Individual Ideas in Literature

During this semester, I tried achieve a goal as the title of my blog is, the individualist idea in literature. As covering many famous writer’s works, I came up with some astonishing analysis and a better understanding of the works. Since the works were based on a human being, same as us, there were common aspects that could be found while reading the works. Also, since generally the aspect of human is essential it was related to certain events at the current time period. One thing that amazed me the most, was the power of passion that could be found in many of the literature. The desire, eager, ambition and craving of the unachievable was the most amazing because, the power of this will was transferable by words and description; so that i could relate to it. This is a video clip that could be somewhat related to what i was referring to.Clip

In class we talked about two poems that had a relative topic, which was death. Death in general, has a dark, mysterious and inevitable characteristic. As we first talked about Emily Dickinson’s poem “712” the one thing that caught my attention was how she describes death. In the first two stanzas, she personifies death as a person and refers it as “he” rather than an event. by doing this, i felt like there was a conversational relationship with the author and death, and that death itself was more closer than anybody thinks. Death in general, is thought to be the end of everything. Since nobody can experience the stage of death or describe it, many authors differ in the way they describe death. In case of Emily Dickinson, I felt that the overall tone was somewhat calm and steady. Also by describing death as an inevitable event, there is a sense where she tries to swallow in the reality, rather than panic and rage about how death can be avoided. But one thing I personally think is that death itself is a stable stage. The procedure towards death; all the suffering, agony, sorrows and sadness is what describes death but death itself is a closure and a stage of calm. After that, all is left is the eternal darkness.

As we discussed “When you are old” by William Yeats, this was an interesting work because the discussion we had during the class. As we went over specific wordings and try to interpret the meanings behind them, the background of Yeats writing this story to his lover helped in many ways. By understanding the real reason of why he was writing this poem maded the reader, and me as well, more related and feel the sorrow and heartbroken feeling. While the discussion went through, the one question that made me think alot was “what is true love?”. This is a million dollar question, as many people struggle to find answers and solutions to this issue. As the theme for my blog is trying to focus on individual aspects, it is inevitable to neglect the one main aspect of human beings, which is love. This overwhelming effect cannot be explained in words. The uncontrollable will and passion is somewhat similar as fire, which is mentioned in the work. The complexity of this is that their is no blue print to the answer, because all people are unique and come from different backgrounds and experience. But one funny thing of this is that, every people tend to think their situations are the most heart breaking compared to others, since their point of view is purely subjective. It is a common thing when you talk with others about the heart breaking moments, and everyone will say their experience is the most. Yeats work shows this as well. The words and expressions make it able to picture his devistation and loss. Another thing interesting of this work is that the sudden change of  attitude toward the end. As Yeats is denied, he declares “he will not be there when u need me”. This is somewhat childish act whining, which is somewhat similar in the story we read early this semester “The Barrelmaker brimful of love”, when Kyushichi rejects Osen’s request for help.

I personally think that love is also related to hate. The more you like a person, when you are disappointed at them, you will hate them more. The feeling of hate roots from love, which you really care about someone. The opposite feeling should be ignorance, which doesn’t have any feeling existing, wether what they do. Because of this, I believe Yeat’s will still have the desire of love, no matter what he says and complains about, it is just visible that way.

As toword the end of the semester, we have read literature which expressed feminist ideas throughout their works. One thing that interested me the most is that, one common theme was used among these works, degrading the men. As the author tries to express women as independant and strong, they express men as naive and selfish or even animals. It might sound odd but I support these feminist idea, but the way they profound men is seems offensive sometimes. The reason that i support feminist ideas is that, I believe that all people are equal and that just because of the bilogical difference, there shouldn’t be a barrier to doing what they really love. The funny thing is that, this is a common method used in some of Korean soap operas. Soo-hyun Kim is a writer who shows a lot of this method, by portraying the men as weak, naive and indecicive. While women are strong, independant. The reason why this interested me is that, should this be the only method of expressing feminism? Can’t there be any other way? Because of Soo-hyun Kim’s method, she offended many men, making the whole idea of feminism offended as well. I just believe that if it was expressed in a way not so offensive, the whole idea of feminism will not be treated that way.

Before continuing this post, this post will contain a thorough storyline of the movie so whoever is not interested about spoilers, etc should not read this post.

 

I suppose to be a crazy movie lover, I had a chance to watch the movie “Chronicles”. This is a sci-fi movie, where teenagers accidently gets exposed to extraterrestrial subject and earn a super power. As the movie progresses, these kids’ powers grow stronger and stronger. As most super power movies try to address is that, power comes with a responsibility. This is actually a quote from an infamous movie “Spiderman”. This so called “power” interested me in many ways, because in the real world, power doesn’t necesserily mean super powers. It can be either political power, economical power or the power to influence people. As reading many works during this semester, many of the writers exercise these “power” by their work, which we all read couple of hundred years later in current time. Their power of influencing people is a significant one, which can be compared to the so called super powers that are expressed in these movies. This just amazed me how a piece of literature can be influential. Also their is an old saying that a pen is stronger than a sword.

The reason i brought this up is that, as we are living in technology based world, it is easy to influence many people in both positive and negative way, by a single post in their blog, facebook etc. That is why, I believe we should think of certain consequences before posting anything on the internet, because a simple thing can change a person’s live.

