"What is the truth? Where a woman is concerned, it's the story that's easiest to believe. In this case it's a great deal easier to believe Bertha Dorset's story than mine, because she has a big house and an opera box, and it's convenient to be on good terms with her" (237).

Lily Bart announces a common reality here. Sometimes, people believe what they want to believe, regardless of whether or not it is true. In Lily's materialistic society, money is synonymous with truth. Bertha can buy her own reality, and Lily must suffer the consequences.

Mrs. Fisher says, "That's Lily all over, you know: she works like a slave preparing the ground and sowing her seeds, but the day she ought to be reaping the harvest she oversleeps herself or goes off on a picnic...Sometimes...I think it's just flightiness, and sometimes I think it's because, at heart, she despises the things she's trying for" ( 198).

Mrs. Fisher seems to understand Lily through and through. Lily knows what she wants and is a master and manipulating her way into getting it. When she does get it, however, she lets go. Mrs. Fisher doesn't miss a beat when she realizes that Lily never really wants what she goes after in the first place. Even though she represents wealth and triviality, Mrs. Fisher seems to be as good at reading people as Lily is herself.

"Her daylight view of them necessarily differed from the cloudy vision of the night. The winged Furies were now prowling gossips who dropped in on each other for tea" (178).

"...she had to go upstairs for a lonely night, a night grim and sleepless as her tortured fancy...she had never learned to live with her own thoughts, and to be confronted with them through such hours of lucid misery made the confused wretchedness of her previous vigil seem easily bearable...Daylight disbanded the phantom crew and made it clear to her that she would hear from Selden before noon" (188).

I live by my mother's mantra: No matter how bad things seem at night, they will always seem better in the morning. Lily Bart seems to recognize this to be true. For some reason, the nighttime brings out the worst thoughts and emotions in people. The Furies Bart describes seem to lurk in the shadows. I feel lucky to have realized at a young age that sometimes it is best just to go to bed when I am upset about something. Morning brings a new outlook on life. Sunshine never fails to put even the worst problems in a happier setting. I can't count the number of times I have given this advice to a friend in distress late at night. Without fail, the morning brings hope.

"My idea of success...is personal freedom...from everything-from money, from poverty, from ease and anxiety, from all the material accidents. To keep a kind of republic of the spirit" (70) -Selden

We talked about this passage today in class when describing Selden's character. I think that this is a very moving idea. Things are nice to have, but they are just things. The real gift in this lifetime is to appreciate that over which man has no control. There is a piece of poetry my mom has hanging in her powder room; I happened to notice Professor Dolson has the same piece in her room the other day:

“A man should hear a little music, read a little poetry, and see a fine picture every day of his life, in order that worldly cares may not obliterate the sense of the beautiful implanted in the human soul.” --Johann Wolfgang Goethe

My mom is a firm believer in appreciating the little things. Nature, poetry, art, music; these are the beautiful things in the world. A cute pair of shoes may be nice, but the truly beautiful things in this lifetime do not have price tags.

"She was too genuinely ignorant of the manipulations of the stock market to understand his technical explanations...she understood only that her modest investments were to be mysteriously multiplied without risk to herself" (88).

As our final is going to deal with the connection between Marx and House of Mirth, I focus on Lily Barton's concern with money as I read. Marx does not have a lot of faith in "capital" or hard cash. At the same time, Lily's life depends on it. Marx believes capital should be converted into common property. (Marx 170). The stock market does relate to marxism; however, because all people have a chance to yield a profit in the market regardless of their social status. Even Lily, an unmarried woman with not a lot of money can benefit.

Lily Bart is a woman with "game." Her coquettish nature and employment of tools of flirtation makes it seem as if men wouldn't be able to avoid falling into her trap. Today, it is always men who have the reputation of being "players." Flirting is a game. It is a give or take game about letting the opposite sex know you like them, but not letting them know you like them as much as you do. It is about curiosity and mystery. It is exciting, but at the same time confusing. Apparently this game has been around for a long time. Lily Bart has an amazing sense of interpreting people and knowing how to manipulate them.

"She began to cut the pages of a novel, tranquilly studying her prey through downcast lashes while she organized a method of attack. Something in his attitude of conscious absorption told her that he was aware of her presence: no one had ever been quite so engrossed in an evening paper!" (16).

Lily Bart calls Mr. Percy Gryce her "prey." Long before the twenty first century of "players" and "ballers" (thank you to the Rap/R&B industry) Lily Bart herself recognizes that getting what you want requires manipulation and deception. She is an amazing reader of people as well. Bart can tell that Gryce has seen her and is shy because of the way he is reading his newspaper. His excessive interest stems from not the article itself, but the fact that he is afraid to look up and see her. The way humans communicate is fascinating. Wouldn't it be so much easier to just walk up to someone you like and say, "Hey, I like you?"

