Author Archives: MATTHEW CRITELLI

Poland and the Holocaust

How is Gregor’s family transformed in the wake of his metamorphosis?

I think Gregor’s family becomes cold towards Gregor after his transformation. His parents seemed bothered for the fact that Gregor couldn’t provide for them anymore and now they had to provide for Gregor. Before the transformation it seemed as the family were happy as when he first didn’t get up to leave for work, they seemed like they wanted to help Gregor. By the end, Gregor’s mother and sister both didn’t care about him anymore since she didn’t believe that the he wasn’t actually her son.

Explain your understanding of Gregor’s death.  How/why does he ultimately die?

Gregor dies through his family no longer caring for him and he dies by starvation. His family doesn’t truly believe that it’s actually him and they stop taking care of him and they started to despise him. Because, they didn’t really care for him anymore he decided to starve himself to stop the abuse he felt from his father, mother and sister.

Rabindranath Tagore’s short story “Punishment” is very similar to “Hedda Gabler” by Henrik Ibsen. In both texts we see that death comes upon characters who don’t really have a lot of freedom. Hedda and Chandara are both similar characters. They both are in unhappy marriages with very little freedom. They both rely on their husbands to bring home money and food for them. Chandara instead fights with her sister-in-law all Radha and no one cares because women in Bangladesh have very little power. Chidam also doesn’t allow Chandara to go to ghat by herself and forces her to have very little freedom. When Chidam’s brother Dukhiram kills his wife, Radha Chidam says Chandara did it to protect his older brother. “Chidam asked Chandara to take the blame on herself. She was dumbfounded”. This quote shows that Chandara isn’t even valuable to Chidam and that he is willing to get rid of her because he chooses his brother over his wife. Hedda and Chandara are very similar here for the fact that both are living in a male dominated society and they want to escape their lives than suffer the consequences of their husbands’ actions. “Then please give it to me sir, said Chandara. ‘Do what you like I can’t take it anymore’”. Chandara is willing to die because of Chidam and Dukhiram since she feels powerless and wants to become free of them. The only way she can become free is to be killed. Hedda Gabler dies in a similar fashion. Since she gave Lovborg the pistol that he used to kill himself she is guilty of a crime, the only person who knows this is Judge Brack. Brack promises to keep her crime a secret if she has an affair with him. Hedda decides to escape Brack and the unhappy life she is in by killing herself. Similarly, to Chandara, Hedda could only be free by doing this.

One passage that had a strong impression on me was Chapter ten especially when Douglas talks about how Mr. Covey broke him in. “I was somewhat unmanageable when I first went there, but a few months of this discipline tamed me. Mr. Covey succeeded in breaking me. I was broken in body, soul, and spirit. My natural elasticity was crushed, my intellect languished, the disposition to read departed, the cheerful spark that lingered about my eye died; the dark night of slavery closed upon me; and behold I transformed into a brute.” This quote stuck out to me because I feel like Douglas isn’t even describing a human being. It almost feels like he is being tamed as an animal and now he must only listen to Mr. Covey. I felt sickened reading this part of the passage of because how he isn’t being treated as a human being anymore. I’m sure that many slaves in the South during this time had similar experiences to Douglas and I feel more aware reading this about the way they were treated. Douglas’s diction and syntax here I feel is extremely powerful especially when he says ‘I was broken in body, soul and spirit’. I feel like Mr. Covey had crushed Douglas physically and mentally with these words and Douglas doesn’t even feel himself anymore. One question I would have is Why did this people think that this was ok? Many of these men in the South were Christian, why don’t they feel any decency towards African Americans?

I think this illustration helps me understand “The Lamb” more by William Blake because this sort of picture was in my head while reading it. The picture is obviously a lamb in a meadow and I feel like this picture connects to the poem. The two lambs symbolize the children of god and the beautiful meadow shows god’s creation of the world. The poem talks about the beauty of god’s creation and I feel like in this image it shows similar features.

What issues or ideas stuck with you from Wednesday’s class?

– Some ideas that stuck out to me was that in Section IV how the idea was the more the man has the more perfect the man is, and it will cause they to have more misery. I believe that failure is important in life and to strive towards perfectionism makes life interesting and fun. To try and reach for a goal can motivate a person but when you finally achieve it life can be unentertaining and boring. Perfect means you don’t need to strive for anything, and you have no flaws which makes the challenging things seem easy when they aren’t supposed too.

What did you NOT understand?

– I thought the poem was very difficult to understand at times which made it annoying. I also thought Section VII was very challenging as well and I still don’t really understand the idea in it. The overall message I don’t understand mainly because the text in that Section seems confusing.

How did class go for you?  What factors contributed to this?

– I thought class was good for me. I thought I understood my section and helped contribute to the class. I also thought everyone was else was super helpful in the class.

What is one line, image, or idea that has made an impression on you from “An Essay on Man”?  What about it resonates with you?

–  I thought Section II and Section III really stood out to me. I like the idea in Section II that man was meant to imperfect just so it can fit into gods’ creations. I feel like a lot of the time I want everything to be perfect but, most of the time it doesn’t come out to be. We shouldn’t get upset when things aren’t perfect because things aren’t supposed to be like. In Section III I also really enjoyed the ideas that men should be happy not knowing their future. The idea ignorance is bliss is important in this section and I agree with it. We should live our life with a lot of hope and happiness and some of that comes from our hope for the future.

Hi everyone, my name is Matthew and I preferably go by Matt. I’m a new transfer student at Baruch and I recently went to Nassau Community College on Long Island. I wanna pursue a career in the business world and right now I’m majoring in Accounting and I want to have a minor in Finance. I was born in Winthrop Hospital on Long Island and I grew up in Garden City, a town on Long Island. Some of my passions are sports, video games and chess. I’ve grown up loving baseball, basketball and soccer. I’m a huge fan of the New York Yankees, Knicks and Chelsea F.C in London. Sports were always a huge part of my life, and during early quarantine it caused me to be incredibly bored. Although, this did make me spend more time with my Mom, Dad and sister and kinda slowed down my life. I felt the months of March, April and May really help me decide what job I want in my life and what schools I want to go to. I chose Baruch because of its Great business school and I loved the idea of living in the city. I know of the hard work I will need to accomplish in these next few years and I’m determined to make myself known in the business world.