Protest Thingy

I've always been against the use of real animal fur for coats, hats, etc, but I've never actually had an opportunity to do anything about it. I used this assignment as an opportunity to voice my opinion on this subject and hopefully change some people's minds on the idea of using real animal fur for clothing. So I decided to hand out fliers that I made dealing with animal fur clothing outside of A.J. Ugent Fur.
However, I felt like people wouldn't be very interested in another flier about fur since I'm sure everyone has seen fliers or pamplets about it before. So I decided to make it more specific so it would hopefully catch some people's attention. My fliers were about Karakul lamb fur. The truly sad thing about this is that since lambs are born with glossy, tightly curled fur that begins to unravel after a few days, those who are in the business of making Karakul lamb coats have to slaughter lambs right after they are born. Also, since they're so small, it takes several lambs to be killed in order to make one coat.
I think that by using a specific kind of fur, I sparked more people's interest, because more people than I thought asked me about my fliers. Most people, I think, didn't know what Karakul lamb fur was, which was why it got their attention, which I might not have gotten if I had just handed out more fliers just about fur in general. However, there were still a lot of people who I know just took a flier to be polite and probably threw it away as soon as they got home. But I definitely expected that. I also expected it when people just walked past me or declined taking a flier, and I was a little disappointed in them. However, I felt really encouraged and almost empowered when I met a lot of people who were actually interested in my fliers or what I had to say.
So I think that I may have actually changed some people's opinions on buying fur clothing, or confirmed their beliefs against it. At least, I hope that I caused people to think about the consequences of buying fur clothing and hopefully will encourage them never to do it.

Lysistrata Post #10

So I was extremely happy that this play did not end with a suicide. When we first started reading this book, I thought it would be another story about women being repressed and not listened to, but I was pleasantly surprised. I was interested to find that the women in this play had an important role in the decisions made concerning the war. At first they didn't, since the men refused to listen to the women, but after the women asserted their power through the protest, they realized that they did have a voice. It was a refreshing change, since in the other two books the women tried to do this and gain control of their life- and in the end they are unable to and end up killing themselves. In Lysistrata, however, the women actually have a power over the men, and in the end everyone ends up getting what they want. Perhaps that shows something about how everything works out better for everyone if people work together instead of dividing different roles for specific people. If everyone's opinion gets heard, then it is easier to make everyone happy rather than just having one group of people be in complete control (the men in the other books).

Lysistrata Post #9

So how is Lysistrata similar to Bernarda and Hedda, if at all? I think that she is similar to Bernarda in that she is in control of the women around her, although Bernarda's daughters were more resentful of her tyranny than the other women were of Lysistrata. I mean, they didn't want to do the protest, but they knew that it was necessary in order to end the war. I don't think that Lysistrata is similar to Hedda in many ways, but they both do understand how to manipulate people. Hedda knew how to manipulate Lovborg just as Lysistrata knew how to get want she wanted out of the men, and also how to convince the other women to go along with protest. However, Hedda wanted to control people for very different reasons- she wanted to do it to get more control over her own life, whereas Lysistrata used her mamipulating skills in order to end a war and create peace. So overall, the character of Lysistrata was a much more honest and likeable character in my opinion.

Lysistrata Post #8

My question is: do the men truly love their wives or is it all just about sex? At first, I thought it was all about sex for them since they refused to end the war for their wives' sakes. . . until they proposed the abstinance strike. THEN suddenly they were willing to end the war. But then I reread the scene with Myrrhine and Kinesias, when Kinesias says, "She left our home, and happiness went with her" (81). That proved to me that he did truly love her, because he didn't just say that he wanted to sleep with her, he said that his home was truly not the same without her, and he also is extremely happy to hear her say that she loves him. Therefore, I think that the men did love their wives, and also agreed to have peace to make them happy, not just to end their abstinance.

