Recent Changes

Based on a Medieval Gregorian chant, more music to titillate and terrify.
Franz Schubert's "Der Erlkonig" (The Elf King) (1815)
being. Here areis a translation

April 25, 2014
It was very interesting to watch the movie Chocolat and to see the different relationships that occurred throughout the movie. First is the relationship between France and Protee. Throughout the film, it was very noticeable the two had a very strong relationship. France looked up to Protee as more than just a caretaker, but rather as a father. He took care of her much more than her own father and mother for that matter. For this reason, the end scene between the two characters really shocked me and I can only speculate on Protee's reasoning's for causing France to burn her hand. He knew she would trust him and that she would get badly burnt resulting in the end of their relationship. The thing I don't understand is his motives behind that. Did he want to somehow retaliate against his unjust demotion to working outside in the garage? Did he feel this was the only way to break his relationship with France because he was no longer able to work in the house and take care of her? It is interesting to see this relationship because it is not one we see in either Heart of Darkness or Things Fall Apart. There were never any close ties between the two races in either book. Both of them portrayed the unknown of the new and foreign people, where as in the film, the Europeans were already established in these areas. The last scene between Protee and France also makes me question what happened next. There is a certain ambiguity with this because it is never clear if the grown up France is returning to Africa or returning to the house.
April 18, 2014
For my final project I am looking at the different movements of art that we have talked about. My thesis for this project is to prove how art has evolved throughout the different movements, but has essentially maintained the same expression. To do this, I will examine three different pieces from different movements. I will then combine the three images based on techniques, subject matter, style, etc. I will start with an image from phase one, Impressionism. In phase two, I will transform the original impressionist painting into either a surrealist or fauvism inspired painting. I will do this by combining certain elements of both paintings using digital programs like Photoshop. In phase three I will transform the image again with a technique inspired by the modern artist, David Hockney. For my final project there will be one image that has been inspired by three. For the presentation, I plan to show the final combined image, as well some of my process. This would include each of the paintings that I was inspired by as well as the image derived after each phase.

HONORS 203: Honors Humanities 3
Interview with the director of Chocolat
(4/28/2014)
In this interview, Claire Denis talks about Chocolat.
Patterns in Chocolat
(4/27/2014)

Weekly Reflection #5
We didn't get to talk much about Walt Whitman's "Hours Continuing Long," but out of the poems we've read by him, this one I've liked the most. This is also one of the most depressing and emotionally intense poems that we've read during our discussion of Romanticism. All of the adjectives that he uses are so extremely expressive: sore, heavy-hearted, lonesome, discouraged, sullen, suffering, ashamed, torment, distracted, dejected, anguish. You can really feel pain through his words, and can almost imagine him writing this with a completely agonized face, almost over-dramatic but still real. I also think this emphasizes his desire for sexual freedom that we got a glimpse of in "Song of Myself". He not only is focusing on his own desires, but constantly wonders if the man he loves also feels the same way. It would seem only fair that after hours and hours of being tormented by his emotions, that there would be some hope that whoever this man is returns his feelings. Unfortunately, due to the time period that this was written in, I don't think Whitman ever found his answers.
most desperate.
Weekly Reflection #4
I suppose my prediction from last week about the ending of Faust was neither wholly right nor wrong, since Mr. Hartman said there were two different endings to it. In response to the ending to Part 1 that was in our books, I must say I was really disappointed in it. To be honest, I really didn't like Gretchen's character at all, but that was more because of the way Goethe portrayed her. She's not very strong, and is too worried about that other people think of her. In class, when we were discussing the most important scene of that night's reading, I wanted to argue that Gretchen killing the baby was the most important scene. Everything was going (mostly) fine up until that point, and like someone said Valentine probably would have still died, but Gretchen wouldn't have ended up in jail if she hadn't committed the crime. If she hadn't ended up in jail, she would still be damned, and she wouldn't have surrendered her soul to God.

