"In the Cemetery..." just may be the most depressing thing I've ever read.

A short story by Amy Hempel, "In the Cemetery Where Al Jolson is Buried" makes tears spring to my eyes every time I read it. Just thinking about it is making me want to cry. Now, the first time I read it, I was absolutely confused. I thought it was about a lesbian couple. Then I thought it was about a mother who's baby died in the hospital as a newborn. I thought it was a bunch of different stories thrown together. It really did not add up to me.

After discussing it more clearly in class, I was having trouble holding back tears sitting at my desk. No, it was not about a lesbian couple, or a mother and her baby. It was about a young woman who felt responsibility for her dying friend whom she loved dearly, and she couldn't come to terms with the fact that her friend was dying. I've never had a friend die, and I can't imagine. I don't want to bring myself to imagine. Five years ago my grandmother died, and while I still feel pretty profound grief at losing her, for as long as I can remember I'd known she had cancer. It was, very unfortunately, a matter of when, not if. Just like in the story. And maybe that's where some of the tears regarding the story come from. But I don't think that's all of it.

Like I said, I've never lost a friend. One passage in the story was especially striking to me, and it feels so random that this out of the whole work would garner a reaction out of me. It is a description of a nurse giving the friend an injection, making both the main character and the sick friend tired. They sleep, and the main character dreams of her friend as a decorator, styling her house and singing, proudly taking the narrator to the door and showing off her accomplishment. Since at first I'd thought the story was a bunch of short stories about different people, I thought from this paragraph to the end was the description of a mother in the hospital with her sick newborn. She dreams of her daughter grown up- healthy, and wanting her mother's approval. The love of a mother for her child is so profound, and although in the story the main character is not a mother, she feels great responsibility for her friend. She feels guilty to leave her alone, and though she doesn't want to, she knows that her friend is nearing death and can't come to accept it.

Spring Awakening and its musical counterpart: A Comparison

Spring Awakening (literally translated as The Awakening of Spring, or Spring's Awakening) by Frank Wedekind is a timeless classic tale about libido, rape, gays, teenage pregnancy, and suicide. Penned originally in 1891, the topics in the story were extremely controversial, and the play was banned in many places and otherwise censored. The play was not performed for the first time until over twenty years later in 1917, where the production was proclaimed pornographic and played only one performance on the New York stage. The musical version of the show, also named Spring Awakening, experienced a much different reception. It was near-universally acclaimed by critics and audiences alike and ran for over three years, being nominated for eight Tony Awards and winning three. While the names are the same, the two works are nearly as different from each other as how they were perceived by their audiences.

Broadly speaking, the play is considered by many to be much darker than the musical. Save for the fact that the play doesn't have pop/rock songs moving the story along, the original play somehow comes across more tragic than the musical in the way of the loss of innocence. The original play is indeed subtitled "A Tragedy of Childhood".

One of the bigger changes between the two shows is the occurrence between the main characters Melchior and Wendla in a hayloft. In the play version, Melchior kisses Wendla and rapes her as she tries to persuade him to stop. In the musical, Wendla still does not want to be intimate with Melchior, but eventually he gets her to agree. In both versions, Wendla has no idea what is going on.

The second big change between the two works is the final scene: Melchior in the graveyard, where he goes to mourn his friend Moritz's suicide and he comes upon Wendla's fresh grave. She died of a botched abortion. In the musical, the ghost of Moritz comes to sing to a weeping Melchior, who pulls out a razor and nearly kills himself until the ghost of Wendla joins them. Both ghosts sing to Melchior, telling him that they will always be with him and that he should go on with his life rather than kill himself. Melchior lowers the razor, and the musical ends in a song of hope and new life. The play has the same setup: Melchior happening upon Wendla's grave. In this version, the ghost of Moritz is entirely more sinister, actually urging Melchior to kill himself and join him in the afterlife. After a long time in thought to himself, Melchior nearly complies with the ghost, until a Masked Man comes from the shadows and convinces Melchior not to do himself in. The Masked Man makes Moritz explain his true intentions: he only wishes for Melchi to join him in the afterlife because he is lonely. Moritz admits that the afterlife is miserable. The Masked Man disappears, Melchi resolves to leave the graveyard, and the play ends.

