Ramblings of a DVD

  Cohn is an outsider to the group for many reasons. First, he is the only Jewish person in the group. This is nothing new for Cohn. Being a Jew, he has felt like an outsider for most of his life. At Princeton he took up boxing to try and make himself less of an outsider. Now he is an outsider because he did not fight in the war. Everyone else in their group, even Brett, experienced the war. The war changed everyone. They saw and were part of horrible things, like any war. It is like they have all moved on and developed new and different thoughts and ideas. Being part of the war is a shared experience, a way to bond. They understand each other. Cohen has some innocence to him.   He is still stuck in the pre-war mentality where things are good and have a happy ending. He is not jaded by the horrors of the war. Everyone else is jaded. They saw that bad things could happen to good people and the war was not fair. They know there is not always a happy ending. Count Mippipopolo...

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) was first popularized in 1980, before that time there were several other names. In the time of Mrs. Dalloway, mid 1920s, what Septimus was suffering from was referred to as “Shell Shock.” Septimus feels survivors guilt, increased anxiety and depression. Just before the end of the war his best friend, Evans, was killed. Septimus was treated for a period of time by Dr. Holmes who did not think there was anything really wrong with him. Septimus was then referred to Sir William, who was a psychiatrist to the wealthy. According to Sir William, the answer to Septimus’ mental health issues was to send Septimus away to the country. Sir William did not listen or understand what Septimus was going through. Septimus was being taken away from his wife, his support system and that must have been very frightening for him. Septimus viewed his life as pain and sadly the only way out that he saw was suicide. In fact, in the quote below Septimus struggles with the...

The Mezzanine essentially takes place over one lunch break for the main character Howie, although there are flashbacks to many other points in his life. Unlike most books where a footnote is a short reference for a source or a short clarification of a topic, The Mezzanine footnotes are long rambling tangents that are arguably equally important or even more important than the formal text of the book. Especially in the footnotes, The Mezzanine puts a spotlight on the intricacies of our actions and certain common objects. I found the footnotes particularly interesting. “An unpretentious technical invention—the straw, the sugar packet, the windshield wiper—has been ornamented by a mute folklore of behavioral inventions, unregistered, unpatented, adopted and fine-tuned without comment or thought “ (Baker 95). This quote is a glimpse of a large part of The Mezzanine as a whole. The fixation on small parts of our life is almost a summary of what The Mezzanine means to me, with all of it...