Masterpiece Academy - Essay

Remember that bike video? These beat it.

As a person that has an irrational fear of using escalators to go up, it's pretty clear to note that I have a fear of heights. And yes, I know it's irrational, but my head still sends me "danger signals." I can't help but feel fear. It creeps through my veins, stupefying me.

So, anyways, I stumbled upon a video of two guys climbing up Ping An Finance Centre. It immediately made me think of the bike video we saw during class, except 100x more terrifying. I actually hesitated, hovering over the link without clicking it. Eventually, curiosity won out and I clicked. I almost puked. Here's the video:

Even better, I stumbled upon Alex Honnold, a free-solo rock climber:

Macbeth - ACT II

ACT II Study Questions

Collaboration

First come first serve - pick 2 each

Erica - 2.1 (#1, #2) ; Hikaru - 2.2 (#1, #2) ; Danielle - 2.4 (#1, #2)

  

Erica - 2.1

1. Scene II, Act I contains dialogues between Banquo and Fleance, walking at night with the torches casting shadows. Banquo states that he “would not sleep” as a result of a dream he has about the witches (stated in the earlier scene). He is in turmoil, wrought over by the fact that even in his dreams do the witches follow. Shakespeare refers to time, once again, this occasion to set the tone. It is mentioned that the time is past midnight, with nothing but the torches to keep light. There is a stillness in the air, tension that coils within Banquo (multiplied due to his haunted dreams) that the audience specifically catch when Banquo almost uses his sword on Macbeth. The flow of time is continuous, but the foreshadow of the death of a king, and the crowning of a wrongful successor, disrupts the flow of time. Time, is therefore, continuously referred to, during the play, with moments of disruption.
2. Macbeth, feeling self-reproach and ultimately gripped with guilt for his planned actions, hallucinates about a dagger. He thinks he sees a dagger “faced towards his hands,” but quickly realizes that it is “a false creation.” Lost in his mind, Macbeth speaks as if he is in a trance, talking about blood and daggers. He is eventually brought back to reality by the ringing of the bell.

Hikaru - 2.2

1. Lady Macbeth is seemingly confident with the plan, but has traces of doubt. She prepared the dagger and assumed that Macbeth is killing the king. Lady Macbeth could not kill Duncan because his sleeping figure reminded Lady Macbeth of her father.
2. Macbeth has actually killed Duncan. He worries about the blood on his hands and starts to feel guilty. Lady Macbeth responds in a negative tone, again. In line 46, Macbeth left the dagger in the room, which he wasn’t supposed to. Lady Macbeth goes instead to get it.

Music Sunday #1

"Take Me To Church"

Macbeth Act I - Study Questions

Act I Study Questions Collaboration
FIrst come first serve - choose 2 questions each
Collaboration: Jayce, Jared, Hikaru, Marcel,  Danielle, Erica

Jayce - My first picks are the first two study questions 1.1-1.2.
1.1
  The effect of the witches at the beginning of the play gives off a gloomy, dark, wicked aura. Nothing beats a supernatural setting based on evil remarks and foreshadowing from the witches, yet they detest their true objective in meeting someone of value. From further reading of the play, the witches are going to meet Macbeth and Banquo when the air is unclear to see, just like fog.
1.2.
  The “bloody sergeant” comes to meet the king and his attendants to describe the fierceness of Macbeth and the experiences he’s had with him on the battlefield. Macdonwald was a rebel fighting the king’s army and mercilessly slain many men. The one to kill him was Macbeth and so chopped his head and stuck it to a pike. This did not drop the moral of the enemy soldiers, so the king of Scotland regrouped with new troops and retaliated with another assault. None of the rebels faltered after such display of intimidation
Danielle- my picks are 1.3 #1, 2
1.3
In lines 1-27, the witches are talking about sinking the ship of Macbeth. The effect the witches create is one of disgust to hear them talking about sinking a ship as if it were a game. These specifics foreshadow that Macbeth will arrive by the sinking of his ship. The witches are here to create the plot while the other characters are merely dancers. Line 9 is talking about sailing in a typical sieve sailing to sink the ship. The witches prepare for Macbeth by literally casting a spell. Giving thee a wind means to help you out. But this spell could be seen as basically winding up the plot so that Macbeth will play the part the witches want him to.
 Macbeth’s first line reminds me of the witches line fair is foul and foul is fair. Those that we see as evil see us as evil. The witches look really ugly and look almost demonic. They portray the typical image of a witch. The witches tell Macbeth that he will be king of Cawdor as well as Glamis. He becomes captivated in the witches visions of him as king. We know this because that’s how Banquo describes him as being. Banquo asks the witches to tell him what they see in his future and they tell him that he will be greater than Macbeth though he is lesser and he will be happier though not so happy. We know that Macbeth will kill the king and rise to his throne that way.

