In The Judgement, Kafka used Georg to represent himself. I think “the friend” is another representation of Kafka. He represents the ideal person that Kafka wants to be. As Cindy mentioned in the class, Kafka was a perfectionist and he thought marriage will ruin his life. In the story, Georg was engaged with a woman from a rich family. The friend was a bachelor. He moved to Russia to start a business and has no social life. Georg is quite successful and the friend lives an isolated life. The contrast between the friend and Georg is very striking here. Georg’s life represents the life that Kafka have now and the friend’s life is what Kafka wants to live. The friend might be a figure that Kafka portrayed to express his willingness to remain single and focus on his work.

The conversation between Georg and his wife helped to support my conjecture. When Georg was telling his fiancée about the friend, his fiancée said “If you have such friends, Georg, you should never have gotten engaged in the first place.” Georg replied “Well, we are both at fault; but I would not have it any other way now (p.61). It is quite strange that the fiancée said this to Georg. There is no connection between the friend and the fiancée and she has no reason to consider the friend in their engagement. I do not think the friend will affect their marriage at all. One possibility I can think of is that Georg is using the story of “the friend” to tell his fiancée that he was that kind of person and that is the life he wants to live. This quote also implies that she will not marry Georg if he will act like “the friend”. Georg also said “That is how I am, and that is how he must take me.” In this quote, Kafka implicitly shows that he does not want to marry her and he is planning to live like “the friend”.

The complexity between the friend and Georg in this story reminds me of surrealism. Surrealism is the combination of imagination and reality. In The Judgement, Georg was the character that represents reality and “the friend” represents an imaginary figure. There are many possibilities that exist between them. Kafka never give a clear and definite description to them and their relationship is very ambiguous. The story is very mysterious and we can never thoroughly analyze every single character.

I think the theme of this collage is love, desire and passion. There are many images of couples and red hearts in this collage. The relationship between a man and a woman is definitely a representation of love. However, love also exists between parents and their children. The pictures of a person holding a baby and a graduate student hugging someone can be seen as another type of love. Also, the image of diamond obviously represents eternal love. The picutures of lips and cosmetics may represent desire. I think that women dressed up in order to attract men and the image of the lipsticks and the mascara can be seen as the desire for men. I am not sure about the images of pizza and the avocado but I think they may symbolize the passion for food.

The hearts are the most obvious images that reflect the theme. There is no doubt that they represent love. However, some of the images do not quite fit to the theme. I do not understand the meaning of the plane in this collage. I am not saying it is wrong but this may show that we have different views on the theme.

It is interesting that we choose these images randomly from the publications that represents the same theme. Some of the pictures are similar and some are quite different. We use both our imaginations and common sense to put together the pictures.

Realism is described as “the mirror of the reality”. Unlike Romanticism, it reflects everything in a plain way without any artificial description. A Simple Heart by Gustave Flaubert is an example of realism. The author depicts Felicite’s daily life and her experiences in the writing. He demonstrates Felicite’s miserable life and truly reflect her whole life in an objective way. The story does not have many romantic description or supernatural things. It straightly traced the life of a woman and reflect the reality of the world.

Naturalism was influenced by the theory of Darwinism. It emphasized on how the social environment affect the people’s life. Naturalism not only demonstrate the reality but also explain the reason that cause the things happen. It expands the idea of realism and explain everything in scientific ways. In Separate Ways by Higuchi Ichiyo, Okyo and Kichizo struggled because of their social status. Kichizo was an orphan and worked at a umbrella store. People always tease him because of his height. Okyo was a seamstress that move to the neighborhood and was kind to Kichizo. They may love each other but Okyo finally chose to become someone’s mistress and left Kichizo. It might be the only way that can make her life better. The story shows that the difference between social classes ultimately leads to the separation of two people.

449 [I died for Beauty—but was scarce] by Emily Dickinson

In the poem, Emily Dickinson uses a conversation between two dead people to illustrate the theme of death. She is trying to define the meaning of death in a different way. I feel Dickinson was cynical and disappointed by people’s apathy. The last stanza of the poem illustrate her loneliness and grief. Also, there are a lot of words such as “Beauty”, “Truth”, “Room”, “Night” start with capitalized letter in this poem. I think Dickinson is trying to emphasize these words to make the readers think about the meaning behind them.

I died for beauty but was scarce

Adjusted in the Tomb

When One who died for Truth, was lain

In an adjoining Room (line 1-4)

In the first stanza, the poetess was died and laid in the tomb. She met a man who died for truth. I think Dickinson uses the word “scarce” to suggest that she is not satisfied with her current situation. She may still have a lot of things to do for life. However she was died and could not achieve her goals.

