4/25/14
Chocolat was a very different movie than what I am used to watching. I don’t want to say there was no purpose to the movie but I couldn’t really identify any purpose to the film. We had talked about a lot of questions the class had and none of them really brought a purpose to light for me. We talked about why the story was in a frame narrative and this was the closest thing I could identify as the purpose to the story. The frame narrative had France telling her childhood story living in Africa while her older self is travelling back into Africa. I wasn’t sure if I should just take the film as a recollection of France’s past without any purpose other than that.
I thought it was odd France’s parents were not as racist as some of the other white people that showed up throughout the film. I would have thought because they were a higher social status family, they would have been more racist like one would see in other films. Normally, those of higher status are more racist than the not so high status. This was clearly scene between France’s parents but especially Aimee and France. We spent the majority of the class talking about Protee and Aimee’s secret love going on throughout the entirety of the movie. There was barely any racism on Aimee’s part and that could be seen because she had the secret crush on Protee. There wasn’t any racism coming from France’s father either. I think because the two parents didn’t have any racism. France didn’t have any racism either. She never had any problem with Protee. In fact, they were often as close as an older brother and younger sister. Although it was Protee’s job, he was always looking after France until the generator incident.
4/18/14
For the final project, I’m going to do the creative option with Jeremy, Alex, Evan, and Brittany. The current idea is to create a board game combining three different stories/works we have looked at throughout the course of 201, 202, and 203. As of now we don’t have three set works to use but we know what we’d like to do. The game is probably going to be based off of Monopoly. We’d like to incorporate details from the three stories into the game and its pieces but Jeremy had the idea to incorporate more of the stories into the instructions to give more comparison and insight into the three works. We haven’t set in stone the three stories we’re going to use but I think a story from Honors 202 would be a good start for the game board because a common thread in 202 was the concept of the journey. I think Dante’s Inferno would be a good story to use for the game board. I think Honors 203 would be a good place to look for game cards and pieces because 203 had the common thread of who had what rights. I think the cards could limit or give certain rights to the players of the game. Things Fall Apart would make a good story to base them on. I haven’t taken Honors 201 yet so I’m not sure what common concepts were discussed in that class but I’m sure we can find one to use, or we could just use another story from 202 or 203. I’d rather use three stories from one class or one story from each class instead of two stories from one class. This way, there would be one specific focus or one large summary of the Honors sequence in our game.
Nick, this sounds good. Please see my responses to Brittni's and Evan's proposals. -MH
4/11/14
Dafna Kaffeman’s presentation today was very interesting. The pieces she presented were an art form I suppose I have never considered before. It was cool to see how she made inscriptions (I think she said they were Hebrew) and small pieces of glass into a full piece of art, which separately, I wouldn’t consider the inscription art even though it is craft fully done. I thought both of these pieces together were very neat but together, I believe they had a bigger meaning. She talked about her inspiration coming from the conflict between Israel and Pakistan and how she wanted to find a solution. I think her artwork reflected this this conflict more than she talked about. She said the two main things she used in her artwork were insects and plants, both indigenous plants and invasive plants. The insects and plants are all now normally found in Israel though. I thought it was interesting how she decided to use both indigenous plants to Israel and invasive plants to Israel because those two types of plants represent the conflict she wants to solve above everything else. I’m not sure if it was her intended purpose but in her artwork, she used plants indigenous to Israel which could represent Jewish people, and plants invasive to Israel which could represent Palestine. From the viewpoint of Dafna, the indigenous plants belong in Israel while the invasive plants are trying to move in, representing the conflict of Palestine trying to move into Israel.
Taking a closer look at her artwork, Dafna represented very unique and precise skill. The embroidery alone looked symmetrical throughout all of the letters and seemed to have no flaw. Her glass-working was very impressive. All of her insects showed anatomical correctness right down to the number of legs on the small, orange larvae-like insects.
