I am only a little girl.   Why must there be so many rules, I don’t want to learn how to set the table.  I want to roam free and be able to squat down and play marbles with the boys.  Why is it if my hem is short I am a slut, who says I don’t want to be a slut.  I want to be who I want to be not what a “girl” should be.  This isn’t fair always being taught something, maybe I want to learn something on my own.  Life isn’t fun with all these rules.

I am only a little girl.  I do not want to iron father’s pants, who cares if there’s a crease. If I want to sing at Sunday school, I am going to.  I am tired with being unhappy my mother will never be proud.  Everything I do is wrong, there is nothing I do right.  I just want to be accepted for the girl I really am.  I want her to stop trying to change me to be like the other girls.

I am who I want to be.  I will not set the table or cook or clean or hem or get cotton.  I will play marbles with the boys and wear my skirt shorter then it should.  I will sing benna at Sunday school.  I will eat fruit on the street and do every other thing you made a rule for me to follow.

Then my mother snapped at me and kept going with the list of rules.  It was all just a dream I would never say that to my mother.  I must be the “girl” she wants me to be.

 

I compared Virginia Wolf’s characters Carissa and Septimus.  They share the common feeling of depression, loneliness, and isolation at times.  Like Wolf’s A Sketch of the Past says, “we are parts of the work of art”.  What I understood out of Wolf’s words was that even though some people may never meet we are all connected in one way or another.  Some of us are connected through our emotions and feelings and others through our values and beliefs.  Carissa and Septimus are connected through their emotions and feelings.  I displayed out their similarities and differences in the most simplistic way using a Venn diagram.  Both Carissa and Septimus are unhappy with who they have become, but the way that they changed differed.  Septimus is struggling after war and there is no help for him.  Carissa lost her identity as a person and is now just known as her husband’s wife which is unchangeable during the time the book takes place.  On the outside Carissa looks as if she is fine, but we know as the readers on the inside she is depressed.  While everyone knows that Septimus is depressed, though there is nothing that can be done for him.  It is weird how these two characters are so similar yet they never meet in the book, I think the connection of these two characters help you better understand each character as individuals.

 

This morning Brianna left her house and was sadden when she realized that winter would soon be here. She got onto the Q38 and surprisingly it wasn’t extremely crowded, but she was still annoyed because there was a lady in a rush to get off the bus. When the bus got to Queens Blvd the woman ran under everyone’s arms. When Brianna got onto the R train the sounds of people coughing grossed her out. There was a train performer at the Lexington 59^th Street stop, but she just passed him up in a hurry. She hopped on the 6 train and was happy when she saw an empty seat. Once seated Brianna overheard a couple talking about vacation plans, this made her hopeful about her up and coming cruise in June. When Brianna got off at the 23^rd Street station she passed by Starbucks and saw that the line was too long for her to get coffee before class. Then she walked to Baruch without even thinking, but then she thought about the first time she came to Baruch. Which was with her mother, and then she began to reminisce and miss her mother.

I visited the Museum of Modern Art on October 9^th. It was a very rainy day, but the museum was very crowded. I had never been to a museum of this type before; I have never been really interested in “art”. While at the museum I was amazed to see how intricate the works of art were, even though I didn’t always understand what the work was meant to be or meant to explain I admired the work put into them. After walking around confused trying to decide which piece I would like to analyze, I found Hope II by Gustav Klimt. While reading the excerpt next to this painting I was surprised to learn that paintings of pregnant women were considered to be rare. This painting caught my eye immediately and I knew I was going to write about it.

The Austrian painter Gustav Klimt painted Hope II in 1907-08. It is painted from oil, gold, and platinum on canvas. I chose this painting to analyze because it depicted a sad pregnant woman; this made me question why she was sad. As I got a closer look I saw that there seemed to be a skeleton head coming out of her dress. The woman’s breasts are also bare and visible, which I thought was strange, because the woman is not alone. There are three women bowing at the woman’s feet.

Klimt came from Vienna and his works coincided with the ideas of Sigmund Freud. Klimt’s painting had the ideas of sex and death, as depicted by the woman’s bade breast and the skeleton of a baby. Klimt’s title Hope II, helped me understand what this painting is about.

Although I am not certain that my analysis of this painting is correct, this is my take on what Klimt was trying to say. The woman in the painting is an expecting mother who is coming to the end of her pregnancy. I believe she is looking down at her stomach, which seems to have a skeleton baby head in it, hoping that everything goes well with her delivery. The women at her feet are in a kneeling position praying for the same thing. At first I thought this paining symbolized a stillborn baby, but with the title Hope II, I think it has more to do with an up and coming birth. Behind the pregnant woman is a yellowish white figure, which to me looks to be angel wings. To me this is symbolic of the fear that she can also die during childbirth, back then many mothers died during childbirth.

After visiting the museum and analyzing a painting I have a greater liking for art. This paining seemed very simple yet very deep, which is what I liked most. Before I went to the museum I thought of art as just abstract objects that only the painter understood. Now I know that there is not only one analysis of a painting, it’s what you get out of it. Like in Hope II, it could be the idea of a stillborn baby like I originally thought or it can be the idea of hope for a good outcome in childbirth. Works of art just like works of literature are up to the audience to interpret.

In this poem, Discourse on the Logic of Language, the idea of language is a continual theme. The speaker of this poem explains how language is not only important as a way of communication and connectivity with other humans being, but also as an identity aspect of one’s self. The poem says that “English is a foreign language”, to me this represents the removal of slaves in society. Taking language away from slaves disconnects them to other people in society.

