Jerry and Molly and Sam

This was one of the choices for my first essay in my English 102 class this summer. The prompt was:
"In Raymond Carver's "Jerry and Molly and Sam," Al sees the dog as a part, at least of what's wrong with his life. What do you see as what's wrong with his life and why?"

In Raymond Carver's "Jerry and Molly and Sam" the main character, Al, is having a wretched year. Unfortunately for Al, he does not approach his many problems in a healthy or even logical way. Instead, Al becomes not only self destructive, but goes on to ruin the lives of those who care for him. Al believes his major problem is Suzy, the family's dog, but in actuality, Al is merely displacing his anger and resentment from his seemingly out of control life onto the dog. From a psychological standpoint, Al classically demonstrates many of Sigmund Freud's various defense mechanisms, and from this point of view, it becomes easy to identify, and possibly fix, Al's problems.

From the beginning of the story the reader is introduced to Al's troubled life: Aerojet where he works is laying workers off, his wife forced him to move into an overpriced home, his fidelity wavers as he suddenly finds himself in an affair, his body is starting to show signs of old age, and, to top it all off, his wife's younger sister, Sandy, keeps popping in and adding financial burden to his life. On top of the financial burden, Sandy is the one responsible for giving Suzy to Al's family. All are classic signs of a midlife crisis with one minor problem: Al is only 31. What is a man to do in such a situation? Blame the dog of course! Carver eloquently opens the story proving this point: "As Al saw it, there was only one solution. He had to get rid of the dog without Betty or the kids finding out…He felt relieved making the decision" (690). In addition to all of Al's problems, it seems that he also has a minor issue with anger management. Carver illustrates this through the tone of the story and the graphic nature of Al's thoughts: "He wished he'd never seen that dog. Or Sandy, either, for that matter. That bitch! … The mere thought of all the twenty-five- or fifty-buck checks, and the one just a few months ago for eighty-five to make her car payment—her car payment, for God's Sake … made him want to kill the goddamn dog" (691). Here the reader gets a glimpse of Al's obsessive aggravation with Suzy that eventually leads him on a downward spiral of destruction and pain to himself and those around him.

Sigmund Freud, whom many consider the father of modern psychology, believed that the mind is made up of three conflicting personas: the id, pleasure based; the ego, self preservation; and the super-ego, values and beliefs. Simply put, the conflict between these three personas in an individual's sub-conscience produces anxiety. According to Freud, humans have what are called defense mechanisms to help deal with this anxiety. Two mechanisms that have become somewhat more common are denial and repression, both of which fall into a category referred to as the Level One Defense Mechanisms. In total there are four categories, each with its own various mechanisms, ranging from the least psychologically detrimental which are in Level One, to the most harmful in Level Four. There are upwards of 20 different mechanisms total, but Al's character best represents the following three: displacement, rationalization, and reaction formation. Sadly all of them come from the Level Three category and are commonly referred to as the neurotic defense mechanisms. Such mechanisms interfere mainly with a person's work and love life, both of which are problems for Al.

