Conclusion of the Literature Course

Yes, it is difficult to state a conclusion when you have to write it, but really do not want to. But well, this conclusion is meant to be read by people, for them to know what you think. I know at least two people that will be reading this. You never know all of the people who will read your posts, but now I am sure of two. Maybe I can come up with a secret code, but I won't, or maybe I will, I do not know, maybe within the post, there is the "hidden message". Whatever. 

This course. Wow, well, first the typical "Oh, yes I learned a lot, and I found out the meaning of literature and read many interesting things that will help me find a taste for future things I read and everything was so enjoyable: the presentations, the art projects, the novels, the... Yes, and it was the best course in the year and, and, and..." 

But I'm not feeling any of that, am I? What I learned through the year, is that no matter how much or what I read, I actually HAVE the capacity to descipher funny drawings or symbols called "words" to communicate. I went kind of "backwards" and asked, and ask, in present tense...

Words? I understand? Why do I understand? Bleh. Punctuation marks?!="!: Yeah, they help, and you know they are there for something, and someone introduces to your mind that they are there for something, and that they mean something, and their only goal is to make it "understandable". You want more conclusion? I think I will not reach a point?!"=. The course, yes, I liked Night, my "whatever it was" in my "art" project, trying to figure out many things. My reading habits: did not change. My pleasure for reading: did not change. My meaning to words: yeah, that probably changed. And yet, I am here, using my "understandable" english...


I realized I use words such as adjectives or adverbs, and I can not only use words, but choose my words and choose their meaning. adkfjs.

You read it, _______ (insert name here). 

Maybe later I'll also read this. 

"Fahrenheit 451" by Ray Bradbury

I've always laughed at the term "science fiction" (in a kind of mental way, not that I laugh out loud every time I hear it). There is something about it, that is not fictitious about it; and science, well, that is another story. I know, I know, fiction is something that does not have to do with our "reality", and our history; our peopled world, our current technological advances, (by the way, Fahrenheit 451 movie came out in the 60s and I smiled at the "wonderful" TV parlor wich was one of our modern plasma T.V.s. Very futuristic for the time it was made in), or maybe the things people do and the way people think... a thousand, a billion reasons. 

My "point" here, if I do have one of those, is that Fahrenheit could just as easy as to be an allegory. An allegory of what? Of our modern times, of our present, that is turning into past every second, every moment. There are always people who are against the system, people who want to just take things as they are, people who do not want or are afraid of THINKING, people who control everything, and people who come and give your life a change... any change, people who think they understand... People, people, people... Arabs, catholics, African-Americans, chinese, mexicans, short people, non-religious people... people, people, people... all so unique, all so different. 

     

In a way, all science fiction has to relate to "now", since topics treated everywhere have to do with our way of thinking, and these topics are discussed, exposed or wahtever by a thinking human being. (Unless there's an animal or plant that writes or paints, which would also be left to the interpretation of us human beings, so it's all the same, anyway). A man that discovers that his life is silly, absurd. The closest person to him, which was never that <linked> to him, the people that did not want others to fill their minds with knowledge so that ignorance would make them "H.a.p.p.y" (what a word in this world, so...). I cannot think of it as science fiction, because they have all the tools we have, the TVs, the incinerators, empty minds, non-empty minds, books... we are just technologically closer, or just like it. Science. Social Science? Technological Science? Fiction? Really? 

Tech is created to fulfill our "needs". Our needs to have what? An easier life? A h.a.p.p.i.e.r world? A less stressed world? A comformist world? Really? Sides. Well, human beings have to choose one, and satisfy their "neeeeeeds". 

Extra no. 1:

Aliens? Maybe the reason we have not "seen" them is because we insist on realting them to human characteristics. We believe what our eyes can see, even with "great" modern tech... Just a thought. 

Extra no. 2:

Montag's chase and sudden death in TV. Kind of reminded me of Osama Bin Laden. Sudden, fast, TV. 

You'll be reading this? Will someday internet be burnt? You know, maybe not a lot of people will mind reading this. It is l.o.n.g.

Words. Words. Words. Bleh. 

"Much ado about Nothing" by William Shakespeare

Words... back... or something. The thing is that now, this is supposed to talk about... nothing! Nothing what? Oh, right. Much ado, much to do, about... no-thing. Even though the title of this story, play, movie, etc., originally by William Shakespeare, can have many meanings and connotations, like the one which has a sexual menaing, or the one where nothing (notting) means to spy someone, I will focus on the "no-thing" thing about this "nothing" play. 

What is this supposed to mean? That nothing happened in the end? That every event just happened and it was just for nothing because everything would have run its course without all the drama? Is it that Shakeaspeare considered all the muttering and love and relationships a really huge "nothing"? Maybe, but that is not up to me to interpret.  