"Eveline"

"Eveline" by James Joyce is a story about a young woman torn between two worlds: the world she knows, and the world she longs to know. She lives to escape her near-abusive father and the monotony and routine of her everyday life. Or does she? Eveline is haunted by the thoughts of re-living the life that her mother lived, and yet, thoughts of her mother's life and death are what drives her back into her daily routines. The men in her life promise her two completely different things: Eveline's fiance Frank promises journey and a new, exotic life to Eveline. He assures the life that Eveline so desperately wants, and is ready and willing to provide it to her. The only thing that Eveline's father assures her is the exact life she's always been living. Just as Frank really is leading Eveline to a new life, a new beginning, she freezes. She stays motionless on the dock as Frank calls for her to board the ship with him. She will not move. Perhaps it is indecision, or perhaps it is just Eveline's fear of leaving behind what she knows. Will she be a disappointment to her mother's life if she leaves? Or if she stays? Her indecisive nature plagues Eveline for the majority of the story and clearly will effect the rest of the character's entire life. She does not wish to spend the remainder of her life where she is, but she is stuck.

No One's a Mystery, and it's the truth

The characters in "No One's A Mystery" by Elizabeth Tallent each tell a wildly different and interesting tale. The girl in the story, who remains nameless throughout, is eighteen and is convinced that she and her lover are going to get married and have kids and stay together for the rest of their lives. The man, Jack, is significantly older than the girl, married (to someone else), and knows that they won't stay together. Jack tells the girl that she will quickly move on from him once she realizes that she is too good for him, and she won't even remember his name in two years' time. The girl tells him that he is wrong- they will get married and be happy together. The differing views on the relationship could easily be an allusion to the relationship of any young couple.

I think the differing views on how the relationship may or may not turn out are definitely reflective on how a relationship would work for each of the characters. The girl is young. She is naive, and this dude is more likely than not her first serious boyfriend. No matter how morally wrong their entire relationship is, she loves him and she is convinced that she will spend the rest of her life with him.

Jack, on the other hand, tells a truer tale about their relationship. He sees that it will not be a fairy tale. He likely will not leave his wife for her. Even if he did leave his wife, I don't think he would marry the girl. At the end of the story, Jack acknowledges that their relationship is "bittersweet". He is with the girl because she is young and fresh and that would all change if he married her, just the way it changed when he married his first wife. He sees the more cynical side, but also the more realistic side.

The girl's and Jack's views on their future may also be a mirror to just how each one of them works. Jack is convinced that the girl will have moved on in two years, and even forgotten his name. Jack obviously has been able to easily move on from his wife (in a sense) and forget about her and her feelings enough to have had this girlfriend for two years, since she was sixteen. Jack is all that this girl has ever known, and she hope that he is all she'll ever know. That's a part of her innocence: she sees only the good in him and believes that they are soul mates because he's cheating on his wife with her. She thinks she will be the girl to change him. It just isn't so.

The girl is very happy and satisfied with her current situation. Jack, though possibly happy with his current situation, has a gloomy outlook on the future. He knows that he isn't willing to stay with his mistress. Though the relationship is wrong, morals aside the reader is inclined to root for the girl's side of the story early on. But reading farther and farther into the text can only assert that Jack is the wrong choice for the girl, and that she's going to need to move on, just as he says.

Natalie Goodman from the drama Next to Normal viewed as a hero of literature.

Spoilers contained within.

1. Birth: Fabulous (odd) circumstances surrounding conception, birth, and childhood establish the hero’s pedigree, and often constitute their own monomyth style.

- Natalie was conceived as a result of her mother’s psychological need to have another child after her first child perished at a young age. Her mother refused to hold her after her birth in the hospital, which isn’t at all the norm with mothers and their newborns.

2. Call to Adventure: The hero is called to adventure by some external event or messenger. The Hero may accept the call willingly or reluctantly.

-Natalie’s call to adventure could be considered the opening scene of the play, where we see Gabe (her brother) and Natalie together for the first time, and how Gabe interacts with her. Gabe is revealed later to be no more than a figment of her mother's imagination, part of her delusions. Natalie is virtually ignored by her mother in favor of her sublime, non-existent son. 

3. Helpers/Amulet: During the early stages of the journey, the hero will receive aid from a protective figure. The helper commonly gives the hero a protective amulet or weapon for the journey.

