While reading Jazz the second time, while writing my essay, I began blowing my own mind by thinking of symbolic reasons behind the character of Alice Manfred. Not only is this woman the guardian of Joe’s young (dead) mistress, she’s also a seamstress. And almost every time Violet goes to her house, she fixes up her clothing, (jacket, dress, etc) and then it hit me, she sews and stitches Violet’s marriage back together. I don’t know why I found this point interesting, but I thought it was neat. Also, I want to discuss why Alice would befriend Violet, is it that she pities her, or because she sympathizes her? When reading through Alice’s section its easy to acknowledge the fact that Alice is not that fond of Violet. In fact, she does not actually let Violet into her house until a month after Violet’s first visit. Then after many mornings of tea and chats they seem to have grown close(r) and as a reader you learn that Alice’s husband left her. Originally I thought he died, but he cheated on her and she told him to choose; her or his tightly dressed friend. Well we know who he chose. However, when it comes to Violet and Joe’s relationship, Alice advises her to hold onto it and make it work, which personally I think is bad advice, but from Alice’s perspective it is likely because she doesn’t want to see Violet go through what she has. In conclusion, I think Alice does not pity Violet, instead I think she sympathizes in the sense that she knows what Violet is going through, and deep down she regrets how she handled her own marriage. To fully clarify, I read the affair with Dorcas as pulling and tearing apart a fraying piece of cloth, which signifies Violet and Joe’s marriage. Then, like the ends of Violet’s dress (82) Alice being a seamstress comes in with her friendship and sews the fraying clothes, and the marriage, back together.

Works Cited

Morrison, Toni. Jazz. New York: Vintage Books, 2004. Print.

While reading the Earthquake in Chile I was constantly hoping for the best when it came to Jeronimo and Josefa and the life they planned on having together. However, deep down I knew Kleist was not going to write a fairy-tale styled love story, he was writing a critique of sorts.  During lecture, we talked about how Kleist’s short story was supposedly representing four earthquakes that happened in his time period. By seemingly writing about the earthquake that took place in Chile, he can safely add in his critiques of what was going on around him. Considering Kleist has never been to Chile, and his exaggeration of the damage done by the earthquake in Chile, we can interpret that the title is likely a cover up. In a way, Kleist reminds me of Rousseau by how he writes the events in his story. First, the very pitiful Jeronimo is in jail debating suicide because he got his lover pregnant out of wedlock and she will be facing a death penalty. They are both seen as criminals in their society, therefore Jeronimo feels the need to end his life because he could not live without Josefa. However, then the earthquake happens which is symbolic because it not only breaks apart the city, it causes the societal structure to crumble as well. With the societal structure crumbling, the people forget how they are supposed to behave and Jeronimo and Josefa get to be together happily. It reminds me of Rousseau in the sense that the people have to leave behind society and civilization in order to treat each other with humanity and for them to find peace. Then, they lose their sense of peace once they re-enter the city and go into the church. Overall, it seems like there is a hidden interpretation saying that societies fall apart before realizing how screwed up they are, or until individuals realize how screwed up the societies are. In this story, Don Fernando has to witness and lose a child to the corruptness of his society, before he becomes an individual who can see the bad in their society.

The main part of Darwin’s writing that really stuck with me is how he talked about flowers. This may seem like a very odd thing to say, however, I feel like his piece about flowers and the reproduction of them stuck with me most because it intrigued me. Reading about how Darwin explains, or questions whether or not flowers generally self-fertilize, then bringing the bees into the equation is something he wrote that did not bore me. I cannot fully explain why I am so interested in his theory, or explanation for how inter-crossing and reproduction in flowers work, but that I am. Especially when Darwin said, “So necessary are the visits of the bees to papilionaceous flowers, that I have found, by experiments published elsewhere, that their fertility is greatly diminished if these visits be prevented” (186). I think I found this most interesting because of how Darwin made the bees seem important, by acknowledging how important they are to flower reproduction. Even if he did not mean too, maybe I am looking from a naturalist view, but bees are very important, and the fact that their numbers are declining is sad.

