The Cherry Orchard Act II [Diversness]

Ridiculous!!! Do you know what that is? Honestly, I do not know what the hell this is. It is apparently a Japanese movie based on The Cherry Orchard except I would say it is classified as a C class movie. As far as the description says (which seems seriously unappealing), it is a remake of a hit film from 1990, “The Cherry Orchard.” The story takes place at a prestigious girls high school where everyone is oppressed with rules. One girl who just transferred to this school finds a long lost script of Anton Chekhov’s “The Cherry Orchard” which was banned from school 11 years ago. Breaking strict school rules and boundaries, she and her friends decide to perform the play. With sentiment, love and passion, the girls cherish the moment of their life before taking the next step towards adulthood. I would love to have a look at some of the clips just to entertain myself from awkardness of the plot. Although it is AM 3:57, I had a good laugh just looking at the poster of this movie. By the way, no offence to Japanese movie industries in any way.

Getting to the point, after finishing Act II, I was not clear what the author's message was. The characters in the story are simple, but I also know they have an underlying characteristics in each of them except that I cannot catch the hidden message. Looking through other people's blog, I found Nicolas Zuleta's post a little similar to my reflection of Act II. His perception of the characters were based on the impression he got from them, except he did not indicate the specific character. So I would like to make my own impression of a few of the characters in The Cherry Orchard.

Yermolay Lopakhin - a businessman who delves into his work only

Dunyasha - maid who is in love for Yasha : "passionately in love with [him]" (339)

Yasha - young male servant who criticizes Russia for being uncivilized

As you can see, their roles in the play do not seem to be that much intricate. That's why I think they are actually conveying hidden messages in order to meet up to the author's satiric intentions. I guess I will have to keep on reading.

The Cherry Orchard Act I [Peer Review on Cherry]

Inspired by Daniel Toro's Act II blogpost, I would also like to start out my blog by describing the day. Frankly, today has not been the best day for me. I had to take 3 exams from 3 differenct classes, and I am sure I have screwed every single one of them. Who said the second semester of the senior year is supposed to be laid back? I am going to kill the person who first told me this lie.I also had a small argument with my friends regarding what to do on the long weekend. I tried let the argument pass. By the time I got back from the school work-out, the clock was indicating 4:20 PM. I did not care how much homework I had. I needed to take a nap whatsoever. Before falling asleep I had The Cherry Orchard in my hands, but I do not remember when I dropped in on the floor. When I woke up, it was raining hard, a few pages of the book wer crumpled by the impact of the drop and I was still tired. Did I go back to sleep? No, or I would have not accomplished the ridiculous amount of assignment from three other AP classes. I disconnected my internet (so I would not check facebook every 10 mintues), and started working like a mad out of hell. When the time came for the blogs, I opened The Cherry Orchard, closed the book and sat on it so the crumpled pages would come back to their original state. It worked. I followed through the deformed pages and realized I was in the beginning of Act III. Ok. Let's see... I needed to get some ideas from other peers for Act I post. I clicked on random people's blogs.

I read through Billy's blog and was impressed as always since he has a great writing ability. He focused mainly on the plot of the story (which he does it almost always). He also added his personal anecdote which criticized people who do not remember "other people." Except I did not get what he meant by "they were gone five years, but I feel like they would be able to remember the people they left from their home much better than they did," because Lopakhin clearly wonders, "Will she recognize me" (317)? Well anyhow, interesting post by Coombs.

Then I moved on to David's blog because it was mentioned in Mr. Tangen's blogpost. David seemed to focus on the style of the author, which never crossed my mind. He pointed out the fact that he was "constantly impressed by the use of complete names in the play," which I did not realize because the names were ridiculously hard to remember even after the repeated emergence of them throughout the chapter. Most interestingly, he connected this phenomenon to the significance of translation. Wow. Deep thinking here.

I have realized reading other people's blogposts not only help me understand the book better (which is not an easy read for me at all), but it stimulates me to actually think more before I post anything. I always ended up using the quotes from the book to analyze the plot, but inspired by so many smart peers, I am going to try something different in my next blog.

Okay..the point?

This is pretty much what the article is saying: "Huck Finn is a character based on a real person, and Twain used him as a voice for the black people." I got that. But what is the main point of this article? It is wrong to use a black kid as a model for a white kid? Personally, I find no problems at all for such decision. I agree with David E. E. Sloane because he thinks "this shows a real black root in a white consciousness." I also agree with Billy's opinion - "I think it was because Jimmy was an interesting kid whose personality could help make a great story. Even if Huck's speech is modeled after a black person's, I disagree that we would have to "rethink who Huckleberry Finn is."

Here is a funny video regarding Huck Finn.

Spot the Difference

Minstrel Show. What is it? I have never heard of that show before. I scroll down to see what the article is about. Illustrations of black men. Possibly a white kid. And a dialogue at the very end. Fine, I cannot assume what Minstrel Show is about. Type google, type in Ministrel show. It says "did you mean Minstrel Show?" I click the blue correction. The first link says Wikipedia - Minstrel Show. No sh*t. And tadaaa!

Minstrel Show - an American entertainment consisting of comic skits, variety acts, dancing, and music, performed by white people in blackface or, especially after the Civil War, black people in blackface. Minstrel shows lampooned black people as ignorant, lazy, buffoonish, superstitious, joyous, and musical

Ah okay. That makes sense now.

First of all, I would say I totally agree with Billy Coombs. I do also think that "Jim is meant to characterize many black people during the setting of Huck Finn." And besides his dialects are not shared with any white man in the story.

Second of all, "any distinctions between Jim and the white characters of the novel act to separate whites from blacks even more than slavery already does. Because Jim is so different than any other white character in the story, I do think his actions create a small stereotype of how any black man would act."

Third of all, I loved the video on Daniel Toro's link; the modernized explanation of Minstrel show + rap music by who-knows-and-who-cares. 

And by the way, here is a random comic-of-the-day.

What?

We do not live in a communist country. Editing Huck Finn? In this sense, I do not think it should be called "editing" if the usage of the word "nigger" is the problem; rather, it should be called "censoring." The article clearly says the "censoring is necessary in order to boost [the book's] popularity," yet I do not understand how this would make sense. Mark Twain was apparently "a passionate critic of American racism" who did not mean to offend or discriminate against black people in any ways. The word nigger, which appeared approximately 200 times, acts as the live evidence of a flaw in the American history. If I were a black person, I would favor author's word choice because it accuses racism. In fact, during an online conversation between my African-American friend whom I met in Moscow baffled at the idea of censoring a masterpiece. It went something like this:

Jay: oh btw, do you wanna read a controversial article?

Christopher: Sure. Send me the link

Jay: http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/jan/05/huckleberry-finn-edition-censors-n-word

Christopher: censors n-word. dude lol. hold on let me read it. [...] Oh wow. This is funny.

Jay: I know. I have a hunch that censoring of the word nigger gives an impression that Americans are trying to hide their flaws in the past...dont you think?

Chrsitopher: not only that but I really liked the book and Mark Twain did not offend me.

Jay: yea, thats what i assumed. anyways how's everything with your chick?

This conversation is not made up, I did actually talked to Christopher about this, and he did not find the word nigger offensive. Therefore, the idea of "censoring" Huck Finn is outrageous.