Great Works I: Remixing Memory

In the film version of the play Othello, certain things were easier to understand by seeing the actors facial expressions and body language.  This was especially true when it came to Iago.  Watching Iago in action helped the viewer to really understand how manipulative that man truly was.  He was quite friendly and touchy-feely with Othello whom Iago claimed to hate.  In one scene, Iago was seen hugging Othello and then plotting with Roderigo against Othello in another scene.  Iago was quite convincing when it came to pretending to care for Othello.  Iago never had a facial expression that revealed his true feelings for Othello while around the man.  During Iago’s asides around Other he would be all smiles meanwhile he would be discussing a scheme he would perform against Othello in his head.  This way Othello was unable to discover Iago’s plans and still trust the manipulative man.  Seeing this manipulation helped the audience to really understand Iago and what he was doing.

I will be focusing on lines 377-404 from Act one scene three.  Roderigo just finished telling Iago that he wished to drown himself and Iago’s response was a little surprising.  Instead of being sympathetic, he replied, “Drown thyself?” (378).  It seemed as if Iago said this line in a sarcastic tone, as if the thought of suicide was so ridiculous that he could not believe Roderigo even thought of it.  Right before Iago said this line, he commanded, “Come, be a man!” (378).  Saying these words first made the “Drown thyself?” line seem even more condescending.  It made it seem as if Iago was almost angry at Roderigo for thinking of such an outlandish idea.  Iago also kept repeating the line, “Put money in thy purse,” (382).  It seems as if Iago was saying that Roderigo’s original idea is unintelligent and Iago’s idea is much better because he keeps repeating this line.  Iago said this line six times in one speech.  Iago seemed to be very intent on convincing Roderigo to make money rather than stress out over Desdemona.  Iago continues to tell Roderigo that Desdemona will most likely leave Othello eventually so Roderigo should make as much money as he can now so that he will have a good amount of money for when Desdemona is single so he can win the woman over.  Basically, Iago is giving Roderigo false hope to try and make him feel better.

I noticed that a lot of the pieces in the collection used neutral colors and dark blues.  Many of the pieces also contained very intricate designs and patterns.  A lot of different forms of texture were used.  I found that there was a lot of tapestry involved in the exhibit.  Early on in the exhibit, the faces of the statues were very poorly developed.  These faces resembled something I would have drawn in the second grade. There were multiple paintings throughout the exhibit that seemed to tell a complicated story.

The beginning of The Arabian Nights by Daniel Heller-Roazen is full of many different short stories.  This is similar to the paintings in the exhibit in the MET because many of the paintings in that exhibit seemed to tell a short story.  Animals seem to come up a lot in what I read so far of The Arabian Nights which also seemed to appear a lot in the exhibit.  There were a lot of statues of little birds in the exhibit as well as making an appearance in the various paintings.

In “The River-Merchant’s Wife: A Letter” by Ezra Pound, the author wrote, “You came by on bamboo stilts, playing horse,” (4).  However, in “Ch’ang Kan” by Amy Lowell, the author wrote, “Then you, my Lover, came riding a bamboo horse,” (3).  Amy Lowell misinterpreted the act of playing a game called ‘horse’ and translated it to riding an actual horse.  Aside from riding a horse, Amy Lowell also completely disregarded the lover being on bamboo stilts and translated it to ‘riding a bamboo horse’.

In “The River-Merchant’s Wife: A Letter” by Ezra Pound, the author wrote, “Two small people, without dislike or suspicion,” (6).  However, in “Two Letters From Chang-Kan – I” by Shigeyoshi Obata, the author wrote, “We were two children, suspecting nothing,” (6).  Shigeyoshi Obata misinterpreted the term ‘two small people’ for ‘two children’.  Shigeyoshi Obata also completely ignored the term ‘dislike’ and went straight to discussing the ‘suspicion’ portion of the line.

In “Two Letters From Chang-Kan – I” by Shigeyoshi Obata, the author wrote, “At fifteen I was able to compose my eyebrows,” (12).  However, in “Ch’ang-an Memories” by Wai-Lim Yip, the author wrote, “At fifteen, I began to perk up,” (11).  The two lines are very different and have very different meanings.  Composing ones eyebrows and perking up do not have similar meanings at all.  I am not quite sure how Wai-Lim Yip translated “to compose my eyebrows” to “I began to perk up”.

My favorite version of the poem is “The River-Merchant’s Wife: A Letter” by Ezra Pound.  This is because I found it to be the most straightforward version and the easiest to understand.  It was also the version that made the most sense when it came to translations.  I liked the way Ezra Pound worded things and found this version had a nice flow.

This artist is showing Rama going into exile.  Through the faces of the people surrounding Rama, the artist is showing sorrow, confusion, love, and respect.  The people surrounding Rama are wearing blue and he is wearing white so that the eye is drawn to Rama.  The people surrounding the people in blue are mainly in white to provide the painting with contrast.  The people in blue seem to have some sort of white article of clothing underneath the blue.  White seems to be a big theme in this portrait.  Every person in this portrait has some sort of sadness resonating in their facial expressions.  All of the people seem to be quite close to Rama in this portrait, including Rama.

