After reading our first true "fun" (as Ms. Shaffer puts it) assignment I was greatly relieved that these two readings were indeed fun to read. I definitely would not say they were easy or even a very fast read. On Wednesday, after the two were assigned, I had a pretty good idea that Barrington Bunny would have a deeper meaning to it than just about a bunny, or in other words a parable. I really had no idea what White Noise was going to be about, other than the fact that the main character, or protagonist, was a professor of Hitler studies.
Barrington Bunny was indeed a parable. At first reading though, I really had no idea what point the author was trying to make. So of course, I googled it, and I found a couple of different points of views and theories of the what morals the author was trying to portray. Honestly, none of them really made sense. Some people thought Barrington the bunny was a Christ-like portrayal, while others thought the Silver Wolf was the Christ like image in the story. I didn't see how Barrington could be the Christ like figure because in the beginning he was portrayed as scared, lonely, confused, and doubtful, all of which Christ was not. It made more sense that the silver wolf was the Christ figure because Jesus or God have been portrayed in other stories as someone or thing that's magnificent, powerful, or even as something to fear. But I still didn't understand why Barrington had to die.
I didn't understand until class on Friday, when someone said the word "selfless." And just as a parable is supposed to do, it opened my eyes to the moral being taught and which in day to day life, people forget. Barrington might have been lonely and unable to spend Christmas eve with other animals in the forest because of his bunny limitations but in the end he made the ultimate selfless sacrifice to protect a baby field mouse from the wintry blizzard. The wolf told Barrington that although he might be the only bunny, the other animals in the forest were his family. When Barrington covered that little mouse with his own body, he knew that there was little to no chance of himself surviving but because of the selfless lesson he learned from the wolf, he did it because that little mouse, despite his species, was his family.
Don DeLillo's White Noise was a different species altogether. The protagonist, Jack Gladney, is a professor of Hitler studies and the book is written in 1st person from Jack's point of view. He talks very matter of factly as well as narcissistically. For example in chapter 3 he discussed that Department heads wear academic robes and that the "simple act of checking the time is transformed by this flourish (clearing his arm from the folds of the garment.)" The symbol of academic robes present prestige and accomplishment and the fact that Jack goes to say that just checking his watch is why he likes it makes him downplay the significance of the robe and the work it takes to achieve that wear. The last sentence of the paragraph is "The robe is black, of course, and goes with almost anything." After going into a large amount of detail of the movement of fabric and why he likes it, he ends the discussion with a very matter of fact statement.
There was a lot of foreshadowing in the first 26 pages of White Noise, however what stood out peculiar to me is that it was never discussed why Jack decided to teach Hitler's studies. Every time the subject was brought up, I expected him to explain WHY he taught and created a whole department for the sole purpose of studying Hitler, arguably the most evil villain in world history in the past 100 years. Since the assignment was only for the first 26 pages, I will most definitely buy or check this book out from a library for the sole purpose of answering that question. Whether or not DeLillo answers that in the rest of the book is not important, he did an amazing job creating cliffhangers throughout to keep a reader interested.
No comments:
Post a Comment