Exorcising the Ghost

Dear Jason,

            Do you remember back when we were both in Cub Scouts together and we said that we would be friends forever? When we would run around the church and whittle ducks out of soap? And like two saplings we grew, side-by-side, until one day those two trees started to grow apart. We started to spend less and less time together, but I still thought that all of those good memories would make up for it, and that one day we would sit down and catch up on all of those years that we missed. We would become best friends again. Looking back, I remember one of the ghost stories we used to tell around the camp fire about the ghost that just kept hanging on to his old life, and I remember saying “that wouldn’t be me!” I ended up becoming that ghost. Do you remember when the time came to choose a Boy Scout troop and we said that we would stick together? You then chose to leave scouting altogether and stopped talking to me. I knew that we had a large gap between us. You then started to hangout with “those kids.” You know the “druggies” who didn’t care about anything, but I had to help anyway that I could. You chose to ignore me, and act like we never met. Even then I stuck with you. I chose to tell the school counselor that you were using drugs.  I am convinced you never forgave me for telling her. As we continued on, you grew more and more distant. I could tell that you didn’t stop using drugs, and that you were hurt by my “betrayal.” Instead of following my instincts, I stayed the ghost. Every now and again I think of all of the good times we had, like sleeping over at your house and playing Battlefront, and those memories make me happy. The thought of racing our small wooden cars always brings a smile to my face, but then I realize that that’s all I have left of our “two tree forest.” Those memories always bring back memories of the times in the hall that you ignored me. The times when I would say hi and you turned and walked away. I will always have those good memories of when we were younger, because they are part of my past, as they are part of yours, but now the “forest” is gone and I have to stop being the ghost.

                   

                                                                                                         The Former Ghost

Storming the Castle

When I learned that I was going to write a blog post about revenge, I instantly knew that I wanted to write about one of my favorite TV shows, Castle. In Castle, Rick Castle and Kate Beckett often solve murders where the motive is based upon revenge. One of my favorite episodes actually has revenge as a motive, even though it wasn’t the main focus of the plot.  

Sit back and let me explain this great episode to you.  The year is 1947, the show is done in black and white and the characters are dressed in period clothes. Here’s the plot for this episode called “The Blue Butterfly,” Castle and Beckett find a murdered treasure seeker who was looking for a necklace called the Blue Butterfly because of all of it’s blue diamonds. In the show, Castle narrates the diary of a private investigator, named Joe Flynn. (Can you hear the 1940’s jargon?)  Joe Flynn is hired by Sally Scofield, a young country gal “looking for her big sister.” Joe finds Vera Mulqueen, as he was asked, but he ends up falling in love with her, even though she was dating a mobster named Tom Dempsey.  Joe and Vera plan to run away with each other, but while planning, Joe ended up telling the truth about how he found her. Vera was astonished, but not because of his story but because she didn’t have a sister.  Joe and Vera planned to leave town, funded by the Blue Butterfly, but when they were leaving Sally and her husband showed up with a gun. It turned out that Sally was the daughter of Tom Dempsey’s last girlfriend, who he broke up with to date Vera. Sally’s mother then committed suicide. Sally blamed Vera for this, and thus she sought revenge. She planned on killing Vera and taking the Blue Butterfly so that both Vera and Dempsey would be hurt. Vera would be dead and Dempsey would always wonder where his treasure went. (Thus Sally’s motive for murder, and theft, is revenge for her mother’s death!) Joe and Vera fight off the two attackers, but Sally and her husband die in the accident. Joe decides to burn the bodies to cover the evidence. Vera then decided that the Blue Butterfly was indeed cursed, as was the popular belief. She and Joe hid it in a loose brick and they ran away with each other. I love this episode, and I knew that I wanted to write about it.

Revenge isn’t only found in modern TV shows though. William Shakespeare even wrote about it in his play Hamlet. In Hamlet, his brother kills King Hamlet for both the throne and for his wife, the queen. Hamlet’s son, also named Hamlet is visited by his father’s ghost. The ghost tells Hamlet that Claudius, the king’s brother, was his murderer, and it demands that Hamlet revenges his death. Hamlet is conflicted at first because he doesn’t know what to believe, but as the play goes on he finds out that Claudius was indeed the killer. He then plans on tricking his uncle into revealing the truth by putting on a play that paralleled the murder almost exactly, and Claudius stopped it in guilt. Hamlet then started to plan how he was going to exact his revenge. Revenge can be a powerful driving force. It can lead to many things from theft, battery, or even murder.

