Macbeth Scenes CNG

I really enjoyed doing the Macbeth scenes in groups and acting them out as a class. It's fun watching how other people decided to dress up to try and show the time period in which they were set. The way in which the scenes were acted out was also an important part, since different groups used different techniques to try and show what was happening in the scene, as for example the shadows and the swords being played by an actor. We should do this more often for other plays as well because not only is it something different from what we normally do, but also by acting the scenes out with a group, we get to understand what is happening much better. Also, interacting with the other class was also something I liked, since we don’t get to be with the people in that class, so seeing how they chose to act the scene and how good they actually are at acting was a fun experience. And as I was mentioning before, some elements some groups used in their acting came out really well. The swords part was a really well done one, symbolizing Macbeth and Macduff fighting by just showing the two swords fighting by themselves. Things like this is what makes doing these activities a lot more fun to do, as well as get us to come out of the normal routine we have and do something different.

Style Showdown: Article vs Article

An article is always meant to inform the reader of something, but the way in which the writer decides to transmit this information varies a lot. A clear example is the distinctions and similarities between "Heeeere’s . . . Conan!!!" by Lynn Hirschberg, "The Cost Conundrum" by Atul Gawande, and "JA • • •" by Kevin Heldman. The three articles talk about a situation that is going on, but each of them uses techniques that are different from one another. An example is how Hirschberg uses style in his article. He comments on the history of Conan, and how it is his career works. For it he uses a very formal approach to the reader and includes a very minimum opinion part in it. Most of his data comes from things Conan has said and from factual things. This kind of style is very different from what the other two writers use. Gawande comes in to introducing his article by describing the environment followed by facts about the town he wants to talk about. He goes straight on to telling the most important information about the article, and at a point changes completely and puts himself into the story by telling his personal experience, "From the moment I arrived, I asked almost everyone I encountered about McAllen’s health costs—a businessman I met at the five-gate McAllen-Miller International Airport, the desk clerks at the Embassy Suites Hotel, a police-academy cadet at McDonald’s." Even though he himself is included in the story he is covering, most of the things he does and learns about are all about the issue of healthcare and all relate to what he began his article with.
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He also does not use many personal thoughts without using supporting evidence to back it up, like: "The place had virtually all the technology that you’d find at Harvard and Stanford and the Mayo Clinic, and, as I walked through that hospital on a dusty road in South Texas, this struck me as a remarkable thing." And you notice how it is that in this piece he also applies irony, telling about the huge amount of technology they had while they walked through a dusty road. Finally there's Heldman, who introduces to us the story of a guy he calls JA. His way of writing is completely focused on telling us the story of what JA does. His article is based more on opinion and his point of view on the subject. He rarely gets the point of view of other people, but rather sticks to relating a story from a particular point of view to try and get us to see it specifically from the view he wants us to see it. He could have chosen to do an article about graffiti in the streets and include his case, but in this case its first about his case and then how he graffiti’s. The style in which these writers express things is very different from one to another. Some may decide to use some literary devices, styles, and registers while some decide to use others depending on the audience they want to get to.

Seizing The Minotaur Fleet

In Gulliver's Travels the author comes back after taking all of the enemy's boats with him back to the city. As he approaches, however, the king and the people of the city of Lilliput become scared because they see that the enemy boats are approaching but only the head of the giant is seen, so they believe he is dead. "The emperor and his whole court stood on the shore, expecting the issue of his great adventure. They saw the ships move forward in a large half moon, but could not discern me, who was up to my breast in water." pg 36. The immediate reaction these people had was one of complete horror. The one thing they thought was undefeatable was below water and the enemy ships were coming their way. The situation is very similar to what happened to Theseus during his trip to kill the Minotaur under Aegeus's command. He decided to leave the city with black sails, and promised his father that if he was to return victorious, he would change the sails to white ones. Theseus actually did come out victorious, but when returning from his voyage he forgot to change the sails, so when his father saw the boat coming back with the black sails, he thought his son had died and killed himself.
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It is very similar between the two because in both cases the people who were waiting on the hero to come back with the good news get scared because they see something that is not true from the distance. The result is something completely different, but how are they to know? They think one of the things that were most important to them came out wrong. The only difference is that in Gulliver's Travels the people of Lilliput realize after a bit that the situation they thought was happening wasn't really what they thought, while in the other case the king kills himself because he doesn't get to see that what he thought was happening was really the completely opposite of what it really was. Both stories should have had a happy ending, but in one of them the situation changed completely because one of the characters interpreted a thing in the wrong way.