What I think is that in the end, what counted was inside the characters, and sooner or later, it would have appeared, through one means or the others.  Beatrice and Benedick, they both loved each other so secretly, that one day, maybe, without others' "help", their love would have ocme out to surface for them and everyone to see. Claudio and Hero, well, what a pair of confused and tender-lovings! 

Maybe the end as we know it would not have ended that way if no one would have interferred. I mean, it would have ended with Claudio's death, with Don Pedro's one by his evil brother, with all the "loving couples" being together in the end, wether in life or death (as in R & J, in the case of Claudio and Hero), or nothing could have happened, just the prince and everyone else arriving to Messina, doing whatever they went to do, and bye-bye. Nothing, nothing could have happened, and nothing happened, so, there was too much doing about just nothing. 

"Taxi" by Amy Lowell

When I go away from you 

The world beats dead

Like a slackened drum. 

I call out for you against the jutted stars

And shout into the ridges of the wind. 

Streets coming fast, 

One after the other,

Wedge you away from me,

And the lamps of the city prick my eyes

So that I can no longer see your face.

Why should I leave you

To wound myself upon the sharp edges of the night?

So, taxi, a taxi that could take you far away, a taxi that you hope to be arrriving somewhere, but you cannot know for sure, a taxi that you just want to take you away from the pain. Yes, I like the sound of it, the sound of the Inception quote I changed in order to fit it to the poem, but those words can sound silly, too. The poem tells us about this girl who maybe broke up with her boyfriend or just left him for the night because either she or he had something else to do. And then she is suffering like hell, either way. But is that my interpretation or what the poem really wants to say? But even though someone tells me what the poem "really wants to say", I would interpret it. So my interpretation is that, and I find it really silly. And I can say that because of the interpretation I gave to it, it is not a good poem. But people have taught me that poems should be judged not from the topic, but by the way they are written. So yes, I like that there are metaphors (but kind of simple, though) and the images (like the 3d neon lights coming right into your eyes full of tears, hurting them). I like those, but not the poem itself, maybe there is a good arrangement of the verses, but that I cannot be sure of, even though that I can actually say I like. So to me, it is not a poem I can put in the category of "Poems I consider to be good". 


And I would have liked for the title to be more of a metaphor.

"Exile" by Julia Alvarez

This was kind of a mixture of what I like about poetry and what I do not. To start with, I like the set of metaphors the author used, as I really like metaphors. But on the other hand, I do not really like narrative poetry. I mean, it is nice and I think it can be very good, but I still cannot find a way to look at the verses and not want to put them all together as in prose, because my mind thinks that either way, they continue being the exact same thing. My mind considers that there can be more "poetic" phrases or paragraphs, also full of metaphors in a novel, but that is interpretation, as everything.

But aside all of that, I think Exile is a very well done image of what the title wants to say. To imagine this girl plunging into the sea, going away from the land she knows and into the unknown, but still with faith, is a very clear image for me. And the way she puts her point of view as a child, a child who could just follow his dad to his "holiday in the beach", can bring us many thoughts, like what if she was older and had the possibility to choose? Or, what if she had fought to stay and not only go away? What will she do in the new and unknown place?

I believe this poem really makes us project ourselves in it, asking and answering ourselves, to what could happen to the mirror we see in this girl.

William Shakespeare

I could start by saying when our dear friend Will was born, or everything he did and did not, but I think there is one important thing: what if Shakespeare had never existed?

We all know (as the world in general) about Romeo and Juliet, maybe about Hamlet's quote "to be or not to be", or about the Globe... and everything ends up relating to dear Willy. But what if this great playwright had never put the stereotypes and famous quotes in history? Maybe nothing would have happened: we could have had another typical model to stand for the well-known "Romeo", or tragedies would not be represented with a skull because of the play Hamlet, but maybe with a knife stabbing a heart, or swords crossed (or swords crossed with a skull haha) But anyway, I cannot buy the fact that Shakespeare was that important. Yes, I like his work, I've seen a thousand representations of Romeo and Juliet and like to know about him, his times, etc. But besides all that, I think of William Shakespeare as a very good playwright that was able to become popular by accident. Then, his work started spreading like smoke and everyone soon knew about this guy, or about his work. Only by accident was that the stereotypes we have today are what they are, and the sound to his name is known by most of the people, even though they might not know a thing about him. 

He was born as everyone else, wrote as anyone else could have, and reached fame as everyone else could have. Destiny? I cannot say, but he is a guy that should be very credited for many of the "lettered" world we have today, and after about 400 years after his death, he is still part of our world. So yes, nothing could have happened, but after all, he left his print and is present somehow. 