Jared Dube- My first picks are the 2 questions of 1.4.
1.4
Cawdor died honorably after confessing and repenting his own crimes. The basically replies that Cawdor was a chivalrous man who had completely trusted.
The king greets Banquo and Macbeth with guilt that he can never truly repay them for their heroic deeds. The king then announces that he is going to make his eldest son, Malcolm the heir to the throne. Duncan then declares that he intends to dine at Macbeth’s castle. Macbeth states he is happy for the new heir but then realizes that Malcolm is just another obstacle getting in his way of becoming king. 
Hikaru - my first two picks are 1.5 #4, 1.6
1.5
Lady Macbeth’s name is Gruoch, modeled after the name Gruoch ingen Boite.

1.6
Macbeth is not ready to kill the king. He expresses his doubts and troubles of killing Duncan. In lines 1-12, Macbeth is worried that the same assassination will happen to him once he replaces the current king. Just as he is eyeing the king’s throne, other people will also want it if Macbeth is to spill Duncan’s blood. Macbeth’s violates the code of friendship with Duncan. He is his “kinsmen and his subject” so he has some sympathy towards him. His “vaulting ambition” is his motivation.
Marcel-  #1 and #2 for 1.7
1.7
     1.   Macbeth has everything set up to murder Duncan from the offer to come and stay at his abode to the poison to place in his cup. How ever he’s worried about what will become of him after doing so and if he actually should go through with it. As a host you're not suppose to kill your guest rather do everything in your power to make them comfortable. Macbeth’s ambition outweighs the sorrow of killing duncan and this is all the motivation he needs.
     2. Lady Macbeth complains for knowledge of the desolation of duncan after dinner. Macbeth tells Lady Macbeth about how he doesn't want to go through with this heinous act any longer and she responds with calling him a coward in riveted language. Lady Macbeths sticks to her taunts and ambitious pulls to make him go through with it while Macbeth stand by what's morally right but in the end Lady Macbeth dominates this scene over her husband.

Erica - 1.2 (#2) ; 1.3 (#3) 

1.2  (#2)

Ross and Angus mention that the Norwegian lord “surveying vantage,” and ensuring new supplies, began a new assault. They specifically mention that the thane of Cawdor is the traitor, and shall be stripped of his title (given to Macbeth) and killed in accordance to his betrayal.

Macbeth - Character Map

Links:

Character Map PDF

Macbeth Story Boards

Macbeth Blogger

Download Link

Meet Macbeth

Macbeth is indirectly characterized by Sergeant in Act I Scene II. He parallels the "common war hero" seen in most literature works. Macbeth is characterized as "brave," which he accordingly deserves. Macbeth, unlike others, has (consciousness) self-reflection. The witches contribute marginally to the audience, foreshadowing clear in the text. They tell Macbeth about the trouble that Lady Macbeth will cause, warning him about her ambition and lack of self-reflection. They also allude to Lady Macbeth's shaming of his masculinity and her easy manipulation of his emotions. Unlike having scenes play out alongside the characters, Shakespeare uses the witches as "godlike figures" (yes, dichotomy is hard on that one). He gives the witches the power of seers, gives them the strength to act as puppeteers (all-knowing).  

