Class Reflections...

http://write-strong.com/

I feel that I have learned several new skills in this class, especially when it comes to writing. First, I have learned how to write a much better thesis than I ever could have before. Through each written assignment I have also learned how to revise much better and that it is, in fact, different from just editing. I think this class helped to strengthen my writing skills which will definitely help me in any of my future classes that require written assignments. I also got “schooled” about commas because I think that I have always been a “comma -holic” in my writing. If I was ever in doubt I put one in. I still think I could work on this, but I have definitely improved!

Some of the readings in this class affected me in different ways. The poetry readings in the beginning affected me more than I thought poetry ever could. I was especially affected by the messages and ideas of the poem, The Second Coming, which I wrote my poetry analysis essay about. I also quite enjoyed the poem, The Goblin Market, and actually saw it referenced to in an article I read while doing research for my final project on vampires. Speaking of which, this was the longest essay I’ve written in a long time and the first time I had my thesis before writing the paper. This essay taught me a lot about analyzing and how it differs from summary, as well as how to look for a deeper meaning in poetry, which I had never really done before. I’m still not a big fan of poetry, but I surely can appreciate it more.

My writing process has changed in that I have tried to spend more time revising than I ever did before. I also think that I can still spend even MORE time working on this process because I sometimes still rush through the editing and revising parts. My biggest challenges in this class were the writing and managing my time. I work full time and have a baby boy that keeps me quite busy, so it was definitely a struggle to find time to get my work done. I definitely fell behind in the middle and I feel I’m still playing catch up, thank goodness for the NQA option! I still struggle with time management every week, but I am trying to stay ahead on my work and work on things a little at a time, earlier, rather than all at once, later. 

All in all, I truly feel like I am walking away from this class a better writer with a stronger appreciation for literature and poetry. I may never read old literature or poetry ever again, but I can say that I respect what it means, stands for, and where it came from.  I also would like to wish everyone in class success in their future classes and maybe our paths will cross again here at Yavapai, if not I wish you well!

Here is a link for tips on becoming a better writer, I really liked a lot of these!

The Zombie Subgenre… means something?

http://www.zombiecommand.com/Zombies/

The Zombie Subgenre… means something?

When I first began reading this introduction I was a little skeptical. I was thinking to myself, really? Zombie movies reflect our society and culture? I don’t think so! But… I found myself more and more interested, mostly because I’ve seen many of the zombie movies that were mentioned, and I liked them all. So it turns out the zombie subgenre really is reflecting serious fears and issues relevant in our post 9/11 world, and an interesting fact I did not know, zombies did not get their beginning in literature like all the other monsters we’re familiar with (ie. Vampires, werewolves, etc.). They became popular through cinema, video games, and graphic novels.

What I learned from this introduction is that zombies have actually evolved from their first appearances in cinema. In the beginning, they were more related to Haitian voodoo with major racist undertones and the fear of communism. Today, zombies are cannibalistic, mindless, creatures that illuminate our fears of terrorism, infectious diseases, and the world coming to an end.

This introduction covers a complete timeline of when zombies first came to be and how they have changed over the years. The common thread throughout is the fact that the zombie stories are always reflecting our society and culture at that time. After all of the reading and research I’ve done about vampires for my final project, it seems to me that the majority of theses monsters that we have come to know and even love really are reflections of our society and how our society changes over the decades.

What I found really fascinating is concerning the study of “Frequency of Zombie Film Production by Year.” This study revealed how zombie movies were quite popular during the social unrest of the 60s and 70s and then in the 90s they had a major decline because everything, in a sense, was going really well, particularly in America. Then after 9/11 the zombie subgenre has seen another major increase in popularity. There have been remakes of the 70s classics as well as whole new takes on the zombies. 

What these modern films have in common is their similarity in showing post-apocalyptic worlds that have been decimated by zombies that are always incredibly contagious and usually created because of some kind of infectious outbreak.

Enjoying many zombie movies myself, I never really thought about or analyzed what they meant, or how they portray our society and culture. I can honestly say I don’t think that I will ever watch a zombie movie the same way after reading this introduction. I think I might even have to re-watch all of my favorites! If anyone has found that they are truly a "zombie freak", I recommend this website I came across, it's pretty much anything you can think of relating to zombies... I had no idea zombies had that big of fans out there!

