Video Commentaries

The New Year’s Sacrificeis about the double standards women faced in traditional Chinese culture and this is shown through the character called “XiangLin’s Wife”. She is referred to in terms of her husband and even this acts as a sign of how women were viewed as – as if they were undeserving of their own identity and a piece of somebody else’s property, to be controlled and not have a say in their own life choices.

There is an example of this sort of treatment in the story that I was appalled by. It was when XiangLin’s Wife is forced to remarry another man against her will because her husband dies. Similar events to this occurred in many other cultures as well, including my own which is why I think I feel so strongly about it. It may not be forcing a widow to remarry, but forcing a woman to marry at a very young age or to someone she does not want to.

I think the purpose of this story is to show that placing these sorts of double standards on women is wrong because XiangLin’s Wife suffers many other emotional hardships such as the death of multiple family members, an overall decline in her character (sunken eyes, broken spirit), signs of aging (grey hair, memory loss), and she dies in the end. I think all these misfortunate situations were included to emphasize the deeper impact that this kind of extreme unfair treatment can have on someone that is beyond a simple feeling of injustice.

I liked this story because of the message I took away from it and the fact that it sheds light on a subject I find interesting and reminds me of how much better life is for people now.

“Caesar, having singled out these men from the women and children, made an harangue to ’em, of the miseries and ignominies of slavery; counting up all their toils and sufferings, under such loads, burdens and drudgeries, as were fitter for beasts than men; senseless brutes, than human souls. He told ’em, it was not for days, months or years, but for eternity; there was no end to be of their misfortunes: They suffer’d not like men, who might find a glory and fortitude in oppression; but like dogs, that lov’d the whip and bell, and fawn’d the more they were beaten: That they had lost the divine quality of men, and were become insensible asses, fit only to bear: nay, worse; an ass, or dog, or horse, having done his duty, could lie down in retreat, and rise to work again, and while he did his duty, indur’d no stripes; but men, villanous, senseless men. such as they, toil’d on all the tedious week till Black Friday: and then, whether they work’d or not, whether they were faulty or meriting, they, promiscuously, the innocent with the guilty, suffer’d the infamous whip the sordid stripes, from their fellow-slaves, till their blood trickled from all parts of their body; blood, whose every drop ought to be revenged with a life of some of those tyrants that impose it. And why (said he) my dear friends and fellow-sufferers, should we be slaves to an unknown people? Have they vanquished us nobly in fight? Have they won us in honourable battle? And are we by the chance of war become their slaves? This wou’d not anger a noble heart; this would not animate a soldier’s soul: no, but we are bought and sold like apes or monkeys, to be the sport of women, fools and cowards; and the support of rogues and runagades, that have abandoned their own countries for rapine, murders, theft and villanies. Do you not hear every day how they upbraid each other with infamy of life, below the wildest savages? And shall we render obedience to such a degenerate race, who have no one human vertue left, to distinguish them from the vilest creatures? Will you, I say, suffer the lash from such hands?”

Video time: 9:10 – 10:15

This video gives a summary of the entire story or Oroonoko. I liked this video because for such a tragic story, the narrator is able to tell the summary in a way that is humorous just by his tone and text that he adds to the screen which explains parts of the story using modern slang language. 

The part of the video and text that I chose is towards the end, after Oroonoko learns that Imoinda is pregnant and decides to rebel from the slaveholders by escaping. Here, he is trying to persuade the other slaves to join him and I really enjoyed his speech. It is a prime example of choosing to either be not genuine and protecting one’s self from hurt or being authentic and risking your happinesss or in this situation safety and wellbeing in the case that he gets caught. 

Oronooko describes this state of being not authentic as remaining in a position where there is a controller and one who is being controlled, in this case that’s Oroonoko and the rest of the slaves. He says that by remaining as slaves, they have become like “insensible asses”, simply doing as their told and not living to their fullest desires, an obedience that is almost robot-like.

However, by choosing to be authentic and escaping to a life that is in their control, the men would be risking their lives all together for a chance that they may make it. If it turns against their favor, they risk getting caught and being severely punished and not only them but their families also. 

Sometimes it is difficult to do what makes you happy because you feel that by doing so you are jeopardizing something in your life, so you continue living each day in a senseless routine. It takes strong people like Oroonoko to take such a risk and wonder what is the point of living safely if you’re unhappy?

 

“the miserable monster whom I had created. He held up the curtain of the bed; and his eyes, if eyes they may be called, were fixed on me. His jaws opened, and he muttered some inarticulate sounds, while a grin wrinkled his cheeks. He might have spoken, but I did not hear; one hand was stretched out, seemingly to detain me, but I escaped and rushed downstairs. I took refuge in the courtyard be- 60 Frankenstein longing to the house which I inhabited, where I remained during the rest of the night, walking up and down in the greatest agitation, listening attentively, catching and fearing each sound as if it were to announce the approach of the demoniacal corpse to which I had so miserably given life.”

