Final Paper: Blindness

We make ourselves blind; blindness is something we can control according to 12 Angry Men and Dancer in the Dark. We think we see something, get obsessed with the vision we have for ourselves, but it may not really be there.  Can't blame nature, genetics, or the outside world. If we are blind to other people's advice, we will end up living in perpetual ignorance. Its about seeing all the facts and judging what is the truth rather than looking out for our own self interests. Looking out for our own self-interests is what makes us blind. the only way to clear the cataract is to consider others when making personal decisions.
12 Angry Men: Jurors blind themselves by having biases and secret personal agendas (getting to the ball game), quote: "You want to see this boy die because you personally want it, not because of the facts."; different professions=different intentions, skills people (architect, nurse, clock maker, house painter) vs. communication people (businessman, stockbroker who manipulate people by soft-selling), woman witness happened to be blind w/o glasses & majority of jury trusted her blindness therefore making them blind; by the end, jury never finds out the real truth, just that there's enough reasonable doubt; play isn't concerned with whether or not boy actually killed father, just whether or not men's biases are uncovered in order for them to see all the facts
Dancer in the Dark: Selma starts off being able to see with glasses, but by the end she is literally and fully blind; she comes to America to save her son's eyes/get him the procedure, but the catch is that he can't know or else his condition will worsen and it won't work. "American dream" is not all its cracked up to be: even when Selma works hard in the factory to save up enough money, people still take advantage of her (police officer); musical numbers and staging are meant to depict an alternative reality, one where the ideal American life is all well and good.  Sound of Music as her fantasy of getting what she wants, quote: "Nothing bad ever happens in musicals." Selma comes to terms with her literal and figurative blindness by giving up her own life in exchange for her son's eyes.
Other ideas...
-ignorance as a starting point...ignorance is the blinding agent & knowledge of truth restores vision
-Reginald Rose and Lars von Trier make characters think that they know the truth b/c at some point, someone lied to Selma and jurors and they believed them. No one told them that they might be wrong...need to think for and about themselves to see the real truth in the world

Dancer: Ebert Review

Ebert's review calls Dancer in the Dark "... a bold, reckless gesture." Reckless makes it sound like it has no direction or purpose. But maybe it means that it's intended purpose is to wildly contradict the status quot. I think that's what the musical scenes do; they contradict anything the viewer expects.  I see why "It is valid to dislike it, but not fair to criticize it on the grounds of plausibility, because the movie has made a deliberate decision to be implausible: The plot is not a mistake but a choice." 
In this way, Dancer in the Dark is an outsider in it's own genre of American film. Naturally, viewers are going to dislike it because it is unconventional. But it is actually very conventional; it goes back to basics, by omitting flashy camera  tricks. The level of staging that it employs may come off as fake to some people, but I would argue that it makes it more real. We can see everything the camera does; the film doesn't hide behind any edits or enhancements. It's raw and believable because it is staged, because we see everything the director does.  

Dancer in the Dark first impressions

That was a very difficult film to watch. At first I thought Selma was actually Gene's sister because she looked so young. I thought adults would help her because of that. I also thought Jeff was a creepy guy, waiting to drive her home every day. But this is another film that tells the audience that people are not always what they seem. The cop and his wife looked like they were the only ones to help her, but they were responsible for her downward spiral. All Selma wanted to do was give her son what she couldn't have: sight. She physically and metaphorically lost her sight, trusting the wrong people to help her.
The film was also very staged. Selma was an actor in the Sound of Music, and once she took herself out of it, her whole life became a musical as a way to escape her tragedies. She used rhythms and dancing to get her through her tough times. In every single "number" that Selma fantasized, a man was always there to help her (the police officer forgiving her, her son singing "you just did what you had to", workmen on the train tracks with her and Jeff, Novie who tap-danced with her on the judge's desk). At the final close of the curtain (literally and figuratively), a quote affirms what Selma always thought: the last song never has to be the last song if you don't think it is. The phone rings after her last song, but she has been given closure when Cathy gives her Gene's glasses.