Displacement, in the simplest terms, is the act of displacing the aggression one feels for something or someone onto something less threatening. Al is subconsciously displacing all of his anger and resentment caused by his job, his wife, and his body onto the innocent dog. Because Al believes he is losing control of his life, he has to find a safe outlet in which to discharge his overwhelming anxiety. He cannot take it out on his boss for fear of losing his job, he cannot take it out on his wife for fear of breaking up his family, and he cannot he take it out on himself because he truly believes that none of the problems are his fault. In the end, Suzy is the perfect scapegoat, and she is the only thing he can safely release his frustrations on. After she misbehaves a few times Al suddenly justifies the irrational action of getting rid of her because "he had enough to contend with without having to worry about a stinking dog" (Carver 691). This in and of itself is another Level Three defense mechanism called rationalization. By convincing himself that Suzy is the root of all his stress, Al makes his extreme actions justifiable, which, in the end, only lead to heartbreak. In combination, displacement and rationalization can cause terrible heartbreak, and ultimately, cause more anxiety than they save, as the reader sees later in the story. When Al returns home after getting rid of Suzy, he finds his family in uproar; the children screaming for their lost dog, a hysterical wife, and a guilty conscience. Carver expresses the psychological horror as Al begins to realize the magnitude of what he has done: "He kicked the door shut. Everything was going to hell. While he was shaving, he stopped once and held the razor in his hand and looked at himself in the mirror: his face doughy, characterless—immoral, that was the word … I believe I have made the gravest mistake this time. I believe I have made the gravest mistake of all" (697). Actions that were once meant to lower Al's stress level suddenly multiply his anxiety to a point where he truly is out of control. This comprehension leads to an even more horrifying realization for Al and sets him up for reaction formation, the third defense mechanism.

Reaction formation is when a thought or belief causes so much anxiety that the person believes, in an almost manic way, the very opposite of the truth. A common example is with love: one person is flaunting her love in an extremely over the top manner, gushing over her partner, making emotionally intense claims, and, in most cases, smothering the relationship. This is because the person realizes that she actually does not care for her partner and even hates him, so instead of breaking up and moving on, she smothers him in fake affection. In Al's case, when he returns home to his distraught family, he realizes that without the dog he no longer has a scapegoat. In actuality, Al lost the only thing, at least in his mind, that might have actually cared for him. Al begins to see his whole life crashing down around him as he rushes to find Suzy again, "He saw his whole life a ruin from her on in. If he lived another fifty years—hardly likely—he felt he'd never get over it, abandoning the dog. He felt he was finished if he didn't find the dog. A man who would get rid of a little dog wasn't worth a damn. That kind of man would do anything, would stop at nothing" (Carver 697). Then Carver delivers the biggest bombshell of all for Al: Suzy no longer wants him, "Al got out of the car…calling, 'Suzy, Suzy, Suzy.' The dog stopped when she saw him. He sat down on his heels, reached out his arms, waiting. They looked at each other. She moved her tail in greeting. She lay down with her head between her front legs and regarded him. He waited. She got up. She went around the fence and out of sight" (699). Just when Al is about to overcome his reaction formation he falls victim to it again as he tries to cope with Suzy walking away: "The thought he didn't feel so bad, all things considered…Some dogs you just couldn't do anything with" (Carver 699). Instead of overcoming and accepting his love of Suzy Al, once again, traps himself in this psychological pitfall.

Although Al has many problems aside from the psychological, ones including a drinking problem, an anger problem, and marital problems the psychological distress only intensifies his problems and makes his life that much worse. Al foolishly believes that Suzy is to blame for all the wrong in his life and that if he gets rid of her, his problems will suddenly become manageable. Instead, however, by using the subconscious defense mechanisms of displacement, rationalization, and reaction formation, he makes an already bad situation that much worse. That is often the problem with relying upon defense mechanisms; in the end, they cause more harm than good.

Thoughts on the Deepgate Codex

One of the things my English professor said we could write about in our journals--the journal being a class assignment due with each paper--was to keep a log of all the books read and some thoughts on each book. Alas, I already have a log of books, but looking back on some of them now I find myself unable to remember as much as I would like about each one. I remember back when I started keeping track of my books that it might be kinda cool to jot down this or that about each one, but ended up never doing so. I figured "eh I'll remember them well enough" and I guess I do, but sometimes you read a book and it unlocks this hidden emotion or lets loose this wild train of thought that is worth keeping on paper. I know this is true because I still look back on my Thoughts on Dune post with wonder and awe, because now I believe I would have lost some of the feelings I had after reading those books. Of course it's a rare book that evokes such emotion as Frank Herbert's Dune, but hey, I'm not brain dead when I'm reading and I am rather easily intrigued. So hence commences my mini review/thoughts on the various books I read. No worries my loyal readers, I will continue to post the entire list that I read, cause I know you care so much, but I think this will only supplement that list. Perhaps it will even give some of you out there a good book to read! Not to mention it will get me to post more than a couple times a month, now it'll be a few times a month!

