Each characters in the story The Judgement can be defined as: Georg is the represented Kafka himself; Frieda Brandenfeld is mentioned as Felice Bauer, Kafka’s fiancee; and I think “the friend” in Russia whom has never given a name is the character of Kafka’s inner self. We know that Georg and his friend communicated mostly through letters. I see the letters as Kafka’s conflict to himself for being Georg or the friend (to be rich or poor and to be married or a bachelor. There are plenty of examples in the article showing his confusing thought.

It is audaciously to say Kafka has schizophrenia that he created a virtual friend as the other side of him. We can see a lot of details of Georg’s friend in first couple pages, but the friend of him has never had a name. Therefore, I think Kafka has his reasons to make the virtual character. Kafka might hope to go to St. Petersburg, Russia, but he was also afraid of losing things he had in his hometown since his friend is described as “having no ties with the local colony or his compatriots and almost no social dealings with native families, he was settling in to become a bachelor for good.”(p.58)

As I know, Kafka had been having conflict with his father in real life, so he might want to escape from the place living with his father that he said in The Judgement his friend didn’tgo back to visit even when Georg’s mother passed away. Kafka might be really yearn for the life in Russia. Somehow, Kafka knew that to abandon everything to Russia was an immature decision, he wrote: ” he(the friend) was a big child who simply had to listen to the successful friends who had remained at home.” On page 60, I see Kafka’s self conflict again. When Georg and his father’s business has grown, his friend tried to persuade Georg to move to Russia instead of congratulated him. And then Kafka was struggling again: “Georg always limited himself to writing to his friend about trivial occurrences.”

On p.61, it mostly described Kafka’s dilemma of his marriage. “Well, we are both at fault; but I would not have it any other way now.” can be analyzed Kafka felt regret to his engagement.The words Georg told himself was so complex that he said “That is how I’m, and that is how he must take me,” and “I cannot tailor myself into a person who might be more suitable for a friendship with him that I am.” I would read that as Kafka was persuading and reminding himself that he had to get marry with his fiancee and to forget the life he had been yearning for in Russia.

We could see as many conflicts as I mentioned above inside Kafka’s heart through only first few pages. Kafka might have schizophrenia like as I said because he kept fighting to himself to make choice in his life expressing through his writings. He writes in profundity and philosophically that I just tried my best to guess, but I believe there will never be an answer for the explanation of his writings.

At first, I saw the collage my group has to criticize has a big bird image in the middle. Therefore, “freedom” popped in my head. Second, I saw images of a court, a gavel, a plane and some written words: flight, peace, open, air. These made me felt certain of the theme of collage was “freedom”.

It is interesting that after reading two articles “Dada Manifesto” and “First Surrealist Manifesto“, the groupmates were supposed to gather their own materials without communicating with others like the images of DADA and surrealism as professor told s to do, but by some reasons, I could tell the theme of the collage by the first sight. I guess in this century, people have much more freedom then years ago, so we have brave and clear mind to present what we want to tell. Also, I think the origin of our activity was different from the ideas of dadaism and surrealism. The difference was: people created their photos without a specific theme or idea for dadaism and surrealism; our professor gave each group a theme(a word) to create a collage. To sum up, it is a lot easier to understand our classmates’ work than the DADA images.

In the image we had, I could tell the group created “flight for freedom” process: after struggling tons of times in the court, after lots of flights, after civilization, after people fly to other countries and have cultural exchanges, and so on, and finally we get plenty of freedom nowadays. People can give voices for themselves and say their opinions through many ways. I love that there was a report from a newspaper of people’s suggestions and opinions of subway service in NYC. People’s suggestions may give an appropriate improvement to the city if people have right to speak. Last but not least, there was another good one on the collage: “To be an expert means you are on the frontier, making discoveries, thinking thoughts never before dreamed of. I’m an expert in astrophysics.” I got the meaning of this sentence as we have to make a quality one if we have the opportunity to say. We cannot misuse our freedom, otherwise, we will against to our original thoughts.

I think both realism and naturalism have the meanings of human desires and human needs. Since human’s desires are always endless and people always want more to fulfill themselves spiritually, people make selfish decision cause the cruel reality. And we are facing realism and naturalism everyday.

In “A Simple Heart”, the maid Felicite was the example of realism, because she was given up by her lover because of her low social status. Also, the story “Separate Way” is another example of realism. Okyo left her friend Kichizo for a better life since she said she had no choice and that was her only way to life better. Kichizo was hopeless after he was abandoned again and again. It was so realistic that no one cared about his feeling because Okyo’s desires was above Kichizo and she had to think of herself first.

The drama “Hedda Gabler” is a naturalism reflection. Since every characters’s behaviors were affected by their social status. For instance, Hedda’s characteristic was so uninhibited that she cheated on her husband and forced Lovborg to die because she grew up in a high class family and she was spoiled.

In my opinion and as my understanding, realism is devised by “someone make an decision for obtaining something they want”; and naturalism is ” someone has an act because of a reason of natural”. Both ideals come from society.

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When I first looked at the titles on the content page, I knew I must choose “The Rights Of Woman” to be my topic. As a female, I would like to know more about how women had been treated in those centuries and would like to make a comparison of the former atmosphere and present’s. The author of the article, Olympe De Gouges, wrote to speak for women through bringing out the failure of the French Revolution.

We knew a lot from the history that women were treated so unfairly, harshly and were inferior to men in ancient times. Women were hired by the entrepreneurs as the cheapest labors during The Industrial Revolution. After the French Revolution, in 1791, Olympe De Gouges dared to challenge the male and wrote for women’s right. I like the way De Gouges wrote this article. She listed all the rights of woman and cleared the readers the rights that women should have had but they actually lost in the society. She asserted the revolution defeated the goal “to promote equal suffrage”. She used her own words to start a political rehabilitation for women. The contents of The Rights of Woman were about women should be equal as man entirely; women should be protected by the laws as the man do; women should have right to speak freely and have own thought; women should be acknowledged the rights they have; etc. De Gouges also wanted to wake the women up to fight for the rights because women in those year were used to be treated in an unfair way. She hoped and wished to change women’s social status.

As we could read on page 23 of the book, it tells us Olympe De Gouges was a playwright, intellectual and political activist. She born in 1748 with the name- Marie Gouzes. She experienced the period of early enlightenment and French Revolution. Owing to the unfairness of the society, she stepped first to write political pamphlets and to be the voice of women to fight for the rights.

Since I am a Hongkongese, I grew with in Hong Kong and learned eastern history. I am glad to have such a “superwoman”, like Olympe De Gouges, existed in the history. There must be someone to dare to stand out and speak for women, and she was the one! In my opinion, men are still superior to women in some eastern countries. I feel so thankful that Hong Kong has been taking lessons and influence d by western countries, so we can tell people we are capable to do a lot as men do. In these recent years, men would share chores with their wife, and this is another example showing the society is changing and improving. I want to remind myself that I am so fortune to born in this century since I own all the 17 rights that Gouges listed.

In the early centuries, there were no women dare to say, or I should say they have no right to say. Although Gouges might be arrested by writing politically, she did. However, it was a really tough time for women to speak, she couldn’t do much to maintain the writings.