One example in Borowski’s “This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen” that had a profound effect on me was on page 702 of his narrative. There, he was helping unload the trains of the new transports that were being brought into his camp. Their job was to help gather up everything that was brought on the trains – food, valuables, clothing, even bodies He describes the experience in one of the cars:

                “In the corners, among human excrement and abandoned wrist-watches lie squashed, trampled infants, naked little monsters with enormous heads and bloated bellies. We carry them out like chickens, holding several in each hand.”

When I came to that paragraph, it was one of those moments that you had to just pause and let what the narrator was saying sink in. Because part of my mind just couldn’t fully comprehend the words, couldn’t possibly visualize the horrific scene that he was describing. His wording was simple, almost nonchalant when he talked about finding “squashed, trampled infants” amidst the other personal belongings. It was such an embodiment of dehumanization when he talked about disposing of them like you would a chicken, carrying “several in each hand.” That’s what really got me. Growing up, my grandparents had chickens. Being a big animal lover, I was always so upset whenever they found an old one that had died. I hated watching my grandfather get rid of it, because he would never bury it like I wanted to. Instead, he would walk it across the street, holding it by its legs, and toss its body into the woods like it was nothing more than a bag of garbage.  When I was reading this, it brought me back to that memory, only here it was so, so much worse. Because here, Borrowski was talking about babies. Little infants who were being disposed of like they were nothing more than a dead bird. I think this is what made it so significant to the story, because it showed how completely devalued their lives had become. They were malnourished, neglected, and regarded as nothing more than a farm animal.  And not only that, but they were TRAMPLED – flattened by other human feet. The inhumane conditions and the panic and terror of everyone around them made keeping them safe a last priority, the complete opposite of what our human nature towards an innocent child is supposed to be. It made me wonder, had anyone tried to save them? Or were they just so desperate to stay alive that it wasn’t even a second thought? What about the mothers? Were the conditions so abysmal that even they put their own survival above their child’s? It was such a small excerpt from the narrator’s story, yet it’s one that made such a severe, lasting impression.

In the poem “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”, Prufrock seems like a restless man, constantly questioning himself and his current position in life, and contemplating what his next move will be. In lines 36 and 37 he says “and indeed there will be a time to wonder, do I dare? Do I dare?” and again in lines 46-48, “Do I dare, disturb the universe? In a minute, there is time for decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.” It’s here that he appears to question what his next move will be. Does he dare make a decision, make a change? He continues to have this sort of insecurity, constantly questioning himself throughout the poem: “How should I presume?” (61), “How should I begin?” (69), “Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?” (121). He seems tired of the same old things, claiming to have ‘seen’ and ‘known’ it all: “I have known the eyes already, known them all” (55), “I have known the arms already, known them all” (63). It’s as though he feels trapped – he’s afraid to make a move, yet he’s also afraid of not making one and of looking back on his life when he’s old and wondering if what he had done was worth it. He’s “seen the moment of [his] greatness flicker…and in short, [he] was afraid” (84,86).

Lines 47 and 48 stood out to me, where it said “In a minute there is time, for decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.” Here, I felt like Prufrock was really trying to stress how fleeting moments are. In a minute, we could make a decision that changes everything. And just as quickly as a decision can be made, it can be unmade and we can find ourselves right back where we started. Life moves so fast and if we spend so much time being indecisive, we might find ourselves looking back years later and realize we aren’t where we want to be, or we haven’t accomplished what we wanted to accomplish.

Three questions I had while reading this poem were: What are the significance of arms in the poem? Who are the mermaids? Why does he talk about drowning in the end – is that referencing the possibility of his own death because he’s unhappy?

The story “Punishment” by Rabindranath Tagore made me think of the play that we just read, “Hedda Gabler” by Henrick Ibsen. It could be because it was the most recent in my mind, but the character of Chandara in “Punishment” reminded me so much of Hedda in “Hedda Gabler.” I saw similar qualities in the two of them, as well as their tragic situations. In “Punishment”, Chandara is the wife of Chidam, a “compact and sturdy” woman who was “trim in her movements” with “restless, deep black eyes that missed nothing.” She was more put together than Radha, who was described as more “unkempt, sloppy”. She had a very strong willed personality – during one instance, her husband threatened to break every bone in her body if she went to the ghat by herself, yet she carelessly replied “The bones will mend.” In the story, Chandara’s husband asks her to take the blame for the murder of Radha, his brother’s wife, even though his brother was the one who did it. When Chandara is on trial, her husband tells her to say that it was an accident, that Radha attacked her first and it was self-defense. Instead, Chandara reacts bluntly to all of it, answering “No” to whether she was ill-treated or attacked first. “She seemed absolutely bent on going to the gallows…such fierce, passionate pride!”. Up to the very end she remains defiant, even when the doctor comes in and tells her that her husband wants to see her, she replies “To hell with him.”

