Recently, I watched the Phantom of the Opera which is one of the great Broadway show in the history. When I watched this show, I was shocked by the scene, the music, and the performance. Everything presented on the stage was perfect and amazing. Some of the musicals are pushing us to fall asleep, but The Phantom of the Opera can make us fall in love with the musical show. The Phantom of the Opera is the longest-running show in the Broadway history that it is a story about the love and revenge. The phantom was considered as a mysterious ghost haunts the opera with a mask to hide his ugly face. He fell in love with Christine, and then he taught her the skill of singing and help her become the leading character in the performance. However, Christine fell in love with Raoul, who was her friend in the childhood. The Phantom felt that he was betrayed by Christine, then he began to revenge because he thinks that Christine should belong to him. The ending of the show was interesting because the phantom disappeared and just left a mask on the stage which gives us a space to imagine the result of the Phantom. One thing makes me impressive was the music, such as “ the Angel of music,” “the Music of the Night,” and especially “ the Phantom of the Opera.”

One theme that we learned related to the Phantom of the Opera is the rationalization. In my opinion, the existence of the phantom was considered as irrational because he was named as opera Ghost that he should not exist. The Phantom was a talented music singer, but the ugly face push the Phantom became an inferiority person that he eager to gain attention and be accepted by the public. He was lived in the darkness alone for a long time without contact with others so that he was attracted by Christine who is a young, beautiful girl when he saw her. He considered Christine as his redemption and belonging, so he taught Christine how to sing, and he used his ‘power’ to help her to became the leading role in the play. He is an irrational person because of his radical behavior. He made the backdrop collapse without warning to scare the original soprano and made her angry so that she refused to perform. Then he pushed Christine to be the new soprano to perform. In addition, he is a crazy man in the play because he threatened and commanded the owner of the theater to let Christine replace the original singer to be the main character or there would be a terrible disaster. He made accidents and killed the man who controlled stage prop when the owner did not follow what he says. Moreover, when he found that Christine falls in love with Raoul, he forced Christine to stay with him forever or to kill Raoul. From his existence to his behavior, I can strongly feel that he is an unreasonable man.  However, the Phantom became rational at the end of the show because he freed himself when he released Christine and Raoul. He understood he could not compel Christine to love him.

The Phantom of the Opera is related to Bewitched. In the show, the existence of the phantom is irrational because he was not accepted by the public due to his ugly face even though he had a talented skill of singing. In the same way, the existence of Manago is also irrational because she is the incarnation of the serpent demon that the society can not accept her. In addition, when Christine didn’t saw the face of the Phantom, she admired him and treated him as “angel of music.” However, when she saw the real appearance of the phantom, she felt so scared of it. Similarly, Toyo-o fell in love with Manago and wanted to marry her when he didn’t find that she was a serpent. He Toyo-o also felt scared and tried to escape from her when he found that Manago was the carnation of the monster. Furthermore, in the show, the Phantom killed the character who should perform with Christine and pretended the man to perform with her. But Christine found that she was singing with the Phantom and exposed his disfigured face to the audience. For the bewitched, Mango killed Toyo-o’s wife and dominated the body his wife and appeared in front of Toyo-o. However, Toyo-o discovered her was not his wife because Manago’s behavior was different from his wife. Therefore, the Phantom of the Opera and Bewitched have many plots that we can connect to each other.

In the film, we can only hear the voice few times. The most important languages in the film is by the president and by Chaplin. Firstly, the communication between workers and the factory president is considered language, where the president gave his order to “mechanize” Chaplin and other workers on the assembly line to increase productivity. This form of language or communication indicated the nature of Capitalism at the beginning of 20th century, which the capitalists tried to produce excessive surplus values and kill the ration of the workers at the same time. For example, Chaplin became irrational when he is continuous working on a fast speed and repetitive work. Secondly, the voice presented by Chaplin was through singing in the cafe at the end of the movie. The singing is a way of communicating, and it is also a way of expressing rationality. The singing draws a connection between the beginning and the ending. Chapin was irrational at the beginning due to overwork, and he becomes rational at the end because he can sing by using different types of language to perform. However, no matter how the job has changed, he was still the clown of the rich people.

The language can also found in the form of words appeared on the screen, which indicated the transition from one scene to the next and help the audience to understand the complete story line. The words shown on the screen are not as dramatic as the communication, but we start to know better about the life of employed or unemployed and the situation of the society. The society presented that stay in the jail is better than working in the factory, but working in the factory is better than unemployed and lose a place to stand in the society

The advantage that the silence pantomime has is to convey the meaning of the film by action and moody music. Certainly, without words, the music is the subject of the development of the plot and create the different atmosphere for different situations. Also, we can focus on the plot and action presented by characters. There are significant music and action scene that relate to the social and political issues of that time. When the workers protested, the music was more intense.  In my opinion, the strike of the labor force seems useless during that time where the police will arrest the workers and punish them. Police’s action which implicitly indicated that exploiting the workers is the mainstream culture at that time.

