English 2850

I used page 7 of the short story.

“I would prefer not to”
This is the most famous line that Bartleby says in this short story. Bartleby was one of the quiet ones, but super diligent and good at his job. He was almost too good, writing all day and night. However, one day, in the short story, Bartleby’s boss calls him in for a small paper that he wanted him to look at. His expected full compliance, and was almost nervous that Bartleby was going to snatch it right from his hands. Contrary to his expectations, Bartleby does not want to do the work assigned and says “I would prefer not to.” That absolutely shocks his boss, so he asks again, with the same answer. He doesn’t think much of it because his job makes him extremely busy and he didn’t have the time to worry too much about it. In the Bartleby movie (2001) Bartleby is asked to help his boss wrap a present. He is having a hard time tying the final knot, so when Bartleby walks in, he asks him to put his finger on the ribbon to make it stay in place. This essentially causes Bartleby to have an argument within himself. He spends a good minute or two decided on what he should do. Of course his boss is super confused because he just asked for help for a simple task. In the end, Bartleby says “I would prefer not to” and walks off. The music that plays in the backround while he thinks on what to do makes the scene hilarious. In the trailer, Bartleby also says “I’ve given up working” after his coworkers belittle him for doing nothing. This would be perfectly understandable if he quite his job and went back home, but this guy decided to not go home,and camp out in the building, even after his boss moves his business. Eventually he gets arrested for not leaving the building and lands himself in jail. I believe this guy has essentially given up on life because when he is told to eat, he says “I would prefer not to.” He ends up dying in his cell, which makes for an interesting ending for a short story.

The analysis for The metamorphosis starts at 2:36. The writing I will use is page 35.

Essentially, The metamorphosis is about Gregor Sampson, transforms into a giant insect. However, he really doesn’t care an just contemplates about his current life and how miserable he was. His family talks about how he is useless. When he tries to listen to his sister playing the violin, he appears and scares off the renters, who say they don’t want to pay the rent. The family soon has enough of him and he dies to stop bothering them.

In the Thug notes summary and analysis video, Wise crack talks about how the Kafka writes about living in a capitalist society, when not only can you boss be hounding you about work, your family can to. While gregor was working at his miserable job, no one else in the family was working and they really took his support for granted. He wanted them to live comfortably knowing that they wouldn’t have a huge debt looming over their heads. However, the moment he could no longer provide for them, they though of his as useless and wanted him out of the house as soon as possible. Even he was supported at first, they quickly viewed him as a complete insect instead of a human turned insect. The attitude of his family truly wore him down, and not wanted to burden his family any longer, he chose to die. This is kind of an awful story, because even though it is important to take care of your family, you need to be able to stand up for yourself, especially if you are being abused mentally or physically.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=heV8tjuRa7ydg

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45477/song-of-myself-1892-version

The “honest rendition starts around 2:00 but she tries out many different voices to best portray Whitman.

The stanza that I really enjoyed reading was stanze 38. In this stanza, Whitman realizes how much he was moping around. He is usually super optimistic but the thoughts of imprisonment was threatening to take that away from him. When he says “unusual mistake,” which seems to be him sitting around and complaining about his problems. He then tries to forget the people who mocked him, as well has the people who were mocked and tortured beside him. Trying to brush off what just happened, he compares himself to Jesus Christ with “my own crucifixion and bloody crowning,” and when “fastenings roll from me” when he rises again. Rejuvenated, he continues his journey over the land and salutes the students of the world. Eleves means student in French.

In this video, Curtia Torbet acts out the first two – four lines of the poem with the voice dumbfounded, pressed, anger, whispered, emotional, and honest. She is able to act out the verse beautifully, and even got so emotional that she cried. What is interesting about actors and actresses is that when they put themselves in someone else’s shoes, their actual persona dissipates and what is seen on stage or on screen is someone else altogether.  Audiences never really realize how difficult the job is. The vulnerability of portraying an entirely different person and their emotions to the point of reality is quite terrifying.

This commentary of Don Quixote was done by Wisecrack of Thug Notes. He first goes through a short summary of the book, and then he analyzes the major events of the story. Quejano gets super obsessed with chivalry and knights. He spent all of his time reading books about it and eventually lost his mind. He decides to do what the majority of his books are about and wants to right all the world’s wrong. He got beat up a lot and a bunch of people burn his books to try and stop his antics. That doesn’t really work out because he picks up Sancho and travels around and even fights windmills. Dante eventually gives up Don Quixote and dies quietly.

One of the major themes about Don Quixote is deception. Throughout the book, Sancho constantly got out of things that he didn’t want to do by messing with his head. The Duke and the Duchess fooled both Don Quixote and Sancho, and Carasco managed to fool Don Quixote twice by dressing up and calling himself a knight. The book also emphasized how quickly life can change and how it’s always going to end. For example,  Sancho is able to govern his “kingdom” for a short while but realizes that it really isn’t his thing. The very next day, he falls into a pit. There is no on there to help him out of the pit. Even though Don Quixote isnt “real,” savante was able to bring a lot of good characteristics such as integrity, persistence, and loyalty to the world.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g17ziHN59tg

This commentary of King Lear was done by Wisecrack in the series “Thug Notes”. He first gives an extremely short summary of the play, and then he analyzes the play. The major lesson that was constantly being emphasized in the play and his commentary was “keeping it real.” Lear wanted the image of being loved so much, that he fell for some superficial words, and disowned the only daughter that truly loved him. His situation was so bad that he went from a King to a straight up bum. If only he had seen the truth sooner, maybe he wouldn’t have had such a miserable ending.

This lesson could also be seen with Gloucester and his two sons, Edmund (illegitimate) and Edgar (legitimate). Edmund convinced Gloucester that Edgar was out to kill out of jealousy. Now Edgar went out and dressed like a bum to live out in the streets. When Glocester decides to help Lear out with his situation, Regan and Goneril remove his eyes and kicks him out of the castle. Edgar finds him in the streets and saves  his life. Glocester was blind to the truth of what Edmund planned, and he only saw the truth when he lost his eyes. “I have no way, and therefore want no eyes. I stumbled when I saw.” This entire play is about loss. Loss of power, loss of love, loss of sight, and loss of life.

Even though reading the play was super arduous, the lesson on keeping your eyes open to the truth is flashing neon lights. This entire play is about the consequences of staying blind. This commentary was also super interesting because King Lear, with it’s old english, was quickly summarized into a seven minute video. Wisecrack used language that is super easy to understand and highlighted the important parts of the play. I would say that this channel is better than sparknotes.

Thank you for using Blogs@Baruch!

This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start publishing.

You are using a new WordPress theme that places widgets such as “Recent Posts,” “Recent Comments” and “Archives” in the footer, leaving you maximum space for publishing in this central area. If you prefer to have widgets on the right side of this page, these can be added by going to “Widgets” under the “Appearance” tab in your Dashboard. You can also choose from more than 100 other themes from the “Themes” menu in the Dashboard.