Samantha Poon

KTA II Eng 2850

Mrs. Dalloway’s Mind Map

This mind map reflects the connections between each character throughout the novel. Although I leave out the minor characters who appear in and out of the novel, I wanted to focus on how the the significant characters intertwine and really show how each character’s perspective shifts throughout the novel. I placed Clarissa in the center because of course, that is where the map begins, in the mind of Clarissa Dalloway. What begins as an ordinary day and a simple party leads us through the minds of multiple characters and point of views. Woolf cleverly leads us through the thoughts of each character with the use of simultaneity and free direct discourse. As you see throughout the map, some of the characters barely interact with one another, yet they still essentially effect the direction of the novel. Clarissa who is stuck between her two men whilst confused with her sexual desires is almost linked to everyone in both subtle and/or deep ways. From one character we shift to another, especially when it comes to the major characters: Clarissa, Peter, and Septimus. Spetimus’ character is especially utilized in a sense to carry the emotions of Clarissa Dalloway and is used to enhance her thoughts on life and death. Clarissa and Septimus contain similar thoughts about the oppressive society in which they live in. Richard Dalloway and Peter Walsh reflect the two things that she cannot tolerate in her society. Richard, the rich husband who provides her with a stable house and life. but does not provide her with any excitement. Then there is Peter Walsh, the charming man who was close to Clarissa, who loved her deeply but suffocated her with his overwhelming love for her. Neither of these men simply let her decide for her own, and ultimately, Clarissa lives with doubt of the decisions she has made.In between these major characters lies the minor characters who build this story, who bring each character to their place and essentially in the end ties them all together underneath one cotton wool.

She took one step out of the house and felt the warm breeze hit her face. She turned left up towards 7^th avenue, since the 8^th avenue station was in that direction. As she continued to walk she noticed how perhaps she had not dressed appropriately for the weather. In fact, she realized perhaps she wore too many layers: a scarf, a sweater and a long sleeve shirt, but by the time she began to feel the overwhelming heat, she was already too far from home to turn back and change. After a few minutes, which seemed forever to Samantha, she finally arrived at the train station and immediately the train arrived and she thought to herself how fortunate she caught the train because she thought she might be late for class. As soon as she stepped onto the train she finally noticed that there was a seat available for once, and that was quite a rarity. As the train approached Canal St. station, the train conductor announced that the train would not be stopping at 23^rd st which annoyed her and reminded her how much she disliked the MTA. Of course she still had to go to class, so she continued her journey to school by transferring to the 6 train. The 6 train as usual arrives promptly and I rode to 23^rd street and Lexington avenue. As soon as she stepped out of the station she immediately thought “Coffee”. Of course class was probably starting in five minutes, but no, that did not stop Sam from getting her daily dose of caffeine. So per usual, she went to the nearest Starbucks, which she noticed as usual was busy in the morning. She ordered her venti ice coffee and made her way to the Lawrence and Eric Field Building and arrived, thus beginning her long day at Baruch College.

 

 

Claude Monet was a famous French painter during the movement of impressionism which involved capturing the soft, light, and natural forms of life. Many impressionist artist often used soft, short paint strokes, neutral tones, and blended colors to give the paintings a look of effortlessness while still having the effect of realism. Claude Monet had a series of paintings called “Water Lilies” in which completely define the impressionistic movement. The use of cold colors give the painting a calm and soothing feeling and does not consist of more than at least five colors. The blending of colors and the gradation of the paint give the painting a sense of dimension and softness. The white creates an illusion of sunlight reflecting off the water while also highlighting the key features of the painting-the water lilies. The fact that the painting is called water lilies, there seems to not be many water lilies which I believe gives it a much more natural and realistic view and gives viewers a different perspective, as if looking from afar. A few of other Monet’s water lilies paintings do give a closer and much more detailed look at the water lilies. This painting is one of my favorite paintings that is the main reason I choose to analyze this painting.

