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

Here is the image I created illustrating the resemblance as well as the difference between Felipe’s journey in Fuentes’ “Aura,” and the freed slave’s journey in Plato’s Allegory of the Cave.  The y and x axes on the graphs are the same for both graphs.  The y-axis represents happiness, while the x-axis represents reality.  Falling on the positive side of the x-axis, for example, means that the character lives in reality, while being on the negative side means that the character lives out of reality.  The illustrations each show 4 points, each point representing a major moment of change in the character’s lives.

First, let’s analyze Felipe’s journey.

At point 1, Felipe lives unhappily, in the real world.  Point two represents Felipe finding the flyer for the job, while point three shows the shift of reality happening when Felipe first steps foot in Consuelo’s home.  Point four represents the end of the story, when he finds his happiness, but distances himself from reality.

Now, let’s analyze the freed slave’s journey.

At point 1, the freed slave is far from reality, and unhappy for he is imprisoned.  Point two represents his freedom, when he is first unchained from the ground of the cave, As he steps out of the cave, he crosses the y-axis on the illustration.  At point three, he tells his fellow prisoners of the reality outside the cave, and is killed at point four.

The theme of self realization is evident in “My Cloud” and this theme is also evident in “Aura.”  Felipe and Consuelo are both struggling to accept who they are.  They both struggle to hold on to their youth and while Consuelo wants to be the little girl and Felipe wants to be more than just a teacher.  Felipe struggles with self realization because he wants to believe Aura is really the woman he is with.  However on page 851 he begins to see how he is the general as he states, “imagine him with black hair, and you discover only yourself: blurred, lost, forgotten, you, you, you.”  He realizes that he looks exactly like the general and earlier realizes that Consuelo and Aura are the same person.  Eventually he reached self realization byt realizing that he is, in fact, the general and Aura, the girl he fell in love with, is actually Consuelo. (Jessica)

Both “My Cloud” and “Aura” share a common theme: self realization.  In “My Cloud,” the narrator becomes more wise and understanding as he grows older and claims to “understand the cloud.”  Similarly, the characters in Aura too reach for self-realization.  In “Aura,” Felipe begins his search for self realization when he goes to Consuelo’s house seeking employment.  The moment when he is about to walk into Consuelo’s house symbolizes the moment that Felipe began his search for self-realization.  Fuentes’ writes, “The door opens at the first light push of your fingers, but before going in you give a last look over your shoulder, frowning at the long line of stalled cars that growl [and] honk . . . You close the door behind you” (Fuentes 833).  Felipe’s last “look over his shoulder” at the street represents him ridding himself of the reality he’s always lived in, modern city life.  As he steps into Consuelo’s home and finds himself in pitch black darkness, he begins his quest in search for self realization, and perhaps love.   (Ruben Bohbot)

In “Aura” there is a lot of evidence that the theme of self realization is present.  Throughout the story, Felipe is living in the house trying to figure out his feelings for Aura, his meaning in the house, and what the life of Consuelo’s husband is really about.  After meeting Aura and having sex with her, the two fall madly in love with each other.  Their love actually preludes to the ending of the story when Felipe realizes that Aura isn’t who he think she is.  On page 847, Aura asks Felipe will he still love her, “Even though I grow old? Even though I lose my beauty? Even though my hair turns white?”  This quote is saying that Aura is “growing” old and “losing” her beauty, which foreshadows that Aura is already old and that she is Consuelo.  (Frank)

In ‘My Cloud,’ the story shares how the author could transform the cloud, which represents self realization.  This is evident in ‘Aura,’ as Felipe leaves his world behind to pursue a strange path in Aura’s home.  His battle with leaving the busy world behind is evident when he talks about going back to bring his things to the home: “‘Then you want to go out?’ she says . . . you feel confused . . . ‘It isn’t important. The servants can go for them tomorrow'” (Fuentes 837).  Felipe feels confused because it seems like Aura thinks that leaving the house is strange.  This represents Felipe battling with himself about leaving the busy world behind, because the house is something very different from what he experienced outside of the home.  Just like in ‘The Cloud,’ the author can transform the cloud to his liking, Felipe realizes the same thing about his life as he leaves his world behind for Aura’s home.  (Sharada)

Strindberg’s analysis on Miss Julie from “Miss Julie” is not only a misrepresentation of the character, but it is also poorly written. Besides for the writing, his analysis is a misrepresentation of the character, because he claims Miss Julie to be a “man-hating half-woman;” half-woman in the sense that she is a radical feminist who can and insists on taking care of herself. He is sadly mistaken, for Miss Julie’s mother raised her to be the epitome of Strindberg’s description, but she is anything but. Miss Julie is indecisive, dependent, and bipolar. Towards the middle of the play, after falling in love with her valet, Jean, she goes back and forth between wanting to run away with Jean and be in love forever, and spiting him and telling him to go away, “What do I care for all that—which I now cast behind me. Say that you love me . . . Thief! . . . Was I intoxicated—have I been walking in my sleep this night” (Miss Julie 16-7). We can see that she is clearly the opposite of an independent, decisive woman like Strindberg claims, in one of the last scenes when she begs Jean to help her in committing suicide: “Oh, I’m so tired—I’m incapable of feeling, not able to be sorry, not able to go, not able to stay, not able to live—not able to die. Help me now. Command me—Iwill obey like a dog . . . You know what I will have to do—but cannot do. You will it and command me to execute your will” (Miss Julie 33).