Humanistic Vampires

Nathan Hibberd

Professor Laura Cline

English 102

13 November 2011

Humanistic Vampires

            The modern day vampire is represented in several different ways today in television and popular books. I will be comparing and contrasting three different types of vampires with the Twilight saga books by, Stephenie Meyer, and two television shows, True Blood on HBO and The Vampire Diaries on CW. Although there are differences to some of the basics of these vampires, they all have a common thread throughout by displaying immortal strength, heightened passion and sexuality, and unadulterated energy. The myth of vampires has been around for a very long time and the popularity is never waning. The contemporary vampires of all of these three particular tales represent the struggle for self-control, the fear of mortality, and anti-feminism.

            The vampires of The Vampire Diaries on the CW have an interesting history of how they came to exist. Their story began with a Viking family that first came to America before the country was ever colonized. These vampires lived in a village next to werewolves and learned to coexist peacefully with each other as long as they kept to themselves. A young man of the colony family decided to sneak into the werewolves’ settlement to watch a man turn into a wolf and he was caught by the wolves and they killed his younger brother. This nullified the verbal agreements between the colonies and the father of the family was scared for his children’s safety. His wife, who just happened to be a witch, used her power to keep her children safe by becoming immortal, faster, stronger, and heighten their senses. Unfortunately, the universe fought back against these unnatural beings and created their weaknesses, the sun being the most powerful, as well as their unruly thirst for human blood.

            While many of the characteristics of these vampires are similar to other myths most people are familiar with, they have an atypical skill as well. These vampires have the ability to completely shut off their human emotions. This means they have the option to feel pain, love, happiness, and any other human emotion, or they can feel nothing and become hard, emotionless creatures. It is clear that vampires have the opposite of what makes humans weak and the ability to shut off their emotions is clearly a reflection of how humans struggle with theirs. Emotions can affect how we handle certain situations, decisions that we make, and how we view other people. I’m sure everyone at some point in their life has wished they could just turn those emotions off and not have to face the negative emotions such as pain, grief, fear, shame, etc.

             The vampires from the television series, True Blood on HBO, also have a unique weakness to silver. Unlike any other vampire story, silver can be used to detain these vampires because it burns their flesh. The vampires of the True Blood series also have the speed, agility, and strength that is evident in the vampires of The Vampire Diaries. Along with the Vampire Diaries, these vampires have the ability to control humans. In The Vampire Diaries it’s called “compelling” and in True Blood it’s called, “glamouring.” The outcome is the same, the human falls victim to the vampire’s every command. This skill is most often used to allow the vampires to prey on the humans for their blood. This is another ability that sets the vampires far apart from humans and juxtaposes the weakness of the human mind with the strength of the beautiful predators.

            The vampires of The Vampire Diaries and True Blood are very similar in their open sexuality, while the vampires of the Twilight books are much more conservative. The beliefs of the Mormon author, Stephenie Meyer, are quite evident throughout the four books of the Twilight saga including waiting until marriage for sex and anti abortion sentiments. Even though the open acts of sexuality are absent, the passion between the two main characters, Edward and Bella, resonates throughout the entire series. Twilight also has a much more anti-feminist impression throughout the books. In the article, Taking a Bite Out of Twilight, Carmen D. Siering sheds light on the anti-feminist theme, “Bella is also depicted as being in need of someone to take charge, someone to take care of her. We see that Bella needs protection as she stumbles through the world, literally damaging herself due to her clumsiness and bad luck, or figuratively falling into danger due to her naiveté” (51).

            It is true that most vampire tales include a similar theme of anti-feminism and this is also evident in True Blood and The Vampire Diaries. The main character in True Blood, Sookie, is almost always in danger from werewolves, witches, shape shifters, bad vampires, and serial killers. Her vampire boyfriend, Bill, is constantly saving her from these super-naturals and bad humans out to get her for one reason or another. In The Vampire Diaries, the main female character, Elena, is also always in some kind of danger from werewolves, bad vampires, witches, and the list goes on. She also is constantly being rescued by her now ex-boyfriend vampire, Stefan, and his vampire brother, Damon, who is also in love with her.

            While there may be some anti-feminist tones in many vampire tales, I have to agree with Karen Backstein when she wrote, “Despite their dissimilarities, and varied approaches to the construction of vampire-life and rules, all these supernatural stories are driven largely by female desire and the female voice.” (38) I think this is also a major reason why these contemporary television shows and books about vampires are so well liked by female audiences. They are among some of the most popular books and shows of this decade.

             These three contemporary vampire stories have many differences, but they all have similar themes throughout. The fear of mortality is another reflection on the opposing strength of vampires being immortal. Immortality is a quality all vampires have and mortality is a great fear of many humans. In the eloquent words of Jeffery Andrew Weinstock, “The vampire always returns because it is our creation, and we won’t let it rest. It is our prodigal son, returning home, bearing with it and giving shape to deep-seated anxieties and tabooed desires that may vary with the times but never vanish”(5).

