Great Works Fall 2013

For my final project I have decided to chose the option of the timeline. I will focus on the difference in attitudes of female and male authors between the 17th and 20th century. Women were trying to publicly make a point of the gender inequality and unfairness that was present in society. Female authors such as Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz, Christina Rossetti, and Virginia Woolf were either bluntly or symbolically making the problem aware through their works of literature. At the same time there are male authors such as Charles Baudelaire that despite female attempts at overcoming the gender barrier, puts on a negative and degrading attitude towards women,  focusing especially on “A Carcass.” My argument would entail how no matter what attempts these women put out there for gender equality, that there is a glass ceiling  of men that is trying to refrain them and tackle down their efforts.

I hope to integrate artwork into this and look for paintings done by men that degrade women and those done by women that empower them. I hope this would continue to emphasize my argument and extend it further with a very visualizing effect, especially with it being a timeline. I would surely need to do heavy research and even find more authors that I can add to my timeline besides those we read in class. There’s only about 6 or so weeks left to the semester so I plan to organize all my research and have my plan completely set up in the several up coming weeks. By Thanksgiving weekend I plan to work hard on it and use those few days off to piece together the timeline. I will finalize a few of the the last touches, in the two weeks after that but I plan to be already done at that time, so I’m not completely stressed out with my other classes. I don’t really anticipate having problems unless I don’t follow my predicted time schedule. Need to make sure there is no room for procrastination and hopefully it’ll be smooth sailing.

For the final project, I want to create a timeline that spans the 18^th and 19^th centuries. I am especially interested in seeing how the worldwide technological and scientific developments in those two centuries impacted artists and writers. I will start with Alexander Pope’s An Essay On Man because his attitude towards innovation and its impact on people is quite clear. Some of the other texts that I will focus on will include Bartleby The Scrivener, The Death of Ivan Ilyich, The Metamorphosis, and Diary of a Madman. The final text, by Lu Xun, also references the breakthrough in science, and especially the theory of evolution. Though the other stories may not bring direct attention to the developments of the time, their authors were nonetheless impacted by such changes. What our class-readings have taught me thus far is that while humanity experienced a dramatic increase in knowledge about the natural world, people began to feel more dissatisfied with their lives. The aim of my project is to dig deeper and understand how people viewed themselves as part of their community and the greater society and whether this view was at all influenced by changes in science.

To sufficiently meet the criteria of this assignment, I will need to resolve a few questions that I currently have for myself. Most importantly, I will need to narrow my focus and pick a specific theme once I start to do research.

For the next two weeks, I will compile information on the changes in science and technology that occurred between the 1700 and 1900, and the political, social, and artistic reactions that they encountered. In the second and third week of November I will analyze my information to find a specific pattern and will further explore it. The last week of November will be devoted to editing and improving my project.

For the final project, I’m going to draw inspiration from the first assignment, and pit the authors of ten selected texts we’ve covered in class against one another to find out which one best represents the ideals of the Enlightenment. To do so, I’m incorporating the Big Brother (U.S. Edition) reality show format with a kind of “recap blog” which will serve as a continuously updated site which reveals what goes down within the “House.” These posts will not be made by me specifically, but rather they’ll be written by the Host of the show: Julianna Reachen. The game, and therefore the House in which the authors will reside, will exist in a universe separate from our own – a universe in which the Enlightenment has apparently been completely fulfilled and realized. This will be done in order to better emphasize the entire message behind the game, which is to determine which of the ten authors’ thoughts and views on Enlightenment Ideals are strongest and most evident in their works.

For those who aren’t versed in the logistics of the Big Brother competition, I’ve put together this preliminary rundown of what will occur each week:

1. The ten authors will all compete in the “Head Thinker” Challenge, which will see each author put forth something from their writings that they deem best relevant to the predetermined Enlightenment Ideal. (These Ideals will cover topics from Social Mobility to Individual Happiness – along with several others which will be revealed in due time.) The HT Challenge will force the authors to debate one another over the views evident in their texts, and one winner will be selected by Julianna.
2. The winning author becomes the Head Thinker for that week, and is safe from elimination. Furthermore, the Head Thinker is tasked with selecting two of their fellow HouseAuthors to be put on the guillotine, where they’ll be at risk of being eliminated following a secret voting by the remaining HouseAuthors.
3. Following the Guillotine Ceremony, all the HouseAuthors will compete in the “Power of Reason” Challenge. The winner of this challenge will be awarded the power to potentially save one of the two authors from the guillotine, and force the Head Thinker to then immediately nominate a different HouseAuthor to take their place. To keep the competitions from becoming repetitive and stale, as well as to retain some elements of surprise, the winner of the PoR Challenges will be determined by a random number generator. (You’re welcome to use your imagination to picture Sor Juana and Melville battling it out in an obstacle course for the win if you so desire.)
4. Once the Power of Reason is used to potentially save a HouseAuthor from eviction, all the HouseAuthors – save the Head Thinker and the two heads on the guillotine – will enter the Diary Room to cast a vote for either of the two HouseAuthors. The HouseAuthor with the most votes will be eliminated, and will exit the House for an Exit Interview with Julianna.

