The Last Blog

I have enjoyed this class very much. In fact it is one of my favorite classes that I have taken in college for the two years that I have been here. Professor Sexson did a great job of engaging everyone into the discussions. Material that I did not think that I would find interesting were actually quite the contrary. The Lady with the Pet Dog turned out to be one of my favorite stories although I was dreading reading it at first. I like that Professor Sexson challenged us with "The Brothers Karamazov". It was hard to read, but I am glad that I did finally finish it. I also really enjoyed reading everyone's blog posts. Many people had some very interesting things to say. I am sad that the class is coming to an end, but would like to take at least one more class from Professor Sexson before I graduate.

Individual Presentations

So far people are doing a great job on their presentations. There have been a variety of approaches and each one works well. I really liked the first presenter's presentation. She knew what she was going to say and did not seem nervous at all to speak in front of everyone. The presentations that I am looking the most forward to are Garrett's and Ashley's. I think that each of them will put an interesting twist on to their presentation and it will be very enjoyable to watch.

Group Presentations

I think that everyone did a great job on their presentations. All of the groups were very creative with the presentations that they put together. I really like group 1's idea of having a debate about the statement "There are no boring books, just boring people". This was a great idea, but I think the debate got a little out of hand and went off into a different direction that did not argue the point that they were trying to make. At the end of the presentation, the people in the classroom did not know what team to vote for and were confused at what the actual outcome of the debate was. I thought some of the people in this group were trying to keep on topic and made some interesting points, but others were getting off topic. One presentation that I especially liked was the group who made up the skit about the "unoriginal story". It seemed like they worked really hard on getting the script together, and it made a lot of sense. They incorporated a lot of things that we learned in the class into their skit, and it kept me very entertained. In other words, it "knocked my socks off".

pg 287

At this point in the book Alyosha is taking notes about Father Zossima's life. At this point the man that killed a woman is about to confess his crime to everyone in the town. I think that this man should be put into jail since he is obviously not over his killing ways. The night before he confesses he comes back to kill Father Zossima, but thinks better of it. If Father Z were anybody else, I think that the man would have killed him. I wish that people would have believed the man when he confessed his horrible crime, and that he would have been locked up.

Rebellion

On page 227 Alyosha reveals why the chapter has it's name. Alyosha claims that Ivan is rebelling from God. I agree with Alyosha, but Ivan seems to deny this claim. This entire time he has been trying to convince Alyosha that God can not be real and this in itself is rebellious seeing that Alyosha is a monk.

pg 224

Ivan and Alyosha are still in the pub during this part of the book. Ivan tells Alyosha that he does not care about the sufferings of grown-up people since they have already eat the apple. He then goes on to tell yet another gruesome story about a little boy who is torn to bits by wild dogs. I am getting a little sick of all of these horrible examples of the suffering of children! Even Alyosha says that the little boy deserved to be shot for accidentally hurting the paw of a general's hound. Can we get on to something a little bit more happy please?

pg 221

Ivan lays out a terrible scene to Alyosha on this page. I think that I was just as shocked as Alyosha was when he hears the story of the crimes committed by Turks and Circassians. I do not know if this is a true story about nailing people by the ears and shooting babies in their mother's arms. Later Ivan says that people seek satisfaction by inflicting pain on others. I think that this might be true in some circumstances, but not all people take joy in the pain of others. Sure we might laugh if someone falls on a patch of ice, but I would not be laughing if that person were seriously injured. I most definitely would not take pleasure in hurting others myself. I can hardly squash a bug let alone kill a person. I do like this section however, Dmitry brings up some good points and Alyosha has some good arguments as well.

pg 213

At this point in the book Alyosha sees Ivan at the pub and is going in to begin their famous talk about life. They are reminiscing about their childhood and Alyosha mentions that Ivan is still quite like a child still. Alyosha has had quite a long day already, but finds time to sit down at the pub with Ivan. I get the feeling that Ivan and Alyosha do not speak much to each other in their regular lives. I think that Ivan and Dmitry are the closest of the brothers.

pg 203

This is one of my favorite pages in the book so far. I am a hopeless romantic so I love the fact that Alyosha is forming a romantic relationship with Lise. She seems like the perfect girl for Alyosha (except for her hot temper and attitude toward her mother). She is in need of care and Alyosha is just the man to be there for her. They have a history as well which is always a good ground to start a relationship. I think that once Lise grows up she and Alyosha will be very happy together.

pg 123

This page shows the reader what Smerdyakov's everyday demeanor is. We find out that Smerdyakov is always contemplating. What is he thinking? Who really knows? He might just be an intellectual. He may be taking a break from his everyday job to relax and put his mind in a different place. This could also indicate that he has been thinking about killing Fyodor for a long time. One thing I do not understand about this page is that Smerdyakov has as much contempt for women as he does men. I understand why he might have some hard feelings towards men since Fyodor basically killed his mother, but why all the contempt towards women? Maybe because his mother died and left him to live the life that he has got. My hope for Smerdyakov is that he fall in love before the end of the book.

