The work of art that I chose to analyze was a series of Untitled Drawings by Anna Boghiguian. Boghiguian was born in 1946 and is Egyptian and Canadian. The display of art contained twelve different drawings each made with Gouache, crayon and pencil on paper. Per the description located on the left of the display the drawings were made as timelines of the event that happened in and around Tahrir Square in Cairo after the Egyptian Revolution on January 25^th 2011. The Egyptian Revolution was a protest by activists to fight against poverty, unemployment and government corruption especially by president Hosni Mubarak. These drawings are bold in the way they display different events caused by the Revolution. The different strokes and the writing across some of the drawings give them graffiti like effect which showcase protest. I also think the graffiti like effect of some of the drawings produce emotions of unanimity and connect the outside world with what is happening within the actual revolution. I feel that Anna Boghiguian was trying to show her personal experience in Cairo through the drawings but also created them to  include the rest of the world and what they might possibly be feeling.

Manifestos use radical language to emphasize their points. The Black Panther Party Platform and the SCUM Manifesto both use radical language to capture the reader’s attention and gain popularity through the harsh words. Radical language has way of influencing people during times where society and the government are weak or reaching a weak point. Radical language also entices people who are not in a great state of mind and find comfort in the radical language and what it promises. The Black Panther Party arose during the Civil Rights Era in which African Americans were fighting to have equal rights. The Black Panther Party Platform drew African Americans that felt there would never be any changes to society and how African Americans were treated without doing something radical to ensure that African Americans are heard.  The SCUM Manifesto was written in a satirical way to appeal to women by saying that men have destroyed the world and in order for the world to be saved women need to make the male sex disappear. Because of the radical language and the satire in the SCUM Manifesto, women started appealing to the idea that men ruined the world and that they are to blame for every downfall. In both The Black Panther Party Platform and the SCUM Manifesto the use of radical language is effective.

Jasmine woke up to the sound of her annoying alarms, showered, got dressed and was ready to head to school. She walked out the door and the front gate locking the doors behind her. She walked to the end of the bus and proceeded to wait for her bus in the rain and gloom. She could take either the Q8 or the Q41 in the direction of the Jamaica 165st Terminal. She took the bus that came first which was the Q41. She got off the bus at Sutphin Boulevard- Archer Avenue and walked 10 ft to the train. She swiped her metrocard and walked down the stairs to the front car of the Manhattan Bound E train. She smelled pee and garbage while waiting in the station. She got on the train and was headed towards 53^rd St-Lexington Avenue. When she was about at Kew Gardens which is about 2 stops into her 7 stop trip on the E train, she noticed the smell of coffee stood out among the other gross smells of the subway. Adrienne looked at the young girl who stood next to her and wonder if she could smell the coffee from her travel mug. She noticed the girl was wearing beats and wondered if the girl bought them, got them as a present or eve n perhaps stole them. She noticed the girl was also sweating and wondered how she could possibly be sweating with the how cold and rainy the day was. Jasmine was a dream land until she got to 53rd st- Lexington Ave where she bolted off the train and ran up the escalator to transfer to the next oncoming Brooklyn Bridge bound 6 train. She got on the train and her next stop would be 23^rd street. She got out at 23^rd street walked up the stairs and headed north east on Park Ave South towards East 24^th street. She turned right onto East 24^th street and then walked straight down to Baruch College.

To Walk Invisible tells the tale of the life of the Bronte sisters. This wonderful film shows the thoughts and the ideas behind their literary works. The Bronte sisters were brought up in the town of Yorkshire where they lived with their father and their brother. The sisters wrote novels that were beyond their times and revolved around feminist ideals. The Bronte sister broke many barriers in their time which included fighting for women’s equal rights. In the Bronte sisters’ time being a woman and author was basically forbidden because rather being judged by their writing as would be done to man, women are judged by who they are and/or who they make themselves out to be. Although the film does focus a lot on the Bronte sisters’ literary works, it also centers on the hardships that the Bronte’s had to face. Charlotte, Emily and Anne were unmarried and expected to do the housework and care for their brother and father. The Bronte sisters’ have to care for their alcoholic brother and they start publishing as a means to make money. They also had to care for their father who was very big on what the public thought of this family. They had to publish under pseudonyms where no one could depict their gender and then people would judge their writing rather than their gender. Overall it was a great movie and it was nice to see the actual life of the Bronte sisters and what they had to overcome to be successful.

I agree with Freud’s thinking because as children we tend to idolize our parents and follow everything they do. Because our parents are the ones that are around us, we pick up and learn what is right or wrong from them. Not everything they do is necessarily right or wrong, but we perceive what they do by the way we are taught.  I think a big part of growing up is finding out who you are without your parents. People call it a self-journey and I think it is necessary to go through a journey where you find yourself and develop your own notions away from the ideas of parents or guardians around. I’m not entirely in agreement with his ideas surrounding the oedipal concepts, I find them to be a little disturbing actually. This is not entirely helpful in understanding my own family relations, but I understand the ideas surrounding putting your parents on a pedestal and learning how to live on your own.

