Month: December 2018

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.