Weekly Reflection #15As#15
As with the
One thing that really bothered me about the ending of TFA was that after the clansmen discover that Okonkwo has hanged himself, they immediately blame the missionaries and the district commissioner. The real reason Okonkwo killed himself was because he had lost faith in his tribe and had felt they had become weak, so actually they themselves were the problem and not the white men. They didn't even realize how much their own tribe had changed, and I think it just proves just how influential the white men were on Umuofia.
The commissioner's title for his book, "The Pacification of the Primitive Tribes of the Lower Niger," really bothers me, but I'm glad that Achebe added that. I suppose my problem with it is that did the missionaries really pacify the tribe? Okonkwo was enraged and ready to fight, but his tribe was not. But now that Okonkwo has killed himself because of the presence of the missionaries and their influence on the clan, this ending leaves us to wonder what will happen to the clan. Will they remain "pacified," or will Okonkwo's death bring them to their senses and they'll attack?
Final Project Proposal: I will be writing an essay that compares the role of changing societal norms/traditions in The Metamorphosis, A Doll's House, and Things Fall Apart.
Danielle, this is an interesting paper topic. I hadn't thought about how each of these texts tracks changes in society, but each could be considered a reaction to or an attempt to understand or respond to changes brought on by modern life. -MH
to Essay #2)I'm#2)
I'm really glad
Because photography is so prevalent in our society today, and it is a really easy form of art for people to create, I feel like I appreciate painting more. In photography, all the "hard work" is done by the mechanisms inside the camera itself. To paint a landscape takes an enormous amount of time, precision, and dedication. To take a photo of a landscape takes less than a second. Sure, it's possible to be precise in photography and wait for the "perfect moment" to take a photograph, but the finished product comes faster in photography, especially in the digital age. I also think it's because of photography that the current trend in modern painting today is hyper-realism, where painters/drawers try to emulate what a photograph of a person would look like rather than just "cop out" and take a picture instead.
Weekly Reflection #12The#12
The last time
Reflecting on the idea of hysteria (or neurosis, as Freud would say) and how it was predominantly diagnosed in women reminded me of the narrator in "The Yellow Wallpaper." Whether the narrator was diagnosed with hysteria, depression, or some other mental ailment, either way I'm sure Freud would have loved to examine her and ask her questions. Although we don't get to see her dreams, Freud might have pointed out that she had an unconscious motivation for hating the yellow wallpaper and eventually tearing it all off. It's also a shame we don't know much about her past or childhood to connect her motivations with some sort of "repressed desire" that is now coming out from the superego (unconscious) to her ego.
Freud also would have been interested in Flora from Bazan's "The Revolver". She "dreamed that an awful report was ripping apart the bones of [her] skull and blowing [her] brains out, dashing them against the wall." Obviously Freud would say that this isn't wish fulfillment, but rather a disguised fulfillment of a repressed wish. One speculation could be that she wants to be free from her marriage, thus her being murdered would be symbolic of freedom even if she's afraid of death. Or, because she imagines feeling a gun barrel at her head, Freud could probably point out some sort of odd sexual desire related to that.
to Spring Break)InBreak)
In our small
This sort of fear is also evident in stories like Disney's Pocahontas, where the settlers who looking for gold see the Native Americans as "savages" and "uncivilized," thus they need to be conquered and, to use Kurtz's word, exterminated. The settlers also have this inflated view of England as their mother country and that everything they're doing is for their British brothers and the Queen. Anything/anybody that opposes that is automatically the enemy and needs to either be corrected or destroyed. I think that this is a really important thing to recognize because in extreme cases, this sense of hometown pride mixed with "new-town" fear is what causes horrible events like genocide to happen.
Weekly Reflection #9Lately#9
Lately in four
Between The Story of an Hour and The Revolver, I'd have to say that I liked The Story of an Hour better, because I think it is slightly more powerful than The Revolver. Of course, The Revolver is more emotional and thrilling, but The Story of an Hour seems slightly more important to me. Mrs. Mallard actually gets a taste of freedom and what her life would be like without the oppression of man, while Flora constantly has this fear of men held over here even after her husband is gone. The fact that Mrs. Mallard dies from her oppression is more powerful to me than Flora living in fear. Mrs. Mallard's death shows the true consequences of living in a man's world - lack of freedom, lack of happiness, and lack of a joyful life. Her death can be symbolic of the death of all women's free spirits under the hand of male dominance. Plus I think that this story calls more women to action because more women can empathize with a marriage like Mrs. Mallard's than the marriage of Flora and Reinaldo (not that relationships like theirs didn't happen). Overall, I think that Chopin's story would have touched more women (and more men) than Bazan's because of the appeal to the average marriage.
Weekly Reflection #8I#8
I thought Rachel
One other thing I thought about as I was leaving class was the similarities and differences between Torvald and Praskovya's characters. Torvald is affectionate but firm, but I would say that he cares more about his public opinion than Praskovya. Praskovya is cold and selfish, and asks Peter about strategies to get the most money from the government from her husband's death. Although both Torvald and Praskovya are self-involved, Torvald's concerns are affiliated with reputations and regard his public image, while Praskovya's concerns are affiliated with greed and regard how much money she can get from her husband and the government. In saying this, I think that Torvald's self-interest is a little more understandable or acceptable, while Praskovya's self-interest is distasteful and unreasonable. I think these both have to do with the fact that Torvald and Nora married for love, and Ivan and Praskovya married for societal norms. I definitely think Torvald is the better spouse in this case, because he at least makes an effort to change for his wife, while Praskovya expected Ivan to change his behaviors for her own benefit. In saying this, I think that Ivan and Praskovya definitely should have separated well before Ivan's death, but I'm not so sure that Nora should have given up so easily on Torvald. However, if she hadn't left, this story wouldn't have nearly the same impact that it currently does.
(Week 6 skipped)Iskipped)
I am very