3/28/14
By definitions of today, I’d say Sigmund Freud was a creepy man interested in a lot of stuff having to do with sex. Almost all of his conclusions to any of his theories and research ended at sex. To prove my point, on page 6 of An Autobiographical Study he says “I now learned from my rapidly increasing experience that it was not any kind of emotional excitation that was in action behind the phenomena of neurosis but habitually one of a sexual nature, whether it was a current sexual conflict or the effect of earlier sexual experiences.” In PSYS 100, we briefly learned about Freud and what he offered to Psychology. He said that the human has two primal driving forces: sex and aggression. It is clear in An Autobiographical Study that at least half of his theory pertains to sex. In the third section on page 8, he starts to bring up the five stages of development and the Oedipus complex. On page 9, he briefly describes the Oedipus complex by saying “Under the influence of the technical procedure which I used at that time, the majority of my patients reproduced from their childhood scenes in which they were sexually seduced by some grown-up person. With female patients, the part of the seducer was almost always assigned to their father.” On page 10, Freud defines “libido” as “the energy of the sexual instincts” and describes the five stages of development based on where the energy for libido is acquired.
1. Pleasure via the mouth
2. Pleasure via the anus
3. Pleasure via the genitals
4. Period of latency
5. Maturing sexual interests
Stages 1 and 2 occur during infancy. Stage 3 occurs shortly after when the genitals become a noticeable difference between girls and boys to a child. This is the stage Freud says the Oedipus complex becomes active. Stage 4 is a period of nonexistent libido until puberty. Stage 5 is from puberty on and involves sexual interests.
3/21/14
When we split up in groups today, my group brought up Marlow’s description of the jungle and the river on page 1184 and 1185. The main part of the description that caught my attention was how Marlow described the river with a sense of adventure, mystery, and danger. He really went into depth in his description, specifically about the “king trees”, “an impenetrable forest”, “the heavy, sluggish air”, or “the brilliance of the sunlight.” As he described the river on page 1184, it didn’t match his excitement in the part 1 when he described his excitement as a child, first encountering the river on a map. I think as a child, he didn’t realize how dangerous and mysterious it would actually be. He only saw the adventure. Marlow’s words as an adult make it sound like he is scared of what lies ahead. I think this can easily be seen when he describes the stillness of the river and how it is everywhere. Hidden in the stillness is the unknown, possibly even certain death that Marlow must tread carefully to avoid. This hidden stillness was unseen to the adventurous eyes of the boy so many years ago.
Considering the river holds a stillness that most likely contains certain death, I couldn’t help but compare this part of the story to Aguirre: Wrath of God from Honors 201. Both works tell the story of journey down a river. Each story has the main explorer cruising down the river while not knowing what he may encounter ahead. In Aguirre: Wrath of God, the so-called “stillness” of the forest eventually consumes his entire expedition. It will be interesting to see whether or not the “stillness” of the “Heart of Darkness” will do the same to any of Marlow’s men. Obviously he makes it out because he’s telling the story.
3/7/14
I think the yellow wallpaper does a lot to discuss the issue of women’s rights besides what the main character and John present at face value. I think the situation the main character is put in and describes talks more about women’s rights than the novel. I think this mostly because of the last pages of the story. When I first noticed the deeper meaning, I read the part where the author talks about the bulbous eyes. She says the figures look as if they tried to escape but had been caught and choked by the pattern of the wallpaper. Later, the author writes, “I don’t like to look out the windows even-there are so many of those creeping women, and they creep so fast. I wonder if they all came out of the wallpaper as I did?” I think this quote indicates women and their social situation at the time. They are trapped by the social standards that men have put in place, which is reflected in the figures being trapped behind the wallpaper. She goes further into this deeper message by saying, “’I’ve got out at last,’ she said, ‘in spite of you and Jane. And I’ve pulled off most of the paper, so you can’t put me back!’” This quote highlights the authors will toward women to be independent. After escaping the wallpaper, she is free of its grasp and can do what she pleases. I think the author uses this to symbolize women breaking the social norm for women set by men and be freer to do the things they weren’t “meant” to do. At the very end, the author writes, “Now why should that man have fainted? But he did, and right across my path by the wall, so that I had to creep over him every time!” I think this statement urges women, once they have broken free of the social norm, to not be submissive and go back to the way things were.
