Pride and Prejudice is evidently a book about penis envy, according to Susan Fraiman.

Although primarily a book about the relationship between men and women, Pride and Prejudice is also about relationships among men. In the essay The Humiliation of Elizabeth Bennet, Susan Fraiman proposes that the book's various marriages represent the age-old use of women as a form of currency between men to solidify alliances and exchange power. Specifically, the relationship between Mr. Bennet and Mr. Darcy is an example of male diplomatic maneuvering and politicking using women as the tokens of exchange.
Futhermore, the Darcy/Bennett interactions are in a sense homoerotic, as Mr. Bennet is giving an element of his own flesh to Mr. Darcy in the form of his daughter. The close bond between Mr. Bennet and Elizabeth is nearer to a father/son relationship than father/daughter, as they share a witty insight onto the world and a bookish love of learning. The symbolic extraction of Elizabeth from the intellectual world to the world of marriage is accomplished when Darcy interrupts Elizabeth's letter-reading with a proposal, a private softening of prejudices that is a prelude to the later public rejection of Elizabeth's worldview.
The fundamental conflict of the book, that of pride, prejudice, vanity, and submission, can be ultimately traced to the struggle between men and women in the male-dominated English society of the early 1800s. Women turn to vanity because they cannot afford to be proud, a state of being reserved for men of high status, and to prejudice in response to the social competitiveness instituted by men and promoted by their own interactions.
On the whole, Pride and Prejudice is a book about various kinds of joinings, both in marriage and in social standing, among both men and women. The sequence of events that leads to the union of Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth results in the strengthening of connections between Darcy and Mr. Bennet, Mr. Gardiner, and others.

Why I Think That the Word Luck is Pretty Cool

I chose to write about "luck" because, try as I might, I can't think of a plausible origin story that accounts for both the entomology and the meaning. This implies that it is an exceptionally old word, which means that the concept of chance occurrences and gambling dates quite far back into human history. Researching "luck" should bring up some interesting sociological issues.

Currently, I define "luck" as (ahem):
"The quantified tendency or ability to be favored in a situation in which one would tend to be statistically disfavored or neutral."

Frankenstein: the True Story

-Scholarly readers of Frankenstein often cling to their singular interpretation of the book, and treat most other interpretations as ignorant and wrong.
-Students find their own meaning in the story, which is reflective of the changing state of society and the multitude  of different valid readings available in Frankenstein
-The writings of Rousseau reflect the concept of giving multiple interpretations equal weight and not assuming the absolute truth of one over the other.
-The general climate of ideas in Frankenstein can be drawn from Rousseau's Emile, particularly regarding man's constant will to change his environment and the nature of education and learning.
-The arguments that either Frankenstein or the Creature is either good or evil tend to ignore a variety of valid points to the contrary, with the ultimate result being that Shelley likely intended a high level of ambiguity.

Beowulf and Thor: A Comparison of Unrealistic Invincibility

Update 2/24/2015: If you are reading this, how did you get here? Why does this post have 2500 pageview? Who are you people? Reply in the comments please.

