- Oct 2016
-
tobeclever.ru tobeclever.ru
-
That was his life two years before Gaston began to wait for the airplane
In the events pertaining to Aureliano, Amaranta Ursula, and Gaston, we see the plural nature of the novel again. At first, this seems to be showing some modern elements, with the relationship of Amaranta Ursula from this village with a more modern man from Europe.
When she goes back to tradition and visit their village, it seems completely reasonable, and the expected ending of a modern short story showing this would involve her learning and leaving tradition behind. However, we see her fall back into it, starting an affair with Aureliano from the village, and staying there, where she will die.
So we see both modern and old-fashioned clash in an interesting way with this small sub-branch of a story.
-
IT RAINED FOR four years, eleven months, and two days.
Through this rain, we can see this novel's plural nature. Such intense rains for such a long period of time are next to impossible, but in having this event takes place it does several things. In the Bible, we see massive rains come and clean the Earth because God had become tired of the wickedness of man, and so too do such biblical-level rains happen here, giving the idea that the town is being cleared of it's wickedness.
Earlier, the banana massacre occured, and while not only did no one remember it happening, this rain comes and erases nearly all evidence of the banana company.
So, through this rain, we see both a very fictional idea of cleaning the earth, and a very real concern with the fact that the Banana Massacre of 1928 has gone so unrecognized.
-
Before them, surrounded by ferns and palm trees, white and powdery in the silent morning light, was an enormous Spanish galleon. Tilted slightly to the starboard, it had hanging from its intact masts the dirty rags of its sails in the midst of its rigging, which was adorned with orchids. The hull, covered with an armor of petrified barnacles and soft moss, was firmly fastened into a surface of stones. The whole structure seemed to occupy its own space, one of solitude and oblivion, protected from the vices of time and the habits of the birds. Inside, where the expeditionaries explored with careful intent, there was nothing but a thick forest of flowers. The discovery of the galleon, an indication of the proximity of the sea, broke José Arcadio Buendía’s drive. He considered it a trick of his whimsical fate to have searched for the sea without finding it, at the cost of countless sacrifices and suffering, and to have found it all of a sudden without looking for it, as if it lay across his path like an insurmountable object. Many years later Colonel Aureliano Buendía crossed the region again, when it was already a regular mail route, and the only part of the ship he found was its burned-out frame in the midst of a field of poppies.
I do realize I did this last time. Sorry, it's an easy example.
In these passages, we can see yet again the effect solitude has on perspective, and a forced perspective at that. Of course, there are good and bad sides, and if there were a correct answer to if solitude was the "best" way to live life, there either would not be hermits, or we would all be hermits.
In this instance, they discover a galleon, interestingly enough covered in age and beautiful flowers. Much like in the book The Time Machine, such warships seem beautiful and innocent in this context, despite the fact that they are literally ships of war (warships). So one positive of solitude is the very fact of being able to see beauty in this ship, as they don't know it's purpose or the ongoing war outside from which it likely originated.
One of the cons, that becomes obvious as we go later in to the book, is that often times the real world comes crashing in, destroying the illusion of peace with harsh truths. While in The Time Machine this does not happen necessarily (they illustrate an interesting and different message), in 100 Years the people of Macondo learn the truth of the world, and learn of the horrors of war.
So the pros are that ignorance can be bliss, but the cons are that the same ignorance can kill you (e.g. Oh what's this L-shaped banger, better point it at something and pull the trigger)
The Time Machine Summary: http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/timemachine/
-
The discovery of the galleon, an indication of the proximity of the sea, broke José Arcadio Buendía’s drive. He considered it a trick of his whimsical fate to have searched for the sea without finding it, at the cost of countless sacrifices and suffering, and to have found it all of a sudden without looking for it, as if it lay across his path like an insurmountable object. Many years later Colonel Aureliano Buendía crossed the region again, when it was already a regular mail route, and the only part of the ship he found was its burned-out frame in the midst of a field of poppies. Only then, convinced that the story had not been some product of his father’s imagination, did he wonder how the galleon had been able to get inland to that spot. But José Arcadio Buendía did not concern himself with that when he found the sea after another four days’ journey from the galleon. His dreams ended as he faced that ashen, foamy, dirty sea, which had not merited the risks and sacrifices of the adventure. “God damn it!” he shouted. “Macondo is surrounded by water on all sides.”
