In Before The Law, Franz Kafka depicts the gatekeeper’s power as a looming barrier to the law.  The story begins with the words, “Before the law sits a gatekeeper” which means the gatekeeper is either sitting in front of the law, or he is sitting behind the law.    If the gatekeeper sits in front of the law, he is a physical barrier guarding the law and preventing the man from the country immediate access.  If, however, the gatekeeper is sitting behind the law, his power takes on extended meanings.

What I understood was that there is a possibility of there being the gate, the law in the middle, and lastly the gatekeeper.

If this is the case, the power the gatekeeper wields could be viewed as “above the law” and is multiplied because he’s able to exercise tremendous power over the man within the gates.  When the country man asks the gatekeeper for entry, the gatekeeper never rejects him.  Instead, he postpones the entry.  The first time, the gatekeeper says that he cannot grant him entry at the moment.  In order to grant entry, the gatekeeper must be allowed by someone else – but if, under this scenario, he considers his power above the law the gatekeeper could just be feeding the country man a bunch of lies.  In fact, he proceeds to mock him when he sees the man bend over to see through the gate.  Laughing, he says “If it tempts you so much, try going inside in spite of my prohibition.”  Of particular importance are the words “my prohibition” – not the law’s.  This reinforces the possibility that the gatekeeper is bluffing up to this point and there is no such threat of other powerful gatekeepers.

Literally, “Before the law sits a [singular] gatekeeper.”

Towards the end, the country man even gives the gatekeeper all of his valuables to win him over.  This act can be understood as bribery to authority figures who care more about the appearance of law, rather than upholding law itself.

A manifesto that particularly resonated with me was Valentine De Saint-Point’s Manifesto of Futurist Woman.  While I found sections of the poem somewhat confusing and contradictory at times, it made some pretty bold statements that made me want to read more.  One of the sections I found pretty relevant to our society was, “It is absurd to divide humanity into men and women.  It is composed only of femininity and masculinity.  Every superman…a complete being.”  Often, we tend to think of gender rigidly in nicely packed boxes – which often results in the ridiculing of individuals who deviate from “the norm.”  As the manifesto goes on to put it, women are often thought in terms of “arms with twining flowers resting on their laps on the morning of departure”, “nurses perpetuating weakness and age”, “…create children just for themselves, keeping them from any danger or adventure…”.  In other words, to be a woman is to be delicate, soft, weak, selfish.  This is absurd of course since men also can exhibit these qualities.

At times I found the manifesto overly dramatic such as when Saint-Point argues for increasing the virility of women.  “To restore some virility to our races so benumbed in femininity, we have to train them even to the point of brute animality…in order to arrive at a period of superior humanity.”  While I get the effect Saint-Point is trying to achieve by pushing for the “masculinization” of women to strengthen and reshape the way they’re perceived in society, she suggests the ultimate extreme of training them “to the point of brute animality.”  This signals the enormous gap or misconception of gender that exists for women.

HUMANITY is a gathering of old feuding souls given the opportunity to bury the hatchet

HOMO sapiens are master sculptors with a propensity of creating wicked works

HUMAN nature is Earth opening up to swallow in on itself

WE buy things that we don’t need with money that we don’t have to impress people who do the same exact shit

LOVE is 90 on the highway with the sounds of sirens close behind

KINDNESS is Ego without its fancy tailored suit

SOCIAL intelligence is punching the bastard in your mind, instead of in reality

PROGRESS is making new killing machines that decimate lands leaving crimson blood, scattered limbs, and souls of young avengers

EDUCATION is the eagle locked behind a cage

DEATH is the silent thief that robs one of happiness, love, and warmth

REBIRTH is the phoenix that rises from the ash

AFTERLIFE is a concept developed to keep humans from committing one too many sins

This manifesto is inspired by Mina Loy’s Aphorisms on Modernism.  Like Loy, I took the concept of an idea and expanded on parts I thought were relevant to understanding the whole.  Therefore I broke down humanity into humans, its strengths, and its universal experiences.  I also incorporated images when defining the different “parts” that make up humanity.  When Loy’s poem, I found this strategy very impactful for getting a message across succinctly – similar to a manifesto.  In fact, each definition serves as a mini manifesto.  I tried to employ vivid images to try and get some aspects of a concept across.  For example, “LOVE doing 90 on the highway” means love makes you do questionable borderline dangerous and unexpected things.  It just sounds a whole lot cooler with an image.