Gulliver's Kong

In Gulliver's Travels the author is given his freedom with a set of limits set upon him as the only condition to be free. Being given his freedom didn't necessarily mean that he was completely free. The only difference between being free and not being free before and after he was given this opportunity was that he wasn't tied up. Does it make any difference between being tied up and not being tied up if you are free in one case and not in the other? It obviously does. Sometimes, however, it's not enough to bring us happiness. He was given some benefits, as being able to walk around the metropolis and not being tied up, but still he could not leave the empire and he began to be considered a tool of war. The author felt he had gained some trust with the empire, including the king, but now you begin to see why it is that they offered their friendship: to get him to help them in a war. This case scenario is extremely similar to that of the movie King Kong, which is the reason why I decided to choose this caption from the movie: A giant in a city of small people. That was how King Kong felt in his arrival to the human city. Both the author and King Kong might have felt a kind of curiosity about what was happening with all these small scale things, and even more after being left free. Both of them are set free, but are they really free?
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Being awarded freedom in a place where there really is no freedom, isn't much of freedom, or is it? Apart from that, they both have given their trust to someone, as did the author in Gulliver's Travels to the king and King Kong to Dwan, the woman he becomes obsessed with. By giving their trust to them, they await something in exchange, but it is that trust which causes the author to have to accept taking part in the war and King Kong to accept travelling out of his home. Another important thing of the caption from the King Kong movie is the feeling it makes the audience have. When you see this caption you see King Kong with a lonesome, resigned look while holding the one he trusted in and at the same time you see him being located in the middle of a strange city to him. The feeling of loneliness in the picture expresses what it is like to feel alone in a big strange place. The author in Gulliver's Travel is trapped in a place that is unknown to him, a place too "big" and different from what he is accustomed to. Choices he makes are all affected at what he can and can’t do, and how his new environment takes part in it as well.

Night at the Museum: Illustrative

In Gulliver's Travels you come across the fact that the main character ends up being the prisoner of a big tribe of miniature people. He awakens all tied up by his hands, feet, and hair in an island after being shipwrecked. All the small people that inhabit the island are amazed at the giant, and if they sense any danger coming from him, they will attack. "When in an instant I felt above a hundred arrows discharged on my left hand, which, pricked me like so many needles." pg 12. This is why I chose to represent this scene with a screen shot of The Night at the Museum starring Ben Stiller, where he is captured by a tribe of miniature people and tied up as a hostage. He is run over by a toy train and is attacked by mini Mayans with arrows as well.
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In this screen shot you can see the face Ben Stiller has, one that shows how confused he is at what is happening. He also seems to be calm, just as the main character in Gulliver's Travels is when he is captured. You can see the train that just hit him next to him and one of the small cowboys that captures him, starring Owen Wilson. And there are also some characteristics of composition in the screen shot. You can see how the train’s tracks take you directly to look at Ben Stiller’s face, as well as how the lines the mountains make a focus on him as well. The image depicts the feeling both Ben Stiller and the main character in Gulliver's Travels have when being captured by the small race of people.

Red Balloon

The Red Balloon picture is one which keeps in mind perfect geometric figures. All around you find rectangles, rounded figures, and other straight lines. All of these are present at the lower edges of the painting, almost forming a sort of triangle facing down. Then there is the red balloon in the center of the painting. When you make that sort of triangle it becomes a sort of arrow, but since in this case there is no point where the 2 lines meet to make a point in the triangle, the focus automatically moves up to what is in the middle of it, which is the red balloon. Also at the top edges the line in one side is guided directly towards the balloon and at the other side is a rounded figure that ends in a sort of step going under the balloon, which sort of delineates the importance of what’s above it. Whenever there is a figure formed, whether it's a triangle or a rectangle, it is colored in a brighter color from the rest of the painting to make it stand out. And there is a small detail about the balloon that makes it even more special, which is that around the balloon there is a sort of glow that different from the rest of the space around it, without there even being a geometric delineation to consider it another figure.

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And since the background is blue and the glow that the reddish balloon gives off is yellow, it becomes extremely similar to the sun, as if the balloon was what was brightening the place. The line coming down from the balloon is the same line that is continued a bit lower with the triangle and rectangle that are there present, which gives it a parallel effect since that line is almost parallel with another one towards the left of the painting. By using a series of geometric figures, the painter in this case is capable of giving and showing the importance and highlights the picture contains.

