Final Analysis of Ootacamund

For the last 3ish weeks I have been studying and attempting to comprehend a poem. This poem consists of six stanzas, but I feel that only five of them actually mean anything for the poem as a whole. I will be going in depth about those five in the next five paragraphs, and touching on the extremely short 4th stanza a tad towards the end. Now that I have said that, let's get on with this analysis.

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In the very first stanza one may see that the speaker is searching for Todas. "In the Nilgiri Hills/ I went looking for the Todas" (Paz 1-2). We don't know who the speaker is, but we can tell from the very beginning that this poem is going to be a sort of story in a way. Todas are an ethnicity of people who live in the Nilgiri providence of India. It then goes on to the describe the people and their homes. Because I believe this poem is about the lose of respect for the Earth and things wiser than you, I can proudly say this next chunk is about wisdom within the elders. "Murmuring incoherent hymns./ They guard a secret from Sumeria,/ not knowing they guard it" (Paz 6-8). Sumeria translates to "homeland", so it can be assumed the homeland is filled with some pretty nasty people who don't appreciate changes in tradition. The last line from this stanza that I think is interesting goes like this: "shines like the moon on an empty well" (Paz 11). When a well is out of water, it kind of means your screwed if that's your only water source. Water means survival because you can't live more than a few days without it, signifying a metaphor for the end of our days if we run out.

The next stanza really stands out as backing me up on my hypothesis of this poem being about how the Earth could not care less if humans survived and that it would keep on living without us, probably stronger than before. "Miss Penelope (canary-colored hair,/ woolen stockings and walking stick) has been saying/ for thirty years: Oh India,/ country of missed opportunities..." (Paz 13-16). From my understanding, Miss Penelope seems like a metaphor for white people or maybe just the British. She says how India could be so much more, but we never put it to it's full potential. The next few lines seem to point out how the crows still do not care a single bit that we haven't put India to it's full use. They are part of the Earth and don't care either way. "In the fireworks/ of the jacaranda,/ the crows/ happily cackle" (Paz 18-21). Even though the British are disappointed at the use of the goods in India, the real goods are the secrets that the elders know. Wisdom.

The next stanza makes me think of humans destroying forested areas and how this is a prevailing problem that needs to be stopped. "Uncertain ground./ In the clearings/ the winged termites construct/ tiny Cyclopean castles" (Paz 23-25). Clearings are made by restructurings of forested areas, and thus termites try to build back what was already theirs. Just like in the last lines I mentioned, these next lines describe the metaphor that these castles represent to Mother Earth: "Homages in sand to Mycenae and Machu-Picchu" (Paz 26). Both these places are sacred historical areas that people used to pray and live in. It only makes sense to make references to these places as our nowadays world is getting destroyed by the people who also created those places.

For this next paragraph, I am skipping the 4th stanza because it is short and doesn't seem to have much significance to the meaning I find is suggested in this poem. First off, this is where the poem starts to have a more hopeful theme to it. It still has the wisdomatic loss stitched in the words, but it slowly starts representing happiness. "A vision on the mountain road:/ the rose camelia tree/ bending over the cliff" (Paz 30-32). This image seems to bring out how we humans may do terrible things to our environment, but the environment will still function, just as a camelia tree can lean over a cliff for years without falling. The next lines describe in more detail how the tree is impervious to what we do. "Impenetrable presence,/ indifferent to vertigo- and language" (Paz 35-36). Trees represent the Earth as many other things in this poem do. The Earth does not need language, and does not get the same vertigo we humans get. It can function on its own, and human's problems are minor compared to the Earth.

The last stanza seems to have a very uplifting ending because of its' last line. But let's start at the beginning of the stanza. It starts off saying: "The sky grows in the night,/ eucalyptus set aflame" (Paz 37-38). As the sky darkens for night, eucalyptus plants burn because of deforestation. The sky gets darker and darker, but is then lit up by the fires on the ground that need to be stopped before we get out of hand. The stars are the only thing we can't ruin. "The charitable stars/ not crushing- calling me" (Paz 39-40). I think "charitable" stars is referencing how the stars have wisdom, and could be charitable if only we could understand them and worship them. They are calling the speaker because of their sacredness. In the beginning I thought this poem had no meaning at all, but as I looked deeper it really stood out as something to show people that we need to save our planet.


This is what Ootacamund looks like.

Interview

From the couch, I called my mother over from her Macintosh computer. She said she would be over in just a second, right after she finished up on some of her 2nd grader's report cards. There was a man in our backyard hammering parts of our porch as the remodeling goes on. It's loud but not quite as eye catching as my favorite songs, which I had just started streaming from GrooveShark.com. My ears perked up as my all-time favorite song, Battlegrounds (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5sxB9cN-jZ0), started to hum through the speakers like an irresistible aroma. I started singing along softly as my mom swore quietly and questioningly to her computer as if it could hear her, and answer likewise. Finally, she started to waddle over to me, with a few random books in her arms, and the newspaper between her legs. Finally, we could begin our interview.

After plopping down on the couch next to me, two of our cats followed her up and sat with us. We sat there comfortably for a few minutes petting them and chatting about our day. After her saying she had a terrible day because her 2nd graders were being annoying because of their almost-summer-hype, I realized I had to make the interview as quick and smooth as possible so she wouldn't get even more stressed. I started out short and sweet by reading the poem out loud while also giving her a copy I printed out so she could read along. That's when the first questions started to arise. She asked what a "Todas" was. I promptly responded with the answer while she read ahead, searching for more words she didn't know. The cats purred loudly at our sides as the music played eerily in the background to our thoughts. She then asked if she could read the poem silently to herself because I was reading far too slow for her to gather any key points in the poem. Since I'm the expert on the poem, I let her do her thing, and plan what I'm going to say once she's done in my mind. It's hard to concentrate because of all this racket on the back of our house. They are really getting at it with their power tools now, like holy crap! My mom looks up at me after I zoned out, and has to poke me to get me to stop thinking about what to say. We then proceed to actually discuss this poem that Octavio Paz has birthed.

