Brave New World Chapter 6

-Lenina convinces Bernard to attend a wrestling match
-Lenina spots that Bernard isn't happy or acting "normal"
-She tells Bernard to take soma
-During the return trip, he stops his helicopter and hovers over the Channel
- She begs him to take her away from the rushing emptiness of the water after he tells her that the silence makes him feel like an individual
-Eventually he takes a large dose of soma, and has sex with her
-The next day, Bernard tells Lenina that he did not really want to have sex with her the first night
-Then he goes to get the Director’s permission to visit the Reservation. He braces himself for the Director’s disapproval of his unusual behavior
-When the Director presents the permit, he mentions that he took a trip there with a woman twenty years before. She was lost during a storm and has not been seen since
-When Bernard says that he must have suffered a terrible shock, the Director immediately realizes that he has been revealing too much of his personal life
-He criticizes Bernard for his antisocial behavior and threatens to exile him to Iceland if his impropriety persists
-Bernard leaves the office feeling proud of being considered a rebel

Brave New World Chapter 5

-After a game of Obstacle Golf, Henry and Lenina fly in a helicopter over a crematorium where phosphorous is collected from burning bodies for fertilizer
-They drink coffee with soma before heading off to the Westminster Abbey Cabaret
-They take another dose of soma at Henry's apartment
-They are both very oblivious to their surroundings at this point
-"Orgy-porgy, Ford and fun,
Kiss the girls and make them One.
Boys at one with girls at peace;
Orgy-porgy gives release."
-Every other Thursday, Bernard has to take part in Solidarity Service at the Fordson Community Singery
-They pass around a cup filled with strawberry ice cream soma
-Symbol of a united group? Orgy... One nation sort of thing... One for all, all for one? I think so...

Brave New World Chapter 4

-Lenina accepts Bernard's offer to go see the savage reservation in front of everyone, which Bernard's reaction is embarassment
-Lenina and Henry go off on their date on a helicopter
-TOO MUCH IMAGE...
-Bernard talks to Helmholtz Watson, a lecturer at the College of Emotional Engineering
-Helmholtz is an extremely intelligent, attractive, and properly sized Alpha Plus who works in propaganda
-Some of Helmholtz’s superiors think he is a little too smart for his own good
-The friendship between Bernard and Helmholtz springs from their mutual dissatisfaction with the status quo and their shared inclination to view themselves as individuals
-Bernard brags about Lenina taking his offer to go to the reservation
-Helmholtz doesn't really take much interest in what Bernard says about Lenina

Literature Analysis: Animal Farm

1. The novel focuses around farm animals who have been given a human voice to express their perspective on life on the farm. All the animals are clearly unhappy under the control of the farm’s current owner, Mr. Jones. Old Major, a commanding boar in the barn, gives a charismatic, inspiration speech that encouraged all the animals to rebel against Mr. Jones so they could take control of the barn and run it the way they want to. The animals manage to complete such task and soon Old Major is seen as a hero that saved them. All this power and appreciation soon goes to Old Major’s head and he becomes more and more like a dictator every day. Old Major passes his ideals of how the barn should run to his little minions: Snowball, Napoleon and Squealer. They then turn to the rest of the animals and teach them Old Major’s philosophy. Once Old Major dies, the barn is left in the hands of the three pigs. It’s obvious that either Snowball or Napoleon will lead the barn and while Snowball is charming and just, Napoleon uses underhand tactics to run him off the barn. Napoleon soon becomes a tyrant, killing anybody that doesn’t believe in his leadership. All the animals believe he is doing this for the good of the farm, or that’s what Napoleon keeps saying. The barn life for the animals keeps decreasing as they are put to work and are fed little. Napoleon takes control of every aspect of the animals lives, become more “human” with every passing day. The end of the book shows the misery of the animals while the “pigs” are dining with their human neighbors, and the animals can no longer tell the difference between the two.

 

2. The theme of the novel is that power can corrupt if not given to the right person. While power can lead to success and wealth, it can also tear away any humanity one might have had. It was represented by the pigs that had good intentions, but once they had the taste of power, and what they could do with it, it soon poisoned their good will.

 

3. The tone of the book is somber and oppressive. Every day the lives of the farm animals get worse and worse due to the ideals of Old Major. The novel demonstrates the evil that comes about from power.

 

4. Symbolism – The entire novel is a symbol for the bloody Russian Revolution. The pigs represent the USSR, Napoleon being Stalin and Snowball representing Lenin. Everything that occurred in the novel, pretty much happened in Russia. Propaganda was used by Squealer whenever he tried to justify Napoleon evil doings. Much like Stalin and his propaganda, his people believed every word he said. To us, it’s common sense that you wouldn’t believe a word they said, but they didn’t know any better.

 

Personification – All the animals in the novel could speak to one another and to human being. Even though they didn’t want to be like the cruel humans they were given a voice to express their emotions. The pigs eventually “turn into” humans through the eyes of the animals.

