Throughout the narrative, Georg’s friend was never given a stable, distinct identity. Rather, Kafka provided several hints as to the friend’s living conditions and relationship to Georg. At first, the friend served to be a mysterious entity that Georg was almost obsessed with; this friend obviously means a lot to Georg and is an obstacle in his relationship with his father and fiancée.

Georg described his friend as inferior to him. His friend was dissatisfied with his life and virtually fled to Russia, where he knew no one and had “no real ties with the local colony . . . and almost no social dealings with native families, he was settling in to become a bachelor for good” (58). In this instance, the friend is also the opposite of Georg since Georg was about to be married and his business is quite successful. However, as much as Georg is fascinated with his friend, he is conflicted about his friend’s return and is surely keeping his distance. Georg refuses to update his friend on his good fortunes, making us believe that the reason for this is to spare his friend’s feelings. On that note, he claims that he wants his friend to return home, but then comes up with a lot of excuses and reasons of why it’s best that his friend does not return, most of it concerning his own needs as to deal with his troublesome friend and to explain to his friend about the three years of his lives that he failed to mention. Therefore, Georg is acting as if he is a worried friend, but in reality is shameful of his friend and wants to keep him at a letter’s distance.

This friend becomes an obstacle in Georg’s relationship to his father and fiancée because the friend is someone that Georg wants all to himself, he does not want to share him. There is a lot ambiguity and paradox in the story, but after learning about Kafka’s past, I believe that his friend serves to be Georg’s or rather, Kafka’s inner self. This friend represents the other side of Kafka, the unsuccessful, lonely and hidden part of him. Georg is conflicted about sharing the truth, he does not know how to tell his friend about his recent stages of his life, because though it may seem successful and happy for one part of him, it also brings trouble and misery for the other part. Therefore, I see Georg and his friend as the two halves of Kafka.

Looking at the other group’s poster, I see a lot of technology and useful utensil items that help to advance the world, so I think the concept is either technology or usefulness. I see a stick of eyeliner, which could be the advancement of cosmetics and/or help women. On the other hand, another object that stood out to me is a water bottle cap, which I would say is another pretty useful item. But thinking about it more, the concept could be recycling, because there are a lot of images/texts from newspapers and I also see a picture of a really shiny car, which seems out of place, but maybe it’s a hybrid car that saves gas? Overall, the images/text are pretty scattered but one thing I see in common with them all is that it is revolved around a more advancement concept.

However, upon looking at the picture again through my albums, from a far away angel, I noticed that the texts/images made a picture of an animal. I would not have seen that if I was just looking at the picture normally because I was too focused with the large texts but from a zoom out perspective, I see now that it is in a shape of an animal.

Realism can be seen as a mirror of reality. It aims to capture an accurate portrayal of a situation as it is and to represent it with realistic and factual descriptions. Realism seeks to recreate real-life situations of the average person. For instance, in A Simple Heart by Gustave Flaubert, we are reading about the life of an ordinary woman, Felicity, with explicit details of her endeavors. An aspect of Realism is seen most through the details of the description of her house; the author is showing us rather than telling us. Accordingly, the events that happen in the story are plausible and may actually happen in real life.

On the other hand, Naturalism strives to explain what is happening and why it is happening. Unlike Realism, Naturalism focuses on how the environment and how the person’s surrounding contributes to their behavior. It is based largely on Darwin’s survival of the fittest, therefore an example would be Separate Ways, by Higuchi where social class is determined by birth and family, and unfortunately for Kichizo, he is unable to move in social ranks and is forced to live as peasant/lower class position in society. Therefore, knowing that his status in life is predetermined by societal structures, he doesn’t bother to try to rise in wealth or power.

To the Reader by Charles Baudelaire by Victoria Dai

(Words & sentences that are highlighted in italics are my own thoughts & comments).

Infatuation (foolish or extravagant passion), sadism (enjoyment in being cruel), lust avarice (greed for riches)

Possess our souls and drain the body’s force;

We spoonfeed our adorable remorse (deep and painful regret),

Like whores or beggars nourishing their lice. (comparing lice to something extremely terrible & still feeding it)

*First paragraph: Humans fall prey to temptations laid out by the devil due to their weak nature. Unfortunately, these temptations control and drive humans to do terrible deeds. I noticed here that the author used a simile to compare how humans continue to repeatedly fall into the same temptations and misdeeds, as often as whores and beggars continue to “dirty” themselves, even though there’s really no way of helping it.

