Expressive Language

Baraka included many definitions of words like speech, context, social, culture to highlight his main message I believe he is trying to convey: “…it is the users that establish the world’s realities.” 

What does this mean?

This means that each word has a different meaning to every individual. Each individual has a different perception of his/her surroundings and society. Therefore, the sound, the rhythm, the syntax, the tone, the context - all these casualties in one word can have a million different meanings. For example, if someone says “I like, I like….”. This simple statement can be interpreted in many different ways. 

Someone’s reaction could be:

HOLY COW. HE’S GONNA SAY IT! HE’S GONNA SAY HE LIKES ME!!!!!! OMG YAY!!!!!!!!

Someone else’s reaction could be:

Oh no!! How do I tell him I don’t like him in THAT way?

Someone else’s reaction could be:

Ohmygodthisistoogoodtobetrue (and then proceeds to jump off a cliff)

Alright, I’m stretching that last reaction a bit. Anyway, you get my point – every person interprets statements differently and thus their emotions vary. The power of the word “like” is so dominant in this statement and the situation that people are in impacts their reaction. CONTEXT. These responses are based in a situation where a boy is confiding his feelings to a girl. The environment and social status of a person also impacts a certain response. Perhaps the person who said “I like you” is a wealthy brat and you are in the same college on a scholarship barely scraping enough money to live in your one bedroom apartment. Your reaction could depend on your social status and hence one’s response could be “I’m not good enough for him”. Or what if the person who said “I like you” is not the best looking guy and you’re the prettiest girl in school and feel you deserve better. 

This example I used is mainly to portray the power of words, especially in poetry. As I mentioned last class, each poem is unique to everyone because everyone has a different perception. The rhythm of words, the pronunciation of each word, the tone of each word, the syntax – these can significantly contribute to the meaning of the entire poem. Furthermore, the environment you are in, your culture, your social background – these all contribute to the way you interpret and respond to it. If everyone were to have a common perception on everything in life, life would be dull. We would all react in the same way to every little thing and in a way we would be like robots - all controlled by a common perception.

Blog Portfolio 3

Welcome back to Monique’s brilliant blog! The following blogs attached all vary from each other and I took immense pleasure in writing every single piece. My blogs cover different concepts that can be observed in the three novels: “Hunger”, “The Metamorphosis” and “The Stranger”. Below each link will be a paragraph explaining the general picture of what that link contains. Please read the paragraph before visiting the blog. Enjoy!

Coverage:

Existentialism is a Humanism

This blog discusses my response to Kaufman’s article, “Existentialism is a Humanism” and I share my opinions either in alliance to or in opposition against the main principles he argues about, his main principle being “existence comes before the essence.” I link and give some examples of his principles to my life, celebrities, movies and the deliberations of 2012 which I think support his principles very well.

BBC News: Distraction Society

The article written by the BBC News regarding the “Distraction Society” deliberates the power of technology and the mind. Technology distractions such as Facebook are discussed and the distractions from the mind are shared in connection to the novel “Hunger.”

A Hunger Artist, Franz Kafka

This blog discusses the document “The Hunger Artist” and the similarities he has with the protagonist in “Hunger”. Similarities like pride and anger are clearly noted and supported with quotes from both the book and the document.

The Pencil

This blog is a piece written about a pencil from the perspective of the protagonist of “Hunger”. The piece focuses on the way the protagonist perceives things and the threshold his imagination can reach with a simple object like a pencil.

Knut Hamsun's Christian Perversions

In the blog titled “Knut Hamsun’s Christian Perversions”, the resemblances of Hamsun’s himself and the protagonist of “Hunger” are pondered over and how Hamsun’s lifestyle and beliefs could be grasped through this.

Hunger Mindmap

This mindmap focuses on three major parts of “Hunger”: Existentialism, Literary Techniques and Christianity. Quotes from the book itself as well as other sources are used to support the ideas that are stated.

The relationship between Gregor and his Father

This blog really showed how I felt about the relationship between Gregor and his father in “The Metamorphosis” which I continuously said was “disgusting” and why I felt this way.

