my blog work of literature

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BBIjpKCWdiY

 

In Oroonoko, written by Aphra Behn, a royal slave had been became the new general for his people. The conflict arises when he falls in love with the daughter of his foster father, Imoinda. While he asked his grandfather for approval, the grandfather is enraged and decides to send her the royal veil and wants to make her one of his concubines. Oroonoko and Imoinda remain separated but they both stay faithful to each other.  In the end,

With the theme that being genuine comes along with heartbreaks, it can be seen that while Oroonoko sincerely falls in love with Imoinda, he wants nothing more than to be happy with her but he is forced to be separated from her, which breaks his heart.

While they were apart, Oroonoko reaches out to Aboan for help, and he makes it possible for the two lovers to spend a night together. When the king found out, he tells Oroonoko that he had executed Imoinda, but he had actually sell her into slavery. When Oroonoko heard about this, he gives up his will to live and abandons his troops. All of a sudden, the tables had turned and he leads his troops to victory. He eventually meets a slave owner, clemen and he was able to allow Oroonoko to be back with Imoinda.

With all the events that had happened, Oroonoko just wanted to be himself by finding happiness with Imoinda but that was forbidden due to social status. He goes through a heartbreak as they were separated and he lives thinking that she was dead. If he wasn’t so genuine and if society hadn’t demanded so much in aspects of wars, slaves, slave owners, and a king, nothing would of have stopped Oroonoko and Imoinda from being together, when the two of them are sincerely in love.

Lu Xun is a traditional Chinese story that I’ve always heard incomplete bits from either from my family or my teachers. When I finally read the whole thing, and got an understanding of what life was like living in feudalism where women were merely objects that were never recognized for good but only if they hadn’t marry, I was upset that humans were once treated that way. To be a successful woman, so to speak, one had to be arranged into a marriage and be kind, hardworking and strong. The story of XiangLin’s wife showed that her husband had died leaving her to be a widow which made everyone in society look down on her. She was then forced to marry again, she’d rather die than to be miserable. This was ironic because society demands that all woman must be married off and that is the only way a woman will somewhat be accepted but XiangLin’s personal morals are greater than that.

I can’t even imagine how to put my emotions together in an environment and century where each household consisted of women focusing on their husband and chores. No family focused on affection and happiness. Obedience and loyalty was wha determined fate for a women. I’m curious to know where such a thing came from, and why it lasted for so long until women can finally find happiness because men could have fought for women too. Men could have fantasized for a sincere and loving wife that would do everything a woman was expected to do.

In the story, XiangLin’s wife loses her second husband and her son, and had to go back to her uncle’s house. Her uncle does not like her, and she loses every hope she had that kept her alive. People would not feel remorse for her after laughing at her life like it was a tragic story. This comes to show that even though XiangLin’s wife did not match up to the traditions of a chinese woman, she would have been really loved and appreciated if she were to be in a later time period and if marxism had taken over for being her genuine self.  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XRppXdKDY_c

 

In Frankenstein, written by Mary Shelley, a wealthy scientist, Victor Frankenstein creates a monster out of body parts that he found in a grave. When the monster came to life, Frankenstein was so disgusted by the appearance of the monster that he abandons him. With the monster clueless of his lonely life, and hatred for being abandoned, he decides to go on a killing spree due to how he rejected he felt from humans(at this point, the monster only went after the Frankenstein family). The monster then takes shelter at a cottage for a year, where he learned language and how to read. He then was able to read  Frankenstein’s papers which revealed everything about Frankenstein. He then takes on the search for Frankenstein but ends up killing Frankenstein’s son on the way. In the end, Victor grew ill when the monster gets closer to him, and dies. Since the creator died, the monster decided he lost all purpose for living, so he goes to destroy himself.

In this video, the narrator stresses the question of how much we should blame the monster for everything he’s done. Then, the narrator proposes whether the monster could be good, but his surroundings had made him turned evil.

I believe that the monster had to be naturally caring and nice because Frankenstein made him for no good reasons just to abandon him because of how ugly he turned out to be. After the monster came to life, he did not know anything other than rejection and being abandoned. With this type of experiences, the monster didn’t know anything better than to keep his guard up and get revenge on everyone who misunderstands and is so quick to judge him. What really proves that the monster has good in him is when Frankenstein dies and the monster felt that he lost everything, and that he shouldn’t live anymore either. This proves that no matter how much wrong Frankenstein did to the monster, the monster still felt emotional attachment to Frankenstein. Instead of the monster deciding to kill himself, he could of also went on a further and more brutal killing spree but he chose not to, which shows he’s really not all evil. His environment and human relationships left him no choice but to do what he had done to get the attention he so dearly craves from his creator.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g17ziHN59tg

 

This video appealed to me most mainly because of the way it was made more so than the context. Out of all the other videos I came across when I searched up “King Lear” I saw a lot of thumbnails that displayed the olden days, which I automatically got the feeling of boring. When I saw this video, the title “Thug notes” it made me curious to click into because I was able to understand the story of King Lear in a less complicated and old fashioned way. Also, the characters in the video were cartoon made with cropped faces of King Lear and his family instead of real actors dressed up in the roles of the characters.