 

Diction – He used strong words for the pigs so that they seemed powerful, while he choice simple, almost foolish vocabulary for the animals that followed the pigs. This just goes to show the relationship that the pigs and other animals had with one another.

 

Anaphora – Boxer always used the phrase “Napoleon is always right” to show the reader the brainwashing that the pigs had done to the animals. It also represented the control Napoleon had over the animals even though he treated them cruelly.

Lit Analysis Novel: March

I am currently reading Kafka on the Shore by Murakami. I really enjoy reading Murakami's works and I have read a few. I love the fact that his novel include surreal things and the weirdest things occur. Also, all his novels have great characters that have an important role to the story. I also chose this novel because my mother already had a copy of it so it saves me some time and/or money. Woot!

Neil Harbisson: I listen to color

When I first saw this with my parents, I was so amazed and so inspired. My parents and I talked about how a normal person would not even have a bit of the courage to try this and make a difference. I love this video.

Brave New World Chapter 3

-The chapter starts with the director and the students watching young children erotically playing on the field
-One girl comes up to the director and tells him that one of the boys would not "play" with her, like sexually playing is such a normal thing...
-The director tells the girl that he will deal with him and possibly send him to a psychologist and tells her to go find another boy to play with. Again, how normal....
-The Controller Mustapha Mond (fordship) appears (the leader of this futuristic government)
-The narrative suddenly switches to Lenina and Foster
-Mond describes that "homes" are not good, piercing the idea into the students mind because they didn't even know what homes were in the first place
-Lenina goes into the locker rooms where she is going to shower and talks to Fanny
-Lenina is apparently pretty popular, Fanny thinks it's odd that Lenina doesn't sleep with many guys abd goes back to Henry all the time
-Lenine brushes it off and states she might try out Bernard, and Fanny disagrees but again, Lenina kind of brushes it off
-Mond is describing the world before the World State, how people were unstable from emotions, disease, and more. When the caste system, hypnopaedia, and artificial birthing introduced, it was fought against, but then won. They decided to make the new era around the birth of the Model T
-Soma is their version of drugs

Brave New World Chapter 2

-The students are taken to the nursery
-The director operates an experiment to show the students what must be done to maintain the stability
-The babies crawl to the books and flowers that is in the room and once they reach them, an awful alarm starts screeching and the floors are eletrified.
-The babies cry and scream, sounding painful and fearful
-the lesson was to teach the kids to hate nature and to not have the extra knowledge and to maintain the consuption of goods.
-Director tells story of Reuben Rabinovitch
-The students speak of "parents" and "family" as if its a sin, or a bad word.
-Most students don't even understand what a "home" is
-Hypnopaedia is the way of learning through listening to something during slumber and waking up completely being able to recite it. The only flaw is that you will know it but not understand the meaning behind the words
-Ford is a godly figure to them

Brave New World Chapter 1

This is actually kind of an interesting book to read once you know what's going on and you keep up with the sudden change in conversation or characters.

Brave New World starts off with a group of students being toured around the hatchery where all the babies are made. They show the students all the processes and what they must do in order to become the adults the world state expects them to become. Throughtout the chapter you can kind of feel the satirical tone or mood that is portrayed by Huxley and the corruptness of what the future has become. It's so weird that the students aren't freaked out or even question of the way thousands of boys and thousands of girls are made from a hatchery.

Lit Analysis: 1984

1. The story is set in the year 1984 after the global atomic war, with a protaganist named Winston Smith. He's the typical Party member, goes straight to work then back home again, day in and day out. To the Party, he's one of many. Yet inside his mind, he secretly rebels against the Party and its leader, Big Brother. It starts out with Winston writing down his thoughts, a dangerous crime already, to having an affair with a young woman named Julia, to actually joining the rumored rebel group The Brotherhood. In the end, all turns to be a lie, and the Party reveals that there is no Brotherhood, and that Winston has been under surveillance the whole time. After a long period of torture and re-learning, he is set out in the public again, back to being the Party member no one cares about. This narrative could have been written to prevent this sort of tyrannical government from coming to power, and written as a sort of possible future if this came to pass.


2. There are so many different aspects of the theme in this novel. Orwell expresses the idea of nationalism in both a positive and negative form. "The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power."
It is prominent that the whole idea of futurology and the advancement of technology is what is so controlling and in a way that it is a factor that manipulates how the characters physically act and emotionally feel. Orwell's intention is to show the dangers brought on by this totalitarian government. They controlled the minds and the physicalities of their citizens, and left the proles to rot. By continuously participating in war, they brainwashed their citizens to hate and to rejoice in wartime victory. Also there is the control of every thing that the Party members see: newspapers, TV, books, music, all kinds of information. The government controlled the past, present, and eventually the future.