Throughout our readings so far, we see the perspective of several different characters, for instance Jose versus his wife Ursula. As I said in my earlier annotation, we also see different chronological perspectives, with the beginning sentences as a simple starting example. Now, we see even more of their subjective reality, in a simple remote instance of Jose's confusion at all the discoveries.
He finds the galleon (which likely looked like http://static-30.sinclairstoryline.com/resources/media/484283ba-3c8e-444c-b893-c7d6bfb6f196-8651575_G.jpg?1442348911676), and suddenly realizes that there is sea nearby, something that he should have realized quite a while ago. He is prone to jumping to conclusions, as that is the reality he has grown up living in. From seeing this galleon and the sea, he concludes that Macondo is surrounded by water on all sides.
This goes to show, just as Ursula completely disagrees with him on many occasions shown from her perspective, that everyone sees things differently, and has different perspectives of reality. Perhaps it was sending a message to colonialists, that just because a large group perceive reality to be one way, does not mean it is how everyone should, and that they are wrong for trying to force that upon the Latin Americans.
-
- Sep 2016
-
l-adam-mekler.com l-adam-mekler.comuntitled4
-
As soon as the six men were locked up, court messengers went into Umuofia to tell the people that their leaders would not be released unless they paid a fine of two hundred and fifty bags of cowries. "Unless you pay the fine immediately," said their headman, "we will take your leaders to Umuru before the big white man, and hang them."
And suddenly, the parallels to colonization are extremely prevalent. Just as they capture the leaders of the tribe with ransom for retribution, so did the Spanish with the Aztec leader, Montezuma II: https://www.britannica.com/biography/Montezuma-II
It is when violence arises that the charade is thrown aside and the true nature of both the colonizers and the colonized arises.
-
The interpreter spoke to the white man and he immediately gave his answer. "All the gods you have named are not gods at all. They are gods of deceit who tell you to kill your fellows and destroy innocent children. There is only one true God and He has the earth, the sky, you and me and all of us."
While I can't help but see the parallels between the Ibo & Christian religion and that the only real difference preached here is that of "just don't murder people", this passage does wrap up quite well some of the "cracks" in Ibo culture, why the missionaries were so successful.
The interpreter/missionary responds to why the Christian religion's God is better simply with a variation of "he doesn't tell you to kill your friends or family". Both of these are practiced by the Ibo culture, as seen with the ruthless murder of Ikemefuna, and with the murder of twin children.
Looking at Nwoye, to whom Ikemefuna was like a brother to, it is immediately obvious why this religion is more appealing, as the cracks are much more evident in his life. For those in the culture for whom the cracks are not as evident, such as the higher up class members, this takes longer.
-
Okonkwo ruled his household with a heavy hand. His wives, especially the youngest, lived in perpetual fear of his fiery temper, and so did his little children. Perhaps down in his heart Okonkwo was not a cruel man. But his whole life was dominated by fear, the fear of failure and of weakness. It was deeper and more intimate than the fear of evil and capricious gods and of magic, the fear of the forest, and of the forces of nature, malevolent, red in tooth and claw. Okonkwo's fear was greater than these. It was not external but lay deep within himself. It was the fear of himself, lest he should be found to resemble his father. Even as a little boy he had resented his father's failure and weakness, and even now he still remembered how he had suffered when a playmate had told him that his father was agbala. That was how Okonkwo first came to know that agbala was not only another name for a woman, it could also mean a man who had taken no title. And so Okonkwo was ruled by one passion - to hate everything that his father Unoka had loved. One of those things was gentleness and another was idleness.
