Reading Journal: Brave New World (Chapters 7-12)

My Questions:
1.  Why would the World State give the people of the reservation a chance to get out of their home to go to the World State?
2.  What's going to happen to people like Lenina if/when the World State runs out of soma?
3.  How would Lenina's reaction to John have been different if she wasn't so dependent on soma?

My Answers:
1.  While I was reading, I kept wondering why the World State would let people from the Reservation go to their (the World State) world.  Mustapha Mond says, in regards to having Bernard bring John and Linda with him, "Yes, I do find it of sufficient scientific interest.  Bring these two individuals back to London with you" (Huxley 150).  This was really the only insight that the readers gather about the reasoning behind letting Bernard take the two beings.  There are two options that I see as the World State's actual reasoning.  The first is that the people of the Reservation actually are of scientific interest, since no one really studies these beings.  The World State might be able to use them for some scientific purpose.  The second reason would be that there lies a hidden cause underneath their approval of letting people (like Bernard) take other people from the Reservation home with them.  Maybe that reason will be revealed later on in the book.
2.  Lenina is clearly extremely dependent on soma, as are many of the people in her society.  The reader has to wonder whether or not the nation will eventually run out of its means for making soma, since so many are in demand.  What is to become of the people without their soma?  Lenina constantly says, "Oh, I wish I had my soma!" and "I wish I had my soma!" when she doesn't have any with her (Huxley 125).  I think that maybe if she didn't have her soma, or didn't even know there was such a thing, she's be a lot stronger as a person (this is applicable to all of the characters who are always taking soma to block out the negativities of their lives).  She wouldn't be so dependent, and she might be able to face and handle her own problems, instead of drowning them out.
3.  "Drying her eyes, Lenina walked across the roof to the lift.  On her way to the twenty-seventh floor she pulled out her soma bottle.  One gramme, she decided would not be enough; hers had been more than a one-gramme affliction.  But if she took two grammes, she ran the risk of not waking up in time to-morrow morning.  She compromised and, inter her cupped left palm, shook out three half-gramme tablets" (Huxley 177).  This is what Lenina results to after she was "rejected" by John.  The quote describes how she measures and handles her grievances, which can give a good idea of how she handles every other problem in her life.  I think maybe if Lenina was not so dependent on the soma, she might be very strong and able to handle situations like these, as I stated before.  In this particular situation, I definitely think she would have persisted with John, maybe even tried to list reasons about why he should be with her, had she not been dependent on soma.  Lenina could be much stronger when dealing with John if she didn't resort to soma every time she had a problem.

"Don't You Want Me?" by the Human League

Questions:
1. What is the subject matter?
2. What is the difference in the two sides of the story?
3. With whom do you side and why?

Answers:
1.  The story is about a man who helped a woman reach success in her life.  Now that she's on top, he wants to be with her, but she doesn't want him.
2.  The man says, "Don't forget, it's me who put you where you are now," trying to remind the girl that without him, she wouldn't be on top.  He thinks he deserves her.  She, however, thinks that, "it's time I lived my life on my own," because she has moved on.  She also believes that, "I knew I'd find a much better place, either with or without you."
3.  I side with the man because the girl wouldn't be where she is without him.  He deserves her, and she completely overlooks him.  She doesn't appreciate the fact that he put her on top.  He says, "I picked you out, I shook you up, and turned you around, turned you into someone new."  She shouldn't leave him when he did so much for her.

Reading Journal: Brave New World (Chapters 1-6)

In the novel, equality is created with the castes that the government created.  People are randomly selected for each caste, and then they are conditioned to love the position they are in.  For example, babies are whispered pleasant things about their designated social class over and over again while they are sleeping (a process called, "hypnopaedia") so that they will love their class. On page 40, Beta babies are being whispered the words, "Alpha children wear grey. They work much harder than we do, because they're so frightfully clever.  I'm really awfully glad I'm a Beta, because I don't work so hard.  And then we are much better than the Gammas and Deltas.  Gammas are stupid.  They all wear green, and Delta children wear khaki.  Oh no, I don't want to play with Delta children.  And Epsilons are still worse.  They're too stupid to be able to read or write.  Besides, they wear black, which is such a beastly colour.  I'm so glad I'm a Beta."  Just like that, all people are conditioned to love their class, and their government as well.  Another thing that the author stresses in the first few chapters of the book to create equality is that people are not exactly treated like people.  They are more so identical products that are created in a factory.  Each person has their identity taken from them when they are being brought to life, because so many thousands of other people will be exactly like them.
The World State has reduced conflict and created happiness through, once again, the conditioning.  By conditioning everyone within a class to think the same way, no one will ever have any differing points of views.  Everyone thinks the same way about relationships.  Also, while they are being conditioned, because they are programmed to love their class and their government, they think that their lives are perfect, and they don't really see anything wrong with their given rights.  Everyone is happy, and no one has any arguments against the government.
From the point of view of someone reading about the story, the book clearly discusses a dystopia.  The readers can see that the government is abusing and limiting their citizens' rights (and a few select people in the book like Bernard and Helmholtz realize that they would rather be individuals).  However, because the citizens are content with their lifestyle, and the government has control over the people perfectly (for now?), this lifestyle could represent a utopia.  Everyone is happy, and no one tries to defy the government.  There is constant order in everyone's life.

