Blog for English 2850

In the very beginning of The New Year’s Sacrifice, during an encounter with Hsiang Lin’s Wife, she asks one of the most important questions in life.  She asks “After a person dies, does he turn into a ghost or not?” What she really means to ask is if there is a Heaven and a Hell?

This question is one that I have been studied a lot and it has made some major impacts in my life when facing the answer of the question.  The only answer that we can ever give to this question is that we do not know. I don’t think there will ever be a time when the living population will ever be able to definitively say with confidence that there is a heaven and/or a hell.  I spent a year in Israel as a gap year before coming to college and I spent my time in a theological seminary where we learned the Torah and talked about G-d and religion.  One of the major questions that many kids asked was, “Is this all true? Is there really a G-d and is all of this study of the Torah and being a good Jew worth it?”

This was one of the major themes of study that year and I personally learned all about it with one of my Rabbis.  We learned from the Maimonides about what Heaven and Hell most likely look like.  For all we know Maimonides was completely wrong, but the essence of everything came down to one thing.  It came down to faith, and it came down to living a good and wholesome life. It was very difficult for my Rabbi to help me understand that this was all real and that I needed to follow in the ways of Judaism.  The only thing he said to me that has stuck till today was as follows.  “I live a life as a devout Jew.  I live my life praying to G-d and learning his Torah.  I give my charity and I try to help my fellow man out. Am I 100 percent positive that I’m right? That G-d does exist? No of course not.  But that’s what faith means, not being 100 percent positive.  And in the end of the day, either I will go up to Heaven and G-d will look at me and reward me for all the good I did, and punish for all the bad, or I will have lived a life that I thoroughly enjoyed and that’s it. That I was wrong and there was no G-d, no heaven or hell, and everything I did was just for myself, and if that were to happen, I would still happy as it was a good life”.

We will never be able to prove that G-d exists, or that there is something beyond this life, but that is what belief is, and just like Hsian Lin’s Wife, I want to believe that there is something after this life, and that one day (after 120 years as is Jewish tradition) I will be greeted by G-d and by my ancestors as they welcome me into the afterlife.

(Just a note, that Jews believe that we can or should only live till 120)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_9Eid3m80D0

9:00 – 11:40

This Novel brings to light the opposite of what Bartleby showed us.  Bartleby showed us how to live a life without risk, without love, and without any amount of genuineness. And Oroonoko shows us the exact opposite.  Oroonoko shows us how to truly have faith, and to truly love, a few times throughout the work, he is promised to be let free out of slavery numerous times and every time he believes them.  He trusts captain of the ship when he is invited on as a guest, he trusts him again after their hunger strike, that they would not be sold, however, again he is betrayed, and it doesn’t seem like he has lost his faith in man even at this point.  The only time we see him lose any faith at all is when Imoinda has become pregnant.  At this time Oroonoko has realized that slavery and man is bad and that they could not bring this child into the world as a slave, and he had to get free to save this baby.  For his love of Imoinda and of his unborn child he was willing to risk it all, and worked his hardest to get out of slavery.  When it had become clear to him that he wouldn’t be able to save them all, he decided to commit the greatest sacrifice in his mind for love, he decided that they would rather be dead, then in the horrible institution of slavery. “and there was as much magnificence as the country would afford at the celebration of this wedding: and in a very short time after she conceived with child, which made Caesar even adore her, knowing he was the last of his great race” it was in this moment that he realized how terrible the institution of slavery was and how grave a position he was putting his child into. He now realized that he had to break free for his child.  When he couldn’t escape slavery he decided the next best thing in his lovestruck mind, to seek revenge on Byam, and to ensure that his child would never be in slavery, even if that meant he would never get to meet his child.

With this Oroonoko showed to us what it means to live with a certain amount of genuineness and how this can easy lead to heartbreak, but he also shows us how at times it can also lead to great joy and happiness.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XRppXdKDY_c&t=128s

2:00 – 3:35

 

“Did I request thee, Maker, from my clay To mould me Man, did I solicit thee From darkness to promote me?”

