Lit Analysis 3: The Scarlet Letter

1. The Scarlet Letter takes place in puritan New England and is the story of Hester Prynne and how she committed adultery in  a time where this was an unheard of sin. She was condemned to wear a scarlet A forever. At first people shunned and ostracized her, but she never stopped giving to the community and being an all around altruistic person. Soon people saw her for the good person she was on the inside instead of the cheating harlot that she was previously seen as.
2. The theme of this novel is to withhold judgement on someone based from what you've heard, until you finally know what kind of person they are. Redemption is also a key theme in this story.
3. The tone is quite bitter and not very happy.

Term Presentation

Definition: Evoking strong emotions, painfully affecting the feelings.

When I was a child, Titanic was the first poignant film I watched. This song still brings back strong, melancholy feelings.

Thinking Outside the Box

Both Plato's "Allegory of the Cave" and Satre's "No Exit" display the limitations of the human mind and our thinking, and how we often do not want to step outside our private comfort zones to achieve new ways of thinking. With the cave, the prisoners were isolated because of their chains and when one was able to free himself and see the world outside, the others refused to believe him. Comfortable with their ignorant bliss, they chose to keep their chains rather than face the unknown. The characters in "No Exit" were isolated as well and had only what each other and those surrounding them knew as knowledge. If we are ever to evolve oour thinking any higher we must listen to others besides those right next to us and not be afraid to break our chains and think of something differently even if it is uncomfortable.

Big Question

What constitutes the world of dreams and how does that influence our view of reality?

What I've Learned Thus Far...

One thing that I have taken away from this class so far this year is a sense of reality. This is my life and I'm almost ready to go out in the world and face it. This class has opened my eyes to this fact more than anything else so far and has lit  fire under me to get going on the things that I want and need to do with my life. This video ties to this because this is the project that I've been working on this year which really is following a dream I've had since I was in seventh grade. I have gotten the final push towards inspiration in getting what I want to do in my life going.

Lit Analysis 2

1. The Invisible Man starts with the narrator letting us know that he is telling us about his life while writing underground. He's a black man that dubs himself "the invisible man". The story is told through flashbacks in his life. Hewas an orator who was chosen to present a speech in exchange for a scholarship to a college. He recieves the scholarship and goes off to college where he is the driver for the school's trustee, Mr. Norton. Mr. Norton is drinking and passes out from this. Dr. Bledose, the dean, hears of this and instantly blames the invisible man and expels him promptly. He then heads to New York City in search of work. He finds a menial job and starts working, but is knocked unconscious while at work. He awakes to a member of a brotherhood who heard his speech, and asks him to join the brotherhood. He agrees. The narrator works with the brotherhood for several months before a magazine interviews him. The brotherhood is angered and blames him for using the brotherhood for his own private gain and forces him to work in Harlem for women's rights. Awhile later a riot breaks out and the invisible man's friend is shot dead. The invisible man then conducts a march in Harlem to protest his friend's untimely demise. But when he returns to the brotherhood, they are enraged that he tied his dead friend with the brotherood, because they say he is a traitor. The invisible man flees the brotherhood and travels to Harlem to protest. A larger riot breaks out and the invisible man falls down a man hole where he is to this day. He  concludes the story by reminscing on his past choices and his time spent with the brotherhood.
2. The outstanding theme present is to remain who you are in the face of adversity. 
3. The tone present is a nonchalant, uncaring tone about the events that unfolded. 

Notes On Hamlet.

My thoughts on this play have changed significantly from the start of my reading. I came into this with dread, thinking that here's another damn Shakespeare play full of language I won't understand and a flat story with little to no action or drama. I was vastly mistaken. I have now found myself heavily immersed in this drama, growing emotionally attached to the characters, especially through my pity for Hamlet and hatred for his harlotous mother and devious uncle. I'm not sure exactly where I see this play heading, but I think it will end in tragedy and I don't think that Hamlet or his mother and uncle will make it out of this play alive. I am curious to find out if I'm right.