MY MACBETH RESOURCES

Text Resources: 

Entire Macbeth text 

 Macbeth "Study Guide"

Macbeth website /

Macbeth Navigator

Visual Representations:

(Infographics)
Foul Facts and Fair Trade
Anatomy of a Scene

(Videos) 

The Everyday Blogs

There are blogs that I continuously find myself hovering over at a constant rate. These blogs have appealed to me in some way or form. Some of them for their "ahead-of-time-before-it's-due" posts (that never fail to save me) to blogs that are a little bit more personalized. Other times, I find myself unconsciously clicking a blog because, for lack of a better term, their pretty, aesthetically pleasing. So here they are, the long awaited "everyday" blogs

• Lupita Pliego - Her blog is the blog I continuously check at a day to day basis. It's aesthetically pleasing enough, is easy to read, and utilizes tabs so that visitors are easily able to configure what they want to find. She's also the one that gets assignments done (like a month a head). Whenever I think I'm missing an assignment, I go over to her blog and see if I am missing some things. Not only that, but it's personalized enough that I see slivers of Lupe in her blog. The colors, the quotes, and heck, the "book tree" screams Lupita Pliego, book-lover extraordinaire. 
• Jayce Alegre - The funny thing is a majority of Jayce's posts aren't AP Literature related. His posts, although not assignment based, are distinctive and honest, their new and exciting. Looking through my feed tend to get boring really quickly because of the same 'ol boring "let's get this done quickly, sometimes sloppy, assignment post," but Jayce tends to stray away from that. 
• Henry Freeborn - Similar to Jayce, his writing strays away from the typical assignment based post. The difference between the two is the style of writing. I particularly enjoy reading Henry's writing because of the gritty style. He writes with the full bluntness of a guy that doesn't give any cr*p about what people think of it. His writing is hauntingly beautiful, and once again, very gritty. He takes stances on otherwise politically gripping topics, be it national or local, with elaborate ease. 
• Yesenia Beas - Her words flow out with the fluidity of water. Well, her whole writing can be described like water (when she decides to post). She can easily manipulate her words to a whim. She is able to write about something she does not care for with the utmost passion. Her words can be as turbulent as a current ridden river or as calm as a lake.  

Dulce Et Decorum Est - Poem Essay

Prompt #2: Read the following poem carefully. Then, in a well-organized essay, analyze how the speaker uses the varied imagery of the poem to reveal his attitude towards the nature of war.

 “Dulce Et Decorum Est”

It is easy to mistake Wilfred Owen’s Dulce Et Decorum Est as a pro bono, pro-war work of literature. A simple glimpse at the title of the poem, a deceitful latin phrase that literally means “sweat and right,” might imply that the author was giving a message for war. Upon further investigation, the reader might realise the dichotomy between the title and the meaning of the work. Wilfred Owen’s Dulce Et Decorum Est tells of the hauntingly realistic story of war. Owen is insistent for society to reevaluate its stance on war believing war shouldn’t be romanticised, because war is grit, it is sunken eyes and hunched backs, dirt and blood not the “roses and hearts” that young men and women believe it to be.

The tone of the poem is somber and realistic, it grips the reader’s attention by vividly describing the reality of war. Owen mentioned soldiers as “old beggars under sacks” to ratify the fatigue and dwindling morale that often takes a hold of soldiers. The poem further exemplifies Owen’s claim as the work openly talks about the grotesque deaths soldiers might encounter. There isn’t anything romantic about dying for a country, nothing honourable. The death of a soldier isn’t slowed down with dramatic, classical music beating in the background, it’s dirty and grotesque. Death in the middle of the field is “guttering, choking, drowning,” it is utterly painful and ugly. The work belittles the way war is often time interpreted as something sort-of romantic. It’s similar to how living in a small town gets over romanticized. People don’t see that living in a small town isn’t as romantic as it seems with its lack of diversity and lack of acceptance. War isn’t romantic, it’s not “sweet” and “right,” it’s blood and gore and death. It is taking hold of young men and women to use as triggers, using people to do the dirty work so that they’ll be the one’s that dirty their hands. Soldiers are sheeps waiting for the slaughterhouse, “trudging” on, all the “limping on, blood-shod.” The fatigue etched deep within them, the horrors of bloodshed and the dwindling light of a candle, soldiers, lied to, turn their backs on their innocence.  