Occasionally, HouseAuthors may take to the blog themselves which would be represented by a transcript of whatever they wish to discuss in the Diary Room. If one HouseAuthor feels a strong disagreement with another, or if some drama breaks out during the downtime between challenges, then one or more HouseAuthors may end up with a post on the blog in order to express their views.

In keeping with the “principle” of reality television shows, this game isn’t scripted. As of right now, all that I have written down and planned are the themes for each challenge, and the names of the authors themselves. I don’t have a winner preselected, which I think speaks to the Enlightenment Ideal of breaking with belief in predestination. (What fun would this be if I planned out this entire project right now and just put up pieces of it every few days? It’s a constantly evolving and growing project!)

I’m also toying with the idea of using polls to be voted on by whomever views the blog to gauge who the audience believes should really have won certain challenges, and if they agree with which HouseAuthor was evicted that week. Depending on the amount of responses to these polls, I’d like to devote at least one week to having an Audience Elimination, where the HouseAuthors evicted will be chosen without me having any say in the matter. It’s an idea, I’d love it if this blog was really actively read so I can read comments that may influence how future posts change the game, but I can’t exactly guarantee anything.

Well then, now that I’ve babbled on for quite some time, let’s get to the fundamentals, shall we? The ten authors competing are: Molière, Sor Juana, Kafka, Melville, Baudelaire, Tolstoy, Woolf, Xun, Tagore, and Rossetti. These ten have been chosen because they all offer distinct, sometimes-conflicting views on the Enlightenment, they’re writers who’ve written works I’ve enjoyed reading in class, and all of them (with the exception of Woolf) have already been covered in class discussions. I couldn’t realistically create a game with authors we haven’t covered yet when I don’t know anything about them. (Woolf is the exception because I’m knowledgable with her writings, and because there really needed to be more than two female authors in this.)

This is going to be an ongoing project, and it’ll be wrapped up in time by the final class. Obviously there may be one or two Double Eliminations or something of the like in order to condense what should a ten-week game into the six weeks we have left in the semester, but those are only some of the twists and turns this game may very well take. Each week, however, will see at least one HT Challenge, one Guillotine Ceremony, one Power of Reason Challenge, one Reason Ceremony, and one Live Eviction. These will all be separate posts, along with anything else the game may throw your way. Clearly my biggest challenge is keeping up with the creative demands of the project, but it’s something I find fun and interesting, so I guess I’ll just have to deal with it.

Here’s the blog. Stay tuned for the first round of challenges. I don’t promise a standard game by any means.

Hello!
For my final project I plan on doing the blog option! In most of the stories we have a read there have been themes, lessons, and commentaries that no matter the place or time period can be related to modern day life. That being said, I would my blog to draw comparisons from literature to current events, recent works of literature, or daily life.

I have always wanted to make my way into the world of blogging, and by choosing this option I am somewhat forcing myself to have a my shot. In this blog I would like to set up a sort of investigation trying to figure out if human kind has been learning from the past, or is history repeating itself. Furthermore, I would especially like to use news stories that can relate problems of the past with things we are all aware of today.

I would also be curious to combine a bit of history in my blog, setting each story in a place, time, and religious circumstance. By doing this I hope to gain new perspectives on what influences writing.

I intend to get blog up in the coming weekend, starting off with an introduction and maybe using two stories we have read to get the ball rolling. From then on, I hope to analyze one story a week and find visually enticing images in order to keep people coming back!

I have chosen the Timeline option as my Final Project for this course. Being that I love all things design-graphics, interiors,and fashion design, I suppose this would be a great opportunity to play around with my creativity and organize it in a chronological fashion. I would like to focus on femininity for this project-specially the progression in the role of women in Asian and European countries from around the 1850’s through the early 1930’s. Through this project, I hope to trace not only their progression, but the different uses and connotations associated with a women’s body. I thought about introducing my timeline with “Tartuffe,” which I feel exemplifies quintisential historic views on women- valued for their beauty and sexuality rather than their intellect and intelligence.