"Revolting Rhymes (Snow White)" by Roald Dahl

Snow white ended up with the seven dwarves because they made a fortune at the racetrack. Not the usual "Oh, and she lived happily ever after with lovely Prince Charming, and the rainbow shone, and the birds sang and everything was just so annoyingly perfect..." No, this is something that can be both more linked to our everyday life, but on the other hand, way more farther from it. Now it was like "Oh, and then she stole the mirror just because and the dwarves made a fortune and she fell in love with them (or their money, either way) and then the lights fade out..." Yes, very funny because of the way it turns a childish story into a double sense and with balck humor story. But even though it can have the double sense, (and the images contribute a lot to this) and it might be "less fantastic" or "less childish", one does not go listening to stories about a woman who slept with seven little guys at the same time because they were rich. I mean, everything can happen, the rainbowish ending, or the... lovely alternative ending. 

That is what I consider great about everything, you can mock about everything you want, and the way Roald Dahl arranges the stories in his Revolting Rhymes, and puts them together in a very "poetic" way, makes them even funnier. It is a very good joke. 

Roald Dahl has a very particular ability to put words together to tell elegant rhyming jokes without having to speak them. That is what I can see from Revolting Rhymes.

Image from: http://www.liquorsnob.com/pictures/ho-white.jpg

"Night" by Elie Weisel [Part II]

I cannot speak about Night. I talked to a friend trying to find the words, but it wass impossible. We spent the night talking, and still it did not happen. It is so hard to say something that does not sound stupid. We probably think too much. I mean, what is war? What is peace?  What is to be mentally sane? Not knowing? And to be mad? Is being mad perceiving what others do not?

When was the last time you saw yourself in the mirror and looked at a normal person there?
I would like for you to give me a definition of a weird person, please. 
Everybody lives a Night. But I gues that some people that could seem to understand that, just won't.


And now, go here and watch: http://vimeo.com/1965247

"Phenomenal Woman" by Maya Angelou

I was listenig to a song, and I listened to a part that says:

What a feeling.

Bein's believin'.

I can have it all, now I'm dancing for my life.

Take your passion

and make it happen.

Pictures come alive, you can dance right through your life.

Now I hear the music,

close my eyes, I am rhythm.

In a flash it takes hold

of my heart.

       (Flashdace, what a feeling - Irene Cara)

I know it might not sound anything related to the Phenomenal woman poem, but as I listened to it, it caught my attention for the way I instantly realted it to the poem. This is like the explanation I could give to the poem with another one. What Maya Angelou is proud about is for the fact of being herself, the feeling she gets about her. 

There is still so much discrimination against women all over the world. They are not taken into account in political decisions, they are used as means of pleasure, according to a misinterpretation of religion. Ancestral traditions, even since primitive people, women stay at home, men go to work.   Having made so much progress in human thinking, in human perspective, there are still many things to be aware of. Like these. Women's situation in the world. This song is what every woman should think, want to think and still want to be. 

It is achieving a high position with ourselves, defeating what others think and having all at the palm of our hands. It is fighting for the right to be free: "Take your passion and make it happen. Pictures come alive, you can dance right through your life". It's a matter of being proud of what we are, not taking into account what we must be. Women and men are not the same, but it is that special characteristics, that "secret that lies inside us" that make us so special, but not so "discriminable". Human beings after all. "Close my eyes I am rhythm. In a flash it takes hold of my heart." I believe that is a beautiful image. A woman closing her eyes feeling the pride emerging, knowing that she is worth it, and then she feels it all over her heart. 

I believe Maya Angelou is quite right about feeling proud of being a woman, and to feel everything that define us as our identity, as our common factor that make us indispensable in the world. But what is more, is that she feels very deeply great for her being African American, which was difficult to bear in those times. She was a very brave woman that clearly shows us that definitely, a world without women would not be the same.

"Everyday Use" by Alice Walker

This is a short story that tells the story about a mother and her two daughters. One is very humble, nice and shy. The other one is proud, vain and at least, physically nicer. One day, Dee, the vain daughter goes to visit her mother and sister. She had changed her name to Wangero. She asked to have the old quilts that Maggie owned, to exhibit them. The sister would say yes, but the mother would feel it was Maggie's right to keep them. In the end, Wangero (Dee) did not keep them and said good-bye to them. 

I came to know today that the reason African-Americans changed their names from the "European" ones they had, was to recover their roots and feel more proud about them. I believe Wangero, even though she seems to be the evil one in the story, has arrived to the new world of freedom for this people. The African-americans now had rights, she would be receiving College education and the freedom to travel. Besides that, she was a woman, and women rights were also beginnig. So at the new freedom that she found in front of her eyes, she could not feel anything but pride of her roots and the success they had achieved. "She would look anyone in the eye", she would not feel less in front of white people, she would stand and be proud of who she was. 