3. Foreshadowing in the book would be toward the beginning when he says that people who go into the ministry of love come out, but disappear soon afterward. It is not explained until much later why this happens, and turns out to be just about the most important part of the story. The little piece of glass that he carried around with him was an allegory for the beauty found in capitalist materialism.
There are many examples of symbols in the novel. Throughout London, Winston sees posters showing a man gazing down over the words “BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU” everywhere he goes. Big Brother is the face of the Party. The citizens are told that he is the leader of the nation and the head of the Party, but Winston can never determine whether or not he actually exists. In any case, the face of Big Brother symbolizes the Party in its public manifestation; he is a reassurance to most people (the warmth of his name suggests his ability to protect), but he is also an open threat (one cannot escape his gaze). Big Brother also symbolizes the vagueness with which the higher ranks of the Party present themselves—it is impossible to know who really rules Oceania, what life is like for the rulers, or why they act as they do. Winston thinks he remembers that Big Brother emerged around 1960, but the Party’s official records date Big Brother’s existence back to 1930, before Winston was even born. By deliberately weakening people’s memories and flooding their minds with propaganda, the Party is able to replace individuals’ memories with its own version of the truth. It becomes nearly impossible for people to question the Party’s power in the present when they accept what the Party tells them about the past—that the Party arose to protect them from bloated, oppressive capitalists, and that the world was far uglier and harsher before the Party came to power. Winston vaguely understands this principle. He struggles to recover his own memories and formulate a larger picture of what has happened to the world. Winston buys a paperweight in an antique store in the prole district that comes to symbolize his attempt to reconnect with the past. Symbolically, when the Thought Police arrest Winston at last, the paperweight shatters on the floor.The old picture of St. Clement’s Church in the room that Winston rents above Mr. Charrington’s shop is another representation of the lost past. Winston associates a song with the picture that ends with the words “Here comes the chopper to chop off your head!”This is an important foreshadow, as it is the telescreen hidden behind the picture that ultimately leads the Thought Police to Winston, symbolizing the Party’s corrupt control of the past. Throughout the novel Winston imagines meeting O’Brien in “the place where there is no darkness.” The words first come to him in a dream, and he ponders them for the rest of the novel. Eventually, Winston does meet O’Brien in the place where there is no darkness; instead of being the paradise Winston imagined, it is merely a prison cell in which the light is never turned off. The idea of “the place where there is no darkness” symbolizes Winston’s approach to the future: possibly because of his intense fatalism (he believes that he is doomed no matter what he does), he unwisely allows himself to trust O’Brien, even though inwardly he senses that O’Brien might be a Party operative.

4. Irony - ex. The names of the four ministries in relation to their jobs: Ministry of Truth covered up the past and changed it, Ministry of Love had to do with policing and torture, Ministry of Plenty worked on rationing, Ministry of Peace had to do with war affairs. Also the slogan of the Party: "WAR IS PEACE, FREEDOM IS SLAVERY, IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH"

    Allusion - ex. the book alludes to previous totalitarian governments such as the Nazis, Mussolini, and the Soviet Union.

Foreshadowing - ex. "It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen." Foreshadowing of something wrong, since clocks don't strike thirteen.

Motif - ex. a recurring feature would have to be the Newspeak word doublethink, which is a major part of the Party government. Newspeak itself is also a motif.

Colloquialism - ex. the dialect and accents of the proles "'Beg pardon, dearie,' she said. 'I wouldn't 'a sat on you, only the buggers put me there. They dono 'ow to treat a lady, do they?' She paused, patted her breast, and belched. 'Pardon,' she said, 'I ain't meself, quite.'"

Symbolism - ex. The Chestnut Tree Cafe, The Bells of St. Clemens nursery rhyme

Juxtaposition - ex. Newspeak words such as goodsex, crimestop, bellyfeel, doublethink

Paradox - ex. Doublethink

Flashback - ex. Winston has flashbacks of his childhood and his marriage to Katherine.

Climax - ex. Winston and Julia getting caught by the Thought Police

Tragedy - In a way, 1984 does remind me of a tragedy. The ending isn't as disastrous as you'd think, but if the Winston of the past saw what would happen to the Winston of the future, I'm sure he'd find it disastrous.

5. Characterization
- The syntax and diction change when Orwell focuses on Winston. Every other character is described normally and unextraordinarily. But when the focus is on Winston, it changes to more philosophical thoughts and writing.
- Winston Smith is a round and dynamic character. He starts out as a cautious yet secretly rebellious citizen who is afraid of the Party and Big Brother. He then changes to a more relaxed and ready for action person, having an affair and joining the Brotherhood. Then, thanks to physical and psychological torture, he turns into the desired Party member, follower of Insgoc, and lover of Big Brother.
-After I was done reading the book, it felt as if I had just learned a sort of history or government lesson. This book showed a very good representation of what a world run by totalitarian governments could be like, and how they take control psychologically and physically.

First Quarter

I feel like this quarter of the semester has been my hardest and I've also been the laziest. I mean I'm still motivated to do the daily homework given but I can't get myself to do all the extra work. Like spending the extra few minutes to look over lit terms or take some extra notes from an article or novel. I don't know what got into me but I just was so tired and stressed out about every little thing possible.