Lysistrata Post #7

Okay, is it just me or is it hypocritical that two of the themes of this book are "Make love, not war" and "The WAR of the sexes"? Hmm. I noticed that particularly in the scene where the women and the men are brandishing chamber pots and threatening (and succeeding) to hit each other. Yeah, I understand that the men and women weren't going to truly hurt one another, like they were in the actual war between the Athenians and the Spartans, but still. I thought it was pretty hypocritical that the women decided to help create peace by using violence. (??) I kind of thought that by abstaining they were going to show that wars could be resolved without using any violence, but that kind of went out the window when they start breaking lamps over peoples' heads.

Lysistrata Post #6

In terms of spectacle, I think that it is interesting that most of the play takes place in the Akropolis, which can be seen as a symbol of power for the women. Since the women hold the Akropolis, it indicates that they also hold a position of power over the men. Therefore, I think that the set helps indictate the theme of the power of women, not only because they are able to make their men miserable without them, but because they are able to take control of the Akropolis. Perhaps that's why the men were so upset when they found out that the women were in power of the Akropolis, since they realized what this meant. They might have also seen it as a sign of the women taking control, which was not what they wanted.

Lysistrata Post #5

Dynamic characters? I don't think so. Did ANY character in Lysistrata change or improve? I didn't find any evidence of that. I figured that in the end, the men would realize that there was no point in fighting the war and that they would want peace for the same reason the women did- everyone was safe and happy. But then I actually got to the end and the men seemed to only want to resolve the war to get back with their wives- they seemed to have no sense of WHY they were ending the war other than to sleep with their wives. They obviously didn't care about peace or the well-being of anyone, which makes me wonder- what did they learn? Nothing really. So I just can't say that any of the men changed, or the women for that matter. Lysistrata remains strong the whole book (but doesn't really progress) and all the other women are reluctant to join in, and they still are all the way throughout the play (remember the "pregnant" woman with her copper baby?). I guess the only one I would say improved at all would be Myrrhine, since she was one of the hesitant ones at the beginning, but later was strong enough to deny her husband when she could have broken the oath without anyone knowing.

Lysistrata Post #4

I thought that it was almost hypocritical for Aristophanes to portray the Spartans the way he did using language. I mean, the whole book is centered around getting peace and ending the fighting and the war, and yet whenever the Spartans are around, they are made to seem inferior and stupid even. The dialect that Aristophanes uses for the Spartans is obviously used to make them seem like dumb hicks, which I thought was completely unnecissary and was in no way contributing to what was happening in the play. Therefore, I thought that the only reason the Aristophanes had the Spartans talking like that was to point out that they were not as intelligent or educated as the Athenians, which completely goes against the whole moral of the story, which is to end wars and create peace. What's the deal?

Lysistrata Post #3

The most interesting metaphor, I thought, was "Peace". I just found it interesting that Lysistrata would decide to use another woman's body in order to negotiate a peace arrangement. I mean, first of all, it kind of dehumanizes women because Lysistrata was encouraging the men to divide the woman up like a piece of meat. And secondly, I got the feeling that Lysistrata used "Peace" as a prop to keep the men in line- the men wouldn't argue with each other with that kind of motivation. That, however, seemed to dehumanize the men as well, making them look like animalistic fools who could barely form a complete sentence with Peace there. I think that Peace was there to represent what the men would be getting if they agreed to have peace among each other, but I think that everyone came out of the negotiations with less respect for each other than they went in with. But I guess all that matters is that the issue was resolved and everyone got what they wanted. For now.

Lysistrata Post #2

Anyone else annoyed with the men in this play? Okay, I got the idea that this war has been going on for a really long time- therefore it must be really important to these men, right? Yeah. It was SO IMPORTANT that they even went a whole day without having sex! Wow! That's impressive. That just showed me that these men weren't even fighting for a real reason. I mean, how important could this war have been if they were willing to resolve it in a day? If it was that easy, why were they even fighting it in the first place? It just seemed to me like if these men didn't have something to fight over or to fight against, then they weren't really happy. That makes me think that this "peace" is going to be shortlived.