2/28/14
Torvald and Ivan Ilych have very similar situations because of their social status situation. Torvald’s social situation is based upon the way others view him. It has strong influence from the amount of money he has, his position at the bank, how he is as a friend, the morals he holds, and his position as a husband. Ivan’s social situation is based solely on his occupation. He holds his occupation in very high regards which stems into his position as a friend and as a father. Both men’s social status suffers from an unexpected event. In Torvald’s case, Nora’s borrowing money goes against his moral code and upon finding out, Torvald’s status unravels before his eyes. The situation of another man being able to control him could have led to the destruction of his position at the bank as well as the possible loss of a large sum of money. His friendship could have been threatened and his status as a husband was clearly torn apart as seen in the story. Ivan had a similar breakdown of his social status. When he became sick, his status at his job and his occupation in general slowly began to decay away as Ivan did. Ivan was a terrible husband to begin with but his sickness crept into his marriage and made it worse than what it was. It also caused separation between him and his children. His friends were mostly based on his work which suffered from his sickness as well. As Ivan’s work suffered, he suffered even more which caused his marriage, relationships, and work to suffer even more.
In both situations, each man seemed to have whatever he wanted in his life. As soon as a wrench was introduced into their lives, their social status fell apart and led to their destruction.
2/21/14
The whole time I was reading The Death of Ivan Ilych, I had no clue why I was reading it. The entire thing seemed purposeless until the very end. The final revelation that Ivan had, the epiphany, was the only portion of the story that gave any meaning at all to the rest of the story. Other than that, we should have just read Tuesdays with Morrie. I found these two stories strikingly similar. The Death of Ivan Ilych described Ivan’s descent into death, describing his pain and suffering and the pain and suffering of those around him. It described the unknowing of the doctors as well as the uncaring nature of his so-called friends. The entire story was a walk down a dreary street until a dead end is reached… pun intended. Tuesdays with Morrie follows the same plot line but the book gives the complete opposite feeling to the reader that The Death of Ivan Ilych brings. Tuesdays with Morrie describes Morrie’s descent into death because of a disease that cannot be cured, similar to Ivan. But Morrie’s story is one of inspiration to those around him. Ivan journeys to death with pain, suffering, bitterness, and resentment towards others. Morrie teaches everyone around him that death is an uplifting experience and that much can be learned from it. His story gives an inspirational uplift to the reader throughout the entire book because Morrie changed peoples’ lives with his death. Ivan seemed to drag others down with him as he crawled closer to death. Ivan’s epiphany at the end was the only part of the story that made the story worth anything. On the last page, it describes has a revelation that he has made everyone’s’ lives around him miserably. Before the end, he apologizes for his actions and sees the light. If Ivan would have just died miserably, the story shouldn’t have been written.
Disclaimer: All thoughts expressed in this response are the opinions of the author.
2/7/14
“The World Is Too Much With Us” talked about us wasting our potential in the world/nature. We don’t pay attention to what nature is saying and are not moved by anything she does.
“The Sea View” described different aspects of the sea from the view of a mountain top. It describes the reflection of the sun upon the sea, the on the water where the water is deepest, and even the pollution of dying victims on the water.
“The Lake”, like we talked about in class, is about a dying woman and how the author is begging the lake to preserve her memory in the rocks, the grottoes, and the forest.
“In the Grass”, like we talked about in class, talks about the seasons and how spring brings forth a forgotten past.
“The Solitary Thrush” describes how the thrush doesn’t associate with anything else in the valley but is still happily content singing on the side. It goes on to say humans are the same but we don’t enjoy, we look back with regret.
“I Tend a Beautiful Plant” talks about how a plant grows in the dark but dies in the light.
