Can't Fix Stupid

By

Ike spent the majority of the rest of his life putting as much distance between himself and his family’s past as he could. His dad and uncle did too—they built a new house with no help from slaves and then gave the old house to the slaves. Ike even gave in and bought a cottage in town and got married. However, after all of his, his father’s, and his uncle’s efforts to remove the sins of Old Carothers, Roth at the end of the story has repeated it all over again. 

At this moment I feel like Faulkner is emphasizing that no matter how much you try to fix what pain has been caused, at the end of the day, you can only fix yourself. Sometimes your actions do not cause the ripple effect you want them to. Ike wouldn't accept his inheritance in hopes that the land would turn back into nature and yet they built a sawmill on it. As much as Ike and Buck and Buddy tried to change the world, they could only do so much.

PS I commented on Zelda and Sophia's posts.

Comments

  1. Ty GoramJanuary 29, 2018 at 9:34 PM

    I completely agree, that's what I got from it as well. Being stubborn and refusing something tainted, even though you didn't taint it yourself, gets you nowhere in the end.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Sophia ColbertJanuary 29, 2018 at 9:34 PM

    That's an interesting way of looking at it. I can see how that would make sense, I just wish Faulkner would have made that a little more clear.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Zelda PeachJanuary 29, 2018 at 10:34 PM

    In a way the ending of this book is really sad. Ike tried his best to escape the life of his ancestors but no matter what he did Old Carothers's actions followed him around like a ghost. Even the woods, which were the only place Ike felt he could escape seemed to betray him in the end.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Phillip VoJanuary 29, 2018 at 11:25 PM

    Holy wow, that is sick. The "fixing yourself" statement I mean. I guess part of that could be using the Land for good instead of abandoning, running from the past rather than embracing it, changing both you and your situation actively instead of passively ignoring everything.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Noah PalframanJanuary 29, 2018 at 11:41 PM

    This delves into thin ice based on the context of our discussion last Thursday and the context of the narrative. Sure, Ike could not have fixed his past, but he made a decision on his own in hopes to create a better future. Ike recognized issues with his heritage owning the land they did and felt that it would be a detriment to his own reputation in the future, so he decided selling it all away was the best option. There are almost no decisions we make that are only full of pros and no cons, and in those cases you must weigh your options and choose the best option possible...all to make the best of all possible worlds, right?

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

An Honest Reaction to Reading "Honest to God"

By
Originally I said in my last blog post that I liked this book, but I have sort of changed my mind. It is not that I hate it or anything, it is just weird and I don’t really agree with what John Robinson is saying most of the time. I appreciate that he is trying to write something different and new, but my problem is that some of the ideas are just a little too radical for my taste, and I disagree with him a lot. In the seventh and last chapter of the book, Robinson himself acknowledges his radicalness and writes about how he knows that this type of thought on religion is controversial. He goes on to write how all great thinkers were seen as controversial when they first started and says, “Every new religious truth comes as the destroyer of some other god”. To further prove this point, he uses the example of how Socrates was condemned as an atheist for not believing in multiple gods, and while it is true that Socrates was a great philosopher who was not seen as so when he was alive, I ...
Read more

Raphael and a man walk into Eden...

By
I'll just start off by saying Raphael is one of the three named archangels in Scripture we hear the least about, and I thoroughly enjoy just reading and seeing his name pop up. Regardless, I want to touch on Adam's recounting of his own..."birth". Take that with a grain of salt as Adam was not physically born, but rather he simply became. In truth, we should all be able to give a similar account to their first memory of consciousness and fully aware. Adam was created, but he realized he could walk, talk, and speak without first learning. Imagine being able to think clear thoughts in your native language and be a functioning individual right out of the womb. It's an incredible thought, and Adam can give a recall of this like it were yesterday...which it might have been, who knows? Aside from that, Adam could even give an account to Eve's creation. The Bible says nothing pertaining to this matter so this is where Milton does a bit of adlibbing and writes around ...
Read more

Extra blog

By
OK so, honors project! Honestly I really loved it as a whole. I said this already in the video, but I feel like I personally could've done better. I just feel like I didn't have enough time to completely process some questions and be able to give my best responses. I really enjoyed reading the O'Connor piece, which I think was everyone's favorite anyway. I love narrative stories like that, but honestly I'm glad I got to be in the Russell group. I feel like that group was the easiest to argue and answer from, honestly. As a whole, I would love to do a project like this again in later semesters. It was a lot of fun and time FLEW by.
Read more