The Deepgate Codex by Alan Campbell is a fantasy trilogy that a classmate recommended I read. Usually I don't go pick up every book someone recommends to me, I mean I work in a bookstore, I'd be even more broke than I am now if I did. Not to mention the fact that generally speaking when someone has told me to read this or that I'll pick it up only to find it's not quite what I'm into. I'm not being stingy, but I guess I do have somewhat particular tastes when it comes to books, especially sci-fi/fantasy. For whatever reason, though, I headed to Page One on my break and happened to spy the first book in the series entitled Scar Night. One of my biggest weaknesses when it comes to books is the price, this is a serious issue at my work since I get a full third off everything, and used books are even worse. So there I am, standing in Page one, looking at the back of Scar Night: My first thoughts were eh, it's about angels and hell not my cup of fantasy tea, but then I look down. $3.50. Honestly, how can I pass up a recommended book for three dollars and fifty sense. I mean that's half price! So I gave in partly because it was recommended, partly because of the price and partly because I was out of fantasy books at my house.

I'm not going to bother trying to explain the plot; I have found I fail miserably when I do so. Instead let me just say that it was... interesting. There's a bit of a hesitation there only because it was vastly different than any of my usual fantasy. I tend to steer clear of anything having to do with angels and I also avoid fantasy books set too far in history. I like my classic sword wielding no electricity or guns fantasies; I'll take elves with long bows over humans with any sort of technology any day. Scar Night was a little two close to comfort on both counts. The main character is an angel named Dill who lives in a strangely technological city, but not quite. The city is called Deepgate is suspended over, what I imagined anyway, a seemingly bottomless pit by chains and ropes. It took me a long time to fully visualize just what the city looked like, not Campbells fault he has an amazing way of describing things, but because the city itself was so vastly different than anything I've ever encountered. In any case I believe that was part of the reason I finished the book. The world itself is vast and complex with fully a fully developed, deliciously dark religion; a strong, vibrant history; and an amazing cast of well developed antiheroes; all of which made me eager to learn more. So I soldiered on even though I dislike angels and religion based plots and I'm glad I did.

Certainly the first book left a lot to the imagination, unfinished subplots, vanishing characters, and a rather anticlimactic climax. This is do, at least partly, to Scar Night being Campbells first book, but also because he has a very unique style. He manages to follow several different characters, but only partly, often times not talking about one set for chapters and chapter before jumping right back in. The other thing I think that held Scar Night back was the fact that it seemed to be written almost as a filler for the other books. The plot was good, the characters were great like I said, but it felt to me like the second book in a trilogy which tends to be the most dry, plot oriented. Which was why I was almost afraid to pick up his second book, Iron Angel, but did seeing as I got it for free with a coupon. Iron Angel is miles apart from its predecessor in almost all areas, but the thing that got me really interested in it was his ideas on hell, gods, and angels.

A lot of authors tend to stick to the Christian version of hell, a place of torment, pain, and fire, but Campbell totally recreated it and shattered my ideas on what hell could be. Basically what happened was, like Lucifer being cast from heaven, the main god threw her sons out of heaven barring the gates and entrapping them on earth. The most powerful one was torn to pieces and scattered across the maze, Campbells hell. So when you die your soul gets sent to the maze of blood. Once inside your soul takes up occupation in the form of a house, castle, fortress or whatever else lies hidden in there. You're conscience during all of it, and indeed you feel whatever your home feels: when you walk around you feel your own footsteps as if you were walking over yourself, you can also create anything and everything you wish by mere though. Though, he explains later, humans have a difficult time grasping this and often live in shacks of their own despair. Outside of these soul ghettos are rivers of blood, a sky of black, and demons controlled by a king. Since souls are so easily suggestible this self proclaimed king of hell sends his minions out to break apart the soul houses and forcibly extract the souls living there. From there he can create monstrous demons, buildings, walls, doors, and any other thing he wishes from these souls--I might add that the process of changing into one of this kings creations is horribly painful--through this he creates a vast army. Flash back to the land of the living and we learn that the fallen angels are no better than this king, they're corrupt, power hungry, vengeful angels who's goal is to enslave mankind to build an army in which to storm back into heaven.