 

The intention of this video was to present a very old story of a father asking his daughters to prove to him which one of them loved him most so he can give his thorn to that daughter. The daughter that actually loved him the most was Cornelia, however, she did not have much to say about her love for her father other than that words cannot express how much she loved him, she was being honest which angered her father and got himself banished from his lack of reasoning.

This story was told in a street way, and informal way for a comical purpose that is very intriguing, which led to the reveal of a bad king leading to a bad civilization.

 

From the way that the narrator in the video I chose talked about King Lear, I can tell that he not only found the story amusing himself, but he also told the story in the exact tone he wanted his audience to feel. He would raise his voice when an unexpected event occurs in the story. He would also use slangs that are popular today to tell the story, which is what I love the most about this video. The creator of this video was able to pass on a famous antique story for people that do not necessarily keep up with stories or people who have trouble understanding the old language use of the original story.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZwrKePAgaKI  (2:07-9:10)

 

Out of all the videos that surfaced after I searched “Don Quixote” the Review made by Kalanadi (youtuber) was very appealing after a minute in. I was very surprised to hear that Kalanadi start the video off with how little she knew about Don Quixote but she was able to read the whole book within 7 days and analyze multiple underlying themes, then to formulate a video that talked about the story in depth. Just to see the credibility of the video, I read through a lot of the comments and a lot of the commenters also applauded her for her quick and accurate findings.

Kalanadi introduces the origin of the title and the story then goes into the plot. Although her video does not include any creative cartoons or songs, she interested me with her point of view of the book. She then talks about the parts of the book she did not enjoy, which was the tragedy and repetition.

Kalanadi also uses a lot of imagery in her opinions on Don Quixote, such as chivalric romances, knights, nobles, books and goes into explaining techniques into literature where modern people would not have understood. I also learned that Cervantes used intertextuality, metafiction, metatheater. Intertextuality means the shaping of a text using another text that showed Quixote’s actions. Metafiction is to draw attention to a work as an artifact. Lastly, Metatheater is where a work has both comedy and tragedy.

My thoughts on her video is that I was able to learn Quixote is a mad man in this violent story, he was supposed to be funny by doing pranks but the pranks became physical abuse to both Quixote and Sancho when they were made to do dumb things to get laughs out of it. That was where the cruelty and tragedy came in. the second part mentions the book from Act I, which was a very new idea given the time period of the author.

I was very surprised to hear that Kalanadi start the video off with how little she knew about Don Quixote but she was able to read the whole book within 7 days and analyze multiple underlying themes, then to formulate a video that talked about the story in depth. Just to see the credibility of the video, I read through a lot of the comments and a lot of the commenters also applauded her for her quick findings.

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AjkkztJkNfs

Online text: http://moglen.law.columbia.edu/LCS/bartleby.pdf  (page 7)

“In this very attitude did I sit when I called to him, rapidly stating what it was I wanted him to do—namely, to examine a small paper with me. Imagine my surprise, nay, my consternation, when without moving from his privacy, Bartleby in a singularly mild, firm voice, replied, “I would prefer not to.”

“I sat awhile in perfect silence, rallying my stunned faculties. Immediately it occurred to me that my ears had deceived me, or Bartleby had entirely misunder-stood my meaning. I repeated my request in the clearest tone I could assume. But in quite as clear a one came the previous reply, “I would prefer not to.”

“Prefer not to,” echoed I, rising in high excitement, and crossing the room with a stride. “What do you mean? Are you moon-struck? I want you to help me compare this sheet here—take it,” and I thrust it towards him.

“I would prefer not to,” said he.

