V for Vendetta

           In V for Vendetta by Alan Moore and David Lloyd England is ruled by a fascist government where there are no freedoms. The main character, which calls himself V, is starting to rebel against the government in very violent ways. The novel presents this type of violent rebellion as something that is good and maybe the only way to change the government. V is killing all of the people that were involved in a concentration camp where he was an experiment. In the beginning of the novel V rescues a young girl that was about to be killed for trying to prostitute herself. This gives us the impression that V is a good person, looking out for the weak. V is acting as a terrorist but we sympathize with him. As the back-story comes out about his life, it makes us cheer him on in killing all the people that did so many wrongs at the concentration camp. It is like he is getting revenge, and as far as we know he has not killed any innocent people. V’s actions are causing chaos in the government as the important people are being killed. It seems that this is the only way to change the government. All of V’s actions so far seem to be justified, but he is not done. Depending on whom he kills next will determine if he is getting out of control or still working towards the goal of bringing down the government.

            The passage that made me slow down and appreciate the pictures is on pages 39-42. It is the scene when V is talking to the statue of Lady Justice, telling her that he is ending their relationship. It is a very symbolic scene when V is saying that justice has cheated on him with the government. V has a new mistress as well though, and it is anarchy. This scene really shows what V’s motive is, to take down the fascist government. The pictures during this scene just highlight the ideas that V is stating, going back and forth between the statue and V, as if they are really holding a conversation. The explosion of the statue is a good finish to the scene and really highlights the end of Lady Justice and the beginning of V representing anarchy.

A Different Look At Literature

           Franco Moretti’s article “Graphs, Maps, Trees” takes a look at literature that we are not used to seeing. He takes a very analytical, almost scientific approach to literary history. Some of the advantages of this article are that it lays out a very detailed history of the trends of literature. It uses graphs and figures to give a picture of what Moretti is explaining. Using graphs is helpful in that it gives us a visual image of the decline and rise of novels throughout history. It makes the article easier to understand because there is hard data with specific dates and number of novels per year. This gives a very clear picture of how novels changed in abundance through the years. He also gives graphs of the novel genres as well, adding more information to the history of novels. By giving dates he also compares novel production to events in history, helping us see the correlation between historical events and novels. Such as in Japan when novel production declined during time of political censorship.

            Some drawbacks to this analytical approach to literature is that it is just facts, numbers and dates. Yes, sometimes novels and history went together, but that is not the only thing that was influencing the authors. Sometimes literature tries to oppose the thinking of the time, and bring about social change. Some people can be turned off by all the graphs and figures; they just would rather read words only. Moretti even points out that the amount of literature is too much to study, only certain pieces can be considered, so some generalizations have to be used.

            Another interdisciplinary project could be to study the effects that reading certain types of literature has on the brain. Studies could be done to see how different genres of literature affect the brain. Then studies could be done to compare reading a book to watching a movie and the different changes that happen in the brain during both activities. It would be interesting to see of there would be similar changes during reading as when watching a movie. I think reading would be more activating to the brain because when reading you have to create the images in your mind, and movie watching creates the images for you.

            Another way to approach Shteyngart’s Super Sad True Love Story could be to examine the effects that having only textual conversations with others would affect a person’s psyche. In the book “verbaling” is a rare thing, so to see how not talking actually affects the brain would be a good study to conduct.

M Butterfly

            In the movie M Butterfly gender and ethnicity play a big role in how the characters interact with each other. Rene Gallimard is a Frenchman in China in the 1960’s. He begins an affair with Song Liling after he becomes intrigued by her performance in the play Madame Butterfly.  In the play Song plays an Asian woman that falls in love with a white man that leaves her. She is so in love that she kills herself to rid the pain of the loss. This idea appealed to Rene because he was a white westerner that would love to have the perfect woman fall for him. Rene starts to believe that Song is his own butterfly, seeing Song as the perfect woman.

            Rene is either unaware or purposefully ignoring the fact that women were not allowed to perform in plays at that time in China. For in fact, Song is a man, and throughout their entire affair Rene never realized it. Rene believed that Song, his butterfly, was the perfect woman, and he was so in love with the idea that he failed to notice the signs that Song was a man. Song never undressed in front of Rene, but he convinced Rene that Chinese women were very modest. Song made up many things about Chinese women, all which Rene believed and that added to his romanticized image of Song. A good line from the movie is when Song tells a government official “only a man knows how a woman should act.” This shows that women were inferior to men, and that men dictate how women are supposed to act. As Song acted out a woman, he embodied the quote so well that Rene believed his butterfly was perfect. Gender roles are generalized, women are modest and obedient, and men are lustful and ignorant. Rene is blinded by his own lust and grandiose idea that he had the perfect woman. Song, being a man, could easily act out the perfect woman because he knows how men think women should act. Unfortunately for Rene, Song was a great actor.

