This artwork was named “design 5”, it is a Cast hydro stone artwork made by an Austrian artist Erwin Hauer at 1956. The photo was my first sight when I saw it. Before I looked carefully, I thought it was a normal design with circle and angles. As I looked carefully, there was one sentence came to my mind, which was “simple is complex”. The shadow that it reflected looked like two separate masks. When I noticed this, I was shocked. How creative is it! Then I was confusing about if this is in purpose or this was just accident. In the description, the artist is focusing on the circular type of sculptures and also the lights. The shadow on the floor made me think the theory that one thing has two faces. The front side of the sculpture is normal, but after the refraction, its shadow became the evil mask. This is symbolic to our society. Every one in the world has different faces, and usually more than two. I believed if I change my position from the left of the artwork to the right of the artwork, there may be another kind of feature. I could not see it, because the right side of this artwork is a wall.

          According to the “Family Romance” by Freud, there are different stages of ideology as a child is growing up. The first stage is children always see their parents as the most trustful and powerful people in the world, they will tend to imitate their parents and wish to be same as them. In the story “Barn Burning” by Faulkner, there are two characters stand on two different positions. The father, although he is a father, I think his mind is still a child at the rebellious period. He burned the neighbor’s farm only because he didn’t like the neighbor’s action. He stained the carpet only because the house is nicer than his own. From here I could expect that the father’s parents didn’t give him enough love when he grows up. The little boy in the story is a tangled character. He has his own thought, he know what is right or wrong. When he was called up to testify if his father fired the farm, he was confusing. He didn’t want to lie, which means he knew his father was not innocent. As his thought changed, he put the neighbor as the enemy, because the neighbor was enemy of his father. The little boy loves family, he once believe his father could change better, become a person who take care of the family. He is satisfied with what he had right now, so when he saw the nice house, he didn’t felt jealous. But he only worries about his father. He is not satisfied with his father’s irresponsible, but he keeps a hope that one day his father could change. This is what Freud said that “beginning to criticize his parents”. At the end, when his father decided to fire the barn, the inner struggle brings the little boy to notice the white man. As Freud said: “so that in fact the child is not getting rid of his father but exalting him”, the little boy did not blame his father, instead, he said “He was brave”. Whether how the father did, he always the brave one in the little boy’s heart, he is his father forever.

Author used the “stream-of-consciousness” method to tell the story “Mrs. Dalloway”. In this way, Mrs. Dalloway’s story can be easier to connect to the story of Septimus Warren Smith. Both Clarissa and Septimus have similar situation that had the psychic trauma. Clarissa had the difficulty of finding “herself”, and Septimus had difficulty to release himself from the war. They both married with someone they didn’t really love but who can gave them “safe”. At the end of the story, Septimus chose to end his life; Clarissa thought this is Septimus way to keep “himself”. As the reverse, Clarissa didn’t do this way even though she wanted to find herself too. Even though she wanted to take off the “cotton wool” as Septimus, she was not as “brave” as Septimus.

When Peter Walsh, who was Clarissa’s ex-boyfriend, came back, Clarissa thought that she still loved him. She wanted the life when she was engaging with Peter, because she thought it was fall of freedom. She was trying to take off the “cotton wool”, but she cannot, Peter was not same as the past.

Then she started to think about Sally Seton, an intimate friend. When Sally was young, she was herself. No cotton wool, no anything. Sally did everything as she wanted to. Clarissa loved those feeling, but Sally was gone. Sally became a traditional woman who married and took care of her family. Sally was “behind the cotton wool” too.

Clarissa wanted to take off the “cotton wool”, but the world hold her behind it. And also everyone else in the world, including the people in the party.