I strugled long and hard to come up with a superhero comparable to Beowulf, largely because Beowulf does not meet many of the requirements for a traditional epic hero. He does not have a weakness, other than his habit of breaking any weapon he uses.He is never defeated, save for at the end of his life when he decides that it is time to die. He frequently boasts of his assorted escapades, always over a hefty mug of mead. In short, he is a pretentious overpowered braggart of a superhero. Then it hit me. Thor (the Marvel superhero, not the Norse deity, although many of the same points probably still apply) is an excellent match to Beowulf. Thor's superpowers include massive strength, skill at combat, and invincibility to normal weapons; these "standard superhero" powers are vastly exceeded by his ability to fly, time travel, and throw Mjolnir the magic hammer. Thor is so massively overpowered that his creators have to challenge him by throwing absurdly powerful enemies into the fray, which he often defeats with little to no effort. In the recent movie adaptation of Thor's comic book series, a band of noble warriors is about to be messily killed by a towering ice-monster, only to be rescued by Thor, who kills the beast by flying in through its gaping maw, through its skull, and out the back of its head. The entities who pose any significant threat to Thor can be counted on one hand; they include his similarly-powered brother, Loki, and his normally-benign father Odin, who is often forced to punish Thor for being insolent and disobedient. His only significant weaknesses lie in direct damage to his hammer, since his soul is bound to it, and in various arcane cosmic forces far more powerful than himself. Similarly, virtually nothing can defeat Beowulf. After significant buildup, he defeats the mightily enchanted monster Grendel by ripping its arm out of its socket, intentionally forgoing the use of any sort of weapon in favor of his vast strength. This is the same Grendel that forced a mighty tribe of warriors to abandon their grand hall, lest they be devoured in the dead of night. The lesson of this encounter is that Beowulf is simply so powerful that he can defy the limits of what is usually considered feasable. When he is ultimately defeated by the great dragon at the end of the story, Beowulf senses that his time has come, and goes to his death entirely by choice. Even in defeat, he manages to slay the dragon, even while dying from massive wounds. There are a number of notable differences between Thor and Beowulf. Notably, Beowulf, a mortal yet powerful human, dies at the end of his story, while Thor, and immortal deity, keeps going through many events that should by all rights kill him. At the end of the movie Thor, the title character experiences a change of heart and conscience, coming to recognize the value of self-sacrifice and mortality, emerging an improved individual. Beowulf, on the other hand, was already a perfect hero from the start, and remains a static character throughout. Interestingly, Thor is closer to a traditional hero than Beowulf. Thor has a number of well-defined weaknesses and extracts a measure of self-development from his quests, while Beowulf is virtually invincible and remains unchanged through the story. Beowulf idealizes the values of his culture in that he exaggerates them beyond all reason, into the realm of pure myth.

The Evolution of Modern Languages from Proto-Indo-European

This post would have a really cool language chart embedded in it, but Blogger is uncooperative so here is a link instead.

There is quite a bit of speculation as to the nature of the spread of the Proto-Indo-European (PIE) language, which is complicated by the complete lack of written examples. Linguists have placed its starting point somewhere between 5,000 BC and 10,000 BC. This means that PIE may have formed before the rise of agriculture, when human populations were more fluid and less established, facilitating the spread of the language.

One potential issue with PIE is that, due to the assumption of vast linguistic drift, it requires established cultures (Assyrians, etc.) to have found reason to move to other regions en masse. On the whole, the spread of PIE-derived languages follows an east-to-west pattern, having reached the British Isles relatively recently.

Due to the ongoing historical investigation, I was unable to find consistent information on the cultural and societal reasons behind the spread of PIE, as I had initially hoped. I will probably create a follow-up post with more information on the topic, if I find any.

Deeper Questions, Part 1: Why Did I Read "1984", Anyway?

            This summer, I chose to read George Orwell's 1984. I did this for various reasons, including past positive experiences with Orwell's writings and the presumably worthwhile nature of its contents, but mostly because I could no longer reconcile its likely high quality and reasonable length with my not having read it yet. I certainly knew about it before I saw it as a choice on the summer reading list, since it has become a cultural icon and the source for a variety of figures of speech; it is nearly impossible to read anything about government surveillance or invasion of privacy without seeing the term “Big Brother” thrown about, usually with a stiff measure of doom and foreboding. In reading 1984, I sought to expand my understanding of human nature while reading something of substance, something that would make me think for a while after I finished. In all, I believe that I was successful in my mission.