            Ethnicity is also another topic in M Butterfly. The Eastern Asian culture is seen as submissive to Western culture. Song is a representation of the Chinese seeming to need Western culture to save them. Rene feels as if he is protecting Song, and is going to rescue her and bring her to France, where everything is better. Song, on the other hand, is perfectly happy in China and needs no rescuing. The West feels like a big brother to the East, needing to watch over and protect. Song portrays the Chinese as being very traditional and modest, another generalization of Eastern culture. The traditional and modesty of the Chinese is very similar to the modesty that Song portrays as a Chinese woman. The gender and ethnic roles that Rene and Song fit into are one of the main issues that this movie addresses.

Literature in Super Sad True Love Story

           In Gary Shteyngart’s bok Super Sad True Love Story the theme of literature in the social online networking era is depicted in many ways. Books are now obsolete; everyone carries around apparats where information is a moment away. Lenny is one of the few people left that actually reads physical books. Many young people think “that books smell”(52).  Therefore Lenny uses Pine-Sol on his books to make sure that they do not smell. There seems to be disgust towards books from the new generation. It stands out because I have never thought that a book smells, usually a new book actually smells good. I can see a similarity in today’s youth. Not very many people read for enjoyment anymore. For many of the youth the only books they read are the ones that they have to for school. Lenny has a large collection of books that he cherishes. He wants to make books relevant again someday. Even now books are on the way out, with online texts and eReaders, you can read books without ever turning a page. This passage relates to the theme of the novel as a whole in that the youth are disconnected from the past and find books as disgusting artifacts.

            Another passage in SSTLS that relates to literature and literacy is on page 144. Eunice is talking to Precious Pony about the time when she saw Lenny reading a book. She was so surprised that he was reading an actual physical book that she did not even know how to react. So she pretended that she did not even notice.  What surprised Eunice a lot was that he was reading every word of the book, not just scanning it for important information. This shows that not only do the youth not read books; they do not even fully read the articles on their apparats. They just scan the words for things that stand out. This reminds me of today, with websites like sparknotes.com that just summarize entire books in a few paragraphs. It allows students today to not have to read a book for a class, and instead just get a summary, which unfortunately is usually enough to get by. Eunice also sees Lenny as being really smart because he is able to read a book. It seems that many people in SSTLS are illiterate and are unable to read at all. So anyone that reads books is very intelligent and somewhat “old-school” in their way of life.

            A short thought from Lenny about his friend Noah and the news brings up another idea of literature (159). Lenny reminds Noah that some time ago, reporters actually went out into the field to verify the stories that they were reporting on. Noah acted as if Lenny was an old man from a time long ago. In a world where reporters do not even need to verify a story, what can be trusted as true news? Also in a world of apparats, if a reporter took the time to verify a story by the time he published it, the story would be old and no one would care. In the age of instant information there is no time for stories to be verified, and the people just trust most of the news they get off of apparat streams. It seems that most of the news in SSTLS is in the form of opinionated rants. News today is opinionated, but it is not over the top like many of the streams in SSTLS. This relates to the theme of the entire book in that society has taken a turn for the worst. The news is unverified and it is the best that is there.

The Message of "All Watched Over By Machines Of Loving Grace" by Richard Brautigan

The poem “All Watched Over By Machines Of Loving Grace” by Richard Brautigan gives an anti-technology tone and message. The first thing that jumps out as anti-technology is in each stanza there is a line in parentheses, all ending with exclamation points. These lines all are asking for a world of technology to get here quicker, or to happen sooner. In the first stanza, the line is “(and the sooner the better!)” and the way that it is inserted into the poem seems to be in a sarcastic tone. The line seems out of place, almost as if it is mocking the lines that follow it.  Brautigan does this in all three stanzas, suggesting that he does not agree with the images of nature and technology interacting that he writes in the rest of the poem.

