Hypnopaedia - Move Your Body

The Italian eurodance pop group, Eiffel 65, is more widely known in Europe rather than the United States; however, several of their songs were popular in the States during the late 1990s. Their upbeat techno music along with strange lyrics still plays in nightclubs today. The song “Move Your Body” is one of the groups’ most repetitive songs which have several monotonous sayings such as “move your body,” and “move your mind.” Even though the beat and lyrics sound hip, the middle part of the song presents the listener with a double-entendre stanza.

You want to move the world,Start with your body.

Yo, come on you gotta start with something.

If you wanna move your mind,Just move your body.

Move your mind, move your mind,

It's gonna cost you nothing.

You want to move someone,Start with your body.

Yo come on and try to move somebody.

If you wanna move alone,

Then everybody will move along with you.

Although the song encourages people to dance to the beat and enjoy the tempo, it also promotes people to become more outgoing. The words motivate people to realize nothing will change if you don’t become active and voice your own opinions. Eiffel 65 may have been pop techno group, yet their underlining message in this song can be clearly seen for people to think outside the box and not believe everything someone tells you.

Cass Mastern Dramatic Monologue

Do not be afraid of death
For it is our salvation.
To sleep in peace without a care
Allows us to finally be free
Of everything in our life around here.
Even when we sleep
Our minds wander on,
Keeping records of our actions and deeds,
No matter the time or moment when an event occurs
The mind never forgets
It only regrets,
Those memories are kept inside
Following you around until you lie in the ground.

Not all memories are bad
The mind helps to remember love, happiness and joy
Especially the times I spent with Annabelle
Sneaking to the summerhouse to find a wet kiss
Oh! How soft and gentle were those delicate lips.
Following the sweet flowery scent
We both could not resist,
Making love to my best friend’s wife at three
I never felt remorseful for the acts we preformed,
Until the nineteenth of March changed everything,
When my dear friend Duncan was shot by his own hand
How wrong I was to predict ahead.
Somehow I believed Annabelle would marry me
Instead she gave me Duncan’s wedding ring
A mortal chill crept upon me.

Soon after I left Lexington
When I returned home my slaves went free
Then I enlisted in the Confederacy.
Not as a commander in charge of men
A private I was until the end.
I never once fired a shot
I already killed one man and there was no need for more bloodshed.
From battles nearby and to the land of Tennessee
No bullet ever found me,
Until one day in Atlanta luck was upon me

And I got shot in the knee.

As the infectious wound grows
I don’t know what to do
Except to rejoice in the news.
Because I have lived to do no man good
I do not hope to be redeemed,
My only wish is for others to learn from my misery.

Allusion Paragraph

In All the King’s Men, Warren continually alludes to two Greek mythological characters: Cassandra, the fortune teller and Telemachus, Odysseus’ son, in order to emphasize the relationship of Cass Mastern and Jack Burden. After being cursed by the sun god Apollo, Cassandra was able to foretell the future, yet nobody believed her. The journal of Cass Mastern foretold warnings to Jack about the corruption of man, “For all men come naked into the world, and in prosperity man is prone to evil as the sparks fly upward.” At first Jack is unable to comprehend neither Cass’s motivations nor dark outlook toward man until eventually he learns through his own mistakes. Another reason Warren alludes to Greek mythology is to compare the relationship of Judge Irwin and Jack to Odysseus and Telemachus. According to myths, Telemachus was left in charge of Ithaca until his father Odysseus came home from war. However, when Odysseus returns home Telemachus is unable to recognize his father because he is in disguise. Eventually the truth is revealed and father and son are united once again. Similar to the Judge’s relationship with Jack, both sons are unable to find an identity for themselves because of the lack of a father figure in their lives.

Found Poem

The cold cathartic rain
Can not dampen my parade,
I shall finish my deed
Before the night ends,
And let the slick, sticky grass grow
On top of the newly dug hole.
What was once a pretty face
Now shines bright,
A face as smooth as marble in the moonlight
Sheathing him like a mummy
I quickly bury my prize.
Gathering my shovel and little tools,
I walk towards my cabin in the woods.
Thinking nothing of this heinous crime
I sit down and watch the sun rise.

Conflict: Mary v. Tyrone

In O’Neill’s play “Long Day’s Journey into Night” he focuses on a variety of different themes; however, the most prevalent theme in the work is the internal conflicts facing each member of the Tyrone family. Although the play allows each character’s conflict to be seen, O’Neill mainly centers the play upon the conflict between Mary and Tyrone, husband versus wife.

In the beginning of the play, the reader is deceived to believe the Tyrone’s are a unified family who enjoy eating meals together along with caring about each other’s problems. As the play begins to progresses, O’Neill brings to light how dysfunctional the family truly is. After eating breakfast the family gathered in the living room and while in there the topic of discussion arose concerning Edmund’s health. When speaking of how to care for Edmund’s illness, the issue of James Tyrone cheap money ways came into play and opened up the fight which would continue on into the night. Although Tyrone was a successful actor in his earlier years, he never lived an extravagant lifestyle. Because of his Irish immigrant heritage, he believed in earning money through hard work, yet never spending it. Throughout the play, O’Neill emphasizes this by giving examples of Tyrone watering down whiskey, paying for cheap labor around the house, and only owning a summer home. Tyrone says he will offer the best sanatorium for Edmund in order for him to become well again yet he also contradicts himself by saying, “You can choose any place you like! Never mind what it costs! Any place I can afford. Any place you like – within reason.” (151). Although Tyrone wants to help his family, he will never pay the necessary amount of money in order to cure their addictions and illnesses.

