Insane by who's definition?

I found myself very torn to believe that Sybil is indeed insane. People were put in insane asylum's for multiple reasons. They were not always insane. Annie Sullivan from The Miracle Worker was put in an asylum for being blind and having no parents. Somehow I don't think that makes her insane. Helen Keller's parents also wanted to place her in an asylum because she couldn't hear or see. The only mark of insanity against Helen was that she was horribly misunderstood. Could this perhaps be the case with Sybil? Often times when we don't understand someone or something we quickly say that the person or the thing is "insane."

I found myself fighting for Sybil and her sanity right to the very end. She is a teenage girl presented with some very interesting problems. Maybe she didn't handle them with grace and dignity, but this certainly doesn't count her as insane. I found myself feeling that her placement in the asylum could have made her insane. The letter she found backs this idea up, "If you are not already mad, you will be; I suspect you were sent here to be made so; for the air is poison, the solitude is fatal, and Karnac remorseless in his mania for prying into the mysteries of human minds. What devil sent you I may never know, but I long to warn you." (Pg. 238)

On the flip side, Sybil very well may have been insane. Her relationship with her uncle and going back and forth about Guy doesn't quite make her exactly all there. I am very torn on whether or not to think she is insane. I hope someone choses to do her for their Facebook profile, i think it would be very interesting and intriguing to look at!

Uncle Tom's Cabin

"It was impossible to conceive of a human creature more wholly desolate and forlorn than Eliza when she turned her footsteps from Uncle Tom's cabin. Her husband's suffering and dangers, and the danger of her child, all blended in her mind, with a confused and stunning sense of the risk she was running, in leaving the only home she had ever known..." (pg. 243) This is not children's literature. This is not something any child should be reading. This does not give hope or provide a light at the end of the tunnel. This is sad, this is scary, this is reality. Things like this really happened. A child's innocence should not be corrupted with such things. This differs greatly from the themes of the other selections we've read. Gerty, Ellen, and even Capitola are fighting to be good little girls with pretty dresses that make good toast. Eliza is fighting for the life of her child, for the freedom of her child. There is nothing adolescent about this. It is a very adult concept. Slavery is not something that is happy reading. It is not something that is going to have a good prevail. It is putting human beings, like you and I into bondage and treating them like livestock. This selection varies so greatly from anything else, it is almost hard to compare. We think, "Oh poor Ellen... dead mom." Or "Poor Gerty, she's ugly." These people were reduced to nothing more than cattle, and beaten and sold like property. Humans were owning humans. I don't think this was written for children at all... this was written to expose slavery for the evil thing it really was. Society was in for a rude awakening.

Is it for the children, or about the children?

In our class discussions we have frequently touched upon the subject of the selections we are reading either being "literature FOR children" or "children IN literature." The Wide, Wide World and The Lamplighter were clearly in the FOR category rather than the IN. We see a pleasant story develop, nothing too frightening for a child to read. There is a good moral and the good wins. Nothing too awful happens and there is always a lesson. It sets an example of how children should behave and live. There is not too much emphasis placed on the setting or descriptions of things. Much of this is left up to the imagination of the reader. I think this is for the purpose of focusing on the plot line and the moral of the story.

Moving on to The Hidden Hand. This story pays very close attention to detail. Especially describing the setting. Multiple times throughout the story the setting is described in great detail. For example, on page 189... "You enter by the little wooden gate, pass up the moldering paved walk, between the old, leafless lilac bushes, and pass through the front door right into a large, clean but poor-looking sitting-room and kitchen." This is much more descriptive than what we have read in the past. This is leads me to believe that The Hidden Hand was more of the children IN literature. This story is way to descriptive for a young child. I even have trouble comprehending it at times. This definitely does not fall into the category of literature FOR children. At least not by my standards.

Balance?

The little girl in the video seems to have achieved more balance than I think I do in my own life. Balance is such an issue. The little girl seems to have it figured out pretty well. Gerty, Ellen, and I, well not so much. Ellen and Gerty both struggle with pleasing their parental figures and get greatly upset when they mess up or do wrong. I find myself in the same position often.

In the scene where Gerty and Miss Emily are chatting in the church, Gerty shows us how unbalanced she really is. She calls herself ugly and "not good." She struggles with the idea that she can even become good. She tries so hard to be good, but it often back fires. She is very hard on herself, also like Ellen. No child should ever have to wonder if they are loved. Gerty does. This is not balance. There should be a balance between love and discipline in a child's life. Gerty can't seem to find this. She struggles with doing good, and not having hatred in her heart.

I think that if Gerty appeared on the talk show we would see that she is very much so not balanced. As I stated above she has a huge inner struggle. I think Gerty would be most unpleasant on the show. She doesn't respect authority well, and doesn't handle things that she doesn't understand well at all. I'm anxious to learn how Gerty develops as her heart is starting to soften as her relationship with Miss Emily grows. She is starting to see that there is a lot more good in life than she thinks.