I fell in love with this poem after reading the title.  It reminded me of the saying “The truth is hard to swallow” but Emily Dickinson’s diction and arrangement of words made me do a double take.  At first, I thought Dickinson was encouraging the manipulation of truth when she added “but tell it slant”.  However, this doesn’t seem to be the case because she elaborates how “Success in Circuit lies/ Too bright for our infirm delight”.

The truth, it seems, is only successful when it is told in “circuits” or through repetition.  Otherwise, it is too much for mentally weak or plain out stubborn people to handle or accept.  I also found the wordplay on “lies” interesting.  In this context, I assume Dickinson means that successful transference of truth is dependent or lies on repetition.  Positioning “too bright” directly after “lies” is interesting since people tend to associate lies with darkness.  Furthermore, this juxtaposition made me think about how if you tell a lie often enough many people accept it as truth.  Miguel’s song “Lie to Me” is a perfect example of how a lie that’s repeatedly told transforms itself into something sweet and desirable.

In the second stanza the magnitude of “Truth’s superb surprise” continues to be described.  Similar to how children react to seeing lightning for the first time without it being explained to them, truth can startle some people.  Because the truth can shock and disturb someone’s entire framework, Dickinson suggests that “The Truth must dazzle gradually/Or every man be blind.”  Again, the concept of truth being repetitively delivered resurfaces. Since the truth is hard to swallow, it’s better to feed it spoon by spoon rather than wolf it down.  That way, people don’t choke or “go blind” in this case.

By telling a truth “slant” you don’t actually change its substance.  Rather, you change the angle or the way you approach telling such truth.

As Elaine Freedgood explains in Nineteenth-century British critics of Realism, the realist art movement sought to represent the modern state of society.  Unlike Romanticism which promotes boundless imagination and embellishment of figures, Realism is “responsible for representing social and individual experience as it really occurs in the world outside the novel” (326 Freedgood).  Since the novel became the vehicle through which reality was portrayed, fiction became integrated with reality.  Fiction was no longer strictly the product of writer’s imaginations, but rather “a portrait of the kinds of man and the kinds of things that the author has encountered and encountered regularly” (327).

In Adam Bete, George Eliot declares her commitment to realism in the following lines “my strongest effort is to…give a faithful account of men and things as they have mirrored themselves in my mind.  The mirror is doubtless defective…but I feel as much bound to tell you as precisely as I can what that reflection is, as if I were in the witness-box narrating my experience on oath” (Eliot, Chapter 17 pg 1)  In these lines, Eliot recognizes the limits of realism by acknowledging how her personal perceptions might distort the way in which she represents reality.  Additionally, as writers select which parts to include or exclude in writing they fall short from representing reality as it actually is.  Nevertheless, Eliot reassures readers that her first and foremost purpose is to be as truthful as if she were testifying under oath.  Ultimately, writers attempt to get as close to representing reality within their own frameworks.

Considering realism should reflect reality as closely as possible, it could be argued that one of its limits lies in mundaneness.  This becomes apparent in when Eliot argues how she delights in Dutch paintings.  Many could dismiss these works as uninteresting and take a similar view as the ‘idealistic friend’ who states “what vulgar details! What good is there in taking all these pains to give an exact likeness of old women and clowns? (Page 3).  While these characters could be made a lot more interesting with a simple stroke of a pen, that isn’t the goal.  Eliot argues that those rules should not be imposed on writers.  She proposes that beauty can also be found in the often flawed nature of the everyday man and woman.

Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucrecia Mott in the Declaration of Sentiments make a direct case for extending rights to women by alluding to an important written work in American history, the US Declaration of Independence.  The fact that the words used are taken right out from the original makes it easier to understand and relate to their grievances.  At the sound of the familiar introduction, the audience will easily recall the fight for independence from British rule.  Once the audience hears the first alterations, “We hold these truths to be self-evident; that all men and women are created equal;…” the piece takes on a new light.  Now, men must consider if these rights also apply to women.  As the declaration goes on, the men are established as the oppressors.  This strikes a deep chord, considering how recently the United States has gained its sovereignty – plus no one wants to be compared to a tyrant.  The writers deliberately put men on the spot and make them consider whether they have in fact committed the injuries laid out.  As much as the declaration is used to protest fair treatment, Stanton and Mott also want men to be introspective and understand these wrongdoings.

Frederick Douglass’ “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?” address makes use of an array of stylistic and rhetorical techniques.  In the video rendition, James Earl Jones fires four consecutive rhetorical questions.  Two impactful ones include“ What have I, or those I represent, to do with your national independence? Are the great principles of political freedom and of natural justice, embodied in that Declaration of Independence, extended to us?”  The blatant answers to the questions ‘nothing‘ and a resounding ‘no’, is intended to make the audience uncomfortable at the state of affairs and to raise urgency for the abolitionist movement.  The fact that Douglass also alludes to the Declaration of Independence, also brings to the surface that abolishing slavery doesn’t cut it – demanding the same rights be granted to free men and women.  Near the end, Douglass also uses hyperbole “For it is not light that is needed, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake” to stress that “scorching irony” and not “convincing argument” is needed to rouse the nation into action.

Harriet Jacobs Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl is unique in that it offers a detailed account of the atrocities faced as a slave woman.  Jacobs’ first person narrative does a spectacular job of appealing to abolitionist women since her experiences in family, motherhood, and power struggle between Dr. Flint are all relatable.  Although she makes no allusions to the Declaration of Independence, Jacobs addresses issues occurring during her lifetime including figures like Nat Turner and the Fugitive Slave Law.  By doing so, she makes the more “fictional” aspects of her life more realistic.  In chapter 29, Jacobs seems to discredit her own work when she writes “I hardly expect that the reader will credit me…”(122) which I feel does a slight disservice even though she follows up with “But it is a fact”.  She seems to do this again in page 91 “Some will call it a dream…” By taking away these superstitious scenes and firmly asserting these events readers of her time may have found it less fictional.

One of the common themes between the Arabic lyric “The Opening” and Good Charlotte’s “The River” is that of followers needing guidance.

In the beginning of the song, the vocalist expresses the journey one takes in the entertainment industry in L.A.  While one’s career may start out beautiful, life will inevitably present challenges.  This is demonstrated in the allusion “walking through the valley of the shadow of death.” Shadow and death, are symbolic for fears and painful emotional states common to the human experience.  After reflecting on his career and realizing how much he’s sinned, the vocalist wants to be “delivered” or saved from his sinful path.

Like the prodigal son, I was out on my own

Now I’m trying to find my way back home

In these two lines, he acknowledges he’s been lost this whole time and needs help finding his way back.

In The Opening, this is presented as follows:

It is You whom we worship

and You whom we ask for help.

Show us the upright way

Again, the follower is asking for guidance in life’s trials and tribulations.  Something interesting to point out is the different effect the pronouns used create.  By using the pronoun “I” in The River, the follower seems to take center stage while God recedes in the background.  In The Opening, “You” (referencing God) comes before “we” establishing a closer dialogue between followers and God, as compared to the song.

As we have seen, The River references the parable of the Prodigal son – the last in a set of three which focuses on redemption. In this parable, the younger of two sons returns home after wasting the inheritance his father gave him.  Instead of turning him away, the father celebrates his younger son’s return with open arms.  This angers the older brother since he has never wronged his father, and yet has never received anything for his devotion.

The way God is described tends to share similarities between Islam and Christianity.  The father represents God the Heavenly Father as he demonstrates his divine love, mercy, and grace.  The father explains to his older son, that he’s celebrating the fact that his brother returned to him, having realized his wrongs.  In the Arabic lyric God is also described as merciful, compassionate, and the authority on judgment day.

