Levy’s 12 Grade English Blog

The purpose of Downe’s letter is to convince his wife to immigrate to the United States with their children.  He divides the letter into three parts, the first and third being arguments as to why she should come and the second being an anticipation of her counterargument, and a response to it.  In the first argument, Downe makes an extremely detailed list of every food available and the exact costs, to appeal to all senses as well as to appeal to his wife’s desire for a lifestyle where money goes farther.  He uses the poor economy in England to his advantage, by comparing the new life in America with it.  Downe further works to convince his wife by telling her that there is enough land and resources to satisfy everyone who comes for an exaggerated 1000 years.  Also, he manages to slip in facts about his position (as manager of the factory).  Finally, he makes sure to flatter his wife and appeal to her emotions by telling her how much he loves her and that he regrets that he had to leave so abruptly.

1.  There are many plausible claims as to why Hamlet waits so long to kill Claudius.  He keeps finding reasons not to do so, such as the fact that Claudius is praying and repenting his sins, or the fact that he just isn’t fully sure of Claudius’ guilt yet.  And while I’m sure part of the reason for waiting has to do with these things, the bigger part is that Hamlet’s contemplativeness gets in the way of his rage and desire to kill.  Hamlet is not a murderer, and as much as he wants revenge on Claudius, his logic gets in the way every time he thinks too hard about it, and he finds himself rationalizing and finding reasons not to.  Indeed, the only times he truly attempts to follow through on the murder are when he does so very impulsively.2.  The appearance of insanity can help Hamlet achieve his ends because then he can plead that it was not he who was guilty, it was his madness (just as he says to Laertes before their battle).  Hamlet, while he may appear to cross the line into madness at some parts, never does so to the point of no return.  Ophelia, however, is clearly not in her right mind when she wanders around singing absentmindedly, and then drowning.  One reason she could have gone mad is the traumatic death of her father, another is Hamlet’s rejection of her.3.  Any basis for an Oedipal Complex in Hamlet was established after the play was written, when Freud’s concepts became popular.  It was not intended in the play, nor is it very well supported.  Hamlet’s anger toward his mother comes more from disgust at her dependence and her betrayal of his father than it does from his desire to be with her.  All in all though, disrespect for women becomes clear with the help of lines such as “Frailty, thy name is woman!” (I.ii.146).4.  In Hamlet’s Protestant religion, suicide means that you are forever condemned to Hell.  Hamlet is struggling because he doesn’t want to live with the pain and suffering of himself and his family, nor does he want to be condemned to Hell.  Plus, being sent to Hell would not be the way to avenge his father’s death, which is his main goal.5.  In Hamlet’s most famous soliloquy (To be or not to be), he rationalizes that he should not kill Claudius at the moment because he is in prayer, but that indeed he should kill him eventually.  He also contemplates suicide, which he makes clear by saying “To die, to sleep–/No more–and by a sleep to say we end.” He knows that killing his uncle is wrong, and in his heartache Hamlet contemplates killing himself instead.

The first interest-catching rhetorical strategy the author uses is creative humor, when he says “Lying in bed would be an altogether perfect and supreme experience if only one had a coloured pencil long enough to draw on the ceiling,” and then continues to dig deeper into the potential of his idea. This endears the reader to the speaker, and makes us want to read on to see what other weird things he might say.

He furthers the intense imagery with odd and descriptive metaphors, such as “floods of rich and mingled colour like some strange fairy rain.” This is unexpected coming from an essay about potentially the most boring topic possible: lying in bed.

Then he takes a shift in tense, and goes from talking abstractly to telling a story. We have been drawn in by the introduction and now are eager to see what led the speaker to think the way he does.

Later on, allusions to random well-known people and events are made, all strung along on each other like the author is thinking of them as he writes. “The Bible must be referring to wallpapers, I think, when it says, “Use not vain repetitions, as the Gentiles do.” I found the Turkey carpet a mass of unmeaning colours, rather like the Turkish Empire, or like the sweetmeat called Turkish Delight. I do not exactly know what Turkish Delight really is; but I suppose it is Macedonian Massacres,” he says. This makes the piece seem very conversational and adds to the humor.