The first thing my mother noticed was that the poem is kind of hard to follow. I completely found this true, but still thought it was neat the first time I read, and picked it as my own. The main thing she noticed was  quite different however, as it is still very prominent today. She thought the poem was about elders not being respected and ignored by the people who need their insight the most. I found this very intriguing because I never thought of this masterpiece in this way. We chatted for a bit on how this is actually relevant. I visit my grandparents about once a year, and never spend very much quality time with them to hear what they think is most important in life. This will be even more prominent when one of them passes away. That's when we all wish we could have just one more minute to listen to what knowledge they have to give. We never really love something until it's gone. That's the sad side of this poem. My mom also noticed how the poem ended on a very happy note, while it seemed to have started on a rather misfortunate one. The very last few lines really shows this: "The sky grows in the night,/eucalyptus set aflame./The charitable stars/not crushing- calling me" (Paz 37-40). We discussed how these lines made the poem have a sense of lifted-ness, and how the sad reality of the poem fades away almost completely. Almost. There is still hope to get back on our feet. There is always hope.

We ended up agreeing on many aspects of the poem, and the interview lasting way longer than expected, but she didn't seem to mind. I am sure about something though; the cats didn't mind our long couch session. They still purred consistently in their purrfect, (harharhar) careless slumber. Cat's understand nature and elders better than humans it seems. They use 100% of their time doing whatever they want, living life to it's fullest, sleeping everywhere, playing with everything, pretty much not giving two shits about anything. That's what I think this poem is trying to get at. We waste so much of our lives at work and trying to make our lives better, that we never stop and look around at how beautiful our lives already are; we always want more. There is still hope, never forget that. After we finish, we shake hands and go on our ways to our normal lifestyles; only this time we know more than when we woke up this morning; when the sun shined on our faces.

Ootacamund Analysis

Octavio Paz was born on March 31, 1914 in Mexico City. Paz's grandpa was very intellectual and had a huge library, instantly submerging Octavio in literature. At age 19, he went to Spain for the Second International Congress of Anti-Fascist Writers. In 1962 he was appointed the Mexican Ambassador to India. This was incredible to his work and he shows this in the books called The Grammarian Monkey and East Slope. He quit his job later to go protest against the government in Tlatelolco at the Olympic Games. After that he went back to his work as a publisher and editor. In 1980 he was proclaimed honorary doctor at Harvard. He got the Cervantes award back in 1981. This award is the most prestigious award for spanish speakers. He then got the American Neustadt Prize in 1982. Paz wrote over 20 books in his lifetime, and won the literature nobel prize in 1990. He died April 19, 1998 near his birthplace, in Mexico City.

Words I didn't know and I feel are worth mentioning:
Todas- the people who live in Nilgiri falls.
Sumeria- translates to "land of the civilized king" or "native land".
Ishtar- goddess of love, war, fertility, and sex. The counterpart to the Sumerian Inanna.
Verandah- roofed platform along the outside of a house.

Cecil Hotel- very fancy hotel in Alexandria Egypt built in 1929.

Jacaranda- tropical American tree with blue flowers and good smelling trunk.

Cyclopean castles- castles made of massive irregular blocks- not very neatly built.

Mycenae- city founded by Perseus.

Machu-Picchu- Ancient Inca fortress in the Andes of Peru.

This poem seems to be about nature and how it doesn't care a single bit about humans. The line "Miss Penelope (canary-colored hair,woolen stockings and walking stick) has been saying for thirty years: Oh India, country of missed opportunities . . ." (Paz's Ootacamund) told me this because it mentions how "white people" and "the American dream " type people just want the goods of different areas; how India has many more resources than we are getting out of it. White people don't appreciate the land as they should. This stanza also popped out to me: "A vision on the mountain road: the rose camelia tree bending over the cliff. Splendor in the sullen green, fixed above an abyss. Impenetrable presence, indifferent to vertigo-and language" (Paz's Ootacamund). The last sentence in particular made me think that wilderness does not care that we have learned to talk and communicate. It flourishes whether we are there or not- it doesn't need anything but other nature. This world is not ours, and we shouldn't treat it as so.

"One of the most tragic things I know about human nature is that all of us tend to put off living. We are all dreaming of some magical rose garden over the horizon instead of enjoying the roses that are blooming outside our windows today."

~Dale Carnegie

Works cited:
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/topics/topic_nature.html
http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1990/paz-bio.html
http://www.biography.com/people/octavio-paz-9435456#awesm=~oEbjoQSMQFm1J7

Siddhartha and His Perfect Hero Cycle

But first, an inspirational quote:


After writing about 15 major literary works, Hermann Hesse has gotten quite famous. Hesse's most famous novel, Siddhartha, has really taken the cake on all the outside tendencies that authors normally include. This book is about a boy named Siddhartha, who leaves his home and travels around the area in search of enlightenment. Little does he know, he will find enlightenment, and will learn so much more than he thought imaginable. With a little bit of Christian twist on traditional Hindu and Buddhist, Hesse writes about the path to Nirvana. In Siddhartha, the character Siddhartha  follows the hero's cycle perfectly. The main areas of the cycle that he goes through are thus: the call, the abyss/turning point, and the mentor helping him along his way to enlightenment.

