What an incredible experience it was to travel to London with classmates who have the same passion and desire to gain knowledge as I do. The walking tours were very beneficial because they provided a visual and historical background to go along with the novels and short stories we read. I think Ali’s descriptions of Brick Lane ring true to the actual location. It was plain to see that it was a rougher side of London that is more diverse than the other areas we explored, and the Bengali culture was obviously present, but like Ali said, it’s nothing like real Bengali culture, but more like an imitation of it. However, the food was AMAZING, and I will crave Brick Lane curry until I can return again. It was interesting to see how that side of London is so contained, and what I mean by that, is that there is an obvious color-line going on, and it was interesting to see how little the streets are taken care of on that side of the city in terms of trash disposal and just overall cleanliness.

My favorite walking tour was the darker Victorian tour. I definitely learned the most about the history of London on this tour. I feel to understand the tone in novels set in London by authors who have lived there is impossible to understand until you know how horrible living conditions were. The city was and is entirely overpopulated. I noticed that after a full day of being outside on the walking tours that when I would blow my nose at the end of the day, there was a black substance that came out of my nose. My roommate experienced the same thing, and I definitely think it’s because of the pollution. And I thought Atlanta was bad.. Anyways, I learned that London was at one time the biggest, richest, most populated cities in the world, and that because of this, there were many lessons they had to learn the hard way–like how to maintain clean drinking water, how to prevent and combat disease, and many things about personal hygiene that would keep the people healthy. The darker Victorian tour was great because it helped me understand what type of conditions women had to overcome just to write.

One of my favorite stories we read was “The Mysterious Kor.” I loved the discussion we had about dreams. It was really nice to talk about what different life events (like war and death) can trigger certain types of dreams. Even though it led me to no conclusion as to why my dreams are so insane, I still felt like it could be a possible research paper topic. I would really like to research the dreams of people who have experienced war and suffered from PTSD. I feel like maybe somehow it could lead me to some sort of meaning behind my own dreams. I would say that the amount of trauma I have suffered in my life is very, very minimal, and I am very interested in what kind of dreams a person would have if he/she actually suffered from severe trauma of some kind. Since my own dreams are completely outlandish, I am sure I would be amazed at some of the things I could find about dreams of those who are victims of war.

This trip was more than just a line on my resumé. It was a glimpse into a different way of life. It was an opportunity to walk the same streets that several of my favorite authors have also walked. Getting to sit in a room that was anything like one that Woolf was talking about in A Room of One’s Own was surreal and made me feel inspired to use beauty and solitude to my creative advantage. I am so thankful for the invite for this trip, and I will never forget the daytime strolls and nighttime stumbles back to my hotel. I couldn’t have asked for better instructors or classmates. You are all in my heart.

Much Love,

Chelsey

The main craft element that really struck me was the constant smushing together of opposites in the same paragraph: rich and poor, the red Ford Focus (kind of lavish for a nun’s vehicle) in front of the nunnery, the idea of the old person and new person, talking about the Holocaust over pastries, trying to sound playful and not disgusted when telling Andrew to hush his mouth. All of these things and a few others carry on a theme of division throughout the piece, which I find brilliant since a Fatou struggles to decide whether or not she is a slave and also because she seems to be experiencing what is often termed as. “double-consciousness.” She is living and working in London, but as Andrew states and from what we can tell, she is not like other girls who live in London. Because of this lack of identity and confusion as to her place in the world, Fatou reminds me a little of Nazneen and Hasina. Like Hasina, she is struggling to make ends meet and keeps getting knocked down. Like Nazneen, she has trouble with being spiritual, so life is a little more bleak than it would be and this loss of spirituality from living in London instead of Cambodia makes her identity fade a little. All in all, Smith was very clever in how she gave meaning to things in the story, and this was overall a great read.

