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

Thesis: Felipe creates Aura, a figment of his imagination to come to terms with the fact that Consuelo is no longer the woman she once was to him and the prisoners in The Allegory of the Cave accept the shadows that they see on the wall as reality, affirming the idea that individuals create their own truths to get through difficult times.

The image I chose is a proper representation of my thesis because it can be seen as whichever image the viewer sees. Some people may see a candelabrum and others see the faces of two individuals. However, the only way an individual can see both images is if they are willing and want to see both images. If I told someone that all I see are two faces and they tell me that there is also a candelabrum, if I wanted to see that candelabrum, I would have to look deeper into the photo and want to accept that there may be something other than what I see. Both Felipe and the prisoners in the cave were content with their truths because what they saw was what they wanted to believe. They were not willing to look beyond their truths to explore what else could have been discovered.

I do agree with Mamasiray and Terell when they say that the common theme is nihilism but I do think the video breath shows a little bit of existentialism. The sound of the person taking a breath with the imagery of a cluttered dark room gives me the impression that though like can be a struggle, we still makes the best of what is given to us. The sound of the struggling breath makes me feel like through the chaos of the cluttered and disorganized room, the person is still trying to make it, no matter how hard that breath is. In comparison to the poem, though I feel the poem is mainly nihilistic, there is still a glimmer of hopefulness when the authors says, “A swan of former times remember its the one.”(515) At this part, the swan remembers the good times and realizes that not all of its life was bad, in hindsight, making the best of the situation. (Stacey)

In both Aura and My Cloud, the common theme is distortion, distortion between what is reality and what is their reality. In Aura, towards the end Fuentes describes an interaction with Felipe and Consuelo and says, “…you’ll embrace her again when the clouds cover the moon, when you’re both hidden again, when the memory of youth, of youth re-embodied, rules the darkness.” (Fuentes 852) Consuelo and Felipe use their memories and distort them into present time reality to make themselves happy and to bring them to a place where life seems a bit satisfying. In my My Cloud, the author describes both images as their cloud however, both images are clearly different. Similar to Consuelo and Felipe, the author of My Cloud has distorted the actual image of the cloud into what he considers is his reality.

Terell:

The common focus of the text and the visuals is despair. In Kaspar, the man on the floor misses the man in his life, seemingly, his father. It seems as though he is unable to walk, but he actually learns how to walk once the man in black comes back and teaches him. This shows that he simply does not want to walk or learn. All he does is sleep, eat bread and drink water, which can be interpreted as the basic sustenance to stay alive. If it was not given to him, he would most likely have died. He also learns to write and speak once the man in black comes around. The man in black seems to give Kaspar a sense of purpose. In the end, he is left standing in place as if he is lost or does not know what to do with his self.

Mamasiray:

A common theme between the texts and visuals is the presence of helplessness in the sense that one is unable to change their own circumstances of their current existence or life. Specifically in the online text Kaspar,   Kaspar is unable to change the reality of his circumstances on his own.  His existence is closely related to living in a jail like manor where he is confined and unable to do anything on his own. His days are limited to sleeping, eating and playing with a toy horse, day in and day out, following the routine of someone imprisoned. Kaspar on his own is helpless and cannot do anything to remedy his own situation. It takes a random man to show up and teach kaspar everything from writing to walking that he is able to finally change his state of living. However without the man kaspar would have continues to live the way he was used to in confinement and utterly helpless.

Stacey:

Visually both text use simple cartooning to get their messages across. It made it easier to not get distracted by visuals because they are straight forward and not complex. The use of black and white made the mood for both Kaspar and Acrostic more evident. The mood/theme both stories have in common are dependency and the lack of motivation to venture out. Kaspar seems content with the way he lives and does not question anything outside of his little 6X4 space. It takes a man teaching him to read, walk, and talk for him to finally step out of his bubble however when the man disappears he immediately stops in his tracks because he became dependent on that man’s guidance. Similar to how some of us live our lives, we get so caught up in our daily routines that we forget that the world offers so much more if only we would just take the opportunity to venture out.

Both Gregor’s father and the chief clerk experience shock but the main difference between both men’s reactions would be that the chief clerk in no way wanted to deal with Gregor in that state. Whereas Gregor’s father, although he was taken aback by his transformation, was hostile yet still took a moment to digest this situation. “But the chief clerk had turned his back on Gregor the moment he had begun speaking, and only stared back at him with mouth agape, over his trembling shoulder,” (218) explains Kafka when speaking of the clerk’s reaction to Gregor’s transformation. Describing Gregor’s father’s reaction, Kafka says, “His father was moving forward implacably, emitting hissing sounds like a savage.” (219) Although his dad was approaching him with aggression, the act of his father even moving forward and closer to him to begin with as opposed to running aways means that he is at least trying to understand what stands before his eyes.

Both the charwoman and Gregor’s sister were upset about Gregor’s passing. Upon discovering Gregor’s body, Kafka describes her reaction and says, “When she understood what he situation was, her eyes went large and round,…but tore open the bedroom and loudly called into the darkness.” (239) She seemed to care about Gregor way more than his family ever did however, when Grete learned of Gregor’s death, it seemed to hit her hard. Upon seeing his body, the author describes her reaction by saying, “Grete, not taking her eye off the body, said: ‘Look how thin he had become.'”(240) They shunned him so much that she hadn’t realized how the situation affected him negatively in the days leading to his death.