While starting with “Tartuffe,” I’d like to focus this project on laters works. Works such as: “The Goblin Market,” Baudelair’s “Carcass,” “Punishment” by Tagore, “Medicine” by Lu Xun, and culminating with Woolf’s “A Room of One’s Own”-a work epitimizing feminism ideals. Included in this timeline, I’d like to show the progression of women’s fashion during this time period-from tight fitting bustiers and form-fitting fashions highlighting the body of a woman, and moving towards more modest fashions-one’s tending not to focus on the physicality of women. Additionally, I’d like to include some other feminist works at the time. More research on these works will most definitely be conducted but one text I immediately think of is John Stuart Mill’s “Subjegation of Women.” I hope to include other literary works as well. From an art viewpoint, I would like to include events such as the birth of impressionism (highlighting Degas’s work on Ballerinas-where he focuses on the body and form of a woman) as well as Manet and his obsession with the nude model. I want to also include Cassat, an artist who accentuates the independence of a woman, thus showing her advancing role in society. I am still unsure as to what Asian artworks to include, and I plan on researching further on that area. Of course, historically I will include events of the Women’s Rights Movement in the United States and its influence on European and Asian societies. I will include dates such as  when men gained universal sufferage, pushing women to fight for their rights even more, as well as the Great Depression which brought women out of the home and into the workforce.

Of course much more research must be conducted and I look forward to working on this final project. I think that I will devote this week and next to research, and honing my argument a bit more. I plan on finishing most of project by Thanksgiving, having that vacation to go over my work and tweek it. I am quite nervous about the project being too broad, not narrowing in on specific events enough, and including a bit too much American history. I worry about finding other works during this time to fit into the project, as a myriad of Great Works were published during this time period.

Hi all!

I have chosen the Translation option because I am very interested in what can be lost in translation. Cultural differences and similarities strongly intrigue me and I believe that different customs, traditions, mentalities, and ways of life can be conveyed through literary work. When literature is translated, it is important that this cultural essence is not lost in translation and remains present despite using different words. I know that in my career, I will need the skill of translation a lot, as I hope to work with a South American population. I learned Spanish from my mom’s side of the family which is from Argentina, however, Argentinian Spanish is very unique and a different dialect than the more commonly heard Spanish. Therefore, I have chosen the option of translation for three main reasons, I love cultures, I hope to sharpen my translation skills, and I am interested in preserving the essence of work so that nothing is lost in translation.

I remember having read Gabriel Garcia Marquez, a Colombian author, in High School and was very captivated by his strong use of imagery to color his scenes and make them come alive. In particular, I enjoyed his short stories. One that I have never forgotten is called “El Avion de La Bella Durmiente” or “The Airplane of Sleeping Beauty,” from his collection of short stories called “Doce Cuentos Peregrinos.” The text is regarding a man who falls in love with a woman at first sight and sits next to her on the plane as she sleeps the whole journey until they land in New York. The heavy imagery and descriptions used regarding this women are from a different perspective than the sexualized work we have read in class such as “Goblin Market” or “A Carcass.” I hope to contrast his descriptions of women with the different perspective of women expressed through the works analyzed in class. I first will translate the text in English on my own without reading any other English versions of this text. I will do this in the first week of November. After I have translated this text, in mid-November I will analyze it for literary elements I aimed to preserve so that expressions would not get lost in translation. I will then compare my translation to other English translations of this text before Thanksgiving break. My final step would be to  compare and contrast this text with other texts read in class with the theme of views of women in the first week. I hope to finish this all in the first week of December and leave the last week to revise and review my work comprehensively.

This project is a challenge in and of itself and I anticipate the difficulty of not being able to find adequate expressions and words to translate what Marquez is saying in the same tone he intends for it to be read. However, I am excited to take on this challenge and hope to produce a work that is close to the beauty depicted in his stories.  I wish you all the best as you tackle your own final project proposal!

I posted an edited version of the Final Project assignment, with new details about the Timeline Essay option highlighted in yellow. If you’re interested in doing the Timeline, please look at the new details.

There are no other changes to the assignment at this time, but stay posted. I may add details as you ask questions and submit your proposals, just to make sure my expectations are as clear as possible. Keep asking questions, please!

Lu Xun’s short story, “Medicine”, is about a family using traditional Chinese medicine, mantou (stream bread) soaked in blood, to treat their only son’s tuberculosis. The mantou does not cure the tuberculosis and the son is buried right outside of the city wall. Lu Xun uses symbolism to reflect the state of China as a nation during this time period.

The story starts out with a very dark supernatural feeling. It is a dark night with no moon in the sky and “creatures that roam in the night” (253). Big bolt is walking down a gray road and suddenly he feels this magic burst of energy and he walks a little fast with longer steps. He came up to the intersection when, suddenly, his lantern goes out and he sees all these people on the street like ghosts wandering the street. These people are heading to the execution of Xia revolutionary.  Two men walk by him and he sees a “predatory gleam that flashes from the man’s eyes. He has the look of someone who has long gone hungry and has just caught sight of food” (254). Like his other short story, “Diary of a Madman,” there is a cannibalism theme, but it is less scary.  The people harvest Xia’s organs after his execution and there is this craving for human remains. Even Big bolt is getting a magical burst of energy from the death of Xia.