Here we perhaps see the origin of Okonkwo's entire perception of masculinity and femininity from his father. The third person narrator brings up that his fear was "...of himself, lest he should be found to resemble his father." He goes overboard in his discipline of his household because he does not want any weakness or mercy to come from him, as this would remind him of his father. This is where his view of masculinity comes into play, in how he expects his sons to behave as he does, so as to not raise anyone like his father.
As for femininity, we see that agbala is another name for a woman at this time, and if he associated his father in that way, then it only makes sense that he would see femininity as an extension of his father. So I believe that his thoughts on masculinity and femininity all originate from his father, as much of adolescence in males can be influenced by father figures, for the better or worse. This article makes some good points on this influence: https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-long-reach-childhood/201106/the-importance-fathers
-
When Unoka died he had taken no title at all and he was heavily in debt. Any wonder then that his son Okonkwo was ashamed of him?
In this, and the previous passage, we see several lessons that Okonkwo learned from Unoka. Okonkwo learned negative lessons from him, as in things not to do as a result of the shame that he brought.
-
-
lti.hypothesislabs.com lti.hypothesislabs.com
-
And at last I step out into the morning and I lock the door be-hind me. I cross the road and drop the keys into the old lady's mailbox. And I look up the road, where a few people stand, men and women, waiting for the morning bus. They are very vivid be-neath the awakening sky, and the horizon beyond them is begin-ning to flame. The morning weighs on my shoulders with the dreadful weight of hope an4 I take the blue envelope which Jacques has sent me and tear it sl6wly into many pieces, watching them . .. . I dance in the wind, watchiμg the wind carry them away. Yet, as I turn and begin walking tovyard the waiting people, the wind blows some of them back on me. ]
With his time in front of the mirror done, he leaves to the cold outside world, where he finds the details for Giovanni's executio n in his mailbox. Having left behind his thoughts on Giovanni and himself, he tears it into pieces and throws it into the wind. Ho wever, just like how his problems still remain, pieces of the letter blow back onto him.
I've attached a picture that I believe illustrates the imagined scene of Giovanni's execution well.
-
Then the door is before him. There is darkness all around him, there is silence in him. Then the door opens and he stands alone, the whole world falling away from him. And the brief corner of the sky seems to be shrieking, though he does not hear a sound. Then the earth tilts, he is thrown forward on his face in darkness, and his journey begins. Giovanni's Room 169 I move at last from the mirror and begin to cover that nakedness which I must hold sacred, though it be never so vile, which must be scoured perpetually with the salt of my life. I must believe, I must believe, that the heavy grace of God, which has brought me to thi's place, is all that can carry me out of it.
He wonders how he can be saved from his own fate a t the end of his life, as Giovanni is near execution himself. He concludes his mirror introspection with the hope that "...the hea vy grace of God, which has brought me to this place, is all that can carry me out of it". At the same time, he concludes his thoughts on Giovanni, relating his oncoming death to him being freed from "this dirty world, this dirty body"(earlier but I can't annotate two things at once disconnected).
-
The body in the mirror forces me to turn and face it. And I look at my body, which is under senten~e of death. It is lean, hard, and cold, the incarnation of a mystery. And I do not know what moves in this body, what this body is searching. It is trapped in my mirror as it is trapped in time and it hurries toward revelation.
In this passage depicting the somber and ambiguous ending of the story, we see David skipping between his imagined rendition of Gi ovanni's execution and his own thoughts on his fate. In a way, we see the thoughts of both Giovanni and David, from David's perspe ctive and imagination. This gets quite intriguing at parts where he says his own body is "...under sentence of death", all while t he played out scene of Giovanni's last moments is happening in his imagination.