Siddhartha first gets his "call to action" when he decides he wants more than his life is giving him now. He wants enlightenment. Siddhartha is first deciding he wants to leave and he is described as such: "That was how everybody loved Siddhartha. He delighted and made everybody happy. But Siddhartha himself was not happy" (Hesse 5). This is where one can first see that Siddhartha wants more than his rich, pleasure filled life can give. His call to action is on more of an internal level, than a physical one. "He had begun to feel that the love of his father and mother, and also the love of his friend Govinda, would not always make him happy, give him peace, satisfy and suffice him" (Hesse 5). Siddhartha starts to realize even the love of his best friend and family will not always make him happy. He is questioning staying at his home, or leaving and trying to find Nirvana. Right before he leaves he talks to his father. "Siddhartha said: 'With your permission, Father, I have come to tell you that I wish to leave your house tomorrow and join the ascetics. I wish to become a Samana. I trust my father will not object'" (Hesse 10). His father is displeased, but Siddhartha stands and waits for his dad to tell him to leave on his way. This is significant because Siddhartha has put his seek for enlightenment ahead of the love for his father. Siddhartha thinks nothing of it now, but he will regret this abandonment later on when he feels the exact same way.

Once Siddhartha leaves his home place, he comes across many incredible things and has a series of "different lives" or "trails" in a way. He has one where he completely submerges himself in pleasures and wealth. This is his abyss/turning point. He swore never to take part in such goodnesses, and after he has lived in this hell for many years, he finally explodes and even thinks about committing suicide because of this self loathing. He leaves the pleasure ridden town he has been living in, and goes to a nearby rivem. "He wished passionately for oblivion, to be at rest, to be dead. If only a flash of lightning would strike him! If only a tiger would come and eat him! If there were only some wine, some poison, that would give him oblivion, that would make him forget, that would make him sleep and never awaken" (Hesse 87, 88)! Siddhartha realizes he has lost his lost his path completely and there is no point in trying to find Nirvana now that he has wasted so much time on this physical world nonsense. He thinks he has completely lost his most cherished abilities: to think, to wait, to fast. "With a distorted countenance he stared into the water. He saw his face reflected, and spat in it; he took his arm away from the tree trunk and turned a little, so that he could fall headlong and finally go under. He bent, with closed eyes- towards death" (Hesse 89). Siddhartha thinks that death is the only escape for the confusion he is experiencing. This is it. He thinks this is his end; but it's really his miraculous turning point. "Siddhartha was deeply horrified. So that was what he had come to; he was so lost, so confused, so devoid of all reason, that he had sought death. This wish, this childish wish had grown so strong within him: to find peace by destroying his body. All the torment of these recent times, all the disillusionment, all the despair, had not affected him so much as it did the moment the Om reached his consciousness and he recognized his wretchedness and his crime" (Hesse 89). Siddhartha now understands that he can come back from all this. He can get back on his feet and find Nirvana; it's never too late to find the ultimate happiness, so that's what he does.

The last very prominent hero cycle ideal, is the mentor. In Siddhartha, the mentorship comes a little out of order from the original aspect of the hero cycle, but it is still just as important. The mentor is supposed to help the main character through their struggle. In Siddhartha, the Ferryman, named Vasudeva, is his mentor. Right as they meet Vasudeva immediately takes him under his wing and talks to him about the riven and Siddhartha's past. "When Siddhartha finished and there was a long pause, Vasudeva said: 'It is as I thought; the riven has spoken to you. It is friendly towards you, too; it speaks to you. That is good, very good. Stay with me Siddhartha, my friend" (Hesse 104, 105). A good mentor keeps their intern save, and that can be seen here. Later, Siddhartha is being told that the river will teach him what he wants to know, just like Vasudeva has. "'You have also learned this from the river. You will learn the other thing, too.' After a long pause, Siddhartha said: 'What other thing Vasudeva?' Vasudeva rose. 'It has grown late,' he said, 'let us go to bed. I cannot tell you what the other thing is, my friend. You will find out, perhaps you already know'" (Hesse 105). Vasudeva doesn't want to spoil the surprise that Siddhartha has to find for himself. Vasudeva knows that enlightenment cannot be found by someone else for you, you have to find it yourself. Vasudeva helps Siddhartha seek what the river can say, not WHAT is has to say. That is for Siddhartha to find for himself. Once Siddhartha has found that the river has all voices in it at once he talks to Vasudeva about his discovery. "'And do you know,' continued Siddhartha, 'what word it pronounces when one is successful in hearing all it's ten thousand voices at the same time?' Vasudeva laughed joyously; he bent towards Siddhartha and whispered the holy Om in his ear. And that is just what Siddhartha had heard" (Hesse 108). This is the ultimate teaching that Vasudeva offers Siddhartha. He offers him the understanding of Nirvana. After all Siddhartha has been through, he has been looking for this very moment, and could blame the mentorship of Vasudeva for this life changing feat.

Being a hero and all, Siddhartha follows the hero's cycle till death. He first gets the call the action, falls into his abyss, pulls himself out of it, and then has his mentor named Vasudeva help him seek his final prize. If Siddhartha didn't follow these paths he never would have found Nirvana, and going into his final sleep. Siddhartha's best friend Govinda is also looking for the secrets to enlightenment, but without Siddhartha, he would never get close. Every story ever written has to follow some path, and Siddhartha fits awesomely with the classic hero's journey, forcing his name to forever go down in history.