Chandara’s strong-willed character reminded me so much of Hedda in “Hedda Gabler.” Like Chandara, Hedda had a more put together appearance, with an “aristocratic and elegant” figure, and eyes that were “steel-grey, cold and clear.” She too was restless in the story, restless of her settled down life with George Tesman. Like Chandara, Hedda was stubborn to the end, her defiance resonating even in how she died. After it was discovered that Eilert was killed by one of Hedda’s pistols, Judge Barack made it seem as though he was doing Hedda a favor by not saying anything. However, it came at a cost. Even Hedda realized, “So I’m in your power now, Judge. You have a hold over me from now on…Totally subject to your demands – and your will. Not free. Not free at all.” In the end, as her husband and Mrs. Elvsted got closer and the judge tried to exercise his control over her – saying “Oh, we’re going to have some good times together, the two of us” – Hedda took one of her pistols and shot herself in the temple, in her greatest act of defiance yet.

Both the women protagonists in “Punishment” and “Hedda Gabler” were strong willed and stubborn, even up to their own death. And while Chandara was executed, she still made the conscious decision (through her answers to the police) to die, as did Hedda when she directly killed herself. Both seemed to struggle with feeling restless on the inside, and trapped under the control of men. They were defiant in their words and actions, but more than that they had a true desire for freedom. Tragically, they found that freedom through death, both using their deaths as one last act of defiance.

The opening of the play “Hedda Gabler” in both the film version and the written version were very similar. For the most part, the film kept much of the dialogue the same – borderline exact – as Henrik Ibsen had it. There were a few small parts that were omitted from the film version, like the part when Juliana Tesman (Aunt Julie) comments about the furniture having no slipcovers. Though it was a small part, it had affected how I first viewed Aunt Julie. In the written version, upon seeing the furniture had no covers, she had said to Berta (the maid) “What’s this now? Why have you taken all the slipcovers off the furniture?…Are they going to use this as their everyday living room?” Here she came across somewhat judgmental. There was an air of disapproval about her. Yet watching her in the film, I didn’t get any impression of that sort – instead she seemed extremely kind and caring and likeable, going out of her way to try and impress Hedda. Had I not seen how she acted in the film, there would have been a part of me that sympathized with Hedda because Aunt Julie had at first appeared critical of her.
Another way that the film was different was in how Hedda was portrayed. It wasn’t that she was portrayed any differently in the written version vs in the film – she still had the same arrogance, the same cold, unlikeable exterior. But in the film, it was a lot more embellished, which I think really helped add to how Ibsen wanted her character represented. For example, in the very beginning when Hedda wakes up and comes downstairs to where her husband and Aunt Julie are waiting, the written part describes her first encounter as her “entering from the left side of the inner room” and “extending her hand” to Aunt Julie. However, in the film version, we see Hedda come down the stairs, see Aunt Julie, and turn as if to walk away and completely avoid her. Aunt Julie catches sight of her, which is when she is almost forced to come in and greet her. Just the little things like that made Hedda’s true character become even more evident to me as the viewer, and added more dimension to her personality.

The passage that stood out to me from the “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass” was when he described the conditions at Colonel Lloyd’s plantation, when he lived there as a child. He talked about sleeping on the cold ground using an empty bag used for corn as warmth, and that his feet had been so cracked with frost that he said the “pen with which I am writing might be laid in the gashes.” As for meals, he recalled “our food was coarse corn meal boiled…It was put into a large wooden tray or trough, and sat down upon the ground. The children were then called, like so many pigs, and like so many pigs they would come and devour the mush; some with oyster shells, others with pieces of shingle, some with naked hands, and none with spoons” (p.248). While much of the physical violence in his writing stood out, this passage was the one that painted such a vivid, heartbreaking picture in my mind. All I could see were a bunch of those children, cold and hungry, huddled around this trough, fighting over what little food was there and using whatever they could find to help eat it. Even Douglass himself describes the children as being “like pigs”, who were called when it was feeding time and devoured what was given. It shows just how far they were stripped of their basic human rights. There was no humanity here; they were treated as though they were farm animals. His description of that, to me, shows how unjust slavery is even more so than the physical torture they had to endure because it shows how they weren’t even viewed as human beings. Frederick Douglass describes his experiences in such a powerful way that it feels as if you can see them in your minds eye. His words evoke so much emotion that you can’t help but feel something when you read them. And there is such a resonation of strength in his work, because despite it all, he was able to survive, educate himself, and use his words as a weapon for change. It shows just how unbreakable his spirit was, and is why his work still holds so much power today.

The engraving that William Blake inscribed his poem “The Lamb” on shows a herd of sheep near what looks like a barn and a river. There’s a child with them, and his hand is stretched out towards one of the lambs.  I think his engraving very literally interprets the poem that Blake wrote. In the poem, the child is speaking. Without the engraving, it’s hard to tell who the child is actually speaking to – it could be a lamb, but it could also be a metaphor for something or someone else. However in the picture we can clearly see that the child is actually speaking to a lamb. He has his hand stretched out, and the lamb is looking up at him intently as the child asks “who made thee?”, who “gave thee life and bid thee feed by the stream and o’er the mead?” The child then goes on to a more theological explanation, where he explains to the lamb who “made” him, saying “he is called by thy name, for he calls himself a lamb…I a child and thou a lamb. We are called by his name.” The “lamb” is a name that is often times used to describe Jesus in the Bible, the ‘lamb of God.’ Here, the child references many of what he considers to be Jesus’s creations – the meadow, the stream, the lamb itself. He’s explaining to the lamb who was behind all these wonderful creations. I think the engraving the author did really compliments the poem because it captures the innocence and meekness of the young child and the lamb, and represents the beauty of creation Blake talked about.