Ebert Rashomon review & motivations

Ebert's review is very interested in Kurosawa's use of the camera and what it reflects. It says,"Because we see the events in flashbacks, we assume they reflect truth. But all they reflect is a point of view, sometimes lied about." In this way, Rashomon soft-sells its audience; it never directly says to trust one character's story over another's. Kurosawa claimed, "... in his autobiography, 'Human beings are unable to be honest with themselves about themselves.'" The normal human response is to immediately conclude that the bandit committed the murder because, after all, he is a bandit.  
But the film's goal is to have us trust the criminal just as much as much as the innocent woodcutter. Camera use reflects this; "Because they are usually pointed at real things, we usually think we can believe what we see. The message of "Rashomon" is that we should suspect even what we think we have seen." Kurosawa plays the 8th juror by purposefully leading us through a twisted story line to show that the bandit's testimony deserves just as much weight as the woman's, or the medium's, or the woodcutter's. All humans err, and all humans have the ability to start over.

Rashomon first impressions

The film had a lot to say about human morals. I liked the concept behind the plot, but I grew to strongly dislike the way the director filmed it. It seemed like the camera would just sit on a character's face for three minutes longer than it had to. Unfortunately, this slowed down the movie way too much for me.  The viewers spend about four-fifths of the film trying to find out the truth of who killed the husband. There was a lot of hysterical laughing and crying, which came off as fake at some points. But at other times there was absolutely no emotion. Maybe this has something to do with the "lost faith in humanity" bit. I thought that finding justice would be the main message of the film.
But the characters did a fairly good job explaining why they thought what they thought. And they successfully conveyed that it's not about what happened in the past; it's about changing the second we know we have done something wrong. That is why the ending, when the man adopts the baby, was so rewarding. I suffered through the film but finally reached an ending that was conclusive. The man says, "I don't understand my own soul," which sets him apart. Even the priest is not as introspective as he. This movie is about understanding one's soul and knowing enough to change it, which was what I though the wife was trying to get at when she told the two men to fight over her.

12 Angry Men

The climax of the play is right before the end when the 8th juror says to the 3rd, "It's not your boy. He's someone else."  Everything stops in that moment.  The 3rd  juror thinks that he knows every kid in society;  he thinks they are all the same rotten, disrespectful, violent human beings like his son may have been.  All of his prior notions and prejudices fall away in that one second. The view of children shifts as the jurors' votes shift. Juror #10 thought that kids were born liars. He even tries to insult the foreman by saying, "Stop being a kid, will you?" The pig-headed 3rd juror spits insults too: "What are you, the kid's lawyer or something?", as if it were a crime to defend a child. But Juror #8 refuses to blindly believe all the "facts" presented in the case. He doesn't try to force his opinion on anyone, but rather he simply points out the flaws in their arguments. As Juror 11 points out, "Facts may be colored by the personalities of the people that present them." That is exactly what I think Jurors 3, 4 and 10 were trying to do. But the 8th juror was able to appeal to the 3rd's humanity and reconcile his past. We never find out who really killed the father, but that is not what's important in this play. This play is about children being caught in tough positions and having a group of peers see with an objective eye what he really has gone through.  

Ebert Review/Post-initial analysis

"Nature is always deeply embedded in Malick’s films. It occupies the stage and then humans edge tentatively onto it, uncertain of their roles.....They are nudged here and there by events which they confuse with their destinies."
Holly confuses Kit with what her destiny should be. Kit is essentially homeless and finds himself gravitating towards homes through the film. He starts by burning Holly's house. Then he decides to build a new treehouse home for just him and kit, a place where the happy couple can start a life together. But as they keep running into trouble they start taking over other people's homes- Cato's, the mansion- until he finally returns to his car, his only safe place, and forces Holly to live there with him  and that's when their relationship starts to fall apart. At first, Kit is a victim of society, forced to live among the emotional trash that other people have discarded. Then the idea of nature comes up; Holly's fish gets sick living in the house and she is unsettled about "setting it free" to die outside. Nature, in this case, is a release from the world of the home.
Ebert's review says, "Malick’s direct inspiration was the story of Charles Starkweather, the “Mad Dog Killer,”." So in this case, Kit is the same as Holly's father. The dog is the one thing Holly is closest with and her father takes it away to teach her a lesson. Kit thinks that he can profit from making his coworker eat the dead dog. Similarly, he thinks he can find some identity by taking Holly away from her home, in a way "killing her dog". The home has now lost its love and emotionality; Kit thinks love and emotion can be traded like loose change. In the end, Kit never finds love; he gains a fan base because of the newspapers, but he gets executed just like Holly's dog while she receives probation.

