Bright Lights, Big Party

            You wake up to the sound of children screaming and dogs barking. You look at your watch. 1:35 p.m. What had happened from Friday afternoon to Saturday morning, you could not remember. You get up, receiving a pounding in your head and falling back on to the couch. Why did it have to be dogs, of all pets? You remember that you are allergic to dogs and try to move away from the couch, realizing that there is fur all over your torn jeans. Your friend’s mom (or you think it is your friend’s mom; you cannot remember anything right now) comes into the room and asks why you had not gone home after the party. You apologize and start to leave.

            As you are leaving, you try to remember what party she was talking about. Then you remember that you were supposed to be home two and a half hours ago to help your dad clean the garage. You try to sneak into the house but it does not work. It is like he has eyes all around the house. Hawk eyes, maybe. Your dad starts yelling at you like there is no tomorrow. Maybe there won’t be a tomorrow. You have work tomorrow at the zoo. You remember that it’s your turn to help out with the children’s petting zoo. You hate children and you can only get through if you have the one and only thing you love, your Bolivian Marching Powder. You decide that the only way you're going to get through tomorrow is if you have a lot of it tonight.

            While your dad is still yelling at you, you slip away and walk down the street to the local drugstore. You know the guy and the guy knows you and what you want. He always keeps a special stash of the powder in the back and knows you can’t live without it because it always makes you feel less nervous. You’re still trying to remember how you ended up at your friend’s house when your friend walks in and asks if you did that favor. You really try to think about what he said but all you need right now is the Bolivian Marching Powder. Why the hell was I at his house last night and what was this “party all about”? You tell your friend that he will finish the favor as soon as he gets home, but you know that you won’t.

            You get home and all that is on your mind is the cocaine and the party from last night. You decide that it’s better to forget about it. Maybe it never actually happened and you were dreaming about it. You hate dreams like this.

Would You Be In The Upper Class?

Jane Austen explores the subject of class in the novel, Persuasion. During that time, merit and wealth began to take the place of birth as the indicator of high class. Men and women married often to people of high class with lots of wealth in hopes of bringing that rank and wealth to their own families. Most of the time, people would marry others who were in the same class as them. This way, they would be accepted by their families and could associate with higher classmen. Even in her book Pride and Prejudice, Austen shows the aspect of class and how Mr. Darcy thought that Elizabeth was under him because of her low status.

Sir Walter is looking for someone of high class to lease Kellynch Hall so they can get the money. He is also trying to find someone of high rank and class to marry Elizabeth, since Mary is already married and he doesn’t have much regard for Anne. Mr. Elliot would have been the perfect man, but, Mr. Elliot and Sir Walter had disagreements that weren’t settled until later on. Sir Walter’s favorite book is the Baronetage because, “he could read his own history with an interest which never failed” (Austen 7). He was always vain and, “few women could think more of their personal appearance than he did, nor could the valet of any new made lord be more delighted with the place he held in society” (Austen 7). He always thought of his social standing and is most proud of that. He only wants to associate with people either in his class or in a class higher than him.

            Anne, the main character in Persuasion, portrays how class had an effect on life during that time. Years before, Anne had fallen in love with Captain Wentworth, who at the time, “had no fortune,” and wasn’t the same class as her (Austen 20). As a result, when she did get engaged to him, Lady Russell had told her to break the engagement for Anne’s sake, because she believed the, “engagement a wrong thing; indiscreet, improper, hardly capable of success” (Austen 20). Anne knew that she was just trying to help her but Lady Russell did it because of Wentworth’s class rank. Anne later did marry Wentworth and no one objected because he was in the same class as her. When Anne wanted to go and visit her friend Mrs. Smith instead of going to a play with everyone who was the same class as her, Sir Elliot was very upset because she was going to visit, “a poor widow barely able to live…an every-day Mrs. Smith…to be the chosen friend of Miss Anne Elliot, and to be preferred by her to her own family connections among the nobility of England and Ireland” (Austen 94). He didn’t approve of Anne going to spend time with someone who was in a lower class than her instead of coming to meet those members of her family and friends who were in the same class or higher.

            Mr. Elliot is seen as the everyday gentleman who is in a high class. However, when Mrs. Smith tells Anne about the truth, she finds out that Mr. Elliot isn’t the man she thought he was. He just wanted to marry Anne because of the status and because he would gain ownership of Kellynch Hall. However, he wanted to sell the land so he would get more money out of it.

Works Cited

Austen, Jane. Persuasion. New York: Knopf, 1992. Print.

Austen, Jane. Pride and Prejudice. New York: Modern Library, 1995. Print. 

Princess Connie

Connie, the protagonist in the story “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?”, is the only aspect of the story that doesn’t represent fairytales and bedtime stories. Connie represents a, “generation of young people who have grown up…without the help of those bedtime stories” (Schulz and Rockwood 116). She relies on the songs and thinks that her life will eventually become “sweet, gentle, the way it was in the movies and promised in songs” (Schulz and Rockwood 116). According to the author of, “In Fairyland Without a Map: Connie’s Exploration Inward in Joyce Carol Oates’s “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?””, life doesn’t always have to be perfect and it can be just as grim as in folk fairy tales.