Formal Paragraph (The Metamorphosis)

This blog discusses Gregor’s change in character after his transformation. First, this idea is expressed in a formal paragraph in my own style, then the reviewed version is how the same idea was expressed using the VIP format.

Kafkaesque

This blog deliberates about the term “Kafkaesque” after watching the film “Kafka”. Absurdity and irony are the two main elements that are discussed and references from secondary sources and the film itself are used to support this.

The Stranger Mindmap

This mindmap is a plan of how I would structure an essay about a theme from “The Stranger”. I first brainstormed ideas then settled on one: Irrationality vs.  Rationality which is what my mindmap shows. Many different thesis’s and topic sentences are displayed here.

What is Life? (Wildcard)

This blog is my wildcard which I decided to talk about Life, what it is and what it contains.

Depth

Kafkaesque

This blog discusses what the term “Kafkaesque” could mean after watching the film “Kafka”. The two main aspects I cover are absurdity and irony. I use references to the book series “Harry Potter” and connect and compare the monsters from ‘The Castle’ to slaves in the 20^th century. I also use David Wallace’s article, “Laughing with Kafka” to describe Kafka’s humour that is portrayed in the film. Examples from the film are used to show the irony aspect of it. 

Interaction

Javeria's blog (Kafkaesque)

This is a link to Javiera’s blog titled “Kafkaesque” in which I mentioned that Asim’s blog could help develop one piece of her blog which she did not go into such depth in.  This became a discussion and we both included parts of Asim’s blog that we liked and agreed on.

Discussion

Pooja's blog (His Happy Makes Me Sad)

This is a link to Pooja’s blog titled “His Happy Makes Me Sad”. Pooja, Saumya and I were all involved in this discussion. We mainly deliberated on Gregor’s true character. Pooja believed that he was a weak character overall because of his denial to face the real truth. I too believed that Gregor was a weak and cowardly character to allow his family to manipulate him, however, I thought that Gregor had such great strength and willpower to synthesize his happiness and make himself believe that his parents truly love and appreciate him. Saumya too jumped into this discussion!

Xenoblogging

Adrienne's blog (My Approach to Writing an Essay)

The Comment Primo: This is a link to Adrienne’s blog in which I found her plan of structuring an essay outstanding! I know that next time I need to write an essay, I will plan it by following her steps because she organized it organized very well! 

Wildcard

What is Life?

This is a link to my wildcard in which I decided to talk about What is Life? I discuss the emotions one can feel and how I learnt to appreciate and love life. 

What is Life? (Wildcard)

If we tried to understand what life is, it would be like trying to lick your elbow, and let’s face it, no one can do that. Life can be interpreted in many different ways. In biology, life would be defined as a living thing that moves, reproduces, grows and develops, gets rid of waste, takes in energy, responds to the environment and evolves.  To me, life is like a Snakes and Ladders game which we have to play to be happy, to be sad but most importantly to live.

The most joyful thing about life is the feeling of happiness. To be happy is a most wonderful experience. Every muscle of your body is aching with movement and your heart cannot stop thundering against your body. The smile across your face is stretched so wide that you feel your jaw might break and you’re laughing so much you feel you might explode. I always want to be happy because of how it makes me feel. It makes me feel ecstatic, ridiculous and crazy! At times I synthesize happiness which evolves into natural happiness. I call this “living the moment”.

Recently, I have chosen to live the moment and let all the chips fall into place. Worrying, stressing, being sad, these are all the obstacles of life. It is a part of life, and we have to be careful when we step onto that ladder because any emotion can cause the rung to give way and let us tumble to the floor. I believe that that is the whole game of life: To play with our emotions, to live these emotions and to try and accept them.

When we feel sad, we want to be happy and thus when happiness comes again, we appreciate it much more. Appreciation is something that God wants us to learn in the game of life. We must learn to appreciate everything we have and get to our advantage. I learnt this lesson when I was 10 and I travelled to a part in India with a religious group who was devoted to a Saint called Satya Sai Baba. It was living and learning without my family that made me see how privileged I was, how lucky I was, and how sick this game of life can be to others. This journey I took changed me, it made me happy with who I was, it made me appreciate more, it made me feel more – it made me a better person and this journey was a definite 6 on one roll of a die.