I looked at him steadfastly. His face was leanly composed; his gray eye dimly calm. Not a wrinkle of agitation rippled him. Had there been the least uneasi-ness, anger, impatience or impertinence in his manner; in other words, had there been any thing ordinarily human about him, doubtless I should have violently dismissed him from the premises. But as it was, I should have as soon thought of turning my pale plaster-of-paris bust of Cicero out of doors. I stood gazing at him awhile, as he went on with his own writing, and then reseated myself at my desk. This is very strange, thought I. What had one best do? But my business hurried me. I concluded to forget the matter for the present, reserving it for my future leisure. So calling Nippers from the other room, the paper was speedily examined.” (page 7)

Instead of deciding the portion I wanted to choose base off the book, I found it more meaningful to find out what videos were made so I can see how differently my interpretation of the text was with other people who read the book. After realizing I had the same opinions and picture as the person who made this video that I came across, the video really stood out to me and so I chose this portion of the text also because it was so early on in the story when the demonstration of the character’s personalities started to show. Although I really appreciate how the book starts off by introducing the setting and characters and their traits, instead of jumping straight into the story and readers had to infer for themselves the story line, the first incident where readers can really make sense of what the introduction meant was when the old advocate needed some help with understanding some documents and he turned to the new Bartleby for help. When he first asked Bartleby to examine the documents, Bartleby replied “ I would prefer not to” and it was shocking to the advocate because Bartleby replied with such a straight face not bothered or distracted from his own work. This part was especially surprising to me how Bartedly had the audacity to reject a favor as soon as he was welcomed into business. I gained respect for him in a way where he knows when to say no when not to be taken advantage of but at the same time he’s very disrespectful given the situation in that he doesn’t have a choice to say no to his advocate. Atlast, the advocate had to ask another character, Nippers, who is another young scrivener to help him look at the papers and Nippers is at his service without any hesitation.

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jLAVT91JHPw

Article: https://iwp.uiowa.edu/whitmanweb/en/writings/song-of-myself/section-16

 

Out of the 52 stanzas in Song of Myself by Walt Whitman, stanza 16 had really caught my attention because it relates to me on a very similar level. “I am of old and young, of the foolish as much as the wise…maternal as well as paternal, a child as well as a man, stuff’d with the stuff that is coarse and stuff’d with the stuff that is fine…” Whitman describes his fittings to a specific group in society, just to mention he also is the opposite. He does this throughout the entire poem, and it makes me realize it isn’t wrong that a person can belong to multiple groups.

As I was reading this poem, the serious mood also reminds me that sometimes I feel as if I were young too, only compared to a group of people more sophisticated and older than I was. I can also appear old or act as a role model to those younger than me. I am feel like I can reason things and chose the better decision compared to someone very unexperienced in a certain field, however my choices may not be the most ideal in the point of view of someone wiser than I am. Who I am, and who I view myself can vary depending on my surroundings, and I think that’s exactly what this poem is trying to portray to readers. Finding your own identity is almost impossible given the constant changes life has to offer you, so it’s crucial that as a human,  we need to learn how to act many different roles in different situations and change our ways, habits, thoughts in order to keep up.

After researching in depth, I realized that this poem can be interpreted in so many ways. Its main focus on plain sense of identity made me question whether if this poem was written to express the author’s feelings about himself, direct it to those that lose themselves, or is talking about someone close to him. In my opinion, this poem was written to describe the author himself in which he feels many can relate to, I am one of them, and that is why I love this poem so much.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_E9aOuf6eI8 (2:35-5:06)

 

The story, The Metamorphosis, written by Franz Kafka is about a family who depends on Gregor, the son and the brother to make money being a business traveler. Gregor is a very pressured and unappreciated person, which forces him to live day by day being miserable. One day, he wakes up to see that he has transformed into an insect. With this new realization, he doesn’t think too much of it and decides to go back to sleep. However, this conflict does not go away, in fact, it made his family disgusted of him, his tenants to move out without paying rent, and his manager to run away at the sight of his form. Gregor’s family no longer counts on him for anything, and soon decides that life would be better is he just disappears.

I can’t believe how Gregor’s family relationships are because even though they stay together, they don’t give each other purpose or love, they only see each other as means for survival. This leads into the theme of alienation. Once Gregor turned into an insect, not even his family was willing to accept him. People are naturally so unaccepting, which can be very relatable to reality where everyone comes from a different background or is not that blessed. This story brought light onto this sad truth where we live in, and the video that I chose gave an insight on the authors actual feelings for why he wrote this story, which made the story stand out more to me to learn about the author’s life through this video.

According to the video, “I have to deal with the problems of traveling, the worries about train connections, irregular bad food, temporary and constantly changing human relationships which never come from the heart. To hell with it all” Kafka said this about himself how his life is on a bad routine most the time with the ever changing poor relationships he has with people. This part of him can be seen in every part of The Metamorphosis when Gregor misses the the train, gets fed food that doesn’t appeal to him by his sister, Grete, and of course the new isolation he developed after becoming an insect.

Overall, it was very interesting to use an insect to send a message of isolation. Perhaps, Gregor did not turn into an insect, his loneliness made him feel like he did not belong and in his head, becoming an insect was made real to him to make him feel better about why everyone has been so cruel to him.