The Last Supper

The first thing you get to notice as you look at the painting of the alternative Last Supper from the one we are all accustomed to, is the apparent disorganization in which the scene is presented. Da Vinci's Last Supper shows all the disciples seated in an organized way, but here they are presented in various ways. All of them seem to be talking to each other about who is going to betray Jesus, but the position their bodies have are actually intended to be lines that guide you towards Jesus and give emphasis on him. The table also is a line that goes perpendicular to Jesus, so that sort of perfect geometric arrangement takes you to emphasize on Jesus once again. You also see that the colors on the back are brighter around the edges, but as you start to come back towards the center, it becomes darker. What this does is that it makes Jesus appear to be brighter than the others because he is a light in the dark. Also, the other people apart from Jesus wear colorful outfits going from green, to blue, to yellow, while Jesus wears white, making him different as well. You also notice something particular, which is that only Jesus and one other person are looking straight out of the picture. Making this something which stands out could take us to give greater importance to this other person, and if we are talking about importance in the scene of the last supper, that person would be Judas.
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Then there are other elements about the picture you notice that have a lot of significance. You see a sort of women lying right in front of Jesus. This woman is without a doubt Mary Magdalene, who many people consider to be Jesus' lover. By introducing her into the piece, you now begin thinking on how she symbolizes an unclear truth about Christianism. Also there is a sheep head on one of the plates. This is clearly a representation of how Jesus was supposed to be the Lamb of God, and how he was going to be sacrificed for the good of mankind. There is also bread and wine on the table, which is what Jesus says will signify the body and blood of him and how it will always be sacrificed for the human kind. Elements present all around the piece of art are intentionally put there for us to truly view and give importance to aspects of the picture the painter wants us to notice.

Style

"Ah, what people are! He is almost not with us, and his life is nearly gone, but T.R once yelled at him, so he loves him." pg 98. The way in which Seize the Day by Saul Bellow is written shows a lot about what the author wants us to feel. The style it imposes gives us a sense of understanding the characters more personally. The way in which Willhelm, being the main character, expresses his emotions and thoughts, gets us to understand and get into the story at a greater scale. Bellow's way of making it a personal interaction between the characters and the readers in terms of the way in which they express themselves and how you see their thinking patterns, gets us to feel more comfortable and at the same time more integrated to what the character is going through. This is because once you start to identify yourself with the character by how it communicates to you, the reader, you feel a connection and therefore understand the characters point of view much better.

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If Bellow had used a more formal and more to the point sort of style with his characters, the result would be a much different. When it is written in a style such as that one, you usually get the feeling that style usually imposes, being it more serious and more attentive to facts. In other words you could say it is a sort of connotation-denotation difference, since one of them gives you the feeling to follow it along in a fresh way while the other makes you feel you need to pay close attention to details and what the precise meaning of it might be. He also writes making a lot of emphasis on some points by making them sound as full of emotion, or even sarcasm, as he possibly can. He writes energetically, and the way in which the character's conversations go along create an easy flow, one without that many difficult words or sentences. His style is therefore sensed as a very fresh, but energetic one.

The Truth To Confusion

"There truth for everybody may be found, and confusion only- only temporary, thought Willhelm." pg 80. One way or another, we all have the same problems and joys. We all know what pain is, what fear, hope, love, and other such feelings are. We have all lived through them at a moment or another. Then why is it so hard for us to sometimes see and understand what the other people are feeling? Aren't we supposed to know what effect a certain emotion has on us? Unless we are someone that has never experienced something like pain or hope, we are bound to knowing what effect these emotions have on ourselves. If you see someone going through a situation you know about because of your personal experiences, you automatically begin thinking about what you felt and how that person must be feeling it. All of our experiences tie in with them, but many times we don't react, but rather think it alone and recreate it for ourselves. How hard is it for us to actually try and help the person out as we know we would love others to do if it were us that stood in their place? The situation is the same, we know that. We know what happens, what we could do, and what the possible outcomes are. But then comes a second problem, which Willhelm talks about. We know the situation other people are in, but the way in which we communicate with them is having trouble.
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Both people involved in a conversation know to what they want to get to, but the communication process is difficult to get through. We often have to go through long processes while explaining to someone the circumstances that lead to something ending up being another thing. And it goes beyond feelings. We all share characteristics such as having a mother and a father, the way we are physically, with the characteristics every human being has, and stuff such as how we are taught and the activities we carry along. We know we share this with other people, but stuff as simple as that sometimes get confused in our conversations, so we end up spreading them even more by putting stuff that's supposed to be that way anyways. We therefore all know the truth of something, only that we keep adding stuff in our way of transferring information that doesn't need to be said, creating confusion. Once we get everything together, we understand each other because we know what it feels like to be in their position. We know a situation and perform according to it because we are involved with it in a way. We share various characteristics, and so our logical way to act would be in an understanding, prudent environment