On the other side, yes, she had a problem with leaving simple stuff as it was, and not stopping herself from wanting to own everything. She was already free, but she did not realise she had some responsibilities, for example, to make her shy sister proud of who she was. Maybe Wangero just wanted her to realise it, or maybe she just found her stupid for acting like that and expected her to already be proud. But that would not happen. I think Wangero has a point where she says "It's a new day for us. But from the way you and mamma still live, you'd never know it." Of course I believe that was a good advice, in the sense of being free as African-americans. But then again, she could not difference between social comfort and family and personal comfort. Maggie and her mom already had the family comfort. Maggie may have needed more self-esteem, but she had a simple, happy life beside her mother. She was happy, she was going to get married, and she did not complain about things. She was comfortable with life and really did not expect to have a life like her sister's. Maybe she envied her body, as she was burnt, but in soul, she was simple. And this we can see with the quilts she makes. She thinks family is important, and personal heritage is too. Wangero thought it had to be for the world, to show the traditions of the people. 

So I do not think that Wangero was a diva or a mean girl, she just saw things from another point of view, and both sisters and her mother, just for being human beings, were not perfect.

"Those Winter Sundays" by Robert Hayden

Sundays too my father got up early

And put his clothes on in the blueback cold,

then with cracked hands that ached

from labor in the weekday weather made

banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.

I'd wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking.

When the rooms were warm, he'd call,

and slowly I would rise and dress,

fearing the chronic angers of that house.

Speaking indifferently to him,

who had driven out the cold

and polished my good shoes as well.

What did I know, what did I know

of love's austere and lonely offices?


This is a very clear poem that gives us a very good idea of what the life of this boy was, specially during Winter. He was poor, living with his family and living in the routine. His father would take care of him, but the fact of beeing poor made him be cold in his treat, not meaning he was in his heart. No, he would polish this boy's shoes and made the fire burn to warm the house. But this was taken for granted by the boy and the family. "No one ever thanked him." And because of the coldness of his dad and the hard work he had to do, there would be argues in the house, and the boy would be indifferent to his dad, to avoid a possible anger from him.

It is a sad passage. It tells us about this poor family who do not have a comfortable life and have to face it every day, trying to make themselves as comfortable as possible, but with the fact that they have to work and take care of each other. A unite family for keeping each other safe, but not very united in the meaning of heart. The kid would not run to neither of his parents to talk or laugh. They had a serious reletionship between them. Maybe the Winter Sundays did not only refer to the season...

What is Poetry?

After seeing all that poetry could be, I can honestly say I still do not know what it is. It sounds ilogical, but this art, usually in the form of words, I cannot describe with them. It would be defining it with itself. I could say poetry is the art of putting words together and creating images, feelings and experiences... but that is Literature in general. Maybe a definition to me would be "Poetry is how we put words together to form everything but them". Quite unclear, but maybe I could make something out of there. I also liked the definition seen in class about the third level of how to say things. 

It is said that poetry in life does not have to be exactly what poetry as a literary genre is. And then I say, why not? Somehow they have to relate from each other, otherwise, they would not be called the same. A poetic life, is it a life full of exaggerations? (And I am not meaning only the bad exaggerations) Maybe. But can it also be the way a person feels and tells their life? Yes, but that anyone can do. So poetry is nothing? Nothing but a mere nice arrangement of words put together so that a situation, an image, or whatever it describes sounds nicer, more powerful, and so on? Yes, maybe. So what I can say is that poetry is not staying in the middle, it is not being in where the water is liquid. It is choosing a side, a side in which either the water will boil or will freeze. It means not to be in the steady part of whatever situation, but going deeper into it, telling it, giving meaning to it, put the situation in the right place so that it can fit many others in its meaning. It means not only to describe, but to put a layer of words that can tell better and at the same time worse what we want to say.

 I believe it has to be that unclear, that it comes out together completely clear. Maybe I am not making myself clear trying to define poetry, but I guess that is the trick. And as I said, I just cannot describe precisely what poetry is. Dictionaries, who wants a static thing to define another thing that is not at all static? They do not understand each other. 

Maybe with another example. What happens when you mix dirt, water and a seed? Many things, but then the perspective in which a poet sees it, can change the whole context and not only make a plant grow. 

As in cooking, poetry can have many recipies. And I have my favorite poetry dish. It can be baked in endless combinations, but still, the ingredients are what make the dish special to me. I rather prefer poetry that has a lot of figurative language, metaphors, similes... I like it to be like a code, a code that can be desciphered, not only by imagining it, but also by living it as you read it. "To read between lines", I do not like it. I prefer to read under lines in poetry, because there is a hidden meaning, and then when you can feel the meaning and know the feeling, that is when you get a poem and say "Wow". That is what I like. 