            Schulz and Rockwood make many connections with our everyday fairytales and “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?”. Connie sees herself as the “fairest of them all” and her mother always notices everything, “as though with the wicked queen’s magic power” (Schulz and Rockwood 120). Arnold’s sunglasses were also, “metallic and mirrored everything” (Oates 3). Connie is like Cinderella when she changes from being a child at home to a woman whenever she steps out of her house. Her going out to restaurants with loud music is like Cinderella’s ball, where she meets her “Prince Charming”, or Arnold Friend (Schulz and Rockwood 122). Since Arnold is portrayed with long, black her, he is compared to the wolf from Little Red Riding Hood. His inability to walk also hints that he may have four legs. Oates also mentions in the story how he was, “sniffing as if she were a treat he was going to gobble up” (Oates 4).

            In Connie’s mind, Arnold Friend is both frightening and distracting to her. She attributes him with death but at the end, because of her emotions, she gets trapped by Arnold’s soothing voice that sounded just like a song to her (Oates 5). Her life is surrounded by music and a fairytale ending but she doesn’t realize that even fairytales don’t always have a happy ending. She is always thinking about how she will meet her “prince” and how to be the fairest of them all. When Arnold comes, he gets her out of the locked tower and takes her away to their future. Her belief in a fairytale world caused her to not see the real Arnold as a beast but rather as her Prince Charming and persuaded her to go with him at the end.

Works Cited

Oates, Joyce Carol. "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?" New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2002. Print.

Schulz, Gretchen, and R.J.R Rockwood. "In Fairyland without a Map: Connie's Exploration Inward in Joyce Carol Oates's "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?" Journal of Narrative Technique 5, 1995. Print.

Once Upon A Present Shock

In Present Shock, Rushkoff describes today’s technology creating a dictatorship of the present in which everything happens now. People don’t think about what will happen in the future, but rather, they want everything to happen now. One show I used to watch was Once Upon a Time. This show tells the story of a new world, in which modern life and fairy tale legends come together. There were characters such as Snow White, Hook, Peter Pan, and, of course, Elsa. In the beginning, the fairytale world is “frozen” in time and all of the characters live in the city of Storybrooke, Maine. One of the main characters, Emma, didn’t know who her parents were, and only finds out when the son she gave up years back comes to her and tells her. The show is filled with drama and a romantic atmosphere, in which many of the events are out of order and the audience has to keep up with the show, otherwise it will get very confusing.

This show can be an example of Rushkoff’s “Narrative collapse”, in which, “…like a fantasy role-playing game, the show is not about creating satisfying resolutions, but rather about keeping the adventure alive and as many threads going as possible” (Rushkoff 34). There is no specific plot and the story keeps going, with more characters being added. The directors of Once Upon A Time have been keeping the plot going for 5 seasons now. Season 1 itself had 22 episodes. Their story line, like Rushkoff says, isn’t about creating a good ending, but it’s about keeping it going and adding in more and more episodes, to keep the audience interested. After one show, many of the audience will focus on what will come in the next episode, and to be honest, anything could show up since the point of the show is just to keep it going and not actually to keep the plot from confusing the audience.

According to Rushkoff, “There is plot – there are many plots – but there is no overarching story, no end. There are so many plots, in fact, that an ending tying everything up seems inconceivable, even beside the point” (Rushkoff 34). Now that the show has so many episodes, they couldn’t tie it together and end the show because they would be leaving the audience in the middle of the show. Each episode does not stand on its own and depends on the next one to finish it, and that one depends on the next one, and that continues. There won’t be a set ending until maybe even Season 14. Shows nowadays are so hard to end because there are so many plots that ending just doesn’t seem to fit in anywhere. The directors just have to keep it going until an ending seems convenient for the show.

Like Rushkoff describes in Present Shock, people are more focused about cramming everything into the present that they don’t think about the future. If someone misses a show, or even an entire season, they could always just binge watch it. However, they are only thinking about the present and how much fun it would be to sit there and just watch their shows. They are not thinking about the future and how much time would be wasted while they are binge watching.

There is also the “now” aspect that Rushkoff mentions and how everything is happening now. The present is more full of interruptions and there are so many things going on at once that it often leads people to cram everything into one time period. In one episode, two characters are stuck in a time portal, and have to be careful to not change anything otherwise they could alter everyone’s lives. At the end of this episode, Elsa is “created” from this blue ice that comes from the time portal, and that’s where the season ends. So, they could not have just ended the show, as a new character joined in, which means new plots for that character. More and more plots are being added, which makes it confusing, and crams in everything into the present.

 

Works Cited

Rushkoff, Douglas. Present Shock: When Everything Happens Now. New York: Penguin Group, 2013. Print.

