Social classes have been drastically downplayed in the last 200 years, but are still a prevalent part of our society. People within higher classes still own large houses, belong to exclusive country clubs, and dress, speak and act with an air of dignity. Stereotypically, people within lower classes still go out to run down bars, live in tenant houses, and are more rustic.
The gentry and noblemen of the 19th century had their designated spaces, and would not dare be caught in spaces for lower classes. The women had certain dress and fabric shops that they would go to, and the men had exclusive gentleman’s club memberships. They would throw parties and balls either at one of their own mansions, or at expensive hotels and inns. They would even only try to vacation in certain areas such as the Bath region in Emma.
The lower classes such as the farmers and day laborers did not have the luxury of being able to join these exclusive clubs, going to said exclusive stores, and vacationing in the country. They did not have the time, the money, or the invitation. People of lower classes had pubs, farms, and commercial clothing stores. They most likely would be mending and making their own clothes whenever they could. They did not have the time or money to prepare or attend extravagant balls thrown in extravagant mansions.
Nowadays classes are less distinct and the lines are blurred, but they are still very much present. Wealthier people still have large country houses or multiple, whole floors in apartment buildings in the city. Outside of the city and in suburbs, they belong to country clubs that are really like the old gentleman’s clubs but have expanded to include women and children. Inside of the city, they belong to exclusive committees that can only be joined by invitation. There are exclusive shops that only some people have the money or invitation to shop at. They attend elusive, top secret and exclusive parties now in large ballrooms in distinguished hotels. Men still have their stereotypical dark libraries, scotch and large comfy chairs. Even the Ritz Carlton in Atlanta has the aforementioned room for socializing and drinking.
Lower classes today at least have more time for entertainment, given the relatively recently passed labor laws. They have large department stores, food courts that often give out free samples (and if one circles it enough, they get a meal), public movie theatres, bars and pubs, and clubs such as the YMCA or local religious organizations.
Classes are still defined by wealth, but it is also okay to know where someone’s money came from. There are still rich spoiled kids who did not have to work a day in their life for the luxuries that they receive, but there are also a lot of self made people who have risen to their social and economic status based on merit. Exclusive clubs still allow for the opportunity to network and more often than not, give its members opportunities that people in lower classes may not receive.
Citation:
Austen, Jane. Emma London: Penguin, 1996. Print
Tuesday, March 8, 2011
Sunday, March 6, 2011
Public and Private time in Mrs. Dalloway (Blog #7)
Throughout Emma and Mrs. Dalloway, private time is at odds with public time. This is most apparent in Mrs. Dalloway. Throughout the day’s events, the characters stop and note when Big Ben strikes the hour. Since the concept of public time is still relatively new in the early 20th century, “one feels even in the midst of the traffic, or waking at night… an indescribable pause; a suspense before Big Ben strikes. There! Out it boomed. First a warning, musical; then the hour, irrevocable.” The interesting wording here lies in ‘irrevocable’, as it makes a second appearance in the text; “Big Ben was beginning to strike, first the warning, musical; then the hour, irrevocable.” This suggests finality; the last opportunity the character has to wallow in that particular hour. The text also hints at this wallowing by describing the sound of Big Ben as if it were a scent, wafting through the Westminster: “It was precisely twelve o’clock; twelve by Big Ben; whose stroke was wafted over the northern part of London; blent with that of other clocks, mixed in a thin ethereal way with the clouds and wisps of smoke, and died up there among the seagulls”. The finality of every hour implies a lack of time; a dwindling away of a finite amount of time. Perhaps this is the dwindling away of the hours leading up to the party, or perhaps the lingering time left in Clarissa’s life.
The strikes of Big Ben play another role in the text. They sit in the text, similar to road signage, marking the forward progression of time, despite the segmented recollection of events. Throughout the narration of the story, various characters often find their idle thoughts drifting towards the past, but Big Ben, as well as other clocks both public and private, play their role in “shredding and slicing, dividing and subdividing” the events of the day into distinctive segments. The episodic recollections of the past are punctuated by the clocks of the present, suggesting public time takes precedence over each character’s private time. Despite these forays into the past, time is still flowing linearly; marching relentlessly towards the beginning of the dinner party. This has a rather odd effect on the character’s private time, which seems to expand well beyond the boundaries of each hour or half hour, as every journey into the past is accompanied by vivid detail.
