Author Archives: m.chan6

For my modernism assignment, I visited the Museum of Modern Art and came across a painting called The Dream by Henri Rousseau. Henri Rousseau was a French artist who lived from 1844 to 1910.

While at the MoMA, some paintings and sculptures had a brief description adjacent to them on the wall. Rousseau’s The Dream did not have a description next to it but only the year of its creation and a statement that it was made by “oil on canvas”. When I first saw this painting, I immediately noticed the woman who was exposed and lying across what I think is a soda. Surrounding the woman was a jungly environment with vibrant colored flowers, animals including jaguars and an elephant, and a native holding an instrument.

The context that I believe is occurring in this work is that it is referring to the period of colonization in the mid-1800s when European countries were colonizing and taking over several regions in Africa and claiming them for their resources. Because the woman shown in this painting has white skin, she represents the European countries that colonized Africa. I am not entirely sure why Rousseau chose to paint the woman to be naked but I would assume one reason which is to display elegance, purity, or power in some odd way. Also, this painting is titled “The Dream” which could refer to the woman’s position being highly desired by Europeans during this time period.

Henri Rousseau’s The Dream is a work of impressionism in the Modernist era of art. As said previously, this painting reflects the period of colonization in Africa by European countries and how white Europeans gained a level of superiority against the native Africans. It creates a visual impression on what it looked like in Africa since the mid-1800s. Because impressionism is a form of art that tries to display one’s experiences, The Dream is successful in accurately depicting how Europe saw its occupation in its African colonies. Although the work puts a positive light on Europe by including the colorful flowers and the woman on the sofa, it would look much more pessimistic and have a different title if it were made by an African painter instead.

What drew me to this piece by Rousseau was how the woman stood out over everything else in the painting. At first, I thought this work was bizarre because almost everyone would not expect a naked person to be posing in a dense jungle. However when looking into the context of this painting, I understood the symbolism behind the woman and why Rousseau chose to paint her there. A question I have for Rousseau is if he would rather live in Africa or stay in France.

In Tadeusz Borowski’s “This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen”, the narrator Tadeusz is part of a group of prisoners whose duties were to strip other incoming prisoners of everything they wore from their clothing to their jewelry. The other prisoners were then sent to their deaths in a crematorium while their belongings would be sent to Germany. The inhumane treatment of Jews in this text can be compared to another text that I read in class previously, “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave”. In Frederick Douglass’s narrative, Douglass describes how white slave-owners in the southern United States would perceive and treat African American slaves as inferiors. This is similar to how Tadeusz saw German officers sending Jewish prisoners to their deaths shortly after they arrived at the concentration camp.

A major subject that I found comparable between Borowski’s story and Douglass’s narrative is dehumanization. One example from Borowski’s story is when Tadeusz and other Canada men were stripping the Jewish prisoners of everything they wore, leaving them completely naked afterwards. These prisoners were looted by the other non-Jewish prisoners before they were either forced into work at a labor camp or their deaths in a gas chamber. In the narrative, African American slaves in the south had no right to owning property or anything since they were considered to be property of their owners. They were also denied any form of education as it was feared that they could use literacy and education as a weapon against slave-owners who wanted them oppressed. The similarity I found between the two texts is that both Jews and black slaves had nothing at all. Borowski’s text showed that Jewish prisoners were literally robbed then killed and Douglass’s showed that slave-owners did everything they could to prevent their slaves from gaining any form of power. Both texts displayed how certain groups of people were dehumanized by other groups throughout history.

Another subject that I found between Borowski’s and Douglass’s writings is deception. In Borowski’s story, deception is used against the Jewish prisoners when Tadeusz and the other Canada prisoners had to refrain from telling them that they’ll be sent into the gas chambers. This was likely done so that there would be a lesser chance the Jewish prisoners would retaliate against the Nazi officers and the Canada prisoners. As for Douglass’s narrative, Douglass mentions the “slave breaker” or the act of breaking one’s mind or spirit so that resistance will never occur. This was done to slaves to deceive them into thinking that they’ll never win if they ever choose to rebel against their owners. I will also add that white slave-owners were deceived into thinking that Africans were “scripturally enslaved” meaning that the Bible’s story of Ham being cursed with black skin made it so that black people were originally meant to be slaves.

Describe the character of Orgon. Why do you think he’s so vulnerable to Tartuffe?

In Tartuffe, Orgon is heavily devoted to religion and is more concerned for it than his own family. Because of his devotion, he allowed Tartuffe, a sinner who contradicts what the Catholic church praises, to create conflict inside the household. Furthermore, Orgon was so blinded by his “services” to the family that he dismissed what everyone else in his family claimed about Tartuffe being a hypocrite. This belief in Tartuffe being superior to everyone else due to his status is Orgon’s weakness and why he was so easily deceived throughout the story. Another reason for Orgon’s vulnerability could be his selfishness and that he thought supporting a religious figure could make him a suitable candidate for heaven despite being unaware of him being a major hypocrite. In the end, Orgon was the victim of his own personality. He cared so much about his own religious actions that he allowed an imposter to take advantage of him and eventually bring him down by the story’s end.

Hello everyone. My name is Marcus Chan and I’m currently attending my second year at Baruch College. I was born and raised in Brooklyn although both my parents are immigrants from Hong Kong as well as several of my relatives. I am also 18 years old and trying to maintain my GPA at Baruch College while working part-time at a local Staples.

At the moment, I’ve chosen my major to be Computer Information Systems but that might be subject to change as I’m trying to transfer to Brooklyn College. The reasons for this are that Brooklyn College is incredibly close to where I live and it takes less than 30 minutes to commute there whereas my regular commute to Baruch would take at least 75 minutes. The second and more important reason is that I don’t have high hopes for the CIS program here in Baruch. Recently, I’ve been told by several CIS graduates and students that the program isn’t best for having a computer related degree. Computer Information Systems is more business oriented and involves a broader field of computer science whereas Computer Science is heavily focused on understanding how written code works. Therefore, I chose to apply to Brooklyn College for its Computer Science program in hopes that I could get more out of it than the CIS courses Baruch has to offer.

Making the decision to leave Baruch college was very difficult because I’ve made many close friends and acquaintances during my freshman year. I met most of my friends at a club called VSA or Vietnamese Student Association. I don’t regret joining the club because all of its members are welcoming and friendly towards newcomers. After joining VSA, I learned how to be more sociable and have been trying to improve on becoming more communicating since then.

My interests in Computer Science came from taking its AP course back in my senior year of high school. I attended Midwood High School which is located in Brooklyn and is right next to Brooklyn College. I never did well in my AP Computer Science class since I was very new to the material and I was very lax during my senior year. However, I am a person who dedicates a lot of his time on the computer for work and leisure. Although I hardly did well in my class, I learned a lot throughout the semester and I was determined to gain more while attending college.