This is the monster talking to Victor and he is basically saying, how can you shun me and not want me, I didn’t ask to be created by you but still you did it.  This is represented quite well in this video where he is sitting with Frankenstein talking to him about his story about how he was trying to fit in with people.  He hid in the shack and tried to learn language from the family and to learn to love as they has loved each other.  When Safie comes into the De Lacey family and they are teaching her English and history.  He even learns about good and evil and he really tries to learn how to be good through them. He then starts to resent Frankenstein himself for making him so ugly and unlovable.  This video has really clarified the story and brought to life the novel Frankenstein and has truly shown me how sympathetic we should be of the monster.  The Monster was trying his best to become a good person and when the De Lacey’s moved away from him, he felt as rejected as he ever had, this rejection that kept on happening, first from his creator and now from a family he thought he had his best chance with.  All of this led to the Monster being who he was, and after knowing his back story, he is a much more compelling character in this novel.

27:50-29:20

“Bartleby,” said I, in a still gentler tone, “come here; I am not going to ask you to do any thing you would prefer not to do—I simply wish to speak to you.”

Upon this he noiselessly slid into view.

“Will you tell me, Bartleby, where you were born?”

“I would prefer not to.”

“Will you tell me any thing about yourself?”

“I would prefer not to.”

“But what reasonable objection can you have to speak to me? I feel friendly towards you.”

He did not look at me while I spoke, but kept his glance fixed upon my bust of Cicero, which as I then sat, was directly behind me, some six inches above my head.

“What is your answer, Bartleby?” said I, after waiting a considerable time for a reply, during which his countenance remained immovable, only there was the faintest conceivable tremor of the white attenuated mouth.

“At present I prefer to give no answer,” he said, and retired into his hermitage. “Now and then, in the eagerness of dispatching pressing business, I would inadvertently summon Bartleby, in a short, rapid tone, to put his finger, say, on the incipient tie of a bit of red tape with which I was about compressing some papers. Of course, from behind the screen the usual answer, “I prefer not to,” was sure to come; and then, how could a human creature with the common infirmities of our nature, refrain from bitterly exclaiming upon such perverseness—such unreasonableness. However, every added repulse of this sort which I received only tended to lessen the probability of my repeating the inadvertence.”

 

This particular clip comes directly from this portion of text where the narrator requests Bartleby to help him tie a bow, however I think that this clip goes beyond just what is actually happening and really talks to the text at large.  It is also addressing the 1^st portion of text here and many other occurrences in the text, in a very significant manner. In this clip we see the boss/narrator, request a very basic task of Bartleby.  The sort of task that most of the time doesn’t even need to be requested as it is so basic and most would not only be willing to help tie the bow, but offering to help. In many people there would just be the obvious inclination to go over and help the man tie the bow, but not Bartleby, and I think this clip truly displays his inactivity.  Not only did he not go over to help, when asked upon he said his famous phrase of “I prefer not to”. The reason why I believe that this scene goes beyond the scope of just this one clip and how it truly portrays the above text, is because this is the simplest task he could be requested of and he refuses to help.  So too, in the first task he is asked a simple question, to say anything about his life, another very simple and easy task, to which Bartleby refuses. This isn’t a case of a man who doesn’t want others involved in his affairs, this is simply a case of a man who doesn’t want any affairs at all, and potentially speaking of such things would create more affairs and more things to do, which Bartleby actively strives to avoid.  Bartleby is a prime example of a man without Agency, but simply saying he doesn’t have agency is an understatement.  Bartleby is a man who would rather wither away and do nothing, than be required to do anything.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8DfrBcjisVo

6:20 – 6:50

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_E9aOuf6eI8

0:45 – 1:30

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wOrhpRtEXH8

6:15 – 7:04

“His mother—in spite of the presence of the manager she was standing here with her hair sticking up on end, still a mess from the night—first looked at his father with her hands clasped, then went two steps towards Gregor and collapsed right in the middle of her skirts, which were spread out all around her, her face sunk on her breast, completely concealed. His father clenched his fist with a hostile expression, as if he wished to push Gregor back into his room, then looked uncertainly around the living room, covered his eyes with his hands, and cried so that his mighty breast shook.”