When I first time watched “Ballet Mecanique,” the film was strange because there was no clear clue for us to understand the purpose of the filmmaker.  It flashes different images so fast and the film seems that it didn’t have any pattern, but only about some random images. All images could not connect together and form a plot. However, when I watched second time, I found that the film seems to connect the people to machine. Everything in the film was happening again and again, such as the geometrical figures, the smile, and the woman walks on the stairs which is like machine. In my opinion, the design of film is unconventional because it just presents some random images and repeats images over and over so that it looks like so different from the regular film. In the regular film, it is impossible for a film to present something irrational and make images appear repeatedly without a plot. Also, I think may be the main purpose of the film to convey the idea of challenging the traditional film. Dadaism is against traditions, rules, and everything that people think is meaningful. Therefore, the film is related to Dadaism.

As for the second film “Un Chien Andalou,” the film makes more sense for me because it is more logical and has a plot. However, on the one hand, I feel the film seems more reasonable than the “Ballet Mecanique”; on the other hand, things happened in the film actually not reasonable and logic at all. Every character’s behavior looks strange and the plot is so complex that we can’t make connection. The film seems to focus on the man’s hand full with ants, and the body of women in order to convey some ideas. The plot that the man seems to fall into unconscious and imagination state when the man touched the woman’s body is so strange and interestion. Surrealism is based on Dadaism which is also against reason and logic, and emphasis unconscious mind. Therefore, the film presents a series of unconventional and irrational things which is connected to the idea of surrealist.

In the story, the situation between Georg and his friend are totally different.  Georg represents the bourgeois class in the society. Firstly, in the business, Georg is successful because his company has to “double the staff, sales had quintupled” and a future sale will be more prosperous. However, his friend’s business has been “stagnating” for quite a while. In the daily life, Georg has been engaged to Fraulein Frieda Brandenfeld, a girl from a wealth family. However, his friend is a bachelor and lives alone and isolation in the Russian. Therefore, Georg is more successful than his friend. Georg and his friend looks like have good relationship because they wrote letter to each other and care about each other. Georg seems to understand and concern about his friend’s situation and tries not to make his friend feel hurt because the different status between them. In fact, Georg is not really care about his friend. Because even though his friend lived in miserable, he still does not want to ask his friend to come back. He assures by himself that his friend would feel embarrassed and remind him of his failure.  Also, in the story, Georg seems to not want to tell his friend about his engagement to a girl from a wealthy family. In fact, he already informed his friend about this thing in three letters. Therefore, Georg flaunts his accomplishments to his friend actually, and the unfortunate life of his friend make him satisfied with his life and accomplishments.

Frieda senses that Georg’s does not want his friend to know their engagement and she wants to let Georg’s friend attend her wedding. However, He told the girl that: “I don’t want to bother him…. But he would feel pressured and put upon, he might envy me and, feeling dissatisfied and incapable of ever overcoming that dissatisfaction.” Georg’s words show that he concerned to his friend’s position, he assures that his friend would envy him and feel dissatisfied to him. However, this is only his imagine because he never wants to know the thinking of his friend. Frieda response that: “if you have such friends, you should never have gotten engaged in the first place.”  In addition, Frieda feel offended may be because she thinks that Georg’s decision not to tell his friends the engagement to her is selfish, and Georg doesn’t care about her. Then, Georg response that: “That’s how I am, and that is how he must take me.” Georg’s words show his selfish and he is not really care about his friend.

The idea of enlightenment, autonomy, and reasoning shaped how people should behave in society since 1600s. The 16^th century philosopher Immanuel Kant gave the answer to what is enlightenment and what influence people unable to be enlightened. People wanted to be enlightened, however, some society’s rational orders impede people from achieving enlightenment. These ideas can be reflected in Ueda Akinari’s Bewitched of how family’s rational order restricted a person from enlightening oneself. In the story, Taro and his father represent the rational order of their family who make decisions and Toyo-o is the person who under the strict control of his family. Although Toyo-o’s life is comfortable under his family’s normalized and rational order, Toyo-o is never capable of achieving Kant’s idea of enlightenment, that Toyo-o’s ability of autonomy, reason, and right of freedom is deprived by such rational order.

Orature is an important literature to passed down the culture and religious. My group presented The Three Anansi Stories in three different countries include Ghana, Jamaica, and United States. Throughout these stories, I learned that the Anansi stories were originated at West African during the period of slavery. The stories of Anansi were used as a source of hope and culture retention and renewal for the Africans during slavery. Sharing these stories within the slave community allowed them to form a cultural rebellion and and to gain freedom.