            Orwell very effectively sets up a nervous, claustrophobic setting. His characters seem to always be on edge, in constant fear of the autocratic government "vaporizing" them, never to be seen again. Winston Smith, the main character, can never be sure of who or what to trust; he know that the information fed to him by the government is exclusively manufactured lies, in part because he works in the government division responsible for rewriting history for political ends. A main theme of 1984 is the nature of trust and the absence of trust. At the start of the novel, Winston believes that a woman working in the government fiction department is an agent trying to do him in, while he suspects that one of the senior officials in his own department is secretly a member of the resistance. Ironically, the situation is revealed to be the opposite of what Winston believes; the woman, named Julia, ultimately becomes Winston’s lover and fellow conspirer, while O’Brien, the senior official, ultimately betrays Winston. When he finally acquires a copy of the near-legendary Book, rumored to be authored by an elusive network of insurgents, Winston engrosses himself with its far more honest and rebellious contents. The mood of the story shifts as he reads, becoming more hopeful and brighter, hinting that the seemingly invincible government can in fact be overthrown.

            However, in the theme of deception and uncertainty, the Thought Police find and arrest Winston. It is revealed that their agents had been tracking him for the previous few months, and that The Book was in truth authored by the establishment as a way to deceive potential rebels. There is no organized rebellion; all of Winston’s rebel contacts were government agents tasked with bringing in those with goals counter to the interests of the state. Winston is hauled off to the depths of the government torture facility for re-education, marking the beginning of the dark decline of an already dark plot. I found this portion of the story particularly effective, as I had been considering the implications of The Book being a government anti-rebellion tool, and had come to the conclusion that it was a legitimate underground work just before I reached this turning point.

            After I finished 1984, I spent some time thinking about what Orwell’s message was. I believe that it is a sign of good literature if my interpretation of the book’s meaning is different from the majority, as it shows that I have understood the book on a deeper level than most other pieces of literature. My summer reading was a positive, enlightening experience, a unique experience in an age where traditional literature has fallen by the wayside.

Joe Schornak's Top 5-ish Books of All Time

In no particular order, as I don't really have a specific "favorite" book:

1. Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card
I really liked this book when I was 15, and I suppose that I still do. Eric Showers told me that the main character is Hitleresque, which makes a certain amount of sense in retrospect. The characters are interesting, as is the underlying theme of the corruption of youth and innocence.

2. Redwall by Brian Jacques
My childhood was consumed by this series. Small woodland creatures fight vermin and go on wild adventures to distant lands. Structured similarly to Lord of the Rings, with mice instead of hobbits and rats in place of orcs. Quite decent, for a young-adult book.

3. I, Jedi by Michael A. Stackpole
I'm a sucker for Star Wars. There are some very good books in the Expanded Universe, and some very bad books; this is one of the better ones. It's a first-person account of the adventures of Corran Horn, police officer/pilot/Jedi, second only to the great Han Solo as the baddest dude in the galaxy, as he infiltrates a murderous band of space pirates and eventually blows stuff up.

3a. The X-Wing series, by Michael A Stackpole and Aaron Allston
Hey, it's that name again! Contains spaceships, explosions, more spaceships, inaccurate physics, a wolf-man, a pig-man, and a horse-man. Despite the silliness, this whole series is quite good, since it avoids the Expanded Universe trap of sending Luke, Han, and Lando off on another misadventure, instead creating a new set of intriguing (and often oddly entertaining) characters.

4. D-Day by Stephen E. Ambrose
Non-fiction account of the biggest invasion in history. Vividly describes a wide range of settings and figures, from the infantry storming the beaches to the panzers struggling to mount a counteroffensive. Ambrose is excellent at relating history in a compelling, interesting manner.


5. Battlefield Earth by L. Ron Hubbard
Space Opera written by the founder of Scientology. The Space Mutiny of the literary world, for all you MST3K fans. Overly long, with many questionable decisions on the parts of both the main characters and the author. It's on this list because I couldn't stop laughing at the densely-placed stereotypical cliches. Contains quite a dose of anti-Freudian undertones, and of proto-Scientology. Don't read this book unless you're the sort of person who watches SyFy Channel original movies.