And form. I believe poetry can be found in so many ways, that a line in the middle of a novel can be poetry. It can also have the traditional form of lines, but then again, we have examples of poems making shapes or drawings. Everything but steadiness. So as a conclusion, I do not know what poetry is. 

"The Masque of the Red Death" by Edgar Allan Poe

Edgar Allan Poe could be the least optimistic writer ever. His stories contain decay, sadness, death... never a happy ending or an optimistic point of view. The Masque of the Red Death is definitely not the exception. 

In this story, Poe tells us about a plague, "The Red Death", which made people bleed from every part of their bodies. Disgusting, horrible, but that was the story's reality. And so the prince, Prince Prospero, along with his close friends and maybe family, hid in his abbey to prevent the Red Death to take them to its hell. 

And so, everybody was there in the seven room abbey. Everybody wearing their respective masks, as it was a mascarade. Six rooms were full of color, full of life; and the left one was black and red. Terrifying. No one dared to enter into that room, and when the clock inside it hit the hour, everybody would stop doing whatever they were doing but breathing. After the clock stopped sounding, everybody would return to their activities. 

An unexpected guest, a man bleeding, with a mask that was actually not a mask, arrived, causing Prince Prospero to get angry at the joke of disguising as the "Red Death". Only that it was not a custom. It was the Red Death which walked passing every single room until it reached the black one, giving death to everyone. 

The message in this story is very clear. Death. Hiding from it. Colorful and cheerful life in the different stages of life. The last room of our lives: darkness, death, and a clock which tells the time you have left. And when you notice that time is ticking by, you get paralyzed, but then continue with your life. And finally, the most representative: Life will always end in Death, and if Death is near you, you will not be able to avoid it. Having the most powerful fortress will not make Death turn away. 

So that was a story full of allegories, full of hidden messages within its different elements, such as de Red Death itself, the rooms, the prince, the abbey, the clock... everything represented more than in their main escence. I believe it is a very enjoyable story if you can read the allegories. 

"Harrison Bergeron" by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

"The year was 2081, and everybody was finally equal." Fiction, Science Fiction. The intelligence model was Hazel, Harrison's mother, who we can say has an intelligence below average. Everybody was handicapped so that they would look the same, do the same. No one better than anyone in anything. But all of this cannot be possible if there is not a mastermind behind: Diana Moon, the handicapping program directress.

Everybody is fine, nothing happens; they are used to getting punished for trying to think and do "unusual" stuff. They even agree on having handicaps. They support the equality. Specifically, George and Hazel, the main characters of our story.

Suddenly, Harrison, their son, who was taken away for having removed his handicaps, is announced on TV as a great danger for anyone who dares to cross his path. Harrison appears. He proclaims himself the emperor and frees the ballerina who was appearing in the previous show his parents were watching. She was the best ballerina for the number and kind of handicaps she was wearing. So he frees her and the music men, making them give their best, not their limited best. And so they do. Harrison and the ballerina dance and float in the air, kissing. In that moment, Diana Moon shoots them. They die. Hazel cries, but she cannot remember why. George misses the moment. Life continues.

Clear example of how excesses are not good. Even good things over their limits are not at all good. Equality made the world gray, without variety of people... it made the world a zoo, animals in their cages. Everything ruled by an absolutist and her fellow tyrants: Diana Moon. What is the purpose of having everybody limited from their capacities, from their dreams? It is a matter of control, of power, and that is what Diana Moon was. Harrison rebelled against that kind of world, wanting to break free. Revolution. He got death in exchange, and not a place in someone's memory at least, not even his parents'.

That is sad, wanting to make a world where everybody could develop a personality, develop themselves, and getting killed by a tyrant. Even though it talks about the future and an extreme situation, which obviously looks impossible to us, this story's elements show us not a very far away situation. Wanting control over all, rebellion, love, conformism, and just taking everything for granted... they are not very far away from us, and if we just look around, we will find all these.

I liked the story, and it is very interesting to read it and to think about it.

"Night" by Elie Weisel

There is so much to say about this story. Powerful, touching. The story of a teenage jew, Eliezer, during the darkest times for the world in the twentieth century: the second world war. He, as many others, was deported to the concentration camps, and lived his own terrifying story in there. He started thinking about understanding the Kabbalah, but ends up worrying about what to eat, what to do to help his father... how to survive. 

To start with, himself. How powerful it was to be wanting to devote his life to something and then having his plans changed for something he would suffer and could not complain about. Being so young, with so many plans in mind, with a wonderful family... it was just not fair, not only for him, but for every deportee and people who suffered.

The experience he had made him go even against his values. Everything he knew to be good and the faith he had in human beings was lost form the very first moment he arrived at a concentration camp. He tried to keep up the faith in something, but in the end his only wish was to survive for his father, as they loved each other. But he would end up looking at him as an obstacle rather than a reason to live. It is impressive how a mind that aims towards kindness and values ends up just worrying about its personal fate. The situations were strong, definitely.