As stated earlier, despite the characters often daydreaming on a park bench or contemplating party arrangements, public time continuously advances. This struggle between both private and public time can be seen with Clarissa’s growing worries about her party’s success, and the clocks only serve to heighten these fears with every passing hour. It’s quite easy to see the vital role time plays in the story, be it time spent regretting the past, or time spent preparing for the future. Perhaps Woolf should have stuck with the original title of her story: The Hours.
Boy Space and Girl Space
For as long as I can remember there have been designated spaces for boys and girls. Such places include public restrooms or the locker rooms of high school. Although society has a set of rules for children as people grow up society accepts more intersection between the sexes. In the past society still held to a conservative standard of ‘dating’ in terms of acceptability. The social rules for girl space and boy space have become more liberal over time.
In current society there are designated boy bathrooms and girl bathrooms. While some can argue it is sexist because it separates people based on gender we can look at other factors. Efficiency plays a large part in public restrooms being separated. There are stalls and urinals for men but only stalls for woman. This is because a urinal being placed in a woman’s restroom would be useless. If it were sexist then no co-ed restrooms would exist although many do. Locker rooms are another story.
When we think of the locker rooms from high school we see that there is a separation for girls and boys. They are mostly identical unlike bathrooms where we can blame efficiency on the separation. It is safe to assume that the reason is sexist for this separation. Of course, the main reason for this separation is to keep the level of shenanigans from happening although we can’t avoid the homosexual ones due to same-sex locker rooms.
Though when people begin to grow up they make their own decisions on separation. It wasn’t acceptable for a boy and a girl to ever be alone as stated. Today it isn’t really accepted when you’re a minor, but as you grow up you get to make your own decisions. Just last week I spent the night with my friend Megan and we slept in the same room. There is no need for a separation between friends due to the time of night or not having someone else around as a buffer to sexual shenanigans because the taboo of pre-marital sex seems to have diminished.
In the early nineteenth century the social norm was to never let men and women alone together. As can be seen in the nineteenth century novel, Emma, by Jane Austin, Harriett was never alone with Mr. Martin or Mr. Elton her courters. It was unacceptable to be alone with someone of the opposite gender until marriage because of the social taboo of pre-marital sex and such scandals. In current society where there is a limited taboo of pre-marital sex ‘courting’ or dating is usually always done alone and away from groups.
Now we can answer that the reason for men and woman to be separated is mostly the protection from sexual shenanigans. As the times change and the taboo of sex diminishes it seems to allow men and woman more opportunities to have spaces of intersection. As we can see with the development of one-on-one dating or staying the night at a friend’s of the opposite gender. The only true question is what is causing the change in the opinion of sex from taboo to acceptable.
Austen, Jane. Emma London: Penguin, 1996. Print
In current society there are designated boy bathrooms and girl bathrooms. While some can argue it is sexist because it separates people based on gender we can look at other factors. Efficiency plays a large part in public restrooms being separated. There are stalls and urinals for men but only stalls for woman. This is because a urinal being placed in a woman’s restroom would be useless. If it were sexist then no co-ed restrooms would exist although many do. Locker rooms are another story.
When we think of the locker rooms from high school we see that there is a separation for girls and boys. They are mostly identical unlike bathrooms where we can blame efficiency on the separation. It is safe to assume that the reason is sexist for this separation. Of course, the main reason for this separation is to keep the level of shenanigans from happening although we can’t avoid the homosexual ones due to same-sex locker rooms.
Though when people begin to grow up they make their own decisions on separation. It wasn’t acceptable for a boy and a girl to ever be alone as stated. Today it isn’t really accepted when you’re a minor, but as you grow up you get to make your own decisions. Just last week I spent the night with my friend Megan and we slept in the same room. There is no need for a separation between friends due to the time of night or not having someone else around as a buffer to sexual shenanigans because the taboo of pre-marital sex seems to have diminished.