House of Mirth

How refreshing it is to be reading a novel! I love literature, and getting into House of Mirth after so many philosophic and scientific readings is so nice. The descriptions Edith Wharton uses are fantastic, but I thought I would focus on her painting of civilization. After spending so much time on Nietzsche, Gandhi, Lao-tzu, and Rives and the topic of civilization, I thought it would be a good place to start.

"As he watched her hand, polished as a bit of old ivory, with its slender pink nails, and the sapphire bracelet slipping over her wrist, he was struck with the irony of suggesting to her such a life as his cousin Gertrude Farish had chosen. She was so evidently the victim of the civilization which had produced her that the links of her bracelet seemed like manacles chaining her to her fate" (6).

First of all, I am in love with the style of Wharton's writing. The description paints such a vivid picture that it is hard not to get caught up in Lily Bart and her world. My point is however, that Wharton describes Lily Bart as a "victim of the civilization which had produced her." Lily lives in a world that offers her nothing but marriage. Her sole purpose in life is to find a well-off husband who will be able to afford her expensive tastes. Bart says of marriage, "A girl must, a man may if he chooses" (10). Men will still be asked to dinner if they wear shabby clothes, women are asked to dinner based on what they are wearing. This double standard was prevalent in Bart's time. Although Gandhi saw civilization as industrialization, civilization also effected people and their social class and affiliations. Civilization seems to be a common theme studied in Core, and it has been discussed by philosophers, economists, and apparently even literary authors.

"To be sure animals also produce. They build themselves nests, dwelling places, like the bees, beavers, ants, etc. But the animal produces only what is immediately necessary for itself or its young...The animal only produces itself while man reproduces the whole of nature. The animal's product belongs immediately to its physical body while man is free when he confronts his product. The animal belongs while man knows how to produce according to the standard of any species and at all times knows how to apply an intrinsic standard to the object. Thus man creates also according to the laws of beauty" (64). (from Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts)

The idea that man is the only materialistic animal is a common theme in Marx's works. In The German Ideology Marx says, "The first historical act of these individuals, the act by which they distinguish themselves from animals is not the fact that they think but the fact that they begin to produce their means of subsistence" (107).

Marx puts such emphasis on the materialistic aspect of man. While philosophers usually place emphasis on man's ability to think and form relationships, Marx is an economist. He sees man as a consumer. What is also interesting to me is the fact that Marx identifies the importance humans place on beauty. This reminds me of Abby's comment in class today. Sometimes, money-value isn't the most important thing when determining the worth of commodities. Some people believe higher priced commodities give them a higher status. Others just want a "pretty pair of shoes" no matter what the price is, just because pretty shoes make them feel more confident.

My group's job is to find connection in Marx's writing with other texts we have read this year. I have had this job for almost every book we have done so far in small groups. Nietzsche connected with other texts in almost every paragraph. Marx, however, seems very different from every other text we have read so far this year. I would say he is most similar to Darwin because of his scientific way of writing. Marx writes economically, not philosophically like Gandhi, Nietzsche, or Tao. Even so, the connection we came up with today in class was pretty interesting. Seeing as our group didn't get to share it, I thought I would post our ideas.

Marx says, "Christianity with its religious cult of man in the abstract, more particularly in its bourgeois development...is the most fitting form of religion...the transformation of the product into a commodity...plays a subordinate role, which however increases in importance as these communities approach nearer and nearer to the stage of their dissolution...The religious reflections of the real world can...vanish only when the practical relations of everyday life between man and man, and man and nature, generally present themselves to him in a transparent and rational form" (239).

Marx's view on Christianity reminded me of Nietzsche's view. Christianity appears primitive and restrictive. It puts man in a cage. Both Nietzsche and Marx seem to think a superior form of humanity would rise above religion, namely Christianity. Finding connections between texts can be challenging, but I think it helps us as writers to learn to "synthesize."

"'Value...is the property of things, riches...of man. Value...necessarily implies exchanges, riches do not'...'Riches...are the attribute of man, value is the attribute of commodities...A man or a community is rich, a pearl or a diamond is valuable...A pearl or a diamond is valuable as a pearl or diamond'" (243).

Half of what Marx says reminds me of a geometry proof and, therefore, goes in one ear and out the other. This particular point Marx makes, however, I actually understand. Marx is making the distinction between value and riches. Inevitably, it is all relative. Things with value are comparable. Riches are not. Value is an attribute of a commodity; riches are an attribute of man.

"The value of commodity...varies directly as the quantity, and inversely as the productivity, of the labor which finds its realization within the commodity" (225).

Just talking about direct and inverse relationships makes me cringe. Help anyone?

