Lit Analysis #1: Winter Reading

Nonfiction: Annual Editions - Anthropology  

• Topics and/or Events
• The book I read is subject to anthropology, the study of humans (past and present) and the way they interact with tradition and culture. It is set in different stories, true stories written about diverse group of people and cultures written by actual anthropologists that give insight to how they, whatever or whoever the story was based on, lived and acted, thrived and failed.
• There is no single author; the book contains a variety of stories, articles, written about the topic of cultural anthropology. There is, however, a single editor by the name of Elvio Angeloni. I believe he edited this piece because it is in his area of interest, which happens to be learning and working with indigenous peoples. It is also essential to note that he received an MA in anthropology and in communication.
• The book was suggested to me by Breanna Rodriguez after an enlightening conversation about my topic (cultural awareness and diversity, stories told through transmedia). She told me about a book that she owned and allowed me to borrow her own copy. Excited about the book, she told me about the stories and the perspective they were written in. Nodding along, I tried to get out of it, but she was insistent and promptly gave me the book right there and then.
• It was startlingly realistic, the book made me look and paint pictures of the real world, topics ranging from overpopulation to sexuality to the americanized topic of mental illness.
• People
• The authors surely created the characters, not in anyway one might think, but they did. By writing about the certain people that were presented to the audience, they did so by putting themselves in it. Yes, they were written through observations, and therefore not completely created as original creations, but were written by the authors in such a way that they put a piece of themselves in there. So, in reality, by writing about someone else (whether it be through mere observations) they did it in a way, through style and diction, that skewed the audience’s perspective therefore making it a part of their own creation. The overall tone was both conventional and informative, it informed the reader the struggles and successes people made, it showed parts of peoples’ lives.
• David Pizarro - a psychologist that experimented on the “perfect aroma,” via fart spray! His experiment essentially had to do with peoples’ influence, or rather, the way they were influenced by the way things smelled. To me, he sounds like a typical scientist, prompted by his curiosity to finding out answers. If I were to write him as a fictional character, I would mainly use indirect characterization. Using his actions to convey his character seems more ideal than just listing them off.
• Patricia Cochran - an Inuit (Northwestern Alaska) that talks about her dietary intake. She talks about how they got their food (mainly hunting and foraging) and the type of food that they ate (hunted seal and walrus, marine mammals with lots of fat). She acted pretty nonchalant, specially about the topic of food, even with the question of “why so many fat?”
• There’s something very unique and satisfying about reading people's’ stories, how they live and act, what they do or don’t do, their differing cultures and traditions. Reading and learning about someone who’s vastly different from you, yet is so similar in some says, satisfies your innate curiosity. It breaks down the boundaries set up by society, and it’s great in that way.
• Style
• The authors used a journalistic style
• “Wild-animal fats are different from other fats. Farm animals typically have lots of highly saturated fat”
• “Has poverty ravaged mother love in the shantytowns in Brazil?”
• “Kidnapping Women: Discourses of emotion and Social Change in the Kyrgyz Republic”
• The authors use more lengthy descriptions, but also use some dialogue. Since it is written as observations, it makes sense that there would be more descriptions of the things happening around the characters. However, the book doesn’t lack dialogue. There’s plenty of dialogue that allows the readers to seek input from the actual characters, and not have to rely from the author’s descriptions alone.
• The authors’ tones are informative and conventional, often answering questions that pertain to the topics of cultural anthropology and always subjected to an interview from the authors to the people
• The authors’ attitudes about the subject and/or topic - highly passionate, but inquisitive
• Variety of articles (including classic articles) and textbooks
• It didn’t really matter to my thinking, I merely used the words as guidelines and then thought about questions and/or answered questions that were pre-written on the book

LITERATURE ANALYSIS #1

1. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

   
   
   

   1. The novel begins simply with the description of the world and the new environment.  It commences at a laboratory, the director is followed by students, where the reader learns of the process of fertilization and hypnopaedia. It shifts to Bernard Marx, the alienated “alpha-plus,” and his conflict with the world alongside Helmholtz (both feel unsatisfied with the way they’re living their life; Bernard Marx is especially bitter due to his physical defect). Bernard Marx is also described as loving Lenina, showing discontent with the way men treat her like “meat.” Conflict arises when Bernard brings John (the child of the Director and a beta-minus named Linda) and Linda from the Savage Reserve, aka Indian Reservation, back to London. Bernard Marx is threatened by the Director to be exiled to Iceland where no opportunity exists, but his plan backfires when Marx brings out Linda and John. Humiliated (giving birth to someone is against the order; only the uncivilized birth naturally), the Director retires. Marx uses John, deemed a “savage,” as his “exhibition” thus catapulting him to celebrity status. More trouble arises when John begins to have feelings for Lenina (and starts quoting Shakespeare, how cheesy) and starts to decline in support of Marx. Things decline even more when Lenina throws herself at John (literally) and kisses him; appalled, John pushes her away and goes mad at Lenina’s promiscuously. Everything snaps into place when Linda dies and John pretty much goes ballistic. He goes to live in the outskirts and does everything the way he was taught back in the reserve, going against anything the “new world” (World State) does. John tries to think about Linda but always seems to have Lenina in the back of his mind. Reporters and a crowd shows up and John threatens to whip Lenina and himself which results in a bunch of people whipping themselves (?). The novel ends with the death of John (he hung himself).