-In the second scene of the play, Natalie meets Henry, a teenage philosopher and romantic. Also a stoner. Henry and Natalie's personalities compliment each other perfectly: Natalie is uptight, Henry is mellow. Natalie is sarcastic, Henry is sweet. They grow to become boyfriend and girlfriend, and Henry takes on the role of Natalie's caretaker when her father becomes tangled up in her mother's problems. Henry is the only one to pay Natalie the attention she needs. 

4. Crossing the threshold: Upon reaching the threshold of adventure, the hero must undergo some sort of ordeal in order to pass from the everyday world into the world of adventure.

-The first time Henry comes to the Goodman household to have dinner and meet her parents, disaster strikes. Natalie had been refusing to introduce Henry to her family up to this point, and we learn why in the form of Natalie's mother, Diana, emerging with a lit birthday cake announcing "It's someone's birthday!" Natalie freezes. The conversation goes as follows:

Henry: Whose birthday is it?

Natalie: (a pause) My brother's.

Henry: I didn't know you had a brother!

Natalie: I don't. He died before I was born.

Natalie storms out of the room after her father has to explain to her mother, again, that her brother is no longer alive. This scene is proven to be Natalie's breaking point. She feels that she will never be able to live up to the standards set by her mother's imaginary son, and thus turns to tearing herself down. Natalie begins experimenting with drugs (stolen from her mother) and alcohol.

5. Tests: The hero travels through the dream-like world of adventure where he must undergo a series of tests. These trials are often violent encounters with monsters, sorcerers, warriors, or forces of nature.

-Natalie's tests are without a doubt her traipses into the world of clubs and drugs. Though once consumed by school and getting into college, she begins to act recklessly, taking drugs before her audition for Yale and blowing it. Big time. She goes to clubs every night for a week straight while her father is at the hospital with her mother, who has undergone ECT treatments in an attempt to rid her of her delusions. She has, as the phrase goes, gone "off the deep end."

6. Helpers: The hero is often accompanied on the journey by a helper who assists in the series of tests and generally serves as a loyal companion.

-Throughout all of her major breakdowns, Henry is there for Natalie. Her breakdown at her big recital was due to the fact that her dad had promised that both he and her mother would be there to watch her, but failed to show up. Overlooked once again, Natalie breaks under pressure and starts banging on the piano. Henry was backstage with her and was the one to usher her away and bring her home. And the week Natalie spent clubbing, Henry was there with her, chaperoning her in a way, and making sure that she didn't do something she would regret. One night, Natalie runs off without Henry and he searches for her until he finds her passed out on the street. He then brings her home and stays with her until he's sure that she will be okay. Without Henry, Natalie would not have made it through her trials. He is a helper if there ever was one.

7. Climax/The Final Battle: The critical moment in a hero’s journey in which there is often a final battle with a monster, wizard, or warrior which facilitates the particular resolution of the adventure.

-Although hardly a monster, Diana is basically the entirety of the reason for Natalie’s inner conflicts. All of her troubles in life, in one way to another, lead back to her mother. There is a scene towards the end of the play in which Diana apologizes to Natalie for being an absent mother for nearly her entire life. At first Natalie doesn't accept the apology, saying, "I don't believe you." Diana goes on to tell her, for the first time, how her brother passed away as a baby. It was the first time Natalie had ever heard the way of her brother's passing. With her mother finally, finally accepting her son's passing, Natalie is able to begin to come to terms with things and forgives her.

8. Flight: After accomplishing the mission, the hero must return to the threshold of adventure and return to the everyday world. 

-For most of Act II, when he's not saving her from clubs, Henry tells Natalie that he misses the old her. He repeatedly tries to get her to agree to attend their school's spring formal with him. Though denying him for most of the act, after somewhat working out with her relationship with her mother Natalie immediately afterward shows up at the dance where Henry had been waiting to see if she'd come for him or not. It could be said that Natalie's "mission" is just to gain the approval from her mother that she has so desired her entire life. Underneath her endless schoolwork and intense sonata-ing at the piano, all she really wants is her mother to notice her for who she is. Once that is accomplished, Natalie is once again free to be who she wants to be and can return to her life with Henry. The scene at the dance, and the remainder of the scenes in the rest of the show, do confirm that Natalie's life returns somewhat to a sense of normality (as normal as her life has ever been). Her monsters have been overcome, her mission is complete.

