Humor 101: Self-Deprecation

After reading the next three chapters of Tina Fey's memoir, I can proudly state that I've learned one of the many components on how to successfully emit humor through writing. The bantering tone, the visual references, the personal experiences - they all add up to form a specific tool. It took a great amount of laughing and highlighting on my iPad to understand what is it that makes it so funny. Tina Fey is very skilled when it comes to humor, and the first thing I noticed that she employed in her writing was self-deprecating humor.

There is no better way to make people laugh than by embarrassing yourself. It has happened to me (multiple times) and it definitely works. For example, look at how Fey makes fun of herself in the following passage: "I had grown up as the 'whitest' girl in a very Greek neighborhood, but in the eyes of my new classmates, I was Frida Kahlo in leggings" (Page 39). She just says what many people were thinking at the moment, but wouldn't say out loud. I completely relate to that, especially with a particular characteristic of mine: my height. I learned how to use bizarre (or in other words "unique") features about me in order to be humorous, and I decided to employ those skills into my Common App essay. I completely used self- deprecation to write that essay, making fun of my height but at the same time making it funny for the reader and at the same time showing emotional growth and maturity. At least the people who are revising it have laughed and it's proving itself to be successful. 

Wistfully: (adj.) Pensively sad;
melancholy

In terms of content, Fey narrated events that occurred throughout her college years. She included her relationship with her dad, the abundance of homosexual friends that surrounded her and whom she adored, and the way she was in love with "white boys" and how none showed interest in her, such as "Thomas Jefferson - another gorgeous white boy who would not have been interested in [her]" (Page 40). 

I want to continue reading and find another humorous lesson. There are still plenty of techniques that Fey implements in her writing, and I want to be able to learn every single one of them in order to begin incorporating them into my own pieces. 

I Had a Conversation with Tina Fey

I am so excited to have chosen Tina Fey's Bossypants as my new independent reading memoir. After reading the first four chapters, all I have felt is as if I've held a conversation with her. To me, she's one of the funniest women ever, and it's with her memoir that I've been laughing out loud (literally). Feels very weird because I never really get physically influenced by anything I read. My facial expressions are almost never affected by books, however I frequently catch myself giggling or smiling whenever I read this one.

Why did I chose Bossypants? It basically was a moment of enlightenment. I am not, and never have been, a crazy Tina Fey fan. I knew who she was and seen her at times on TV. However, last week I was watching the Emmy's and saw her. Then almost instantly, I remembered that about two years ago one of my good friends told me she had read Bossypants and that she enjoyed it a lot. That's when I realized that it was the perfect memoir for me to read in AP Lang. Besides, I want to learn more about her life and also about how she can be humorous through writing (which is something I have always wanted to be successful at). 

So within the first two paragraph into the memoir, I'm already laughing. She starts by congratulating us (the audience) for reading her book and says there are many reasons to why we have it in our hands. She includes the following hypothetical situations to why we are reading Bossypants: 
1) We could be a woman searching for tips on how to succeed at a male-dominant workplace.
2) We might be a parent that wants to learn how to raise an "achievement-oriented, drug free, adult virgin" (Page 5).
3) Maybe we found her book seventy years into the future at an abandoned Starbucks.
4) Maybe we love Sarah Palin and we want to find more reasons to hate Tina Fey.
and finally 5) We just want to laugh and be entertained (which is exactly what applies for me). 

Baffled: (verb) To be completely
bewildered or perplexed. 

She has succeeded in making me laugh, especially when she begins to talk about how girls are expected to be perfect and work to achieve "hotness". She begins to criticize all of the requisites that would shape the perfect girl and how the only person who actually meets the criteria is Kim Kardashian, who according to Fey, "was made by Russian scientists to sabotage our athletes" (Page 20). It's not the only reference to celebrities that she makes, and that's something that also cracks me up. The way she criticizes shows and famous people is hilarious. For example, she asks the hypothetical reader that were to find her book at the abandoned Starbucks if "Glee is still a thing". Or when she starts to explain why she named her book "Bossypants", she said that one of the reasons was because the name "Two and a Half Men" already existed. 