The reason I chose this image was because I felt like it really embodied Manago’s character in “Bewitched.” In the story, Manago came across as this beautiful, innocent women, yet on the inside she was deadly and deceptive, a (literal) serpent. She was able to hide behind this mirage of refinement and grace, never showing her true face. She knew people’s desires, their vulnerabilities and she used them to her advantage, altering herself to reflect what they wanted to see.

When Toyo-o first met Manago, he was captivated by her beauty. Manago portrayed this perfect image of modesty and refinement, her face “lighting up” and “blushing modestly” when she first met him. Though they only met briefly, Toyo-o had already begun to be deceived by this perfect mirage. That night, before Toyo-o even visited Manago’s house, he found himself vividly dreaming about its “huge structure” with its “shutters and the bamboo blinds.” He dreamt of a feast with “wine and all kinds of fruit.” When he finally awoke and made his way over to her house, he was struck by how similar the house was to what he had imagined – “the front gate and the house were huge indeed. The shutters and bamboo blinds were just as impressive as he had imagined in his dream.” Even Toyo-o thought it was strange, questioning whether or not this was still a dream as he was fed a familiar feast with food and wine. It wasn’t until Manago was exposed and Toyo-o was taken back to the house by samurai that the mirage was shattered, and he saw the house for what it actually was – broken down, overgrown, and “sagging with rot.”

Later on in the story, when Manago was able to track down Toyo-o at his sisters store in Nara, she was able to transform once again. Playing off of Toyo-o’s sister’s and husbands emotions, she reflected a desperate widow, tearful and apologetic and desperately in love.  They were “so moved” by Manago’s pleadings that they “had no doubt whatever that she had spoken the truth.” As a result, they invited her into their home, and eventually succeeded in talking Toyo-o into marrying her.

A final example was when Manago took on the appearance of Tomiko, the daughter of Shoji and a lady-in-waiting at the Imperial Palace in Kyoto. This was perhaps the most literal example of how Manago was able to change her reflection, by actually taking over the body of Tomiko. Toyo-o only saw Tomiko, with the “glamourous quality in her appearance” and her “pretty eyes.” Manago was even able to perfectly reflect Tomiko’s traits, attracting Toyo-o with her alertness, perceptiveness, and diligence. Once again, Toyo-o found himself married to another perfect mirage.

 “Bewitched” by Ueda Akinari is the epitome of the saying ‘looks can be deceiving.’ It’s a critical reminder that what you see isn’t always what you get. Sometimes you need to look further than just the reflection in the mirror.  

The relationship between Orgon and Tartuffe in Moliere’s “Tartuffe” is a very deceptive one. On the surface, Tartuffe takes on the appearance of a lowly servant, one who was at church day in and day out, humbly kneeling and drawing “the eyes of everybody there by the deep fervor of his heartfelt prayer.” He would “sigh and weep”, sometimes even kissing the ground in what appeared to be a heartfelt show of devotion. He would run to offer Orgon holy water at the door, and when Orgon tried to give him gifts in return, he would humbly “beg [him] every time to give him less.” In Orgon’s eyes, Tartuffe was a blameless man, someone who believed in Heaven and lived his life devoted to his beliefs. Because of this, Orgon held him to an almost God-like standard, worshiping him even at the expense of his family and trusting him as though the words he spoke came from heaven itself. He gave him money, food, a place to stay, even his daughter to marry, yet to him it all paled in comparison to what Tartuffe claimed to be able to give him – a soul free from sin. Orgon was only able to see the surface – unlike the rest of his family, he was so in awe of Tartuffe that he was naïve to his hypocritical ways. Tartuffe, on the other hand, saw an affluent man, one with naïve, trusting tendencies and exploited them. His relationship with Orgon was deceptive from the start, never one based on good intentions. He used his words to manipulate and deceive, and Orgon was too blinded to see it, despite his family’s best efforts to open his eyes.
While reading “Tartuffe”, I was drawn to some of the parallels I saw between the story and things I’ve witnessed in my life. I grew up in a very religious family, going to church two or three times a week when I was younger. While I’ve never seen such an extreme example of Tartuffe, Cléante’s words stuck a familiar chord when he said “Those whose hearts are truly pure and lowly, don’t make a flashy show of being holy. There’s a vast difference, so it seems to me, between true piety and hypocrisy.” Growing up, it always stuck out to me how the people who always sat front and center at church, the ones who were always so vocal about their service, were the ones who often times were the biggest hypocrites. They were the ones who were the most unkind, the ones who would put others down and act in a way that was so different from what they preached. It was always kind of disheartening to me, so I really appreciated the truth in Cléante’s words. As he put it “those whose courage shines the most, in battle are the least inclined to boast.”