In Frederick Douglass’s Narrative of a Life he discusses how important learning to read and write was to him. To Douglass it was way for him to become free. Slaves weren’t permitted to learn how to read and write. Learning language would allow Douglass to not only be able to communicate with other people. It would have allowed him to connect with the white slaveholders.

Language is a basic human right that everyone has, and the fact that slaves were denied this is unimaginable. Slaves were denied all ways of connectivity; they were separated from their families at a young age and they weren’t allowed to learn language. While keeping all of this from slaves they are keeping knowledge away from them. Not being able to communicate and connect with people is taking away freedoms and the ability to gain knowledge. This idea is addressed in both the poem and Douglass’s narrative.

Key Terms

causality, mind/body, satire, mystification

The Age of Enlightenment (17th-18th century in Europe & America)

• beginning of the scientific age
• moved away from religion
• started admiring their surroundings
• reaction to the superstition of earlier generation

Think of your journey vs. Candide’s journey

“Cogito Ergo Sum” – I think, therefore I am

Why is this a radical statement?

• emphasizing you have a mind of your own
• you can go about things in your own way
• there is nobody above you dictating how you should think

Thinking means…..

• imagining
• point of view
• questioning
• what makes us human
• REASONING (we are equipped with mental capacity that allows us to figure thins out

“On life’s vast ocean diversity we sail, Reason the card, but Passion is the gale” Alexander Pope Essay on Man 1733

gale– wind, storm                 card– the cloth on the sail of a ship

How is this quote connected to Candide?

• everyone takes their own journey through life ( there are multiple way through this path )
• your social, economic, cultural, and personal ways help you choose this path
• Reason is the physical structure of how to get through life, but passion is the face behind it
• you need both reason and passion on your journey through life

Vestiges

1. Deism-accept a universal creator who created the world like a watch, where he could walk away and it would still function.  Agnosticism, atheism, and secular humanism (thinking that we as humans are most important and that religion was created to fill our desire for explanation) were emerged from deism.
2. Universal Human Rights- inalienable rights of all humans.
3. Nature as Pattern- thinking as the world fitting in, interconnected, cause and effect.
4. Scientific Method- understanding through experimentation, procedure, and evidence.

Critical thinking is an Enlightenment belief still used today

What did you think about Candide?

• dramatic
• soap opera like
• satirical
• he seems innocent and naive
• challenges our expectations of reality

Pangloss’ theory is dedicated to optimism

• Page 1- “It is demonstratable……..for the best” Pangloss’ logic if faulty our reason for having a nose is to breathe not to wear glasses.  This shows him convoluting casualty by putting the effect before the cause.
• Page 8- Pangloss got syphilis and his response is “it was a thing unavoidable a necessary ingredient in the best of worlds”  Syphilis is just a part of human process according to Pangloss (this shows his optimism)

“It is what it is” is a mystified quote it causes us to not question things and just accept what things concretely are.

Mystification– dominant power convinces us that something is a truth because it benefits them.

• we dont’t learn what not to believe
• sugar coating

“sufficient reasoning” – Voltaire’s way of making fun of philosophers by making this a euphemism for sex.  (deep down the reason humans do everything is because of sex)

This sufficient reasoning for Cunegonde drove Candide all around the world.

Page 40- “They rowed a few leagues…….the rubies and the emeralds”

• Where is Candide?    El Dorado
• What is it like there?  paradise with plentiful jewels, people are happy with no fights, there is no poor and there is enough to eat.
• Utopia is the Greek word for nowhere, El Dorado seems like a utopia.  The people of El Dorado have to give up their opinions to live in this paradise.
• Utopia isnt for everyone, because of this they don’t exist.  El Dorada wasn’t a utopia for Candide, because Cunegonde wasn’t there.

What happened to Candide after he experienced El Dorado?

Now Candide sees all the problems in the world and becomes skeptical of Pangloss’ optimism.

Where does this journey take Candide?

The journey ends in Turkey with Candide and all the characters in the book (even the ones who died) in a garden.  They are almost in utopia living.  When Pangloss tries to philosophize, Candide says “lets cultivate our own garden”.  Which is the theme of trying to get at making your own path by thinking on your own.

Garden is a metaphor for our mind, soul, and reason because like a garden our mind has to be tended to constantly it is an ongoing process.  Gardening gives power over his circumstance, because throughout the book Candide was a victim of circumstance.

 

For next class (Tuesday 9/29) Read the 1st half of Frankenstein (preface, introduction, volume 1, and as much as you can into volume 2)

 

 

 

 

53rd Street Train Station

“I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journey-work of the stars” (Song of Myself)

The 53rd Street station is the first stop in Manhattan on the M & E lines, which is by my house.  I used this quote to describe it because even though the train station might seem like a small part of my day it opens me up  to so many opportunities in the city.  It allows me transfers to other trains and it’s my way back home.  Even though it may not be as memorable or exciting it is a very important part of my journey in NYC.

Baruch College

“And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat.” (Genesis 1 King James Version)

I used the quote to describe Baruch, because we all go into Baruch as people wanting to thrive and grow.  We are the seeds that will grow into the trees as described in Genesis 1.  Baruch gives us everything we need to become the best versions of ourselves and it is up to us to take it and grow into everything we are meant to be.

The Theater District

“..in emptiness there is no form nor feeling, nor perception, not impulse, nor consciousness…” (The Heart Sutra)

I used this quote to describe my favorite place in the city, the theater district.  The theater district is where Broadway plays are preformed.  I used the quote to describe it, because when you go to a play you need to clear your mind of everything and focus completely on the play.  Just like the quote says when you see things for what they are without labels while watching the play you are liberated.