Due to Tyrone’s economical lifestyle, he places money over Mary’s health. As the day continues on, Mary becomes more distraught over the family’s arguments and seeks shelter in her room. While hidden away from the family she relapses into her drug addiction. While Mary begins to take morphine pills, she soon becomes forgetful of her present surroundings and becomes entrapped in the past. Throughout the day, the reader is able to grasp a better understanding of the past lifestyle of Mary and Tyrone along with understanding how she became addicted to morphine. The constant battle between Mary and Tyrone erupt when Mary accuses him of hiring a cheap doctor to cure her pain from childbearing, so that she could continue to travel with Tyrone while on tour. “I was so sick afterwards, and that ignorant quack of a cheap hotel doctor – All he knew was I was in pain. It was easy for him to stop the pain” (90). Tyrone refuses to believe he contributed to Mary’s addiction, he allows her to continue on her destructive path because he doe not want to confront the issue. Since her husband is unable to offer support, Mary slowly becomes entrapped in the past and ends up as a ghost of her former self.

The conflict between Mary and Tyrone demonstrate a situation where living in the past and being blind sighted to a family member’s needs, only leads towards a more destructive future. From the play, the reader is able to comprehend how important it is to confront someone in their time of need and helping to fix the problem rather than to ignore the situation, hoping sooner or later it will go away.

Eugene O'Neill

Throughout the play “A Long Day’s Journey into Night” O’Neill instills autobiographical elements into each member of the Tyrone family in order to reflect upon his family’s own personal conflicts. Along with incorporating past emotions and situations into the play, the Tyrone family is based upon his own dysfunctional family.

The father of the Tyrone family is James, a sixty-five year old retired actor who is unable to acknowledge his past mistakes which helped cause the family to become disunited. The character James is largely based off O’Neill’s own father, James O’Neill, a once famous touring actor for playing the role of the Count of Monte Cristo in the early 19th century (O’Neill, Gale). Both James created an unstable environment for their families by continually traveling on the road and pursuing their acting careers instead of taking on the role of being a responsible parent. Guided by their own ambitions, James Tyrone and James O’Neill were unable to foreshadow the devastating effects of traveling with a family until everything unfolded later.

In the play Mary Tyrone is based upon O’Neill’s real mother, Ella (O’Neill, Gale). Marrying an actor at a young age and traveling across the country over the years has led Mary to become addicted to morphine. Even though her husband is a well paid actor his cheap money skills prevents her from acquiring the proper medicines necessary for recovery after giving birth. Since Mary is unable to find stability in her marriage with James she longs for a permanent home where she would be able to live a normal life and raise a family; however, James refuses to settle down. Mary is then forced to live in a summer cottage for about three months before going back on the road again. Since the house is cheap and only temporarily lived in, Mary despises coming back every summer. “Oh, I’m so sick and tired of pretending this is a home! You never wanted one – never since the day we were married!” (LDJIN, 69) Because Mary is unable to cope with pain after giving birth nor settling down in a respectable home, she searches for a way out of her misery by using morphine. As she becomes more disillusioned and addicted to the drug, the Tyrone men refuses to accept their part in allowing Mary to become ill.

Like Jamie in the play, O’Neill had an older brother names James, Jr. (O’Neill, Gale). The character in the play was modeled after the real life person. Jaime in the play is an alcoholic who has wasted his life away drinking, gambling and going in and out of brothels. Having never followed his father’s footsteps in the acting business, Jaime has no gumption to search for another career; instead, he lives off his parents. Although in the play Jaime does not die, in real life, O’Neill’s brother dies of alcoholism in middle age. Along with being drunkard, Jaime blames Edmund for starting Mary’s morphine addiction since he wasn’t supposed to be born. “And it was your bring born that started Mama on dope. I know that’s not your fault, but all the same, God damn you” (LDJIN, 169).

Having dealt with a family like the Tyrone’s, O’Neill turned to writing as his source of therapy. After going to a sanatorium for tuberculosis along with combating his own drinking problems, O’Neill expressed himself in the play as Edmund. Like Edmund, the two of them are the only ones of their families who turn to the poetic side of life along with realizing the tragedy of their families.

What O’Neill depicts in Journey is a disillusioned family who is unable to cope with their past mistakes in order to mend their present situations. Instead, the Tyrone’s are an example of the author’s own personal issues along with the American family tragedy which will continue on for centuries.

Sources
"Eugene O'Neill." American Decades. Gale Research, 1998. Reproduced in Biography Resource Center. Farmington Hills, Mich.: Gale, 2008. http://galenet.galegroup.com/servlet/BioRC

O'Neill, Eugene. “A Long Day's Journey into Night”. Yale UP, 1989.

Rocky Path

The slow steady stream

Glistens in the light

While the rocks give off a dull sight,

As the water flows on

Whether large or small,

Whether big or tall,

Nothing is left unscathed

Some rocks may move

Some rocks may be thrown

Leaving their friends all alone,

Over the years the stream will change

Yet no matter the weather

Only some rocks will stay the same,

Sitting in place while their friends washed away

And until the end of time

That is where they will stay.