“By the door he first noticed what had really lured him there: it was the smell of something to eat. For a bowl stood there, filled with sweetened milk, in which swam tiny pieces of white bread. He almost laughed with joy, for he had an even greater hunger than in the morning, and he immediately dipped his head almost up to and over his eyes down into the milk. But he soon drew it back again in disappointment, not just because it was difficult for him to eat on account of his delicate left side—he could eat only if his entire panting body worked in a coordinated way—but also because the milk, which otherwise was his favourite drink and which his sister had certainly placed there for that reason, did not appeal to him at all”

 

 

As I was reading Metamorphosis, I knewn that the Story was about a man, Gregor, who turns into creature of some sort, and as I was reading the first part of the story it seemed as if he had simply turned into a massive bug.  The way I thought of him was as a cockroach. But while reading the story had he truly just been a cockroach, it didn’t really make sense to me how his sister could still love him and try to take care of him.  I understood that he was still her brother, and he was still his parent’s child but, he had totally turned into a cockroach and it was as if he was totally gone, as a gross, either small or tremendous bug, so at this point it didn’t really make sense to me how they were still trying to help him survive. It seemed that he was basically no longer any bit human and I could have understood entirely how it would have been really hard to treat him as such.  My idea of what Gregor was to look like only became more confirmed when they talked of him hiding under the couches and furniture, I could only picture him as a bug.  And this remained true through the first two videos I saw.  Through Karl-Heinz Teuber’s interpretation, to Wisecrack’s interpretation in thug notes, they both portray him as a cockroach, completely just a bug. But then I saw this third video from Carlos Atanes, and I started to understand the book a little more.  One will never know what Franz Kafka truly intended Gregor to look like, however, I think That Atanes makes it much clearer.  In this video Gregor is more half man-half cockroach where he is clearly half a man still.  In this case it is a lot harder to ignore the fact that he was a brother and a son, and I understand fully how Gregor’s sister and parents still tried to love him. This video made the entire story a lot more real for me, and maybe even more tragic, as they didn’t just lose their family member one day, but that they lost him slowly overtime as they couldn’t bear to have him live there.

27:50-29:20

“Bartleby,” said I, in a still gentler tone, “come here; I am not going to ask you to do any thing you would prefer not to do—I simply wish to speak to you.”

Upon this he noiselessly slid into view.

“Will you tell me, Bartleby, where you were born?”

“I would prefer not to.”

“Will you tell me any thing about yourself?”

“I would prefer not to.”

“But what reasonable objection can you have to speak to me? I feel friendly towards you.”

He did not look at me while I spoke, but kept his glance fixed upon my bust of Cicero, which as I then sat, was directly behind me, some six inches above my head.

“What is your answer, Bartleby?” said I, after waiting a considerable time for a reply, during which his countenance remained immovable, only there was the faintest conceivable tremor of the white attenuated mouth.

“At present I prefer to give no answer,” he said, and retired into his hermitage. “Now and then, in the eagerness of dispatching pressing business, I would inadvertently summon Bartleby, in a short, rapid tone, to put his finger, say, on the incipient tie of a bit of red tape with which I was about compressing some papers. Of course, from behind the screen the usual answer, “I prefer not to,” was sure to come; and then, how could a human creature with the common infirmities of our nature, refrain from bitterly exclaiming upon such perverseness—such unreasonableness. However, every added repulse of this sort which I received only tended to lessen the probability of my repeating the inadvertence.”

 

This particular clip comes directly from this portion of text where the narrator requests Bartleby to help him tie a bow, however I think that this clip goes beyond just what is actually happening and really talks to the text at large.  It is also addressing the 1^st portion of text here and many other occurrences in the text, in a very significant manner. In this clip we see the boss/narrator, request a very basic task of Bartleby.  The sort of task that most of the time doesn’t even need to be requested as it is so basic and most would not only be willing to help tie the bow, but offering to help. In many people there would just be the obvious inclination to go over and help the man tie the bow, but not Bartleby, and I think this clip truly displays his inactivity.  Not only did he not go over to help, when asked upon he said his famous phrase of “I prefer not to”. The reason why I believe that this scene goes beyond the scope of just this one clip and how it truly portrays the above text, is because this is the simplest task he could be requested of and he refuses to help.  So too, in the first task he is asked a simple question, to say anything about his life, another very simple and easy task, to which Bartleby refuses. This isn’t a case of a man who doesn’t want others involved in his affairs, this is simply a case of a man who doesn’t want any affairs at all, and potentially speaking of such things would create more affairs and more things to do, which Bartleby actively strives to avoid.  Bartleby is a prime example of a man without Agency, but simply saying he doesn’t have agency is an understatement.  Bartleby is a man who would rather wither away and do nothing, than be required to do anything.