Ootacamund

In the Nilgiri Hills
I went looking for the Todas.
Their temples are cone-shaped and are stables.
This, bearded, impenetrable,
they milk their sacred buffaloes
murmuring incoherent hymns.
They guard a secret from Sumeria,
not knowing that they guard it.
Between the thin, dry lips of the elders
the name of Ishtar, the cruel goddess,
shines like the moon on an empty well.

On the verandah of the Cecil Hotel,
Miss Penelope (canary-colored hair,
woolen stockings and walking stick) has been saying
for thirty years: Oh India,
country of missed opportunities . . .
Above,
in the fireworks
of the jacaranda,
the crows
happily cackle.

Tall grass and low trees.
Uncertain ground. In the clearings
the winged termites construct
tiny Cyclopean castles.
Homages in sand to Mycenae and Machu-Picchu.

Leafier and more brilliant,
the need is like an ash:
a singing tree.

A vision on the mountain road:
the rose camelia tree
bending over the cliff.
Splendor in the sullen green,
fixed above an abyss.
Impenetrable presence,
indifferent to vertigo-and language.

The sky grows in the night,
eucalyptus set aflame.
The charitable stars
not crushing- calling me.

Siddhartha Chapters 7 Through The End

The last few days we have been reading the last half-ish of the book Siddhartha. This book has actually surprised me in quite a few ways. In the last blog post I did, I complained about how this book didn't connect to me at all, and how I thought it was a terrible book. I was wrong. This book has caught my attention, and I learned from it. I may be atheist, but everyone has some sort of religious view. I like the concept of rebirth and everything being connected when it dies like shown as a big interest in this book. The very last pages have very intense descriptions on how when something dies, it turns into soil, then plants, and maybe someday a human like me or you. This spoke to me in a very cool way because it actually makes sense. Religions with a "god" don't really mean anything to me because it makes absolutely zero sense for a huge man nobody has talked to, or seen; above us in the sky creating everything, and above all else, making evidence against his case of existing. I feel like this God guy is pretty dull if he creates things like evolution and other facts that make it seem less likely for him to be real. From now on I shall not judge a book by it's first few chapters while everything is still getting going. My mistake. Anyways... I am actually enjoying this book! What makes it even better is that we have a really easy essay due next week on it! When Siddhartha finally realizes he is going through the same pain that his father did when he left, makes me kind of sad. Talking and living with your son for the first time, and then your son hates you and runs away to an inevitable depression from rich people things would make anybody sad too! I also like how the river is just as much of a mentor as Vasudeva. The part when the river laughed sent small chills down my spine because of how used to inanimate objects being, you know; inanimate. That is all I have to say about this book. My apologizes once again for being ignorant.

Siddhartha,I Chapters 1-6

So, over the weekend I was FORCED to read six chapters of this book called Siddhartha!! This book is like none else we have read because of how much action happens in it. So far there has been literally no action, which makes it rather boring! I'm not being offensive or anything dumb like that, but I really don't like this book compared to the other books we have read in this class! We read Lord of the Flies, and Oedipus Rex, both of which I honestly enjoyed the whole time! I don;t know if it's just that Siddhartha is so arrogant in EVERYTHING he does, or that he thinks he knows everything and nobody can help him reach Nirvana, I'm not sure. I'm atheist, so I don't fully understand the whole "God and Heaven thing, so there is really nothing that I can relate too and be like "ooooooh, now I understand!" I'm just sure that this book could have been written much more interestingly. I'm not exactly one for complaining (irony intended), but this is by far the least exciting book we have read all year. I'm sorry anyone who enjoys this book, but I am a teenage boy who needs to fulfill his stereotype of needs action and blood in everything he does, so this book just really isn't my slice of cake. Woot woot; glad I got that off my chest! Maybe this book will surprise me and open my eyes to something new, who knows?



Now that I said that, I can continue with the prompt. I chose a few days ago that I would study Siddhartha and his "hero's journey" path. In the very first few pages he gets a "call the action", meaning he has to leave his home place and, in his case, goes with a group of Samanas (people seeking Nirvana through constant suffering). The next main point I wanted to mention was that the hero's journey is completely out of order! After he has left his family, he gets small challenges that he has to complete to prove that he is worthy of seeking Nirvana. He slowly gets through all them so far, and he meets continuous Mentors on the way doing so. In the normal hero's journey the hero will get a single mentor to help him seek out his destiny, but Siddhartha has had about three and it's only chapter 6. Siddhartha is constantly bombarded with diffeent temptations that he has to overcome, but in the end I feel that he will reach Nirvana and become the new "O' Illustrious One".

Partner Analysis by Simone and Me.

"To penetrate to this point, to reach the Self, oneself Atman--could there be any other path worth seeking? Yet this was a path no one was showing him" (Hesse 6).


"He killed off his senses, he killed off his memory, he slipped from his Self to enter a thousand new shapes--was animal, was cadaver, was stone, was wood, was water--and each time he awakened he found himself once more. The sun would be shining, or else the moon, and he was once more a Self oscillating in the cycle; he felt thirst, overcame the thirst, felt new thirst" (Hesse 14).


"Nonetheless he scrutinized Guatama's head, his shoulders, his feet, his quietly dangling hand, and it seemed to him that every joint of every finger on this hand was doctrine; it spoke, breathed, wafted, and glinted Truth. Thisman, this Buddha, was genuine down to the gestures of his littlest finger, This man was holy. Never had Siddhartha revered a man like this, never had he loved a man as he loved this one" (Hesse 25-26).


