My Teacher Niki

Meet my 14-month-old miniature pinscher Shinnik Charlotte Ninotchka Nahunte. Like all pets, she has a pet name. I call her Niki.

Niki is very territorial and fiercely loyal. She claims half of my bed and declares dominion over my tiny bedroom. She has since become the protector of my private space. When I get home from work, she's almost apoplectic with excitement, running around, hyperventilating.

Niki is pretty much a loner, even when she was with her pack of 8 dogs. I guess this is why she relates with me very well. Everytime i have the blues, I just look at her snuggly curled up on my bed next to me or at my feet, and I'm ok. She constantly reminds me that home is where your heart is, because even if she's been with me for less than a month, she sorts of knows and senses that she's home with me as I am with her.

Jacob Black: My Archetypal Knight in Shining Armour

"I couldn't imagine my life without Jacob now—I cringed away from the idea of even trying to imagine that. Somehow, he'd become essential to my survival. But to leave things the way they were… was that cruel, as Mike had accused?

I remembered wishing that Jacob were my brother. I realized now that all I really wanted was a claim on him. It didn't feel brotherly when he held me like this. It just felt nice—warm and comforting and familiar.Safe. Jacob was a safe harbor...

Would it be so wrong to try to make Jacob happy? Even if the love I felt for him was no more than a weak echo of what I was capable of, even if my heart was far away, wandering and grieving after my fickle Romeo, would it be so very wrong?

Jacob stopped the truck in front of my dark house, cutting the engine so it was suddenly silent. Like so many other times, he seemed to be in tune with my thoughts now. He threw his other arm around me, crushing me against his cheat, binding me to him. Again, this felt nice. Almost like being a whole person again." -Bella Swan, "New Moon"

Jacob Black. Not your average teen werewolf. He's gentle, nurturing, jolly (at least before he started morphing into a giant russet wolf), and, on top of it all, a true and mature lover. His love for Bella Swan is unselfish and liberating. He is very protective of her. He could "read" her, like he's her very own soulmate. I would have to say, I can't help becoming an official member of Team Jacob, as the New Moon plot thickens and I'm seeing this character as a "knight in shining armour."

I feel that his chivalry must be rewarded and his pure love requited and reciprocated. It seems quite unfair for Bella to feel so comfortable in Jacob's arms and dream of Edward every night. And yet, it seems understandable enough for her to pine for her first love. The Romeo-Juliet-Paris love triangle alluded to by Bella in her reflections over Edward's inconstancy and Jacob's comforting presence seems very appropriate. Indeed, Bella, like Juliet, may now give serious consideration to the possibility of making Jacob happy, and ultimately end her lonely days. Then again, her heart "thinks" otherwise and, in a bitter twist of fate, Jacob has now become as dangerous to Bella as Edward is.

The best that can be said of Jacob Black's presence in Bella's life is that Bella has a formidable protector and a selfless lover. I love the way he cares for Bella and respects her choices and feelings. His chivalry is almost palpable. At one point, while reading New Moon, I wished Edward wouldn't ever come back. I wished Bella would fall for Jacob. After all, it's not everyday that a small-town teenage girl meets a dashing, nurturing, and protective werewolf.

Psychoanalyzing Blake

Here are two very interesting guys: William Blake [1757 - 1827], English artist, mystic and poet; and Sigmund Freud [1856 - 1939], Austrian psychotherapist and "Father of Psychoanalysis."

Here's one popular approach to literary criticism, called the Psychoanalytic or Freudian Approach:"

"Psychoanalytic criticism originated in the work of Austrian psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud, who pioneered the technique of psychoanalysis. Freud developed a language that described, a model that explained, and a theory that encompassed human psychology. His theories are directly and indirectly concerned with the nature of the unconscious mind.

The psychoanalytic approach to literature not only rests on the theories of Freud; it may even be said to have begun with Freud, who wrote literary criticism as well as psychoanalytic theory. Probably because of Freud’s characterization of the artist’s mind as “one urged on by instincts that are too clamorous,” psychoanalytic criticism written before 1950 tended to psychoanalyze the individual author.