Our sins are mulish (stubborn), our confessions lies;

We play to the grandstand with our promises,

We pray for tears to wash our filthiness, (could be a reference to how we think crying or feeling bad will help us rid of the nasty feeling we have or to compensate for our wrongdoing)

Importantly pissing hogwash through our styes. (a circumscribed abscess caused by bacterial infection of the glands on the edge of the eyelid)

*Second paragraph: We continue to sin and we continue to lie and we exaggerate our promises to the point where it’s meaningless. The last two sentences could be a metaphor of how we think crying or showing a sign of guilt will help make us feel better about all the things we did wrong. The author is almost making fun of us, as if crying will actually help wash away our ugly human nature.  

The devil, watching by our sickbeds, hissed (when a cat hisses, it is considered a warning sign)

Old smut (soil or smudge) and folk-songs (song that is well known and passed by ppl) to our soul, until

The soft and precious metal of our will (soft and precious metal can be referring to our heart?)

boiled off in vapor for this scientist. (what scientist? The devil?)

*Third paragraph: We are pawns of the devil, and he’s watching us and slowly bending our good nature to his will. Hissed stood out to me because it has a negative connotation, especially since only powerful and unlikable creatures hiss, such as cats and snakes. (I have nothing against cats but they do look scary). Also, when a cat hisses, it is considered a warning sign or a fearful sign. Another word that stood out to me is folk-songs, which is something that is well known and is passed down through generations so what I think this paragraph means is that the devil is causing a lasting effect on us (that can be seen as almost as strong and lasting as folk-songs) and inevitably make us his loyal subjects. I also think that scientist is used to describe the devil because he’s experimenting with us.

Each day his flattery makes us eat a toad, (the devil is literally described as a puppet master controlling our strings)

And each step forward is a step to hell,

Unmoved, through previous corpses and their smell

Asphyxiate (choke, suffocate, smother to die) our progress on this road.

*Fourth paragraph: The devil is controlling us and with every passing day, we become uglier and uglier and closer to hell and we don’t know or even care about past people who have gone through this road (ie, we know what happens to people who lie or kill and yet, there are still people who follow in this path). In this paragraph, the author takes a dramatic step from just criticizing human nature and the basic flaws of humans to the point where he shows his hatred for humans, and is basically saying that there are only negative aspects of living which leads to our inescapable and terrible death and whatever happens after death.

Like the poor lush (lush means fresh, but here it might mean something else) who cannot satisfy,

We try to force our sex with counterfeits, (counterfeits meaning with other people who we do not truly have a connection or genuine bond with, basically replacements of the true and original thing we love)

Die drooling on the deliquescent (water build up) tits,

Mouthing the rotten orange we sucky dry. (the orange is the tits, apparently its changed colors)

*Fifth paragraph: At first, I had a different interpretation of this paragraph when reading line by line but afterwards, I decided that the author is talking about newborns. Poor lush, meaning new baby, is brought into this world as poor suckers who are forced to identify themselves (as either male or female based on society’s view of roles of men and women) and are actually starting to die (even though technically, they just started to live as well) when they’re drinking breastmilk – as described so vividly in the last two lines. Basically, the author pities newborns who are brought into this world to turn ugly and evil and then simply die in the end.

Gangs of demons are boozing (perhaps leaving the same effect that booze does in our brains, which is a hangover feeling, numbness and unsettling feeling) in our brain –

Ranked, swarming, like a million warrior-ants, (literally, intestinal worms)

They drown and choke the cistern (container for storing or holding water) of our wants;

Each time we breathe, we tear our lungs with pain.

*Sixth paragraph: Every minute that we are alive, the gangs of demons that the author is referring to (bad, negative stuff that swarms our minds – murder, infidelity, etc.) takes a great toll on us and just makes us less humane.