This piece stresses the importance of a nuanced claim, just like Mr. Stearns did, and I am left thoroughly convinced that making a complex thesis that is not just a blanket statement is the best idea.

I also liked the analogy of writing the piece as though you had thought through a conversation with the source. This is a great way to ensure that what you’re writing directly relates to what the resources said, and is relevant to the prompt. I will try to imagine what the writer of the source would say if they were to read my response, and then adjust it until I have the imagined reaction that I am aiming for.

What I think this fails to address is the importance of reading the prompt very carefully and breaking it down. Too often somebody writes a great essay that just doesn’t answer what the prompt asked, and this is probably the worst mistake of all.

Jonothan Swift seems to be a compassionless pessimist to me. He feels not for the poor children of beggars, but rather searches for a way to systematically make use of them. His aim is good – to provide all poor children with food – but as he proposes this he makes sure to make the children seem as little like humans and as much like cattle as possible. “It is true, a child just dropt from its dam,
may be supported by her milk, for a solar year, with little other
nourishment: at most not above the value of two shillings, which
the mother may certainly get, or the value in scraps, by her
lawful occupation of begging,” he says, implying that a day-by-day monetary cost can be attached to raising a child in the same way that it can be attached to animals or the like. He does all possible to avoid identifying with the people he is proposing to help.
Irony is heavily used throughout this piece. His introduction is written very unsympathetically, but with the purpose of providing help to those who need it. This becomes more pronounced when the author says “There is likewise another great advantage in my scheme, that it
will prevent those voluntary abortions, and that horrid practice
of women murdering their bastard children, alas! too frequent
among us, sacrificing the poor innocent babes, I doubt, more to
avoid the expence than the shame, which would move tears and pity
in the most savage and inhuman breast.” He calls the children bastards, but then “poor innocent babes” later on in that same sentence. Then when he talks of the shame moving the most savage and inhuman person to tears, it is ironic because the tone that he uses throughout this leaves me convinced that he himself would not even shed a tear.
Finally, later on the abrupt conclusion “THE END” closes doors to all discussion. Swift clearly is not interested in democratic conversation, he quite clearly wants to just say his piece and be done.

ONE SIDE: I have never been able to see eye-to-eye with people who oppose gay marriage. I have not heard one single good argument that applies universally. Here are some of the most popular arguments I have heard, and why they just simply don’t make sense:

1. “The Bible says marriage is meant to be between a man and a woman.” Okay, the Bible says a lot of things, and is perhaps the most outdated text ever. Plus, we are not a Christian nation, we are one of religious freedom. If your personal beliefs say not to marry someone of your same sex, don’t do it. Everyone’s spirituality is different. Many religions, for example Buddhism, do not oppose gay relationships.
2. “In order to protect the sanctity of marriage, we should allow gay people to have Civil Unions, and keep marriage between a man and a woman.” …Because separate but equal measures are always the best way to appease the general public while trying to pretend like we are giving the minorities what they want. Just think back to the Jim Crow laws of the Civil Rights movement. Separate but equal did a lot of good then, huh? No. Plus, how could two people who are in love ruin the sanctity of marriage? Wouldn’t Britney Spears’ three-day Vegas wedding ruin it just a little bit more? The fact that the two people getting married are a man and a woman does not guarantee success for the relationship. All in all, the sanctity of marriage comes down to love and devotion.
3. “If we let gay people get married, that’s just a slippery slope for letting people marry animals, relatives, children.” Okay. What if people had used this argument back when people of different races were not allowed to marry? Perhaps they did. But as we see, interracial marriage is now as common as, well, people who dislike our current president.
4. “It’s just not right.” By whose standards? Homosexuality is not medically considered a disorder, and feeling uncomfortable with the idea is not a good reason to forbid it. End of story.

So, the moral here is, lets not try to counteract love with hate, shall we? Acceptance is golden.

