What is going on in the example: Striking dehumanization occurs on page 704 where we see a mother abandoning her child, moving as fast as she can as her child follows behind her, begging that he/she is not left behind in an attempt to show that she is strong and able to work. Had she succeeded, she would have been sent to the female camp and not the gas chambers. Instead, a man named Andrei sees this happening and in disgust strikes the woman, grabs her by the neck, and throws her  into the truck headed for the gas chambers. Her child is thrown in with her.

What about this example made a particularly strong impression on me: This particular story stood out to me because it shows a primal survival instinct coming to the surface, causing the woman to disregard maternal instinct and leave her child to die. The second part to this part of the story is that Andrei, a prisoner, is so desentizied to death and pain that even as someone who knows the struggles of being in a Nazi death camp, he seems to have no problem striking a woman and throwing her and her child onto a truck that would take her to her death like livestock.

What is its significance within the context of the story: This part of the story goes to show how especially the Canada group of prisoners becomes desensitized to the horrors of the camps and acts in their best interests as a survival instinct.

What questions does it raise:

Why does Andrei not sympathize with the woman?

Was Andrei rewarded for this behavior?

Is it even possible for a human being in Andrei or the woman’s position to not become dehumanized?

After combing through T. S. Eliot’s quite confusing poem “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufroct”, I believe that I can describe Prufroct. The character of J. Alfred Prufroct is cynical, believes that others are cynical, and appears to be reflecting on his experiences while giving advice to the reader. He seems to resent people who try hard to fit in, as shown by the lines where between the mentions of “women talking of Michelangelo”. He appears to believe that there is a right and a wrong time for everything. His cynicism comes out in the part of the poem that I believe that I understand best,

And indeed there will be time to wonder, “Do I dare?” and “Do I dare?” Time to turn back and descend the stair, With a bald spot in the middle of my hair – (They will say: “How his hair is growing thin!”) My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin, My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin – (They will say: “But how his arms and legs are thin!”) Do I dare Disturb the universe? In a minute there is time For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.

Here is where I believe Prufroct is explaining his belief that everything has a time and his resentment of those who try to fit in. He explicitly says multiple times thoroughout the piece “there will be a time”, which to me is the signal that he is a proponent of the belief that everything happens for a reason and is planned out by a higher being. The lines in parenthesis signal both his believe that people are cynical and that he resents those cynics. In the lines around this block, women discussing popular culture are mentioned. I believe that they are the ones who he is saying will say the cynical things. These analyses are reinforced by the line “Do I dare disturb the universe?” because Prufroct, being a cynic himself would rather question if he should challenge his surroundings rather and assert his own beliefs and opinions.

Questions:

1. What does the first paragraph translate to in English?
2. Is there a significance to the fog being yellow?
3. Why would a human voice drown “us”? (544)

At first, I was having trouble with this open-ended prompt as I could not think of any direct link between Punishment and any of our other stories. As I was thinking, I kept getting hung up on the idea that in her culture, Chandara should have been by her husbands side, even through this terrible act that he has committed, as he should have been by hers.  I believe that her defiance of her husband’s wishes would have been severely frowned upon by the community. This idea led to my epiphany that Orgon’s family in Moliere’s Tartuffe should have also been subordinate and submitted to Tartuffe’s influence over Orgon’s household, but they didn’t. Based on contextual evidence, I believe that Chandara and Chidam from Punishment are Hindu. The Hindu concept of marriage gives the duty of supporting one another, through thick and thin, to both the husband and wife. Chandara was so taken back by her husband’s request to lie to authority to protect him that she distanced herself from him indefinitely. “In gaol, just before the hanging, a kindly Civil Surgeon asked Chandara, “Do you want to see anyone?” “I’d like to see my mother,” she replied. “Your husband wants to see you,” said the doctor. “Shall I call him?” “To hell with him,” Said Chandara.” This disgust that she shows for her husband is in clear defiance of the Hindu principles of marriage. A similar disloyalty occurs in Tartuffe when his children flat out refuse to allow Tartuffe’s influence over their father’s household affect them. To this effect, Dorine says, “When he came here he wasn’t wearing shoes. But he’s no village saint – it’s all a ruse. There was no vow of poverty – he’s poor! And he was just some beggar at the door Whom we should have tossed. He’s a disaster! To think this street bum now plays the master.” The culture at the time of Tartuffe would have the kids completely subordinate to their father as he is their sole provider, but just like Chandara, they have thoughts of their own.

