Author Archives: HAILEY EGAN

Posts: 11 (archived below)
Comments: 6

“This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen” – Hailey Egan

5.) When the narrator asks “Are we good people?”, he seems to be frustrated over the fact that he can’t do anything about what’s happening but sit by and listen to the orders of the Nazis. Even though he wasn’t the one personally torturing these people, he felt a sense of guilt. He is forced to make women take dead babies that aren’t even their own. Most of the people in the camps were forced to act a certain way in order to protect themselves. Seeing everything that human beings are capable of and the fact that he isn’t able to make any changes makes him question this. Unfortunately, in order for him to survive he has to do what the Nazis tell him so he is having a moral conflict with himself. He isn’t at the camp for being Jewish and at first he claims he feels no pity, but his feelings change and he begins to question whether protecting himself is really what’s important. He continues to protect himself in the end and was liberated by the Americans, but it most definitely changed him as a person because of the things he had seen and was forced to do.

6.) Before I even began reading these stories, I had an inkling that this work would take place around time of The Holocaust and that the “Gas” in the title is actually a reference to gas chambers. The title is significant for it’s hypocrisy. It seems to be said in an inviting tone, or as if something exciting is going to happen that you want to be apart of. “This way to….” makes me think that someone is guiding people to a show of some sort. I think the author purposely did this because it emphasized on the fact that these inhumane acts were normalized because Nazis didn’t see these people as human beings. I think the title is a perfect expression of that without directly coming out and saying it. These prisoners who were taken away from their families and put in these camps were being lead to their death, and the title downplays what exactly these people are going to face or where they’re being led.

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“The Metamorphosis” – Hailey Egan

I believe Gregor was more powerful before his metamorphosis. Despite the fact that he disliked his job and going to work, he did it in order to support his family. He says how he would quit his job if his parents and sister weren’t so dependent on him. After his metamorphosis, he can no longer support his family. He know longer is able to financially support his family like he once did and because of his transformation, they are now struggling. He became powerless once he turned into an insect. When he was a man, he had the power to make a positive change in his life that could also benefit his family but he never did, so I believe he was much more powerful before his metamorphosis.

In the wake of Gregor’s metamorphosis, his family becomes distant and they become less welcoming of him in the family. While this change caused a lot of issues within his family and caused his mother and father specifically to detach from him, there is some good to their transformation. The sister eventually begins to work in order to support the family, along with the father who before wouldn’t do much at all and hadn’t worked in years. There was personal growth in that sense and the family overall became more independent and realized they didn’t need to rely on Gregor to be the man of the house and be the only person financially supporting them.

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Lu Xun, “In the Wineshop” – Hailey Egan

The significance of the narrator “revisiting” a place he once lived is significant because it represents the way the times have changed along with the new culture movement. He no longer felt a sense of belonging where he came from and he felt like a stranger because of all the differences. When he first returned, he came to realize quickly he no longer new everyone there and all of his old friends/colleagues were gone. Despite the change within his culture, Weifu still performs duties throughout the story that are no longer necessary like giving way velvet artificial flowers. His actions show the way he is resisting to adapting to the new culture.

Filial piety is respect for elders and putting them before yourself, such as one’s parents or grandparents. In the story, we seen an instance of filial piety when Weifu revists his home town. When he gets there, he does his mother a favor and and reburies his brothers in order to avoid issues, both physically and spiritually. When he gets there, his finds the coffin to be empty but still takes it upon himself to bury the new coffin because it is what he was supposed to do for his mother. While he may not believe in any of these religious beliefs involving the dead, his mother does so he does it for her, despite there being no real reason for him to.

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T.S. Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” – Hailey Egan

I decided to chose lines 14 and 15 for my analysis of T.S. Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”.

In the room the women come and go

Talking of Michelangelo.

The reason I picked these lines is because not only is it repeated more than once which leads me to believe it has importance to the poem, but it also has a romantic tone to it and the lines create a picture in my head of two lovers in Italy because of the Michelangelo reference. In the literal sense, these lines are talking about a room where women come and go and while they are there, they speak of Michelangelo. This leads me to believe that this room is maybe some sort of art gallery or museum, but also a use of symbolism as a representation for the women who come and go in the narrator’s life. These lines were the first to jump out at me and they make me feel a sense of nostalgia for a different time period or a different life because I’ve always enjoyed tragic love stories and ones based in European countries like France or Italy.