This whole idea that the gods are evil and the devils are evil, but yet fighting each other with mankind in between is fascinating. On the one hand you have the deceitful angel demigods who trick mankind into serving them and later giving up their soul and blood for power, and on the other you have the cruel king of hell who forcibly, through pain and suffering, steals souls for his own selfish goals. So you have this war going on between these fallen angels and this vicious king both of which are trying to enslave the human race for their own good. Unfortunately for our human heroes they are unaware of these fallen gods darker purpose. I haven't finished the series yet, I just finished Iron Angel yesterday and will be reading God of Clocks at work, so I don't entirely know what's going to happen. In any case, though, I love the idea that if you go to hell you have complete control over your surroundings, seeing as it's just a manifestation of your soul, but yet still suffer. It's an interesting idea that I'd like to explore further, but for now I'm going to end this here and maybe edit in some more notes when I finish God of Clocks. Definitely some interesting insights on what hell could be, who are we to know after all? If you're interested in hell, heaven, angels, and human nature all wrapped up in one I would definitely pick up this trilogy.

Another thing I would like to note is that by writing about this I almost feel compelled to give it a higher rating in my personal list. I'm not sure if it's just because I'm reliving the better parts of each of the books as I think about them, or because in writing about them I somehow gain a higher regard for them. More on this when I finish another book though.

Owed to the Spell Chequer

Owed to the Spell Chequer

Eye halve a spelling chequer
It came with my pea sea
It plainly marques four my revue
Miss steaks eye kin knot sea.

Eye strike a key and type a word
And weight four it two say
Weather eye am wrong oar write
It shows me strait a weigh.

As soon as a mist ache is maid
It nose bee fore two long
And eye can put the error rite
Its rare lea ever wrong.

Eye have run this poem threw it
I am shore your pleased two no
Its letter perfect awl the weigh
My chequer tolled me sew.

Man that was really hard to write even though I was just copying it over! My English professor gave that to us today, because he grew up in the time of dinosaurs and thinks spell check is utter fail and we shouldn't rely on it at all. I was pleased to note that Microsoft 2009 has a bit of a grammar check now, it's limited naturally, but if you, say, put weather where you needed whether it gives you a pretty blue squiggly. Too bad English is such a whore of a language and has grammar that will gladly bend you over and rape you in more ways than one.

As you all well know by now, I suck at grammar, punctuation, and spelling. It's one of the reasons that I have such a bitch of a time writing, because I'm always second guessing myself, and then I get all embarrassed cause I fail. I can't ever just sit down and write well. I can't even take the advice of great authors and just write a first draft, not care about spelling or grammar or punctuation because I'm like ocd about it. I always stop and go back, cross things out, add words, delete words, change words. For example my little "sci-fi" story thing I wrote a while back I wrote in a composition notebook, it was only like 4 or 5 pages in there cause my writing sucks, but by the time I actually went ahead and transferred it over to the computer I had such a hard time reading it cause of all the marks. I guess it's just a skill you have to learn with practice, but I don't know how to not go back. It's awful! In any case part of my English class I have right now, yeah I know summer school English fucking fail, we have to keep a journal because he says that the more you write the better you get. A theme I've mentioned here, indeed the whole purpose of this thingy, and so I'm going at it steadily. I'm thinking I might even transfer it on here at some point, not sure if I wanna put the whole thing at once or split it up into separate posts for separate entries. We'll see I guess.

