Play in the City 2013

What does a middle-class white kid need to go to college? GPA, SAT, and extracurricular activities. What else does a poorer kid need? Financial aid. What more does a poor, marginalized, minority kid need? Incentive, a convincing reason to “waste” four years, and parents’ consent. For middle-class white kids, going to college is unquestionable, predestined, and natural as eating and drinking; for minority kids, it’s out of the question, an option of life that never crossed their minds—why waste money and time? Just find a trivial job, get married, have kids and live on government aid. When a minority kid meets all these prerequisites and goes to college, there’s still one essential thing that he needs to deal with: his background.

Tierney concludes two sorts of scholar opinions on regard of minority background. Some claims cultural suicide, indicating that minority students must abandon their cultural/family/neighborhood/economic backgrounds and accept the college notion, because their uneducated families, violent neighborhoods, and different cultures do them no good in academics or future success. Others advocate cultural integrity, holding that backgrounds are not harmful hindrance but to be valued and respected, and if made good use of, can help those students excel.

We all have ideal stories for book characters. When we see a character struggling, common sense takes over and forces the reader to think about how their story should be happening. Zadie Smith’s NW refuses to allow the reader have this perfect story, and instead defies the flawlessness of common sense for all characters.

From a common sense point of view, Felix would be perfectly happy in his relationship and sure that it’s right for him, without having to check that he loves Grace because he doesn’t like sex with other women anymore. In a perfect world, he would separate himself from anything to do with Annie, his ex-girlfriend with whom he still has sex and meaningful conversations with.

It isn’t that Felix is not happy with Grace, just that he’s not as happy as he could be. She is not his true love, but she is good enough that he can feel content and safe spending the rest of his life with her. Especially after going back to Annie and double checking that Grace is, indeed, seemingly better for his sake.

Ellen Cohn

Play in the City

10/31/13

In Zadie Smith’s novel, NW, the reader follows many characters through their lives, and the random events that take place. We follow some characters, like Natalie and Frank, to success. We also see some characters, like Rodney, who are not quite as successful. This leads me to question how education, and differences in education, might lead to different outcomes in terms of socioeconomic status and “success”.

John Goldthorpe used the term “education-based meritocracy” to explain how a higher education system (colleges and universities) that is based on merits rather than socioeconomic background can lead to more social mobility between the classes (Goldthorpe 234). In Natalie and Rodney’s cases, they were able to win scholarships to attend a good school, where they could study hard and network to meet people like Frank De Angelis who, in Natalie’s case, would open a door to a higher class and more opportunities.

Unfortunately, although Rodney worked harder that Frank, Frank was born into a richer class. Because of this, Frank became more successful with much less exerted effort. This shows that, although merit-based education is supposed to increase social mobility, the majority of the time, it only works to reproduce already existing social structures.

Samantha Plate

Play In The City

10/27/2013

The Sole Author: Keisha's Identity through Existentialism

            Child birth was not quite what Keisha expected it would be. She had heard the stories of countless others. She seemed to think she might experience some sort of epiphany. Instead, Keisha experiences it almost from a third person perspective, detached and candid about the whole thing while under a haze of drugs. There is a sense that something is missing. And in fact there is, “the brutal awareness of the real that she had so hoped for and desired…failed to arrive” (Smith 323). She had been told it would be “like meeting yourself at the end of a dark alley” however giving birth is very uneventful for Keisha (Smith 323).

Throughout NW Keisha seems to be searching for something. She keeps looking for opportunities and ways in which she can define herself. Keisha even hopes that giving birth will be what she is looking for. She wants a life altering experience, one that is “large or brutal enough to disturb” what she calls “an image system at work in the world”, but “this moment never arrives” (Smith 322). There is one moment where “she almost thought she possibly felt it” (Smith 323). This ‘it’ being some sort of life changing moment in which Keisha ‘finds herself’. Where she can finally define her identity. What she gets instead in that ‘almost moment’ is a reminder that the “entity Natalie Blake” does not exist (Smith 324).

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.

Last week, my essay focus on the friendship between Natalie and Leah. This week, I will sharpen my lens to focus on specific part of the book to analyze the complex friendship. But I have not decided which part to choose. Probably, I will choose to focus on ENVY, combine it with my personal expereience and go on exlore the nature friendship between women.

Last week, I (co)wrote my paper through the lens of existentialism about the relationship between Leah and Natalie/Keisha.

After getting feedback from Mark, I've decided to refocus the lens to form a sharper picture, by expanding the lens to incorporate Kirkegaard's view of existentialism. In doing this, I'd also like to form a more complete image of both Leah and Natalie not only in their relationship, but also as individuals. 

My first lens was names as a key to identity, but after talking with Anne, I realized that there is a lot of issues with this.  It doesn't really make much logical sense and its hard to apply it to the topic I chose.  This weekend, I'm starting afresh with a new topic and lens.  After reading an essay about human and animal relationships, I decided to use this as my lene to talk about Leah, Olive and grief, as well as the importance of the inter-species relationship.

I haven't really looked into how realistic this might be but I was thinking of maybe focusing solely on WIllesden.  I I could look at statistics, geography and businesses in Willesden.  In my first paper I focused on the accuracy of different aspects in the novel but I still feel like we arent given a very good description of Willesden.  I think understanding Willesden and where the characters are supposed to have grown up would give a better understanding of their motivations and beliefs.