After watching Modern Time from class, the superior acting of Charlie Chaplin and the unforgettable plot twist immediately intrigued me as an audience. I couldn’t help but watch another one of his signature films, the city light.  The movie started with the line of “To the people of this city we donate this monument; ‘Peace and Prosperity’”, Soon after, as the monument are getting revealed, a homeless played by Charlie Chaplin was sleeping on the top of it and disrespect the monument on his way down. Just from those few scenes along, the element of satire appears in my mind nonstop. the phase of Peace and prosperity is nothing but a fake illusion, there are many serious problems occur in our society, yet many people would still pretend or ignore those issues in order to maintain a positive image of their perfect community. They can donate a tremendous amount money and resources building an artistic monument for the city hall but not enough to spend on a homeless person who has no place to live.

As the story continues, the homeless （Chaplin） met a drunk affluent who is about to commit suicide around the coast.  After Chaplin successful convinced the affluent to think positively about his life, the affluent wants Chaplin to become his best friend and having a good time with this “new” friend he found on the street.  However, once the affluent awake in the morning and become sober, he suddenly forgets about Chaplin and disregards him entirely. The idea of egoism and selfishness in this film couldn’t be more obvious, on one hand, when the affluent feels depress, he uses Chaplin as a tool of comfort and give Chaplin all the luxury experiences, but when the party is over, as affluent returns to his rational mindset, he instantly gets rid of the “friend” and their friendship. While Chaplin continuously provides the help every time the affluent need it even when he was treated unfairly. The contrast between those two characters is often time happen in real life where the generous ones are always treated horribly.

But the real story in this movie is the relationship between Chaplin and the blind girl. The homeless once saw a blind girl selling flower on street and start to have feeling for her. After a visit to her house, Chaplin finds out the girl is facing a serious financial situation and decide to help her pay the expensive rent. But in order to obtain such large amount of money, Chaplin was persuaded to enter a fake fight in a boxing club to earn some fast money.  However, when the fight is about to start, the opponent bailed out of the fight and Chaplin was forced to fight a real boxer and eventually lose the fight. After desperation, Chaplin meets affluent in his drunk mood once again, and better yet, he decides to give $1000 dollars to Chaplin for the blind girl. While unfortunately, there is a robbery going on in the house and Chaplin again was blamed for the crime as the affluent would not recognize his “best friend” in a sober form. As Chaplin successfully bring the money to the girl and told her to use the money to cure her eyes, he was captured by cops and sent to the prison. After the release, Chaplin notices the girl in a flower shop and smile suddenly appear on his face, the girl didn’t know who Chaplin is, but after a touch of the hand, she quickly understands the man in front of her, while Chaplin simply said: “you can see now?” “yes, I can see now” a simple answer from the girl leads the movie to the end.

This movie truly displays the difference between the rational world and the true love that exist in our hearts. in the movie, Chaplin has demonstrated that in an alternate world, in a different life, even a homeless can embrace the idea of been selfless and give a hand a stranger and expect nothing in return. He becomes the lights who directs the blind girl to a bright future in a materialize world that is measured by money and rational decisions. The irony in this movie truly criticize the modern society we live in

work cited: Charlie Chaplin | Luzes da Cidade (City Lights) – 1931 – Legendado

modern time is a film based on the Great Depression happened in the 90s, where many people were suffering from unemployment and difficult financial situations in their life.  The protagonist in this story played by Charles Chaplin is a factor worker who is constantly screwing machine part one after another and even become insane at a certain point when he couldn’t handle the face paced tasks in the factory. it demonstrates the social trend under an industrialized city, the creation of new machines are supposed to help workers to be less stressful and become more enjoyable at work, however, turn out these middle-class workers are suppressed by those machines even harder as they must keep up the productivity of the factory, while the owner is sitting in his office and monitoring  those employee’s task. 

one of the most intriguing facts of this film is that while the character’s dialogues are mainly silenced, there are few times where the characters actually speak out loud, and all of them is speaking with a tone of freedom and liberty.  In a time where many people are forced to work in a harsh place, it is quite necessary to get rid of anxiety and frustration on a daily basis.  As the protagonist keep experiences failure at his work, he met a girl who has lost her home and almost starving to death, and the connection of the two shows the true love humanity which the entire society was missing. the fact that everyone’s goal is trying to more productive and earn more money and doesn’t care about the any relationships with others.  It is rare for a man to take a crime blame for a stranger who has been never met before. but the film directly showcases it and even separates these two characters to embrace the cold rational society.  where the love and kindness still exist in the Depression.

the story starts with the main character Gerog writing a letter to his good old friend from childhood.

while they both are businessman running a small business, Gerog was much more successful than the friend, since, the friend is a completely wild card.  A man who still act like a child and doesn’t seem to carry responsibility for himself, instead, he is treating his own life very casually and decides to be a  bachelor for good. he is the definition of “reckless” who simply doesn’t care about other’s opinions and does whatever he wants whenever he feels like it.  On the other hand, Gerog seems to have a much more humble personality of his own. the mature, grown-up man who follows the rule of his family and respects others.

continue on the story,  Gerog ‘s fiance Frieda find out this special friend of Gerog and wonder if he comes to their wedding.  Gerog responses that the friend may not want to come as his current life wasn’t so great, and fully understand his friend situation but Frieda disagrees with Gerog’s decision and recognizes that the friend is causing arguments between them. As Gerog has a very close relationship with the friend, the idea of bachelorhood,  a man being single start threatening Frida. it is a critical moment when Gerog reply “That is how I am, and that is how he must take me” he is referring the friend as himself. He doesn’t want to obey from others and desires to live with his own decisions, he especially after his mother passing away leaving him for the family business.