But above all, what I'm loving about this memoir is how I can relate to Tina Fey. When she talks about insecurities, I identify. When she narrates parts of her adolescence, I understand her because I've lived similar experiences. Even her opinions about some celebrities matches what I think. Those are the things that make me want to keep reading and learning from her. WIth random and bizarre quotes, such as the following, she manages to create a burlesque and candid tone: "I wouldn't even trade the acne scar on my right cheek, because the recurring zit spent more time with me in college than any boy ever did" (Page 21). 

I just want to keep reading and maybe find out what was it that allowed her to become such a successful person in Hollywood, both in acting and screenwriting.  

Two Thoughts, One Entry

There's two reasons to why I am writing this blog post. The first one is because I finished Douglass's Narrative. The second, because I have to disagree to somethings I saw around the AP Lang Blogger world. 

So I'll begin with my thoughts on the ending. As I virtually "turned" the last page of the narrative, I felt SO many different things. Fist of all, kudos to Douglass for his success in escaping the slave world. I feel that he very much deserved the freeman life considering the fact that he really fought for his freedom throughout his slave life.

Secondly, kudos to Douglass for getting married. It made me so much happier to know that not only was he free now, but that he also found love. The marriage ceremony was a cute part, very quick and simple but still cute. 

Thirdly, I felt disappointed that he didn't share the exact details on how he attained liberty. I know, he couldn't just give out the secret recipe for all the freedom-hungry slaves, but I definitely wanted to visualize what exactly was it that made him get there at that last moment. It's something about me that's very annoying: I always want to know every detail about everything. However, I have to respect Douglass decision of keeping it a secret. Just a personal conflict of mine towards the end of the memoir. 

FInally, I felt proud. Throughout the whole book, Douglass implements a lot of pathos, which just makes me have sympathy for him and connect to his ideas. So it's like I met Douglass back when he began narrating his story and I could see and visually experience his change, progress, and triumph. For example, I felt so proud of him when he said, "I found employment, the third day after my arrival, in stowing a sloop with a load of oil" (Page 105).
And then at the end, I thought it was very convenient that he joined the anti-slavery meetings and that he read the "Liberator" simply because he had an advantage over all of the white men: slavery had been something tangible to him. Of course he "never felt happier than when in an anti-slavery meeting" (Page 106). Those simply set his soul on fire.

I want to compare Douglass's new experience of being free to Dorothy's landing at Munchkin Land. Too exaggerated, I know, but the point is that Douglass felt in a completely new world just like Dorothy did. For example in this quote he notices a difference between his old home and his new one: "The people looked more able, stronger, healthier, and happier than those of Maryland" (Page 104).

Now, regarding something I mentioned in my last blog post, I said I was finally happy and relieved that Douglass had been moved to live with Mr. Covey for a year. After reading chapter 10, I definitely changed my mind because Douglass shows us that Covey was the worst master he ever had: "Mr. Covey succeeded in breaking me. I was broken in body, soul, and spirit...my intellect languished, the disposition to read departed, the cheerful spark that lingered about my eye died...behold a man transformed into a brute!" (Page 67). My actual relief began after Master Hughes kept Douglass for himself. Master Douglass was a very nice person and he definitely contributed towards Douglass's path towards freedom. 

For the second part of this post, I will now begin to contradict one of my classmates. 

A while ago, I saw Cristina Soto's latest post and I didn't quite agree with the point she made. She said that Douglass began to show a more egocentric side of him that he hadn't shown before. I don't think it makes him egocentric to say that "[he] had know what it was to be kindly treated; they had known nothing of the kind" (Page 55). I think he didn't say that to proof that he is "on top of the world" or to show off, he simply has had much more experience with different masters at different plantations and he had some who treated him nicely (Ms. Auld for example, who taught him how to read). So it does make sense to say that he had known what it felt like to be treated nicely because he'd experienced it and maybe the other slaves had been treated inhumanely throughout their lives and haven't experienced what Douglass did. 