"Meaning and being did not lie somewhere behind things; they lay within them, within everything" (Hesse 35).

Kafka Modernism

Tons of works have been made out to express a certain point or moral in a persons life. Kafka's Metamorphosis pinpoints many morals in everyday life, has concepts of existentialism, and humor. Throughout Kafka's Metamorphosis, it is obvious Kafka threw out some morals for the reader to adopt as something to relate to their own lives. In on one of the very first pages of his story, Kafka blatantly shows that even after Gregor's shift from human to pest, he was basically a vermin all along. Samsa has gotten nothing out of his life, has nothing to show for, and his metamorphosis to a worthless bug makes this even more clear. Gregor cannot be understood anymore by his family and "although they seemed clear enough to him, clearer than previously, perhaps because his ears had gotten used to them" (Kafka 6). Samsa still thinks his family love him as a son and money tree. The key to this sentence is that he has never been important to them for anything other than money. They have never been able to hear his words and needs, just their own. Another moral that is prominent is that if you don't change your daily cycles, to will fade away into nothingness. Throughout the whole story Gregor has ONLY been working and his family mooches off his money that he suffers through because of THEIR debt. Then, as he slowly dies because of the apple, his life form fades away, and his family moves on, understanding that if they don't get off their lazy butts, they will end up like him. When the family finally gets jobs, this happen: "Bent far over the light, the mother sewed fine undergarments for a fashion shop. The sister, who had taken on a job as a salesgirl, in the evening studied stenography and French, so as perhaps to obtain a better position later on" (Kafka 18). Once the family has moved on they realize they need to change their habits and get jobs to support themselves. The last moral taught in this work is that one needs to stand up for themselves,or else one will turn into 'Gregor'. This is to say that if we do not stand up for ourselves, we will get used. This is exactly what happens to Gregor and later on; his sister. His parents are basically vampires in a way: When his sister is chosen: "And it was something of a confirmation of their new dreams and good intentions when at the end of their journey their daughter stood up first and stretched her young body" (Kafka 27). They are vampires who suck on the life of other people. They used up all of Gregor, and are now moving on to their young, loving, daughter. Gregor didn't stand up for himself and his wants, so he was used and wasted. Morals are everywhere, even in a story about a man transforming into a bug, where you least expect them.

Kafka is interesting in his wording throughout his stories.

Eating With You

So a little earlier in time we read a short story thing called Nice to Eat with You by Thomas C. Foster. This writing is about how we like to only eat with people we enjoy, or like. We refrain from eating when we are in the company of people we are not comfortable with. This piece is trying to explain that eating is an act of communion in a sense because it is such a sacred thing to stuff our faces with things needed for survival. We eat depending on our relationships with those around us. If we eat with friends or family, it should be a very talkative, boisterous meal full of love and all around happiness of those we are with. If the family is cold, or you eat with people you don't like very much, the dinner will be quite and maybe even very formal to make sure everyone is polite and not laughing at each other the whole time. If a meal gets interrupted for any reason in a story, you know something in their relationship has gone wrong and bad things will happen. When Foster says "I'm with you, I share this moment with you, I feel a bond of community with you" (Foster), he is saying because putting food in our bodies is so holy, we only want to do it with the best of company.

Reflection On That There Metamorphosis

This short story is not one to take easy. Kafka's Metamorphosis has so many metaphors it's insane. Obviously the biggest metaphor is Gregor (the main character) waking up in the form of a huge beetle. Gregor is first described in a way like this: "a monstrous verminous bug. He lay on his armor-hard back and saw, as he lifted his head up a little, his brown, arched abdomen divided up into rigid bow-like sections. From this height the blanket, just about ready to slide off completely, could hardly stay in place. His numerous legs, pitifully thin in comparison to the rest of his circumference, flickered helplessly before his eyes" (Kafka 1). One can already see just how genius Kafka is with just the first few sentences of this masterpiece. Kafka has described Gregor as a filthy, giant bug. At the moment we do not know why he has been turned into a bug; all we know is that he is probably turned into this bug for something he did in life. This whole piece honestly reminds me of the afterlife and how the soul changes, like in What Dreams May Come because Gregor is "dead" on the outside, but his soul inside his bug cage is still the same. Gregor is the only one that knows he is still alive on the inside. His dad is the first of his family to give up on him as "Gregor", and assumes all of Gregor is gone, "his father clenched his fist with a hostile expression, as if he wished to push Gregor back into his room, then looked uncertainly around the living room, covered his eyes with his hands, and cried so that his mighty breast shook" (Kafka 6). Gregor's dad completely and only thinks of this huge bug as a pest. Gregor is no more in his eyes, and this vermin left over means nothing to this father. Next, Gregor's sister starts to turn to his father's side as-well: "In the midst of minor attacks of asphyxiation, he looked at her with somewhat protruding eyes, as his unsuspecting sister swept up with a broom, not just the remnants, but even the foods which Gregor had not touched at all, as if these were also now useless, and as she dumped everything quickly into a bucket, which she closed with a wooden lid, and then carried all of it out of the room" (Kafka 11). At this point in the story it seems that Gregor is completely doomed. His only ally was his sister, and now she even thinks everything he touches, or does, is poisoned. Ever since Gregor has been turned into a cockroach, he has been treated more and more as one, not the brother and son they once knew.