Liberal or conservative? The iconic political principles we all love and hate today, compose the greatest discrepancy throughout the enlightenment era.   After the dramatic revolution happened in France, when the authority has been challenged by the ordinaries, when the king is no longer on the throne, people of Europe start to recognize the importance of freedom, the rights of being independent. They demanded a CHANGE! But what kind of change do they actually needed as a Society? Well, Philosophers like Edmund Burke and Percy Shelley, two famous scholars have shared their ideal vision of a nation in writing. Though both Burke and Shelley desire a world of liberty, where every man can have the rights to participate in government and deciding his own faith, Burke prefers a society which honors the tradition from the past, and prohibited any abstract theories to take control over the government, while Shelley was much more enthusiastic about the imagination  from individuals and believes it is those evanescent emotions from our heart create the ultimate harmony for the world.

In our group, we present the three Anansi story, the famous oral folktales originated from west Africa and later on spreading all over the world. In the first two stories, “all stories are Anansi’s” and “Anansi, tiger and monkey” the character Anansi, a half spider, half human hybrid represents the underdog, the weakling who uses his intelligence and wisdom to defeat enemies that are much stronger than him in turn off physical strength. Especially during new world era, where a large amount of Africans is captured as slaves, they look upon Anansi as the symbol of the ideal survivor from the harsh reality, who can really embrace the worst situation possible and eventually surpass the problem by his very own tricks.

While the “Anansi” from the Africa are worshiped by many Africans during their slavery as a last resort, the hope who can save them from desperation, the American version of “Anansi” is the complete opposite. In” brer rabbit and aunt Nancy”, “Aunt Nancy” is an evil female character who enjoy deceives others and makes them suffer. It is very intriguing to see how oral stories can be so diverse in different regions. The exact same character can be the hero who provides the positive moral lesson to the listeners or becoming a disturbing villain in another place. The idea of retaining specific culture and the flexibility to share anywhere from the world makes oral traditions incredibility precious.

As for the Malagasy Wisdom Poetry, the poetry which describes the common issues many people have experience in their life. the everyday struggle of finding the right answer from unambiguous questions are the main focus of the text. and Those fundamental beliefs and principles of its people are very similar to the African folktales.  Both kinds of literature are emphasizing the important culture and the profound lessons to display to the audiences. Whether it is about wisdom, courage or even love, those short yet remarkable piece of writing really deliver the message to everyone and help us to understand the uniqueness of different culture.

at the end, the identity of a country or nation is its people. The everlast  tradition from the ancestors make our literature fulfill with valuable lessons that even after generations of   generations we still admire those stories and treasure them all with our heart.

After the dramatic revolution happened in French, more and more Men realize the important of freedom, the rights of being independent, the idea of expressing their own thought and the bravery to question the existed.  People started to rationalize their surrounding and everything they had experience in their life, but Percy Shelley has a different picture for the world. He pictures the world as a place full of harmony, creativity, and imagination, where people can effortlessly share their passion to each other.  and in his mind, the best tool to express individual’s emotions is by poetry.

In “A Defense of Poetry” Shelley mentions that “it (poetry) arrests the vanishing apparitions which haunt the interlunation of life, and veiling them or in language or in form sends them forth among mankind, bearing sweet news of kindred joy to those with whom their sisters abide,” which imply that although logic and reason were the central ideas of enlightenment, the time, when people began to use their mind to visualize the whole world, he is the man who still values the spiritual, the intangible parts of a human being, the feelings that were always inside of ourselves but may not be easily recognized. Thus the need for poetry to capture all of those transient ideas in our life and retain them for the eternally.

Furthermore, as he discusses about the application of poetry, he describes poetry as a massager between government and its people. “the most unfailing herald, companion, and follower of the awakening of a great people to work a beneficial change in an opinion or institution, is poetry.”  during the English civil war, when the authority has suppressed its people,  it is the movement which poets stand out to public and the  power of their poetry to  help people fight for their liberty. Therefore, making them “the unacknowledged legislators of the World.”

Every time I heard the word enlightenment I refer it to the mindset of inspiration or new ideas. It was the movement when people start to ask about the existed and question the reality. In “what is enlightenment “the author Kant views it as the freedom of making our own decision without any guidance from others, the bravery of acting under our own reasoning. It is very important to express ourselves as a unique individual and share our emotion to others. And it is absolutely true that are plenty of people who don’t use their full potential to logic everything they experience in this world,

However, there is a one thing I like to argue with the author is that not everyone can think or act like a scholar. The aspects of laziness and cowardice are the normal behaviors of a human being. It is too difficult to ask every person to reason everything for themselves, and there are a lot of challenges and obstacles a man can experiences in his life, feel the urge to ask someone else for a solution is not a horrible thing to do.  If a person is facing a lawsuit, ask a lawyer for a legal consultant is way better than solve the issue on his own, or a student has trouble understanding a math question, he should reach out to a mathematics professor to solve the problem. the help from others doesn’t necessary make us mindless but rather an easier way to learn. There are rules or laws under every country because those resections keep the society organizes and functional.