In the early nineteenth century the social norm was to never let men and women alone together. As can be seen in the nineteenth century novel, Emma, by Jane Austin, Harriett was never alone with Mr. Martin or Mr. Elton her courters. It was unacceptable to be alone with someone of the opposite gender until marriage because of the social taboo of pre-marital sex and such scandals. In current society where there is a limited taboo of pre-marital sex ‘courting’ or dating is usually always done alone and away from groups.
Now we can answer that the reason for men and woman to be separated is mostly the protection from sexual shenanigans. As the times change and the taboo of sex diminishes it seems to allow men and woman more opportunities to have spaces of intersection. As we can see with the development of one-on-one dating or staying the night at a friend’s of the opposite gender. The only true question is what is causing the change in the opinion of sex from taboo to acceptable.
Austen, Jane. Emma London: Penguin, 1996. Print
Sunday, February 27, 2011
Chat Rooms
In class earlier this week, we were all in different rooms. We met in a chat room online at 9:05 am, had technical difficulties, and ended up leaving at different times. Online chat rooms can be very useful when an instructor is out of town or trapped in his/her house after a snowstorm. But there is also always the possibility of the server that is being used crashing, or confusion on the chat members’ parts. There is something very impersonal about not being able to see everyone’s faces, or to know who is talking if one doesn’t know everyone’s names already. There is always that possibility of opening a new window and continuing on some other subject and forgetting all about the chat space.
Chat rooms are useful when one needs to interactively communicate with a large group of people. We had class online this week because our instructor was out of town, and were able to ask questions about assignments and go over key points for projects and papers due in the near future. Students who are normally shy and have social anxiety in class were able to ‘speak’ and ask the questions that they wanted in the chat room without a lot of the fear that one has in an actual classroom. Students could be comfortable in their pajamas but still share the same virtual space as 20+ other people. Students could lay in bed, eating chips if they wanted to but still be “in class”. A new level of comfort, physically and mentally, is achieved with online classrooms.
Where one gains one comfort, he/she loses another. Online chat rooms, at least the ones on T-square, can be very confusing and often break down. Chat rooms can easily get out of hand when there is a plethora of people trying to talk at once. There are also sub-chat rooms that not many people know how to access, and many instructions get lost in translation along the way. There is a delay when sending out information, and one does no have the immediate clarity in virtual spaces than in physical space. Unexpected errors may occur and students may not even get to ask their instructor a question before the whole system shuts down from an overload.
In physical space, students and teachers may forget what their peers say very quickly, but in virtual chat rooms, whatever one says can be read over and analyzed multiple times, so one must really take care with what they say. There are policies against flaming someone else, but that does not stop many students. So even though there is no physical interaction, chat rooms can still cause social anxiety in different ways.
The virtual world also offers an infinite amount of spaces that one can choose from. If one gets in the least bit bored with the chat room, he/she can go off and open another window and get lost in the virtual world for minutes to hours to days. If it’s the latter, then he/she definitely missed class. There is something about the physical classroom that is official, keeps student’s attention for a longer period of time, and is more personal than the virtual classroom space.
Chat rooms are useful when one needs to interactively communicate with a large group of people. We had class online this week because our instructor was out of town, and were able to ask questions about assignments and go over key points for projects and papers due in the near future. Students who are normally shy and have social anxiety in class were able to ‘speak’ and ask the questions that they wanted in the chat room without a lot of the fear that one has in an actual classroom. Students could be comfortable in their pajamas but still share the same virtual space as 20+ other people. Students could lay in bed, eating chips if they wanted to but still be “in class”. A new level of comfort, physically and mentally, is achieved with online classrooms.
Where one gains one comfort, he/she loses another. Online chat rooms, at least the ones on T-square, can be very confusing and often break down. Chat rooms can easily get out of hand when there is a plethora of people trying to talk at once. There are also sub-chat rooms that not many people know how to access, and many instructions get lost in translation along the way. There is a delay when sending out information, and one does no have the immediate clarity in virtual spaces than in physical space. Unexpected errors may occur and students may not even get to ask their instructor a question before the whole system shuts down from an overload.
In physical space, students and teachers may forget what their peers say very quickly, but in virtual chat rooms, whatever one says can be read over and analyzed multiple times, so one must really take care with what they say. There are policies against flaming someone else, but that does not stop many students. So even though there is no physical interaction, chat rooms can still cause social anxiety in different ways.