MK vs. Badlands

Firstly, both movies are concerned with a young couple discovering where their love for each other fits into society's framework. Sam and Susie, although a little younger, know what their love means to each other, and they could care less whether or not anyone approves of it. Kit and Holly are a little different despite putting themselves in the same position. Kit pretends to not care what anyone thinks, but in the end he is visibly proud that the police officers have dubbed him a "James Dean character." Holly has no backbone and doesn't like getting walked all over by Kit and his plans, but her pleading  fall on ignorant ears. She embodies a weak female; when she does speak up, she doesn't follow through with her actions. This allows Kit to twist and spin her around in any direction he wants, whereas Susie would have never let Sam get away with that. But in both films the couples are escaping society because they see that their love cannot survive within the confines of society. In MK, the children are seen as the "chosen ones." Similarly, Kit and Holly become celebrities, chosen out of society to be put on a pedestal. Sam and Susie don't seek fame like Kit does, but all four characters are in a constant struggle of either respecting their partner or respecting society's authorities. 

Paper 1: Close Reading

The creators of The Adventures of Huck Finn, The Night of the Hunter, and Moonrise Kingdom are all interested in the story of authority in their given time periods. They use other stories (Moses, Noah, Shakespeare plays, Susie's fantasy books) as allegories to explain their individual film's story/ viewpoint on what authority has done to their characters. We see stories within stories to explain what people should do to handle the corrupt authority that has infested their daily lives. Were the 1930's corrupt? Can making up stories about the past and future teach the same lesson? In all three works the main point is that God is the only that knows everything; no other authority can be 100 percent right. Huck, Sam and Susie, and Jon are all caught in the midst of figuring this out. The point of stories is to remind us of the morals that society's authority has been trying to erase by transplanting characters into different times and retelling different stories through their eyes. 

       

Some examples: 

MK: kids are the "chosen ones" that have the knowledge of NOT knowing all of the rules that authority has laid out for them (authority shifts at end to where kids now realize what rules are good and which ones are bad--police, parents; family is not the only authority/ they can be wrong too; they fully understand the sacrament of marriage, whereas the adult questions their full understanding, Susie steals library books because the authority told her she cannot read too many at once; Anderson makes us look at Moses as a man that was separated from his society's rules that has corrupted the earth to follow God's authority, Adam&Eve in paradise listening to the serpent's wrong authority

HUCK: He makes up stories! Huck's name is constantly changing, he makes up who he is, who his family is (Jim is his sick Dad, Grangerfords &Shepardsons); Huck runs away from blood relatives to pick another family (family of one shared thought), he makes up his own characters because he wants a different story from the one Civil War-thinking society tells him (like King and Duke do too); Twain makes us look at Moses as an example of someone that rebelled against society's authority to follow God's (led Israelites out of Egypt). Jim 

NOTH: Powell symbolizes how corrupt authority can push people to do bad things (Ben Harper to steal and kill, Powell to kill, male jobs like hangmen); Jon and Pearl run away from the corrupt authority of a fake preacher to a woman that doesn't put her faith in society's authority but in God's; We look at Jesus's birth when three kings escape authority to see the Messiah, and Moses who is sent out of future bondage by his mother, Miss Cooper tells us in the first scene to "beware of false prophets in sheep's clothing"

other ideas:

-you can understand your life by looking at other people's stories/ can find strength by seeing how others handle similar situations in stories

-twisting stories into different interpretations is how a society's authority can corrupt the true morals  (Jim view on Moses vs. Huck's)

-reading fantasy books (The Girl from Jupiter; Disappearance of the 6th Grade) has more benefits than reading non-fiction books (Coping with the Very Troubled Child) 

   

Essay 1: Freewrite

Stories and storytelling in all three films are sort of instruction manuals for characters and for us readers. As an allegory, Huck Finn's story is reflected in Night of the Hunter and Moonrise Kingdom. But those two film are allegories in and of themselves as well, which says something about what stories really are; they are meant to be shared and applied to people's lives. Susie is the only character that actually reads in MK, gaining solace from fantasy books and passing those stories in a sort of Wendy- Peter Pan way on to Sam and the group of khaki scouts. And yet, the only thing that troubles her in the film is another book, the one entitled "Coping with a very troubled child". But this book is not actually meant for her, but for her parents. Her parents are the ones that need help coping, not Susie, which just proves the theme of the movie. This leads to another point about stories: the audience and storyteller's relationship. Stories are a way of providing examples of what to do and not do. And what book does this best? The Bible. Whether listeners believe that the events actually occurred in history or not, the morals are still there. Finding applications in everyday life through characters like Solomon, Moses and Noah as Huck and Jim did shows that different interpretations can have different effects on different people, which can also morph them into new applications.