Later in this story Kafka brings in a new metaphor; an apple. You may be thinking, "what the heck does an apple have to do with anything in this beetle story?" Well it actually stands for wisdom and understanding strangely enough. His dad "was throwing apple after apple. These small red apples rolled around on the floor, as if electrified, and collided with each other. A weakly thrown apple grazed Gregor’s back but skidded off harmlessly. However, another thrown immediately after that one drove into Gregor’s back really hard" (Kafka 18). After this apple is thrown, it starts to slowly kill Gregor. I believe that this resembles "realization" because once this apple is lodged into Gregor, he and his family both realize he is completely worthless now that he can't make money for their family. His only job in life was to get his parents out of debt. This understanding took place because "Gregor later earned so much money that he was in a position to bear the expenses of the entire family, costs which he, in fact, did bear. They had become quite accustomed to it, both the family and Gregor as well" (Kafka 12). Gregor has basically turned into their families personal bank account, and once he couldn't do that anymore, he was of no use to them. They finally realize this, and once they do, they all go against him and think of ways to get rid of this "vermin". Luckily he dies before they can do something about him still being an inconvenience to them. Right after his death, the whole family can once again unite in Gregor's room, "In spite of the early morning, the fresh air was partly tinged with warmth. It was already almost the end of March" (Kafka 25). This is quite strange because all throughout the whole story Gregor's room has been depressing to everyone who enters. I think that this is symbolizing that once Gregor died, a huge burden has been lifted from his family, and they are real people now; not just lazy jerks who feed off their family member. They have transformed into the better side of society because of their loss of family. They have had a family wide metamorphosis.

Inbetween A Rock And A Hardplace

Imagine waking up one morning and realizing you are different from the night before. Different in a competently different way than normal. You are a bug. A huge cockroach to be exact. This happens to a man named Gregor Samsa, in Kafka's Metamorphosis. Gregor wakes up one morning and he has been transformed into a huge creepy crawly bug. His first thoughts aren't, "huh, maybe I should freak out and get help or something." No, his first thoughts are, "man my job is taxing to my body and how much I sleep. I have so much stress catching the trains everywhere, and I should be getting to work soon." He then sees his little tiny squirming legs. Yet again-instead of freaking out and making noise until someone came to his aid, he tries to figure out a way to get out of bed and get to work as fast as possible because he overslept. To him, this transformation is only a minor problem in getting to the things that need to be done. He is so transfixed on his work that he has turned into the monster that we see in someone who will work, over everything else. He has a job. He needs to pay back his parent's dept, and he is looking out for them even though they have a maid sucking even more money out of their household. They have gotten themselves into this mess, and they have their child have a sucky job for 20 years to pay for their wasting of dough. Gregor is a really nice guy to take up this burden from his parents, but he is going mad with his job.

I noticed that Gregor's room resembles a lot of interesting things by itself. First of all, when he first wakes up he is described as being in a very rectangle- almost cage shaped bed. He is then described as being in a bland, also rectangle shaped room. He is surrounded by a door on three sides of his room, and then a window pointing to the sad gray world. He is literally locking in on 3 sides, and has a depressing view on the last side. His room is his cage. Another metaphorical thing in his room is his only picture frame. Instead of having a picture of his family, or a girlfriend, or just a friend in general, he has the women that comes in the frame as advertisement. Just from this little piece of info, you know Gregor is an incredibly lonely man. If you have no significant memory with family or ANYONE, you have problems and need to get out more. This just adds to the fact that he spends too much of his time working. If Gregor could just get his head out of his job for one minute, none of this would have happened! The moral of this story is: don't spend so much time working; love yourself and you will never be as helpless as a bug.

Understanding Franz Kafka

Kafka was born in Prague, Czech Republic, back on July 3rd of 1883. He had a stressful relationship with both his parents. His dad was a very opinionated clothes retailer who often took over the household, while his mom was a devoted homemaker who didn't have the intellectual skills to understand Kafka's dreams of being a professional writer.

Kafka got his first real job at an insurance company. He hated his new job from the very beginning, and only lasted about a year there before quitting and getting a job at the Workers' Accident Insurance Institute for the Kingdom of Bohemia. He was quite the player and was described as a womanizer a lot of the time. He got engaged twice to Dora Diamant but never actually got married. 

Kafka is normally seen as Jewish, with his writing resembling Jewish Folk Lore. He is still known today as quite influential and helpful to our understanding and skill of literature. Most of his works were about his own life in some way or another. His most famous peace is Metamorphosis. After his death, a lot of his other works were published, but he wasn't super known while he was alive.

In 1917, Kafka contracted tuberculosis right as he started working on writing again. After leaving his work in Prague to go visit his little sister in a Bohemian Village called Ottla. Once he went back to Prague he got influenza in 1919 and his health started deteriorating from there. In 1922 he quit his job because of his health, and went back to his parents house. In 1924, Kafka went to the Kierling Sanatorium and died there because of his two sicknesses. 

"Franz Kafka - Biography." Franz Kafka. N.p., n.d. Web. 18 Mar. 2014-http://www.egs.edu/library/franz-              kafka/biography/.
"Franz Kafka Biography." Bio.com. A&E Networks Television, n.d. Web. 17 Mar. 2014-                                      http://www.biography.com/people/franz-kafka-9359401.

