English 2000 Perspectives in Literature

For my essay, I chose to use the movie “Priest” from 2011. It takes place in a world that has an ongoing battle between humans and vampires. The ones who battle the vampires are warrior like priests which protect a city that is ruled by the Church. There is a priest in particular who breaks the vow he made before the church in order to save his niece who was abducted by vampires. The Church denied the priest’s request to leave the city to rescue her because they believe the vampires were obliterated a long time ago so goes out on his own to save her before she is turned into one of them (vampire). The gothic metaphors in this are the vampires in the movie who (like every other normal vampire) cannot be in sunlight, have pale skin, remarkable strength and speed, and rely on blood to live.

-Carlos Lema

For my essay I will be using the Tv show series, The Vampire Diaries, in which my gothic theme would be vampires. I will be talking about a side character, Klaus, who tries to command people weaker then him thinking he is a sort of king and relating this to our society where the government tries to control it’s citizens. I’m still searching about this topic so hopefully it will be better summarized in my essay.

I am thinking of writing my gothic paper on the Abraham Lincoln:Vampire Hunter movie, which is also based on the book by Seth Smith. In which I will explain how vampires at that time represented all the opressions people faced during that time. As well as that Abraham Lincoln being the hunter represented justice and liberty for the people, even though no one gave him credit for killing the vampires because it was a secret that eas better off left unsaid. I’m not completely sure if I will only use is movie because im trying to find another piece to compare and contrast about this subject. However, my other idea is to write about how the way vampires are portrayed today is very different, for example in the movie Hotel Transalvania, where all vampires,frankenstein monster, werevolves, big foot, invisible man, mummies, zombies etc. Are all friends. They all get along but hide from humans because Dracula ad a bad experience with humans and believes humans will never accept them. Although I’m not quite sure how I could write my whole paper without rambling off topic.

For my essay I want to write about a t.v. series called “The Vampire Diaries”. I want to discuss their ability to turn off their humanity. On the show vampires are able to  switch on and off their emotions or humanity whenever they feel like or when their life gets to hard for them. Even though they have this ability,we see that even though their “switch is off” or it’s lights out the characters on the show(who’s switch is off) still demonstrate certain emotions. For example the character Elena has turned off her humanity after her brother died and began killing;however, when she believed her friend was dead she began to cry. Therefore, we see that you can never fully turn of your emotions.

 I want to use the concept of humanity switching as a way to cover society’s way of casting out individuals who are perceived as diffferent than the norm, when in reality they are very similar to everyone else. Using the Gothic metaphor of vampires, or the undead and their ability to unsuccessfully turned off their humanity as an example of being the same as everyone else.

In “The Bluest Eye”Pecola is a main  and very important character. Throughout the book she shows that she has little to no self esteem.  Pecola is a symbol of how black people mainly women, saw themselves which was not pretty because of the sterotypical beauty. She shows that she loves and admires white females because that what she thought was gorgeous and what was portrayed to be beautiful back then. The fact that she was abused and molested dosent help her self confidence either. Having white skin and blue eyes I think to Pecola means being free from the life that she lives which is not very pleasant, she thiks that if her features were different her life would be different.

Love in the book “the bluest eye” takes differet forms. picola doesn’t really know love from her family but from other people in the story. In the story the lack of love is shown almost everywhere. In Picola’s case when she goes to the store, the owner “white man” doesn’t wanta to touch her or even see her because he feels disgust by her looks and color. Piccola also feels that if she where to be white with blue eyes beautiful blond long hair she will be loved by everybody and also feel beautiful.

In Two or Three Things I know for sure, Alison treats violence as the inevitable outcome of sexuality. Being beautiful, being ugly, or anything of the sort- its all part of this cycle that we cant avoid. Between women and men, or men and men, or women and women, we are sexual, and in being sexual we cant help but become violent. In The Bluest Eye, I feel that yeah, the characters go through these violent episodes, but they do still feel hope that there will be redemption. I feel like in the book, the adults are to blame for the lack of, (or abundance of) violence in the girls’ sexual experiences. Opposing Alison’s belief that it’s pretty much just always there.

The theme of love in the novel is something that the girls pine after. Claudia likes the blues because she sees it as something that the singers do to show the love to their partners. Pecola imagines a friend, in order to have someone give her love. Pecola even wants blue eyes, because she feels that if she had blue eyes she’d be more lovable. They each see something that someone else has (that they don’t) and see it as a reason that the other receives love. They in turn want that for themself, so that they too can receive love. To each, love becomes a possible salvation.

Pecola is one of the main character in the novel “The Bluest Eye”. She is a submissive and mysterious woman in the novel. Also, she seems to be fragile and delicate. Moreover, she symbolizes the black community because of her race and skin color. She has a very low self-steem due to the community’s stereotype. People often seen Pecola as an ugly woman because she is black and does not have blue eye or light skin color.

We get a glimpse of the middle class through Claudia and her family, who maintain a sense of dignity and pride. In the first chapter, she tells us, “Being a minority in both caste and class, we moved about anyway on the hem of life, struggling to consolidate our weaknesses and hang on, or to creep singly up into the major folds of the garment” (17). I believe “Being a minority in both caste and class” is referring to the limited that Claudia have in life because of her skin color and poverty. “We moved about anyway on the hem of life, struggling to consolidate our weaknesses and hang on, or to creep singly up into the major folds of the garment”. Although they are faced with many struggles and challenges in society,  they continue to hold on, not giving in on what society expects of them.