MK Ebert review

Ebert's review brings up a very good point: "On this island no one seems to live except for those involved in the story." As viewers, we get so wrapped up in the story of Sam and Susie's last childhood adventure that we forget there is a world outside of this one. Although Anderson clearly shows the geographic location of the island, its world is self-contained. Its reminiscent of how a movie or play-goer watches a staged performance (fully knowing that it is fictional) and yet forgets the world outside until the play has ended and they are forced to go about their normal lives. I think that is what Anderson is trying to get at. He sets up a somewhat-fictional location but makes sure to limit the fantasy of its events (the only fantasy lying in Susie's books). "But what happens in a fantasy can be more involving than what happens in life, and thank goodness for that." He uses his made-up, but believable story to immerse the audience while they watch, and then gives them something to think about and apply to the real world they walk back into.
The review also says, "In Anderson's films, there is a sort of resignation to the underlying melancholy of the world; he is the only American director I can think of whose work reflects the Japanese concept mono no aware, which describes a wistfulness about the transience of things." Sam and Susie's transient childhood is definitely portrayed in their marriage scene, when they are blissfully ignorant in thinking that they will never end up like their parents screaming at each other through a megaphone, as the scout commander/priest tries to get them to realize.

MK 2nd impressions

I did notice the Noah play when I first watched the film, but I now see more evidence of religious themes and allusions.  Susie was always the one who seemed to be most troubled, but in actuality, she knew herself better than anyone. Sam being the dove that is called forth by the raven is almost the opposite of what one would expect. Susie is more often the one that "goes berserk". Yet, she also has the great skill of honing her gaze to see what others don't thanks to her binoculars. After last class's discussion about Noah's ark, I went back to look at other scenes that confused me. I wanted to find out why the Native Americans were given so much emphasis too.
The scene when Susie gets crazy with the scissors seemed very odd to me. The band of boys (reminiscent of Tom Sawyer's gang) had recently been given new order to bring Sam back to civilization. But oddly enough, Anderson chose to show the quick flash of conflict by "electrifying" the scissors in a flash (resembling something/someone being struck by lightning) and then showing the flying arrow that came from one of the supposedly more-refined, dubbed law enforcers.  The left-handed scissors, the more precise and refined weapon, was used by the supposedly barbaric and reckless escapees. The newly-ordained leader of the pack said that Sam "did not have the authority" to take himself out of the troop. But the boy militia was forced to flee from the forest, to return back to their "home turf", maybe like the white settlers of the Native Americans?

Huck Finn on kings and families, pg 142

In chapter 19, Huck and Jim find themselves among royalty. The duke and king are clearly taking advantage of them, but we don't think Jim and Huck notice until Huck tells his readers his philosophy: "...kept it to myself; it's the best way; then you don't have no quarrels, and don't get in no trouble. If they wanted us to call them kings and dukes, I hadn't no objections, long as it would keep peace in the family..."(142).  
This attitude is a complete reversal on Huck's part from the beginning of the book. He is now a peace-seeking leader, rather than a rebellious orphan in a widow's house. He sees himself as the head of this family, a duty that he takes seriously now. At one point he lied and said that Jim was actually his father afflicted with small pox; but maybe that was not such a lie. Jim has been a father figure for Huck ever since their escape. He has given him advice, tested him and his opinions, and nurtured him to grow into a more cultured, independent, and deliberate young man. A boy with no sense of family has suddenly more of a family in caring for three older men than his own father ever showed him. Speaking of fathers, Huck finally brings up pap again, saying, "If I never learnt nothing else out of pap, I learnt that the best way to get along with his kind of people is to let them have their own way." Huck has begun reflecting on his past life and applying those lessons to his new family, the people he truly cares for.   