The virtual world also offers an infinite amount of spaces that one can choose from. If one gets in the least bit bored with the chat room, he/she can go off and open another window and get lost in the virtual world for minutes to hours to days. If it’s the latter, then he/she definitely missed class. There is something about the physical classroom that is official, keeps student’s attention for a longer period of time, and is more personal than the virtual classroom space.
Technology and the Online Classroom
With current technology we are able to manipulate space and time in convenient ways. For example this week my English class was held online via a chat room. Class was very different sitting at a desk in the student lounge with the comfort and abilities I would have outside of class. The technology manipulated space by allowing me to be in both physical and virtual spaces at the same time. Also with every piece of information transferred being logged in chat rather than spoken, time was manipulated.
I was able to use all of my comforts that I was normally not allowed use in class. I ate my breakfast while listening to music and vaguely paying attention to class. Though I was able to capture everything in class while multitasking. This was because instead of having to listen to the professor I was able to simply read the chat log and I would be caught up.
Being in both spaces at once allowed for me to lose a certain perception. I was both in class (virtually) and away from class (physically) at the same time. It allowed for a somewhat awkward feel of the class. The awkward feeling stemmed from not being in a classroom setting I tend to forget what I am suppose to be focusing the majority of my attention on. I was caught between two worlds that of my surrounding and that of my computer ‘window’. Having to bridge the gap of the two worlds every few minutes probably allowed for more of a loss than a gain.
With the logged conversations time seemed to be more controllable. Even though new pieces of information were added to the logs which allowed being able to see a progression of time, there still existed the ability to go back and read previous statements. There is nothing wrong with being able to manipulate time like this; in a way it allowed me to create time. I was able to do other things while class was going on and still get the information I needed, whenever I needed it.
The subject matter covered during the online class session was pretty easy. We simply went over an assignment sheet and asked questions or got clarification. I believe if I were taking a physics class I would pay full attention to the chat room and the only difference that being online would give is a distraction. There are too many opportunities and distractions online which is why I believe there is a reason for classrooms.
What happens when you hold a class online? Simply you allow students to have even more distractions than normal at hand. Although the students can go back and read the log they won’t get the full effect unless they are paying tentative attention. I could have simply logged on and got credit for attendance and return to sleep. The main benefits I see with the classes online are being able to reach people at vast range of distances.
I was able to use all of my comforts that I was normally not allowed use in class. I ate my breakfast while listening to music and vaguely paying attention to class. Though I was able to capture everything in class while multitasking. This was because instead of having to listen to the professor I was able to simply read the chat log and I would be caught up.
Being in both spaces at once allowed for me to lose a certain perception. I was both in class (virtually) and away from class (physically) at the same time. It allowed for a somewhat awkward feel of the class. The awkward feeling stemmed from not being in a classroom setting I tend to forget what I am suppose to be focusing the majority of my attention on. I was caught between two worlds that of my surrounding and that of my computer ‘window’. Having to bridge the gap of the two worlds every few minutes probably allowed for more of a loss than a gain.
With the logged conversations time seemed to be more controllable. Even though new pieces of information were added to the logs which allowed being able to see a progression of time, there still existed the ability to go back and read previous statements. There is nothing wrong with being able to manipulate time like this; in a way it allowed me to create time. I was able to do other things while class was going on and still get the information I needed, whenever I needed it.
The subject matter covered during the online class session was pretty easy. We simply went over an assignment sheet and asked questions or got clarification. I believe if I were taking a physics class I would pay full attention to the chat room and the only difference that being online would give is a distraction. There are too many opportunities and distractions online which is why I believe there is a reason for classrooms.
What happens when you hold a class online? Simply you allow students to have even more distractions than normal at hand. Although the students can go back and read the log they won’t get the full effect unless they are paying tentative attention. I could have simply logged on and got credit for attendance and return to sleep. The main benefits I see with the classes online are being able to reach people at vast range of distances.
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
Gender Spaces
Up until recently, women had little to no rights, and were sequestered to the same area to repeat the same mundane tasks every day, while men had much mobility, freedom and independence. Over time, the spaces have become more lenient and close to virtually non-existent in some parts of the world, while in other parts these spaces are as restricted as ever.