The film version of Hedda Gabler does a great job recreating Ibsen’s text. Such a good job in fact, that the film was nearly exactly how I had imagined the story in my head. Between the two, there are a few differences that struck me. Immediately, I was surprised that the actors playing Mr. Tesman and Hedda seem significantly older than what is mentioned in the text. On page 783, we learn that George Tesman is thirty three years old, and on page 786 we learn that Hedda Gabler is twenty nine years old. If I had to guess, I would say that the actors are approximately ten years older than the characters that they are portraying. As far as the content of the film goes, there are a few insignificant text edits, like in the text when George Tesman asks Hedda to call his aunt Auntie, but in the film he only asks her to be more affectionate towards his aunt. Her response is the same in both. The only big difference that stands out to me is my perception of how Hedda treats George Tessman’s aunt, as well as how she seems to feel when George Tessman is telling his aunt how he believes that Hedda has “filled out nicely”. In the text, I get the impression that Hedda is incredibly rude to George Tesman’s aunt to the point where I feel resent towards Hedda because of the way she treats family. In the film version,  while Hedda is not the best host, I do not feel resent towards her because we can see her smile towards George Tesman’s aunt. She also does not order the aunt to close the curtains, George does it. The film version of Hedda is much more apologetic when she mistakes the hat to be the maid’s. In the film, I can sense Hedda’s insecurity when George Tesman and his aunt are admiring her. This is not present for me in the text.

My most significant takeaway from both of the Jacobs excerpts as well as Douglass’ story is that slavery, while on the outside looks like a means of free labor through physical strength, is really a means of absolute control through both physical AND mental control. For instance, take the quote from The Loophole of Retreat, “Dr. Flint, did you bring my mother home? I want to see her. The doctor stamped his foot at him in a rage, and exclaimed, Get out of the way, you little damned rascal! If you don’t, I’ll cut off your head. Benny ran terrified into the house, saying, You can’t put me in jail again. I don’t belong to you now.” Jacobs’ son Benny is apparently no longer Dr. Flint’s possession, but the man is still able to inflict great fear on Benny with the threat of violence. Now Benny must constantly fear his own words and critique every thought that comes to his mind for his own good! Flint is not even his master anymore, the Doctor is able to exert this kind of control just because he is a southern white man. This kind of absolute control is mimicked in Douglass’ narrative when he talks about the slave breaker. The slave breaker would slither out to the fields on his stomach in an attempt to catch one of his slaves slacking off or conversing with one another. By doing this, he is able to instill a constant fear into the slaves and this is absolute rule. Once again, these slaves are forced to critique their own thoughts in order to protect themselves.

Part 2:

1. Indentured servitude, a form of slavery where someone is held to work due to financial obligations, while illegal, is still prevalent in some parts of the world.
2. The U.S. department of State describes human trafficking as modern slavery
3. Child labor, depending on the circumstances, can be considered slavery and is prevalent in other parts of the world.

The quote that stood out to me was right in the beginning of the story. “A want of information concerning my own [age] was a source of unhappiness to me even during childhood. The white children could tell their ages. I could not tell why I ought to be deprived of the same privilege.” This quote made an impression on me because even though he was a slave, he had somehow become literate, and beyond odds, eloquent. I believe that the most important thing that we can learn about Frederick Douglass here by analyzing his syntax and diction is that he was not afraid to challenge his masters. He said himself that he was not allowed to try to ascertain his own age as it was banned by his master. A weaker man would not have questioned this and moved on. Without reading more than two pages in or knowing anything else about the story, I can already tell that this narrative is going to include Douglass being a crucial part of the anti-slavery movement because of his intelligence and willingness to challenge authority. From the passage, we can deduce that American slavery is brutal . If Douglass is not allowed to know his own age then we must also assume that his master is actively trying to keep his slaves as ignorant and as uninformed as possible in order to maintain his power by force. My guess is that this method will backfire on him and cause an uprising before he is required to free his slaves by law. A few questions are raised to me by this quote. Through what avenues is Douglass’ master going through in order to maintain the ignorance of his slaves? Is Douglass monitored at all times to make sure that he is following orders? Did Douglass grow up around white children and get taken from that environment, or did he know about white children by observing them from afar?

I feel that this image perfectly describes the resentful tone of “The Chimney Sweeper” from Blake’s Songs of Experience. When looking at the young chimney sweeps above, I see one emotion in their facial expressions, sorrow. These kids are not even that dirty yet, which means that  From the line “Where are thy father and mother? Say? They are both gone up to the church to pray.”, I can deduce that for at least the author, either he feels that his parents put him in this miserable position as a chimney sweep, or that they actually did. I say that the poem has a resentful tone, this analysis comes from the lines “And because I am happy, and dance and sing, They think they have done me no injury”. This is where the image above helps my understanding of the poem. The text shows sadness, but the image is better at conveying the full on sorrow and despair that author must feel. The text tells me that Blake wants revenge for what his parents have put him through, but the image says that a young chimney sweep would not have the energy to even think about exacting revenge on whoever forced them into work. Another difference between the text and the image is that the text calls the chimney sweep “A little black thing among the sun” in the opening line. Possibly, in the time from when the image is taken and the boys are clean, to when they are done with a days work and completely covered in soot, that they would garner such a resentment towards their parents that they would be motivated to stand up to them.