While I was thinking about a certain event, all of a sudden Richard Wright’s work came up to my head and left this wierd feeling. Toward the end of the story, while little dave tries to face the circumstances but ironically decides to run away. This incedent made me feel a bit relavent because it reminded me couple of years back when I was a kid. Instead of facing the bitter reality, I tried to avoid the situation if possible. However, throughout time, this was not the solution, it just delayed the procedure. I had to solve the problem in order to move on. But at that time, it might of been the fear that caused this to happen. Also the scene where dave holds on to the gun reminded not only myself by people in general. Sometimes, people in general, tend to hold on to things that are not important or worthless and not let go of them. It might be an object or it might be some ideas or even memories of certain event. Sometimes it is neccesary to move on rather holding on to the past.

 

I have watched this play recently for the first time of my life. I heard many comments about it, some negative and some positive. The main theme of the musical is the phantom’s hopeless love to christine; who is actually in love with Raoul. As many love stories turnout, there is a happy couple and the person who is left behind, in this case the Phantom. The reason i mention this play is that, there were some aspects that I felt it was related to the recent coursework. As the phantom is a person with a horrible face, he never thought to live a ordinary life as a normal person. However, because of Christine, he dreams to love a women, no different from any other normal person. Even though he is aware of the circumstances, he dreams of it. I forgot who said this, but as an old saying, the only thing differentiates a human and an animal is rather if they think logically, and the presence of a dream. This is a strong motivation to all people. Some of Neruda’s work express this, as well as Richard Wright’s “The man who was almost a man”. Because of the time the work was written; when the rights of black were not equal to white, this desire of equality can be felt during the story. They just wanted to take the opportunity to taste the forbidden fruit, which the society never gave the opportunity to. From these works, I just felt that, the human desire is universal and no different from the people in the past or the present. As many of us dream of becoming whatever they dream for, that is what motivates the person.

As we spoke about Pablo Neruda’s poems in class, walking around actually grabbed my attention. Compared to tonight i can write, walking around actually made me think of what Neruda’s true intention was. At first, i just thought he was sick and tired of the daily rountine of an ordinary life, and describing to stuff about how he was disgusted. However, as the professor and some of the classmates have mentioned, after learning the political background of when the author was writing this poem, I felt a connection in some way. Back in my country; South Korea, South Korea were conquered by the Japanese for 35years(1910~1945) in the similar time in the history when Neruda wrote this poem. In my childhood, learning many literature from this time era, most of the authors tried to express their way of resistance and struggle of freedom. One of the most famous poet is Dong-joo Yoon who is famous for this kind of works. This is his famous translated prologue

 

May I look up into the heavens until the day I die

Without a bit of shame

From even the wind rustling the leaves

I have suffered

With the singing heart of the stars

I shall love all that is to die

And the road given me

I shall walk

Tonight also, the stars are touched by the wind

His work was thought to be rebellious and threatening to the Japanese authorities. Because of those reasons, Yoon was captured and brutally tortured to death dying at the age of 27.

Because of these significant literature works, we can actually paint the picture of this specific time era, connecting to them and comparing it to the present time, where we sometimes take freedom as granted when many people gave up their lives for it in the past.

After reading and discussing the story of Franz Kafka’s “The Metamorphosis” at class, it was an interesting topic to point out the possibility of gregor going mad rather than the transformation. But other than talking about Gregor’s situation, I would like to talk about the overall relationship among the family members. While reading the story, I just felt that the author was trying to point out a problem that was rising in that specific time and can be related to modern time as well. Nowadays, I believe many families are having more disconnection among familiy members compared to decades and even several years ago. When agriculture was the main source of living, the size of family were relatively larger than today. The family spent most of their day together building this special bond among the members. However, as cities were devloping and specific roles were designated to family members, this connection started to diminish. This is what i saw in the story of “Metamorphosis”. Other than their ordinary lives, the samsa family seemed to don’t know and don’t care of  what was happening to their family members. I thought this was relative to what many families are experiencing these days. Both parents working all day, coming back home for dinner and have a brief meeting, kids are away playing games or watching tv or whatever they are up to, the parents are tired of the daily labor and try to rest themselves. This cycle of disfunction continues and parents have no idea what their kid is interested or doing, and even between spouses problems rise as well. It came up to my mind that, the author was maybe pointing out the image of a disfunctional family, which observed from the outside looks ordinary, but in the inside, there is no actual bond among the family members.

As going over the text of Rabindranath Tagore’s “punishment” many questions have crossed over my head. But the one that is keep on coming up was sa professor mentioned in class “was justice served?”. If you see into the view of the men in this story, it will be a situation of unjust because of the flaw of the justice system. But in the other hand, in the view of the main women character; Chandra, in some sense I feel a way of justice. For her, the everyday life in the so called family, the disbanded relationship between spouses and the disrespect of actions such as demanding for food so rude, Chandra may have been fed up with this for good. Also the actions by her husband Chidam caring more of saving his brother, can have effected Chandra with sorrow and emptiness. In my life maintaining a married life, many of my surroundings talk about happy wife is happy life, the one thing women needs is the attention of their spouse. Because of this background, I was more related to the way how Chandra may have felt and maybe disgusted in this situation of outraged with this bizzare action. I believe many will agree that people do silly things when they are mad or not in a good mood. It is just hard to stay in a positive state. I believe that this is the only way to trying to understand Chandra’s decision of sticking to the lie and giving up her life.