War is like “gas! gas!” It poisons children to believe it as right, in exchange for “desperate glory.” Owen continues to reiterate the “old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est Pro patria mori (it is sweet and right to die for your country).” Potential death does not equal glory, nor does being plagued by the trauma brought by war. Owen’s own experiences with war extends the haunting reality of death, “of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues.” 

Poem and Prompt Choice(s)

"Dulce Et Decorum Est"

Wilfred Owen

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots 
Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.
Gas! Gas! Quick, boys! – An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling,
And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime. . .
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.
If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud 
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest 
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est
Pro patria mori.

Prompt #1: 

Read the following poem carefully. Then write an essay in which you discuss how such elements as language, imagery, structure, and point of view convey meaning in the poem. 

Prompt #2:

Read the following poem carefully. Then, in a well-organized essay, analyze how the speaker uses the varied imagery of the poem to reveal his attitude toward the nature of war.

Prompt #3:

In a brief essay, identify at least two of the implications implicit in the society reflected in the poem. Support your statements by specific references to the poem.

Battle of the Blogs: Bracket Voting

Battle of the Blogs has finally started. The competition is intense, competitors ready. Bring your "A" game on!

POST IS UP

Voting is on SPHINX blog (left sidebar)   

Masterpiece Spring Break Progression

equalityamonghumanity.tumblr.com

Inspiration has struck Danielle and I right on the noggin' (stint no more). The newly revised masterpiece stemmed off of a Facebook conversation we had earlier today. Danielle half-joking, half-serious asked me if we "can do a stem calendar where women are 'hot' because of their confidence, not because they're creating some sick fantasy for every male consumer." That single message led to talks about photo shoots being integrated wholly into our project.

The photo shoot would have several parts included:

• women confidently doing their job (whether it be field work, STEM field, activism, or being a stay-at-home); this will include both the young and the old, the young being dreamers and the old that continuously live through them   
• but it wouldn't just be women, it'll have men doing what they love, "unconventional" hobby, career, or interest that might go against societal perception of masculinity
• the photographs will have a series that includes people holding up notes on "why we need equality" and "why we need diversity" and "why we need inclusion"  

Spring Break #1

The struggle begins. Second day of spring break was spent fixing the router (to fix faulty connection). Frustration. Lots and lots of frustration.

There was also a network connection error that I kept getting from Google Chrome. It kept showing up even when (WiFi) connection was strong. SO, as frustrated as I was, I just decided on temporarily moving to Firefox as it seems to work perfectly fine. I said "temporarily" because I would like to get acquainted with the browser (as I haven't been using it for a while now) to see if it fits with my needs.  
On the other hand, the day was spent well. I also managed to semi-successfully clean my dungeon (room).  

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FBLA - Gold Coast Sectionals (oops)

Future Business Leaders of America (FBLA) Gold Coast Sectional was held at Westlake High School. Hundreds of students showed up to participate in the section competition in the hope of advancing to state competition.  

The first day was spent at the Los Angeles zoo where a wild Michael Hall appeared looking at the camera (with a nice smile) every time I clicked the camera.   

Oh, look. A wild Michael Hall has suddenly appeared. Kudos to you Michael! We were waiting in line for Ephraim to get his slush-y. If you look close enough you'll notice Danielle and Hikaru!

The gang waits for the line for the cotton candy to thin out. 

We also spent a good amount of our time touring CSU Channel Islands. The modern, steel and glass, structure of  their library provides a huge contrast from the Spanish influenced buildings located on campus. 

"Don't take it personal, it's just business."

The schedule was made with major holes. Many members were left confused with the scheduling mishap. Those with two clashing events had to be guided throughout the whole day. 

Students, Michael Hall and Ephraim Rodriguez, were waiting intensely for their events to be called. The tension is evidently seen by Ephraim's body message. 

