General overview of Lawrence

What most impressed me of the two works I have read by D.H. Lawrence is the presence of very profound topics. He depicts some psychological issues in a very strong way. He talks about how a person can go mad because of ambition (The Rocking horse winner), living in solitude (Odour of...), living with someone that does not deserve your company (Odour..), seeing a mother putting pressure on his husband so that he becomes “lucky”, meaning getting money (The rocking...), amongst others.

I believe that Lawrence brings up social issues through very detailed pyschological descriptions. However, some of his writings are really ambiguous. This makes the reader have a hard time trying to get the message across at times. In fact, I had to re-read some sentences a couple of times to understand some more. But in general, his message is to make the reader think about what is going on. Lawrence, in “Odour..” for example, talks about “love”, but a very strange love however. The woman is used to living with his husband, she waits for him, despite the fact that he treats her badly. Then he dies, and after a while she realizes that she can be born again. In the end, not all the topics that the author presents are that sad or distress the reader. He shows both sides of the coin, and that is, in my opinion, an excellent way to attract most readers’ attention.

“The Rocking-Horse Winner" is a story that makes readers think a lot about certain topics such as: “richness”, money, competitiveness, “luck”, etc. When I was reading the story I could not believe how mad a person can go because of being so worried about money and luck. The woman ended up making his son go mad and then die. However, it seemed that she really did not care about it. I truly believe she was obsessed with “success”, maintaining a social status, and being lucky! Nevertheless, being lucky, for me, is not a synonym of money. You can be “lucky” and have love in your life, live happily, make friends, etc. I do not associate the word “luck” with “money”. Maybe at some point they are interrelated, but not always.
Unfortunately, the child got so mad about it, that he could not stop thinking about it. This is why it is so important to have and keep a good environment at home. By this I mean to have good energy, to be happy, not to be worried about social stuff, to be careful with the things we say in front of children. Children listen to everything and then they remember everything as well! That is why parents and adults in general must pay close attention to what they say, at least until children are a certain age in which they can decide, have their own ideas and opinions.

Do we see what we want to see?

In my opinion, this story needs to be read a couple of times to be understood. It is not that easy to get the main idea out of it, but once you get into it, you get the message across easily. In this short story, the narrator plays an essential role since he describes in an excellent way what is going on in the scene. The way he tells the story makes you get into it more and more. He describes very accurately the characters and makes the reader realize what the characters are like. He also gives important details (description of the scene mainly).
The girl is very self-centered, arriviste, and thinks she is an excellent writer but she is not. She is convinced that she is a great observer, although she is not able to realize who is around her. Moreover, she is surrounded by 8 Japanese gentlemen that attract people’s attention, but unfortunately she "can’t" see them. In the end, she is shown up as a bad writer. A writer who is not able to observe, cannot depict reality, the world, important events, and so on.
The title of the story is very illustrative because it utilizes the word “invisible”. The girl is not able to see the men....she thinks she sees but she sees what she wants to see.

"Seeing without seeing"

Undoubtedly, “Frankenstein” is one of the most important literary works in the nineteenth century. Nonetheless, it still produces a lot of impact on the readers that are getting to know the story nowadays. “Frankenstein” was written by Mary Shelley, a brilliant English writer that had a very intense life, life that inspired her to create her works. With regards to “Frankenstein”, Shelley’s life experience is absolutelly present throughout the whole story.

I think that the creation of the monster was a way for Mary to say what she could not say when being through terrible moments like the lost of her baby. She felt devastated, wiped out by life, by her partner. Moreover, she “killed” her baby, so desperation, hopelessness, and any kind of guilt overwhelmed her. All those issues allowed the creation of the story. Thereby, every mentioned component helped to create the characteristics of the monster. Thus, we would be able to say that the monster is kind of a “dustbin” because all “bad feelings”, fears, guilt, frustration, and so on, were thrown away into it.

What comes into my head is the example of a person who feels lonely, singled out, with a low self-esteem, and eats everything he/she finds as a way to have some control over his/her actions. After eating, there comes some tiredness that makes forget. Perhaps Mary Shelley would feel relieved after messing around and behaving as a monster. However, in the monster’s inner self, there was a human, a human that maybe did not want to feel and needed some mask to speak up.