OTHER SIDE: Marriage has always been between a man and a woman, and it is best this way. Marriage is the foundation of a family, and someone who is gay cannot naturally have a family. Adoption is a possibility, but a dangerous idea because it is subjecting the child to humiliation, confusion, and the lack of either a father or mother figure (an important part in development). The term “marriage” is a religious one, and the religion that it comes from says that homosexuality is wrong and immoral. Sure, let homosexuals live in society, let them have the same jobs and homes, but don’t let them take something that is specifically meant to be between people of different genders. Marriage is about having a family, and if we let gay people get married then how will this change the definition of marriage? Will we allow people to marry their dogs? Their relatives? Their children? Almost anyone would say that this is wrong.

While I agree with Kennan’s assumption that we assume we are under more political restrictions than we actually are, I think he neglects to mention the importance of social influence. Indeed, in every nation of the world social influence has more power to make people act a certain way than does government influence. Why else would thousands of people group together to strike against an authoritarian government, at the risk of being arrested or killed? I think the main influence we feel is not a political one, as the author says, but rather a social one.

Paintings have the power to convey intense human emotion through the use of realistic expressionism, modern slice-and-dice cubism, and all variations in between. Examples of this intensity are found in Pablo Picasso’s “Weeping Woman” (1893) and Edvard Munch’s “The Scream” (1937).

“The Scream” has become one of the 20th century’s most potent symbols of agony. “Weeping Woman” is a study of how much pain can be conveyed by a human face. However, both achieve these ends by entirely different means. “Weeping Woman” is made up of jagged lines, harsh angles, and garish colors, while softer colors and curvy, blended lines compose “The Scream.” What these paintings have in common is an obvious emphasis on the figure’s face. Both the colors in the male screamer’s and female weeper’s faces seem to be taken from their backgrounds, which blends them into their surroundings. However, the intensity of the facial expressions makes both faces catch the eye immediately.

Picasso’s painting was done as a protest of the Spanish Civil War, and was the last edition to Guernica – A series of paintings that focused on the brutality of war and the impact is has on people. It shows a woman crying, with corrosive tears that seem to strip her skin down to the bone. In her left hand she holds a handkerchief, but without the surrounding context it would appear to be a shard of broken glass. Almost every line in this painting is harsh and jagged, and the colors add to the harshness of it to create a feeling of total despair and loss of control. Every feature of this woman’s face shows anguish – her turned-down eyebrows and wrinkled forehead, her wide eyes spilling tears, her teeth clenched on the handkerchief.

The use of color in this painting adds a lot to the way I interpret it. The colors are mostly dramatic warm colors, such as red and yellow. Were “Weeping Woman” done in cool colors I probably would have interpreted it to be sad and gloomy, but the warm colors make her seem more distraught and agitated. A little bit of blue is mixed in for balance. What is most striking about this painting is the white in the center. Normally white takes up the background while colors draw the attention, but here it is the complete opposite. The painting is so colorful that the complete lack of pigment in the center is very abrupt and unexpected. It takes the painting to a more disturbing level.

“The Scream” also conveys emotional torture, but it does so in different ways. “Weeping Woman” uses the face as the main focus and appears almost two-dimensional, but Munch’s painting makes use of the background as well. It has a foreground (the screamer), a mid-ground (the bridge) and a background. The un-real-looking red, turbulent sky and dark stormy ocean all work in congruence with the way the figure is reacting, forming a vision of anxiety coupled with apocalypse. The triangle created by the line of the bridge rail in the bottom left corner pulls the eye upward and draws attention to two shadowy figures. They appear to be walking away, leaving the main character in isolation – both physically and emotionally. The curves of the person’s body as well as the swirling background make it seem like the everything is being twisted and contorted, but the straight edges of the bridge reassure us that we are still on solid ground and the real drama is taking place in the person’s mind. Perhaps the screamer feels like the world is ending, and no one is there to help him.