The two common threads between all of these poems are nature and humans. Each poem describes a different part of nature, in depth and in all its beauty. The authors then go on to describe how humans pollute the beauty and serenity of nature, not always straight forward though. “The Sea View” says, “The mangled dead and dying victims then pollute the flood.” In “The Solitary Thrush”, the thrush is recognized as happy and filling its purpose but humans are on the earth only to regret and die. I think even “I Tend a Beautiful Plant” has a deeper meaning. If the plant describes humans, we would grow up in the dark and as soon as we are old enough to see the light, we die in it.
1/31/14
Even though I was told what happens in the second part of Faust, I’ll try not to give any spoilers and pretend I don’t know what is going to happen. At the end of part one, I’m pretty sure God has lost the with Mephistopheles. Mephistopheles already made the deal with Faust for his soul. If we assumed all three players would keep their words in their bets and deals, Mephistopheles already had control of Faust when he gained his soul and I think at that point, God had lost the bet. Even during the story, Mephistopheles was leading Faust even though it seemed like Faust knew what he wanted. Mephistopheles first led Faust to the witch’s kitchen. At that point, Faust saw a lovely lady in the mirror. His desires were then peaked to find a lovely young lady. Once Faust had seen Margaret, he sent Mephistopheles to make her his. Even then, Mephistopheles corrupted Faust’s intent by lying about Martha’s husband. With the jeweled , Mephistopheles led Margaret down a long path towards her destruction, which is most likely not what Faust had planned. It’s clear when Faust rides for the prison, he did not intend on hurting Margaret. The Walpurgis was also Mephistopheles’ idea. The bet between Mephistopheles and God was to see whether or not Mephistopheles could tempt him down a corrupt path. From the near beginning of the story, Faust had sold his soul to Mephistopheles and barely made any decisions regarding what path he took to reach the end of part 1. Meanwhile, there was no evidence of God leading Faust down a different path. I think it’s clear that Mephistopheles won the bet between himself and God by the end of part 1. Possibly God will win in part 2 but I don’t see that being possible because Faust already sold his soul to Mephistopheles. Gotta honor your bets.
1/24/14
In my opinion, God isn’t doing a very good with his and Mephistopheles’ because Faust has already sold his soul to the devil. I may be wrong but I’m pretty sure that’s not good for God. I also think it was pretty easy for Mephistopheles to persuade Faust into a deal. We talked about how the Earth Spirit didn’t exist in the original translation; rather Faust summoned the devil and made a deal with him. I think the original version was Faust’s choice to sell his soul. Because he originated the summoning, I think he was mostly in control of what he wanted, although the devil probably had a good chunk of input. Our version puts Faust in a state of need or desperation. He summoned the Earth Spirit but was told he was a lesser being than the spirit. I think Faust was expecting to hear something different so was then put into a sort of depressing state. Then when Mephistopheles appears to him, it didn’t seem that difficult for him to convince Faust to sell him his soul.
I also think it is odd that Faust and Wagner both saw Mephistopheles as a poodle but only Faust saw the fire trail the dog was leaving behind. I think this highlights Faust as the specific target by Mephistopheles because of the between him and God. Wagner also doesn’t see the Earth Spirit when he is originally introduced. I may have missed whether or not the Spirit left but I’m wondering if the magic and stuff is just in Faust’s mind since he has a vast imagination. Faust is also alone or with Mephistopheles when other spirits talk or sing. I’m not sure whether or not it is all in Faust’s head because Mephistopheles talked to the student but was also dressed as Faust.