Literary works were read—sometimes unconvincingly—as fantasies that allowed authors to indulge repressed wishes, to protect themselves from deep-seated anxieties, or both. After 1950, psychoanalytic critics began to emphasize the ways in which authors create works that appeal to readers’ repressed wishes and fantasies. Not only is the diction examined for sexual imagery, but the whole work is seen through Freudian concepts: struggles of the superego, the Oedipus complex, with the repressed contents of consciousness, etc. The aim is illumination of psychic conflicts, not aesthetic ranking." (Adapted from The Bedford Glossary of Critical and Literary Terms by Ross Murfin and Supriya M. Ray. Copyright 1998 by Bedford Books.)

Now, here's one very intriguing poem by Blake:

The Sick Rose
by William Blake


O rose, thou art sick!
The invisible worm
That flies in the night,
In the howling storm,


Has found out thy bed
Of crimson joy,
And his dark secret love
Does thy life destroy.


Now may I ask, what is the above poem all about? What's with the "sick" rose? The "invisible" worm that "flies in the night"? What's with the "bed," "crimson joy," and "dark secret love"?

I'm pretty sure that if Mr. Freud were alive today, he'd have a really interesting "reading' of Blake's poem. I took this poem up with my English 106 (The Teaching of Literature) class and we ended up quoting Freud.

Let's hear your thoughts on this.

Of Vampires and Horcruxes: Quest for Immortality

Now here's one tough (and maybe even, crazy) question for the Twilight and Harry Potter series junkies: What do Bella Swan and Lord Voldemort (Tom Marvolo Riddle) have in common?

You might ask, "What would Meyer's clumsy, compassionate 18-year-old girl-next-door living in an obscure town called Forks share in common with Rowling's scheming, evil, criminally-insane dark wizard of the wizarding world?"

I have just started reading New Moon, the second book of Stephanie Meyer's Twilight saga, alternatingly with J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter Book 6: Harry Potter and the Half-blood Prince, which I decided to re-read in anticipation of the screening of its film adaptation week after next. Incidentally, I'm taking up Archetypal Criticism Approach with my Literary Criticism class. This critical approach "gets its impetus from psychologist Carl Jung, who postulated that humankind has a 'collective unconscious,' a kind of universal psyche, which is manifested in dreams and myths and which harbors themes and images that we all inherit. Literature, therefore, imitates not the world but rather the 'total dream of humankind."' (Walker, p. 17)

"Archetypes are the unknowable basic forms personified or concretized in recurring images, symbols, or patterns which may include motifs such as the quest or the heavenly ascent, recognizable character types such as the trickster or the hero, symbols such as the apple or snake, or images such as crucifixion (as in King Kong, or Bride of Frankenstein)--all laden with meaning already when employed in a particular work. " (Walker, 2002)

Archetypal critics search for archetypal patterns in literary works (e.g.,character types, story lines, settings, symbols). According to Jung, these patterns are embedded deep in the "collective unconscious" and involve "racial memories" of situations, events, relationships from time immemorial. (Murfin and Ray, p.23)

If this is starting to sound interesting to you, then you have chosen the right career path-- that of a future literature teacher. Knowledge and understanding of the critical approaches will also improve you as a reader. You will become a "critical" reader, not the passive swallow-everything-hook-line-and-sinker kind. Now, back to the question I posed earlier:

In the light of the Jungian or Archetypal Criticism, what's the common denominator between Bella Swan and Voldemort?

What archetypal patterns (in character types, story line, setting, etc.) can you spot and point out?

To those who have not experienced these phenomenal works of pop literature, you may cite at least two works of short fiction or two novels, at least, and share your analysis. But I strongly encourage you, soon-to-be teachers of literature, to expand your horizon and include in your reading repertoire books that define the generation that you'll be shaping.

Carpe diem!