Moonrise Kingdom first impressions

Knowing that this was a Wes Anderson film, I did have some idea of how it would be set up. I noticed that he likes to have his characters write letters to each other that he then shows the audience. His camera shots also have a continuity to them that gives him his trademark. His characters also speak very matter-of-factly, even though they may have no idea what they're talking about, especially the adults.
That was what struck me most about the film: the polarization between the two generations of characters, the adults and the children. The adults would act more childish than the children would! More often than not, they were more troubled than them too. Sam and Susie got married; meanwhile, Susie's parents' marriage is falling apart. The scene where the policeman and social worker are writing each other tickets in the church made me laugh, but also got me thinking. In connection with last film, there seems to be a theme of outlandish authority taking away children's freedom.That says a lot about authority that the woman doesn't even have a name; she's just called "social worker".   The band of khaki scouts acted more like a militia than an innocent boy scout troop. The "tour-guide"/Where's Waldo character actually reminded me of the narrator in Our Town, telling us the details he thought we needed to know and giving us time stamps. There was lots of Noah references, and I'm thinking that Sam could be Noah in this movie. Obviously Sam and Susie were the outsiders in this community, so does that mean that this society has fallen away from religion too? But then again, the khaki scout preacher talked about the meaning of marriage and made them seriously consider their decision before agreeing to do it, so that's something to look into further. 

Ebert review reactions

While first watching the film, I kept laughing, mostly at Mrs. Spoon whose old-school mentality on love was cracking me up. At first I though this is not a laughing matter, like the concept of a lonely widow looking out for her kids was something to be pitied. As the review says, "It is risky to combine horror and humor, and foolhardy to approach them through expressionism." It's very hard to incorporate comedy into a movie while still keeping fear in the hearts of viewers.  A few instances it came off as corny, which is why I gave the film a "meh" originally. But I agree with Ebert's review now; the makers of the film treaded right on the line of comedy and horror and made it work for the most part. 
The review goes on to say, "The basement sequence combines terror and humor, as when the Preacher tries to chase the children up the stairs, only to trip, fall, recover, lunge and catch his fingers in the door. And the masterful nighttime river sequence uses giant foregrounds of natural details, like frogs and spider webs, to underline a kind of biblical progression as the children drift to eventual safety." I had never thought of it as a "biblical progression", but it makes sense! The two children are constantly being compared to Moses, but all those references went right over my head when I first watched the movie. The river that John and Pearl travel on represents the Nile and the frog in that sequence is another clue pointing to Moses and his prophesy to the Egyptians that they would be overrun with frogs if they did not heed God's word. In another way, John and Pearl could be compared to Adam and Eve naming the animals in paradise. The Old and New Testament references play off each other, and I think incorporating them into the film may not seem necessary to everyone, but it makes the experience richer than a simple storyline.

Post-initial impressions of NOTH

Gender, religion, family and childhood are all mixed up in this web of a film. When viewing the film for the first time, I wondered why John didn't just leave Pearl behind sometimes. More often than not, John would escape Powell easily, but be forced to turn around to help poor, innocent Pearl narrowly escape the preacher. Looking back on it now, this speaks not only to John's character but also the outsider idea of giving women a chance. John would jeopardize his safety to protect his sister (displaying Miss Cooper's teachings without knowing it), and help educate this young girl who would hopefully grow up to be less naïve than the generation before her.

Family/ Childhood as status in society:  John and Pearl were outsiders in the film because they were not yet brainwashed by their parents' society. In a way, John and Pearl had gotten out just in time. What this film says about the institution of family during this time is that it is toxic for independent thinking. Their parents were gone before they could teach their children the strict and arbitrary ways of corrupt authority. In this way they were lucky; they found a woman (with no biological children of her own) and through charity and true Christian acts, she was able to nurture them to become more than what society thought they were: money.
The idea of children as money still really intrigues me. Powell saw John and Pearl as his insurance policy, claiming to care for orphans but only for the money. Miss Cooper did it out of her own kindness, not for any personal or monetary gain. Similar to John, Huck was pap's insurance. He allowed pap to do whatever he wanted and live in the lie of what society told him. Society saw children as dispensable byproducts of religious tradition, a sort of formality in life. What set Miss Cooper apart was her recognition of this view's falsehood. 