Creative Writing #1 (Rain) - incomplete

prompt: In a world where water is used as a global currency it rains again for the first time in thousands of years.

the woman felt it first, a foreign drop of water on her cheek, then another, and another, until the droplets dropped faster and faster still. the feeling of cool water upon her skin made her gasp. tears threatened to fall, and her lips, oh, how they quivered. she looked up, saw the beauty of rain for the very first time. she was drenched now, from head to toe, her clothes clung to her, but she had no care. this was it, it was unheard of, to actually see it, feel it, experience rain for the very first time. she crumpled to the ground and looked up at the sky, laid on the mud with her eyes wide open, staring, just staring. she was a dreamer, but this, this was something even she didn’t think, dream, would ever occur. she first heard about “rain” when she was in her history class. she had been doodling on her notebook instead of taking notes, eyes glazed over, figure slumped against her chair. she had only been half listening until her teacher, an old grouch, started talking about rain, actual water falling from the sky. her interest had peaked when she heard the words “water” and “falling” and “sky” in the same sentence. money falling from the sky? that’s even more crazy than money growing on trees! arms raised all over the classroom, she remembers it like it was yesterday, how everyones minds had been sparked by the topic of rain and how her own had been buzzing in wonderment. a flurry of questions were asked.

“so what happened? why did it suddenly stop raining?”

“was it global warming? i heard from my parents that thousands of years ago people didn’t have to wear masks, or not all of them anyways, to breathe”

“was it some crazy scientist? government plan gone wrong?”

the teacher had been stunned by the sudden interest. who knew the topic of rain, out of all things, would be the one to bring his students out of their stupor? encouraged by their fascination with the subject, the teacher had gone on a long winded tangent about the history and the biology of rain. the way he talked about it seemed like a fluke at the time. the woman had her mind made up; believe when proof is given, but until then, it will only be make belief.

now, as the woman lay still, the feeling of rain on her skin, she laughed.

she laughed out of disbelief; eyes clenched tight, body shivering from a combination of cold and awe, she laughed until her voice turned raw.

if a passerby saw her then and there, drenched with water and mud, they would have probably stopped, marveling at the sight. there was just something so beautiful about the sight. woman and nature at one with one another.

maybe it was the fact that her mouth was quirked up a sliver.

how her body was slack against the muddied ground.

or maybe it was her eyes, squeezed so tightly that years worth of smiles, frowns, and anger showed.

how her eyes and her nose crinkled with delight.

if a passerby saw her on the ground, he would have stared. marveled at her beauty, but even the passerby wouldn’t have seen the tears running down her face. the tears streamed down her cheeks like a waterfall, rushing down as fast as a current. one won’t be able to tell the tears from the rain.

however, she was not crying out of despair, no. far from it. she was crying out of awe, wonderstruck from the imagery she was experiencing. there was just something so majestic and eerily beautiful about the pounding of the rain, the mud and the water and the cold.

a shiver that ran through the woman’s core reminded her of the time. to her, it had felt eternity. just basking in the feeling of rain, momentarily forgetting her current predicament. it had felt good, too good. she had to face reality now, stop day dreaming away. time is precious, but also a scarcity she couldn’t waste.

the woman slowly got up, her arms dragging on the floor, body moving on autopilot. she needed to go home before it got dark or else her mother was going to skin her alive.             

         

(totally incomplete, continuing later, i’m planning for this to be at least 800-1,000 words ; yes i will edit and capitalize things later, i just got lazy)

Book Recommendations:

In AP Gov. and Politics, Mr. Nesper told us about his book club. A group of people essentially decide on a novel to read. They read in the same pace, analyze the novel, and discuss it. Nesper asked his students for a book recommendation, genre be damned! Here's mine: 

• The Color Purple - Alice Walker   

• Historical fiction? Heartbreak? This novel speaks of the struggle of human morale through the gruesome, yet realistic, life of an African-American girl. 

• Fahrenheit 451 - Ray Bradbury 

• If you enjoyed Brave New World, then you'll enjoy this as well. Guy Montag, the protagonist, inwardly and outwardly questions society. In a world where firefighters burn books, Montag (a firefighter) goes against everything he has been conditioned to do by saving books he was meant to burn.

• The Book Thief - Marcus Zusak 

• Historical Fiction? Young Adult? World War II, a girl becomes fostered by an unlikely couple living in Munich, Germany (the center of the Nazi Party). She learns to read from an unlikely teacher, a Jew they have sheltered in the basement of their home. 