What Dreams May Come

So this week we watched a movie called What Dreams May Come. This movie was sort of like how Dante's Inferno goes, but it's not quite there. It deals with a lot of emotional pain and how the brain thinks, while Dante's Inferno deals with the body being taken with the soul to the afterlife, and the body being punished physically. This movie was really well made, and had a lot of the same aspects that Dante's Inferno did, but was still amazingly different, and had an entirely different story-line too. In Dante's Inferno, there was a lot of color patterns found in each canto. Red being the fire cantos, and blue being the further down iced over cantos. In this movie, there was also tons of color schemes. Every time a person was about to die, or had just died, there was purple everywhere to indicate death. At the very beginning of the movie, the character named "Annie" is wearing a red dress, with white underneath. She waves the red around like a flag, showing innocence as the white is exposed. Slightly later, both their kids die. It changes times and has a four year skip right after. It then shows the wife (Annie) in all black, with her hair cut, and she looks completely different, and quite fierce. This is to show loss of innocence and how she has changed emotionally since the loss of loved ones. This reminds me of Dante's Inferno because in canto 32, Dante literally attacks a soul, showing how much he has been through on his journey, and what he has seen. He has lost his innocence from this voyage.

I also noticed the role water plays in What Dreams May Come. The very first scene is of Annie and Chris (the husband) bumping into each other's boats on accident in a lake. This is the very beginning of their love story, and shortly after they get married, it shows them kissing in the rain as they shoot each other with hoses. At first water plays a very happy and relaxing role, but as the movie gets going, worse and worse things start to happen when it is raining. Chris himself dies in a car accident while it is raining on a highway. Shortly after his death, he constantly recalls a memory with his son in the forest messing around while it rains. He has a serious talk with him and how he struggles. This is a key component because his son is opening up to his dad, in a way we have never seen in this movie until now. What Dreams May Come and Dante's Inferno have so much alike, and both have a very cool and intriguing story of the afterlife.

Dante And His Kra Kra Mind!

So over the last week I have watched, in awe, all of the other canto's up to mine, which I presented today. I was canto 32 and it went well of course, because I'm such a bawler. I really loved all of the other canto's, but one stood out to me. The girl who did the suicide tree canto did it crazy well, and I actually learned what happens in that canto. We also had to make a visual, which she rocked the socks off of. There is a picture portraying her canto below. Anyways, I learned how this canto works, and how each tree is actually a human, plus the tree person gets to stare at their hanging dead body for the rest of eternity! How fabulous! I also really liked canto 31, which is where all the dead giants dwell. They aren't really punished, but they do get constricted with huge chains depending on what they did in life. Two of them tried to climb mount Olympus and start a war with the gods, but they were only nine years old, so they were quickly killed by Apollo, and are now constricted super tight in hell with the rest of the sinners. Pride is the downfall of too many stories.

I am actually embarrassed and proud of myself at the same time right now. I did my whole canto project in one day. The day before it was due. It took a crazy long time and really really sucked to sit at my computer area for nine hours. It really did teach me something about procrastinating though: only procrastinate whole projects if you can actually get them done in less than a day. I shall forever be weary when I get a big project and have to smash it all out in one Sunday like I did with this one. From this whole project I gained so much knowledge on Dante's Inferno, and would be happy to study Purgatory and Paradise at some point later on because of the good experience I had with this. 

Dante's Inferno

So, this Thursday we started working on Dante's Inferno, and the basics of how it works. We haven't started reading or anything, but we made up our own personal version of hell, which is in an earlier post. We had a four day weekend last week, and I have looked up Dante's Inferno a little to see what we are doing. I learned that the whole thing is a poem, and is written in vernacular language (common speech of the people of this time). I also found this picture and some like which are rather intriguing. 

I find it kind of confusing why "Treachery" and "Fraud" are at the bottom of everything, while killing people is only 3rd to last. I find murder rather terrible myself, quite worse that lying or stealing. I find it kind of scary being Atheist for one reason: if there is a hell, I sure am going straight there! I obviously don't believe in hell, I mean, if it only exists if I believe in it, then why believe in it? Why not only have a Heaven where I will go when I die? Then I don't have to always be depressed if I make a mistake, I can still be happy that Heaven is for me after-death. Luckily neither of those do exist in my mind, so I'm all good! Dante will probably have something on heaven or whatever, so I am excited to start reading.

My Hell

Hell is a place for people who have committed crimes against humanity. It is for sucky people who have done terrible things to other people. There are 6 layers; 1 being the least terrible punishment, 6 being inescapable and only for people who deserve worse.

1) To get into my hell, you have to do anything terribly cruel like murder, stealing from the needy, being a jerk constantly, etc. All around, if you are a bad person, and completely mean to, you are going to hell.

2) Like in Dante's Inferno, there are different layers in my hell, depending on how bad your crime was. The very worst crimes (mass murder) go to an incredibly hot environment with terrifying animals everywhere, but you can't protect yourself. They will bite you and rip you apart until you die, but you get re-birthed/healed every day at sunset. The people who did minor offences [arrogance to a whole class of people (sexism/racism)] go to a bloody body of water with no land. They will have to swim and stay afloat or they will drown over and over again until they get the strength to swim again.


3) My hell looks different at every layer. One layer for overly rich people who do nothing good for society is a table full of their favorite foods, but they are paralyzed with never ending hunger.


4) Anyone in layers 1-4 can get out whenever they have learned their lesson. Those in the last layer of hell can never get out no matter how hard they try. The 5th layer is where it takes hundreds of years to get out, but is still doable. In the 5th layer, the offender has to go through a trial with the person they have done wrong to. If that person sees them fit to leave hell, then they will be released to purgatory.

5) A symbol to represent my entire hell would be this female and male symbol. This is because everyone starts out as a baby. We are all born innocent and pure, but we choose to be good or bad. No matter the gender or race, we are all born the same way and anything could happen from there. People who choose the harder, selfless way of life will have a better after-life and those who are selfish and evil their entire life will spend some time in hell.