Xingyu woke up at 11:00 today. The alarm died again, she was going to be late today. “I promise to myself that I am going to get a new alarm!” Xingyu thought. Xingyu slipped into her clothes and cleaned her face rushed. As she reached the Q44 bus station at Main street, she saw a woman was taking photo of a little boy, who dressed like a pumpkin. It was Halloween, she realized she forgot to prepare candy. It was a windy day, she felt cold because she forgot to wear her warm scarf. The bus was crowd as usually. Xingyu breathed hard when she got off the bus at Queens library, she said she needed fresh air. She looked her phone, it was 11:35am. That was a bad day, the train was going to take her about an hour to get to the destination; she had to be there before 12:25 pm. When she arrived the subway station, the 7 express train was just gone; she did not get the chance to step her foot on the train. This may be the worse day that she had for this month! When the 7 local train was approaching the station, Xingyu quickly got on the train. How empty was it! That was roomy! She felt nauseating suddenly, because she was sitting right after she ran. Yes, she was dry retching. This was so quick that she didn’t have time to move her hand and cover her mouth. Oh, that was so awkward! When her mouth was acting for retch, there was a man stepped on the train. He saw the ugly face of her. Xingyu thought: “Should I say something to release this strained relation?” She ended up with no word, she was shy and embarrass. The man may had many feelings about her, but he didn’t say anything either. As more people stepped on, the tension was gone. As the expectation, Xingyu was late for her class. What a terrible day!

Both the New York Times Article and the Douglass ‘s Autobiography gave me a sense of how women in color were treated, and I think those women were the most suffered during the slavery period. They must be so painful. In the article, the author stated more than one time , that the women in color were silenced. I think this is an expression of the patrilineal society, where women had no right and freedom. That’s why women in Turner’s story is not so important to focus. Turner’s wife who was a slave “belonged to a different master”, how can we imagine what happened to this poor woman.In the Douglass’s Autobiography, it was different, where he told the real lives of the women in color. There were three important women.  The first woman was Douglass’s mother, who was raped by her master. Douglass had described his mother in the first chapter, which we can found out how important that he thinks about his mother’s encounter. This poor woman gave birth to her child but cannot spare anytime with her child, because she was a slave and had to work. Second woman is his Aunt, who was tortured and couldn’t  tell. In the novel, his mother and aunt didn’t say anything, but we can feel their sorrow and sadness of being slave women. They were no easy to survive in the crucial time period. The third woman is the master’s wife who had taught Douglass study for a while. She stopped to teach Douglass after the disagreement of her husband. In Douglass’s mind, the evil and bad always were the men. For women, he keeped his respect and felt unfortunate for them .

Date 10.05.2016

In the real world, lamb always stand for the “pure”. The purest thing in our live is the baby! The poet wrote that the lamb “ became a little child”, this shows the lamb is a symbol of “pure”. In the end of the novel, the Creature said “I cannot believe that I am the same creature whose thoughts were once filled with sublime and transcendent visions of the beauty and the majesty of goodness”. This sentence shows me that the Creature was first a lovely “child” when he was first invented. All he had right now was the result of the evil world, is the result of how other people down to him.

        There always a “lamb” living in the Creature’s heart. At the end of the novel, the Creature had said “ Still I desired love and fellowship”. The next sentence he said: “and I was still spurned”. It was not strange that the Creature is more like to the lamb, because after all those negative experience, he still owns a “soft” inner. On chapter five of the novel, when the Creature was created, the description of it is “ His jaws opened…… while a grin wrinkled his cheeks”. The Creature was trying to smile and say thank you. This shows that his nature is good.

Lastly, look at the realistic, how most people call the Creature? Most people will call the Creature as “Frankenstein”, even though Frankenstein is the name of the creator. Now look at the poem, “Little lamb, I’ll tell thee: He is called by thy name”, the creator of the lamb has same name as the lamb. Frankenstein also can be refered to the Creature!

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Two poems by William Blake, “ The Tyger “ and “ The Lamb” written about creature. I think Creature of animals is more like a Tyger. When I read those poems I think The Tyger is more life aggressive creature and Lamb is opposite way which is very “sweet” , “ unadulterate” and “ weak” not exactly weak but shows in like that by saying, “He became a little child:”. Blake shows how Tyger and Lamb is different creature. The Lamb is more soft and delight but Tyger is more angry, showing strong resentment characters. In the poem it is explains by itself by using unique words that describes both of creature. Poems are very unique way explained two different creature. When I read the poem The Tyger, I think it is more life very strong and very powerful character like it says in the poem “What immortal hand or eye, Could frame thy fearful symmetry?” by using this extremely strong words it is explains Tyger have very strength and immortal which is means not dying that cannot be die really fast or not even could die. In my personal point of view Tyger is more like evoked by the creature and it shows in Frankenstein’s monster creature. In the poem it explains with more motivation using , “ In what distant deeps or skies. Burnt the fire of thine eyes?”. This means how Tyger is very powerful and fearless, that have fire eyes. “On what wings dare he aspire? What the hand, dare seize the fire?” This is explains how he looks like kind of showing, the Tyger have wings which stronges side too. Frankenstein’s creature is immortal and very powerful as Tyger. These two characters are similar to each others.  Blake’s poem “ The Tyger “ shows similar reaction as well, how the Tyger is more immortal and have strong body and mind that looks like Frankenstein’s creature. Blake using metaphor, setting and characteristic in his poem to express his thought how Tyger is looks like. “Tyger Tyger burning bright, In the forests of the night:” probably using words “bright” and “night” gives more definition to how he showing Tyger strong that could shine in the night time. Overall, in my point of view, the novel and poem creatures are similar to each others because they are facing same looks and similar personality also I compare Tyger to Creature.