Video time: Entire video

This quote from Frankenstein comes from the part of the book where Victor realizes what he has created and how abnormal he is and decides to abandon him. The video commentary that I have found gives a character analysis of Victor and they speak about this moment in the book.

The video mentions how scientists speak of their creations as if they were there children, meaning they take pride in them and love them because they’re a part of them. The creations took so much of the scientist’s effort and devotion to be made that it would be difficult not to love them in this way. However, here is Victor who not only doesn’t love his creation, but he abandons him altogether. For this, the commentators in the video call him arrogant.

This video presents the idea that there is a parent child relationship between Victor and the monster and in a way there is. Therefore, Victor’s abandonment of him parallels with how a real person would feel if they were left to be alone with no one to care for them or love them. It would be tragic and without receiving love, the monster would have no way of giving love and as this is a basic need of humans – he would be depressed and would lose his mind. So although it is easy to call Victor’s creation a monster because to us, he looks scary and he kills many people, is he really one? Can he be blamed for his actions? The answer is no. The real person to be blamed is Victor because as the video mentions, he is arrogant and in the wrong. Victor describes his creation with such judgmental words and treats him so poorly because to him, the creation is undeserving of his love because of the way he looks. This is not how a parent or a creator should value the worth of what they have created.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AjkkztJkNfs

Time: 6:14 – end

“In this very attitude did I sit when I called to him, rapidly stating what it was I wanted him to do—namely, to examine a small paper with me. Imagine my surprise, nay, my consternation, when without moving from his privacy, Bartleby in a singularly mild, firm voice, replied, ‘I would prefer not to.’

I sat awhile in perfect silence, rallying my stunned faculties. Immediately it occurred to me that my ears had deceived me, or Bartleby had entirely misunderstood my meaning. I repeated my request in the clearest tone I could assume. But in quite as clear a one came the previous reply, ‘I would prefer not to.’

‘Prefer not to,’ echoed I, rising in high excitement, and crossing the room with a stride. ‘What do you mean? Are you moon-struck? I want you to help me compare this sheet here—take it,’ and I thrust it towards him.

‘I would prefer not to,’ said he.

Bartleby is a story that may seem repetitious but that is only done to emphasize a very important point that this video captures perfectly. This story is about a man named Bartleby who works for the very prestigious narrator and whenever he is given an assignment by his boss, he states ‘I would prefer not to’. Now this might be strange… how can you tell your boss that you would rather not do what is told of you? That is your job after all—that is what you’re being paid to do.

A lot of times we are so caught up in things that we believe we ‘have to’ do. Either because we feel we may get in trouble for not doing it, because we think it’s the only way to be successful, or for whatever other reason. Sometimes it feels like we don’t have a choice, so we go along with things that we truly don’t want to go along with.

Bartleby teaches us that it is ok to reject doing what is expected of us, even if it may seem impossible to do because of its high stakes. Even with the highest stakes, Bartleby who works for a very successful lawyer in Wall Street, refuses to do his work as shown in the excerpt above. And when he did refuse, nothing happened — he didn’t get in trouble. Now he did go to jail towards the end but that was for sleeping at work, a completely different reason.

Now this is not to say to be an irresponsible and unreliable person/employee. Bartleby’s situation is a bit extreme and this is done in order to show that it could be done even in risky situations. This is simply meant to show that it’s ok to take a step back every now and then and remember that we have choices and we don’t have to do what we don’t want to if it means compromising our own needs.

 

“The father relentlessly pressed forward pushing out sibilants, like a wild man. Now, Gregor had no practice at all in going backwards; it was really going very slowly. If Gregor only had been allowed to turn himself around, he would have been in his room right away, but he was afraid to make his father impatient by the time-consuming process of turning around, and each moment he faced the threat of a mortal blow on his back or his head from the cane in his father’s hand. Finally Gregor had no other option, for he noticed with horror that he did not understand yet how to maintain his direction going backwards. And so he began, amid constantly anxious sideways glances in his father’s direction, to turn himself around as quickly as possible (although in truth this was only very slowly).”

(The whole video)

This video discusses various themes present in the metamorphosis. I chose a video that analyzes the story rather than summarizes it because I felt like the storyline was a little strange so there must be something more to it than just its plot — and surely there was.