   
   
   

   The narrator explains the whole purpose of the novel, a warning of the dark future ahead. Through the odyssey the characters faced around a future without the will to do anything (to be shackled by own will, sounds a bit like the “Allegory of the Cave”), the novel’s purpose is explained thoroughly with great imagery. The way Huxley described the events that were unfolding (the process of creating twins) allows the readers to see clearly the horrible and bleak future that might be in store for them.  (OMNISCIENT: Third Person)    

   
   
   

   2. “What fun it would be, if one didn’t have think about happiness.” page. 177

   
   
   

   A theme of the novel is the line between truth & freedom versus confinement & happiness. The novel cashes those together quite often throughout the whole story. The people of the World State are confined through the laws enacted by the State, but are still “happy” with the way they’re living. They have been “predestined to emigrate to the tropics, to be miner and acetate silk spinners and steel workers. Later on their minds would be made to endorse the judgment of their bodies.” In other words, the people have been conditioned to feel content with their life because they haven’t experienced anything else.

   3. Aldous Huxley uses a cynical and dramatic tone to convey a bleak, future society. A lot of the things in the novel is conveyed in a very dramatic tone like “‘Can’t you see? Can’t you see?’” (page 7) to pretty much “Slowly, majestically, with a faint humming of machinery, the Conveyors moved forward, thirty-three centimeters an hour” (page 56). Huxley pretty much wrote in a cynical tone to enhance the distrust in the society and the people of the World State. He wrote,

   “The screaming of the babies suddenly changed its tone. There was something desperate, almost insane, about the sharp spasmodic yelps to which they now gave utterance. Their little bodies twitched and stiffened; their limbs moved jerkily as if to the tug of unseen wires.” (page 21)

   
   
   

   Yikes, that’s pretty intense tone to try to emit wariness and suspicion to the government order.

   4.  

   • Imagery in order to help visualize the things being described
   • “Linda--there was her appearance. Fat;having lost her youth; with bad teeth, and a blotched complexion, and that figure (Ford!)--you simply couldn’t look at her without feeling sick, yes, positively sick.” (page 153)
   • Imagery was used to describe Linda’s visual deformities, her decayed youth contrasting against the beauty of the World State.
   • Personification:
   • “...hungrily seeking some draped lay figure…” (page 3)
   • Huxley used personification to further exemplify the cold and sharp building of the Fertilizing Room.
   • Rhyme:
   • “I am a crowd, obeying as many laws/ As it has members. Chemically impure/ Are all 'my' beings. There's no single cure/ For what can never have a single cause” (page 66)
   • Rhyme is established to show rhythm and establish a tranquil environment
   • Irony:
   • The director, someone of great power, has a kid (John) when the World State banned natural birthing process
   • “Brave new world” has nothing brave about it; everyone follows the rules of the World State and are therefore confined to real freedom
   • The World State deemed as a “utopia” (NOT a utopia; more so its opposite: a dystopia)
   • Mustapha Mond, a world Controller, reads Shakespeare, the Bible, and other BANNED work of literature (yeah, way to go Mond)
   • Satire:
   • Huxley uses satire (use of irony to bring light to a situation) to convey ignorance and confinement with happiness (
   • “What fun it would be, if one didn’t have to think about happiness!” (page 177)
   • Allusion:
   • Shakespeare is alluded to quite often (he seems to be John the Savage’s spirit guide)
   • “O brave new world” (page 139) [alludes to The Tempest]
   • Simile:
   • “Twins, twins like maggots they had swarmed defilingly over the mystery of linda's death.” (page 209)
   • Foreshadowing:
   • Linda’s death was foreshadowed by her abundant drinking of SOMA
   • The whipping scene at the end of the novel was foreshadowed during the trip to the Reserve (Native Americans whipping themselves in order to get rid of sins and as gift to the gods)

   
   
   

   Characterization:

   
   

   1. Huxley uses more of a direct characterization to simply tell them instead of showing them. Huxley uses direct characterization quite often when talking about Bernard Marx. Huxley wrote Bernard Marx as an outsider. He wrote, “The mockery made him feel an outsider; and feeling an outsider he behaved like one, which increased the prejudice against him and intensified the contempt and hostility aroused by his physical defects. Which in turn increased his sense of being alien and alone.” (page 65) He also used direct characterization to describe Helmholtz’s alienation, similar to that of Marx. Huxley wrote, “It was only quite recently that, grown aware of his mental excess, Helmholtz Watson had also become aware of his difference from the people who surrounded him.” The characterization of both Helmholtz and Marx pretty much show their uniqueness as people of the New World. They differ from everyone else in that both feel alienated, whether it be due to physical defects (Marx) or just satisfaction (Helmholtz).
   2. His diction changes every time he talks about a certain character. When describing Linda the diction and tone pretty much changes. He describes Linda as the “fat,” crazy woman that vanished from the World State. When he describes John, there’s a shift in the diction; he uses sharper words to describes Johns disdain to the World State.
   3. John the Savage is a round character. He has a depth in him that pretty much makes him seem like a real character. He isn't the perfect character; John grew at the Reserve and is the freak of the whole novel. He’s always in-between: never truly accepted in the Reserve with his physical looks, and pretty much an outsider in the World State. He wasn't confined like everyone else in the World State, therefore he had the advantage of looking through banned books and also had the freedom to do what he wanted. But at the same time, John lacked some practical knowledge (didn't really like sex before marriage type thing) and blamed himself for Linda’s death.
   4. I did come out feeling like I’ve met a character and pretty much felt like I've lived another life.