In Search Of

2. This makes me wonder what information is being left out from my sight.
I redid my search on Shakespeare by typing in several phrases into multiple search engines this time, instead of typing in "Who was Shakespeare?" onto one single search engine. This gave me a wider view into a plethora of information previously unseen by me. I have now learned not to stop and simply rely on one search engine or even just one phrase while researching something on the internet. I've also learned that the internet is far from the most reliable source out there for any information.

To Facebook or Not to Facebook

I've had a facebook for a few years now and I thought of it intially as an innocuous tool to keep in contact with the people I love and to stay current with musical artists that I love. I've learned to be more cautious from these conversations and articles about anything that I post. The advantages of having one is I am able to easily to keep in touch with those that I love very easily and can keep up to date on music and lots of other things that I love but the disadvantges are that people out there probably now know more about me than they probably should.

Literature Analysis: Brave New World

1. The story opens up in the Central London Hatchery and Conditioning Centre where people are grown from embryos and trained and indoctrinated to fit into a controlled and scary world. Their social caste is already chosen for them before they are created, ranging from the Alphas(government leaders) to the Epsilons(low-intelligence physical laborers).The story follows Bernard Marx and Lenina through this Utopian world. You see how the people are "sleep trained" from childhood to conform to the wishes of their leaders and to participate in the use of soma, a drug, and have random origies that distract them from their menial existences. These two take a trip to the Savage Reservation and discover a man named John who is the illigetimate son of the director of the hatchery and a woman who disappeared 25 years ago. They return to London with Marx and Lenina and the director is laughed out of office. John is a rebel towards the way of life and refuses to attend assemblies and denies Lenina's sexual advances. Lenina is too far absorbed in the way of life. John's mother starts to die and he overhears several epsilons talking bad about her and he gets violent with them and his mother ends up dying. Then he is arrested for trying to destroy a large amount of soma. Finally John flees society attempting to become independent when a photographer makes a film about him which becomes very popular. John is now a celebrity. He ends up hanging himself.

2. Two of the themes present in this novel are the incompatibility of happiness and truth, and the fear of an all powerful government. Throughout the story, the characters are split either lost in their own false realities due to soma and origies on their pursuits of happiness and ignorance to the truth. Or like John, defiant of these substances on the desperate search for truth. The author proves that no one can achieve both of these goals completely and simultaneously. The novel also radiates why an all powerful government is a terrifying thing. How these embryos entire lives are thought out for them before birth is scary, and the loss of free will is a dangerous and haunting thing to think of.

3. Aldous Huxley's tone is definitely one of drama and parody. "Twenty-two years, eight months, and four days from that moment, a promising young Alpha-Minus administrator at Mwanza-Mwanza was to die of trypanosomiasis."  "Slowly, majestically, with a faint humming of machinery, the Conveyors moved forward, thirty-three centimeters an hour. In the red darkness glinted innumerable rubies." These two excerpts demonstrate his dramatic tone. His parodic nature shines through however with quirky little sayings like "orgy porgies" or "bumblepuppies" for semi-serious matters in the novel.

4. Style. Huxley's taunting style made me think longer about the text because he doesn't come right out and tell you what you need to know. Examples are when he describes John's death, he doesn't outright tell you he's dead. The same thing happens with the orgy porgy, and whether John and Lennina had sex. He just gave enough information to make a resonable guess.

Imagery. The consistent use of imagery comparing humans to animals is present throughout the novel and shows that the society is so dehumanized that everyone are compared to animals. "Straight from the horses mouth" is used frequently as well as, "Any cow can merely hatch out embryos" and "the stupid curiosity of animals" reffering to delta people.

Setting. Huxley's elaborate use of detail does well to disturb you and make you think about how scary this future really is. Through his description of buildings like the hatchery, recreational activities like centrifugal bumblepuppies, and even jobs like the World Controller. His vivid detail unsettles you immensely.