As I grew up watching and reading J.K.Rowling´s saga Harry Potter, it is impossible for me to feel like a muggle all the time. During one escene from the fifth movie, professor Umbridge gives her students o magic potion which unveils the most deep feelings and thoughts of any person. This potion is veritaserum, for most of the muggles here we commonly know it as alcohol. I trully believe many of us ( including myself) have had more than one embarrasing moment which involved alcohol. We are more conscious than ever but those periods of time last just a bit and then we try to forget everything we did because we feel ashamed of what we have done or said. The same happens on the play A Streetcar Named Desire, the moments of anger and the moments of truth appear whem alcohol is present, not only with Stanley, who by nature is a very violent person, but also with Mike and Blanche. She carries a glass of alcohol everywhere, even to the bathroom, and I firmly believe is to form a bubble around and protect herself from the real world and live in her fantasy world of perfection. Alcohol brings to this novel the space to face reality and the truth of all the lies Blanche have said. During those moments we also face the truth of the outside. The real world and the problems around it seem more real than ever and we have two possibilities there, to face them or to completely avoid them and create a shield to protect ourselves from reality. Blanche in this case adopts the second option, se creates an imaginary world and tries to protect herself from the real world that carries the truth; she is too old to get married and too selfish the let other be happy ( Stanley and Stella). It´s time for you to make your own judgement and think about it. What happens to me when I´m under the influence of alcohol? or if you don´t drink you may ask yourself what are the things that make you vulnerable? In my case it´s not something but someone. Now it´s your turn.
Ps: Don´t accept any kind of drink from strangers, maybe you´ll end doing or saying something you will regret.
Este comentario ha sido eliminado por el autor.
ResponderEliminarAfter reading muggle and veritaserum I knew I would love your post...and I did!
ResponderEliminarI totally agree with the idea that alcohol makes us tell the thruth and most of the time show our darkest secrets. There are people that see alcohol as a "mask" that helps them to show who they really are, or just help them to face a reality that does not adjust to what they really want in life.
This is very depressing, because how can you trust or even love someone who does not show her real personality without using this "mask"?
I think we live in a world full o masks and disguises to make everyone feel accepted in a society that finds more important equality than difference and uniqueness. As it was represented on "The Lovesong of J.Alfred Prufrock", we use the mask and the disguise to feel accepted but at the same time, we internalize those elements so much that we lose our essence and true identity. It´s a shame, but we are used to find so many people like that, that when we find someone unique we appreciate so much that they become our friends. That´s the good thing about disguises, many of them are so fake we notice the difference.
ResponderEliminarAlthough I have not read Harry Potter, I have watched some movies and I clearly remember that moment of Snape and Harry. As far as I know (because I do not drink alcohol), drinking too much makes people either talk more than they should or behave in absurd ways, saying that they are not drunk when they actually are. As you said before, Stanley in A Streetcar Named Desire would be a good example of this situation. The scene in which he throws the radio out of window, Stella runs away from home and then he regretfully yells "Stella!" was a clear example of how people may behave when they are drunk. As you said, mostly men and Blanche tend to hide themselves behind alcohol not showing what they feel, think or want and instead, they wear masks.
ResponderEliminarWe can add to this comparison another story read by us. Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises. Jake, Robert, Mike, Bill and Brett knew how spoiled life was after war. All of them got severe consequences of it and they were marked by death and desperation, except Cohn. In order to escape from that reality, they used to live the "good life", drinking too much, eating expensive food and traveling to Pamplona to "have a good time". There is a scene that I remember from that book where Mike complained about Cohn's following around Brett even when he knew he was not wanted to be there. Jake, Brett and Bill tell Cohn to ignore him because he is drunk and Mike does not stop complaining about him until he left them to go to the bar:
"(...) Oh say something more. Say something funny. Can't you see we're all having a good time here?"
"Come off it, Michael, You're drunk", Brett said.
"I'm not drunk. I'm quite serious. Is Robert Cohn going to follow Brett around like a steer all the time?"
Although it seems Mike was not the vulnerable one in that story, he represents the drunk man who could not realize what he has done under the influence of alcohol.
Well, to finish this post, I will answer your final question. Since I do not drink because I do not like being unconscious or dizzy, the things that make me vulnerable are related to the situations that I cannot control or that overcomes my abilities, like having the feeling that nobody cares about you or failing something I struggled to accomplish.
First of all, I consider myself a big fan of the Harry Potter saga, though I have only read one book (shame on me), I have watched every single movie more than 5 times each, mainly because they are in every single tv channel. Despite of that, I had never made the connection of alcohol as being a type truth revealing potion, even though it is for most of the characters of the books we have read.
ResponderEliminarWhen it comes to modernists and alcohol, the first thing that comes to my mind is "The Sun also Rises". I'm pretty sure I got liver damage just by reading the novel. It is impressive how much these characters drink and how alcohol in this novel works as a harry-potter potion when we realize that the only moment when the characters are being honest is when they are under the influence of alcohol(which is pretty much throughout the whole book).
The connection between alcohol and modernism is a bit of a paradox, as some use it as a mask; sort of as a way of hiding their true selves and, some others use it as a way of letting their true selves see the light.
I agreed when you said that sometimes we regret some thing, and I personally believe it is because of that, that alcohol its not more than a mask. It is liquid courage, but fake courage. It is also a type of disguise, but a very poor one that only works for yourself. Only you feel disguised, but the rest of the non-drunk people can still tell that it is yourself that is hiding there and that you are broken hearted and bitter.
Alcohol can be compared as when babies cover their eyes with their hands and feel that they cannot be seen as if they were somehow hidden; however, in reality the only one that cannot see at all, is the baby. By blinding ourselves drunk from reality and pretending that we are completely hidden, we are being as silly as this baby. But way, way less cuter.