Yay for Hemingway!

Hemingway uses a specific style in A Moveable Feast. The story is written in first person, which shows us his perspective and how he felt towards the different characters. It helps us understand how each of the writers made an impact on his life.  He uses many specific details to describe the streets and the different places he visited. He also recalls on what café he went to and what he specifically ate in each place as well.

His use of time can confuse the reader. He goes from talking about the next day to talking about years in advance. However, his use of seasons to describe the time adds more symbolism to the book and compares the seasons to the stages of a person’s life. He talks about spring being the children and that, “…there would always be the spring, as you knew the river would flow again after it was frozen” (Hemingway 52). Fall would be used to describe the end of someone’s life and how, “part of you died each year when the leaves fell from the trees and their branches were bare against the wind and the cold…” (Hemingway 52). Something good always happens that will lead from fall to spring, and from a bad time in life to a happier time.

We read this book so we could discuss the elements of style used, and not just the plot of the book. He describes how he feels towards each of the writers he mentions and throughout the book, we get to see how his writing evolves with the help of these people. He places an emphasis on food, saying how he has to be full and content in order for him to write better and cannot write when he has an empty stomach. So, he prefers to write in a café so he can eat while writing. He describes in detail what food he eats and how it tasted, providing some sensory details for the reader to imagine the food item as well. This book would be an autobiography because Hemingway recalls on the event of his life and how his writing progressed overtime, thanks to his different writer friends.

Works Cited

Hemingway, Ernest, and Sea Hemingway. A Moveable Feast: The Restored Edition. New York, NY: Scribner, 2009. Print.

What Did You Get?

Neil Postman, author of End of Education, describes public education as it not serving a public, but it, “…creates a public” (Postman). Dr. Ravitch brings up an idea of how if “Little Eva” cannot sleep, she will study Algebra instead. No child will do algebra instead of watching TV, and thus, Postman says that Ravitch’s idea is, “…not a new technology but a new species of child” (Postman 39). Public education today has created “new species of children” because the higher value is placed on the grade point rather than what the actual information means.

            Children in school are taught that they have to receive a certain score or have to do a certain event in order for them to pass the class. So, their minds are solely concentrating on how they can get that specific score so they can pass. After the exams are finished, they do not record any of the information and instead are just reading for the exam. There is a “new species of children” because of the emphasis placed on getting the grade point average so no information is actually being remembered and the students don’t know what some of it means.

Today, there is more information available outside of school than inside because of the technological abilities students have. However, technology has altered, “…the psychic, let alone the sleeping, habits of our kids” (Postman 41).  Technology has allowed the students to learn more about the topic, but, they don’t know what to do with that information afterwards. According to Postman, “schools are not now and have never been chiefly about getting information to children” (Postman 42). Students have moved away from the idea of knowing what the information means and going towards how they can achieve that grade point, which will help them in the future as well.

After finding out their grades, many of students go around asking “what did you get?” But, rarely do some students ask why they got that or how. Many of them support their answers with “because the teacher said so” because they don’t know what the information actually means and they can’t support their claim. Students have become “a new species of children” and care only about achieving a high GPA, rather than trying to understand what it is that is being taught to us.

 

 

 

Works Cited

Postman, Neil. The End of Education: Redefining the Value of School. New York: Knopf, 1995. Print.

 

Ceci n’est pas une pipe

S. I. Hayakawa, author of Language in Thought and Action, gives language a new meaning overall. Aristotle was a Greek philosopher who believed that, “all our thoughts and ideas have come into our conscience through what we have heard and seen” (Gaarder 108). This statement is similar to the point that Hayakawa was trying to make in his book. He taught that the symbol is not necessarily the word itself (Hayakawa). So then how do you explain a “word”?

Aristotle, like Hayakawa, explained a word by referring to the “idea” of it (Gaarder 107). For example, if Aristotle was trying to explain a horse, he referred to it as the idea of a horse. Hayakawa repeatedly explained that the word is not the thing, and the map is not the territory it stands for (Hayakawa 29). A map may have a similar structure to the structure of the territory but it doesn’t mean that the map is the territory. The concept of the symbol not being the word can be shown in the Belgian artist René Magritte’s painting, Ceci n’est pas une pipe (This is not a pipe), even though his painting is of a pipe.

 

Aristotle, along with believing that all ideas come from what we have heard and seen, thought that we have an innate power of reason, which is the ability to reason that you were born with. Hayakawa said that human beings have let various noises stand for specific words (Hayakawa 26). For example, if we saw a certain object, we may say “that is a book”. However, it is not actually a book but rather a picture of a book. In Sophie’s world, Hilde is reading from a book called “Sophie’s World” but her “Sophie’s World” is simply an idea, whereas the book we read is an actual book…or is it.

Works Cited

Gaarder, Jostein. Sophie's World: A Novel about the History of Philosophy. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1994. Print.

Hayakawa, S. I. Language in Thought and Action. 2d ed. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1964. Print.