He questioned softly “Why I failed”?

“For Beauty”, I replied (line 5-6)

The two characters are died for “Beauty” and “Truth” which are two valuable things they were looking for. The poetess uses “failed” instead of died in line 5. I think the word “fail” shows that both of them are not success in the pursuit of either “Beauty” or “Truth” during their life time.

“And I for Truth Themselves are One

We Brethren, are”, He said (line 6-8)

In these two lines, Dickinson wants to say that beauty and truth are the same. She uses “Brethren” to describe their relationship which means that they have the same belief. Since they are dead for “Beauty” or “Truth”, they believed they both died with honor.

And so, as Kinsmen, met a Night

We talked between the Rooms (line 9-10)

The poetess tries to depict death in a peculiar way.  Dickinson uses the word, “Kinsmen” to show that we have a pleasant talk. In these two lines, “Night” symbolizes death and “Rooms” represent tombs. The word “Rooms” may also stands for different social classes. I think she wants to say that no matter who you are when you were alive, you will be treated equally after you died. Your social status does not mean anything and will not give you any priority.

Until the Moss had reached our lips

And covered up our names (line 11-12)

The phrase “reached our lips” represents that we do not have the ability to express our feelings anymore. “Covered up our names” means that we are disappearing from people’s memory. I believe Dickinson wants to show that as time passed by, we will be forgotten by the others. No one will remember what we did when we were alive.

Overall, Dickinson wants to tell us that no one will remember you after your death. Old things will be replaced by the new things. The poem not only shows her fear of death, but also her fear of being utterly forgotten.

The Rights of Woman was written in 1791 during the French Revolution. Olympe De Gouges wrote it in response to the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen. She claimed that women and men should have the same rights. The revolution should not only give freedom and rights to the men but also have to protect the rights of women who were excluded from the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen.

Olympe De Gouges tried to urge the women to strive for their rights. She argued that women has been oppressed by the men and was excluded from the society. In the writing, she listed the responsibilities and rights that women should have. Also, Olympe De Gouges pointed out that women should be treated equally as men under the law. I think her writing is very emotional and powerful. She indicated the injustice that exist between men and women in the society and encourage women to fight for their rights. However I feel Olympe De Gouges was too radical. It seemed inevitable that she finally guillotined during the Reign of Terror. She tried to disparage the men in order to explain her ideas. She described men as “bizarre, blind, bloated with science and degenerated”. These insulting words definitely infuriate the men. It would be a bad influence on men’s view on equal rights for women.

I feel the problem of inequality between men and women is very severe in the society. Women did not have the right to vote. They cannot go to schools. All the profitable jobs were offered to men. Women can only get jobs with low salary or they might not be able to get a job paying any money. They would be mothers or wives. Their money was taken by their husbands. I think this is really unfair for the women. They had the ability to work but the government did not give them opportunities. All men wanted women to obey them absolutely. However, women had the right to do what they wanted. They should be independent. Society should give more opportunities to women. Women are not inferior to men. They are not their servants. Women can do things as well as men or sometimes better.

Olympe De Gouges’ The Rights of Woman was successful and influenced a lot of people. It was a big step towards gender equality. Women’s marriage, education, financial independence and legal rights have improved throughout history. Nowadays, everyone has a chance to go to school in most of countries. Women can go to college and get an education. Education is available for all people. Moreover, women are also able to seek different jobs in today’s society. They can get a job to financially support themselves instead of depending on men. Women can also choose not to get married and remain single for the rest of their lives if they wish. They do not have to rely on men and listen to their orders anymore.

Even though women have become more independent, some unfair treatment still exists in present days. Companies usually prefer to hire men instead of women. They still believe that men are more capable than women. Women have some disadvantages in the job competition because of their gender. Companies would rather hire men because women may get pregnant and the company needs to give women time to give birth and take care of the baby. President Obama just called for equal pay for women in 2014 since women only earned about 77 percent of men’s wages. Sexism is still rooted in people’s minds. In many countries, especially China and India, people still think that women should stay home and take care of their families. This feudal idea has dominated societies for centuries. People think a good wife should cook for her husband and children. Women should stay home and do all the housework. A virtuous wife’s job is to arrange everything in the house and wait for her husband to return from work. Even in the United States, women are still expected to do housework.

Women were considered to be inferior to men throughout history. They were portrayed as weak figures. However, women have gained more rights in today’s society. They now play a crucial role in society. Although inequality still exists between men and women, women are getting stronger and have become an indispensable part of society.