20:03 – 20:54

This was my favorite interpretation I have seen of Walt Whitman’s “Song of Myself” for two reasons.  I think it depicts the scenes with amazing imagery that really shows what Whitman was trying to say.  This particular section of the video is of Section number 12 which is also my favorite part in this piece of literature. This is particularly my favorite because this summer my boss was giving a speech to us and one of the things he said was how there are three things in the world that you can watch forever.  Water, Fire, and someone else working, and this clearly represents that, where Whitman is displaying how he was transfixed by the butcher and the blacksmith’s working and that reminded me of that speech that my boss had given me and my peers.  And this video shows that in an amazing way, the hammer forging something on the anvil.  All of the sparks flying from the blow of the hammer, the man holding the hammer in front of the flames, you can clearly see how anyone could become easily transfixed by that work, and it really brought that speech that I experienced to life.

All of the words really flowed exceptionally from the woman’s voice, into your ears and were truly being enhanced by the imagery.  As she reads the line, “there is a great heat in the fire” you are stuck transfixed on a picture of a red hot glowing piece of steel which really brings that to life, you can see the heat that is coming off of that piece of steel, and you can see exactly what Whitman must have been seeing at the time and everything is brought to life.

Don Quixote

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J9IhfIVPtWw

 

:25 – 1:07

 

Here in this video these scholars try to explain a little bit into the themes of Don Quixote.  And these themes that they gave are really relatable and made the Great work of Don Quixote much more applicable to my life.  First Antonio Rivas talks about Don Quixote and Sancho Panza’s relationship and he describes it as “the first bromance ever told”.  That in it of itself is a funny way to explain such a revered book, but also is able to relate the character to myself. While reading about him, I just imagined him as a crazy man, but when he explains it this way he is a lot more similar to me, he also had his best friend that he did everything with.  Mark Aldrich the next scholar also did a very similar thing as Rivas.  Aldrich talked about how Quixote was obsessed with literature, which makes him seem a little bit crazy but in reality, he just wanted to go and live some of those adventures.  As we see in the famous windmill scene, he just wanted to destroy some giants.  When his reasoning is put this way, it is much more relatable.  Having read books, such as Harry Potter and the lord of the rings, I always wanted to go on those crazy adventures and live in worlds of magic like those characters did, and I can understand why Quixote tried to put himself in that Mindspace where he was living out his favorite books. “Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.” The way that Aldrich explains this is a much more relatable way where he didn’t really lose his mind, but he was inspired by this adventure that could be had and he wanted it in his life, so he went out and found it.  He found his adventures.

 

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

 

I decided to use the Thug Notes Summary and Analysis of King Lear to try to relate King Lear further to myself.  At around the 2:10 mark the speaker, Wisecrack, starts to give an analysis of the entire book.  He starts by talking about the beginning of the book, where the King asks his daughters to confess their love for him.  As Wisecrack says, the King didn’t even care about what was true he just wanted to feel loved, and the way for him to feel loved was for his daughters to speak about their love out loud.  The king may have even known that they were totally lying to him, but he didn’t care he just wanted to feel like he had all the power.  Wisecrack says that the most important message that Lear learns is “how important it is to keep it real”. This is a message that Wisecrack thinks Lear learns and is also a really good message for the audience of these videos.  It’s nice to feel loved, by people who are talking about it outwardly, but it is even more special to have that love of the third Daughter, Cordelia, who doesn’t want to prove her love but wants him to recognize her love as real, not as fake like her sisters.  His second message is “how is a brother supposed to keep it real if he can’t see the truth”, which is even more applicable.  Every day we want to feel loved and we enjoy when people say it outwardly, but we need to recognize that we do have that love it just may not be outward every day.  And for Lear, it may take him a big portion of the tragedy to recognize it, but she was definitely the realest one with the truest love.

I think Wisecrack chose to emphasize on these points, because he saw a message within the story that he could relate not only to the king but also to the viewers in their everyday lives.  I particularly connected with this video because I also try to extrapolate messages out of the things I read and see every day and while this is slightly a mocking way to express what he wants to say, I can really relate to how he views the book and I appreciated his take on it.