These lines I picked tie together the whole idea of the poem and they are important because of the way the lines are repeated twice. The central idea of the poem is someone who is searching for love but is uncertain and despite knowing what to say and do, they are hesitant. I read that those specific lines were actually borrowed and an allude to Jule’s Laforgue’s work. Also that “Prufrock suffers from a fear of rejection and a fear of finding love. He doesn’t pursue girls as his self-doubt restrains him from making a move. This fear was illustrated using the lines “In the room the women come and go / Talking of Michelangelo”. This allusion to Michelangelo shows that the women in the poem are well-cultured. This intimidates Prufrock, as he feels that he’s not suitable enough compared to Michelangelo, a renowned artist.” (Wijanco) https://medium.com/@elleonwei/discuss-the-allusions-used-in-ts-eliots-the-love-song-of-j-64481132c358

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“The Death of Ivan Ilyich” Reading Response – Hailey Egan

Tolstoy’s novella “The Death of Ivan Ilych in a classic among readers everywhere. Ivan is one of the sons in the story who is a quite distant from him family in the story because he is more focused on work. He eventually ends up taking another job because the salary is much higher than the one he is presently making, and he ends up suffering from a injury at work which didn’t seem bad at first but sickness soon followed and the doctors weren’t sure what exactly was causing his illness. As he gets sicker and sicker, he starts to question what was really important in his life because he believes everyone is acting “artificial” and not acknowledging that he is most likely going to die from this sickness and his family and everyone is being ignorant to it. Ivan ends up dying and as he’s thinking back on his life, he realizes that all of his relationships with friends and family and realizes they were all fake in a sense. All throughout his life, he was more concerned about work and success than what was actually important.

With everything that’s going on in the world at this moment in time, I think this reading was, in a sense, an eye opener. Before this pandemic happened, life was normal and most of us, especially living in New York City, were always in a rush. Tolstoy’s writing gave me a new perspective on how sometimes we need to just slow down and enjoy what’s right in front of us. I, myself, think about the possibility of death coming often because I enjoy life and am afraid to die. A lot of times though, I’ll prioritize things that shouldn’t be. There’s many times where instead of spending time with my family I decided to go out, and I think this reading made me realize I don’t want to one day regret picking something small over what was truly important to me.

This time period is strange and as much as I miss “normal” life, it gave me a new perspective on life and the way I have been living. Two family members of mine had COVID-19, which was scary. Luckily, they’re okay now but it made me realize how I need to not take things for granted and slow down because life isn’t a rush and we should appreciate the smaller things. Despite the brutality of this pandemic and the lives that were lost, I think it was a wake up call for a lot of people maybe that we should appreciate the smaller things in life too and make more time for the people we love and care about because they wont always be around. I’m happy that I got to encounter this reading at this time because it made me realize a lot and I feel much more appreciative of what I have now.

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Hedda Gabler Assignment – Hailey Egan

For me personally, I enjoy seeing pieces of work come to life on screen because it often times gives me a much better understanding of things I may not have picked up on as much while reading it. After reading the written version of Henrik Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler and then watching the film by Bergman, I thought the film did a good job of portraying the characters and the different situations that were described within the written version. I enjoyed seeing the way that the characters were brought to life in the film version because it gave me a better understanding of who they are. It’s obvious very early on that both the film and the written version portray Hedda Gabler the same way. Hedda is bad tempered and she is in no way remorseful for the way she acts or for her rudeness. Her disposition remains an obvious theme in both versions. She has a bit of a god-complex and believes that she is superior to other people. Since she is the daughter of a very well known General Gabler, she becomes used to people showing her respect and obeying what she wants, which is one of the reasons she thinks so highly of herself. She not only is disrespectful to other people, she acts the same way towards her husband even though he refuses to acknowledge the issues that they have. Despite the fact that she is married to George Tessman, she is unwilling to take his last name and still goes by Hedda Gabler which is another example of how she treats and views her husband. While her personality was portrayed correctly for the most part, I do believe it was somewhere exaggerated how she treats Aunt Julie. I think it was less drastic in the written version.

 

Another thing I noticed that the pace of the film was much quicker than the read because some of the scenes and dialogues weren’t included in the film version, which is common when a piece of writing is created into film.

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Rabindranath Tagore “Punishment” – Hailey

While reading, Rabindranath Tagore’s “Punishment”, I saw an obvious connection right away between it and our previous reading by Feng Menglong “Du Tenth Sinks the Jewel Box in Anger”. The common theme among these two stories falls upon the wives of the protagonists. Both these stories are about a man and woman, and the betrayal that follows. Ultimately, because of these men’s actions, both Du Tenth and Chandara who are the wives in these stories choose to fall to their own demise because the betrayal of their husbands was too much to bare.

In “Punishment”, Chidam is trying to protect his brother because he had killed his wife. Despite the fact that Chandara is his wife and he has moral obligations to her because of this, he is more concerned with protecting his brother from this incident. In order to ensure his brother isn’t found guilty for the murder, he convinces his wife to take the blame and reassures her that everything will be okay nonetheless. Chandara can’t believe that he would ask her to do such a thing and his response is simply “Don’t worry – if you do what I tell you, you’ll be quite safe”, even though he is clearly subjecting her to danger by having her take the blame for this incident In “De Tenth Sinks the Jewel Box in Anger”, Li Jia sells his wife to another man for money after listening to a stranger’s advice. Despite the fact that these men’s loyalty should have remained with their wives, they both were willing to use them in order for their own personal gain. When Li Jia is giving Dutenth up to another man he says “With that thousand taels I will have a pretext on which to call on my parents, and you, my dear benefactress, will also have someone to rely on, but I cannot bear to give up the affection I feel for you.” Both men manipulated their wives and reassure them they will be okay, even though they are giving them up to worse conditions.