Cristina mentions that "[she] doesn't believe this makes it okay for Douglass to feel powerful over the others". As a matter of fact, I do believe Douglass had a higher advantage than all the other slaves - I mean he could read and stuff - but it's not that he's better than the rest. He just had more experience and skill, therefore he can have the liberty to believe that he's had better experiences than the rest. 

Messrs: (plural noun) dated or chiefly Brit.
used as a title to refer formally to
more than one man simultaneously,
or in names of companies.

And now to finalize, some vocab words:

Opossum: (noun) an American
marsupial that has a ratlike prehensile
tail and hind feet with an opposable thumb.

Pomp: (noun) ostentatious boastfulness or vanity.

The Frederick Douglass Roller Coaster

After reading chapters seven through nine, I realized I felt multiple different emotions. Those chapters were a complete roller coaster not only for me as a reader, but for Frederick Douglass himself. He lived through high points and low points, and as I wanted the good parts to continue, suddenly something rough occurred. 

Chapter seven begins with a negative note that was left off at the previous chapter: Douglass's mistress stopped teaching him how to read. That did made me feel bad for Douglass, since he lost that privilege. However, the narration makes a positive turn when he begins to learn on his own. He had enough devotion and dedication to initiate such a thing and that's why my hope and optimism was restored. He was very astute to have become "friends of all the little white boys whom... [he] converted into teachers" (Page 49). The way it worked was that he would bring them bread and in return they would "give [him] that more valuable bread of knowledge" (Page 49). 

Writhe: (verb) Make continual
twisting, squirming movements
or contortions of the body.

I was happy with how everything was going until I got to this very negative part: Douglass realizes how brutal and horrid slavery really was and how he wants to unlearn everything he already had. At the end of chapter seven he said, "As I writhed under it, I would at times feel that learning to read had been a curse rather than a blessing...It opened my eyes to the horrible pit, but no ladder upon which to get out...I envied my fellow-slaves for their stupidity" (Page 51). In order for someone to envy slaves for "their stupidity", there must be something going on. For Frederick Douglass to finally understand how atrocious slavery was must have been such a big shock in his life. It's something that we can't truly understand because we have been raised at a different time period and with a certain perspective that has been cultivated in us since we were young. It's not that it's "normal" to us,  but it definitely isn't such a traumatizing news for us as it was for him. This discovery was incredibly nauseating and dreadful to Douglass, and it made me feel at a low curve. 

Then in chapter eight, Douglass talks about his grandmother - and certainly gives pathos a good use. That made me feel bad for him because he showed and convinced me that his grandmother, a caring woman, was born a slave and had to remain living in misery forever. He mentioned that "She was...a slave for life...in the hands of strangers; and in their hands she saw her children, her grandchildren, and her great-grandchildren, divided, like so many sheep, without being gratified with the small privilege of a single word, as to their or her own destiny" (Page 56). It's mournful to hear about someone with good intentions who is subdued to such a depressive life. 

Wharf: (noun) A level quayside area to which a ship
may be moored to load or unload.

For the rest of chapters eight and nine I felt like I was falling even more in the emotional roller coaster, but at the very end I finally reached an uplifting moment. After Douglass mentioned his grandmother and used pathos a lot to mention several dark things about slavery, he begins to depict his transition from the lightweight slavery life that he was living in Baltimore towards the heavyweight slavery life he had now been condemned to. He was sent to live with Thomas Auld, who was an "adopted slaveholder". According to Douglass, "he was cruel but cowardly" (Page 60) and he "gave [them] enough of neither coarse or fine food" (Page 59). Those things were hard on him since he had been living for seven years in Baltimore, where he was given decent food and his master wasn't as cruel as the new one. 

Pious: (adj.) Devoutly religious.