9. Return: The hero again crosses the threshold of adventure and returns to the everyday world. The return usually takes form of an awakening, rebirth, or resurrection.

-Natalie returns home after the dance to find her father sitting alone in the dark, weeping. Though at first stunned by the sight, she quickly realizes that her mother has left them and assures her father that everything will be okay for them. "We'll live, you'll see," she says as she pulls the cord on the lamp and the room is flooded with light. 

10. Elixer: The knowledge that the hero acquired during the adventure is now put to use in the everyday world. Often it has a restorative or healing function, but it also serves to define the hero’s role in society.

-In the final scene of the show, Natalie is shown talking to Henry over her kitchen table. She tells him that Diana is staying with her parents ("Going home has never solved any of my problems,") and that they still keep in touch over the phone. The relationship between Henry and Natalie has been restored to where it was in the beginning of the show: they joke around and are generally adorable together. Natalie has returned to her former self before her trials, but even still, in a way she is different. Her tough few months helped her grow and mature in only good ways. Her outtake from her issues is clear. It's also clear that she will move on: she sees her mother leaving as something that was inevitable, and it doesn't bother her. She accepts that her mother needed to leave and actually even sees it as a good thing, moving forward.  She has grown up and beyond, and is wise beyond her years. Almost as wise as Henry!

11. Home: The hero comes back from this mysterious adventure with the power to bestow boons on his fellow man.

-Henry and Natalie sit down at her kitchen table to do homework together, and both are surprised when her father carries a birthday cake out of the kitchen. This time, the reaction is a happy one. It's Natalie's seventeenth birthday. She has gotten through what will probably be looked back on as the roughest time in her life, and she has only flourished. 

The Phantom of the Soap Opera

Also known as: Why I don't accept (and greatly dislike) Andrew Lloyd Webber's Love Never Dies. Spoilers contained within!

The musical is based on Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical The Phantom of the Opera. The Phantom of the Opera is, in turn, based on the original novel Le Fantôme de l'Opéra by French novelist Gaston Leroux. The number one reason why I do not agree with LND's existence would have to be the fact that Lloyd Webber himself did not pen the original source material. The only person who could respectfully write a true sequel to The Phantom of the Opera would be Leroux himself. It could be viewed as Lloyd Webber writing a sequel to his musical and not the actual story, but considering how close the first musical really is to the original story I don't assume it.

The second reason I dislike Love Never Dies so much HAS to be the fact that it, though technically a sequel to the original POTO, it really isn't a sequel at all. The storyline is just bizarre and the characters are absolutely NOTHING like their ten years previous counterparts from Phantom of the Opera. We will ruminate below:

In the first installment, Christine is raised by ballet master Madame Giry in the Paris Opera house and is basically a sister to Mme Giry's daughter Meg. After Christine falls in love with her childhood friend Raoul, the Phantom goes just a little crazy, stalking Christine, killing a few people and ultimately setting the opera house in flames. Christine is kidnapped by the Phantom and taken to his lair, where he then traps her fiance Raoul. She is given an ultimatum: marry Phantom and live with him for the rest of their lives, or watch Raoul die and go free. Christine takes pity on the Phantom and kisses him. He is so moved by the first show of compassion towards him in his entire life that he lets both go free to be together.
The storyline of LND goes as so: After being freed by the mad man who was holding her in his creepy lair entirely against her will and nearly killing her fiance who she loves, Christine returns to the Phantom on the night before her wedding to sleep with him. The next morning, the Phantom, who has been obsessed with Christine since she was a young girl and had weeks before kidnapped her, LEAVES Christine for no discernible reason. She goes on to marry Raoul, who by the events of LND has lost all of his money and is a drunk. The Giry's hate Christine now for leaving the Phantom. Basically Meg kidnaps Gustave for the Phantom's attention, shoots Christine by accident (somehow), and Christine dies in the arms of the Phantom (but not before she can tell Gustave that his real father is the Phantom and not Raoul).