Lysistrata Post #1

So I have to say- I was kind of disappointed with this play. It kind of reminded me of that show "Seinfeld" in that a lot of random stuff happened that's supposed to be funny, but in the end you realize that you didn't get anything out of it. I mean, I understand what happened in the book, and there was kind of a moral (???) but I don't think that at any point in the play I said- "Hey, that's a really good point" or "Wow, that's an interesting idea". I was really hoping that there would be a more controversial or political issue, but I didn't really find one. No true revelations were present at the end of the book, and I don't think anything was really resolved. Women held out on their husbands until they did what they wanted. Not a real exciting ending. In fact, I think there was a "Seinfeld" episode on it.

Post #10

Is there ANYTHING good about Hedda? Well, I wouldn't say there was anything in particular that's good about her, but I do want to point out that she's human. And even though she calls herself a "coward", I think that in a lot of ways Hedda is truly brave. I mean, she's mad that Thea and Lovborg have this great manusript, and instead of just sitting there feeling jealous and pathetic, she decides to burn the thing! Hedda also has the bravery to try and take control of the things going on around her, using her pistols as means to power. Even though Hedda fails at taking control of her life (like when Brack takes her pistols from her) she at least tried. Instead of sitting around and letting other people tell her how her life is going to go, she tries to fight for that power. However, I'm not going to say that she was as courageous as Thea, or as courageous as she could have possibly been, because I think that killing herself was her greatest act of cowardice. And laziness. I mean, she caused this huge mess for herself (burning the manuscript, telling Lovborg to kill himself with her pistol) and then she just says, "oops, I can't fix it. I'll just kill myself." Sad.

Post #9

So what was the purpose of Aunt Julie? To me, she is a very flat and static character because she does not change at all throughout the play. It's kind of ironic, though, that we look at Aunt Julie as being such a boring character and how we say that she's just a stereotypical "female" character of the time- motherly, and selfless, but in fact Aunt Julie was probably the only character in the play who actually cared about other people. I mean, Hedda cared about Hedda obviously, Tesman cared about his work, Brack was just creepy, and Lovborg and Thea were pretty much only devoted to their manuscript. So yes, Aunt Julie looks kind of pathetic for caring so much about what other people think (the hat...), but still. At least she has a soul. Okay, okay, the other characters have souls too (some of them) but I just think it's a little wrong of us to be so harsh on poor Aunt Julie when she's the only one who is trying to do any good in the world. Cut her some slack.

Post #8

So I think that in a lot of ways, we could compare Thea to Maria Josefa because they are both arguably the only free women in either of these books. Maria Josefa is free because she doesn't worry herself about stupid things like appearances and what the neighbors will think, etc. and she also is the only in the The House of Bernarda Alba who says whatever she feels whenever she wants to. The same goes for Thea in Hedda Gabler. Thea is the only woman with the courage and freedom to escape her entrapment, and also the only one who competely disregards what society will think, since she says that she knows people will talk about her leaving her husband but she doesn't care. Hedda, on the other hand, is always worried about a scandal and doesn't want people to see what's really going on in her household because she's too afraid of what they'll think of her. This shows that Hedda is not at all as free as Thea is, much like Bernarda was not as free as Maria Josefa.

Post #7

Hmm, so why was Hedda so opposed to having a baby? You would think she would love having kids and being able to boss them around all the time, right? However, I think that to Hedda, pregnancy represents being trapped in this boring world where she has no freedom. With a kid on the way, Hedda has almost no hope of getting out of this life she's gotten herself into- the kind of life where she is inferior to men and her only purpose is to host parties and look nice in society. Having a kid would pretty much secure this role for Hedda, and I think Hedda was not ready to give up on the idea of doing what Thea did and getting out. However, I doubt Hedda would have had the courage to ever leave like Thea did, especially if she had a kid. So instead of dealing with everything, Hedda took the easy way out and killed herself. . . and her child.