In the portrait, Rama seems to be upset about his exile yet in the text he showed no sadness and was proud to do what his father asked of him.  “…I am thrice blessed, to make my brother the Kind, to carry out my father’s command, and to live in the forests,” (46).  In the text, a large crowd had gathered to join Rama but this crowd seems more intimate than large.  In the text, Rama did not realize that the crowd was following him at first but in the portrait the crowd is so close to him that it would be impossible for him to not realize.  One person is even holding an umbrella over Rama’s head while he weeps.  In the portrait it seems as though some people are just observing from a distance and not joining Rama on his journey but I did not get that impression at all from the text.  I got the impression that everyone that was observing was joining Rama on his journey.

I will be focusing on a passage in book nine, lines 44-60.  Odysseus is telling the story of his sorrows.  Odysseus tried very hard to prove that he was a fair man by saying, “…we shared it round so no one, not on my account, would go deprived of his fair share of spoils,” (49).  Odysseus then continues to say, “Then I urged them to cut and run, set sail, but would they listen? Not those mutinous fools;” (51), and it seems as though he is just trying to make himself look good in this story and make his crew look bad.  Is this truly how this story occurred?

Throughout the story Odysseus is compared to a God and it is said that his people love and respect him.  If this is true, why would his crew have gone against his advice?  Also, if Odysseus split everything evenly like he previously claimed, why would the crew need to stay in the city when they already had everything?  It doesn’t make sense the way Odysseus tells this story.  He puts all the blame on his crew but I do not believe this.  I believe that Odysseus suggested that the crew and he should stay in the city but lied when relaying the story due to the disastrous outcome of this.  It does not make sense for a crew to act mutinous towards Odysseus from the way he is described throughout the entire book.  I think Odysseus was the one that was mystified by all of the wine, sheep, and cattle.

Odysseus wanted to make himself look good while telling the story of his troubles.  The people he was telling this story too does not have too much prior knowledge of who Odysseus is or what he’s been through and could not be able to tell if he is lying or not.  Nobody from Odysseus’ trials were present to correct him so he could twist his story however he wanted to make himself look good.  Odysseus did not want these strangers to know that he got greedy and brought his crew to disaster so he instead made it appear to be his crew’s fault.

Calypso and Hermes seem to know each other very well from their dialogue on page 155 from book five despite Calypso mentioning, “but it’s been so long, your visits much too rare,” (155).  The reason for the lack of visits from Hermes becomes apparent later on.  Hermes gives Calypso a lot of attitude, “Who would willingly roam across a salty waste so vast,” (155). Hermes just insulted Calypso’s choice in a home.

During Calypso’s dialogue when she was asking Hermes how she can help she said “I’m eager to do it, whatever I can do,” (155).  It was very interesting that the word can was italicized.  It seems as if she’s already warning Hermes that there are things she isn’t willing to do to help him.  Does she already know the reason for his visit and doesn’t want to comply?  Maybe she just does not feel like being very helpful.  One of the first sentences on the page states “Immortals are never strangers to each other,” (155), if this is true than how well do they all know one another?  Surely some other immortal has told Calypso what Zeus’ wish was and in that case she is just playing dumb with Hermes.

Throughout the poem Calypso is referred to as the “lustrous goddess”.  Hermes could not track down Odysseus but how hard did he actually look?  Was Hermes the one that cried?  If so, why was he crying?  Was he crying because he could not find Odysseus or because he failed Zeus?  Later on, when Hermes explains his reason for visiting he says, “Zeus claims you keep beside you a most unlucky man,” (155).  Why does he use the word “claims”?  Does Hermes not believe what Zeus told him?

Socrates mainly focuses on the fact that writing takes away a person’s intelligence but he never once disucusses how people would share their views or knowledge when they die.  How would we learn how to cook new recipes or learn about the make-up of a cell if the written word didn’t exist?  Socrates only speaks about the negative aspects of the written word and not the positive ones.  Socrates says, “…once written down they are tossed about anywhere among those who do and and among those who do not understand them,” (97), but he does not mention anything about people in the future who may come across this speech and completely understand it and be able to relate to it.

Nicholas Carr agrees with this idea in “The Oral World vs. The Written Word”.  He even says “But literacy ‘is absolutely necessary for the development not only of science but also of history, philosophy, explicative understanding of literature and of any art, and indeed for the explanation of language…” (3).  Nicholas Carr also mentions that during Plato’s days poetry was the main source of knowledge.

Nicholas Carr’s argument in “Is Google Making Us Stupid” makes an immense amount of sense.  While reading about the author’s tendency to skim written works I found myself skimming.  The internet has definitely changed society’s way of thinking.  Many of my peers do not read unless its required of them.  Nicholas Carr writes, “the more they use the Web, the more they have to fight to stay focused on long pieces of writing,” (2), which makes sense because everything on the internet is short and to the point.  The more time a person spends on the internet, the less likely they are going to be interested in reading something that is long and drawn out.  Since the internet is becoming more popular with society every day, the rate for voluntary reading is greatly decreasing.