Feel free to do it after you read my blog though...hahaha. Just kidding.

2. Second Thought: Relief again. But this one is different. I've been sort of at war with myself because I've been trying to determine what I should think of Hernán Cortés. I guess the viewpoint that I learned in school is that he was a heartless bad man that killed basically everyone in South America for gold. But sometimes when I read the excerpts from Victors and Vanquished, I come across things that are confusing.

"Indeed, when we least expected it, they came to say that [Montezuma] was dead. Cortés wept for him..." (Schwartz, Victors and Vanquished, 172)

Why would Cortés weep for someone that he was conquering? Did he love him? Or was it because it put  Cortés in a sticky situation? (There were more things but that was the only quote I could find right now.) So I guess the relief I feel is that I don't need to put a label on Cortés. Who am I to judge Hernán Cortés? How could I decide what kind of person he was because, honestly, I really, really don't know him at all. He's an infinite being and I have no idea what caused him to do the things he did.

This view from Levinas changed the way I look at people. Does this philosophy change how you see people too?

Working Class Hero

Well, I've already found out that I enjoy blogging and tweeting for my Latin American Humanities class much, much more than I was expecting. It's actually fun. Yes, fun.

"The modern worker lacks individuality. The class is stronger than the individual and his personality dissolves in the generic. That is the first and gravest mutilation a man suffers when he transforms himself into and industrial wage earner. Capitalism deprives him of his human nature...by reducing him to an element of the work process, i.e., to an object. And like any object in the business world, he can be bought and sold." (Octavio Paz, The Labyrinth of Solitude, 67)

Ok, I read this and I could not help but think of John Lennon's song, Working Class Hero. I'm including a link to the song but WARNING, the lyrics include some "bad words, the only living language in a world of anemic vocables," as Paz says. "Poetry within the reach of everyone." And Lennon uses a strong one twice. Just giving you a heads up!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YsmQhbd1KWE

In The Sons of La Malinche Paz delves deeply into exploring what creates identity. And when I say deeply, I mean DEEEEEEEPly. He demonstrates how the history of the Mexican creates his, mm, non-identity. Not his identity, because he may choose to deny his descent and recreate himself as just a man, whoever he wants to be, freed of any baggage that would come with his heritage. 

I think this quote demonstrates the risk that the Mexican still faces of having his humanity, his personality, dissolved by society...specifically by being an industrial wage earner.

So anyways, I thought of John Lennon's song because it expresses exactly the same thing that Paz's quote says. The song shows that the risk of having your humanity blurred by being in the working class is not only a problem that is limited to Mexicans. I think it is part of all societies. When the machine begins to take over, it kind of pushes itself along and bulldozes over individuals, turning them into objects. It's a weird world. 

But I think that if Paz has one thing right, it is that we are always capable of determining the way we view our identity. We are not objects at all, but beings that have resiliency and determination and are capable of overcoming any obstacles in our path. Period.