And his dad, being almost everyone's councelor and adviser, ends up not knowing how to keep up the hope for light, for day. He almost lets himself die, instead of having the courage to continue living. Someone so admired and respected for his inner strength...

But of course I cannot know about that. It sounds so easy to tell about what one thinks should have happened, but just to imagine the situation, the people, the atmosphere... It makes me drop a tear. Those dark times are only within my mind, within what I can know it was, but I cannot think of myself in those situations. I just cannot, it is difficult to put yourself in a situation you cannot even imagine, just barely. 

Four moments in the story stay in me more than the others:

• The first one was when he sees the babies being burnt. I can just say it made me cry. My imagination flies very high. I had to stop reading for a minute. 
• Then, when some guy says that because he was strong, he was made to put his father in the furnace. Wow! That truly shocked me. I stopped reading again. I could not imagine how it would be to be in his place, having to see your dad's face craying, maybe begging, and still having to do it, to burn alive the one that gave you life and loves you. Despite being a very little part in the book, it stuck inside me. 
• When the boy plays the violin in front of the mountain of dead and nearly dead bodies. It is just amazing, a "just in movies" moment. I cannot say anything else, but that I cannot describe how wonderful it felt when reading that. Sadness, Relief, Hope, everything put together. It was truly a little heaven in the middle of hell.
• And the fourth one, when Elie looks at a mirror for the first time since he was deported and sees "a corpse looking at him". That much he had changed! He was no longer himslef and maybe it was the same terror that fills you when watching a ghost movie, or a disgusting image, that despite being tolerable in the sense that it does not blind you, it makes you not wanting to see it. Poor boy.

After reading Night, I had breakfast. I did not want to eat. There was fruit, milk, bread and eggs on my place. I was very touched by the book. And the same as the other WWII stories, it is unbelievable how they are actually true. It is a book that should be read. You feel the story and understand many things about how the concentration camps worked. 


(Sorry! I swear I tried to be breve!)

Allegories

What is an allegory? I had never thought about it, because I had never heard that word, or at least in the context we are in: Literature. What I now know by definition is that it is the meaning behind the elements in a piece of art that the author uses in order to convey a meaning, so that it can be interpreted, rather than be stated directly in the piece.

But of course everyone has dealt before with allegories, maybe not with art and neither conscious of what it was. But hidden messages... who has not done that before? Everyone has created a drawing with a meaning that nobody understands but them, or them and their close friends, family, etc. The point here is that the different elements within something that contain a meaning are allegories. 

It is important, in art for example, to have a background, to know who the author was, or maybe just the context he or she lived in. Many elements in a piece of art we can understand very easy, but it is because we have a background on it. Modern/ Contemporary art can be read easier by someone who does not have a lot of background in history, for example. This is because that person shares the same world and society with the author, so they can connect better and have communication, which is the objective of art: to tell something. 

That is why Greek or ancient art in general can be very hard to understand if there is not a proper background. The same can happen when dealing with abstract art, as its elements are very simple but convey a strong meaning. 

To my point of view, which I think many share, it is wonderful to be able to discover the message behind something and to be able to exploit that. Allegories are hidden messages waiting to be discovered. 

What is Art?

Art is one of the most difficult words to find a meaning for. Never in our times has a human found a completely fitting definition for it, so each one of us can make a contribution from our own point of view to say what art is. 

Let's start from there: point of view. Everything done with an artistic purpose has a point of view. The artists create from their experiences, their knowledge, their feelings... or everything put together. This is the reason why many people might find a piece artistic or not. 

Next thing: people. People have necessarily to decide whether one thing is art or not. So art is defined by the society, as it is a creation from humans for humans. 

But it is still difficult to decide what art is. I can say everything in this world is art, because it has a meaning. Words could be art, even though they are bad words, they are used to represent an emotion. But for example, there are these words that are used to name many things. I believe those words lost their art. So I can say that art pieces have to have their uniqueness and a meaning behind them. I could be telling that a dot in a piece of paper is art, because it has a meaning, and not because of the fact of being just a dot in the middle of nowhere.

Then we can say that everything done by we human beings, comes from our heads, our creativity. Art is meant to create, to represent reality in a way that beautifies it. This does not mean that people have to put reality into their piece just the way it is, but the way they see it. This means that they can put an element to describe something specific about their reality. We can also create art from imagination, like dragon stories or surreal paintings. Everything that does not exist begins with an existing thing, every new idea begins with an already acquired knowledge. So imagination and the way you transalte it, meaning creativity, are the basis for art.