1/17/14 Walt Whitman seemed like he enjoyed a little than grass out in the wilderness by the way he wrote but I think a lot of what he wrote was a mask for an ideal freedom. When we talked in class, my group decided Whitman wanted to be to roll around in a grassy field naked. I think a lot of what he said described freedom as anything. By anything, I mean Whitman talked like anything or anybody could be anything or anybody they wanted. Anyone can be as great a person as they want to be or as less of a person as they want to be. This idea of freedom is shown in Section 32 when Whitman says “I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journey-work of the stars and the pismire is equally perfect… and the narrowest hinge in my hand puts to scorn all machinery…” This section shows how an object that seems meaningless has the freedom to become whatever it wants. I think Frederick Douglass or Harriet Jacobs would completely disagree with my interpretation. Douglass would most likely say freedom is in knowledge, the power to read and write. He realized at a young age that not being able to read and write is how his master kept him a true slave. I think Douglass used reading and writing as a stepping stone to gain true freedom from slavery. Jacobs would say freedom isn’t becoming greater than what she was. I think she would say freedom is being a mother, a real mother not hidden in an attic but a mother who is able to love and care for her children without restraint. In a way, I don’t believe any of these ideas are wrong. Each person wrote their story starting in a different situation. Had the circumstances been the same for each person, a similar line of freedom could most likely have been traced throughout their stories.
1/10/14 My name is Nicholas Nordmann, and I am an exercise science major here at The Ball. I run almost every day and am the treasurer of the Ball State Runners’ Association. The farthest distance I have ran is a half , 13.1 miles. I also love to movies. When it comes to Frederick Douglass, I believe the most important thing is his rise from slavery to being an abolitionist and avid speaker/writer for anti-slavery. His struggle to learn to read and write was an important building block for what he became later in life. In the prologue to Frederick Douglass’s slave narrative, it talks about how he had begun to learn to read and write from his master’s wife. He was forbidden to be taught later and Frederick then realized the importance of being educated. On p. 521, it says, “Douglass realized that a key to keeping a man a slave was to keep him ignorant, and from this moment he recognized that literacy was a cornerstone of freedom.” He then went on to learn from white boys as he ran errands. I think this first step of education was important to Douglass because it was the first step becoming . He realized the value of education as a tool, which I think so many now don’t realize. Douglass later used this tool to write his slave narrative which spoke out against slavery and pulled several others into the anti-slavery cause. Slave narratives were a stepping stone for other slaves to gain their freedom. Besides speaking to those that were to fight slavery, I think the narratives spoke to slaves almost as a guide. I think they helped motivate slaves to take the same path as those described in the narratives. They also helped push slaves to learn to read and write, possibly to follow the footsteps of already freed slaves or to possibly read the narratives themselves. 202 Responses (Fall 2013)
Chocolat was a very different movie than what I am used to watching. I don’t want to say there was no purpose to the movie but I couldn’t really identify any purpose to the film. We had talked about a lot of questions the class had and none of them really brought a purpose to light for me. We talked about why the story was in a frame narrative and this was the closest thing I could identify as the purpose to the story. The frame narrative had France telling her childhood story living in Africa while her older self is travelling back into Africa. I wasn’t sure if I should just take the film as a recollection of France’s past without any purpose other than that.
I thought it was odd France’s parents were not as racist as some of the other white people that showed up throughout the film. I would have thought because they were a higher social status family, they would have been more racist like one would see in other films. Normally, those of higher status are more racist than the not so high status. This was clearly scene between France’s parents but especially Aimee and France. We spent the majority of the class talking about Protee and Aimee’s secret love going on throughout the entirety of the movie. There was barely any racism on Aimee’s part and that could be seen because she had the secret crush on Protee. There wasn’t any racism coming from France’s father either. I think because the two parents didn’t have any racism. France didn’t have any racism either. She never had any problem with Protee. In fact, they were often as close as an older brother and younger sister. Although it was Protee’s job, he was always looking after France until the generator incident.
4/18/14
For the final project, I’m going to do the creative option with Jeremy, Alex, Evan, and Brittany. The current idea is to create a board game combining three different stories/works we have looked at throughout the course of 201, 202, and 203. As of now we don’t have three set works to use but we know what we’d like to do. The game is probably going to be based off of Monopoly. We’d like to incorporate details from the three stories into the game and its pieces but Jeremy had the idea to incorporate more of the stories into the instructions to give more comparison and insight into the three works. We haven’t set in stone the three stories we’re going to use but I think a story from Honors 202 would be a good start for the game board because a common thread in 202 was the concept of the journey. I think Dante’s Inferno would be a good story to use for the game board. I think Honors 203 would be a good place to look for game cards and pieces because 203 had the common thread of who had what rights. I think the cards could limit or give certain rights to the players of the game. Things Fall Apart would make a good story to base them on. I haven’t taken Honors 201 yet so I’m not sure what common concepts were discussed in that class but I’m sure we can find one to use, or we could just use another story from 202 or 203. I’d rather use three stories from one class or one story from each class instead of two stories from one class. This way, there would be one specific focus or one large summary of the Honors sequence in our game.
