Address to the Party

OldSpeak

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow -- this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

Newspeak

"Four score and seven years ago, big brother brought forth on this continent a new nation eurasia: conceived in ownlife, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are ownlife oldthink.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war. . .testing whether that eurasia, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated. . . can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war.

 We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live in the party. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate. . .we cannot consecrate. . . we cannot hallow this ground. The brave party men for Big Brother, living and unpersons, who struggled here have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or unperson for ungood. The eurasia will little note, nor long remember, what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the party, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced.

It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us and Big Brother. . .that from these honored unpersons we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion. . . that we here highly resolve that these unperson shall not have unpersoned in vain. . . that this nation eurasia, under Big Brother, shall have a new birth of the party. . . and that Big Brother of the goodthinker. . .by the crimethinker. . .for the doublethinker. . . shall not perish from the eurasia. "

Ignorance is Strength.

She was born in the 40’s. Everything was so different back then. Segregation, not much technology, and so life for her was pretty basic. As time progressed she stayed the same. The years only changed her appearance not her life.

She repeated herself. Day after day doing the same things she did the day before.

Morning: Coffee, cereal, and banana.

Insulin.. Snack

Lunch: Sandwich, chips, and a diet dr. pepper

Insulin.. Snack

Dinner: Baked chicken, squash, baked potato, (anything else she had that was in the kitchen.) and a diet dr. pepper.

Insulin. Bath. Bed.

Her life depended on the predictability that she had come to know. She did watch television quite a bit. Watching the same shows, news at 5 am, price is right at 9am, her soap opera at 10am, Maury at 1pm, and later on watching one her favorites wheel of fortune at 5pm.

I believe that she did this because she did not like change. Technology was just too much to understand for her, she liked the older days where life was easy so she keep her life to revolve around how it had always been.

She was so full of knowledge. When she talked I always had to listen even if she wasn’t talking to me. Everything that came out of her mouth was with reason and experience. Every time it rained it was always “Make sure Destiny is covered up she doesn’t need to be getting pneumonia.” I always loved how older people always assume everything will cause pneumonia. But we would always listen every time she would say that and when it rained or snowed I always had something covering me up. To this day my mother and I will find us saying, “Oh granny would be happy if she saw you all covered up, or granny would have a fit if she saw you not covered up.”

One thing she really did not like was the atm or paying debit at the grocery store. Something about it was just so hard for her each time she went she would need help or if she couldn’t find help she found that writing checks were a lot easier. But that makes sense. Writing checks has nothing to do with changing technology like how using a debit card and having to put your pin in to pay for things did.

She found comfort in older things. Not the finer things, they could keep that. She found comfort in things that have been familiar to her since she was a younger girl and that was quite some time ago. She found comfort in reliability. She knew what was right and wrong. She was ignorant to changes in her life. When I think of “Ignorance is Strength” I automatically think of my grandmother. She very much disliked anything about technology. Up until her death she was still using the same go phone she had for years and still needed help sometimes to understand it. To me that is the real definition of Ignorance is Strength. She was able to block out all the unnecessary material things in life and she was able to focus on what life really was. Technology and innovations didn’t block her from her life she was able to live out her life just as she wanted to.

Ignorance is Power. Ignorance is Strength.

How about some chips..?

The clock: 3:00 am. The darkness, just as ominous as the half lit moon sitting on the left and fog so white and so deep blurring the view. The sign above the very lit building reads 24 hours. Many people, women and men walk out left and right to designated cars. Not many children out at this time. A mysterious man dressed in all black wearing a hoodie just above his eyes appears from the side of the building. Another man more normal looking walks up to him and just as he pulls his hand out of his pocket handshakes the man and he walks away. A couple at pump number 2 hurry as they are afraid something is going to happen to them. The man dressed in slacks and a button down darts out of the car to the pump. Takes it out, retrieves the receipt, and speeds to about 100 mph just to get out of the parking lot. A woman about twenty years old, but with the looks of a 50 year old sat right across from the car. Dressed in a bit too tight and too small mini, mini, mini skirt and a bra top. So stressed and so worn out looking she sat right next to the pay phone. A car pulled up and she hopped up and right into the car she went. It speed out of the parking lot and directly into the darkness. The door opens and a familiar face appears out the side of the door, displaying two different chip options. 