Just no. Christine even sings to Phantom about how much she loved him. Unless Christine is suffering from a serious case of Stockholm Syndrome, I don't see how that could have been the case. Phantom is basically portrayed as being more sane than Raoul in this installment. In fact, every single character present in LND who was in the original is a near opposite to what they were in the original.  Love Never Dies also takes place on Coney Island, where Christine is called to perform. When, exactly, did all of these natives to France learn to speak English? And am I really expected to believe that the Phantom would react the way he did to Christine being shot and killed when she was finally agreeing and happy to be with him? He was killing dudes left and right when she got engaged.

In all seriousness, Love Never Dies is technically just a fanfiction by Lloyd Webber that cost a whole lot to produce. One thing going for it: the score of the show is gorgeous. But I'm not buying that storyline. Legend has it that when he was first writing the show, Lloyd Webber's cat jumped onto his computer and erased the entirety of the work he had written so far. This is the man who composed the musical Cats. If that isn't a sign from above to cease and desist, I don't know what is.

Scarring, Physical and Psychological Takes on Characters in "A Gracious Plenty"

 Finch Nobles, the main character in the novel A Gracious Plenty by Sheri Reynolds, is portrayed as being a strong, independent woman who has been alone her entire life due to disfiguring burns she received as a child. She was always shunned by her peers. As she grows older and loses both of her parents, Finch begins caring for the cemetery surrounding her parents’ home and eventually discovers that she can speak with the ghosts of those buried in the graveyard. Finch’s best friend Lucy Armageddon is a ghost in the cemetery who died while still relatively young. It is revealed throughout the novel that Lucy went through a horrible life before ultimately ending her own pain, and finding strength in the afterlife. Through the ghosts, and various occurrences with other people throughout the course of the novel, Finch finds more strength in herself and learns to make her way in the world, and through Finch, Lucy finds her own.

            After reaching adulthood, Finch is still seen as an outcast in her town, by herself as much as the other townsfolk. She accepts this position and has grown accustomed to people’s gasps when they see her mutilated face. As a child, she was bothered deeply by the looks she would get and comments that were made about her. She has grown out of worrying about the thoughts of others about her and cares only what she thinks of herself. She has lived alone since the death of her parents. The other townsfolk, in particular storeowner Rheba, treat Finch as if she were a charity case while at the same time being nasty to her. Finch brushes off the maltreatment and finds solace in taking care of the cemetery she lives in. Finch begins to discover after her mother’s death in her teenage years that she can hear the voices of the dead in the cemetery. She, though a woman looked down upon by society for being abnormal, has an extraordinary gift with which she can communicate with the dead. While Finch lacks good aesthetic and human companionship, she has an unusual and remarkable gift that would inspire people if only they would take the time to get to know her.

            Though Finch was physically scarred, she was not psychologically scarred by her trials in life. Finch grew strong through her tribulations. Lucy Armageddon did not have a similar outcome in her misfortune. In the beginning of her life, and throughout, Lucy was never physically scarred. She, however, was psychologically scarred by the way her father sexually abused her, and the way her mother was never willing to step in and help Lucy when she truly needed someone to intervene. Lucy’s lack of strength eventually led to her acting with self-destructive mannerisms and allowing others to harm and scar her both physically and psychologically. Lucy was extremely vulnerable, unlike Finch. While abuse by others built up Finch’s walls, it tore down Lucy’s. The ongoing abuse eventually culminated in Lucy’s suicide, which could be seen as an ultimate lack of strength or as an ultimate show of strength depending on the way one would view it. Either way, Lucy is more at peace with herself in the afterlife than she was in life. Lucy’s life was a trial as Finch’s life is a trial. Lucy ran away from her parents in an attempt to take control of her situation. While Finch’s strength is to brush off and be able to move on quickly from harsh treatment of others to her, Lucy’s strength was in the way that she was abused in different ways for so many years and that she dealt with her problems and the stress for so long. Lucy’s suicide in a way shows her strength. She was strong enough to be able to go through with the act of taking her own life. Lucy demonstrates just as much strength in the afterlife as she did in life by the way that she would not give up on proving to her mother the true cause of her death. She needs her mother to accept that she truly did have horrible experiences in her life and that she was not the perfect child her mother saw her as- in actuality, she had such a bad life that she felt the need to end it all. Lucy feels the need for her mother to realize that to truly, at last, be at peace.