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

     The notion of an anti hero as explained by Aristotle perfectly fits Bartleby in the essay “Bartleby the Scrivener” where the protagonist is apathetic and chooses not to act in an ideal manner until he ultimately dies.

In Aura, Felipe leaves his ordinary life behind, represented by his conscious state of mind, and enters Consuelo’s home to experience the unrealities of his subconscious, much like how a surrealist artists taps into his/her subconscious to create artwork. Euler’s equation, a never ending spiral on an imaginary axis, represents how tapping into the subconscious can create a never ending loop that battles imaginary vs. reality. I want to use this image to show how Felipe ends up staying in this endless loop, as he chooses not to leave Aura, and remain in his subconscious. I will use an actual drawing of the image for the essay but since the actual equation in the mathematical world battles reality, I thought it would fit well.

Thesis:

The Minotaur and the Labyrinth model connects to Felipe’s choice to enter the old, dark house and Consuelo’s constant attempts to seduce him with a young Aura lead to Felipe’s blindness of reality.

The infinity loop symbolizes Felipe’s journey from the moment he answers the advertisement. The red mark represents Felipe moving through his journey. As the story goes there are moments when Felipe is thinking of escaping the house with Aura when Consuelo is away, that’s when the red dot would be located in the thinnest parts of the infinity loop. Also there are moments when Consuelo’s completely blinded Felipe and he is not even considering leaving such as when he is in bed with her saying that he will always love her. The wider areas of the loop represent the moments when Felipe is so deep in the darkness that hes not even aware of the truth. There are moments when it seems like Felipe might break free, and shorty after some event happens and it takes him farther in the darkness, its a constant cycle.

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.

Thesis statement: A story that exemplifies Campbell’s heroic journey model is Journey to the West, where the underlying veracity is that it serves to illustrate and reflect our journey through the human experience.

The river flows to some end and along the way there is twists and turns. The end is unknown and may lead to danger such as a waterfall. The depths of the river can represent the hidden purpose of the journey. There are things in the river that can help such as things you can eat and then there are challenges or enemies such as poisonous snakes. Making it safely to the end of the river will be rewarding because it will give a sense of accomplishment and safety.

These statement: Felipe starts in reality but chooses to leave reality whereas the freed prisoner from the Allegory of the cave starts inside the cave but chooses to find reality.

This is a rough draft of the image I am using to illustrate my thesis statement. The middle is a circle that is half dark and fall light. This represents the outside world and the inside world, the cave. The inside world is shown through the dark half in that it is a cave and a trap and it shows Felipes choice to stay in this world. The outside world is shown through the light part of the circle that also has a ladder. This shows that with any trap or cave there is a way out. Felipe had a way out as well, he could of just left her house but he chose not to. This shows that when the freed prisoner was freed he chose to take this opportunity to escape and see the world and find reality. The circles around the middle circle represent the journey to reality. It shows that it is hard and confusing to journey to reality but eventually the freed prisoner adjusts to the sunlight and prefers reality. Felipe does not want to stay in reality and improve his life he would rather find a different reality so he goes through the circles the other way around, towards he middle circle. His journey is from reality to the inside world. For Felipe those circles shows the reasons and path to Felipe wanting to leave reality.

In Aristotle’s concept of tragic hero, a person should be person more virtuous than average, and encountering the misfortune he doesn’t deserve. Gregor is a salesman making a good income enough for feeding his whole family. He is kind, caring but flabby person. Turning into a beetle is a major disaster in his life. And the story shows how the accelerated contradiction in his life bring him misfortune. As the picture shown, his journey in Metamorphosis increasingly relate to the audience and create a tragedy that is able to involved the audience in a deeper and deeper level. Initially, he relates to the audience as a well paid employee who also straggles under a boss. As the story goes, people he loves gradually turn to be against him. Especially his sister who tries to kick him out of the house in the last part of the story.

zheng

Thesis: In the model of “The Allegory of the Cave” few men’s perception of reality is guided by someone who shows them actions of shadows on a wall. In “Aura”, Felipe’s relationship with Consuelo is similar because she uses her young image, Aura, to manipulate his perception of reality.

The Allegory of the Cave journey model is about  few prisoners who are forced to only watch a blank wall where they only see shadow of objects. They have been there for their whole life and for them the truth and realm of life is whatever is projected on the wall.

In my visual aid black and white colors represent dark cave and light outside the cave, which creates shadows on a wall. Circular shape of my image represents enclosure of a cave where the prisoners are captive and similarly Consuelo’s dark house where Felipe is trapped too. The swirl that is becoming darker in the center represents the prisoners’ and Felipe’s perception being taken away from reality of their lives into different dimension.

Thesis:

The Minotaur myth is depicted throughout the novel Aura as Felipe navigates his way through his own labyrinth, the divide between reality and dream state, as he tries to figure out whether aura is reality or a dream.

The image represents an overall idea of someone going through an inner struggle that is comparable to the Minotaur myth as the puzzle depicts a labyrinth. A labyrinth is defined as a complicated irregular network of passages or paths in which it is difficult to find one’s way. The cubes on top of  the head are all different shapes and sizes and they are created in a way in which there all interconnected but no one block touches another. This can be seen as an irregular network due to its complexity as the person in the picture is having a hard time figuring the puzzle out  which is shown through her hands gripping her head. This person could easily be Felipe as he struggles internally trying to understand whether Aura is reality or fiction which becomes his own  labyrinth just as the person in the image is trying to navigate their way out of the puzzle within their own mind.

Thesis statement: Through the metamorphosis of Gregor, the tragic hero model was showcased when his life had taken a sudden turn and resulted in the distaste from his family and increased burden but also a decreased of a reason for Gregor all together.

I felt that this image illustrated my interpretation concisely as there is a shadow underneath him which represented what his life used to be. According to Aristotle, they would be born in noble birth but in this novel, he was the provider of his family. The door would represent the distant that was created between him and his family but also the mistakes he had done (such as frighten the tenants as his curiosity was outside of the room).  The bare and empty room would describe the solitude that would drive him into his death.