Revenge has been around as long humans have, but in the media it has flourished. Modern TV shows, movies, and even books have revenge in almost every plot. (An example of which is Castle) Better watch your back, because revenge is all around us! 

My Sources:

Castle Season 4 episode 14 "The Blue Butterfly"

ABC's Castle homepage

William Shakespeare's Hamlet

and YouTube 

These are just my sources. If you want to find revenge in the media you can look almost anywhere. Try to see what you can find!

Sunday Satire

I woke up today and realized I had roughly four days to write a blog on satire. I didn’t even really know what satire was, but I knew I had to figure it out, so I read the Sunday Comics (to prepare of course). I started with the front and the very first thing I read was "Blondie", which used satire to make fun of American award shows  (Young, Marshall.). By then I was a little worried that my brain was playing tricks on me, but then I started to read the comic after "Blondie", which was "Zits" (Scott, Borgman.). In "Zits", the artists had used satire to make fun of healthy diets. Connie, the mother in "Zits", calls the family for “dessert time,” which actually is a “spinach-wheatgrass-flaxseed-gojiberry-spirulina-oatmeal-kale-soy smoothie.” Walt, the father in "Zits", then tells Jeremy, his son, “Good health is going to kill me, once it’s finished making me angry and resentful.” This is satire, because it makes fun of how eating healthy food makes people “angry and resentful” but people still do it. Walt’s line also uses sarcasm because good health can’t kill you. So, just by “preparing” I already found two examples of modern satire.

By this time I was interested, so I went online to the Buffalo News and found another great cartoon that uses satire.  The cartoon was of two movie critics who are at the “movies” when actually they are just sitting in theater seats watching their movie on a tiny handheld device.  The artist is making fun of the how nowadays people can, and do, watch entire movies on the screen of their small handheld device. This is also funny because people buy giant flat-screen TVs and yet they are happy to watch movies on their small handheld devices. I also found another cartoon that uses satire. It was another "Zits" cartoon, which, like the movie critic cartoon, makes fun of people’s use of technology. In the comic, Connie dressed up as a cellphone that said, “Hi Jeremy. How was your day?” Jeremy then said, “Now that’s just desperate.” Connie then responded with, “Ah, but you’re talking to me.” This comic is making fun of how texting is replacing talking in society (at least for teenagers).  Just by going online I found these, and more, modern examples of satire that people see everyday. 

Much like the satire that can be found today, Mark Twain used satire in his book Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Unlike the satire in the modern day examples, Mark Twain used satire to express how society itself was wrong. He used satire to show how slavery was bad, and by using satire he told the South without disrespecting them or angering them (much). On the other hand, satire today is the same as when Mark Twain used it because in all of the examples the author, or artist, described a problem that should be fixed. Mark Twain used satire in his book to show other problems with the South, like their gullibility and feuds, which is like the artists today who use satire to correct problems, like the overuse of technology in society today. Both Mark Twain and artists today also used satire to add humor to their works. In the "Blondie" cartoon, Dagwood and Blondie, the two main characters, are watching an award show, which takes forever to reveal the winner. The artists, Dean Young and John Marshall, use satire to make the comic funny by showing Dagwood leaving the TV to go bathe and make a sandwich, and returning to the TV before the announcer finishes telling who the winner is. Mark Twain used satire in his novel to add humor also. He includes the characters of the Duke and the King to not only show problems with Southern society, but to add humor to his story through their cons and mischievousness.

     

Satire is a commonly used literary technique, not only in the past when Mark Twain was writing, but today as well. Satire is everywhere from news stories to the Sunday Comics, we only have to look.

So, look around. What satire can you see?

My Sources:

I found sources just by reading the Sunday Comics, going online to the Buffalo News and directly to the comics' websites. Satire is found everywhere, even today. I also used Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn to show that satire used in the past is still in use today.

Scott, Jerry, and Jim Borgman. "Zits." Cominc Strip. Buffalo News [Buffalo] 25 November 2012: Print.

Young, Dean, and John Marshall. "Blondie." Comic Strip. Buffalo News [Buffalo] 25 November 2012: Print