Monthly Archives: September 2015

Medea – second half

Student blog post

I think the characteristic of Medea interrupted that people are selfish when their anger is way more than love. Medea reflects to the type of people who are selfish and brave to do anything to repay a person. In the story, Medea had murdered both the princess and the king of Corinth as well as her two sons because of her anger and enmity on Jason. There was only anger but nothing in Medea’s mind, she had lost her humanity as an evil to kill people in the way she likes. It indicated that people are selfish to themselves when they get hurt or betrayed, they will do anything to make themselves feeling better but not care about the consequences.

In the beginning of the story, Medea is portrayed as a weak woman who get betrayed by husband, Jason. He leaves her and her children behind. Medea grows into a strong character who is plotting revenge for what Jason did to her. I agree that Medea deserves revenge for what has occurred, but the fact that it involves the death of her kids seems like it crossed the line. Although Medea feels guilty for plotting to kill her kids when she says, “Once that’s done, the next thing I must do/ chokes me with sorrow. I will kill the children-/my children” (lines 811-813). This shows that Medea feels guilty for plotting to kill her kids, but her hatred toward Jason overpowers the guilt.

I believe most of you feel horrible about Medea’s evil reactions, however I think she is a very brave woman who has independent thoughts. In the past, men are assumed to have a greater power than women. They are pretended to be the one with capability to take care of women and his family, so women must rely on men even they did not willing to. Women are responsible to obey to their husband, and they never have the right to make decisions. In “Medea”, the unfairness on men and women did not applied on Medea and Jason. Medea had her own thoughts, she decided her life by herself. Doing crazy things, like murdering people, is the way for Medea to express her anger, it is also the way for her to tell Jason that she could live without him. The characteristic of Medea also interrupted that women could be so brave and independent.

Medea

Student blog post

During the first half of the text, I felt sympathy for Medea as for her husband left her alone for another woman.  Even with his explanation, I still felt as though Medea was the victim.  However, as Medea developed the plan to kill not only Jason’s new wife and her father, the idea that she was willing to kill her own children as well, shows signs of immortality.

“For one short day / forget our children.  Afterward, you’ll grieve. / For even if you kill them, they were yours; / you loved them,” (lines 1273-1275).  Why was Medea prepared to murder her own children just to get revenge on Jason?  One main point she made previously in the text was that child birth is the most painful experience anyone can encounter.  Is it possible she tried to recreate the pain of childbirth by taking his children away from him forever?

By killing her children, was the overall outcome of birthing her children more painful for Medea, herself or Jason?  She went through the birthing process and now has to grieve over their death.  However, the children’s death was unexpected for Jason.  Is this a sign of immortality or is Medea just cold hearted and emotionless?

Quoting guidelines: introducing quotes and using punctuation with quotation

Writing guidelines and resources

Quotation Punctuation Rules: 

When you introduce a quotation:

  1. Make it a part of the sentence:
    1. Both sides claimed to act “in strict accordance with the will of God” ( ).
  2. Use a comma for short introductions that identify who said/wrote the quotation:
    1. According to Stifler, “The great Lincoln was nurtured on the Bible as few men ever have been” ( ).
  3. Use a colon for longer introductions that give an interpretation of the quotation:
    1. Lincoln’s actions on slavery, as on all important issues, were governed by his creed: “What doth the Lord require of thee, but do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?” ().
  4. Use a comma to interrupt quotations:
    1. “Take away the Bible,” William Lloyd Garrison said, “and our war-fare with oppression…is removed” ( ).
  5. Use a comma to identify who said the quotation at the end
    1. The prophets were particularly outspoken on the subject. “Woe unto him…who useth his neighbor’s services without wages,” Jeremiah wrote.

As for quoting in literature….

WAYS TO INTRODUCE QUOTATIONS INTO YOUR TEXT: Make sure, if you quote from a text, that you have an introduction tag that connects your own writing to the quote. Here are a few examples:

1. Subject + verb: “She states” “He remarks” (subjects: he and she; verbs: states and remarks)

Aeneas states, “I who had never flinched at the hurtling spears or swarming Greek assaults–now every stir of wind, every whisper of sound alarms me, anxious both for the child beside me and the burden on my back” (Book 2, lines 902-906).

When Kreon claims, “The brave deserve better than the vile ,“ Antigone responds, “Who knows what matters to the dead?” (lines 564-565).

  • Note that, with dialogue, this is the form you should use: simply listing lines on the page often takes up too much room in the paper and then does not give you enough room, as a writer, to develop your analysis.

When called before Kreon, Antigone declares, “It wasn’t Zeus who issued me/This order“ (lines lines 487-488). She further claims, “Justice–who lives below–/was not involved. They’d never condone it!” (488-489).