I thought that the performance of Sophocles’ Oedipus The King that we saw was more effective in conveying what was happening in the plot of the story than if we had only read it out on our own. The performers added a sense of urgency, panic, and despair that would not have come across to me in text alone.

Before the performance started, I noticed that the static set seemed to be a modern interpretation of Oedipus’ castle/palace due to the graffiti on either side of the entrance This was a nice aesthetic addition, but did not turn out to be a vital part of the story as I had postulated at first. Something that I appreciated in the performance, which I learned was different from the text during the question and answer, was the consolidation of the crowd of ordinary citizenry into one  character. I feel that this made the relationship between the ruler and the ruled more intimate, and like Oedipus was more obligated to listen to one man than a crowd.

After seeing the rendition of Oedipus The King, some of our classmates who saw an earlier performance asked me two things. How and why did Oedipus kill his father, and what did Oedipus mean when he said that he slept where he should not have slept? I thought that the performance that I saw did a great job of showing the audience what occurred. This is where the urgency, panic, and despair come in. Oedipus, in sheer terror, realizes that he killed his father when his fathers’ convoy ran Oedipus off the road, and in anger, killed the whole convoy except for one man, who lives to recount the story, and ultimately, dooms Oedipus. In the climax of the story, Oedipus quivered as he said, “I have slept where I should not have slept.” Around the same time that his wife realizes that she can no longer deceive Oedipus, it finally occurs to him that he not only was the one who killed his father, but was also sleeping with his own mother. Seeing how this leads to Oedipus gouging his own eyes out was truly disturbing to see.

The photo below is a depiction of the Japanese god of wind and thunder. This particular picture stood out to me as significant to Bewitched not only because of the multiple instances of thunder in the story, but also because the god appears to be standing on a black cloud. This image immediately reminded me of 2 quotes from Bewitched, The first being, “In the name of the governor, I arrest you,” shouted Kumagashi. “Come with me.” “But the woman made no answer. As Kumagashi approached to seize her, there was a sudden clap of thunder, so loud that it seemed as though the earth itself had been split apart. Stunned by the impact, everyone fell to the floor before they could flee the room.” The second quote that came to mind is, “Manago and Maroya stood up in a frenzy of confusion and plunged into the waterfall. The swirling waters suddenly shot up into the air and the two vanished from sight. At the same time a jet black cloud appeared over the spot like a splash of ink, and rain fell in a torrent, rattling noisily like thin bamboo slats.” The depiction of the god of wind and thunder riding on a black cloud makes me think that the author was trying to portray that this god could have been trying to inflict harm on or scare Toyo-o with the “Devil” that inhabits the women he gets involved with. The thunder from the first quote could be this coming to fruition as Toyo-o ends up in jail for one hundred days. The black cloud that appears when the old man helps get rid of the devil again could be the god showing his anger for Toyo-o.

We quickly learn in the beginning of Molier’s Tartuffe, that the character Tartuffe causes quite a lot of strife in Orgon’s family. In the first 2 acts, we learn that Tartuffe is a beggar that Orgon met in their church when Tartuffe went out of his way to be overly kind to the wealthy man. In what he believes to be the act of a good Christian, Orgon, takes the beggar into his own home and provides for him.

The two men have an interesting relationship. I believe that Tartuffe is abusing his religion-driven relationship with Orgon. Orgon believes that Tartuffe is incredibly devout, and that by taking him in, he will learn from Tartuffe and increase his chance of going to heaven. The quote, “You just don’t see him the way I do, but if you did, you’d feel what I feel, too. Every day he came to Church and knelt, and from his groans, I knew just what he felt. Those sounds he made from deep inside his soul, were fed by piety he could not control.” shows this idea better than I could explain. Tartuffe is playing into Orgon’s ideas about him perfectly. The beggar is merely using Orgon’s desire to increase his position in the eyes of his god to live like a nobleman for free. The quote, “She had a fever- And Tartuffe? He’s fine- Rosy-nosed and red-cheeked, drinking your wine. Poor man! And then, Madame because unable to eat a single morsel at the table. Ah, and Tartuffe? He sat within her sight, Not holding back, he ate with great delight, a brace of partridge, and a leg of mutton. In face, he ate so much, he popped a button. Poor man!” supports this idea because it clearly shows that Tartuffe, who was merely a beggar not so long ago, has no humility when indulging in front of Orgon’s sick mother.