Post #6

Does anyone in this book know what love is?? Hedda doesn't love Tesman, in fact, she is completely bored with him after being married, what? Less than a year? And Tesman doesn't even hardly care when Hedda kills herself. Brack certainly doesn't love Hedda, he's just in it for the fun. . . And what about Lovborg and Hedda? She actually persuades him to kill himself! The only couple I thought actually loved each other was Thea and Lovborg, since Thea left her marriage for him- but now I'm not sure about that either. First of all, if Lovborg truly loved Thea, he wouldn't have committed suicide. But then I figured that Thea was truly in love with Lovborg, seeing her concern for him after he went missing. But then, ten seconds later, Thea was busy trying to rewrite her precious manuscript with Tesman. "In Lovborg's honor". Yeah right.

Post #5

Why did Hedda burn the manuscript? To me, it was one of two reasons: the first is that she didn't want her husband to look lesser to Lovborg. With Lovborg's new, amazing book out, no one would care about Tesman's book, and we all know that Hedda has to be the best. She couldn't stand having her husband look pathetic next to her ex-lover. The second reason, and probably the most likely, is that she was jealous of Thea's involvement with the book. Hedda always wants the power of men, but never truly has it, while Thea is the equal of Lovborg since she is a huge part of the writing of the manuscript. Because of this, Hedda is jealous and tries to ruin it for Thea, since if Hedda can't have something, she doesn't want anyone else to have it either. This could be part of the reason why Hedda kills herself at the end, since she wasn't able to stop Thea from having that freedom and power. Thea just picks herself right back up and continues writing the manuscript even after Hedda tried her best to destroy it.

Post #4

I think one of my favorite characters in the book was Thea. When we first met Thea, she looked like the stereotypical "woman" of the time- weak, lovestruck, and innocent. So it was a big surprise to me when I looked back over the book and found how strong her character actually was. Not only did she have the strength to leave her husband who didn't love her, she also took control of her life and went after what she wanted. She also was equal to Lovborg in writing the manuscript, something that was unheard of during the time. Thea also never gave up on her dream of the manuscript being published, and even after Lovborg's death and finding out that the manuscript had been "lost" she had the courage to rewrite it and keep going.

Post #3

Okay, so everyone's pretty much agreed that Hedda did not truly love George. So my question is: did George really love Hedda? It's easy to say that he did, looking at the beginning of the book. He wants to give her everything she wants, and to even wait on her. But near the end, George seems to almost get bored with her when he decides to "work on the manuscript" with Thea and have her move in with Aunt Julie. He casually brushes off Hedda while he and Thea are busy and tells her to go spend time with Judge Brack instead. Also, at the very end when she kills herself, George does not seem particularly upset about it. In fact, although he seems surprised at the act, he doesn't actually sound sad about it, leading me to think that perhaps George doesn't really love Hedda as much as it first appears.

Post #2

So after I finished reading the whole book, I started wondering if George Tesman was really an all round oblivious guy, or if he actually started to figure things out at the end. I mean, was he genuinely interested in JUST working on the manuscript with Thea or did he have other things in mind when he suggested she stay with his Aunt Julie? And it certainly seemed like he was happy that Hedda burned Lovborg's manuscript, even though he pretended to be shocked and upset. He seemed to actually be happy that his rival's amazing book would no longer be published and outshine his upcoming book. Therefore, I think by the end Tesman was starting to act as sneaky as Hedda or Brack.

First Thoughts

So basically, the first few pages weren't too exciting, but after Hedda and George were introduced it got much more interesting. I don't know why everyone is so annoyed with George and his "eh?"s.... I thought they were cute =). He just wants people to listen to him and he's kind of like a little puppy that needs reassuring. Not that Hedda gave him any reassuring.
Speaking of Hedda, she irritates me to no end. Personally, I don't see her as being this "strong female character". I see her as being a pretty stereotypical one because all she cares about is gossip and her fancy material items. And I don't see how treating your husband like dirt makes you a "strong female". I think it just makes her rude and annoying. George bends over backwards for her and she barely acknowledges him. Not that George noticed- he's pretty slow. For real. "More bookshelves!!!"
Hahaha.

Test Postadoodle

Welcome to my blog =)