Everyday Use

1.  Dee and Maggie are two sisters who grew up together, but have completely different personalities.  Dee is outgoing, but insanely stuck-up; she only cares about the things that she wants.  Maggie, however, is a shy, quiet girl who doesn't want (or get) as much as her sister.  I think Dee is more demanding because her mother always tried to give her exactly what she wanted.  Also, I think Dee feels superior to the other two because she thinks that she is smarter and better.  Walker incorporates this through the fact that Dee reads to people all the time, "[Dee] pressed us to her with the serious way she read, to shove us away at just the moment, like dimwits, we seemed about to understand" (258).

2.  Dee doesn't like the place she comes from.  She mocks it and insults it all the time.  In doing this, she is "othering" her own culture.  "This house is in a pasture, too, like the other one.  No doubt when Dee sees it she will want to tear it down.  She wrote me once that no matter where we 'choose' to live, she will manage to come see us" (Walker 259).  Dee hates her old life, and tries as hard as possible to do everything she can to disown herself from her past.  She thinks her new life is better.

3.  Throughout the story, Walker appears to be on Maggie's side.  Walker puts all of the changes Dee makes in bad light, not to mention that she puts Dee in a bad light.  She describes Dee so that Dee appears demanding, greedy, and inconsiderate.  For example, Walker states, after Dee's mother has just denied Dee something Dee wanted, "She gasped like a bee had stung her" (262).  Also, Walker decides to make the plot of the story have Maggie get the quilts that Dee wanted, so that shows her preference for Maggie's quiet, natural culture.

Ethnography

Questions for blog:
1.  What are the benefits of each perspective?  Is one perspective better than the other?
2.  Write a brief explanation for why these rules exist.

Answers:
1.  One perspective can tell the newcomers exactly how their society works so that they can understand.  The other can tell the people of the country exactly how they are being viewed.  I think the Emic perspective is especially important because it can explain a country's culture before the country can be judged.
2.  The rules of ethnography exist so that a person can do an ethnography without offending the people he or she is studying, as well as getting the most accurate information possible.

"Rain on the Scarecrow" by John Mellencamp

Questions for blog:
1.  What's this song about?
2.  What are some conflicts this song might address?
3.  Make a claim about Mellencamp's use of imagery/symbolism.
4.  Make a claim about Mellencamp's word choice.
5.  If this represents Mellencamp's opinion, who does he seem to favor?  What side of the conflict does he seem to be on? Support your answers from the text.

Answers:
1 and 2.  This song is about a family who lost their farm because they couldn't pay to keep it running.  The conflict is about how the narrator loses all that he knows (the farm).
3.  He describes a piece of the farm (the scarecrow) to resemble the farm as a whole.  The farm and the scarecrow are both defenseless and not seen to be worth much to most people.
4.  He uses words that you would hear down on the farm or in the country, like, "ol' hoss" and "I'll say a prayer for your soul tonight."
5.  He favors the farmers and the farm.  He uses the scarecrow to represent the farm, and how defenseless it is to the "blood," or the disaster to the farm.  The farm, or the "scarecrow on a wooden cross," can't provide anymore because the bank took it away (the people who owned the farm couldn't pay).

11/9/11

1.  The first passage's tone was suspenseful.  The reader can take this from such sentences as, "She stood looking at us without a stir, and like the wilderness itself, with an air of brooding over an inscrutable purpose.  A whole minute passed, and then she made a step forward."  The second passage's tone was energetic.  The words "shouted," "sang," "wild," and "intense energy of movement" support this tone.  The third passage's tone was dark.  Phrases like "violently dilated nostrils" and "deathlike indifference of unhappy savages" support this tone.

2.  The first tone was appalled, but this switches to admiration.  The narrator mentions the "white man" to compare white men to the African people he had been describing earlier.

__________________________________________________________________________________

Question:
Why would the west manufacture an enemy?
Answer:
A country would do this to make it seem like that country is a better country than the enemy.  Also, it would provide a sense of unity among the people of the country.

Reading Journal: 1984 (Part 3)

It seems that Big Brother has won, in the end.  He wins because, even in his most fierce opponents, his thoughts and actions penetrate everyone's minds.  By this, I mean that everyone thinks that what the Party and Big Brother say are true, even those who had completely disagreed with him.  Those who do disagree will eventually agree with him through what happens in the Ministry of Love (the torturing and relearning of ideas).  Winston was won over in this manner, and he is completely different at the end of the book; he even thinks about how "true" the statement "2+2=5" appears (290).  The last thought we even hear about Winston is, "He loved Big Brother" (297). I think the way to start bringing the One State down lies in numbers.  Most people say that strength doesn't lie in numbers, but in this case it really does.  There need to be many anti-Party members before the One State can end.  Once you have more than 2/3 of the population of Oceania thinking rationally, then maybe you can begin considering the next step to defeating the Party.  In my opinion, that step would be to infiltrate the Thought Police, or the people who watch the telescreens.  Those people have an immense amount of control, and if rebels could have that power, they might be able to make great damage to the One State.  In the end, the Party will simply need to be overpowered by people who know better than to believe in their lies.
At the end of the book, Winston is completely changed by the Party.  When he was tortured by the rats in room 101 and called out for them to be given to Julia, it sparked the change in Winston.  After that and the days that he was relearning information, his very being was dedicated to the Party.  All of his thoughts were directed towards the victory of the Party, or the love of Big Brother.  In the last part of the novel, all Winston is even concerned about is whether or not Eurasia had been defeated.  Basically, Winston is brainwashed into exactly the type of person he had hated at the beginning of the book.