This is why art is decided by society, because it represents a common understanding of reality, say it is  about past, present or future, the world has similar ideas, that will change over time, but that we believe is purity and beauty. If a society has specific believes, they will search beauty according to that.

In class, we came to the definition of art as a representation of reality made by human beings in an effort to create beauty to provoke an aesthetic experience. I disagree on the "in an effort" part. Sometimes art is created by accident, without wanting it to be so, but suddenly, it is art, but you did not know it. So sometimes art is an accident, caused by whatever reason, but it is art. Authors, for example, can write, but their works not be appreciated as art but until a century after or so. This is a kind of art accident. Maybe the author wrote for money or to exemplify something, but not with the purpose of causing an "aesthetic experience" in mind. This author could have had a way of seeing the world that was not appreciated by his contemporaries, but being by later generations. There can be a paintor, that in his painting, does a mistake, and feels his work is ruined; but suddenly he notices that that mistake can be an artistic adding element to his work. It is all a matter of perspective, but we all humans share a common nature that make us look at art in a very similar way, no matter the time or social class, it is being human beings that gives us the possibility to appreciate art.

The "aesthetic" experience art causes is very important. It means that you could give the piece an understanding, a meaning, and knowing that it represents something.

So art can be "A creation by human beings based on reality that is considered beauty and causes an aesthetic experience".

As an example, I can put Robert Miles, with his song "Children" (on the music player of this Blog). With this song he made the Dream Trance music genre appear. It is usually piano or saxofon music with the electronic mix. Robert Miles, from existing music genres, could put two very different ones together and create a new beautiful one. Many people do not like it, but again, it is a matter of perspective. Say it is Contemporary Art or Modern Art, but still art out of music, and it transmits the aesthetic experience. You just have to close your eyes and put play. I believe it is a fantastic genre and this, the first Dream Trance song, is my favorite of that genre.

(Just an ironic statement)

-What is A.R.T.? Let me spell it for you! A is for Aesthetic experience. R is for Representation of reality. T is for The World's understanding of it... right here in the big wide world!

If you know where I got this idea from, maybe you will understand why I call it ironic.

(Image from: superchrome.co.uk)

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"Witness for the Prosecution" by Agatha Christie

This is the story about a lawyer, a solicitor, trying to get his client's innocence proved. Leonard Vole is the subject judged, and Mr. Mayherne is the solicitor in charge of his case. Leonard is accused of having murdered an old lady for wanting her money. This old lady had trusted her issues to Vole, and he was supposed to have betrayed her and killed her.

The story begins with Vole telling Mayherne everything that made him conclude Vole was innocent. There were two important things that arose from this conversation: 

1. Janet Mackenzie, the maid to the old lady, hated Leonard; maybe because Mrs. French had trusted everything to a man she barely knew and not to her, her companion probably for a very long time. So even though Mackenzie hated Leonard, her word was still valid to the court.
The fact here was that Mackenzie had accused Vole for having killed Mrs. French within a certain hour. Leonard said that what Mackenzie had said was not at all true, as by the time she claimed the murder had taken place, Leonard was supposed to be already at home. 

2. As a witness to this event, he had his wife, Romaine. Leonard said that Romaine was a very devoted wife and that she would be proving that he had arrived home at the time he said. 

This led Mr. Mayherne to his continuing of his invetigation with Romaine, knowing that if she was as dovited as Loeonard had said, she would not be of much help, as a devoted wife's opinion was taken only as coverage to the accused.

And so Mayherne went with her, and found out that she actually hated her husband, and told him whatever things against Leonard. This resulted very confusing, but in the end he still believed that Leonard was innocent and that Romaine was sort of out of her mind because of her hatred to Leonard, who she even denied as her husband. 

At court, Mayherne is delivered a note with an address. He went there and found a woman who had a bunch of letters from Romaine to her lover, making her a liar in what she had said at court, and turning the case in favour of Leonard. The important letter said something about being finally happy with Leonard's arrest. With this note, the case was won by Mayherne and Leonard was set free.  

At the end, we surprisingly find that Romaine was in fact the one who had led the prosecution all the time. She had actually invented that she hated him for her argument to be convincing and put the blame on herself. All this she told to Mr. Mayherne, who was obviously astonished, as the winning of the case had not been because of his work, but because of the most unthinkable person's. A little detail he had forgotten: Romaine was an actress. That detail he could have noticed, but what he actually noticed was the habit that both the woman of the letters and Romaine had of shaking their hands. That little detail made him finally realize that they were the same woman. She had faken the letters and acted a fake hatred. She was very intelligent, and the only one who knew the terrible truth: Leonard had actually killed Mrs. French, fact that Mayherne did not believe. 