Moving to India and looking at the weak condition of around 70% of the population made me feel everything triple because this was my country and I could do nothing about it. Charities, working with slum kids, all these events help but they are not good enough to CHANGE it altogether. This made me realize that really I cannot change anything, the only thing I can change is myself and the only thing I can carry up the ladder is myself. That is the sad part of life. For many, “living the moment” is not good enough to make one happy because many do not get that moment. This is why we should appreciate everything we get; every single little act of kindness is worth a million dollars to every slum kid in Delhi.

Mindmap Plan

"Kafkaesque"

I believe that “Kafkaesque” is a term that does not simply relate to Franz Kafka or his works but also discusses the absurdity and irony of his overall ideas. It is the exaggeration of these elements that allows the audience/reader to have a strong opinion about Kafka’s work hence creating the term “Kafkaesque”.

The absurdity of Kafka’s ideas can be observed in his book The Metamorphosis and in the film Kafka. The Metamorphosis revolves around a character called Gregor who one day wakes up as a cockroach. This whole idea and transformation is simply absurd. Waking up to find yourself transformed as a cockroach is a situation that I can safely say will not happen in this world. 

There are many absurd ideas that can be noted in the film Kafka. Firstly, “The Castle” is a term that citizens in Prague fear to utter because of the frightening rumors they have heard of what happens in there. This somehow reminds me of a fiction book series called Harry Potter, in which many wizards were afraid to utter the name “Voldemort” because they were frightened of the things he could do. Sadly, Hogwarts does not exist, and in the modern world, there is no such building like “The Castle” that people fear to approach or say. Again, this whole idea is absurd. 

Secondly, the monsters that appeared in Kafka can be described as human robots with animalistic behavior. I can think of human robots in my world, slaves could be described as human robots. Slavery has been abolished today but it used to exist sometime during the 20^th century. According to Dictionary.com, a slave is “a person who is the property of and wholly subject to another; a bond servant.” A slave does not have an opinion and is completely controlled by their owner, which is similar to the literal meaning of a “human robot”. However, the human robots illustrated in Kafka portray violent personalities and very animalistic features. The way they run, their attack on humans and their inability to communicate are elements that differ strongly from slaves. These monsters are clearly non-existent in today’s world and such a creation is absurd. 

In addition, I find Kafka’s characters to be absurd which is what makes them humorous thus creating Kafka’s unique humor. In Laughing with Kafka, Wallace says that Kafka’s characters are “never just hollow buffoons to be ridiculed, but are always absurd and scary and sad all at once…” (2) For example, some people laughed when the monster was attacking a human. It was so absurd that is caused the audience to laugh in disbelief but it also created panic within the audience. This is exactly the reaction that Kafka wants to create. His humor is crueler and more sinister than the usual humor. 

Lastly, when Kafka enters “The Castle”, the film shows him entering through a filing drawer. In this film, the filing drawer is a secret door. Of course, secret doors and passages could be possible in today’s world but entering a castle through a drawer? This whole idea is absurd. This also introduces the discernment between the real and surreal which will be discussed in the next paragraph.

When Kafka enters “The Castle”, the colors of the world changed and it went from a black and white screen to a color screen. This raised the question of whether the black and white world; the life outside of the castle was the past or the future? The real world was shown through the black and white representation and the surreal world was in “The Castle” in color. Could Franz Kafka be stating a message here? He could be stating that we must be prepared for the future. He could also be stating that no matter what, we cannot control the many diverse things that may happen in the future possible represent through color.  

There is also irony that can be displayed in Kafka. Three examples can be seen in the film:

1)      1) When Kafka’s boss says that he must conform and in the end, Kafka unconsciously does. This can be noticed when he shows up to work early and when he tells the detective that is was a suicide when he knows that it was not. This is the same answer he gave to the detective in the beginning but the difference is he believed it, whereas, now he knows the truth.

2)      2) The truth is absurd and no one would ever believe him. He realizes he cannot stop or deny what is happening in the society.

3)      3) He tries to reconnect with his father towards the end – another sign of his conformation. 

Overall, Kafka’s irony and absurdity combines to create the term “Kafkaesque”.

