Author Archives: jacqueline liang :D

Given the time to think, I have finally decided that I will be using Audre Lorde’s poem, Contact Lenses because it struck a chord in me. It reminds me that sometimes you lie to yourself and shield your eyes from the truth because it makes it easier to go on. You may think that it’s the best way to face the cruelties in life but its not. So when you take off those contact lenses, it may hurt a lot for a while because you were so used to shelter, but in the long run, seeing the truth is better than living in a lie. And besides, “eyes are the windows to your soul”

As for the video, I was thinking of just a filming a couple of scenes with little to no audio/narration and faint music playing behind. The scenes will be cut and blurry and will have quick “flashback” type scenes in between.

As of the current moment, I still am not sure of what poem to choose but I am debating between Lightly or Contact Lenses by Audre Lorde…most likely Contact Lenses because it seems to speak to me more. I haven’t formed a thesis yet or really dug deep into the poems yet, but I am fascinated by Contact Lenses because of the whole idea of eyes being “windows” to someones soul and that’s what it somewhat reminded me of.

I have never done a digital essay before but it’s something that I’m excited about because it gives the traditional essay an artsy touch. It really makes you think a step further into your thesis. I also like film making and those sort of things and I have experimented with it before so hopefully, all goes well.

It has always been common sense to me that happiness varies between people, but the extent to which is differs has never really crossed my mind. I didn’t really care as long as everyone was happy in their own way. Or at least that’s what I thought. My perspective on that changed a bit when I came across selected short stories. The character in these stories and they way they represent happiness is very different from each other, and even more so, where different from me. Birthmark, by Nathanial Hawthorne, tells a bittersweet tale of Aylmer and his displease with his, so called “flawed” wife, Georgiana, because of a birthmark on her cheek. Here, the happiness of Aylmer is contingent on the removal of the birthmark and his obsession with perfection. Although it is never explicitly shown, the happiness of Georgiana, however, seems to depend on the happiness of her husband and the relationship as a whole. She seems to be tired of Aylmer’s disgust with her and their distancing relationship. I see this as so because she never had a problem with her own birthmark at first; in fact, she viewed it as a charm. But as Aylmer points it out and hounds her about it day and night, she begins to fall into a rather anxious state, wanting to remove the birthmark to save the relationship. In the end, she even went as far as to risk her life just to be in a happier relationship again. Birthmark is reminiscent to Ernest Hemingway’s, Hills Like White Elephants in the sense that Jig, the female character of the story, doesn’t seem to have her own sense of happiness that isn’t contingent on her partner’s and the relationship. In this story, Jig seems to want the baby and not want such a reckless life anymore; this may be her deep down happiness but it is never actually shown or portrayed by the character. Instead, it seems that her happiness depends on how much the American will love her. This kind of “happiness” is enough to drive her to not care about herself and abort the baby. In the end, she even smiles and tells the American, “I’m fine.” Obviously, this to me doesn’t make sense because her want to be happy is not to be happy for herself but to be happy for her man and the relationship as a whole.

What I found personally disturbing about these two stories is that they both seem to depict happiness as something that is actually unhappy for themselves because they’re forcing their own happiness for someone else’s (confusing AND ironic, I know). This isn’t necessarily a uniform view of happiness (and by no means am I saying that everyone should be selfish and only care about their own happiness), but it is showing a pattern of how WOMEN perceive happiness, in terms of trying to please the men too hard. The Story of An Hour by Kate Chopin on the other hand seems to be the opposite. Mrs. Louise Mallard seems is portrayed to be a frail woman, so you obviously assume she wouldn’t make decisions for herself opposed to the healthier and more youthful Jig and Georgiana. However, Mrs. Mallard’s happiness did not seem to depend on her partner, but rather the freedom from that partner. When she was imagining being free from her husband and the marriage, she had all these visions and sensations and good feelings. Unlike the other two female characters, Mrs. Mallard was the one character that wanted to be happy for herself and not the others. Her type of happiness is what I abide by more and I see her as a stronger character as opposed to Jig and Georgiana as well.