On the other hand, oddly enough, it was a man the one who gave birth to the baby (Victor creating the creature), so it is highly possible that due to the weakness she felt, she wanted to perform a man. A man was “for sure” going to be able to create a monster, but who was the monster then? Mary? or did she feel that she could only give birth to a monster? That is a question I do not have answer to. Nevertheless, I imagine that through having a man giving birth to a baby, she could criticize a man not giving support to a woman who has just lost a baby.
Despite everything I have mentioned, there is a theme that goes beyond the surface. I am making reference to the human capacity to create “monsters”. How far have we got? Are our actions able to do harm to ourselves, to society? How powerful is the capacity of influence? Nowadays, we see on television terrible pieces of news. What shocks me the most, however, is that as time goes by, it seems that they are more and more.

What is happening inside our heads that we are so vulnerable? Where is the strenght that all of us are supposed to have? Stress, selfishness, “work slavery”, corruption, amongst other deplorable concepts, are taking control of human beings’ minds. The desire of success blinds humans, making them not realize the actions they make. It is really interesting to think about the possibility that humans are able to create their destinies, the possibility of being the ones to blame for their pains. The consequences of “blind actions” may cause a lot of damage. Ergo, as time goes by, the “train of life” may pass you by and you are not able to see how much you did not do. Some people end up ill, embittered, lonesome, but then people say that the blind do not see, but maybe they can see without seeing...

"Charles Dickens' great works"

I have realized that finding out more about the authors’ lives is really helpful. When you get to know different aspects of an author’s life experience, it becomes easier to understand his/her works. However, I must admit that I had to read “The Signalman” three times to get enough ideas out of it. In “The Signalman” the reader can see the trip that Charles Dickens went through during his life. Maybe he wanted to leave behind certain moments that affected him and that became ghosts in the end. I think that the train is all his psychological baggage. The train represents his story, memories, pains, and so on. Furthermore, when the train passed, some strange force wanted to challenge his mental strength, making him believe has was seeing a man. However, he fortunately realized it was a ghost. This story represents life. Life is evolving day by day, we are witnesses to new technological devices, but sometimes we do not go beyond the surface in order to think more critically and be more self-reflective. Thereby, the train may pass you by and you end up thinking why, but not even considering the fact that you probably did not pay close attention to what was happening in your world within, with your inborn life motivations, etc.
On the other hand, we have “Oliver Twist”, a film that shows us how cruel can life be to a child who is deprived of the minimum conditions to survive. This story depicts Dicken’s own life. He wanted to take his past life experience to writing. He knew very well how sacrificed working very young was. He could not have a family since they all went to jail, and so on. Dickens showed us how present individualism, abuse of power and social injustice were in the Victorian Age.

"Going beyond the surface"

After reading the essay “The Birth of a Monster” I realized that there is a very strong story behind the creation of “Frankenstein”. People who have not read the book tend to think that the story is almost a fun one that lacks a powerful plot, which is not true. Mary Shelley wrote this story after having experienced traumatic experiences. I truly believe that Frankenstein is the result of all her fears, pains, and so on. Nevertheless, what most shocked me is that it is a man the one who gives birth to this monster. I think that Mary wanted to play the role of a man, because she felt really weak, powerless, forgotten by the father of her children, disappointed, etc. She didn’t feel able to give birth because she killed one of her children, so what was coming next? She wasn’t expecting anything of life.

Her literary talent allowed her to speak up and say everything she wanted to say. Perhaps, in real life, she was afraid of speaking, or afraid of her partner. However, in fiction she was stronger than men, maybe she was the monster, she could do anything she wanted to. No one was going to be able to keep her mouth shut, she was strong now, she could express herself. Moreover, through “Victor” she left a message. Human beings can create fearful beings, not even realizing. Sometimes, what we see or experience is the consequence of our own actions. What about people who state that cancers and some other diseases are the result of our “deformed” minds? Is our unconscious able to do harm to us? What do you think?

"Hopelessness"

Life is full of contradictions. We are witnesses to them day by day. The news, television, people in general, say things that may have contradictions. In the specific case of Keats, his poetry is rather pessimistic but very very deep. I think his intention was to transmit his world within as precisely as possible. Nonetheless, the language he uses is at times ambiguous and has almost no connection with what the spirit and thoughts of that time were.
Romanticism was characterized by optimism and “fresh air”. The idea was to revitalize those times. All the opposite was the content of Keats’ poetry. Nevertheless, after discussing in class, I arrived at the conclusion that Keats probably saw death as a way of escaping and being in peace. It is not that strange to believe in this since a lot of people see life as something tortuous, hopeless and confusing. Keats might have wanted to contradict all he was seeing with his extremely “dark” but personal, intense and honest ideas (according to my standpoint). No motivation and lack of interest may be the causes of the “bitterness” shown through words.