Nick, this sounds good. Please see my responses to Brittni's and Evan's proposals. -MH
4/11/14
Dafna Kaffeman’s presentation today was very interesting. The pieces she presented were an art form I suppose I have never considered before. It was cool to see how she made inscriptions (I think she said they were Hebrew) and small pieces of glass into a full piece of art, which separately, I wouldn’t consider the inscription art even though it is craft fully done. I thought both of these pieces together were very neat but together, I believe they had a bigger meaning. She talked about her inspiration coming from the conflict between Israel and Pakistan and how she wanted to find a solution. I think her artwork reflected this this conflict more than she talked about. She said the two main things she used in her artwork were insects and plants, both indigenous plants and invasive plants. The insects and plants are all now normally found in Israel though. I thought it was interesting how she decided to use both indigenous plants to Israel and invasive plants to Israel because those two types of plants represent the conflict she wants to solve above everything else. I’m not sure if it was her intended purpose but in her artwork, she used plants indigenous to Israel which could represent Jewish people, and plants invasive to Israel which could represent Palestine. From the viewpoint of Dafna, the indigenous plants belong in Israel while the invasive plants are trying to move in, representing the conflict of Palestine trying to move into Israel.
Taking a closer look at her artwork, Dafna represented very unique and precise skill. The embroidery alone looked symmetrical throughout all of the letters and seemed to have no flaw. Her glass-working was very impressive. All of her insects showed anatomical correctness right down to the number of legs on the small, orange larvae-like insects.
3/28/14
By definitions of today, I’d say Sigmund Freud was a creepy man interested in a lot of stuff having to do with sex. Almost all of his conclusions to any of his theories and research ended at sex. To prove my point, on page 6 of An Autobiographical Study he says “I now learned from my rapidly increasing experience that it was not any kind of emotional excitation that was in action behind the phenomena of neurosis but habitually one of a sexual nature, whether it was a current sexual conflict or the effect of earlier sexual experiences.” In PSYS 100, we briefly learned about Freud and what he offered to Psychology. He said that the human has two primal driving forces: sex and aggression. It is clear in An Autobiographical Study that at least half of his theory pertains to sex. In the third section on page 8, he starts to bring up the five stages of development and the Oedipus complex. On page 9, he briefly describes the Oedipus complex by saying “Under the influence of the technical procedure which I used at that time, the majority of my patients reproduced from their childhood scenes in which they were sexually seduced by some grown-up person. With female patients, the part of the seducer was almost always assigned to their father.” On page 10, Freud defines “libido” as “the energy of the sexual instincts” and describes the five stages of development based on where the energy for libido is acquired.
- 1. Pleasure via the mouth
- 2. Pleasure via the anus
- 3. Pleasure via the genitals
- 4. Period of latency
- 5. Maturing sexual interests
Stages 1 and 2 occur during infancy. Stage 3 occurs shortly after when the genitals become a noticeable difference between girls and boys to a child. This is the stage Freud says the Oedipus complex becomes active. Stage 4 is a period of nonexistent libido until puberty. Stage 5 is from puberty on and involves sexual interests.3/21/14
When we split up in groups today, my group brought up Marlow’s description of the jungle and the river on page 1184 and 1185. The main part of the description that caught my attention was how Marlow described the river with a sense of adventure, mystery, and danger. He really went into depth in his description, specifically about the “king trees”, “an impenetrable forest”, “the heavy, sluggish air”, or “the brilliance of the sunlight.” As he described the river on page 1184, it didn’t match his excitement in the part 1 when he described his excitement as a child, first encountering the river on a map. I think as a child, he didn’t realize how dangerous and mysterious it would actually be. He only saw the adventure. Marlow’s words as an adult make it sound like he is scared of what lies ahead. I think this can easily be seen when he describes the stillness of the river and how it is everywhere. Hidden in the stillness is the unknown, possibly even certain death that Marlow must tread carefully to avoid. This hidden stillness was unseen to the adventurous eyes of the boy so many years ago.