Emma displays the mobility of men and women in the early 19th century. Men such as Frank Churchill could go off whenever they pleased to do whatever they pleased. Frank decides to ride horseback by himself one day to London just for a haircut. Frank also mentions in passing his desire to travel, and men of his rank and monetary status could just pick up and leave on a whim to France or wherever they so choose.
Women, on the other hand, did not have that same mobility. Even though not always mentioned directly, it would have been highly inappropriate for Emma to walk around outside of her property by herself. Emma would always have a companion with her, such as Harriet or Mr. Knightly as an escort. If she did not have a friend, she would have to bring a housemaid with her. Women were sequestered to the same house and immediate area all of the time and could not just leave on horseback on a whim. Being alone with another man who is not related to them would be highly inappropriate which is partly why Emma was so insulted when Mr. Elton proposed to her. Even when being courted by another man, women always had a friend with them. Women in the early 19th century and before then were very limited and suppressed.
Mrs. Dalloway, written about a century later, displays a radical change from the 19th century. The book begins with Mrs. Dalloway out in the middle of London walking and window-shopping by herself. Men such as Peter were going off to India and other far away exotic places, and women were left to their own devices. Peter, from Mrs. Dalloway, reflects upon how even women will travel to parts of India and will now shamelessly flirt with whomever they like and do their makeup in front of other men on the ship. The early 20th century led to women’s suffrage and equal rights and the subtleties in Mrs. Dalloway is just the beginning.
Women do not have separate spaces anymore on public transportation and maybe that is in part the reason for the change in behavior. Men could no longer feasibly keep women separated from the outside world and namely other men when public transportation became popular. There are not separate spaces for women on buses like there are sometimes parlors for women in larger houses and separate coaches for women to travel in anymore, and when brought to the level of men, they could start to have some of the same freedoms such as going to get a haircut or window shopping by themselves on a whim.
Citation:
Austen, Jane. Emma London: Penguin, 1996. Print
Woolf, Virginia. “Mrs Dalloway.” Oxford University Press. 2009. Print.
Emma displays the mobility of men and women in the early 19th century. Men such as Frank Churchill could go off whenever they pleased to do whatever they pleased. Frank decides to ride horseback by himself one day to London just for a haircut. Frank also mentions in passing his desire to travel, and men of his rank and monetary status could just pick up and leave on a whim to France or wherever they so choose.
Women, on the other hand, did not have that same mobility. Even though not always mentioned directly, it would have been highly inappropriate for Emma to walk around outside of her property by herself. Emma would always have a companion with her, such as Harriet or Mr. Knightly as an escort. If she did not have a friend, she would have to bring a housemaid with her. Women were sequestered to the same house and immediate area all of the time and could not just leave on horseback on a whim. Being alone with another man who is not related to them would be highly inappropriate which is partly why Emma was so insulted when Mr. Elton proposed to her. Even when being courted by another man, women always had a friend with them. Women in the early 19th century and before then were very limited and suppressed.
Mrs. Dalloway, written about a century later, displays a radical change from the 19th century. The book begins with Mrs. Dalloway out in the middle of London walking and window-shopping by herself. Men such as Peter were going off to India and other far away exotic places, and women were left to their own devices. Peter, from Mrs. Dalloway, reflects upon how even women will travel to parts of India and will now shamelessly flirt with whomever they like and do their makeup in front of other men on the ship. The early 20th century led to women’s suffrage and equal rights and the subtleties in Mrs. Dalloway is just the beginning.
Women do not have separate spaces anymore on public transportation and maybe that is in part the reason for the change in behavior. Men could no longer feasibly keep women separated from the outside world and namely other men when public transportation became popular. There are not separate spaces for women on buses like there are sometimes parlors for women in larger houses and separate coaches for women to travel in anymore, and when brought to the level of men, they could start to have some of the same freedoms such as going to get a haircut or window shopping by themselves on a whim.
Citation:
Austen, Jane. Emma London: Penguin, 1996. Print
Woolf, Virginia. “Mrs Dalloway.” Oxford University Press. 2009. Print.
Sunday, February 20, 2011
How much time can be put in an hour?