As Arjuna prepares to enter battle against his family members, he questions, “O Krishna, what good is kingship?/What good even life and pleasure?” (Chapter 1, verse 32).

According to Enkidu, his introduction to the city and civilization ruins him. He tells Shamhat, ”May your purple finery be expropriated…Because you diminished me, an innocent,/ Yes me, an innocent, you wronged me in my steppe” (lines 83, 85-6).

2. According to….

According to The Hymn to Aten, “When [the sun sets] in western lightland/Earth is in darkness as if in death” (lines 13-14).

According to Enkidu, “he who falls quickly in battle dies glorious” (Tablet VII, line 171).

3. Full sentence + quote

Although Aeneas’ actions towards Dido appear cold and cruel, he demonstrates his love and his duty to his son, Ascanius: “My son Ascanius…I feel the wrong I do/to one so dear, robbing him of his kingdom…his fields decreed by fate” (Book IV, lines 442-444).

Gilgamesh’s repetition of his friend Enkidu’s name and titles after Enkidu dies highlights and emphasizes his grief: “How can I be silent? How can I hold my peace? My friend whom I loved is turned into clay,/Enkidu, my friend whom I loved, is turned into clay!” (Tablet X, lines 58-60).

Krsna, as he defends the justness of the war Arjuna is about to partake in, affirms the importance of acting without being attached, or affected by, the consequences: “He whose mind controls his senses/ who undertakes the discipline/ of action by the action-organs/ without attachment, is renowned” (Chapter 3, verse 7)

Dido’s overwhelming love for Aeneas undermines her ability to properly rule her city: “The towers of Carthage, half built, rise no more,/and the young men quit their combat drills in arms” (Book 4, lines 107-108)

Short paper no. 3: Evidence and interpretation/analysis (due 9/30, 10/5, or 10/7)

Writing assignments

Assignment: So far, you’ve had to write a paper that posed questions about an ambiguous moment or moments in a text we’ve read, and a paper that tried to pose an argument based on addressing one of those questions. For this assignment, we’ll be zooming even more into textual evidence and interpretation. Write a 1-2 page paper about either Sakuntala and the Ring of Recollection or Medea, focusing on a few lines of the text (again, try to use lines that you find ambiguous/are open to multiple ways of reading; you should quote these lines), and giving your interpretation of what they mean and why they are important. Pay attention to details (specific word choices, imagery, etc) in your interpretation. At the end of this interpretation, pose an argument that you think your interpretation of these lines could support.   Please do some close reading (of no more than 4–5 lines if possible; however, you may refer back to other lines/phrases in the text in your interpretation), and annotate those lines–again, provide evidence of your annotation in the form of a photocopy or photograph or show it to me in class (and the annotation should not just be you highlighting the lines–make some marginal notes, underline certain words that are important).

(If you want more specific questions to address about either of the plays in order to fulfill the goals of this assignment, click here: More specific questions about Medea and Sakuntala. You will still need to find a passage and interpret it, but these questions might help you to focus your ideas.)

Purpose: Fundamental to making an argument convincing is the use of  evidence to support it. In the case of literary analysis this means quoting the text. However,  for the use of textual evidence to be meaningful in terms of making an argument, you need to explain how the evidence does what you claim it does. That is, you see the language (or  structure or character, etc.) as ambiguous in some sense and in need of analysis to fully explain how to understand what the text is conveying.

Yet it is important to remember that there are multiple possible interpretations for any moment of ambiguity and you are making a case for one of those. Therefore, it is necessary to show what the ambiguity is and then show evidence from the text that supports your interpretation (disambiguation) of that ambiguity. You need to explain how it does what you claim because your audience does not necessarily read the same way you do. Your interpretation is immediately clear to you because you have made the connections in your head, but you need to make them clear to someone else.

Medea

Student blog post

Maybe some of you might think Medea is justice, maybe none.  Anyway, I think both her action and thought are evil.  Even though Jason betrayed Medea first, but Medea’s action is crueler.  She even wants her innocence children die as well, and the reason is just because the children are son of Jason.  Medea was carried away by evil mind, and she couldn’t think properly of what’s right and what’s wrong.

Then what should be consider as justice?  I don’t feel like there’s justice, it is just the idea of people who rationalizes his or her behavior.  I think Medea done it on the same way.  She thought her action is bring justice to Jason’s betrayal.  But, at the moment she killed the people, she is just a murderer.

Another thought about the Medea.  I think the author wanted to emphasize the unfair treatment between men and women.   Usually, women were ruled under men; they listened to whatever men said, they couldn’t do nothing but took care of house.  However, Medea told us that women were not burden, Medea helped Jason on his quest ad princess granted Jason the royal power.  The text reflects that women are important in society, they can do whatever men can do.  Women should be at the same position as men.

I think the most important purposes of the text are informing unfair between men and women, and consider what is justice mean to you.