I think the theme of cannibalism reflects the attitude of  the Chinese people. Lu Xun was horrified by “apathetic crowd of Chinese onlookers” who gather around to watch the execution of a Chinese prisoner “about to be decapitated as a Russian spy” (242).  Lu Xun uses cannibalism to show the lack of national spirit and a sense of community in China as the country spends decades falling into ruin. The hardship of China has ruined the spirit of the people and it is reflected in their need to consume human flash. People are being described as ghost heading towards the execution site because the spirit is hungry and self involve and it wants to consume its own people.

Little bolt represents the state of the old system of the Chinese government. China was once a great empire but it went into a decline as foreign countries carved up the resources and even took over certain taxation department. The Qing dynasty was too weak to hold onto the empire with many rebellions all over the country. A country elected a parliament, but it was kill  by Yuan Shikai and he declared himself emperor. He died in 1916 and left the country without a leader. Regional military leaders broke off from the central government and started battling with each other for the control of China. China’s government system came from the Confucius Era and it was rarely changed to deal with problems in the modern world. There was a lot of corruption at the local government level and the central government failed to fix corruption. The central government also heavy relied on foreign countries for monetary support because they had no tax income. Qing dynasty and Yuan failed to fix the tax system and, without money, they could not build a new modern nation or better infrastructure. The bloody mantou represents the China’s using old useless ineffective methods to treat problems and ultimately failing at it.

“Punishment” by Rabindranath Tagore is an intriguing short story revolving an emotionally driven murder and the lies it becomes nested in. He writes the story with exquisite clarity through the effective use of foreshadowing and metaphors and an omniscient point of view. Through his talents, he was able to weave a piece of literature rich in social commentary— men are favored in the eyes of the law, every person is essentially self-interested, and that women are naturally trapped in almost all aspects of life, leaving them to find other outlets to release emotion, pride, and aggression.

The murder itself was not surprising. From the beginning, Tagore paints a setting so miserable and eerie that such an event seems only forthcoming. A motif of tears keeps popping up as the women, “weep buckets,” the child, “wails in terror,” and Dukhiram eventually, “burst[s] into tears like a helpless child”. He uses metaphors that allude to the loss of life such as, “There was not a breath of wind,” and, “like helpless hands clawing at the air for a last fingerhold” (893). Descriptions such as these thicken the reader’s air and contribute to the building suspense of the murder and despair of the situation.

Tagore also builds suspense and clearly progresses the story by first introducing that an, “uncanny silence,” carries a “great threat of unpredictable doom”. In this way, whenever a silence occurs, the reader can foreshadow something negative to happen. Tagore then continues to describe an uncanny silence when the brothers arrive at the house (there is no quarrelling or crying). Soon after, the murder happens. He applies this sequence again when he writes of another silence. He writes, “Outside there was complete quiet.” It was after that second silence that the plot of the story truly unfolds as lies are woven from almost every character in the story. It can even be applied to when Chandara keeps silent when interrogated by the police. Her refusal to use her husband’s story leads to the brothers’ panic and her death.

As for the social commentary, it can be argued that Tagore believes that men are prioritized over women in the eyes of the law. The judgment that Chandara was the guilty one and that the brothers falsely confessed only to save her follows the premise that women are subordinate and are traditionally protected by men. The judges do not even question the reason that Dukhiram confesses to the crime. Why would the victim’s husband try to protect the murderer if he was the one who lost a wife? It just doesn’t make sense. But, the judges are so eager to condemn the woman seeing as she was overly cooperative in the first place. This shows something to be said over the judicial system of the time as well. Instead of fully considering a case, the system chooses the easy way out.

Another argument that could be made is that people are essentially self-interested. Chandara only confesses to the crime to escape her husband and not to save her brother in law. Chidam lies to the village pillar in order for him to keep his brother and wife. The village pillar manipulates his statement to the court to portray him as innocent meanwhile he was the one to suggest stories and to falsify evidence to help Chidam. The other people waiting for their cases to be heard at the courts were convinced that, “nothing, at present, was more important,” than their own respective cases.

Lastly, an argument could be made that women were repressed to a point where they could only pour out their emotions within themselves. Women arguing and quarrelling was said to be a, “natural” sound. Men were expected to, “restrain” their wives. Although Chandara tries to leave her husband, the only way out for her was essentially death.

Tagore impressively captures the compelling issues of the time with such a short story and leaves his readers with ideas to dwell on. How can two people give honest but false accounts? Why would Chandara choose death over her married life? Why were laborers driven to such miserable ways of life? Why were they repaid with insults and maltreatment? What does that say about society at the time? How can a character so innocent commit a crime? What motives do people have in the actions they  perform?

“Punishment” is such a short work yet it leaves so much to be considered. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

You’ll find it on the Assignments page of this blog.

Please read it this weekend so we can talk over the options in class on Monday and/or Wednesday.