Groundhogs Day: Having Sex vs. Making Love

In class the point had come up that the reason Bill Murray's character (Phil) was only able to move on to the next day was because he slept with Andie MacDowell's character (Rita), and not because of all the good deeds that he had accomplished completely unselfishly. Although I am not sure if I can wholly agree with this statement, I thought it was definitely an interesting thought. So the question begged here is, why was Phil only able to move on after sleeping with Rita but not after sleeping with Nancy? This brings up the question of making love vs. having sex and whether that was the determining factor into Phil moving onto the next day.

The general consensus is that one, there IS a difference between the two, and two, that one is all about selfishness while the other is more about being unselfish. The thinking is that when you have sex with someone it is more of a recreational activity and less about showing the other person how you feel about them. Having sex can be done between any two people, without any level of caring (and sometimes consciousness) between them. Some people may even argue that two people who hate each other can have sex, but thats a whole other issue. While with having sex is all about pleasing yourself and not so much about the other person, making love is much more unselfish. It is about sharing yourself with another person, and making sure that THEY are comfortable and that THEY are having fun, (although you do hope that its a shared feeling).

So why was Phil able to move on after sleeping with Rita but not after sleeping with Nancy? I think that it was because with Nancy, they were having sex. Phil didn't really care for her and it was more about himself, he was still being selfish. Whereas with Rita, it would have been making love because he truly cared for her and it is seen more as an unselfish thing. So was the only way Phil got to move onto the next day by having a completely, 100% unselfish day? Would he have still moved on even if he hadn't slept with Rita?

The Ticket Minus The Sex

While reading this book I was disturbed by the very forward and descriptive nature of the book. But when trying to look past the repugnant sexual excursions I found that the book started to make more sense. So that begs the question, what is the point of these grotesque phonographic insertions? Seeing as they make up a large portion of the book, there is obviously a significant importance to them.

The Ticket That Exploded

When reading this I find myself in a fog of prose and fractured sentences. It is hard to determine any sensible story line, seeing as how the sentences themselves have no clear beginning or end. Though this phenomena seems to have great meaning, or at least it would if any sense could be made of it, the writers style in this way almost forbids the reader to make any sense of this giant metaphor of a book. The descriptions and metaphors of this book are hard to connect, and harder to understand. Many of the overly complex words used seem out of place and even inappropriate. The story that is in the least clear seems to be very out of body, or out of this world. Also it has a tendency to pervert the perverse. Sex in the book, which is minorly homosexual, is more of a punishment than anything else. In the prison of G.O.D., ironically standing for Garden of Delight, there is an air of constant perversion that are both awkward and seemingly unimportant. In this prison people are put into "happy cloaks" in which they are aroused in order to quickly produce sperm much like a farmer milks a cow. "Bradly was in a delirium where an sex thought immediately took three-dimensional form through a maze Turkish baths and sex cubicles fitted with hammocks and swings and mattresses vibrating to a shrill insect frequency that dance in nerves and teeth and bones" (p.23). The imagery of this sex prison paints a disturbing picture that is both surreal and too real at the same time. The constantly shifting comparison of sex to things like ghosts and other otherworldly phenomena is both hard to understand and unrealistic.

Invention of Morel part II

Morel, genius or mad scientist? To him he created a miracle for him and his friends, a way for them all to live forever with each other. But is that a blessing or a curse? The question of living forever is one that is constantly talked about. To live forever means to watch everyone you love and everyone you have ever loved die as you continue to live. But with Morels invention you relive each moment as if it was your first. For one week he recorded all of their actions, this was to be a week in paradise for all of them, one which they will continue to repeat forever. But was it really a week of paradise? For Faustine she is destined to continue to watch the same sunset not really showing any true emotion for the event, instead seeming to daydream, possibly wondering how her life got that way.

Casares seems to do nothing with his time, other than trying to find food in order to survive, except observe the lives of Faustine and the others. He watches them tediously repeat the same trite tasks over and over again. Yet in the end, he wants nothing more then to join them in their fate, in order to spend eternity with Faustine. Faustine was his reason to continue to survive on the island, and his reason to record his life so he can live with her in this fake reality. This brings up the idea of love at first sight. Can you really love someone that you have never really talked to, who you have only observed in almost a stalking-like manner? When he records himself he says that to the observer it would seem as if he was there when the others were and that to the observer it would seem as if him and Faustine were in love. Why would anyone put themselves through this continual state of illusion? Is it better to live forever in a lie but with the object of your infatuation or to go on with your life with the possibility of finding a new infatuation?

The Invention of Morel

Throughout the reading of this book my thought process was very scattered much like the Casares' writing.

My first thought when wondering what was happening to Casares was that he was delusional from the heat and lack of food, but as the story continues you begin to wonder if he is seeing ghosts or if he himself is in fact the one who is dead. As I continued to read I began to believe more and more that they were neither. One of my first hints was Morel talking about the short time that they have left.

“What a pity that we cannot come to an understanding! We have only a short time left-three days, and then it will all be over.”

At the time this does not seem a very substantial piece of information to the story but as the book goes on and weeks pass you see that the people are all still there and things are only becoming more clear. It is not until Casares notices that Morel and Faustine are having a very similar conversation to one that they previously have had that you know that they are something more than ghosts.

Pataphor

He leaned closer to her, her blood starting to boil as she smells his sweet scent, a candle is lit. The burning candle is placed on the window seal in celebration of the holiday.