Last post and last night in London. I’m going to miss this place, but I will definitely take pieces of it with me. :’)

We had one hell of a discussion today! I think everything we talked about really sank in because of the crazy dreams I had when I got back to my room! The craft elements that were used in “Mysterious Kôr” really pulled me in. For example, I really enjoyed the use of second person in the beginning of the story because it gave me the feeling that the narrator actually experienced the story first-hand, which made it more believable and put me right there in the story. The dialogue was also great because it was as if Pepita was relaying a story about Kôr. It felt like she was using the story as a way of entertainment and escaping the darkness of London, but she was also creating an analogy between London and Kôr. “..a completely forsaken city, as high as cliffs and as white as bones, with no history.” (P. 198) I love the life she gives the moon as well. It’s as if the moon is a god and controls their behavior, which in a way it did because at night, if there was enough moonlight, then the soldiers could drop bombs easily because they could see the ground better.  “Yes, I was so glad you had the moon.” “Why? There was too much of it.” (P. 208) So in this case, making the moon a dictator makes complete sense and goes along with the context. I found it clever to describe Arthur and Pepita as a “collision in the dark” because that is exactly what it’s like when love sneaks up on you from a person you never even noticed. This story is full of beautiful lines and it is most certainly prose poetry. I’ll end with my favorite line in the story:

“From then on she felt welcome beginning to wither in her, a flower of the heart that had bloomed too early.” (P. 202)

Today’s discussion was really interesting from a craft perspective. What I learned about Woolf’s mental health really helps me understand the narration of the novel. Woolf used free and direct discourse, which means that she had to basically become the character while describing it in third person. You (McLeod) said that Clarissa could feel things before she could fully react to and process them. I’m sure that Virginia Woolf was a lot like Clarissa in that aspect, which is why this free direct discourse probably came easy to her. She took on the characters so well because she could feel what they feel and describe it to a tee. I found the narration confusing at first, but after the discussion, it makes complete sense. I also really liked the bird metaphors we spoke about, and I find a lot of Woolf in these metaphors. I think she was a woman who constantly felt like she was going to float away with the wind (and wishes she could fly away), hence the curtains that critics argue was the time of Septimus’s death. Woolf most certainly represents the structure of feeling by using free and direct discourse because she shows it from several angles and does so through things like the bird metaphors and also characters that are settled and characters that are floating. Elizabeth seems like she knows who she is, and Richard, too. So they represent settled characters. However, Clarissa and Septimus are floating characters because everything moves them in a way they can’t control. Interesting enough, Woolf herself was both. Her soul could easily fly off the handle, but in her suicide, she sank.

I was so impressed with the tour today! I always knew that the population of London   has had to endure horrendous impoverishment, but I didn’t know the full extent of it in terms of hygiene and health (except for the Bubonic Plague of course). I love how we were told about the different signs of wealth like the color of brick or the location of the railways. Some of the things our tour guide told us about the drinking water and sewage made me gag, and I’m surprised that Gaskell doesn’t provide more description of the poverty in her novel, especially considering the amount of dialogue and imagery. I feel like the poverty is something that would catch the attention of young readers more. Instead of plowing through the “pointless” description, they would be more engaged with the material while also learning more about the history of London. Another thing I want to talk about is the class issue. Gaskell beautifully lays out how class is divided up and how they both need each other but refuse to compromise. to provide contrast to this argument, I think it was you (McLeod) who said it perfectly: “The workers can run the factories without the master, but the masters can’t run the factories without the workers.” Using this as a jump off, I would argue that the rich want to keep the poor in the ghettos so they don’t lower the market value of the rich neighborhoods. Like you said before our Brick Lane tour, the East end (brick lane) neighborhood is dirtier with more trash on the streets and is just less aesthetically pleasing altogether. However, the prices for homes, land, and business spaces are going to stay low in that neighborhood while the other sides of London (not all) will stay high. London wants to keep what we know as the color-line in tact. The rich want to keep the drugs and railways in the slums, and it will probably stay that way for quite some time.