When I first bought all of the books, I looked at “The Master and Margarita” and immediately dreaded reading it. Being on the thick side, I thought that the book was going to be extremely hard to get through. I am glad to be proven wrong. Although I found the first chapter of the book very interesting, it wasn’t until the second book that I got hooked. I really liked Margarita’s character and thought her presence in the second book made me enjoy it a lot more.

I loved how this book (as long as it is) is just full of different themes and ideas: good and evil, courage and cowardice, innocence and guilt, sin and redemption, the ability to bring on your own fate…. I just found that it was full of material that is going to be fun to write about in the essay.

i found it really funny/ironic how careless people were with their words especially about religion(God and the Devil), especially when the Devil is amongst them and just waiting to be provoked. when the characters, such as petrovich yells ,”The devil take me,” using the term “devil” in the form of a curse word, just like using God’s name, they die (disappear). I felt like these situations really highlighted the theme of having the ability to bring out your own fate. this theme is extremely evident especially when Margarita says “Really, I would pawn my soul to the devil to find out whether he is alive or dead.”.. Which she does. Haha.

Just like Devin, my favorite part is also the Satanic Ball. The characters that attended the party were really interesting…I don’t know why but it kind of reminded my of the parade of seven deadly sins in faustus, maybe because it was just an interesting part in the book…?

I also really loved this quote:

“But would you kindly ponder this question: What would your good do if evil didn’t exist, and what would the earth look like if all the shadows disappeared? After all, shadows are cast by things and people. Here is the shadow of my sword. But shadows also come from trees and living brings. Do you want to strip the earth of all trees and living things just because of your fantasy of enjoying naked light.”

I liked this quote because I felt like it had a direct connection with the first quote that Bulgakov threw in on the first page of the book : ” I am part of that power which eternally wills evil and eternally works good” -Goethe, Faust.
These quotes really outline the theme of good and evil in this book and proving that one can really not go with out the other. That evil supports the good and that good is a necessity for evil to happen. That every outcome comes with a good and evil.

Yeah… Sorry for the late upload. I had it saved in my drafts and totally forgot about finishing it up and posting it until I realized that I had my presentation tomorrow. That’s what happens with endless hours of practicing opera and musical rehearsing. Ciao.

-Joc

So I finally got home after hiding out in a coffee shop after work because some creepy old man came up to me and told me i was going to marry him and have his babies so here is my blog post.

First of all, I’m gonna have to agree with Andrew here when I say that I actually liked Antigone’s Claim, even if it was pretty dry at some parts and definitely confusing…I have to admit that I probably only started to understand what was going on in the book after Jill’s awesome lecture today.

My favourite part about Antigone’s Claim is that it touches on the fact that Antigone has been interpreted and read by so many different people and that everyone has a different lens on while reading Antigone (which is probably why our discussions can go on forever on this play in seminars). Well now you get to see this is through my lens.

Looking at Antigone in a more modern perspective, I do believe that she portrays the character of a female more than a male,  and although I have a couple reasons, this is my biggest one:
Her stubbornness and determination:
Let’s all be honest here. Women are probably the MOST stubborn things (LOL, things) in the world (well at least I am)…I look at Antigone and just by the way she is so determined to bury Polyneices-regardless of the the fact that she’ll be breaking a law- just screams out at me of how strong of a woman she is… Even in the context of this book (era wise), women have always been stubborn and determined to stick to their duties. In Antigone times, women had a DUTY to serve their husbands and to their families…and to me, Antigone sticks to these duties like glue. Some people interpret Antigone’s strong dedication to bury Polyneices and longing for death as an incestful act, and if this is true, then in Antigone’s mind, she might be “married” to him, therefore has a duty to serve him a final time by ensuring that he has a proper burial. I think that women have always been very stubborn and determined. Once they set their mind to something (regardless of their citizenship), they carry it through, especially when taking family and duties into account.

In addition to this, I am so glad that the lecture touched on this question, which has always confused me. What is Antigone’s Claim? And mostly, what are her intentions?
In lecture, Jill says that Antigone’s Claim is ambiguity, which makes total sense to me, because who can really tell what her claim is?

As I read Antigone, I was confused as to why Antigone wanted to be loud about burying her brother and so determined to be caught publicly. It honestly just boggled my mind. Antigone got away with the burial during her first try and if she told Creon that she did not bury Polyneices, he probably would have let her get away with it easily, but instead, Antigone wanted to make it as public as possible. BUT WHY?!?! Ugh. If she wanted to bury her brother because she loved him, then why not just bury him out of love and end it at that. Why seek so much attention after breaking the law? It actually still doesn’t make very much sense to me, but in reference to the lecture, it doesn’t have to! She’s ambiguous for a reason, and everything that she does doesn’t really need to be read into so deeply.

On page 4 in Antigone’s Claim, Butler refers to Irigaray as he refers to a section in Hegel’s text where he says that Antigone is “the eternal irony of the community”, and to me, that stuck out a lot, I’ll probably do my presentation on that so I’m not really going to elaborate on it right now.

I could be totally wrong in your opinion, but that’s the beauty of Antigone and Antigone’s Claim; There are just so many different lenses you can see this through.

Anyway I don’t know if I’ve made any sense here because I’ve been sick all week and stuck memorizing scripts, working 9 hour days, studying for my psych midterm-which I’m screwed for- tomorrow, prepping for auditions, trying to make it for cheer, and overall getting 4 hours of sleep at the most each night..so yeah I’m going to do laundry now and sit in the laundry room and study so I can stay awake. Enough of my whining, bye bye.

-j .