Considering the river holds a stillness that most likely contains certain death, I couldn’t help but compare this part of the story to Aguirre: Wrath of God from Honors 201. Both works tell the story of journey down a river. Each story has the main explorer cruising down the river while not knowing what he may encounter ahead. In Aguirre: Wrath of God, the so-called “stillness” of the forest eventually consumes his entire expedition. It will be interesting to see whether or not the “stillness” of the “Heart of Darkness” will do the same to any of Marlow’s men. Obviously he makes it out because he’s telling the story.
3/7/14
I think the yellow wallpaper does a lot to discuss the issue of women’s rights besides what the main character and John present at face value. I think the situation the main character is put in and describes talks more about women’s rights than the novel. I think this mostly because of the last pages of the story. When I first noticed the deeper meaning, I read the part where the author talks about the bulbous eyes. She says the figures look as if they tried to escape but had been caught and choked by the pattern of the wallpaper. Later, the author writes, “I don’t like to look out the windows even-there are so many of those creeping women, and they creep so fast. I wonder if they all came out of the wallpaper as I did?” I think this quote indicates women and their social situation at the time. They are trapped by the social standards that men have put in place, which is reflected in the figures being trapped behind the wallpaper. She goes further into this deeper message by saying, “’I’ve got out at last,’ she said, ‘in spite of you and Jane. And I’ve pulled off most of the paper, so you can’t put me back!’” This quote highlights the authors will toward women to be independent. After escaping the wallpaper, she is free of its grasp and can do what she pleases. I think the author uses this to symbolize women breaking the social norm for women set by men and be freer to do the things they weren’t “meant” to do. At the very end, the author writes, “Now why should that man have fainted? But he did, and right across my path by the wall, so that I had to creep over him every time!” I think this statement urges women, once they have broken free of the social norm, to not be submissive and go back to the way things were.
2/28/14
Torvald and Ivan Ilych have very similar situations because of their social status situation. Torvald’s social situation is based upon the way others view him. It has strong influence from the amount of money he has, his position at the bank, how he is as a friend, the morals he holds, and his position as a husband. Ivan’s social situation is based solely on his occupation. He holds his occupation in very high regards which stems into his position as a friend and as a father. Both men’s social status suffers from an unexpected event. In Torvald’s case, Nora’s borrowing money goes against his moral code and upon finding out, Torvald’s status unravels before his eyes. The situation of another man being able to control him could have led to the destruction of his position at the bank as well as the possible loss of a large sum of money. His friendship could have been threatened and his status as a husband was clearly torn apart as seen in the story. Ivan had a similar breakdown of his social status. When he became sick, his status at his job and his occupation in general slowly began to decay away as Ivan did. Ivan was a terrible husband to begin with but his sickness crept into his marriage and made it worse than what it was. It also caused separation between him and his children. His friends were mostly based on his work which suffered from his sickness as well. As Ivan’s work suffered, he suffered even more which caused his marriage, relationships, and work to suffer even more.
In both situations, each man seemed to have whatever he wanted in his life. As soon as a wrench was introduced into their lives, their social status fell apart and led to their destruction.