Obviously I've already done a lot of analysis on The Death of Ivan Ilych since Maddie and I did our presentation today, but there were a few other things I wanted to address. When we were talking on Wednesday about what was the most important part of those first 4 chapters, I said that it was the moment right after Ivan hurts himself. He said that he had felt 15 years younger after hurting himself, and then right after that is when everything went downhill and his health deteriorated. I took this to sort of be symbolic of life itself. When we are children, we are full of energy, have the capacity to bounce back from injury quickly, and feel unstoppable. As we get older, we get tired, our muscles get weaker, and we become more susceptible to illness. Ivan's deterioration is very apparent, as he agonizes for weeks and never feeling as good as he did on the day he injured himself. I wonder if this is how Tolstoy felt about life - that we're only meant to feel great for the first part of our lives and then the rest of our lives is just pure suffering and longing to feel better again.
I also feel that we didn't talk about Praskovya enough. In today's terms, she'd definitely be labeled as a "gold-digger." She only marries Ivan for his status, and as soon as she becomes pregnant becomes this heartless woman who just wants Ivan to die so she can take his money. She and Lisa are also the only female characters in this entire novel, which makes me wonder why Tolstoy did that. Was it just because he is not a woman, thus he didn't know what their outlook on life was? Or was it because women were undervalued in the bourgeois society? These two women are aggravated at the inconvenience that Ivan's illness causes them, and are the most vocal about it. Although Ivan's funeral inconveniences Peter, he never complains. I think it is a very real possibility that when Lisa marries her fiancé, she will become just like her mother and will be just as annoyed with him as Praskovya was towards Ivan.
Weekly Reflection #5We#5
We didn't get
Reading "Hours Continuing Long" also ties in to the song Mr. Hartman played to us at the beginning of class; the one sung by Gretchen at her spinning wheel. I would imagine that if Whitman would've sung his poem, that it would've sound very similar to the melancholy expressiveness we heard in Gretchen's voice while she was longing for Faust. In the reading, Gretchen too uses sad, emotional language, using phrases like: "my heart is sore, I'll find it never and never more", "my bosom aches to feel him near", and "my poor head is quite distraught". It would appear that these feelings stem from some sort of feeling of love, as opposed to some other feeling like hate, anger, or confusion. Perhaps these works are commenting on the power of love over our emotions, as it is strong enough to make us feel both our happiest and our most desperate.
Weekly Reflection #4I#4
I suppose my
It could be argued that Goethe includes this event in his story as a criticism of Christianity. The fact that Gretchen finds the faults in her actions and surrenders to God is important because, as a Romantic piece, Gretchen accepts the conventional attitudes towards religion instead of rejects them. The conventional attitude of this time period was that if you sinned, but repented, that your soul would be saved. Conflicts between religion and personal beliefs can drive people insane (and Faust isn't exempt from this), but it is only in Gretchen's deluded mental state that she finally reaches out to God and her faith for help. While she was mentally sound, it doesn't appear that she gave much thought to having premarital sex or to the decision to kill her baby, especially when both things are against both religious expectations and society's expectations. I suppose this is probably why I don't like Gretchen's character most, just because she went about things carelessly.
Weekly Reflection #3To#3
To be honest,
That aside, I too noticed the similarity between this story and the story of Job from Honors 201. It would appear that God has just as much faith in his followers as his followers have in him. In comparing Job and Faust, they appear to be at polar opposites in their lives when the Devil approaches them. Job has a great life: he has a large family, lots of money, good farmland and livestock, and is very happy. Faust, on the other hand, is in despair about the state of his life, and laments that he cannot live his life in harmony with Nature and have knowledge beyond what he already knows. At the end of Job's trials, he is still faithful to God and does not dare speak ill against him. Obviously, I haven't reached the end of Faust yet, so I cannot know what will happen when the Devil is done with Faust. However, I predict that it will be a similar outcome in that God's prediction about Faust's actions will be correct. If this is true, then I would consider this work as another example of the strength of Christianity and good winning over evil.
Today in class, I noticed a similarity between Faust and Walt Whitman's "Song of Myself." Both Faust and Whitman wonder out loud what it would be like not to be human and to be more in tune to nature. Unlike Faust, Whitman seems to have come up with his own answers about life, and his revelations bring him both happiness and peace. I wonder that if Faust and Whitman could have a conversation, if Whitman's views of life, nature, and the world could bring Faust the peace of mind that he desperately searches for in his own thoughts.
Weekly Reflection #2Today#2
Today in America,
In class today, I brought up the idea that "...free thought...will bring them face to face with such marvels and insoluble mysteries that some of them...will destroy themselves" (978). The GI believes that if someone tells the public what to think and what to believe, that will make them happier than allowing them to make choices for themselves. When reading this, I thought back to Douglass's story about how his master didn't want him to become literate because "it could do him no good, but a great deal of harm. It would make him discontented and unhappy" (528). Obviously free thought and being literate are two different things, but the results of these freedoms as declared by the "higher power" both include that this kind of permission would be detrimental to the recipients.
When does anyone have the right to make choices for others? When we are children, our parents and guardians make a great deal of decisions for us: what to eat, what to wear, and where we go. It is because we are too uneducated to make choices for ourselves, and still new to life, that we rely on trusted guardians to make the right ones for us. As we get older and start going to school, we gain more independence to make small choices for ourselves every day: whether we want green beans or carrots for lunch, how to tie our shoes, whether or not this shirt goes with those pants, etc. Even later in life we make larger decisions about what to learn, what career path we want, and how to handle personal relationships. We become capable to understand, implement, and enjoy the basic freedoms to choose how we live our lives each day. Because of this, I believe that Douglass, Jacobs, and the followers of Jesus were all knowledgeable and capable enough to make decisions for themselves, and that their masters/oppressors were wrong. Knowledge does not confine and restrict our freedom, but rather it sets us free.