Samantha Poon

Professor Hussey

ENG 2850_KTA

NourbeSe Philip’s poem “Discourse on the Logic of Language” powerfully speaks about the issue of mystification and institutionalized racism. The poem begins with what seems to be a chorus where she says “English is my mother tongue, a mother tongue is not my lan-“ Philip does not finish her sentence because as she continues the word “language” transitions to “anguish” which immediately tells us that English causes her anguish. Then she continues to say “English is my father tongue, a father tongue is foreign language, therefore English a foreign language, not a mother tongue.” Given that during slavery, White men, forced their slaves to speak English which was a foreign language to the slaves, that is why Philip also says that “[She has] no mother tongue,” no real identity to herself besides the one that is imposed on her. SImilarily Fredrick Douglass speaks about not having ownership to his identity, that he has no mother tongue to associate with besides what his masters allow him to know. In the very beginning of the narrative he says “by far the larger part of the slaves know as little of their ages as horses know of theirs” (Douglass, pg.1) this reflects the idea of how Philip states that English is simply a foreign language. As mentioned before English causes her anguish just like in the case of Fredrick Douglass who felt anguish when he began to learn the foreign language of English. As he continued to learn, become more educated, he may have gained knowledge but he also gained a burden. He learned of the truths behind why white men felt as though they were superior, Douglass learned and finally understood the extent of what it meant to be a slave and immediately sought for freedom.

Fredrick Douglass recalls a point when he is put up for auction amongst other slaves, as well as cattle, “we were all ranked together at the valuation. Men and women, old and young, married and single, were ranked with horses, sheep, and swine” (Douglass, pg.27). Although Douglass and his brethren were subject to physical abuse, he saw that “[there are] brutalizing effects of slavery upon both salve and slaveholder”(pg.27) therefore saying that slavery created monsters in slaveholders, they became so cold and inhumane in the process that they failed to recognize slaves as human beings just like themselves. In Philip’s poem she even mentions a doctor who believed that the brains of white men where more intelligent and much more superior than colored men and women. This belief emphasizes how White men at the time regarded themselves as the dominant race and therefore they could not distinguish between men and women of color and cattle. Philip also states that “the metamorphosis of sound to intelligible words require […] B) a mother tongue, C) the overseers’ whip..” The fact that she mentions “a mother tongue” and “an overseer’s whip” as reason to utter words of intelligence relate to how slaveholders enforce slaves to learn their ways yet punish them if they obtain too much knowledge of the father’s tongue, that being English, their foreign language.

Philips poem takes the physiological aspects of how the tongue works and translate that to mean so much more. She relates the function of the tongue to relate how we has humans can use our tongue, speech, and language for more than communication but to express what we learn, feel, and value. At one point she asks whether the “B) the principle organ of articulate speech or c) the principle organ of oppression and exploitation.” In many case during slavery, even during present times, language is used in ways that offend and most definitely oppresses those who are at the receiving end of it. Fredrick Douglass tells many times in which the tongue has been the enemy of the slaves. He mentions the death of several slaves that he knew to receive punishment even death and as a result there was no justice for their deaths because the slaveholders hold “the principle organ of oppression and exploitation,” whose words better to believe than that of a white man’s, especially the tongue of a slaveholder.

ENG 2850_KTA

September 25, 2015 Notes

Samantha Poon

 

Discussion of the journey’s through NY

A journey- an interesting way to organize a story in time and space. Reading the lives of others.

The Age of Enlightenment

17^th – 18^th Century in Europe and America

Satire – a satirical tone; expose the failings, faults of a situation, time, event, or person. Mock or make fun of a story or subject/topic.

Voltaire in Candide uses a lot of satire and hyperboles (exaggerations) within the text.

Examples: Pangloss had died twice within the text and came back to life twice

Or

When Candide killed the first man who owned Cunegonde and then the second man entered and her proceeded to kill him as well.

Enlightenment-

• After the Renaissance
• Scientific reasoning and thinking
• Challenging the law and Religion
• Secular thinking

“Cognito Ergo Sum” or “I think therefore I am”

-Rene Descartes, 1637

Class Discussion: What did Descartes mean by this?