• The Things They Carried - Tim O'Brien

• Stories of war. Stories of hope and fear and death. A novel that compiles stories of the reality of war (before, during, and after).

• Throne of Glass - Sarah J Maas

• Series? Young-Adult? Fantasy? Kick-ass FEMALE ASSASSIN PROTAGONIST? That is all.

Dulce Et Decorum Est (POEM #1)

1. Title: Dulce Et Decorum Est

1. Without looking up the meaning of the phrase, one can distinguish the word “dulce,” as it is common adjective when describing candy, meaning sweet. “Decorum,” also relatively easy to define due primarily to background knowledge and prior vocabulary experience, means etiquette. So, the title can be crudely translated as something sweet and etiquette. This poem values that title, as it is a poem about fighting for your country. It is sweet, to honor yourself through the courageous actions of fighting for your home, for your people, and for your country. It is otherwise your duty.

2. Paraphrase:

1. Soldiers fight in a war for the sake of their country. The fatigue etched deep within them, the horrors of bloodshed and the dwindling light of a candle. But it is sweet and satisfying to honor one’s self to death in exchange for the safety of one’s country.

3. Connotation:

1. “like old beggars under sacks” - fatigue, dwindling morale
2. “all went lame; all blind” - loss of integrity, loss of form (sunken bodies, trudging)
3. “hoots” - gunshot noises
4. “saw him drowning” - dying soldier, choking on blood

4. Attitude
1. The tone is somber, the way the poem vividly describes war speaks in that account. But there is an inquisitive attitude that underlies the somber tone. It peaks in the way the poem talks about war, the gruesome and grotesque truth about war. It belittles the way war is often time interpreted as something sort-of romantic. It’s similar to how living in a small town gets over romanticized. People don’t see that living in a small town isn’t as romantic as it seems (lack of diversity, lack of acceptance). War isn’t romantic, it’s not “sweet” and “right,” it’s blood and gore and death.

5. Shift

My friend, you would not tell with such high zest

To children ardent for some desperate glory,

The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est

Pro patria mori

1. There is a shift the moment the poem starts talking about the foolishness of society’s romanticized views on war. The poet calls it “desperate glory,” which continuously reinforces the notion that war is neither heroic nor honorable. The saying “dulce et decorum est” is a lie told to young men.

6. Title Revisited
1. After reading (and re-reading) and analyzing the poem, it is easy to note the mistake I made. The title isn’t to encourage the romanticism of war, but contrary to that. It’s ironic. Simple as that. It pokes fun on the way war has been socially accepted as a way to glorify one’s self, has been romanticized to the point of “roses-and-hearts.”

7. Theme

1. War is full of grit; it is sunken eyes and hunched backs, dirt and blood.       

TOBERMORY EXPLAINED

There is no question to the fact that "Tobermory" was a confusing ride of "what-am-I-reading." It consistently kept me on my toes, made me knock my head against the desk, and irritated me. Even now, after reading over it (multiple times, some out-loud, with gestures and notes), it still has me confused. The story revolves around Mr. Appin, the man who has taught Tobermory (a cat) how to talk. The tone seems satirical, with an underlying tone of sarcasm brewing out. The humor is dry, diction sophisticated, making the jeers sound "back-handed."  

Brave New Essay

It is construed that human conditioning confines peoples’ thinking, leaving them unaware and lacking consciousness. Within it lies the power of the mass, the lack of humanity, and the blurring lines between a clouded vision of happiness and the awareness that lies heavy on the minds of others. Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World blurs the lines between the artificial and the natural, the same way it has blended pleasure and pain to be one of the same. But within the confusion that lies within a world that struggles to see the truth beyond their conditioning, houses the few that have inwardly questioned their sight, struggling endlessly to make sense of the truth that lies under the murky spells that have blinded society. Through characterization and dichotomy, it is clear that Bernard Marx is one that struggles with the weight of knowledge and confusion that has opened him to the skewness that society has relied upon.