The video explains that the theme in this story relates to the author, Franz Kafka’s life in many ways. Being a Jewish man living at a time where anti-Semitism was extremely prevalent, it is safe to say that Kafka may have felt isolated and alone for a lot of his life. This corresponds with how Gregor was treated by his own family in the story. Gregor spent all of his time doing something he hated solely to ensure that his family was financially secured. However, when he turned into a bug all of a sudden, they turned on him and pushed him away because he was no longer useful to them, he was different, and seen as disgusting by the rest of society.

The way Gregor was treated by his family is a close reflection of the way Jews were treated in Kafka’s time; left isolated and treated like they were undeserving of normal human treatment. However, this is not the only situation to which the story may apply. The video says that the theme is timeless, and this is true. Even today, over a hundred years after the story was written, the theme remains relevant. We continue to group people and differentiate ourselves from them based on a multitude of qualities. We think that when people are different they don’t deserve the same rights as we do or the same treatment as we do. It’s a concept that when you look back you think ‘how did people act like that towards one another?’ without realizing that it still happens today.

 

“I have heard what the talkers were talking, the talk of the beginning and the end, But I do not talk of the beginning or the end.

There was never any more inception than there is now,
Nor any more youth or age than there is now,
And will never be any more perfection than there is now,
Nor any more heaven or hell than there is now.”

In this video, the narrator is reading an excerpt from “Song of Myself” by Walt Whitman with a few visuals to go with it. For the first 30 seconds, he is reading the quote written above. I chose this video because I highly agreed with this quote and I think the concept is still relevant today.

An interpretation of this quote is that there are all these voices and ideas in the world or in people’s heads — Whitman calls these voices “the talk of the beginning and the end” — and this means that the voices are all too busy worrying about the past or the future. With all this noise, however he is still able to separate himself from it and have a mind where he controls his thoughts and he chooses to live in the present. He is motioning to the idea that we need to remove all outside disruptions and really listen to our own thoughts and ideas and that is a notion that holds true today more so than ever.

In today’s world, we hear other people’s opinions whether it be how we should live our lives, what ideas we should believe, or what politics we should abide by every way we turn with all the media that surrounds us constantly. Sometimes it becomes easy to get lost in these voices and lose our own because we are bombarded with other people’s ideas that we mistake to be ours. I like that this excerpt reminds us to take a step back from all the noise that seem to be the “right way” and formulate our own views no matter how different or unheard of the may be because that is what Whitman does.

When I first became familiar with the story of Don Quixote, he seemed childish and delusional to me – I did not understand the reasons as to why he would go on the adventures that he did and how he seriously thought of himself as a knight when he obviously wasn’t one. It made him seem as though he was a little child, being obsessed with fictional stories and believing they could be true in the real world.

However, after watching this video response, explaining how Don Quixote is actually an admirable character in some ways, made me see him differently. The narrator brought to my attention how some of the most notable people in history probably seemed crazy to those around them at the time. In fact, their rejection to what was perceived to be realistic (as how Don Quixote does) was what made them so great. The narrator used the Wright brothers as an example. Who would’ve thought that traveling through the air was even a possibility in their times? Probably not very many people. But that didn’t stop them from being successful in  inventing one of the most unimaginable forms of transportation – the airplane.

This dismissal of reality is evident in Don Quixote when he sees the windmills and thought that they were giants and it was his service to God “to sweep so evil a breed from the face of the earth”. No matter how many times Sancho tried explaining to him that this wasn’t true, he wouldn’t have it and went for it anyway. This is a very extreme case and there is clearly no good reason as to why Don Quixote is fighting the windmills. However, the same theme is displayed. The narrator explains that these windmills are a representation of obstacles that we may face in accomplishing brilliant end goals and even if we fail, as Don Quixote did, we should not let that stop us from living our lives as if we are invincible.

*Video time: 2:40 until the end

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In this video response to King Lear, the creator explains multiple themes that are present in the play. Some of which include the impact of power and its ability to create greed in those who were born into a family that possesses it and the idea that humans have a materialistic nature which emerges when there is an absence of moral character. He also discusses the fact that Lear is the oldest man in the play; however, he is the least wise in terms of his ability to be so easily manipulated.

The reason that I chose this video response and why I like it so much is because the narrator mentioned something that I agree with very much. He said, “it is not necessarily who we are that determines how we act but our environment that regulates how we behave”. We can see this in Lear’scharacter and the distinction in the way he behaves when he is in the position of the King versus when he is no longer the king and homeless. The narrator says that his character changes to almost the level of an animal. I like this quote and this play as a whole because it makes me think about how the things that we own like our houses and other materialistic objects that we think we can’t live without can be taken away from us so quickly and so we should not use these things to define who we are because they really don’t. It makes you realize that what is important is who you are without all the things — your relationship with others, your morals, values and so on because these are not as easy to lose and therefore, are a more reliable way to determine your character.