What's your fate? (Cards of Darkness)

Everyone came into class wondering why the chairs had changed from rows to groups. My group had no clue about what we were about to do and what we were about to understand with a simple card game. The name of the game was Cards of Darkness, just like the book we were reading, Heart of Darkness. Throughout the game we had to make decisions that would either make or break in the game. We had to decide whether to press for resources and have the natives hate us or not have anything other than the one resource we started with. It took us some time to finish because we were really thinking about each move we made throughout the game. So in result we did not win but that wasn’t our goal it was truly just to understand what we were doing.

As we started to get closer to the end the more bad cards came to us. I picked up the ace and things just went downhill from there. We had a monsoon that caused us to have rain for 2 months following. If we didn’t have those bad cards at the end and had them closer to the beginning I believe we could have ended the game with more resources. We did end up with one more resource than we started with, which wouldn’t have happened if we didn’t press the natives for more resources. Also, when we had the bad weather we had to take away a card from native relations and give them one of our force cards meaning we had one less peace with the natives.

The factors that influenced the choices we made were to end up still having resources at the end of the year. We thought about pressing but that would make the natives upset at us. That was something we really didn’t want to have because we needed to have resources at the end of the year. If we would’ve started off with the rainy months I think that would have pushed us to change the choices we made about pressing and not pressing. I believe that my group made really smart decisions about the choices we made and we didn’t try to be so forceful at the beginning, which left us with a lot of force at the end to use. It was a realistic experience because people actually went through these types of things.

Overall I think this game helped us in a way to understand the book. We were new on someone else’s land, demanding for stuff. If I were one of the natives I would be pretty upset as well, that’s not their land to control. Just as the book “Heart of Darkness” does. We learned how to work together to finish the game with resources and learned how to understand what overall happened inside the book involving the characters of the book. It was a fun experience for us all even though we didn’t get to have cookies. :(

What would you do....?

That sparkly eye must have been very captivating. If I were the wedding-guest I would’ve probably stayed to listen to him too. His story told things that you’d never see in real life maybe in a dream, but this was the Rime of the Ancient Mariner. In reality, I could see as him being a homeless man off the streets and asking for change but instead he asks could he tell you a story. You would look at him and say “Really? No that’s okay.” Soon after he looks at you in the eyes you are taken in and he goes away with telling that story. Something about that is just so weird yet interesting to me. If I had that power I would want to change the way people are. I would want to teach people a lesson and that was a good way to do such.

After reading the “Rime of the Ancient Mariner” there are many ways to characterize Coleridge’s interests, ethics, and aesthetics. Coleridge has an interest in nature’s beauty and conserving it. Even things that aren’t beautiful on the outside. After killing the albatross it says “The sun now rose upon the right… went down into the sea.” That suggests that Coleridge thinks that everything has a meaning and purpose on the earth and killing something could possibly affect how things work. The moral of the story can characterize Coleridge’s ethics. The mariner thought the albatross was an awful creature and after killing it he thought it was good. Soon he realized that it was not good. The killing of the albatross made the breeze stop and soon they came to a stop because there was no wind to push them along anymore.  Until things started happening to him and when he realized that horrifying things were beautiful did things start to change for him.

Overall Coleridge wants the lesson from this to be learned that all things have a purpose on the earth and they are beautiful no matter how they look. “He prayeth best who loveth best all things both great and smaller; For the dear God who loveth us, He made and loveth all.” With reference about God, Coleridge seems to have a religious quality in it that God created everything with the purpose of good. Anything he makes it seen in his eyes as beautiful and he doesn’t question his creations.

             He also says at the end that the wedding-guest walked away with greater knowledge. Coleridge wanted his readers to something from this. He wanted people to appreciate all that nature has to offer, because it is a very wide range of things it has for us. We find cures, new species, and new foods all over. Things that might not look appetizing might be the best thing for us when were sick. An animal that might look very frightening might be the nicest, caring animal in the world. We can’t judge things we really know about because our expectations could be the very opposite of reality. 

Is that what I think it is? ....