Contrary to its given name, the world within the novel lacks the ideals of a brave society. The people opt instead to the clutches of artificially induced happiness, parting awareness from the body. The society, clinging on to “caution” instead of “action,” has ultimately sacrificed humanity for the “better good of the mass.” The masses snuffed out the individual and the humanity, putting in its place instead the idea of progression through chemicals. Without their humanity, society conditioned them to believe “fertility is a nuisance.” They continuously refer to the idea of a natural birthing experience as below par with the society they are living in. It is “progress” and “process” that they thrive off of. Instead, they mass produced the people through the Bokanovsky’s Process, conditioning them young and old, and supplying them with the promises of soma, a drug that numbed them of feeling. The society cultivated them to think of chemistry as an account to emotion, a cocktail with a concoction of emotion. Through the use of rhetoric, pathos to evoke certain emotions from the audience, the audience continuously sees over and over the loss of humanity.

“There was something desperate, almost insane, about the sharp spasmodic yelps to which they now gave utterance (pg 21).”

Love of Learning

School doesn’t promote the love of learning, it simply doesn’t. In actuality, school steers away from that ideology.

School is an institution that coerces students to sit in a classroom, five times a week, six hours a day. It is an institution that makes adolescent teenagers ask for permission to go to the bathroom, and then denies them the right to do so because, “come on, you have 10 minutes of passing period to do your thing.”

And above all other, it is an institution that praises GPA above a students health.

Students are treated like babies, strapped down to their seats, and force feed information. Forget creativity, you (as a student) have to be aligned within the given rubrik.

I entered high school as a naive student. I was a student that loved coming to school everyday because of the promises of knowledge, new ideas and new subjects. I thought big things, wanted great things. I was excited, for high school and for the future. But four years of AP classes and 4 AM coffee stops to my kitchen has made me lose that spark.

I actually detest going to school now. Is it worth it? No, not really. It’s pretty ironic that an institution that’s supposed to expand my curiosity, actually diminished it.      

This shouldn’t be it. We need something that praises the love of learning. There is a huge difference between loving what you’re doing as opposed to being forced to do what you’re doing. People that do what they love give a little something more than those that don’t. Passion.

Without passion, to learn or to do, there would be very little spark. No trying.   

Brave New World: Ch 4 Analysis

1. Chapter 4
1. parathyroid → chemistry accounts to emotion, a concoction of emotions
2. “Bernard’s face flushed. ‘What on earth for?’ she wondered, astonished, but at the same time touched by this strange tribute to her power (pg 58)”
1. he blushed → she doesn’t understand, emotions and facial expressions are foreign to them
2. she has no empathy, unlike Bernard (who feels like an outsider for feeling certain things)
1. “‘Isn’t it beautiful!’ His voice trembled a little.”
1. Bernard is in awe; he is captured by the sheer beauty
2. “She smiled at him with an expression of the most sympathetic understanding. ‘Simply perfect for Obstacle Golf,’ she answered rapturously (pg 59)’”
1. on the other hand, Lenina talks about the purpose of it → she doesn’t see the beauty, doesn’t feel the emotion that has struck Bernard because of her conditioning
3. continued use of animal imagery
1. “‘Roof!’ called a creaking voice.”
2. “He smiled up with a kind of doggily expectant adoration into the faces of his passengers (pg 59)”  
1. Epsilon-Minus (indirect characterization) → no more, no less than a puppy
2. continued morphing of animalistic characteristics which can be inferred as a continued loss of humanity
4. direct characterization
1. “Benito Hoover was beaming down at him--beaming with manifest cordiality. Benito was notoriously good-natured. People said of him that he could have got through life without ever touching soma. The malice and bad tempers from which other people had to take holidays never afflicted him. Reality for Benito was always sunny (pg 60)” → Benito
2. “Contact with members of the lower castes always reminded him painfully of this physical inadequacy. ‘I am I, and which I wasn’t’; his self-consciousness was acute and distressing (pg 64)” → Bernard
3. “He was a powerfully built man, deep-chested, broad-shouldered, massive, and yet quick in his movements, springly and agile (pg 66)” → Hemholtz

Hemholtz → questioning, “‘Not quite. I’m thinking of a queer feeling I sometimes get, a feeling that I’ve got something important to say and the power to say it…’ (pg 69)”