Good Man Is Hard to Find

This is a short story written by Flannery O’connor, when I read this story I had a hard time trying to find the meaning to it as a whole. The main character of the story is the grandmother who has a lot of premonitions since she doesn’t  want to go to Florida but instead Tennessee because there is a killer on the loose, she mentions to her son Bailey that if she was him she would not take her children to where the killer is because “she couldn’t answer to her conscious”. This is Ironic since is she who takes them to a back road, it’s her cat who scares the driver (son) and she is the one that recognizes the killer which really ends and chance of him letting them go. This character the grandmother nags a lot she wants things done her way and complains when they are not. In a way she has a very childlike personality and in Irony the children John Wesley and June Star, are very adult like. The killer is an interesting character especially the fact that he does not remember the fact that he committed crimes. In a way it represents our difficulty in accepting when we do bad things he is very much ambiguous to his badness and crimes.  He is not in denial because he does accept committing the crimes he says “It wasn’t a mistake. They had the papers on me”; so he accepts what he did he just can’t recall it. In the story the son and his wife have a very dark quiet position, they hardly speak but you sense their hatred towards the grandmother or maybe it’s just a reflection of the reader’s dislike of the grandmother. (I really didn’t like the character) At the end of the story the killer kills the whole family but the last one he kills is the grandmother, here you have a lot of religious reference, and you also have background of the killer he mentions he used to be a gospel singer but ended up a killer, the story in a way is saying that any of us can be the killer because we can all become bad, the is a point in the story where the grandmother says “you can be my son” so he is anybody really but with the difference that he has become bad. I think writer does a really good job with the characters but with the plot there is not much.

Paris is Burning by Bell Hooks

When I first saw the movie in which this paper is written on, I had a deep sense of melancholy. Maybe because I had heard that the film was about African American drag queen in the states, and the idea of what I thought the film was like was really different to what t film was really like. I think  two main things that the film brings out is the difference in race and the difference in class. The article brings out that the film shows “the way in which colonized black (in this case black gay brothers, some of whom were drag queens) worshiped at the throne of whiteness, even when such worship demands that we live in perpetual self-hate, steal, lie, go hungry, and even die in its pursuit.” (149) you can see this clearly in the film were people are constantly talking about money and how money would help them change not just their situation but also their body. The most dramatic example is when they mentioned that one of the girls interviewed Venus was killed. The article talks about how this moment is minimized and just stated there really is no time to mourn in the video, and that is what makes it sadder because in real life many of the people in this situation are killed and society really just overlooks it. I think the film tries to bring out a sense of community in the video when they do the “balls”, but really it’s just a way to castaway these people from the main stream society, it’s as if they were living in a fake version of what is real. In the article Hooks says clearly that he did not like thefilm in any way, but what I did find positive is that the film does a good job of showing the hopes and dreams these people have and how most don’t fulfill them but instead are always stuck in the world depicted in the film, you can especially see this when referring to the older drag queens who in a way have lost hope. In general in the end of the film as an observer you really don’t feel closure, there is something missing there is no resolution no prospect for the future and I really think this is what gives the movie such a sense of sadness and hopelessness.

When reading “Culture is Ordinary” what stood out to me was this notion that through education one can change the class which one is born with. Here we see a clear example of a person who comes from a working class and has become an academic, even though he is a living example that changing class is possible with education Williams main argument is that everyone is capable of becoming an academic if they want to thus university and grammar school should be more accessible to all. He critics people in the “ tea shop” where intellects come to converse, he believes that anyone can do this anyone can be a intellect, that his family and friends that come from the working class have the same capabilities as these intellects they just need the opportunity to learn.  He talks about the idea of culture has two different meanings “to mean a whole way of life – the common meaning; to mean the arts and learning – the special process of discovery and creative effort” (4) he mentions that he believes “on the significance of their conjunction” (4) of having both meanings at the same time. He also constantly insist  that “culture is ordinary” (4) This is important because the idea that there is a low culture an everyday mundane culture which is less important compared to the elite high  class  culture of art and learning. Yet he argues that they are equally important and I agree because it is this every day culture that really defines us as a society this is the culture that produces change that is why at the end of his paper he Williams mentions “Who then believes in democracy? The answer is quite simple: the millions in England who still haven’t got it, where they work and feel. There, as always, is the transforming energy” (18). In general I agree with his paper and his idea that everyone equally has the capability of becoming a intellect if the opportunity is given to them.