6) People in my hell: anyone who tries to force their religion upon me, saying that every other religion is completely wrong. These people make me so angry and I honestly just want them all to just go to hell. Also, anyone who commits a murder, rapes, pillages the poor, is greedy their whole life, is going to my hell to swelter away in the most terrible ways.

Presentation Day

So, today was the day my group had to present out movie poster on the tragic hero journey.

We did our poster on this amazing movie called Se7en. It brought every emotion mankind has from the viewer. The poster creation was awesome in the end with all the symbolism and creative little things we added (fingerprints and oh so much blood). When we were actually creating the poster, I kept thinking back to the scene in this movie where the still-alive-decaying-man was laying in his bead with all the air fresheners. It gives me the shivers every time I imagine it; it really was an ingeniously done movie. Everything to get the viewer crawling in their chair was thrown into this movie, and the amazing hubris and pride the main character has is overwhelming! The shear amount of cocky mistakes made in this video could kill a person (or 6 people; pun completely intended).

I also had to write an essay on Cause and Effect/Unity of Action. This essay was hard, time consuming, and when you read this Mrs. Cawlfield, I hope you're happy you caused so much blood and tears to be expelled. In the end I am happy we did this poster project because it let us have some relaxing time to talk and joke with our groups, while at the same time having made an extravagant, knowledge filled thing to hang on the wall. I honestly do feel that I understand the material of what makes a tragic hero's journey after these last few days of poster making and talking about the movie in depth with my groupies. I also learned what the 7 deadly sins of Christianity are, which is pretty interesting in of itself. All in all, this last week of work has been great fun and I learned a ton about film and basically just story's in general.

Oedipus Rex Reflection

I was honestly very stressed during the whole reading of Oedipus Rex. It is just so frustrating to watch someone as they bring their own downfall whilst not knowing, and while still being prideful. Oedipus basically makes every choice for himself with no outside guidance, all together leading to him stabbing his own eyes out in his tragic hero cycle.
In class today, we watched chunks of Titanic which was just as sad. The captain was the tragic hero in this movie because his decisions of getting to the port a day early  fogged up his eye for safety. He decided to turn the 4th burner on, which in new ships is rather dangerous. He then didn't want to slow down when the iceberg was spotted because of his ignorance, which altogether caused the death of 1,500 people. This example of cause and effect is a key point in both Titanic and Oedipus Rex.

Oedipus Rex Inventory

Sophocles- This man was born in Colonus, which was a village outside Athens. We was well educated because of being born into a wealthy armor maker's family. He was handsome, very athletic, and had great skill in music. He lived from 496 BCE- 406 BCE. This is the man that wrote the tragedy Oedipus Rex.


Oedipus Rex- An Athenian tragedy written by Sophocles. The main story line is that Oedipus Rex (main character) has a prophecy that he will kill his father and marry his mother. This does happen by the end and is a tragedy because of it.

Oedipus the Man- A very nice man, although fictional, he had quite the look on life. As a child he was given to strangers because his prophecy was that he would marry his mother and kill his father. His parents were the king and queen, so they didn't want that to happen because incest is frowned upon.


Aristotle- a Greek philosopher born n Stagirus in 384 BCE. He lived under guardian care because hi dad died when he was a child. When he was 18 he joined Plato's Academy and remained there until he was 37. Aristotle is titled the first genuine scientist because of his massive collection of writings on physics, metaphysics, theater, politics, government, biology, and zoology. He was also a huge fan of Sophocles and his works.
 
Aristotle tragedy- Aristotle really loved Oedipus Rex and considered it the perfect tragedy. He analyzed it thoroughly and decided it is the "imitation of an action" by a tragedy "showing" rather than "telling" through action instead of narrative that makes a play a tragedy.


Dramatic Irony- This effect is achieved by leading an audience to understand what is happening (normally a bad thing), while the characters in the play are unaware of what is happening. In the picture above you can see the prisoner is going to dig straight into a restroom sewage system. The prisoner doesn't have any idea this will happen, but we do. In Oedipus Rex this happens when Oedipus kills his father, marries his mother, then goes looking for the killer of his father so he can avenge his new wife.


Tiresias- this is the man who game Oedipus his prophecy to kill his dad and marry his mom. He was a blind prophet of Thebes, most famous for hitting two snakes with a stick and getting turned into a women for 7 years. Once Oedipus marries his mother, he goes back to Tiresias and tells him to tell him the name of the murderer, but Tiresias says there is no point since the truth will eventually show its self.


Fate- a power believed to control what happens in the future. It is also the things someone cannot get away from no matter how hard they try; they can't ever get away from their fate. This the the prophecy that Oedipus gets. No matter how many times he gets thrown away or runs away, he eventually will kill his dad and marry his mom.


Oedipus Rex Myth- The myth is that Oedipus saved his city once he killed his father and then figuring out the riddle the sphinx has put out so he will stop terrorizing the city. Because he figured out the riddle he got the throne of Thebes and the recently widowed queen, who is also his mother, thus competing his prophecy. Oedipus represents the flawed nature of humanity and an individuals role in the course of destiny in a harsh universe.


Aristotle Hubris- extreme pride and arrogance shown by a character that ultimately brings about his own downfall. Definition of Hubris by Aristotle: "Hubris consists in doing and saying hings that cause the victim shame... simply for the pleasure of it. Retaliation is not hubris, but revenge... Young men and the rich are hubristic because they think they are better then other people" (Aristotle's Rhetoric).


Greek Theater- these were where all plays and many performances took place. A lot of the time people would party and eat for a few days straight, then go see a play or tragedy in one of these. In almost all plays they would have hundreds of masks that would show personality instead of appearance most of the time.