If the repetition of merciful and compassionate are meant to stress these two qualities, I am somewhat confused as to how The Opening’s God would show followers the upright way to everlasting life:

Show us the upright way:

the way of those whom You have favored,

not of those with whom You have been angry

and those who have gone astray.

The “upright” way seems rigid because it exclusively asks for those who God has favored.  While it could have stopped there, it didn’t.  The sura specifically excludes the way of those who’ve angered him or who’ve gone astray as upright.  It makes it seem that the Prodigal Son would probably be denied eternal life under this God, even though he is just as merciful and compassionate.

Originally a manga series, Fullmetal Alchemist was written and illustrated by Hiromu Arakawa from August 2001 to 2010.  It was later adapted into two anime television series by animation studio Bones.  The first animated series Fullmetal Alchemist (2003) consists of 51 episodes, while the second series Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood(2009) runs for 64 episodes and is said to match the original manga more closely.

From the very first episode, viewers will be captivated as the brothers Edward and Alphonse Elric barely escape death in an attempt to bring their mother back to life.  Viewers then follow their wild adventures in finding the Philosopher’s Stone, which supposedly amplifies an alchemist’s powers.  Throughout their quest, the plot is enriched with action packed scenes, emotional rollercoasters, and phenomenal character development.

In this video clip, we witness Edward Elric explaining to Rose how “science is the answer to everything”.  This immediately reminded me of the quote in Frankenstein that reads:

“None but those who have experienced them[discoveries] can conceive of the enticements of science.  In other studies, you go as far as others have gone before you, and there is nothing more to know; but in a scientific pursuit there is continual food for discovery and wonder.” (50)

Out of context, both of these quotes are slightly arrogant and share a similar ideology.  Both embrace and place science on a pedestal as a path towards development and progress.  Ed even goes as far to say that alchemists are the “closest things to God.”  Nevertheless, both Victor and Ed view science as a branch of study with endless possibilities.

However, there are stark differences between the two stories.  For starters, alchemy is the modern science in Ed’s world, while alchemy is regarded as an outdated and even malicious science in Victor’s.  This is a critical difference when considering Ed’s backstory.  The fact that Ed was unable to revive his mother even with modern science, paints a rather bleak picture for their shared philosophy.

In fact, both characters suffer great losses in their attempt to meddle with creation.  Edward loses an arm and a leg, as well as the physical body of his brother Al.  Not to mention, the psychological damage he took upon seeing the revived “corpse” of what was supposed to be his mother.  On the other hand, not only do Victor’s physical and mental health take a toll but he also loses many of his loved ones.

[Speaking of creations: Ed’s creation died right after being created, while Victor’s survived to the very end before removing himself from society.]

Furthermore, Edward and Al cling to alchemy as the way to bring back their bodies to their original form throughout the series.  In fact, even after the horrible incident, they continued to believe alchemy would be the solution to obtaining their bodies back.  This is not true for Victor.  After seeing how wretched and evil his creation turned out, Victor threw all alchemy and science out the window.  He realized how dangerous this knowledge was, and in the end shifted gears to try and right his wrongs.

At the beginning of Chapter IV, Victor Frankenstein develops a laser-like focus as he immerses himself in the study of natural philosophy and chemistry. After earning much respect in his university, he puts off visiting his family and decides to further his knowledge in order to discover the source of life.  Frankenstein’s dedication to furthering his knowledge leads him to some very questionable actions.

When studying anatomy was not sufficient, he turned to the graveyard to study the decay of the human body.  It takes a certain level of madness to study dead corpses every day, “until from the midst of this darkness a sudden light broke in upon me – a light so brilliant and wondrous, yet so simple, that while I became dizzy with the immensity of the prospect that it illustrated, I was surprised, that among so many men of genius who had directed their enquiries towards the same science, that I alone should be reserved to discover so astonishing a secret.” (52)

Finally, Victor finds information that will help him animate lifeless matter.  This “light” drives away the darkness and confusion that existed before he began researching in the graveyard.  Here, Mary Shelley is using light as a symbol for newfound knowledge.  In this sense, light illuminates, clarifies, and explains any questions Victor had.  However, the mention of “a light so brilliant” and the fact that he became dizzy from the light also suggests that it is blinding him.

