So It Goes.

This year, my favorite book we read in AP Lit was Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut. I've never been someone that loves Shakespeare, so The Tempest and Othello weren't going to be at the top of the list, and Beloved was hard to follow, so it wasn't going to reach the top spot either.

            Something that drew me in to Vonnegut's time traveling war novel was the tone used by the narrator. Even though it is somewhat supposed to sound like it was written from a child's point of view, I can't help but sense helplessness in the narrator's voice.

            The continual use of the phrase "so it goes" adds a hint of vulnerability to the story. This is what attracted me to the character of Billy Pilgrim. Behind all of his time traveling fantasies, he is really just an army veteran that experienced multiple traumatic events. Even though the phrase "so it goes" is used before this event is written about, I believe that Billy adopted this neutral attitude when he was a Prisoner Of War in Germany. Since he was so young when he was sent to Europe and ultimately experienced the Dresden Bombings, the post-traumatic stress was stuck with him for many decades following his return to the United States.

            In her essay "The Truth Behind 'So It Goes': Kurt Vonnegut Jr.'s Message", Emily Mirizio writes that "Slaughterhouse Five captures this horrifying feeling by expressing the 'sheer helplessness, the total ineffectuality, of anyone caught up in such a massacre'". I believe that this is an accurate statement in connection with Billy's war experiences and his fictional encounters with the time traveling Trafalmadorians.

            This thought is what inspired the idea for my Make A Thing project. I chose to create a scene from Slaughterhouse Five that included elements from various parts of the story. The bottom half of the canvas illustrates Dresden, burning in flames in the direct aftermath of the bombings. In the center is a rocket, which could either be a military destruction rocket, or a space travel rocket used by the Trafalmadorians. In the sky there are other Trafalmadorian spaceships against a sky filled with nothing, just emptiness, no clouds or stars.

            This project challenged my creative brainstorming skills, as well as my nonexistent artistic abilities (just because I go to Booker T. doesn't mean I'm good at actual art). I enjoyed my time in AP Lit and I appreciate all that I learned this year.

Beloved vs. Django Unchained: An Interesting Mix of Similarities and Differences

            When I chose to watch Django Unchained as my second primary source for this assignment, I didn’t really know what to expect. I knew that the movie was about slavery, and starred well-known actors like Jamie Foxx and Leo DiCaprio, but I never realized the extensive and meaningful storyline that went along with it. In Quentin Tarantino’s film, slavery is one of the most prominent factors in the movie. Jamie Foxx plays Django, a freed slave that accompanies Dr. Schultz (Christoph Waltz), a German bounty hunter, across the southern United States to free his still enslaved wife, Broomhilda (Kerry Washington), from CandyLand, the large plantation in Mississippi owned by Calvin Candie (Leo DiCaprio). Something interesting about this movie is that while the bounty hunting and Django’s freedom are important parts of the movie, slavery itself is the main character.

            In Toni Morrison’s Beloved, it’s the complete opposite: slavery is a thing of the past, and is only referenced in memory. That being said, it still plays a prominent part in the creation of each character's personality. All of the characters are free throughout the entire book but the horrors of their time in servitude still haunt them; however, in Beloved, slavery is expressed on a more emotional level than in Django Unchained. In the CNN article Why Django Unchained Stirs Race Debate, Gene Seymour writes, "Many of my African American relatives and friends... told me they were not going to see [the movie of] 'Beloved,' no matter how good it was or who was in it, because they simply did not want to watch a movie about slavery's legacy". This statement is completely justified and I understand why people don't want to revisit this horrible era of American history, but when looking at Django Unchained in addition to Beloved, I think everyone can agree that the issue of slavery is way more prominent in Tarantino's film rather than Morrison's novel.

            An interesting connection between Beloved and Django Unchained are the semi-parallel story lines of the characters Beloved and Django. One of the closest similarities is that they both start out in a "bad" place; Beloved was murdered by her mother and Django is suffering as a slave in the south during the 1800's. Throughout their respective stories, each character begins to gain back his or her strength and eventually uses it as an advantage over others. Beloved uses it to form positive relationships with Sethe and Denver, whereas Django uses it to build up his physical strength and agility and to increase his mental capabilities. Ultimately, Beloved and Django take full advantage of the knowledge and manipulative skills they have both acquired and betray the ones they have come to love. Beloved works hard to mend her relationship with her long lost mother but in the end manages to change Sethe from a caring parent into just a weak soul. Django plays the role of student and follows Dr. Schultz's lead, but once the original bounty hunter has died, Django picks up right where his mentor left off and tricks everyone so he can accomplish his goal of being reunited with his wife.

            One would never expect that these two stories, written almost thirty years apart, to match each other so well. It's an unforeseen truth, but one that is analyzed and appreciated nonetheless.