Comparing the Three Anansi Stories and U.S Slave story, both of them use the slavery as the background and they both are in pursuit the idea of freedom.  In “All Stories Are Anansi’s,” Anansi represents a wise character. Anansi use his clever to defeated the hornets, the python, and the leopard who are stronger than he in order to gain the right to tell all stories. In addition, in “Annancy, Monkey and Tiger,” Annancy use his clever and strategy to deceive the tiger and save the life of monkey successfully. From these two stories, we can see that Anansi or Annancy represent the wise figure who has ability to defeat the powerful animals. In my opinion, the spread of Anansi stories represents the best wish of the West African because they wanted to overthrow the colonists in order to gain freedom as Anansi. In the U.S. Slave stories and secular Songs, the story “All God’s Chillen Had Wings” describes that how miserable life of slavery. The oppressor struck them with his lash once they stop working and they did not have time to rest and have enough food to eat. Also, the song expresses the terrible life of the slave. Both story and songs convey the strong feeling to escape for freedom.

However, the Anansi Stories more focus on expressing the idea of cultural retention because the limited education make African become illiterate and cause them can only spread their culture through oral expression. Also, the Anansi stories express the idea of freedom from indirect way because we can only understand that when we read the background of the stories. When we read the stories of Anansi, it is just like a fairy tale to teach us a lesson. On the contrary, in the U.S Slave Stories, the stories convey the idea of the freedom directly. When we read the story and songs, we can strongly feel the terrible life of the slaves and the desire of slaves to escape the painful life and to gain freedom. Therefore, the U.S stories make us feel more passionate than the Anansi stories.

After I read some responses to the French Revolution, I think an enlightened view means that people change their mind  and have their own reason.  Throughout the readings from the French Revolution, French Revolution change the status of the entire society. For example, in the Declaration of Rights of Man and Citizens,  it said that: “Men are born and remain free and equal in rights” this illustrates that all men have equal rights to do what they want to do. After that, in The Rights of Women, De Gouges question the deficiency of the Declaration of Rights of Man and Citizens, and he pointed out that women is born free and remain equal to man in rights and people should remove the social distinction. Compared to these two works, I felt the progress during the society because people have different point of views due to the enlightened view. In both works, authors use language and words to convey and express their opinion and let others recognized the importance of equality.
In my opinion, I believe that poetry have the same purpose as the other literature works which is to express and convey their own ideas or opinions, but poetry is more difficult than other types of literature works because poets should use limit words to express their ideas. Shelley is one of the most famous poets in the world, his ” Defense for Poetry” express clearly about the purpose of poetry. In Shelley’s view, he writes: ” Poetry thus makes immortal all that is best and most beautiful….” The task of poetry for Shelley is to record the most important moment to remind people that what was happening. Shelley believes that the poetry not only can arouse people’s strong felling, but also it can put people into the scene that the poem depicts. In addition, Shelley mentions, ” the most unfailing herald, companion , and follower of the awakening of a great people to work a beneficial in opinion or institution, is poetry.” This describes the function of poetry during the revolution. People can depicts the situation of the society by poem to convey their feelings and let people recognized the unfair or darkness of the society and thus to make change. On the whole, in Shelley’s view, poetry is the most important works and poetry has the supreme power comparing to other types of works.
 

Enlightenment is a common word that it seems that we all know it, but we are seldom to think about it. If someone ask us: “what is Enlightenment? And are we live in the age of enlightenment?” We may not able to answer this question because we never think about these questions. After I read Kant’s “What is Enlightenment?” I began to wonder the meaning of the enlightenment. As Kant stated, “Enlightenment is man’s release from his self-incurred tutelage.” From my understanding, it means that Enlightenment is a man’s release from immaturity that caused by himself and able to use his own reason to guide himself.

From this article, I agree that laziness and cowardice are the reason that it causes people lacks of reason. In my opinion, each person has the sense of reason, but the influence of society or environment make him hard to get out of the state of immature. Human have a tendency to depend on someone else. If they are accustomed to living in a comfortable environment, they would not like to change it. If they don’t worry about something due to someone else’s help, they would not attempt to do things by themselves. Therefore, the state of dependency is the reflection of laziness that it causes people not enlightened. Also, even if people are willing to do things or face threaten by themselves, failure would often make them frightens and keep away from dangerous. Therefore, cowardice also make people cannot escape from immaturity.

Moreover, society is also an important place for the enlightenment. the restriction of society also limited people to be enlightened. Because society has to set a rule for the benefit of public to make society in order, so people have to sacrifice something such as freedom to satisfied public interest. However, in the other hand, I believe society is a good occasion for enlightenment thought to be propagated by enlightenment thinker, so it is possible for people to release from “self-incurred tutelage” with the help of public. Therefore, society is a contradiction place because it can spread the enlightenment thought as well as restricting it. It is impossible for all people to be enlightened. As Kant said that we do live in age of enlightenment, but we do not live in an enlightened age.