Student 24's blog

I played with Frost. It was October. If only I had learnt from Ray Bradbury that October was a grotesque Country where you should only step foot if you are looking to be assaulted by the skeletons your mind shoved in a closet on purpose in the first place. It was October, silly.

I opened the closet, and out walked Robert. He brushed off the Frost from his shoulders; it must have been cold and dusty behind the Doors. Or he was tired of being cold. He walked out. And I stepped into his Home Burial.

I fell deep. The door was wide open and I fell damn deep. I told myself all I had to do was pull apart the words and reconstruct them into a window. So I sat on the narrow, creaky staircase and listened attentively to Frost and his wife. But slowly – I found – slowly, I was listening to myself. And I had the same voice as his wife.

I was accusing. I was hurt. I was pushing away. I was losing. I was missing. Home Burial. 

There wasn’t a way to pick out my own words, care about his, and try to assemble a window which might cast light on our conflict. What we needed to was to smash open the windows we already had, and get some fresh air.

I was overwhelmed as I fell deeper and deeper into Frost’s Home. Or was Frost just pulling out some things that already existed deep in the back of my closet?

 Lay them on the table. Let me hear you say what you already know about them, but use a different voice so you can hear yourself do the talking. 

{This is an experimental essay.}

There are two kinds of dynamics. Intended, or assigned, dynamics and those that emerge as a result of the implementation – or at least the attempt thereof –  of the original intended dynamics.

[“Simon spoke aloud to the clearing. ‘What else is there to do?’ Nothing replied,” (Golding, 145). “Turned away from the open space,” (Golding, 145). “[The boys] bumped Piggy, who was burnt, and yelled and danced. Immediately, Ralph and the crowd of boys were united an  relieved by a storm of laughter. Piggy once more was the center of social derision so that everyone felt cheerful and normal,” (Golding, 149). “Give me a drink,” (Golding, 150). “Piggy and Ralph, under the threat of the sky, found themselves eager to take place in this demented but partly secure society,” (152). “Now out of the terror rose another desire, thick, urgent, blind,” (Golding, 152). “Kill the beast! Cut his throat! Spill his blood! Do him in!” (Golding, 152).]

It started out as an attempt to reform individuals but even now the corruption and evolution of corruption is visible in the empty space. No matter, Eastern State as it is now, a true institution of learning, is the best form of itself that has ever been and undoubtedly could ever be. Communication can’t be stopped.

“In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes,” Benjamin Franklin is supposed to have said, to which Will Rogers added: “The difference between death and taxes is death doesn’t get worse every time Congress meets.”

In his March 2012 Budget Statement, UK Chancellor George Osborne said, “My goal is a tax system where the lowest paid are lifted out of the tax altogether, while the tax revenue we get from the richest increases.” This introduces the debate over a person’s change in behaviour as a labourer – and earner of income – when there is more or less incentive to achieve more in one’s job. According to AngloInfo, the global expat network in London, “The UK operates a system of independent taxation. In determining an individual’s liability to UK tax it is first necessary to consider their residence and domicile status.” Natalie Blake is a resident of the UK and calls London home, so she is subject to the national income tax system. By attending university, becoming a successful lawyer, and marrying a man who comes from a wealthier family and who also earns income, Natalie may be moving into a higher income tax bracket. In UK’s progressive tax system (demonstrated in the table below, where greater income earned places the earner in a higher bracket, thus yielding a higher rate of taxation; Source: AngloInfo),

To rewrite this paper, I'm going to choose a few economic theorists or articles that I'm studying in my Economic Inequality and Government Policy class, so that I can focus on a debate or certain issue, so that one perspective or the clash between perspectives can be my lens.

I'm also considering focussing on only Natalie's end section dealing with her dispute with Frank and the subsequent scene shopping in Poundland with her children. Perhaps, if I can deepen the analysis by having a comparison with another character, I could bring in Felix's experiences with selling drugs and his following career as a mechanic and his skill in buying used cars. This could possibly bring into question with differences and similarites in economic behaviour between genders: Felix as a man and Natalie as a woman.

Ultimately I'm going to attempt to critique an economic school of thought through the economic behaviours and actions of the characters.

Zadie Smith’s novel NW contains multiple stories composed of social, familial, romantic, and marital interaction. Surrounding several of these interactions are performances of economic activity, behaviour, and mentality. The stories of Leah, Michel, Natalie, Frank, and Natalie’s and Frank’s children all raise ideas of economic behavioural influences in non-economic aspects of their lives. This analysis leads to the notion of how self-interest and tendency for self-serving fundamentally drive our performance and behaviour in life.

Every so often, throughout my reading of NW, a sentence or phrase would jump out at me, and I’d underline it. When I finished the book, I typed up and compiled all these sentences into one document and sorted them into themes. One of the themes I found has to do with economic concepts, and because in my other classes I am dealing a lot with economics and economic theory, I’d be interested in applying theories of human economic thought and behaviour into analysing the characters of NW. I have five main quotes of sentences from the book, and I plan to focus on the closely surrounding passages from which they come to see how much depth I can to the characters in terms of their participation in the economic system, both in the city and globally. I want to explore how consideration of these characters (and upon reflection, ourselves in real life) in terms of their economic function can serve to reorient the reader’s perception of their emotional, social, romantic, and/or familial behaviour.

I turn onto a new street. The busy avenues and squares and plazas and circles have been making me dizzy. Linear, point by point. I walk down.

It was a gorgeous and sunny day this Saturday, and I had had quite a pleasant and relaxing morning sitting in a café, reading, and doodling around with thoughts in my head and on paper. Later I walked to the street corner of the subway station to meet two of the girls with whom I’d come into the city. We were going to wait a while to see if the other girls would catch up with us before we went down into the subway.

We were at the intersection of Market and Fifth Streets, and there were cars and people and tour buses passing on by. At one point, a woman walked towards us, greeting some of the other people on the block walking by us. She came over to us, smiling and exuding cheerfulness, and asked us where we were going. “We’re on our way home,” I said, smiling back at her. She was thin, about my height, wearing faded, well-worn clothes, an army-style hat over her very little hair, and with a satchel strapped across her shoulder. She held a beer can in a brown paper bag in her left hand and had a glassy look in her eye like she was ready to tell us a story.