Formal paragraph of a passage from The Metamorphosis

This passage is acquired from “The Metamorphosis” and written in the protagonist, Gregor’s perspective. The overall message portrayed his new character which was assertive and determined; lacking of his usual cowardly self: 

“Her intentions were clear enough to Gregor, she wanted to get her mother to safety and then drive him down the wall. Well, just let her try it!” (87)

In Part I, Gregor appreciated the kindness that Grete showed him, however, here he dismisses it and regards it as something she is doing for her advantage rather than his. He contradicts himself when he says she spoke in a “trembling and unconvincing tone” and then jumps to the conclusion that she is acting in a cruel manner by moving all his belongings out of the room. His use of exclamation and short sentence structure towards the end of the passage and demonstrated in the above quote shows his determination and desperation in keeping his favorite painting. His use of long sentences earlier portrays his growing resentment towards his sister as he bores the reader on about all the furniture that his sister is moving.

Reviewed version

Gregor’s character significantly changes after his transformation to a cockroach in which a more confident and assertive character is displayed. This is portrayed through his attitude towards his sister and possessive behavior over the picture: 

“Her intentions were clear enough to Gregor, she wanted to get her mother to safety and then drive him down the wall. Well, just let her try it!” (87)

Gregor immediately arrives at the conclusion that his sister, Grete, is only shifting his furniture for her benefit. With this instant thought, Gregor is perceived to be selfish and stubborn, traits that were invisible when he was a human. This leads readers to believe that this transformation has affected him in a positive and negative manner. In the positive aspect, he has removed his tragic flaw: cowardice. On the other hand, overconfidence could become his new tragic flaw and could lead to his own destruction. His use of exclamation shows his determination and desperation to keep the picture as well as his new persona that ignores the “trembling and unconvincing” tone she speaks in. Moreover, his quick change in character shows readers how easy it was to forget his old relationship and accept this new one. His previous relationship with his sister was strong and full of love and kindness, here, his new character breaks the solid bond they once had. His new persona eliminates any kindness and love he once felt for his sister and also removes his cowardice that his family cunningly manipulated to their advantage. The transformation allowed him to develop a more independent character that enabled him to view the true colors of his sister.

The relationship between a father and son (Part 1)

The relationship that Gregor and his father have is disgusting. To me, Gregor perceives to be a coward. He is easily manipulated by his family members especially his father which I will discuss later on. In part 1, we can assume little about Gregor’s previous lifestyle before he transformed into a cockroach. He was respected by his father because Gregor was the member providing income for the family. He was happy making his family happy although the cost of it was suffering through a job he did not enjoy to pay off his father’s debts. Gregor’s father was defeated; he had no job and hence his position in the family did not seem as important as Gregor’s. 

When Gregor transformed into a cockroach, this violent person emerged from within the father and struck out against his own son. The physical condition that Gregor had become motivated his father to get back onto his feet and work. It enabled him to be in control again and to manipulate Gregor more than ever before since Gregor’s appearance frightened everybody. 

 Gregor acted cowardly before and after he was a cockroach. His cowardice is a tragic flaw. His father was able to control and guilt him into believing that he chose to be a travelling salesman when in fact he hadn’t: “Oh God, he thought, what an exhausting job I’ve picked out for myself!” (54) Gregor’s position in the family was genuine and honest although he acted in a weak manner. Gregor’s father was cruel and manipulative towards his son and unappreciative of everything Gregor was doing for him. This is what I find disgusting. When I read of the father’s violent blow against his son who was the victim in the situation, still processing what was happening – confused and lost on what he had become, I was sickened by how the father had reacted. The relationship that Gregor and his father have fails to exist. There is NO relationship. There is only manipulation, control, anger and weakness. It is a father’s job to create a real relationship with his son, to love his son, to protect his son. Instead, Gregor’s father used this transformation to his advantage and has always used his son to his advantage.

The last thing I want to mention is Gregor’s father’s FIRST reaction before his violence blew out of him. The father had wept. He was shocked and astounded by his son’s appearance yet he had wept. This was the only element that made me believe there was a small part of love that the father had for his son.