The American Dream Review

The play begins with Mommy and Daddy sitting in a living room discussing how "they" are late. Then Mommy goes on a long winded antidote that really highlights how inane the society we're living in functions. Enter Grandma: the most honest and truthful character of the play. She is carrying boxes, and appears very chrotchety and irritable. When grandma leaves for a moment Mommy talks about how nicely grandma wrapped those boxes, equating love to material value. This is a symbol of the new American dream. Mommy then goes on to talk about how she would never open the wrapped boxes of lunch Grandma made and instead ate the other cildren's lunches. This is one of the views of Mommy that gives us good insight into her personality and mind. It shows how shallow she was and how eager she was to take advantage of other people. As she said "I used to eat all the other little boys' and girls' food at school, because they thought my lunch box was empty" (Pg66). Then Mommy goes on to talk about how she has a right to live off of Daddy because she had sex with him, and how lucky he was to have her and so was Grandma. Grandma comes back in and said some rather rude things and gets yelled at, but finally "they" arrive. It turns out that "they" are a woman named Mrs. Barker. The fact that a single person is used in a plural form represents that Mrs. Barker stands for other people as well as herself. They make polite chitchat, and mock the societal norms of "make yourself at home". As Mommy says:"Are you sure you're comfortable? Won't you take off your dress?" (Pg79). Then comes and emasculating incident with Daddy, where Mommy humiliates him and causes him some stress. They make idle chitchat for a while, then Mrs. Barker starts to feel faint and Mommy and Daddy go looking for water and other bits. Grandma snickers when they say they can't find anything, and we are under the impression that Mommy and Daddy are unintelligent and cannot even find water. Once Grandma and Mrs. Barker are alone Grandma tells Mrs. Barker about a "bumble" Mommy and Daddy had, and how they punished it by destorying it's body parts one by one. Mrs. Barkers agress with the punishments, acting like it was quite natural and normal for a child's eyes to be gouged out because it prefer it's father to it's mother. Mrs. Barker then goes in search of Mommy and Daddy to get them a new "bumble", upon which a handsome young man enters the apartment. Grandma is told about how he had an indentical twin, and that it was destroyed in the same way the previous "bumble" was destpryed. It becomes apparent that Grandma symbolizes the old american dream, while the young man is the new. Grandma says so herself, when Mommy asks who's there she says "The American Dream! The American Dream! Damnit!" (Pg 109). Soon after, Grandma leaves, only to "reaapear" unknown to most of the other characters. The American Dream boy is adopted by Mommy and Daddy, and in the end only the New American Dream can see the old one. My apoligies for the spelling and aburptnuss of this piece. I wrote it on my ipod because my computer crashed an hour and a half before this was due.

October 21st Cloze reading

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/21/opinion/sunday/kristof-cuddle-your-kid.html?ref=opinion&_r=0 The topic of this article is about the biological changes that occure when a child is nurtured by their parents as oppused to when they are not. One of the focal points of this piece is that they experimented on rats first. "Meaney’s team dissected adult rats and found that licking led to differences in brain anatomy, so that rats that had been licked more were better able to control stress responses." The fact that they talked about the rats first and the humans second is a way of showing how civilized and evolved we are. And also that we remmeber the "important" part better. The imagery in this piece is used to evoke emotions within us and connects the humans and the rats. "So, could the human version of licking and grooming — hugging and kissing babies, and reading to them — fortify our offspring and even our society as well?" When you think about a rat licking her babies, as a human would bathe their child and brush their hair, you get a feeling of happniness and contentment. This causes us to not view rats as nasty creatures not in any way similar to humans, but in a way that makes us all seem closer and the study more plausible. The title itself is a great example of diction. "Cuddle Your Kid!" Sounds whimsical and compelling, so it draws you in. Its actually a rather upbeat piece, and that is a wonderful way to read. The fact that it also talks about the nature of our country is more interesting.

Response to Course Materials Oct. 7

The main thing that has really stuck with me is the presentations on Mythology and Biblical stories. It really helps that we got a flash lesson on all these different stories that so often appear in the literature we read. And not only what we read in class, but the stories we read in cheap paperbacks and in TV scripts and the movies we love to watch over and over. Also the end of the class period vocab games are helpful too. The random two minutes of quick studying are a nice learning experience that doesn't get incredibly monotonous. Reading the play out loud is a tried and tested method of getting through plays that really does help people absorb things better. It's always one of my favorite things to watch my classmates laugh and sigh as we listen to words come to life, and it's so much easier than having to make them come to life in my head.