If poison, arson (setting on fire), sex, narcotics (dulling), knives

Have not yet ruined us and stitched their quick (lethal things can happen momentarily and the consequences can be quick),

Loud patterns on the canvas of our lives,

It is because our souls are still too sick. (Literally not bold enough)

*Seventh paragraph: (Love the beat!) If all the negative aspects in life has not yet ruined us, it’s because we are either not bold enough to fully experience life, which in turn they will come to haunt us, or we are already past the darkness.

Among the vermin (pest), jackals (person who allows themselves to be used), panthers, lice,

Gorillas and tarantulas that suck

And snatch and scratch and defecate (eliminate) and fuck

In the disorderly circus of our vice (bad habit),

There’s one more ugly and abortive (futile) birth.

It makes no gestures, never beats its breasts,

Yet it would murder for a moment’s rest, (literally, swallow the world in a yawn)

And willingly annihilate the earth.

It’s BOREDOM. Tears have glued its eyes together.

You know it well, my Reader. This obscene (offensive)

Beast chain-smokes yawning for the guillotine-

You-hypocrite Reader-my double-my brother!

*Eighth & Ninth & Tenth paragraph: Among all the terrible people and things in this world that continue to grow and reproduce, there is apparently one thing worse than all – it is silent and rarely mentioned but also very deadly – boredom. It may not look dangerous but it can actually cause some real damage (which I totally agree with). Then the author turns on the reader and accuses the reader of already falling into that path and are guilty of being horrible human beings.

The Rights of Woman by Olympe De Gouges was published after the French Revolution and the creation of the French Constitution, in 1971. She published the Declaration of the Rights of Woman to assert the unsettling fact that although the goal of the French constitution was to promote equal suffrage, it had failed to even address or acknowledge women’s suffrage. During that time period, women were viewed as socially different or inferior to men in the public sphere and were not able to participate in politics or public affairs. Thus, Olympe De Gouges published the Declaration of the Rights of Woman in an attempt to correct and identify what she thought was missing in the French constitution.
Olympe De Gouges, the author of the Declaration of the Rights of Woman, is the daughter of a butcher and a serving woman. She was very outspoken about the injustices of slavery, orphans, unwed mothers and gender roles. Olympe De Gouges depicted her stance on inequality through her writings and became one of the most radical voices for women’s right in the 1700’s. However, her writings became too radical and she was a victim of the spoils of The Reign of Terror, where she was accused of being counterrevolutionary and beheaded.
The main points of the the Rights of Woman is that: 1) women are not acknowledged in the French constitution and are wrongfully robbed of their natural rights, 2) women should be treated as equals to men, and 3) new laws are needed to address women’s rights and to help protect themselves from the men’s one-sided rule. Olympe De Gouges’ mockery, imitation or revision of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, provides a strong format for announcing exactly what is wrong and missing from the constitution. By using the same format and adding or replacing specific words help to make her points even clearer – for instance, she adds “woman and man” in most articles and as clearly seen in article seven, she emphasizes the importance of gender equality with the line, “Women obey, just as men, this rigorous law” (25). An interesting point I found in the writing is in the middle of the postambule, where she captures our attention with “Women have done more harm than good” and then [I understand it as] she continues to explain how women are forced into this position because men see no use for women other than their charms and unfortunately, women are resorted to using their bodies as pawns for the advancement of men’s politics. (I was a bit confused when I reached this section so maybe we could talk about it in class and clarify?) A suggestion for improvement on this piece is that she made a lot of valid points in her postambule regarding the rights of married or divorced women, however, it took the focus away from the main goal of attaining women’s rights so she could have wrote less about that. Overall, Olympe De Gouges was successful in delivering her message regarding the absence of women’s suffrage, however, she failed in providing a plan of action or the answer to the question, “okay, now that we know – what are the next steps? How do we make this possible?” Her last sentence of the postambule was quite vague and non-convincing, “If an attempt to give an honorable and just place to my sex is, at this moment, considered as a paradox on my part and as attempting the impossible, I leave to future men the glory of treating this subject; but in the meanwhile, it can be prepared through national education by restoring customs and conjugal conventions” (28).
Looking back from 2015, progress has definitely been made. Though men and women are not naturally and inherently seen as equals, there will always be residing features that differ between us and it’s only natural that we retain these differences. Essentially, most and if not all of Olympe De Gouges’ articles in the Rights of Woman have been met in today’s society (looking specifically at present day in the United States).