Like Picasso’s war protest, this painting has an important real-life context. Most of Munch’s family had died, and he was constantly ill and very depressed himself. The hairless, non-gender-specific figure is said to have been inspired by mummies that Munch had seen at an exhibit, and the red sky by a recent volcanic eruption (Mt. Krakatoa) that produced colorful twilights for some time afterward. “The Scream” was very significant, because in a time period when people were painting what they saw, Munch painted what he felt. He was considered one of the first expressionists. Indeed, the hasty-looking strokes make it appear as though while creating the painting Munch really did feel as tortured as the person whom it depicts.

“Weeping Woman” and “The Scream” are done in completely different styles that are unique to the artists who painted them. They come from different countries, centuries, and historical contexts. Yet, they are potent and everlasting portraits of emotional torment – they show externally what their main subjects are feeling on the inside. Artwork is undoubtedly the most hard-hitting, dramatic way to tell a story, because it appeals to the viewers’ emotions before they totally comprehend what’s happening in the piece. We can all learn from these two masters of painting, who understood the depth of distress and how to help others begin to fathom it.

Works Cited

“Edvard Munch Art Histories Great Expressionist.” Edvardmunch.info. 15 April 2008 http://www.edvardmunch.info/edvard-munch/the-scream.asp.

Goldman, Stuart. “Astronomical Sleuths Link Krakatoa to Edvard Munch’s Painting The Scream.” Sky and Telescope. 15 April 2008
http://www.skyandtelescope.com/about/pressreleases/3308421.html?page=1&c=y.

Jones, Jonathan. “Weeping Woman by Pablo Picasso.” Innovative Minds. 15 April 2008 http://www.inminds.co.uk/weeping-woman-picasso-1937.html.

“Picasso’s Weeping Woman.” Barbelith Underground. 15 April 2008 http://www.barbelith.com/topic/20805.

After watching this documentary, I was really unsure of what to think. On the one hand, I think it takes a lot of courage to admit huge wrongdoings, instead of doing what many politicians do and try to blame others. On the other hand, though, the pacifist in me cries out when McNamara says things like “Yes, it was a mistake, and it killed maybe 100,000 people, but I learned from it.” No, you do chalk up a mistake like that as a “learning experience.” I just question the ethics of this man. It also was weird to me how he was enthusiastic to talk about things in hindsight and admit where he should have seen it in a different way, but he is unwilling to talk about the current war. This seems hypocritical – I mean, voicing his opinion on what should be done in the current situation, based on years of experience, would be a perfect opportunity to help people see it in a different way now. That was weird to me, and seems cowardly. At the same time though, I do admire him for even being willing to do this interview, as he acknowledges in it that many of the viewers probably already think he is scum. As Roger Ebert says in his review (http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=%2F20040123%2FREVIEWS%2F401230302%2F1023), “He speaks concisely and forcibly, rarely searching for a word, and he is not reciting boilerplate and old sound bites; there is the uncanny sensation that he is thinking as he speaks.” While he falls short of true honest opinion sometimes, McNamara’s interview is still refreshing compared to much of what we hear from politicians these days. Also, as an review in the LA times (http://www.calendarlive.com/movies/reviews/cl-et-fog19dec19,2,5371672.story) says, “”The Fog of War” insists there are no easy answers about people and that reality is more complex and more provocative than we’d like to believe.” Something I really liked about it was when McNamara said that it’s impossible to understand what it’s like to be in the position of a military commander during wartime. I believe him on that one.

Now, to address the filmmaking, I think it was fantastic. Morris, as Ebert mentions, had covered an extremely odd variety of events before this, and presumably had gained a lot of experience working with strange input and different mediums. As Mr. Stearns talked about, the film is very awkwardly cut in some places, which was strange. But I loved the music and background footage, as well as just the pure, sincere footage of McNamara staring down the camera. It was chilling, in a way.

This is a really interesting photo collection, and it is unexpected in many ways. We see extreme irony in the picture of the man being stabbed by the flag. Then later on the picture of the statue for which this section is named is placed right before a picture of an old woman, adorning the same flag symbol but in a different way. Instead of being a symbol of pride, the flag here is a symbol of shame that she is literally hiding under. The American Flag serves as a constant object in these photos that bears witness to all of America’s proudest moments and its greatest weaknesses as well.