..... Maybe it is, many books and movies have some type of allusion. One of the most frequently used is the mythological allusion. One thing I remember would be from The Lion King it’s movie that borrows greatly from Oedipus. Although simba himself does not kill his father it’s still a murder within the family that kills Mufasa. When Simba runs away, Scar takes control and runs Pride Rock straight into the ground. This resembles in exactly the same way as the curse of Oedipus family's curse. Scar is very arrogant he does not care and will not accept that it's his fault that everything is falling apart. Simba returns to find his land is ruined by his uncle, and like a young Oedipus solving the puzzle, he reclaims his territory and rebuilds it. Simba thought about killing his uncle Scar but instead it is the Hyenas who get the pleasure to do so. By doing so it gave Simba a chance to have a fresh start. The story features many of the elements of a trip to Hades, especially as it really had a land of the dead. I realized it was an allusion after reading about it and watching it again to understand what could be interpreted by it. It became very easy to understand after I realized its alikeness. The values that allusions have are being able to understand the text and to easily relate it to something else. Something that looks familiar might spark your interest a bit more and you remember it more than something you had no knowledge of it before hand. The text adapted the meaning of the myth to which it alluded by the way the story was plotted. From the beginning where Simba was born and was crowned king to Mufasa’s death there was a reason for all of it and you began to understand after really thinking about it.

         I’ve explained how The Lion King closely resembles allusions of mythology but it also can be related from biblical allusions. One of the Biblical allusions in The Lion King is that the entire movie is an allusion to the story of Moses. Simba and Moses were both princes and were exiled when “accused” of murder. While they were exiled they grew to maturity until told by higher forces to return to their homeland. Finally, they free their people from harshness by Scar/Pharaoh. Since Mufasa represents the God figure in the film, Mufasa lives in the heart of Simba while God lives in the hearts of Christians. Rafiki anoints baby Simba at the beginning of the film like a pastor anoints a baby after being born. As you can see many books can take on multiple allusions depending on what the reader is familiar with. Like I said earlier when you read something such as the Bible perhaps you find that reading other things may have similar plots and ideas. The Lion King just so happens to take on multiple meanings and it helps readers understand. 

Also speaking of which I'm going to see the play next weekend, hope it's just as amazing as last time. 

"Is That a Symbol"

You read over something in a book and you wonder what could this mean? It is more than likely symbolizing something that will be referred to without the book. The smallest object could be the most powerful or important just as a big object. There were many symbols in "The Great Gatsby". One such as the eyes of T.J. Eckleburg, they gave a sense that they were looking of the city like the eyes of God. The green light on the edge of Daisy's dock represents Gatsby's hopes and dreams for the future. It seemed so close yet so far. It was also associated with the American dream. Readers can tell when an object in a book symbolizes something. The author will go back and refer to it throughout the book. They can bring back past experiences or foreshadow what is coming.
The title of To Kill a Mockingbird has very little literal connection to the plot, but it carries a great deal of symbolic weight in the book. In this story of innocents destroyed by evil, the “mockingbird” comes to represent the idea of innocence. To kill a mockingbird is to destroy innocence. Throughout the book, a number of characters can be identified as mockingbirds, innocents who have been injured or destroyed through contact with evil. This connection between the novel’s title and its main theme is made explicit several times in the novel: after Tom Robinson is shot, and at the end of the book Scout thinks that hurting Boo Radley would be like “shootin’ a mockingbird.” Miss Maudie explains that’s why it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird.” As the novel progresses, the children’s changing attitude toward Boo Radley is an important measurement of their change from innocence toward a grown-up moral perspective. Despite the pain that Boo has suffered, the purity of his heart rules his interaction with the children. In saving Jem and Scout from Bob Ewell, Boo proves the ultimate symbol of good.
As for in Romeo and Juliet many symbols of their love are portrayed within the book. Friar Lawrence’s words prove true over the course of the play. The sleeping potion he gives Juliet is concocted to cause the appearance of death, not death itself. Romeo did not know that she wasn't dead and did not want to live without her he took the potion committing suicide. As this example shows, human beings tend to cause death even without intending to. Poison symbolizes human society’s tendency to poison good things and make them fatal. After all, unlike many of the other tragedies, this play does not have an evil villain, but rather people whose good qualities are turned to poison by the world in which they live. Another symbol, Samson begins a brawl between the Montagues and Capulets by flicking his thumbnail from behind his upper teeth. Meaning he wants to fight but doesn’t want to be accused of starting the fight. The thumb biting, as an essentially meaningless gesture, represents the foolishness of the entire Capulet/Montague feud and the stupidity of violence in general.
The more we read the more we'l be able to scout out those symbols within literature.