The fact that they both decide to choose death in the end between of what their husbands did made the two stories very comparable to me, even from the very beginning before I knew what their fate would be.

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Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl – Hailey Egan

Harriet Jacob’s Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl resonated with me in the same way that Fredrick Douglass did. From the two experts, I gained a better understanding of slavery and while they both lived through the brutal conditions of slavery, the experience they had was different. Jacob’s excerpt adds the perspective of life as a female slave, while Douglass’ offers the perspective of a male slave. Women who were slaves were treated much worse than men. While they both experienced mental and physical abuse, women were typically sexually abused by their masters. Harriet’s novel adds to what we learned from Fredrick Douglass about slavery in a few different ways, one being that even when residing in a “free’ state, a slave in not free at all. At the end of her story in chapter 41, she says “My brain reeled as I read these lines. A gentleman near me said, “It’s true; I have seen the bill of sale.” “The bill of sale!” Those words struck me like a blow. So I was sold at last! A human being sold in the free city of New York!” If she ever was really “free” in every sense of the word, she wouldn’t have had to have been bought in order to be granted freedom.  Douglass focused on the physical suffering that slaves experienced, while Jacob’s seemed to be more rooted in the emotional trauma being a slave, especially while being a women as well. Jacob’s went deeper to explain the terrible conditions and trauma she faced while trying to escape. She spent seven years of her life in hiding and even after leaving, the effects of that stuck with her. The conditions she faced were so bad that she was willing to spend almost a decade in hiding just to stay safe from her master. Even after everything she went through and the decisions she made, her freedom was never guaranteed.

Despite the abolishment of slavery in 1865, there are still modern forms of slavery that exist, despite them being different from the historical definition of what slavery is. One of the main forms of modern slavery is forced labour, in which people are forced to work through the use violence or intimidation. Debt bondage (also known as bonded labour) is another form of contemporary labor that so many people can resonate with, especially us as college students. Debt bondage is when people borrow money that they can’t pay back and because of this, they lose control over both their employment and the debt. Another obvious form is forced marriage. While forced marriage isn’t as prevalent in the United States as it is in other country, it is an ongoing issue in a lot of other countries.

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Hailey Egan – Fredrick Douglas

The passage I picked was “He was immediately chained and handcuffed; and thus, without a moment’s warning, he was snatched away, and forever sundered, from his family and friends, by a hand more unrelenting than death. This is the penalty of telling the truth, of telling the simple truth, in answer to a series of plain questions” (244).

This passage in the text made a strong impression on my reading because he gave us a glimpse into what it was like to be a slave in America. To think that we one day could be living with our family and friends to the next moment being captured with no idea where we’re going and what’s going to happen to you is a horrifying thought. For these slaves who were torn apart from their families, the thought of that was even worse than death. These people had no control over their fate and couldn’t protect their families after they were captured. This quote in itself leaves a strong impression that these slaves in America would have preferred to die than be apart from their families. Slaves weren’t even seen as people. As stated in the passage, the slaveowners had so many that they didn’t even recognize them. These human beings were treated as objects and as property, and getting to hear it first hand from someone who experienced this stuff makes it all the more real.

I believe what this passage tells us about Douglas is that he is intelligent and socially and historically aware and the environment he grew up in taught him the things he needs to know. He knows what is going to happen and what slaves need to do in order to please their masters.

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Reading Response #1

When I think of a great work among the readings we have done thus far, Tartuffe by Moliѐre is the one that comes to mind. I, at first, found the read a little difficult, but as the story progressed it pieced together, and I really enjoyed it and I would consider this piece of literature to be a “Great Work”. For any piece of literature to be great, I feel as if there should be some underlying message being told by the author, even if it isn’t transparent at first or requires a form of deeper abstract thought. The story focuses on Tartuffe who is a holy man of piety that people consider to be fair, just, holy, etc. just because of who he is and what his position is, but Tartuffe is actually quite a hypocrite and his hypocrisy is apparent to the audience.

While this story is seen to be a comedy, there is an underlying theme throughout the play which touches on the concerns of society without blatantly coming out and stating it, which I believed makes this a great work. Moliere’s ability to encompass the issues of society and expected social norms as the central theme throughout the story is what makes this great. The work touches on hypocrisy, especially among those of power. We often are inclined to believe those above us in power strictly due to their position, but a person’s position doesn’t necessarily make them an honorable person. I grew up baptized Catholic and in the Catholic church there are numerous accounts of scandals involving priests, who are supposed to be and expected to be people of God, which makes it difficult for people to believe they would do these things, just like Madame Pernelle refused to believe Tartuffe was a hypocrite because she believed he was a man of holiness and zeal.

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