HONORS 203: Honors Humanities 3
Patterns in Chocolat
(4/27/2014)
Chocolat: Parallels from Matthew Hartman
Optional Revision Requirements
(4/23/2014)

(4/25/14) Response #13 (Unit: Postcolonial Reconsiderations)
"The Role of Ambiguity in Chocolat"
Our screening of Chocolat allowed us to look at colonialism from another perspective. I like the idea of viewing this issue through the eyes of a family. Even though Aimee, France, and her father are all foreign to Africa, their experiences can help us understand this complex issue. I believe that the ambiguity of the film was intentional. France went back to Africa to see her home again and, perhaps, to make sense of her childhood experiences. Just like she was trying to figure out the significance of what she saw and went through, the audience had to sit through a film that raises more questions than answers. The modern perspective of colonialism is that it was negative, but that does not take into consideration the intentions of everyone caught up in it.
Chocolat seemed very realistic to me. In real life, sometimes things happen that have no reason or are unexplained for whatever reason. Life does not come with a script or symbols or clear cut metaphors and interpretations. We can debate over what Protee's intentions were for burning his hand and leading France to do the same. We can try to figure out Luc's erratic behavior and attribute it to his past or intentions. We can try to figure out if Protee and Aimee ever did consummate their pseudo-affair. Just as in real life, we may never know definite answers to these questions and debates. We are not always afforded the luxury of knowledge. I think that Claire Denis pulled that off really well. She was able to make a film that depicted events without offering any kind of concrete commentary. Perhaps the point of Chocolat is that colonialism should be discussed as something that affects individuals. The film did not really talk about colonialism as an issue. We looked at how it came into play in the microcosm of the Dalens household.
(4/18/14) Response #12 (Unit: An African Response to Colonialism)
"Anxieties About Masculinity in Things Fall Apart"

Weekly Response #13
*Correction - This is Weekly Response #15.