In the text “The Work of Art in the Age of Its technological Reproducible   I found interesting  the idea that original works of art have “aura” something that is lost when it’s reproduced. I believe this idea is true you feel a sort of respect for things that are original especially if they are older. I remember when I went to see a Da vinci exhibit of his sketches and writing, you feel a connection to the things because its original in a way you feel a connection to the person who made them. One aspect that I would have to contradict is that I don’t believe “aura” is the right word, a “aura” is something always present is part of the object and I really believe that this emotion or connection we feel with original works is an abstract concept made by us. Would we feel this way if we were shown an original but not know it, or shown a copy but telling us it’s an original. I think this “aura” is man-made so I believe the name is not appropriate, this is an aspect that as observers we bring to the art object, not something that the art object transmits to us.

This is the first time I have read this story; I think its aim is to examine our own justice system. In the story The Traveler starts his journey of examining the machine and the process of execution with a sense of apathy and disinterest unlike the officer who talked about it as if it were man’s greatest creation. The story mentions that “The Traveler had little interest in the apparatus and walked back and forth behind the Condemned Man, almost visible indifferent” (3) I think this is very fitting because most people in our society don’t take interest in our justice system and how to improve it, in a way they are apathetic to it unless it involves a personal matter. The Traveler only starts to take interest when he learns that the Condemned man is sentenced to death and that he does not even know it. One aspect that really stood out to me in the story is the lack of power in the part of the New Commandant, he is in charge of the penal colony but at the same time he has not been able to change this justice system. He has only been able to alter it a little but has not been able to stop it, he uses his monetary power to limit the use of the machine but that is his extent of power. I think this really shows the difficulty of changing a justice system. In a way we are so accustomed to what we consider normal and just that it is hard to change and that is why like in the story we need an outside person to point put the flaws in our system.  For example in the story the condemned man has no chance to expose his point of view and defend himself, he is guilty and automatically sentenced, when the Traveler learns of this he is surprised, but the officer does not give much chance to dialog on this because he is more concern with the machine than with the method of justice. I think that with our justice system it is important to analyse it from an outside perspective because being part of this justice system makes it hard criticize and change. There is a part in the story where the officer mentions that “The Commandant, in his wisdom, arranged that the children should be taken care before all the rest” so that they could see the execution up close, in a way we have all been these kids who have grown up in a set justice system and we are not encouraged to change or examine it. Last year I took a class of human rights and I was embarrassed to admit it was the first time I had read in whole the charter of rights of Canada, I think this really shows our apathy as s a society. I think this short story covers a lot of aspects about society and there is much depth in analyze it.

Lacan

Hi everyone I know this is late but here my reading on Freud!

When I first saw that we had to read Freud I thought that it was Ironic that after 4 years of psychology I never really read something written by Freud. As I started to read I had a hard removing myself from the negative view of Freud that comes from psychology. I thought it was funny that is psyc. You always joke that Freud was high on cocaine when he came up with so many theories, and in the text he talks about his contribution to the study of cocaine and its pain numbing properties.  In general what stood out to me the most from his dream interpretation is the idea of condensation. He believes that there is a big difference from the “manifest content” of a dream and the “dream thought” and this difference is due to condensation. I believe this idea is interesting in literature because there is a big difference in what we read and what the author is trying to say. For example in the story we read in class MAUPASSANT, you  might just see it as simple story but as you look into the context and the background of the writer you do move into deeper and more profound interpretation. I do think though that Freud takes it to far, the problem with this is that you will start to make connections that are not really there. When Freud talks about the woman who dreams with beetles and concludes that it all has to do with her sexual desires towards her husband he leaves out the part of the daughter who use to kill beetles when she was little. So he really only looks at what supports his own theses and ignores all the rest. This can also happen to us when reading we might just look for an interpretation we like but not necessarily what the author is trying to interpret.

In conclusion I think that we should not have such a negative view of Fred because he was a thinker and his ideas have helped many fields come up with legitimate theories especially in psychology.