Many people fall into the state of a daydream every once in a while. That state where you create your own world and what is happening. Or perhaps they fall into a state where they ponder the future or look to the past. Lets define dreamtime as the time that passes in those dreams or moments. How much dreamtime can be covered per unit of standard time?
Daydreams are often very complex. You can control how fast or how slow things happen. The dreamtime is often based on how detailed the daydream. When creating a more detailed world it may take more standard time per unit of dreamtime because how much time it takes to create a world. On the other hand when thinking and creating events to happen in a dream it can be much faster depending on what perspective you’re following. If one chooses to they can make several events or even make time-skips in daydreams, which would cause dreamtime to move faster than standard time.
Pondering the future is similar to daydreaming. This is because you are still creating events, though you may be looking at people you know or events that are going to happen. Which brings us to the main difference between daydreaming and pondering the future. Daydreams are purely created and don’t have to take root in reality at all, while pondering the future has the same logical bounds as the real world. For example you can’t ponder the future in which you will sprout wings and fly, but you can daydream about it.
This leaves us with our last dreamtime, reflection of the past. At least for me it’s the most complex. Lets take for example in Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf, As Clarissa walks through town she is able to think of the past. If we count reflecting the past as an event it looks as though Clarissa never has a moments rest. Her walk is no longer perceived as a long boring walk through town, but also a walk through her memories. Like Clarissa I often find myself reflecting on the past. There are two ways in which you can reflect on the past either multi-event or single event.
In multi-event one can look to see all the events that happened in a certain period of time. Thus dreamtime of multi-event is moving much faster than standard time. On the other side single-event is more detailed reflection of one event. For example you can analyze anything that happened in one night. Looking at any particular detail to try to figure out the ‘whole story’. I often am analyzing important events between close friends and me. I will look at every word, every sentence, facial expressions, and body language and analyzing that much detail causes dreamtime to move much slower than standard time.
How much dreamtime can we place in an hour of standard time? It seems it depends on what we are doing at the moment. Reflections seem to move slower than standard time, while summaries seem to move much faster. It seems that how much we fit into an hour of standard time is based on how much we want to fit into an hour of standard time.
Woolf, Virginia. “Mrs Dalloway.” Oxford University Press. 2009. Print.
Daydreams are often very complex. You can control how fast or how slow things happen. The dreamtime is often based on how detailed the daydream. When creating a more detailed world it may take more standard time per unit of dreamtime because how much time it takes to create a world. On the other hand when thinking and creating events to happen in a dream it can be much faster depending on what perspective you’re following. If one chooses to they can make several events or even make time-skips in daydreams, which would cause dreamtime to move faster than standard time.
Pondering the future is similar to daydreaming. This is because you are still creating events, though you may be looking at people you know or events that are going to happen. Which brings us to the main difference between daydreaming and pondering the future. Daydreams are purely created and don’t have to take root in reality at all, while pondering the future has the same logical bounds as the real world. For example you can’t ponder the future in which you will sprout wings and fly, but you can daydream about it.
This leaves us with our last dreamtime, reflection of the past. At least for me it’s the most complex. Lets take for example in Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf, As Clarissa walks through town she is able to think of the past. If we count reflecting the past as an event it looks as though Clarissa never has a moments rest. Her walk is no longer perceived as a long boring walk through town, but also a walk through her memories. Like Clarissa I often find myself reflecting on the past. There are two ways in which you can reflect on the past either multi-event or single event.
In multi-event one can look to see all the events that happened in a certain period of time. Thus dreamtime of multi-event is moving much faster than standard time. On the other side single-event is more detailed reflection of one event. For example you can analyze anything that happened in one night. Looking at any particular detail to try to figure out the ‘whole story’. I often am analyzing important events between close friends and me. I will look at every word, every sentence, facial expressions, and body language and analyzing that much detail causes dreamtime to move much slower than standard time.
How much dreamtime can we place in an hour of standard time? It seems it depends on what we are doing at the moment. Reflections seem to move slower than standard time, while summaries seem to move much faster. It seems that how much we fit into an hour of standard time is based on how much we want to fit into an hour of standard time.
Woolf, Virginia. “Mrs Dalloway.” Oxford University Press. 2009. Print.
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