I figured I'd share that little poem with everyone, because even though I suck at all that stuff, I still found it super amusing! And hey, I needed a "blog" post at some point, all the other blogs I read-not including Shem, Aaron, or Cory-are all short and kinda not intense? I can't think of the word right now, but they don't seem too content-y, just random thoughts and mini entries about daily lives. Not that mine is much better, but I think this is my first post that's just kinda eh and only took like 10 minutes to type up.

Wow so right before I posted this guess what I did, hit spell check. I'm hesitant to call that irony, but it made me shake my head at myself. I also must say I hate how FF doesn't really spell check stuff written in blogger, it catches some stuff, but hardly anything. I typo'd because earlier and it didn't even say anything.

Doctors and Athletes

So I haven't written anything here in a while, I don't know why, plenty of good stuff has come up recently. Indeed, I actually have a couple things I want to put up on here like my protest experience and about vampires, but for now I'd like to rant a little.

So my English professor is rather odd, I don't know what it is about him, but he's just.. odd. I mean he's really smart, has a PhD blah blah blah been working for years yadda yadda yadda, but he's got that "old" mentality ya know? Everyone has a grandma or grandpa that says fucked up things perfectly naturally, like my grandma, she said "japs" and "chinos" and "negritos" with a straight face and by god she didn't care if it wasn't PC or not. Fact is I don't even think they know what PC is, they're old, we let them say things like that. Now the same goes with my English prof, kinda. He's not really that old, I don't know exactly how old actually--maybe, like, mid-sixties?--either way he just says things that are like.. What? It's not really as bad as my grandma was, but it kinda makes you scratch your head. For example he talks about race in an almost racist way, but not quite. As you all well know, race doesn't really bother me all that much, people can say what they want, it's all a load of crap anyway. Today though he said something that really did bother me.

We were discussing education and why we were in college and what not. I was only semi paying attention I mean I know what I'm going to school for and as entertaining as his stories are it's like meh. So there I was kinda listening, kinda doodling, when he says "I don't think doctors should get paid as much as they do." Uh, what? So he goes on to say that just because they went to school for longer than most people that doesn't mean they should be paid any more and he goes on to say "In fact I think doctors should be paid a lot less and someone working at, say, Albertsons should be paid more. Doctors don't really have to deal with people bitching [he did use bitching] about food or complaining about prices or even as many people as a clerk does." Before I go on let me point out that he doesn't think that a clerk should make more than a doctor, but he thinks that doctors shouldn't be paid nearly as much. He then goes on to say that it's both the doctors fault and the health care system here in America and he cites that "doctors here make more than any other country." Probably true, but still come on! I work retail, you all have seen my rants about how stupid and retarded people can be, but I seriously don't think I should make more just because of that. Especially if the difference means taking money from the people that keep me alive. Jesus H. Christ are you kidding me? I mean I don't understand at all how you can truly think that doctors should be paid less and then go on, with a straight face, that Albertsons employees go through more hardships and deserve to be paid more. Stupid, stupid, stupid! Another thing he said was that the only reason doctors do get paid as much as they do is because "they have to, how else would they pay back all their student loans." Excuse me no no no no. Doctors get paid so much because THEY HELP PEOPLE. Ughhhh