In reading Ronald Barthes I really found interesting his theories on toys.  I believe that as he is explaining and describing his theories on toys, he is really describing his view on children; he mentions that: “Frenchman sees the child as another self”(53). He talks about toy being only being “microcosm of the real word”, he mentions that French toys always mean something it is always depicting something of real life for example medicine and the army. It is a way to prepare the child for real life. It is preparing the child for role it should carry out. He mention “There exist, for instance a doll s which urinate…This is meant to prepare the little girl the casualty of house-keeping, to condition her future role as a mother”(53). This reminds me of what my professor in infant psychology class mentioned that “the job of a child is to play”; so even though we as adults see it as just recreation; a child is learning about real life and his role and social behaviour. Does this mean that all girls who played with dolls should become mother? No, I think that as a child we experiment with all kinds of different roles, and this does not limit what we are going to become. He also brings out a very important point which is that children are no longer creators of game but instead just owners or users, so in a way toys are limiting. But children do like to imitate and this is a way of learning. I remember seeing a picture in a psychology book where a 3 year old boy has put a ball under his shirt and have he mentions he wants to have babies when he grows up and you can see mother in the background and she is pregnant. So my question is how much can you blame toys for limiting children creativity and how much is their own predisposition not to create but imitate?

In the end I find it interesting that he compares bourgeois toys with wooden toys. He calls bourgeois toys the product of chemistry graceless material, compared to the wooden toys that have a natural touch and not a cold metal feel. I think the reason to include this is to highlight the way toys have changed and involved and how the newer toys are more impersonal. In conclusion I think the importance of talking about toys is that they influence our view of children and also t children themselves. And in way children toys can depict society’s view on children.

Art as a Technique by viktor Shklovsky

Shklovsky brings out that there comes a point were perceptions become habitual thus becoming unconsciously automatic. Here he refers to things we do in everyday life and that are repetitive. He gives the example of holding a pen where we no longer have to cognitively think on how to do it, we just unconsciously do, this act of holding a pen now is very different to the first time we try to hold a pen, which we do at a very early age so we might not remember but it does remind me of the first time I tried using a chop stick and once you get enough practice it becomes natural to you. He also brings out that that these types of acts are done unconscious. And if an act is doen uncouncsiously and we can’t remember doing it, then really there is not act and this extends to life he says: “If the whole complex lives of many people go unconsciously, then such lives are as if they have never been” (16). Shklovsky explains that the technique of art is, the process of making objects different and difficult; and there is a connection; the more different the more difficult and object is, the more time you will spend perceiving it. He gives the example of Tolstoy and the idea of flogging. The example I found most appealing was Kholstomer story telling from the perception of a horse. Shklovsky later mentions that “a work is created “artistically” so that its perception is impeded and the greatest possible effect is produced through the slowness of the perception (19) and that is why poetic language/ speech is a formed speech that is roughened and difficult. Here is where I really think that art is more than just causing a person to ponder in its perception, I think that the idea that art is something out of the ordinary unconscious life is true, there has to be a distinction between every day mundane things and art. But in everyday life we do spend more perceptive time in things that don’t involve art. I think that the definition of art has to be concise and selective if not almost everything could go under the term art.

When reading this essay I had a really hard time understanding it as a whole, but instead I think there are various ideas that are very important and thought-provoking. First there is an attempt to define language, I found it very interesting that he mentions: “We are talking language not as a system of abstract grammatical categories but rather language conceived as ideologically saturated, language as a world view, even as a concrete opinion”( 271). This definition is accurate because of the cultural weight you find in language. As time passes words and phrases obtain different meanings because they are connected to certain events and cultural phenomena’s. That is why I believe language is always changing and evolving, and why even though there are attempts to define language in terms of grammatical laws, this is impossible, since these are also affected by their environment.  In the essay Bakhtin brings out time and again the idea of heteroglossia which is defined as “The coexistence of district varieties with in a single language” That is having a variety of difference in one single language, Bakhtin mentions that in a moment in time “each generation at each social level has its own language, moreover every age group has a matter of fact its own language, its own vocabulary, its own particular accentual system”(290) So we can see how diverse a language can be.

Bakhtin later incorporates this heteroglossia into writing a novel and he talks about the “double voice” which he defines as two speakers at the same time and expresses simultaneously two different intentions”( 324). Here the double voice is that of the character in a novel and what the author is saying.

Bakhtin also compares and contrast scientific discourse with discourse in humanities he mentions that in science discourse is just a “operational necessity, and does not affect the subject matter itself of the science…Acquiring knowledge here is not connected with receiving and interpreting words”( 351). He compares this scientific discourse to humanities where you need to transmit and interpret words, there is work involved where you need to reach deeply to understand and interpret the real meaning of the word.

Reading this essay really makes me think about the importance of language outside of just communicating. Language helps us in almost every cognitive function; for instance  without language we have no memories and without memory we have no essence as a person.

hello my name is Esmeralda Robles and I am testing out my new blog 🙂