This is similar to when Victor first discovered the works of the alchemists Agrippa and ignored his father’s remark about how that scientific system was antiquated.  Victor became so fascinated with these outdated teachings, that he continued to study this narrow field and was mocked by M. Krempe.  The narrow teachings of alchemy had blinded Victor from more current information available.  Only M. Waldman acknowledged that these individuals helped to contribute to current foundations of scientific knowledge.

Likewise, this “light,” which is referred to, indicates that this new knowledge could only be part of the puzzle.  But in this moment, Frankenstein is basking in his accomplishment.  Even though he recognizes that scientific knowledge is built upon over years and generations, Frankenstein doesn’t take a step back.  He fails to look at the bigger picture and fails to determine what the consequences of his findings entail.

It is only through retrospect that Victor realizes how his insatiable thirst for knowledge leads to his ruin.  Even after dedicating his sweat, blood, and tears into this project Victor is disgusted after he brings a hideous monster to life.  Not only does he despise his creation, he also is fearful of it.  In the end, he warns Walton how dangerous the acquirement of knowledge is.

On another note, this reminded me a lot about an anime called Fullmetal Alchemist.  For anyone who hasn’t watched it, I would recommend watching the first two episodes.  The story begins with two brothers, Edward and Alphonse Elric, who try to revive their mother back to life using alchemy.  There are many similarities that can be drawn between the two stories.

As I walk inside, the smell of sandalwood incense and kitchari cling to my clothes.  My Sunday welcoming to a 9 hour shift.  Down the first aisle, a blur of colorful packaged supplements and beauty products register in my peripheral vision.  I reach out, grab my time sheet, punch in.  I sigh.  I think of how I would rather be spending my time doing something enjoyable, but then I remind myself how fortunate I am to have a job that allows me to pay my way through college.  I head over to the registers.

Overcast morning

Birds soaring in the distance

Flap their wings with hope

I sit down and proceed to inspect my surroundings.  Noticing the depleting bag levels, I grab some brown bags and start placing them inside plastic ones.  I alternate between making them with different hands and keep count.  I’ve been doing this since I started working here because it helps me be present.  At the end of a “round”, I count them over to see if there’s ten.  I’m still off sometimes.

A quiet stillness

Fills the room, except for the

Sound of rustling bags

Cool winter air creeps into the store as the early birds come to shop for their groceries.  All familiar faces – exchanging pleasantries to break the stillness.  Some stand out more than others by way of appearance or how they conduct themselves.  There’s an older man with a grey beard and rounded glasses who comes in and talks about the most random things.  Like did you know that humans with blood type rh negative are descendants from extraterrestrials?  Then there’s this lady who shops here at least once a week and still asks where stuff is, as she mindlessly drips her green juice on the floor or knocks something over.

Lastly, there’s Marissa.  She’s the hippie that strides in with her flowy patterned dresses, asks people for their opinions, and interjects her beliefs.  She’ll pile items on the counter, pay for one yogurt, and then find someone to converse with.  An hour later, she’ll come back to the counter with five items in her shopping cart.

One by one, they start making their way to the counter.  Funny how once a few people get on line, everyone else is also apparently finished shopping.  I try to remain calm even as I see carts and baskets filled to the brim.  When ringing groceries, I apply the bag technique I use to help me be present.  I punch in the cost with one hand, and move the items rung up with the other while simultaneously keeping count in my head.  As I bag the items, I count them again to make sure I don’t over/under charge.

At the end of it all, I hit subtotal.  There are those rare moments when a special string of numbers will pop up like 777, 420, 666, back to backs.  But the one I like most of all and always makes me chuckle:

One seven three eight

Displays on the registers

Fetty Wap’s Trap Queen