            Another reason this poem is anti-technology is from the images that are presented. In the first stanza the image is of mammals and computers living in a “mutually programming harmony”, which seems to be a contradiction. Mammals are not programmed; they are a product of nature. This image suggests that mammals will become programmed to be like computers, acting out the programmers will. In the third stanza Brautigan describes a time where us, humans, will be able to go back to nature, but be “watched over by machines of living grace”. This brings to mind the idea that humans and all of nature will be inferior to the ever-watching machines. A warning of sorts, that technology could get out of our control and take over the world.

            “All Watched Over By Machines Of Loving Grace” by Richard Brautigan can be understood as a pro-technology poem as well. The images in the poems all are of nature and machines interacting peacefully. Use of words such as harmony, pure, peacefully, free, grace and loving all set a tone of good things to come from the interaction of technology and nature. The message can be read as the more technology advances; the easier it will be for humans to go back to nature and simplicity. All while being watched by “machines of loving grace”.

            I believe that the poem is anti-technology. This is because those 3 lines at the beginning of each stanza in parentheses jump out at me as stark contrasts to the mood of the rest of the poem. The urgency of those lines just does not fit, and gives me the sense of mockery and disagreement with the rest of the poem. The image that comes to my mind of being watched over by machines is of the movie “The Matrix”. Where humans are unaware of what nature is and are controlled by the machines. This poem is stating that technology should not be mixed with nature.

Frost's "Design" Imagery

Fat, white spider

White web holding a moth

White rigid satin cloth

Death and blight, darkness

Witches potion

Snow-drop, snowflake?

Innocence

Design? Purpose?

White, innocence

Dark, death

The poem “Design” by Robert Frost uses the images of white and dark, or death, to convey the meaning of the poem. The question that Frost is asking is if there is a design to life. Is some greater power controlling our lives? The poem begins with a spider, fat and white on a white heal-all. There is a moth in the flower that has been caught. The moth is compared to a “white piece of rigid satin cloth”. Cloth is usually not rigid, suggesting that something is not quite right with the image. This is showing that the though the flower looks innocent, the spider is using it as a trap. The use of the word white to describe everything in the first three lines gives an image of innocence. The beautiful flower, white spider, are not as they seem, they are cruel intentions of death. The heal-all was once thought to be a curer of all ailments, and for the spider to use it as a trap is a contradiction of its purpose.

            The next lines of the poem go away from the white, innocent view, to images of darkness and death. “A witch’s broth” is brewed in the morning with all things evil, ready to go out in the world and bring death. The spider is mentioned again, but not as being white, but as a “snow-drop spider”. The spider is now compared to a snowflake, not simple and pure anymore, but complex and imperfect. It is an ingredient in the witch’s broth, a tool of death. The flower is the froth of the witch’s potion, just another ingredient of death.  The next stanza begins with the question of why the flower was white if it was used for a dark purpose. The heal-all is a blue flower, and of good intent. It is not white or dark, but a color in-between. Not everything falls into a category of good and evil, the line is blurred. What leads the moth to meet its dark end? The design of life leads the moth there; the design is white and dark, life and death. The witch brews a broth of death, but there is the beauty of nature to contrast it. The spider and its flower are both beautiful and deadly.

Frost then asks if an event so small is even controlled by a design? That is what the meaning of this poem is. Design touches all things, even as small as a spider, flower and a moth. Nature is dark, it is white, and it is every color in-between. That is what makes nature so amazing.

What's In a Name?

I named my blog “A Very Literal Blog” because I wanted something clever and something in the context of this class. Since the class is an introduction to literature, we are going to be blogging about literature. I guess the best way to read my title is “A Very Lit-eral Blog.” It is going to be a blog about our readings and opinions of the readings, all which are literature. I liked how the class website was a play on words as well, with “Exploring Literritories” and I wanted to do the same. I think it is fun to name our blogs anything we want, and I did not want a boring blog name. Also this is my first time having ever had a blog, and I wanted it to be a good name.

            I actually spent a lot of time thinking about what I wanted to name my blog because it is going to be something that I am going to be spending a lot of time on for this next ten weeks. I had other ideas, but this one actually stuck. I also take the blog title to mean what the words say. This blog is going to be pretty straightforward and only used for ENL 3 class assignments, so it will be literal. Part of my grade will literally be taken from what I write on this blog. But most of all, I just wanted to have some fun, and this idea came to my head on my bike ride home tonight.