It has occurred to me that Marxist philosophy opposes that of Gandhi. Marx says, "...the division of labor implies the conflict between the interest of the individual or the individual family and the communal interest of all individuals having contact with one another...In communist society...where nobody has an exclusive area of activity and each can train himself in any branch he wishes, society regulates the general production, making it possible for me to do one thing today and another tomorrow, to hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, breed cattle in the evening, criticize after dinner, just as I like, without ever becoming a hunter, a fisherman, a herdsman, or a critic" (119). Marx describes an idealist community where no one has a specific role. Each person can do whatever he pleases at any given moment of any given day. Gandhi, however, believes in a Varna system. In this form of society, each individual has a different job, but each job has an equal significance. The job of each individual is passed down through families. Gandhi and Marx have very different views about the division of labor of society.

"Morality, religion, metaphysics, and all the rest of ideology and their corresponding forms of consciousness no longer seem to be independent...men who develop their material production and their material relationships alter their thinking and the products of their thinking along with their real existence. Consciousness does not determine life, but life determines consciousness. In the first view the starting point is consciousness taken as a living individual; in the second it is the real living individuals themselves as they exist in real life, and consciousness is considered only as their consciousness" (Marx 112).

This passage really messed with my mind. It is almost as if Marx is questioning and tempering with reality. What is consciousness? What is awareness? I keep thinking of The Matrix trilogy. The humans of that world are conscious, but their level of consciousness does not perceive reality. Their lives determine their consciousness. They see only what they are programmed to see, not what really is. If you can't trust your own consciousness, what can you trust? Consciousness is all a person has to maintain his perception of reality.

What is interesting to me in reading Karl Marx after Gandhi is the fact that both men had a very distinct goal. Marx and Gandhi seem to portray their goals and means of attaining these goals in a similar fashion. Both men assert their goals, explain a brief history of how civilization became corrupted into its current state, and provide a list of their most important points. However, Gandhi an Marx have severely different goals and values. Gandhi wants India to be free from the English and the grasp of Western ideas. He wants to abolish factories and education, placing all emphasis on religion. Gandhi explains the importance of Varnas and castes. Marx wants the proletariat class to rise above the bourgeoisie. He wants to extend the number of factories and instruments of production. He also wants free education for all children in public schools. Both men want equality, but they have different ideals and visions of how society should be.

In Marx's Communist Manifesto he states, "But every class struggle is a political struggle" (166). Not only does this bold statement sum up the importance of his first section, it also ties into what we are discussing in my History of Jamestown class. Yesterday we discussed Jamestown in 1610 under the martial law of Dale. My professor actually made a direct reference to Karl Marx when explaining the class structure and laws that were upheld. In William Strachey's, Laws Divine Moral and Martial, it is stated, "Everything that comes under the laws moral and politic is 'no less subject to the martial law'" (33). It didn't matter whether the crime was moral or political, all laws were subject to physical punishment. Some were even punishable by death. The formation of society and class structure became a political issue. People had a class identity, not a personal identity. Marx deals with the individual versus the group as well.

We were asked to write about our lives as individuals, roommates in dorms, and dorm life in halls. The differences in responsibility are similar and at the same time different. I have my personal definition of cleanliness and need for neatness. Fortunately, my roommate and I share the desire for a neat room. Also fortunately, we have messy tendencies. Usually our room is cluttered throughout the week and we will have a big cleanup on Sunday. We need to agree on noise levels and lights out times. There is a lot of compromise and a need for understanding. My roommate and I luckily share sleeping and study habits, but we are just one dorm in the hall of many. Some girls stay up until 3am with visitors; some girls go to bed by 12 because of early morning classes. Our RA has had to send out reminders to all of us to be courteous of our neighbors and their habits. As an individual, I am responsible for doing my share of cleaning and taking care of my things in my room. As a roommate, I am responsible for not only taking care of my needs but for meeting my roommate half-way with adhering to her needs as well. As a hall member, I am responsible for controlling the noise and activity in my room late at night. Gandhi spends a lot of time talking about the differences of importance in individuals and as the individual as a group member. "As with the individual so with the universe is an unfailing principle which we would do well to lay to heart" (Gandhi 76). People do not have individual purposes alone; they have to take into consideration the groups they form and the people around them.

Connections

In the section on Ahimsa, Gandhi brings up the subject of fearing death. "If we are unmanly today, we are so, not because we do not know how to strike, but because we fear to die" (97). This statement reminded me of other works we have read this year. Gandhi's statement corresponds with The White Castle and with Socrates. In The White Castle, the narrator says of Hoja, "...he didn't fear the plague; disease was God's will, if a man was fated to die he would die...If it was written, so it would come to pass, death would find us. Why was I afraid? Because of those sins of mine I'd written down day after day?" (Pamuk 73). In The Trial and Death of Socrates, Socrates says, "Neither I nor any other man should, on trial or in war, contrive to avoid death at any cost...It is not difficult to avoid death...it is much more difficult to avoid wickedness, for it runs faster than death" (Plato 40). All three men share the belief that one must face death in order to be courageous. This common theme is essential in the platforms of each man's religious beliefs. In America, the common attitude towards death is fear and sadness. This attitude is far different from that of other cultures and time periods.