Truth

"Was he a liar? That was a delicate question. Even a liar might be trustworthy in some ways." pg 54. Is it sometimes better to tell a lie than tell what actually happened? Many times we face two options when we have to face another person about something we did. We can either tell the truth or a lie about what happened, but then comes the dilemma of what's the best thing you should do. Is it always better to tell the truth? Ethical values play an important role in this choice making. So how can we judge others about the choices they make if it's all based on what they believe to be good and bad? And then there's the positive and negative effects of telling the truth or a lie. When we make the choice of electing one of them, we know there will be consequences, but how do these consequences vary? We are taught to tell the truth always, and never lie to a person. But sometimes a lie can bring more positive things than telling the truth. Hiding some things from some people can actually keep them in better shape than if they were told the truth about something. In other words, lying can sometimes prove to be more ethical than telling the truth. An example of this would be a normal case scenario anywhere. When you meet a person you have never seen before, you automatically begin to analyze him of all the good and bad things he has. When we talk to them, though, we don't greet them by telling them: "Hi, your pants suck, your head is too big, and you walk like a 3 legged giraffe." And wouldn't that be telling the truth?

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That's why it becomes obvious we are telling lies all day long in order to maintain order, and to have a more positive effect on the person than if we told them the truth about everything. But then there's also the other case where you have to take responsibility for your actions. In this case there's no doubt of what sticks to the ethical values. Telling the truth will always be the best, even if we know it might not be the best for ourselves. Finally, there's the hardest of all choice making regarding whether to tell the truth or a lie. If there was an old woman to whom her sister who lives far away, and with which she doesn't talk regularly, had just passed away and you had to either tell her or not, what would you do? You know that at her age she is very sensitive to anything that happens, and might not be able to take it, but then you also think about her right to know. This is one of the hardest cases you can find, but it does happen. How would you choose? In cases like this one it all depends on what you consider the best choice. Neither of the two choices could be considered better than the other, since they both have a positive and negative side to it. Deciding which one to tell her would depend on your values, on what you believe to be the best.

A Fish For The Future

"I can't give you money. There would be no end to it if I started. You and your sister would take every last buck from me." pg 51. This is pretty similar to the popular saying where its better to give a poor person a rod and teach him how to fish for himself than giving him a fish. If people get accustomed to getting stuff the easy way, they will become nonstop beggars. They will have to depend on others in order to survive, and what they will give back is nothing more than being consumers. Our world can't afford to have people who are consumers but give nothing back to society. It is as if a few had to work for the good of the many, without the many giving something back to help those few. It is almost related to the selfish gene theory proposed by Dawkins, where those that try and get something out of others without them having to give anything back, is the same as how there are organisms that decide to not help other organisms back because they know they will be looked after anyways. The problem with this is that then a person will appear that will decide not to help them out if they don't work, which also applies in this case with those that work and those that don't. But then there are also people who can't work by themselves, including people with disabilities and those that don't have the tools to do so. In the first case it is really hard to actually demand that that person work to get what he wants instead of giving him what he needs, since the problem originates in that the person is physically unable to do what we want him to do. In the second case, though, there is a way in which we can follow the idea of not giving him exactly what he needs, but help him get it himself.

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It's called education. Those that are poor sometimes lack the tools to do things we want them to do instead of begging in the streets. If we give them education as a tool, rather than giving them money as a usable resource, we will be enabling them for the future. But then comes the problem you see in the book. Willhelm was well educated, and still there is the problem of him not having enough money, so he has to rely on his father. When a person is given the opportunity to do something, and is given the tools for it, there is no reason why he should not do it. Those that don't appreciate the opportunities they are given, should not be helped after in terms of giving them the things they need. Only those that are willing to change and think about their future should be given another chance, a chance to advance and take care of themselves.

The American Invention

"It doesn't mean a thing. Inventors are supposed to be like that. I get funny ideas myself. Everybody wants to make something. Any American does." pg 37. We are always urged with the need to want to make something, whether it's a physical creation or an achievement. I take myself as an example, being somebody who loves creating stuff. Whenever I want to make something up for a project or such, I usually think of something that's either very recognizable, which people connect easily, or something completely new. Making ordinary things keep you ordinary. That is why people choose to either make something new or something people can connect easily without it being completely predictable. We tend to think that one of the best things we can make in our lives is to create something. By creating something we are immortalized somehow, which is what the human being has always wanted to do, become immortal. We are also helping others out in something that wasn't as easy to do before the invention, as well as wanting to be recognized in life by the creation of it. It sort of gives us security that we actually got to do something worth the while during our life time.

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And in accordance with Willhelm, it's true that inventors many times think of simple ideas that maybe one day could become extremely useful. A clear example is Benjamin Franklin, who thought of ideas as simple as tying a key to a kite to experiment with lighting and electricity, and which turned out resulting in having almost everything around us being run by electricity. He also invented many other things including the idea of firefighters, which at that time might have seemed more of a silly job since fires weren't that common, and paying for the expenses of it would be nonsense. And many ideas turn out to be like that, first being an idea that is either not affordable or simply is considered something nonsense, to becoming a widely used invention.