great works ii – 2850 jta 12:25-2:05: love letters from the world

http://manhattanfruitier.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/Rotting-fruit-bowl.jpg

Thesis: Felipe is a character destined for a tragic end. He follows Aristotles tragic hero model, in the beginning he shows promise, but as time goes on he gives into consuelo’s way.

The fruits in this picture are supposed to symbolize Felipe at the beginning of the story. He is just a regular guy, such as fresh fruit. He meets Consuelo and things start to become strange. As the story goes on he bears witness to Consuelo’s strange activities, such as mimicking Aura when she is in the kitchen. They live in a dark place, and it seems as though now one should live there. All that there is, is time passing, and the longer Felipe is there, the more be rots. And in the end he is no longer what he was when the story first began. He is like a rotten fruit, he bears no resemblance to what it once was.

I totally agree with Maia and Lauren. Absurdism is a present theme within the video, poem, and play. I loved the point you made about hoe the swan trying to get out of the frozen lake is a wasted effort. It shows its life is meaningless and that no matter what it does, it’ll never be able to get out since the lake is frozen. I also want to add on that the scenery, the lake is frozen because the sun isn’t shining anymore, so that shows that there is a darkness surrounding them that causes all of these problems.

The video breath and the poem the virginal vibrant and beautiful dawn has a lot in common with the becketts play, “endgame.” In endgame it the scene is dark and very strange. The characters aren’t living for much, they are dismembered and the story is very existentialist. In the video “breath” it is a dark room with a lot of clutter. It is a lot like endgame, it is a dark mysterious scene, it makes you question what is life really about. When you turn on the lights in that room it’s just garbage, and that’s what life is, meaningless like garbage. In the poem they are speaking about how a lake is frozen due to the sun not shining. This has a lot to do in common with the play and the video. It gives us dark imagery, the sun stops shining, and then something that was once beautiful and full of life, becomes something dead.

I like the your idea of the theme  “My cloud” is about the inevitability of aging. I also agree that Consuelo is obsessed with the idea of being young. I think this also identifies with the theme that I had chosen. Consuela had experienced the world, and it takes time to experience as much as she has. For her, life had past her by and she was now struggling with the idea that her time on this earth is almost over.

I believe that Cloud follows the theme of growing up in the world. We start off not knowing much of the world, “It was like nothing I had ever seen before.” But as we get older we start to realize all there is to this world, “Later I saw the first real cloud, I directly understood it.” As we grow older we become wiser, and we may have gone through this world as we’ve grown up, but it isn’t until we’ve experienced everything that we understand exactly what we have experienced.  “You could take the lamp down with you. You don’t do it. This house will always be in darkness, and you’ve got to learn it and relearn it by touch.”(836) In this quote Felipe must go through the house one time, touching everything to get the feel of it, in order to be able to understand his surroundings the next time he comes around. This is just like how we need to experience life to grow into adults.

I agree with you in the fact that having comics makes it easier to not get distracted from the reading. I feel like it helps us visualize what is going on more. Also I did not think of it in that perspective. I don’t think that Kasper was afraid or didn’t want to leave. I think he just did not know how to. His whole life he spent in that room, not knowing how to do a single thing, and once he learned he became a changed man, something completely different.

A reoccurring theme in “Kasper” is the idea that one can be shaped by the ideas of others. The main character, the man on the floor, starts off knowing how to do nothing. All he can do is eat when food is brought to him and drink when water appears. Eventually a man in black starts to appear and he teaches the man in the floor how to read and how to write. The man on the floors mind is shaped by the man in black. His knowledge is only limited to what the man in black teaches. He even teaches him how to walk. In the end the man on the floors learns everything the man in black teaches him, and he essentially becomes a copy of the man in black, who is supposedly his father,

I disagree with you when you say that “Gregors father stays more calm, isn’t as startled and actually, drove Gregor away.” Although he may have seemed calm, I personally believe that he was angry and acting out of fear. I believe that he was just as shocked as everyone else at Gregors transformation. But I do agree that the family is better off now that Gregor has died. I like how you said that usually a family would mourn the death of one of their loved ones, but this one is different. They become stronger with his death and even celebrate it.

Both the Chief Clerk and Gregor’s father had very different reactions to Gregors metamorphosis. The Chief Clerk is more scared compared to Gregors Father. When the Chief Clerk saw him, “he saw him, nearest to the door, pressing his hand against his open mouth and moving slowly back, as if an invisible constant force was pushing him away.” The Chief was so scared he did not know what to say or what to do. He was frozen in fear. Gregors father is different though, instead of being scared, he was angry. “His father clenched his fist with a hostile expression, as if he wished to push Gregor back into his room, then looked uncertainly around the living room, covered his eyes with his hands, and cried so that his mighty breast shook.” Gregors father doesn’t show any signs of fear or shock when first encountering Gregor after the transformation. In the end the family is happy that Gregor dies. The maid is even happy too that he died.

“That very difference-of man and woman.”

“And it is due to my father’s training that I have learned to scorn my own sex. Between them both they have made me half man, half woman.”

Strindberg is trying to express that women are inferior to men. Through both of the quotes, one can see that the Strindberg is trying to show how men and women are not equals. In the very beginning Miss Julie states that there is a difference. In the second quote she essentially is saying that it would have been better to be a man, and how she picked up on attributes that a man would have. Strindberg makes it clear on where he believes women roles in society are. He even says in the story that Miss Julie strived best in the kitchen, essentially saying that thats all women are good for. I think Strindberg’s term half- woman is a way of saying that women aren’t full beings. They are not capable of doing what men could do. Ultimately making them inferior.