I think the untranslatable self is a part of oneself that cannot be expressed on paper. I believe there are certain emotions that we feel, but cannot explain in specific words. I also think there is a mysterious connotation behind the untranslatable self. In Whitman’s, “Song of Myself,” to my understanding Whitman makes the untranslatable self  out to be something that is unknown such as not knowing who you are,  what you are made of, what is a part of you etc. This relates back to my idea of not being able to express one’s self. There is a part of each of us that we cannot put words to and we do not know or understand how to clearly identify it. When Whitman describes himself he uses a lot of characteristics that are given to nature, but he leaves the reader wondering if Whitman is actually born of nature, if he is created by God and if we all are (or are not) created by the same being.

-Jasmine Rodriguez

Upon reading “I Dwell in Possibility” by Emily Dickinson, immediately what came to mind was the scene we discussed in class where Jane is standing on the roof of Thornfield and just staring out. When reading the poem I first focused on the literal words, not their symbolic meanings. I started picturing a huge castle like mansion with different rooms, each with different views of the surrounding area. When I started to focus on the meaning of the words, I thought of these rooms being different possibilities and the speaker is just standing stagnant with possibilities around them that they have missed out on. The speaker has many open doors they can go in, but if they choose one opportunity, they miss out on the other opportunities. Jane looks out to Thornfield and is filled with a sense of longing. I feel that she looks out thinking of the other things that she could have done, but she ended up at Thornfield. She could have had other opportunities such as possibly travel the world and find her Uncle, but she’s staying at Thornfield and possibly stagnant in her life because of the way she’s being treated.

Lorde’s,’The Transformation of Silence into Language and Action’ and ‘The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House’ relate greatly to Jane Eyre’s oppression and resistance throughout the story. Jane is outspoken and stands up for herself even when she’s being told that it is wrong for her to do so. It is reemphasized to Jane that voicing her thoughts is not appropriate for a female especially a young one and someone considered to be lower class. Lorde is a black lesbian feminist who has been oppressed for her gender, sexuality and race. She states that, “As women, we have been taught either to ignore our differences, or to view them as causes for separation and suspicion rather than as forces for change.” This is the exact thing that happens to Jane. She is constantly told not to talk against what she is being told. One scene in particular that really stands out to me is in the beginning of the book when Jane has a confrontation with John Reed. Initially Jane doesn’t say anything back to John, she just takes it because she’s used to John’s abuse as it is a common thing. John then starts beating on Jane. John draws blood from her and anger takes over Jane and she starts yelling back at him. John calls out for his mom and the staff. Instead of the adults helping Jane she was reprimanded and locked into a separate room because females aren’t supposed to stand up for themselves. Lorde talks a lot about not keeping silent because silent moments were the one she regretted the most and Jane’s character relates to that as opposed to Helen Burns, Jane’s friend, who for the majority of the time stays silent against her oppressors. Jane is constantly her oppressors and breaking her silence.

From reading the synopsis on the back of the book, I didn’t really know how the story of Jane Eyre would start off. So far, I really like the book and I think Jane is a relatable character in the sense that she uses books to escape her reality. Throughout the chapters that we read I noticed that Jane uses a lot of fantasy like terms. For example, when she is in the red room and looking at her reflection she describes herself as strange and “phantom like, half fairy, half imp.” To go along with the fantasy over reality theme I really like the imagery that the reader gets straight in the first chapter. When Jane is sitting in her window seat about to read her book she says, “I sat cross legged, like a Turk; and, having drawn the red Korean curtain nearly close, I was shrined in double retirement.” This quote is the first time, Jane brings up the color red which seems to be a reoccurring theme in the next couple chapters we read. The color red usually symbolizes passion and something with red usually occurs to Jane before something happens. Such as Jane drawing the red curtain before getting into a fight with John. I was hoping Jane would be happy at Lowood since she was getting away from the Reeds, but Mr.Brocklehurst was the new problem. I’m ready for all the further turn in Jane’s life now that she’s at Thornfield and with her employer Mr. Rochester and wondering what else can possibly happen.

When I hear the word sublime I automatically think of something that will awestruck me with beauty and peculiarity. Usually when I think of something that will awestruck me I think of nature and vast places such as the 7 wonders of the world or the  view from the top of cliff/mountain. In the Introduction to Romanticism and Introduction to the Gothic, it says many people were awed by nightmare like terrors especially in literature, unknown things like space and violent acts. Something that I always seem to awe me are the night sky and the stars. When I look up at space, I see a vast black area where many things can appear such as constellations, the moon, the sun, clouds etc. The fear that results from looking at the night sky is things that are still a mystery to us. Even with all the advancements in technology that we have now, we still are yet to fully comprehend the entirety of space. It is scary because you don’t know what can come out of space, are there more star like things? Is there life? Even when new things are being discovered they are often still unidentified. It inflicts different feelings in people between wanting to admire the beauty of the unknown, but also being terrified by what can appear in space. I think it’s strange to think about how the stars burn and some are just hollow pieces of gases. The stars in the night sky are fascinating to look at, but also scary to think about. What if they all fell at once, what would happen then. Science helps explain some unknowns of space, but there are still unanswered questions. Despite the numerous advancements in technology we still cannot fully comprehend what is in space.Edmund Burke’s A Philosophical Inquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful says that our sublime comes from passion, terror, obscurity and power. We don’t fully know what it is in space and we keep discovering new things. It makes me wonder if there are other forms of life in the Universe that are similar to humans. It’s a little freaky, for lack of a better word, to think about what else lies in Space, but it still awes me how things can still be discovered.