Another part of the flower reproduction that I found fascinating is how flower inter-crossing most likely did not start happening until man came in and started planting different types of flowers near each other. Darwin did say, “…it is well-known that if very closely-allied forms or varieties are planted near each other, it is hardly possible to raise pure seedlings, so largely do they naturally cross” (186), which makes sense because bees are a contributing factor to flower fertilization, and they do not care if the second flower is not a descendant of the first. Also, if I read Darwin correctly, there is the realization that flowers can be of both sexes, but cannot fertilize themselves, in some cases. An example he gave is how he was growing flowers in his garden, and they would not be visited by insects, and so in order to grow more of this particular flower, he had to manually take pollen from one flower and place it upon the stigma of another. Concluding that just like an other species man comes across, we always manage to control or moderate how they survive beside us.

Darwin, Charles. “On the Origin of Species (1859).” Thomas F. Glick, David Kohn. Charles Darwin On Evolution. Inianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, Inc., 1996. Print.

In The Essential Mengzi, I interpreted that Mengzi was a socialist. He believed in order and ruling, but he also believed in giving blame to the rulers, rather than the people. Mengzi said, “They had already done their utmost with the reflection of their hearts, so they went on to use governments that were not unfeeling toward others, and benevolence covered the world” (Mengzi 43). It appeared to be like Mengzi was saying that the people reflect the ruler, if there were problems arising throughout the society, it was possibly because the ruler was not doing their part. If I remember correctly, Mengzi mentioned in the book that if a person in charge cannot lead the people, they should reflect within themselves, rather than reflect upon the people. When Mengzi said, “When ‘gentlemen’ violate righteousness, petty people will flaunt punishments” (Mengzi 43), how can one not think Mengzi was a socialist? He believed in rulers who benefited the community as a whole, which is not a bad thing, but it is definitely different than how other rulers behaved. Mengzi believed human nature came from within, and if a person reflected on their inner good nature, they could transfer it outward. It can be said that he thought human beings were indeed human beings, and he believed in the potential of them. He believed people could be good, if their environment helped them become good, and if they supported their sprouts and helped them grow. Sprouts, are Mengzi’s analogy of human nature, in order for the sprouts to grow strong and healthy, they needed to be nurtured well. In other words, for the people to be good, they have to be raised in a good environment, so they could reach their full potential of being good.  When a person cannot reach their full potential, it is not the person’s fault, but the society in which they are subjected to. A ruler is in charge of the society, therefore the well-being of those in that society should be the ruler’s number one priority, that was what Mengzi believed. Then again, I could be wrong, just my opinion.

Hello, my name is Tiana, I grew up in a small town in central Manitoba, which in other words is in the middle of nowhere. I have never lived anywhere else besides that town for the past seventeen years, then I abruptly moved to Vancouver a month ago, for school.  I graduated a year early from high school, mostly because I was in a vocational school and the only vocational I was interested in, was photography. Therefore, I got ahead in all my academic courses, not because I am a genius or anything, but because there were no other classes I liked taking. I have many siblings, and those many siblings created their own human beings that became my nieces and nephews. In total, I have seven nephews and three nieces.  If I am completely honest I am not good at introducing myself, mostly because I don’t know what I am supposed to say in an introduction.

So, lets just move past this awkward introduction and I will list off things that I do and do not like.

I like;

• Reading books
• Writing
• Listening to music
• Watching movies
• The classes I am in
• Being organized
• Taking pictures
• Looking at the view from the Rose Garden

However;

• I do not enjoy reading the snore fest that is Plato
• I have never been good at writing about myself
• I dislike country music
• I despise the whole genre that are horror movies, (most of their plots are stupid and make no sense)
• I only have three classes because Arts One takes up most of my credits
• I also like to procrastinate
• I need better lenses for my camera, (but they’re sort of expensive and I am on a budget)
• The Rose Gardens are far from my residence

I think that is all I have to say.

See you around,

Tiana.