Before I watched this Best in Show, I always thought that most people felt happy when they won and sad when they lost. But after watching it, I think that my perspective on this subject changed a bit. In all honesty when the movie first came on in class, I was a bit adamant about the relevancy of the show because its about a dog show after all. The movie started off a little bit dry and confusing  because of the shifts between the interviews of each dog show participant; each family seemed to be odd and eccentric in their own way. After a while of the interviews, I actually began to enjoy it because of all the vivid portrayal of the characters and the subtle humor from each family, their obsessions with their dogs, and just their crazy antics overall. I thought that this really help show how everyone’s perspectives are different and how happiness and life in general varies uniquely. When the dog show finally rolled around not only did it further highlight the distinct characteristics of each human being, but the real action also showed up. The gay couple was completely ostentatious and flamboyant but oh so cute at the same time. The arguing couple kept, well, arguing and fighting with each other over nonsense. They fought so much that I wasn’t surprised when their dog became hostile, attacked the judge, and got disqualified. On top of that, it also wasn’t surprising when each of the main characters’ dogs advanced to the finals. What was surprising was when the trophy wife kissed the lesbian poodle handler; that just added on to the humor and craziness of this movie and how you can’t really tell what exactly makes people happy. I honestly had no idea who was going to win the dog show, but I thought it would be the poodle since it was so well trained and had a professional handler. Each family was so obsessed with this competition and prized their dogs so much that it made it very intense to watch who won and to see how devastated the other families would be when they lost. When the shitzu won, of course Cookie and Gerry were super ecstatic, and I was happy for them too because they were a nice couple. The most surprising and the whole point of my response comes at the end of the movie when you catch up with the family some time after the dog show. You’d expect the other families to be training their dogs like crazy, stressed out, and upset that their dogs didn’t win but surprisingly that wasn’t the case. Each family found the silver lining to their cloud and made the best out of losing. Heck, it didn’t even seem like they lost! Each family found something happy to pursue and be passionate about even after losing and I thought that was just super awesome.

Jacqueline Liang

Option #2

Undoubtedly, everyone in this world as consciously or unconsciously thought about happiness and what it is that’s associated with this complex word. Pleasure is of course one of the words that comes into mind, but how exactly we can feel this pleasure is a whole other story. In Beyond the Pleasure Principle, psychologist, Sigmund Freud, made a rather clever observation of a child‘s play, which eventually came to be coined as “fort da” or “disappearance and return“. In this instance, an eighteen month old child seems to take much time flinging toys to and fro, especially a wooden reel with a string attached to it. This certain toy is the central figure of the “fort da” game because when the toy is thrown, it disappears but with a tug on the string, the toy seems to magically appear again much to the pleasure of the child.

The game, though simple, holds an interesting point to Freud’s whole argument on the basis and fundamentals of pleasure. The whole idea of this “fort da” game is for the child to cope with the various departures of his mother because when he is reeling the toy back into his view, it is representational of the hope and joy of his mother’s return. The simple act of the child flinging the toy away is symbolic to his mothers departure because what baby doesn’t feel at least a twinge of pain when his or her mother goes away. But if this game has so much pain before the actual pleasure, why does the child keep repeating the action? Perhaps you think that this has no relation to us because the center of the game is a mere child whereas we are developed adults with more complex thought capabilities but this “fort da” game can be readily applied to all human beings. In life, how can we ever feel satisfaction or know what that is if there is no pain or un-pleasurable feeling as a prelude; it is a necessary contradiction in a sense. Imagine that you are going jogging on a dry, sunny day and you somehow forgot to bring water. The more the jog, the thirstier you will get, but the thirstier you get the better and more refreshing the water will taste when you actually get to it. The whole irony of it all is that by repeating the unpleasant things, you will eventually find pleasure in it.

Surprisingly, the “fort da” game is like its predecessor, The Allegory of the Cave, by Plato. In this instance, the story is much more somber with it being about prisoners who have been chained in a dark cave for their whole lives. They have never seen each other or the outside world and their only companions are the shadows dance across the cave walls. But what if one day, one of the prisoners was freed from the cave? The prisoner is similar to the child in the “fort da” game because they lack the knowledge of the “real world”; the baby is still too young and the prisoner has never been in contact with the world outside of the cave. The two resort to symbolic things and imagination to cope and make sense of their surroundings and feelings. Furthermore, after the prisoner adapts to the real world and begins to see that his life in the cave and the shadows are not the only realities, he goes back to the cave to the other chained men. This instance is like the child throwing the toy away and reeling it back in repeatedly because when you learn something new and more pleasurable, there is always an urge to go back to the origin of the unpleasant thing or event. It is almost like a boost or reinforcement for the happiness or pleasure because lets face it, pain and pleasure goes hand in hand even if their perceptions are different in each human being.