SOAPSTone-ing "Batting Clean-Up and Striking Out”

S—

            The subject of Dave Barry’s “Batting Clean-Up and Striking Out” is the difference between what women and men are knowledgeable in.  This difference is illustrated through the stories that Dave Barry uses as examples.  For instance, his first story told of the time he tried to “clean the bathroom,” but failed his wife’s standards of cleaning.  He follows this up by talking about how men have more information about sports, “The opposite of the dirt coin, of course, is sports.  This is an area where men tend to feel very sensitive and women tend to be extremely callous.”

O—

            “Batting Clean-Up and Striking Out” was written during today’s modern times.  The essay’s time of creation is displayed through the technology that the author talks about in the essay.  For instance, he mentions that a friend is having an event “during a World Series game.”  This is something that was developed earlier.  The probable place of the essay’s creation is the United States because some of the phrases the author uses are phrases only Americans would say.

            The time and place of the essay’s creation influence the essay because they both help define the author’s ideas of men and women more clearly.  Men and women of America tend to have separate activities, such as cleaning for women and watching sports for men.

A—

            Dave Barry’s audience for “Batting Clean-Up and Striking Out” is really anyone with a big vocabulary who can understand the subject.  This audience is exhibited through the word choice of the essay; for example, the author says towards the beginning of the essay, “But somewhere during the growth process, a hormonal secretion takes place in women that enables them to see dirt that men cannot see, dirt at the level of molecules, where men don’t generally notice it until it forms clumps large enough to support agriculture.”  That quote shows that you need to understand a few topics before reading the essay, but it has enough humor in it so that middle and high school students could read and understand most, if not all, of this article.

P—

            Barry’s purpose in this essay is to inform about the different activities of men and women.  This is revealed through a couple of sentences throughout the paper: “This is one major historical reason why, to this very day men tend to do extremely little in the way of useful housework,” and, “The opposite of the dirt coin, of course, is sports.”  These quotes list the two discussions of the article: a woman’s ability to do housework and a man’s ability to know sports.

S—

            Barry, a Pulitzer Prize-winning author, believes that most men cannot do housework.  This value is illustrated when he describes how he would “clean” a bathroom, “I ‘clean’ the bathroom, spraying Windex all over everything.”  He then later mentions how his wife did not even think he had cleaned the bathroom after using the Windex.  This supported the purpose because it informed the reader about how men are not suitable for doing housework.

            Barry, who worked for The Miami Herald, also believes that women don’t know much, if anything, about sports.  As he’s describing the party at a friend’s house—that was on the same day as a World Series game—he says that the women “were behaving as though nothing were wrong.”  His tone becomes impatient, and he describes how the men felt, sitting there, waiting to go watch the big game.  Eventually, the men all go watch it while the women still sit at the table to chat: “Soon all four of us were in there, watching the Annual Fall Classic, while the women prattled away about human relationships or something.  This again shows the difference between genders to the reader.

Tone—

Dave Barry depicts a humorous and witty attitude about the differences between men and women in “Batting Clean-Up and Striking Out.”  These attitudes are expressed with using quotes such as “including the six hundred action figures each sold separately that God forbid Robert should ever take a bath without,” and “such as doing an important project on the Etch-a-Sketch.”  These express the tone by using sarcastic phrases like “God forbid,” or discussing “important projects” on the Etch-a-Sketch—neither of which seem very serious.  The tone serves the purpose of the essay because it gives the reader a funny way of remembering the differences between men and women.  The entire essay is funny and memorable, which allows the information to stick with the reader.

11/4/11--Love Language

Questions for blog:
1.  What were some of your assumptions during the video?
2.  How is this a cultural conflict?  What are the cultures, and what is the conflict?
3.  What's an example of external conflict from the video?
4.  What's an example of internal conflict from the video?
5.  How was the conflict resolved?

Answers:
1.  Some assumptions that could have been made were that she didn't want to talk to some random stranger on the bench.
2.  It is a cultural conflict because she is deaf and he is not, so they can't verbally speak to each other.
3.  An external conflict is that the two couldn't speak out loud to each other even though they (well, he) wanted to.
4.  An internal conflict is that maybe the guy felt rejected at first because she wouldn't talk to him.
5.  The conflict was resolved through the sticky notes; that was the way they communicated.  In the end, the girl told him she was deaf, and he told her that she was still beautiful.