Shit if you think all us retail people need more money why don't you take money from the people that don't actually do anything for society. This, like most of my opinions, is arguable, but I think those people are athletes. Mainly "professional" athletes. What the fuck are these people doing to make millions and millions of dollars per game! If doctors made 2.2 million dollars per patient then okay, take some money from them, but until they do shut the fuck up. At least doctors actually help people, what does a football player do? Run around, grope at other men, toss a ball around, and then make an idiot of himself in the end zone? Cool. So glad you're getting paid the big bucks to not actually do anything. Eh, okay they provide entertainment, but I would by no means call that a service. To be fair I think this is true for actors, eh, they don't do much either, don't even come up with the stories or characters they act. Before people say that musicians are the same way, I'd like to point out that they actually come up with what they're doing, create it, and, this I'm not positive about, I don't think they make millions of dollars per song, they make a lot, but they put a lot of work into it too. Athletes can just shoot up some steroids and bam they're good, no matter what drugs you do, you either have a good voice or you don't. They probably get paid too much too at least in comparison to doctors, so my point still stands. Besides people, do you really want someone without any education prescribe you medication that could potentially kill you? Honestly? No I didn't think so. Just because you put up with idiots on a daily basis does not mean you should get paid way more because of it, it's not like hazard pay. So what if someone treats you like crap, get over it. Plus, doctors get treated like crap all the time, AND have to deal with druggies, hypochondriacs, and insurance companies.

If you want the average joe to get paid more, drop the pay for people that don't do shit. And I'm sorry, talent in a sport does isn't worth shit in the real world. Period.

Frustration

So I had one of the most frustrating experiences today. It's a rather common experience to anyone who's read, nevertheless it's annoying! There I was, sitting comfortably on my bed, curled up under the covers reading—don't be jealous—and I was enjoying my book. Or so I thought…But then I reach a chapter and begin to get an odd sensation of déjà vu. I read a few more sentences and…GOD DAMN IT! I had already read that book. 86 pages in, which has to be a new record for me, but still. Such a waste of valuable reading time, and class time O:-) to be honest. Honestly, it made me so mad, because with school and work, and life in general my reading time is valuable! How on Earth did I forget a book SO much that I can read freaking 86 pages in before realizing? *Sigh* Like I said before, this is a very common thing, I can't tell you how many times I get people coming into my work and returning books because they've already read them without realizing. Lots of times this is the publishers fault, they'll reissue books under new covers and it throws people off. No such excuse for me, this was already on my shelf, while I was rearranging my shelves I saw it and went "hey wait I don't remember this book". So I read the back, flipped through it a bit, and put it on my "to read" shelf. I think this is partly Anne Rice's fault. By the way, since I didn't mention what book it was Blood Canticle, the last of the epic "Vampire Chronicles". In any case she's gone all super Christian on us—I know it's stupid, one of the greatest vampire authors "finding God"—after her husband died in 2002. Canticle was written in 2003, so its chalk full of religious crap, and she even goes as far as to try and "redeem" her greatest evil character, Lestat, and turn him into a Saint. A SAINT. Gah! Fucking shoot me! I'm not sure why I love her Chronicles so much, but I do, well I love the earlier ones. Partly cause the main character was vile, despicable, evil, selfish, and arrogant. He was the perfect "bad boy". I had kinda seen her going this way with the series after Memnoch the Devil, but I didn't think she'd ruin the character, or at least try. I'm really glad she failed, or at least she tried to stay true to his evilness, but it doesn't change the over the top amount of religious themes in her book. As such, I most likely skimmed over most of those parts making it so I couldn't remember them, at least not til a super memorable part 86 god damn pages in. Fuck. My. Life. I'm trying really, really hard not to rant about her turning all religious, but it still bugs. A lot. She no longer writes vampire books; instead she has a series about the life of Jesus. God, what a waste of such talent! She is, or was, one of my favorite authors, her skill at descriptions and gah just her style was amazing. I'm sure her Jesus books are well written, but the content is ugh! I should be okay for a little while with her yet, I still have her witch books to read, as well as the new tales of the vampires, and her mummy book, but after that *sigh*.

I think instead of ranting about her here, that I will write a Vampire post in the near future. No one really knows how much I'm into the whole vampire scene—not the goth/emo crap right now—but like literature wise. Obviously my favorite is Anne Rice, but I think I just love the concept of vampires. You'll see. Sorry about the mini rant here, I had to get this off my chest though!