Based on the video Jacques Ellul argues that although our society is more advanced at the moment, we do not use freedom to its limit. The the video it says that freedom does not exist in today’s society. Although we have many advanced vehicles and technology we always use it to do the same things everyday. An example would be going to school by car or train. We take the same train at the same time everyday and we do not take it anywhere else. We do not use the technology to its fullest by not exploring and going to other places. In today society we have so many new and advanced technology, like; laptops, faster internet, new iPhone’s and Androids, drones and robots. People have knowledge of these technology and buys it but literally uses it for the same reason everyday. We use our faster internet to just play games, watch videos and just scroll down on social media looking at whats happening and maybe some people reading the news or doing homework online. We do not use it for other purposes besides our entertainment and not using it to its full potential.

There is an connection with The Visit, the town was dirt poor and has no technology and they do not take responsibility for these effects it had on their town. Alfred Ill died because he took a bribe no one was responsible for his death because they started to justify themselves and made themselves believe they did nothing wrong and it is not their fault that Alfred had died.

There is a connection between both The Visit and the video by Jacques Ellul and the theme of both is individuality. Jacques Ellul gave an example based on  a airport and its how we huddle in masses although there is an fake belief that the new technology gives freedom. In the airport we are always in masses, some of them are random people maybe on your same flight so you travel with them in a coherent mass. In The Visit, everyone has the same shoes and were stopping Alfred from getting on the train. It is like another big huddle of a coherent mass of people with yellow shoes. In both of these excerpt it explains that based on these coherent masses, people lose their individuality.

In the Diary of a Madman by Lu Xun, he is portrayed as someone who is very paranoid. This character suffers from paranoia which causes him to have some very unusual beliefs of his surroundings and neighbors. He becomes very nervous about his surroundings as people talk about him as he passes by them, this was because after thirty years he finally came back. People tend to talk about people who usually came back after a very long time. However Lu Xun took this to another level by believing that the people talking about him were about to attack him and immediately becomes defensive. He thinks of these people as cannibals, even things that were not related to him makes him believe he is in danger. Such as; a mother’s cursing word to her son, dogs barking, stares and even glances at him makes him believe that people are out to eat him. Then one night without any sleep he reads a book and he focused on two words “eat people”. This made him so paranoid he believed that even his own family members were planning on eating him such as his brother and mother. By the end of the story he says that the children does not know the cannibalistic ways therefore they are able to change the future of China.

Cannibalism in this story is a symbol for Feudalism. The way they used the term eat people is saying like bigger companies taking over smaller companies. They take advantage of the weak and “eat them up” but not physically devouring them. Lu Xun uses cannibalism to talk about Feudalism during his time period in China because during his time the rich people take advantage of the poor in order to make themselves more wealthy. The children that the author talks about means that these new children will be able to pursue the changes in China’s Feudalistic society and make China great again.

I feel like Lu Xun’s message is that even though we have a bad society there is always another way of changing it and in this case its a new generation that will bring changes.

Alan Chen

Olympe De Gouges

Olympe De Gouges is a women in history whom made a huge impact in history while fighting for women’s rights in the late 1700’s. Not only did she fight for women’s rights but also against slavery. She claims that slavery is “founded on greed and blind prejudice. De Gouges stresses out that the “Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen” should also include women’s rights. De Gouges exercised that the Right to Speech was important to women in order to reveal the father to their children. Back in the 1700’s women did not have the right to do that. They were just an icon for a person for reproduction therefore men can satisfy their sexual desires with the women and not having to take any responsibility. Therefore the right to speech is really important to women during the 1700’s which is why De Gouges made this a very important point in her Declaration of the Rights of Woman and of the Woman Citizen

Throughout the excerpt it is shown that De Gouges was trying really hard to convince other woman to take action and to fight for their own rights. She is also trying to get the audience and other citizens to notice and to recognize woman as actual people with rights instead of viewing them as a person that has only one purpose which is reproduce.