To finalize this long post, I have to mention the last part of my reading that felt uplifting to me. It was like I finally had the chance to breathe. At the end of chapter nine, Douglass is sent to Edward Covey's place for one year. This is what made me feel like the roller coaster began to lift up. He described him like this: "Added to the natural good qualities of Mr. Covey, he was a professor of religion - a pious soul - a member and a class-leader in the Methodist Church" (Page 63). I knew that his new master was a good man, and what really confirmed it, was at the end when Douglass said: "I was for sure getting enough to eat, which is not the smallest consideration to a hungry man" (Page 63). 

This was the wobbly emotional roller coaster that I experienced while reading chapters 7-9. 

New World, New Motivation

For the next two chapters of The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave, I found it very interesting how Douglass shows the way he has evolved as a person. When he was living in the South in Colonel Lloyd's plantation, he lived and witnessed the most tremendous events one can see. In chapters one through four, it's evidenced that he had to see terrible whippings and deaths, not to mention he himself lived in miserable conditions, "In hottest summer and coldest winter, I was kept almost naked..." (Douglass, p. 39). However, later on chapter 5, Douglass narrates how his early years of misery working as a slave under Colonel Lloyd's watch came to an end and a new phase in his life emerged. That's when he discovered a new world.

When I talk about the new world, what  I really mean is a place where there are no plantations, slaves are not publicly whipped or killed, and where slaves's jobs range from cooking to baby sitting. In other words, the North. Douglass was taken to Baltimore to live with Hugh Auld and as he said, "...[he] left it with joy." (Douglass, p. 40). From that moment of knowing he was leaving his old plantation, his motivation began: "...the people in Baltimore were very cleanly...she was going to give me a pair of trousers...the thought of owning a pair of trousers was great indeed!" (Douglass, p. 40). 

When he got to Baltimore, to him, everything was amazing. He only saw one bad thing and it was the cruel lashings that the neighbor slaves (Mary and Henrietta) went through. Other than that, he loved his new home: "A city slave is almost a freeman...he is much better fed and clothed, and enjoys privileges altogether unknown to the slave on the plantation" (Douglass, p. 46). It was in Baltimore where the spark of his desire and motivation to learn how to be literate began. Mrs. Auld, his mistress, taught him the ABC's and very basic spelling lessons. Later, Mr. Auld prohibited her to keep teaching him, since "Learning would spoil the best n----r in the world" and "He would at once become unmanageable, and of no value to his master" (Douglass, p. 45). But those words were exactly the main motivation for Douglass to learn more. His goal was set and nothing would bring him down: "Whilst I was saddened by the thought of losing the aid of my kind mistress, I was gladdened by the invaluable instruction which...I had gained from my master. Though conscious of the difficulty of learning without a teacher, I set out with high hope, and a fixed purpose, at whatever cost of trouble, to learn to read" (Douglass, p. 45). 

I'm just curious and interested to know in what sorts of trouble Douglass will get in order to achieve what he wants. 

Now to finish, I'll take a moment to add some vocabulary words that were new to me. 

Galling: (adj.) Annoying, humiliating 

 
  

Blight: (noun) An ugly, neglected, or rundown condition

Mangle: (verb) Severely mutilate. disfigure, or damage by cutting, tearing, or crushing.

Emaciated: (adj.) Abnormally thing or weak especially because of illness or lack of food.

Freedom is the Answer

"You can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink." This is precisely why school shouldn’t be mandatory. High school teachers themselves can assure that students, who are forced to go to school and have no interest, can’t learn anything of value. They won’t quit only because they don’t have the option. Schools are a serious place to learn. If students that are not interested in learning stay away, they won’t pollute the learning environment of interested students. Other benefits would include: report cards showing the real results of each and everyone’s learning, the schools’ public esteem would grow, and there wouldn’t be a cost to enforce people to study. In conclusion forced learners aren’t truly learners at all and are only tainting schools for everyone else.