Creation and the Cosmos

Student blog post

The readings for this class stood out to me more than the others. Having great personal interest in our modern understanding of ‘The Cosmos’, I signed up for this blog date as a way to compare my present day understandings of the workings of the universe, to the beliefs of civilizations long ago.

Upon beginning the reading on Aten, I noticed that it credited much of the plot of the hymn to being created as an example of how people should live their lives when faced with confrontation. Since the tale speaks of gods, it is meant to act as a guide for certain situations in life. Gods are rarely wrong.

As I read the more familiar ‘Genesis’, the story acted less as a guide, and more as a simple explanation of how things came to be. In my eyes it serves less as a guide, and more as irrefutable history. This can raise the question of what is the inner purpose of these cosmos stories; is it to guide, or to educate? And how does this purpose have an effect on how the stories are used and applied?

With the Rig Veda, we see yet another attitude. Here, the story admits that nobody can truly know how everything came to be, for even the gods were not around for the creation of the universe. Here the tale presupposes the gods with the creation of the world, and not the other way around.

Important to think about what societal or cultural influences can be the cause of the content and ideology of the various creation stories?

Citing the Norton Anthology

Writing guidelines and resources

WORKS CITED:

Author’s last name, first name. Title of Work. Trans. Name of Translator. The Norton Anthology of  World Literature. Gen. ed. Martin Puchner. 3rd ed. Vol. A/B/C. New York: Norton, 2012. Page numbers. Print.

The Epic of Gilgamesh. Trans Benjamin R. Foster. The Norton Anthology of
World Literature. Gen. ed. Martin Puchner. 3rd ed. Vol. A. New York: Norton, 2012. 95-151. Print.

IN TEXT: Use parenthetical citations AFTER the quote! 

As Arjuna prepares to enter battle against his family members, he questions, “O Krishna, what good is kingship?/What good even life and pleasure?” (Chapter 1, verse 32). 

AVOID SAYING PAGE/LINE NUMBERS IN SENTENCE ITSELF:  In Chapter 1, Arjuna says, “O Krishna, what good is kingship?/What good even life and pleasure?” 

  • Save page numbers for citation; instead, give context for quote (who says it, what is happening, etc)!

 

MORE ON IN-TEXT CITATION: For your short papers and other papers, here is how you should do your in-text citations from Norton World Anthology texts:

For texts with line numbers and section numbers: instead of citing the page number, instead cite section and line number

Gilgamesh: cite the tablet number and the line number. For the first time you cite it, write the words “tablet” and “lines” out: (Tablet X, line 13). After that, just give numbers: (X.14-17).

Bhagavad Gita: cite the chapter number and the verse number. For the first time you cite it, write the words “chapter” and “verse” out: (Chapter 3, verse 33). After that, just give numbers (3.43).

Medea: cite the line number of the text. For the first time you cite it, write the word “lines” out: (lines 119-120). From there on out, just cite the number (143-145). Same goes for Hymn to the Aten.

Sakuntala and Othello: cite the act and line number.  For the first time you cite it, write the words “act” and “lines” out: (Act IV, lines 119-120). After that, just give numbers (IV.119-120).

Short poems (Tang dynasty poems: cite the line number of the poem. For the first time you cite it, write the word “lines” out: (line 1). From there on out, just cite the number (1).

The Pillow Book: cite entry number and page number (20, p. 1136).

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight:  cite the Fitt and line number.  For the first time you cite it, write the words “Fitt” and “lines” out: (Fitt 1, lines 70-73). After that, just give numbers (1.70-73).

Gilgamesh’s Quest for Eternal Life

Student blog post

Death is inevitable, maybe in Gilgamesh’s era immortality seemed like a possibility, we know it will reach us eventually. The true mystery is, how would we approach the unescapable future and what would we leave behind as our legacy? Many people face this dilemma, and we can’t avoid it. Gilgamesh, who was so closed to being considered a God, has everything in life that a man can wish for, but he’s not your typical human. The two-thirds of a God, which he has in him, is missing a very important piece, immortality. Any man in their normal state of mind would not even think of achieving the impossible, but not Gilgamesh. What is the reason for such tremendous need for immortality?

As Utnapishtim said “No one sees death” (Page 142 line 228). We are all afraid of the unknown, but could the mighty king’s one-third human side be feeling the same fear we feel, “grown afraid of death” (Page 134 line 5)? Or is it because of seeing his equal, Enkidu, be brought down so spontaneous and unexpectedly? If you believe Enkidu is the reason for his initial search of immortality, then why does he crave it much prior to the downfall of Enkidu, “I must establish eternal fame” (Page 110 line 191). Could it be because he wants to forever remain as the greatest kings, or maybe it’s because he realizes that after he passes away he will leave nothing behind, not even a child to continue his legacy, or is it just a simple human fear of death?