Jim's take on King Solomon

Huck is impressed with Jim's ability to see right through Solomon. He cannot understand why a king would want to be around so many bickering women and have so many children. His rationale sounds silly, but he brings up a point that Huck never questioned. Jim thinks that since King Solomon had so many children he couldn't possibly appreciate all of the them the same way he would only a few. King Solomon claimed he lived in accordance with God, but his outwards acts did not match up with his inward beliefs. It is not enough for a man to simply say he is a Christian; he must act like a Christian by following the commandments and living in accordance with God. Jim, although seen as much less intelligent breed in their society, knows that living virtuously is more important than simply proclaiming a faith and being confined to its authority. Huck has been taught the rules of the faith, but Jim has demonstrated the philosophy behind the beliefs.
Huck's view represents the Old Testament; he knows the commandments, the rules and regulations of the church. Jim represents the New Testament; he gives examples of how to apply those teachings in everyday life for the benefit on an individual and a community.   

Night of the Hunter initial reactions

Honestly, it was not my favorite movie, just because I think it was a little clichéd. While watching Night of the Hunter, I immediately saw parallels to Huck Finn.  Mrs. Spoon was making me laugh; she was so naïve and stereotypically old maid-like that her little quips sounded insane. How could anyone be so dumb to take her advice?  Ms. Cooper with the shotgun was really a sight though. Compared to John and Pearl's mother, she was the polar opposite. She represented a very contradictory role for that time period: a strong woman. Seeing the differences between the mother, Ms. Cooper, and Mrs. Spoon and the ideals that each possessed was very interesting.
But there were some things that I don't fully understand. For example, why were there different animals shown while the children were floating down the river. The owl eventually picked off the rabbit, but what about the frog, turtle, sheep, cat and the bird in the cage? I found it interesting that towards the end of the movie, when Powell and Ms. Cooper were singing the  "lean on Jesus" song she was the only one to say Jesus, not the "preacher". Other times, Powell deliberately "leaned" his hands on things so that a hand would spell out the word love or hate. For example, HATE was spelled when he leaned on his prayer book when he was telling the Spoons about the mother's disappearance. Another time, he spelled LOVE when he was leaning on the railing at Ms. Cooper's house when he came to get the kids back.

Huck Finn review to pg.48

The first seven chapters have been all over the place. Huck sounds like he has been stuck in limbo, not knowing who to listen to, whether it be his rowdy friends, the women attempting to sculpt him into a refined man, or his staggeringly drunk father. It is not until chapter seven that he really strikes out on his own to escape pap. I like how Twain doesn't even capitalize pap's name when Huck speaks about him, symbolizing that he doesn't even deserve that much of a title. I also think it is very interesting that when Huck was playing with Tom Sawyer and the Band of Robbers he did not have the normal mentality of a child playing pretend. It seemed like he was already grown up, having been through so much turmoil in his life so far between the widow and Pap that he has already forgotten how to play.
On other occasions too, he seemed to be a young boy forced into a full-grown man's shoes. Mark Twain summed up Huck's relationship with his father in the few pages that pap spends ridiculing him for having starched clothes, knowing how to read and following the widow's instructions. Pap's view on life is drastically different than what Huck has been re-programmed to think. Reading is good, drinking is bad, religion can save you, obeying society/ the government can earn you respect (and occasionally money); the widow tries to refine Huck in a similar way that the judge does with pap. Thus far, both have been unsuccessful. Already we can tell that Huck does not want to conform, saying that if pap told him to do something, he would deliberately do it to snub authority. Huck is already an outsider; I admire his bravery, but I think most of it is founded in folly.

Kinetoscope and 1890s life

The narrator in Kinetoscope is an outsider deep down from the beginning, although he may not know it. Similar to the "Pedestrian" short story,  he is a man that is curious in a world that does not question the status quo. He started as an obedient viewer with curiosity, following the messages and watching the first two scenes. He found that there were outsiders even in the shorts that he watched. The mother of the Egyptian girl was an outsider, recognizing that she had power over her daughter's audience (the young men in the room). The little black girl was also a catalyst for another outsider, the white man that enjoyed her dancing. In all three cases, an outsider spawned from an abnormality in society. Because the narrator was open to the abnormality of the 1890s, film, he was able to grow into a critically-thinking citizen in a world blinded by and aligned with mainstream thought. By coming into his own, he ended up becoming an abnormality in his world too.
Mrs. Mallard was an outsider too, going against the traditional woman's role. She wanted to be freed from her husband, realizing life with him was good, but living life for herself was something that she truly yearned for. It excited her that she could live for herself now. She went against society's demand to grieve her husband's death, but breaking away from that would leave room for an insurmountable joy.