In class, we had discussed that sublime could describe when two opposite feeling appear at the same moment.

This picture was taken when I was on my way to the campus. Every day, I had to take the subway to commute to the campus. The most interesting thing about taking subway is I can meet tons of people every day on the subway. How they act, and how they express. To give up your seat to some with disable or elder or pregnant or kids normally appears on the subway. The other light spots are those freestyle artists; they are either sing or dance or play instruments or just do the combinations. but there are many thought behind those easy movements or actions.

There was one day, when the 7 train was stopped at the Queensboro Plaza station, one disable man boarded up. At the first, I thought he was same with those artists who just sing two or three sentences and then start to collect the donations. But just few seconds after, I knew I was wrong. This man came in, then started to sing. I didn’t know what’s the title of the song, but I just felt that it was songful. He sang the song completely; it was so beautiful.

I choose this because when I was at that moment, I felt pleasant for his beautiful and talented voice, in another way, I also felt sad about his missing of leg.

            by: Xingyu Zheng

Xingyu Zheng

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         Story is a word that we knew when we were small. Kids always hold a thin, hard cover, and colorful book to their parents to ask if they can read the story for them. One reason why kids loves to read story is the story tells many new things to them. So the reason why people write story, is the author wants to tell something though his/her work, and also to express how they think about things.

        A story can be created based on real thing, and also fake thing. We called the story either non-fiction or fiction. Some story cannot be told if it is written based on real events. Thus, fiction story showed up. The word “Fiction” is very broad. People can find it in literature, media and so on. However, fiction is mostly use in literature. Many fiction stories are telling the truth of human life even though it is based on a non-real background.

        Sometimes, some fact can be hard to accept, the fiction could make things interesting and attracting, so that reader can accept it easier. In another way, fiction also offers a new door for writers to open their mind and write more creative work.

       As what Hasif Amini thought: “In fact, since long ago stories have been a remarkable way to enlighten human minds in dark times full of mystery”, whatever fiction or non- fiction story, they all “enlighten” the reader’s heart and mind. They may think different way about one thing after they read the story. Some of them can find consonance from the book. Authors use their words to create another world in their works.

The enlightenment period was a gap or turning point of our world values.During the enlightenment, people’s thought had changed a lot. Instead of a feudalism and traditional society, people wanted to form an equal and reasonable society. The idea of liberty also had been brought up.
People, who lived in the enlightenment period, were thought more “outside of the box”. People started to keep “Why” on their mind. Like Kant said: “dare to know”. Back then, God was everything, church was the one who hold the most power on hand. However, during the enlightenment, people started to question on the idea of Theology. It gave me a scene that a baby is new to the world and he/she is discovering the world.
During the enlightenment, people were pursuing equality on rights and liberty for everyone. Even now, many people are also pursuing the equality. Although equality and liberty is not totally cover our world now, but the enlightenment had open the door, which led people stepped my the road of everyone equality
The idea of “secular humanism” is more concern about reason and spirit. It could be the main part of what people wanted during the enlightenment. To Descartes, “God” will be the leader of secular humanism in his mind. As he talks in the chapter 4 of ‘discourse on method’，he used to think about whether he is “real” or not. After thinking with reason; he knew that he was true. “God” was a doctrine of the world; Descartes could found the meaning of his exiting, and also he could use it as the description to distinguish such as dream and reality.