pg 118

At first I folded down this page because at the top it tells the reader to underline in earnest. But now that I read the page over again it outlines the plan that Fyodor has of sending Ivan to Tchermashnya so that he can wait for Grushenka to visit him. It also tells what Dmitry is thinking and Alyosha is clearly upset by the way that his brother is acting. I wonder if Alyosha had expected Dmitry to barge into their father's house to beat Fyodor. Dmitry does certainly let on that something of that sort might happen, but Alyosha does nothing to stop it. Since everybody is to blame for Fyodor's death, I think that Alyosha is somewhat to blame for Dmitry beating Fyodor up as well.

pg. 98

This page is part of the chapter entitled "Lizaveta". The bottom of page 98 describes a scene where Fyodor Pavlovich is dared to rape poor Lizaveta. Fyodor ends up impregnating Lizaveta and when the child is born Lizaveta dies where she gave birth. In my opinion this is one of the worst things that Fyodor has done so far. What kind of monster rapes a mentally handicapped person in the first place? Then he lies about it to everyone in the town to make himself look like a more honorable person. Even after his grusome behavior leads to the death of the poor woman, Fyodor still has her son as a slave when he gets older. Although Fyodor does take an interest in Smerdyakov, the poor boy is still under the command of Old Man Karamazov. I think that Fyodor should have been the one in eternal debt to Smerdyakov, and in the end he did pay the sacrifice of everything that he had done to the boy.

Catching up

Although I have not blogged as much lately, I have been reading "The Brothers Karamazov" and have marked the pages that had a passage that interested me. The first page that I have marked is 95. Something that I found interesting on this page is that Grigory is described as being such a great husband who "had only beaten Marfa but once, and then only slightly". This just makes me think about how much times have changed since the 1800's. These days any husband who has beaten his husband no matter how slightly it was could be sent to jail. I wonder what kind of trouble men who had beaten their wives more thoroughly would have gotten into in those days. Was spousal abuse a punishable crime, or was it just never talked about much? www.pacwcbt.pitt.edu has some interesting facts about spousal abuse in America. In the early 1500's early settlers based their laws on an Old-English common-law that explicitly permits wife-beating for correctional purposes. The states tried to break away from that law by saying that the husband is only allowed to whip his wife with a switch no bigger than his thumb. In 1824 Mississippi’s Supreme Court allows a husband to administer “moderate
chastisement in case of emergencies”. Finally in 1882 Maryland is the first state to make wife beating a crime. Looking at all of this information on spousal abuse in America, maybe Grigory was one of the better husbands! All I can say is thank goodness we live in the present day ladies!

The Tragic Sence of Life

My bad day happened just about two years ago. Many know that with the end of most relationships comes depression and in this case one of the worst days I had ever had. The story I am about to share is personal, but I will share it for the purpose of the class. It was Easter weekend and I had just gotten back from my Spring Break trip. My boyfriend at the time, Beau, that I would consider my first love was happy that I had gotten back and wanted me to spend the night at his house. His brother and him were going to have a birthday party for their friend that night and there was going to be a lot of people there and a generous supply of alcohol. I had to work at the 8 o'clock Easter Service at church the next morning, but agreed to spend the night as long as I could go to bed at a semi decent hour. At first the party was a lot of fun, and I was able to see Beau and a lot of my friends that I hadn't seen in a while. Soon, Beau was getting pretty drunk and I was ready for bed. I went upstairs to fall asleep and Beau promised he would come to bed soon. At six in the morning, when it was time for me to get up, he was not in bed yet. At least not in bed with me. I went downstairs where people were still partying. I asked one of them if he knew where my boyfriend was. He told me that my boyfriend had fallen asleep in his roommate's room. A bit perturbed, I went in the room to tell him that I was leaving for work. Instead of finding him in the bed alone, he was naked with another girl in the bed. I was so angry that I went up to him and slapped him. He immediately woke up wondering what was wrong. We yelled at each other and then I yelled at the girl a bit before going to my car to leave. Unfortunately, someone had parked behind me and had left with someone else so I was unable to leave. I went back inside to call my mom to pick me up. After I told her directions, I sat on the stairs and waited for her to come and get me. Meanwhile my now ex-boyfriend's friends were mad at me because I punched Beau. They were shouting things at me such as "Lena, how is your relationship going right now?" and other things of that sort. After a while my mother called and said she couldn't find the house so I went outside to stand on the street so she could see me. Soon she told me she was still a ways away so I went tried to go back inside, but one of his friends had locked me out. We all know how cold it is still in Montana in April and I was wearing the shorts and t shirt that I had slept in. Freezing, I knocked on the door until Beau's brother let me in. I sat on the stairs until my mom finally got there while Beau was still in the bedroom with that girl. By the time I got home I hardly had time to get ready for church. That afternoon I went back to the house to get my car and noticed that one of my tires was flat. Then I had to put up with Beau telling me over and over how sorry he was when I didn't want to talk to him at all. There are other details, but this is the majority of it.