2/21/14
The whole time I was reading The Death of Ivan Ilych, I had no clue why I was reading it. The entire thing seemed purposeless until the very end. The final revelation that Ivan had, the epiphany, was the only portion of the story that gave any meaning at all to the rest of the story. Other than that, we should have just read Tuesdays with Morrie. I found these two stories strikingly similar. The Death of Ivan Ilych described Ivan’s descent into death, describing his pain and suffering and the pain and suffering of those around him. It described the unknowing of the doctors as well as the uncaring nature of his so-called friends. The entire story was a walk down a dreary street until a dead end is reached… pun intended. Tuesdays with Morrie follows the same plot line but the book gives the complete opposite feeling to the reader that The Death of Ivan Ilych brings. Tuesdays with Morrie describes Morrie’s descent into death because of a disease that cannot be cured, similar to Ivan. But Morrie’s story is one of inspiration to those around him. Ivan journeys to death with pain, suffering, bitterness, and resentment towards others. Morrie teaches everyone around him that death is an uplifting experience and that much can be learned from it. His story gives an inspirational uplift to the reader throughout the entire book because Morrie changed peoples’ lives with his death. Ivan seemed to drag others down with him as he crawled closer to death. Ivan’s epiphany at the end was the only part of the story that made the story worth anything. On the last page, it describes has a revelation that he has made everyone’s’ lives around him miserably. Before the end, he apologizes for his actions and sees the light. If Ivan would have just died miserably, the story shouldn’t have been written.
Disclaimer: All thoughts expressed in this response are the opinions of the author.
2/7/14
“The World Is Too Much With Us” talked about us wasting our potential in the world/nature. We don’t pay attention to what nature is saying and are not moved by anything she does.
“The Sea View” described different aspects of the sea from the view of a mountain top. It describes the reflection of the sun upon the sea, the
“The Lake”, like we talked about in class, is about a dying woman and how the author is begging the lake to preserve her memory in the rocks, the grottoes, and the forest.
“In the Grass”, like we talked about in class, talks about the seasons and how spring brings forth a forgotten past.
“The Solitary Thrush” describes how the thrush doesn’t associate with anything else in the valley but is still happily content singing on the side. It goes on to say humans are the same but we don’t enjoy, we look back with regret.
“I Tend a Beautiful Plant” talks about how a plant grows in the dark but dies in the light.
The two common threads between all of these poems are nature and humans. Each poem describes a different part of nature, in depth and in all its beauty. The authors then go on to describe how humans pollute the beauty and serenity of nature, not always straight forward though. “The Sea View” says, “The mangled dead and dying victims then pollute the flood.” In “The Solitary Thrush”, the thrush is recognized as happy and filling its purpose but humans are on the earth only to regret and die. I think even “I Tend a Beautiful Plant” has a deeper meaning. If the plant describes humans, we would grow up in the dark and as soon as we are old enough to see the light, we die in it.
1/31/14
Even though I was told what happens in the second part of Faust, I’ll try not to give any spoilers and pretend I don’t know what is going to happen. At the end of part one, I’m pretty sure God has lost the
1/24/14
In my opinion, God isn’t doing a very good
I also think it is odd that Faust and Wagner both saw Mephistopheles as a poodle but only Faust saw the fire trail the dog was leaving behind. I think this highlights Faust as the specific target by Mephistopheles because of the
1/17/14
Walt Whitman seemed like he enjoyed a little
1/10/14
My name is Nicholas Nordmann, and I am an exercise science major here at The Ball. I run almost every day and am the treasurer of the Ball State Runners’ Association. The farthest distance I have ran is a half
When it comes to Frederick Douglass, I believe the most important thing is his rise from slavery to being an abolitionist and avid speaker/writer for anti-slavery. His struggle to learn to read and write was an important building block for what he became later in life. In the prologue to Frederick Douglass’s slave narrative, it talks about how he had begun to learn to read and write from his master’s wife. He was forbidden to be taught later and Frederick then realized the importance of being educated. On p. 521, it says, “Douglass realized that a key to keeping a man a slave was to keep him ignorant, and from this moment he recognized that literacy was a cornerstone of freedom.” He then went on to learn from white boys as he ran errands. I think this first step of education was important to Douglass because it was the first step becoming
202 Responses (Fall 2013)