Incredible how desperate a man can be, but the fear that still makes him shake for having to tell the truth. Leonard was desperate to find a way out of jail, so he put all his faith on his wife to cover him, and yet never told the turth because all he wanted was to be free. And so he managed to fool his solicitor; and his wife, the solicitor and the court. They were both intelligent. The difference is that Leonard could fool the solicitor, but there could be anything that could reveal his lies. On the other hand, we had Romaine, who had a perfectly well structured plan and the necessary elements to make it credible and that it would work.

So Leonard Vole was not lying that much, as he said his wife was a devoted one, but he did not think about the lack of use that that argument had. 

Romaine is a very intelligent woman who could manage the problem, not letting the worries blur her intelligence and saving the man she loved from going to jail. But in the end, we do not know if she's taken to jail or not for having "lied" to the court. 

I think it is a story easy to follow in the events, as you are discovering the facts as the same time and from Mayherne's point of view. This makes you wonder if what he is thinking actually makes sense, or if there is any other possible way for getting more clues and evidence. The most shocking part of the story is when we come to know that Romaine had been the mastermind behind the case, and that she posessed all the information and knew how to handle it. 

But even though it was shocking, it does not make it the climax of the story. This is because it does not give a turn to the story, it does not tell us what happens after that, it is just the resolution. The case is solved, and what happens to the couple, to Romaine or to Mayherne is not relevant for the story we are told: "That is another story and shall be told another time". So to the main plot, what matters is wether the case is solved or not, and the point where it is decided is when the letter is read at court and Romaine has to give her defense.

I believe it is a very good story and the ending is definitely good and unexpected.

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1.03.01

"The Sun" by Mary Oliver

Have you ever seen 

anything 

in your life 

more wonderful 

than the way the sun, 

every evening, 

relaxed and easy, 

floats toward the horizon 

and into the clouds or the hills, 

or the rumpled sea, and is gone-- 

and how it slides again 

out of the blackness, 

every morning, 

on the other side of the world, 

like a red flower 

streaming upward on its heavenly oils, 

say, on a morning in early summer, 

at its perfect imperial distance-- 

and have you ever felt for anything 

such wild love-- 

do you think there is anywhere, in any language, 

a word billowing enough 

for the pleasure 

that fills you, 

as the sun 

reaches out, 

as it warms you 

as you stand there, 

empty-handed-- 

or have you too 

turned from this world-- 

or have you too 

gone crazy 

for power, 

for things? 

The poem could not be more clear. When you read verse after verse, you can visualize, and even feel what the author wrote in the poem. We people are very familiar to sunrises, sunsets, and the fact of the sun just being there. So what does this author wrote? She just made us see the beauty we all know the sun has, but that we forget to remember and appreciate because of our "busy and important" tasks that recquire our cold side rather than our sensible side.

At the end of the poem, we can all agree, because we are all not used to appreciating nature's beauty frecquently, that we are forgetting about those simple things, that just because of the fact of believing in them and feeling them, make us happier, make us calmed, relaxed, and make our problems fade away. 

The author just pulls out, with a very concrete poem, our common inner feeling of beauty, of simplicity. The sun is not a metaphore in this case, but it can be replaced with any element, like the moon, the sea, the stars, an image... Something that is there to fill us with joy, that just because of being makes us what we are: humans; and leaves aside our ambitions, our worries and problems. So what can I say? I liked the poem a lot. 

(Images from : photoshd.wordpress.com and solarpowerninja.com)

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1.03.01

"Salvador Late or Early" by Sandra Cisneros

More than a short story, this is a description of a very poor boy's life. I can say this is one of the saddest passages I have read.

It tells us about a boy, a very poor one, which never does anything interesting, useful or for himself. The same routine is repeated day after day: he wakes up, prepares a very simple breakfast for him and his little borthers, picks up his youngest brother's mess, take them to school and tell them to wait for him in the same place he left them. It also tells us that he buys milk or does favors for his mother, but in the end, he is like a lifeless poor boy which cannot do anything else in his life.

At the end of the story it says that "Salvador dissappears...". It is way too sad. Reading about this boy, who lives to survive rather than the opposite, makes us look how lucky we are to have what we have and the opportunities we get to do something useful with our lives.

When you reach the last period in the story, you feel like waking up from a dream. You really feel as if you had gone beside Salvador in his day, and then it suddenly ended. You wake up and realize in a second that the sad and miserable day that Salvador had is going to be repeated for a very long time. You cannot but feel sad for the boy. He is poor, he has got no friends, he has got a sad life, and he cannot change it. He is alone and sad. That is what moves us in the story, the connection that we have with him for not wanting his life and the fact that we do not want him to have that life. It is a really sad story, and touches you despite its short length.

http://lahistoriadeldia.wordpress.com/2010/07/23/chile-los-estudiantes-aportando-al-debate-nacional-pobreza-y-ciencias-sociales/

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