            Some of the humans in these vampire stories would never want to become a vampire for this reason alone. Elena from The Vampire Diaries, declared to Stefan that she would not want to live forever and watch everyone around her die. She claims that she wants to have a family someday with children. She is also in love with, Stefan, a vampire who cannot father children and will live forever. Eventually this will come to a head, but the viewers of this show do not know quite how yet. Sookie, from True Blood, has also expressed her opinion of never wanting to become a vampire, even though the love of her life is also one. Sookie is also part fairy which brings a whole other supernatural element to the mix, so the viewers of this show don’t know how this relationship will end up either. Bella, from Twilight, however, expressed from nearly the beginning of her relationship with Edward that she wanted to join him in his vampirism, so they can be together forever. It was Edward who never wanted Bella to become a monster like he viewed himself. In this story there is a major twist in the last book, Breaking Dawn, because Bella becomes pregnant as a human and Edward has to turn her into a vampire to save her life so she could survive the childbirth of their part vampire/part human baby. Either way, if the female heroines become vampires in the future, or not, clearly immortality is seen as a great strength and vampires are undoubtedly the epitome of strength and contrary to human weakness.

            Another modern theme among these contemporary vampires, and evident in all three of these versions, is that these vampires are trying to hang on to their humanity and self control. In The Vampire Diaries, the “good” vampires often drink blood stolen from blood banks and even from animals as opposed to humans. They choose to be this way because they do not want to be the monsters that give in to their instinct. The heroine vampires also chose to keep their emotions turned on as a way to keep their humanity and feelings. This creates the ever popular story of boy meets girl, boy and girl fall in love, and then girl finds out boy is a vampire.

            In the True Blood series, vampires have come “out of the coffin,” as they call it on the show. The vampires are trying to exist in and among society and get along with humans. They have their own hierarchy with kings or queens for each state. After this happened, the Japanese developed a synthetic blood that vampires could drink and survive on, rather than sucking the blood from humans. This is once again another attempt at vampires trying to restore the humanity and going against their very nature.

            The vampires of the Twilight saga are no different; they too choose to not give in to their instinctual desires to drink human blood. These vampires choose to drink only animal blood; they do not drink human blood at all. The desire is clearly evident throughout the books that there is quite a struggle to not drink human blood, Edward explains it to Bella like this, “I can’t be sure, of course, but I’d compare it to living on tofu and soy milk; we call ourselves vegetarians, our little inside joke. It doesn’t completely satiate the hunger – or rather thirst. But it keeps us strong enough to resist. Most of the time.” (Meyer, 188).

            This passage from the article, (Un)Safe Sex: Romancing the Vampire, is a true reflection of the new take on the modern vampire:

            In part, the modern vampire story is one about self-control, about man struggling to           master his worst impulses- perhaps even his essential nature- through whatever means           necessary, be it with synthetic substances (True Blood) or by finding other sources of   food (Twilight). In an almost Victorian ethos, this "civilizing impulse" is strengthened by          the arrival of the heroine, who cements the vampire's determination not to succumb to his             bloodthirst. (Backstein, 38)

            In these three contexts, Twilight, The Vampire Diaries, and True Blood, the vampire represents a fresh take on an old idea. A vampire hero that falls in love with a human, who struggles every day with their natural instincts to drink human blood, and who inadvertently reminds us what is important about humanity. These vampires are the opposite of humans in every aspect of human weakness. They represent human’s fear of death, emotions, and self-control. They allow humans to see what it would be like to be instinctual creatures and give us a chance to be grateful for the very things that make us human.

Works Cited

Backstein, Karen. "(Un)Safe Sex: Romancing the Vampire." Cineaste 2009: 38,41,65. ProQuest Research Library. Web. 6 Nov. 2011 <http://search.proquest.com/docview/204835116?accountid=31701>.

Meyer, Stephenie. Twilight. New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2005. Print.

Siering, Carmen. "Taking a Bite Out of Twilight." Ms 2009: 50-2. ProQuest Research Library. Web. 6 Nov. 2011 <http://search.proquest.com/docview/204305520?accountid=31701>.

      The Vampire Diaries. CW. 2009-2011. Television

      True Blood. HBO. 2008-2011. Television.

Weinstock, Jeffrey. "Vampires, Vampires, Everywhere!" Phi Kappa Phi Forum 90.3 (2010): 4-5. ProQuest Research Library. Web. 6 Nov. 2011.