• Individual thinking that challenged conformity
• Non hierarchal thinking (that no one ruled over the other, everyone existed equally)
• You are not someone who exists because you have a body. You exists because you have the ability to think, therefore we have the ability to understand and are capable of: self-consciousness, meaning, analyzing things around us, finding the truth, doubt, reason, etc. and all this forges our perspective.

“On life’s vast ocean diversity we sail, Reason the card, but Passion is the Gail”

-Alexander Pope, Essay on Man, 1733

Class Discussion: What is Alexander trying to say? What is a card? What is a Gail?

Alexander Pope perhaps is trying to say that life is vast like an Ocean. All our experience of life is diverse.

We each have our own moral compass– how we are raised, who we encounter, our sex, age, class, etc. all these factors affect us.

Definitions:

Gale – high forced wind

Card – old term for a sail = mechanical function to move the boat along in a certain direction.

Therefore….

Gale = Passion which is the driving force to push ourselves forward

Card = Reason, the direction in which we put ourselves in or point towards. (Our guide)

Universal Human Rights

Everyone deserved equal rights but…

18^th century – slaves & women did not count

Colonial Expansion – yet everyone wanted to rule over another country; there were genocides, war, etc. Men wanted to destroy everything that did not reflect what they wanted

Deism – the belief that there is a single creator of the world, he/she created the world and simply walked away and no longer exists.

Book Discussion:

“Would you hang out with Candide”

How did Voltaire portray Candide?

Candide Characteristics: intellectual, naïve, optimistic, innocent

-Voltaire introduces Candide as naïve with his relationship with Pangloss.

 

How is Pangloss portrayed? What do you think of Pangloss’ Philosophical thinking?

Pangloss’ philosophical thinking is very similar to that of a child. He is narrow-minded and pretty much defines a word within itself. With his thinking, he does not give any insight into life and how it came to be, therefore he is not necessarily a critical thinker. “It is what it is” (Professor Hussey’s most hated phrase)

 

“One day Cunegonde, while walking near the castle, in a little wood which they called a park, saw between the bushes, Dr.Pangloss giving a lesson in experimental natural philosophy to her mother’s chamber maid,…” (Chapter 1).

Euphemism-Pangloss had sex with the Chambermaid, caught syphilis and lost his nose.. The loss of Pangloss’ nose satirizes his philosophy because at the beginning he stated “that things cannot be otherwise than as they are; for all being created for an end, all in necessarily for the best end. Observe, that the nose has been formed to bear spectacles-thus we have spectacles” (Chapter 1).

 

“Pangloss made answer in these terms: “O my dear Candide, you must remember Pacquette, that pretty wench, who waited on our noble Baroness; in her arms I tasted the pleasures of Paradise, which produced these Hell torments with which you see me devoured” (Chapter 4).

Voltaire Satirizes human’s desire for sex and their greed to satisfy their own needs. Overall this also reflects ridiculous cause and effect given the sequence of events that had just occurred within the first three chapters.

 

Mystification – Process by which dominant power and/or culture convinces something as the truth.

Example: “it serves us good that American culture is for the best”

Or

“We need to tax the rich less, because they are the ones who provide us jobs” is this true? No.

-Things that seem logical but are not really that beneficial.

 

El Dorado – can be seen as a Utopia, but what does Utopia mean?

Utopia- Greek word for “no place”

El Dorado may have seem perfect for anyone because of its carefree lifestyle and riches but for Candid it was not a Utopia, Why? Because Cunegonde is not there, but….

Towards the end of the text, we see that Candid is slowly coming to terms with the idea of being without Cunegonde.

 

The End:

At the end, although it may seem that Candide has ended up with a bad turnabout, but this is not true..Candide finally finds himself.

Throughout the novel, Candide had let circumstances, people, and fate control him, but in the end he gains control over what he can control.

Everything may not have turned out the way he had hoped but he finally gets over the idea of Pangloss’ philosophy and sees life through his own eyes and realizes that things are not just the way are just because, but that things happen because of what we choose to do.

Voltaire overall is trying to tell us to cultivate ourselves; cultivate our thinking, being true to ourselves, see our own abilities and potential and simply not to just accept things as they are.

“Excellently observed,” answered Candide; “but let us cultivate our garden” (Chapter 30).