Everything
seems to be funny when you’re extremely tired. Thus, as I sat down to watch The Girl From Paris, very sleep
deprived, I ended up finding humor in strange things. When Sandrine was stuck
in the awful and potentially very dangerous winter storm I started laughing
because it reminded me of some of my walks to class in this lovely city of
South Bend, Indiana. Although what we experience isn’t as bad as what we saw in
the movie, I still found it amusing. Sandrine says, “I shouldn’t have taken on
this farm. It’s too remote. All winter long, alone here. I’ll go insane.”[1]
Once again I was reminded of South Bend and the many people who refer to its
location as the “middle of nowhere” and those very cold mornings when I jokingly
ask myself, “Why did I choose to come here?”
On
a more serious note, I was also reminded of Emilie Carles’ description of
winter in rural France in A Life of Her
Own: “For some six months of the year, cold and snow paralyze everything:
snow isolates. It did isolate people. In those days there weren’t any snowplows
or cars, only horses and mules pulling sleighs, and all winter long, we were
cut off from the rest of the world.”[2]
Sandrine shares this sentiment of isolation. What I found interesting was that
Carles pointed out that the reason for the isolation was the lack of technology
of the time. The movie, however, takes place in a much more modern setting but
still shows the characters experiencing severe isolation. The resources
(snowplows) are available but they are not being utilized to their maximum
potential. This got me thinking on a deeper level about how advances in
technology are important, but it is also important that they be used in the most beneficial matter possible.
Nice! I enjoyed your humor! As a long-time resident of South Bend, I've come to embrace the winter isolation as a time of contemplation and thought. There is a special place in my heart for January 6, for example. I never experience the depth of what an "epiphany" might mean before living here in January--a period that is invariably characterized by deep snow, short days, and rare moments of human contact. Such conditions test our resilience, and can give rise to the deep thinking that is conducive to good writing and personal growth. I have often wondered how people in sunny climates get any writing done!
ReplyDeletep.s. Please be sure to fix the formatting of n.2 before final submission at the end of the semester.
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