-
-
www.aub.edu.lb www.aub.edu.lb
-
Hadn’t he said he wanted only justice? But I couldn’t. I could not tell her. It would have been too dark—too dark altogether....’
In this passage, Marlow decides it is better to lie about what Kurtz's actual last words were ("the horror, the horror!"), in place of telling his mistress they were "[her] name".
This is interesting, in that just earlier he was extremely prejudiced against his fellow countrymen for "not possibly [knowing] the things [he] knew", just because they had not seen what he had seen. Yet now, he feels it would be too dark for him to tell Kurtz's mistress the truth, and instead lies. It is likely this guilt only adds another dark and gloomy change onto his already cynical personality after his experiences.
-
I found myself back in the sepulchral city resenting the sight of people hurrying through the streets to filch a little money from each other, to devour their infamous cookery, to gulp their unwhole-some beer, to dream their insignificant and silly dreams. They trespassed upon my thoughts. They were intruders whose knowledge of life was to me an irritating pretence, because I felt so sure they could not possibly know the things I knew. Their bearing, which was simply the bear-ing of commonplace individuals going about their business in the assurance of perfect safety, was offensive to me like the outrageous flauntings of folly in the face of a danger it is unable to comprehend. I had no particular desire to en-lighten them, but I had some difficulty in restraining myself from laughing in their faces so full of stupid importance.
In this passage, Marlow finds himself back in Europe, from whence he came, but with a different outlook. He has developed a sort of superiority complex, stating that they could "not possibly know the things I knew", and how he "had some difficulty in restraining [himself] from laughing in their faces so full of stupid importance". He has been changed by his experiences in a foreign land, but they made him worse, not better. In the place of his joyous excitement that triggered his departure, he now has cynical condescension and a dark sadness about him.
On another note, this is an example of the Hero's Journey Trope, in which a main character departs from his familiar land, has adventures and survives in the unfamiliar land, and then returns to his familiar land with new knowledge and character change(TV Tropes). http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/heros_journey4_8462.png
Bibliography
"The Hero's Journey - TV Tropes." TV Tropes. N.p., 10 Aug. 2016. Web. 01 Sept. 2016.
-
- Aug 2016
-
lti.hypothesislabs.com lti.hypothesislabs.com
-
What a very attractive woman!” I exclaimed,turning to my companion.He had lit his pipe again, and was leaning backwith drooping eyelids. “Is she?” he said, languidly.“I did not observe.”“You really are an automaton,—a calculating-machine!” I cried. “There is something positivelyinhuman in you at times
Yet again it is shown the difference between Watson and Holmes, and perhaps one of the great strengths Holmes is able to show in his ability to seperate emotions or feelings from his outlook on the problems.
This is in stark comparison to Watson, who makes this remark, whilst Holmes is thinking about the problem at hand. Not only this, but he does get emotionally involved with her multiple times later in the story, whereas Holmes is able to focus his mental capacity on the pressing matter at hand
-
My father was an officer in an Indian regimentwho sent me home when I was quite a child. Mymother was dead, and I had no relative in England.I was placed, however, in a comfortable boardingestablishment at Edinburgh, and there I remaineduntil I was seventeen years of age. In the year1878my father, who was senior captain of his regiment,obtained twelve months’ leave and came home
Judging from the fact that it is said her father was in the "Indian regiment", in "the year 1878", we can get a pretty good idea of the war they are referring to, being the Second Anglo-Afghan war between the British Raj and the Emirate of Afghanistan, in the years of 1878 to 1880.
The offensive was done by British India, invading Afghanistan, so this is with all likelihood what is referred to by the "Indian regiment", stating that Miss Morsten's father was a senior captain of his regiment in the British Indian invasion of Afghanistan in the Second Anglo-Afghan war.
-
I never make exceptions. An exception dis-proves the rule.
This really speaks to Sherlock's rigorous logical discipline that he keeps in his work, as he never lets his emotions get in the way of his observation, his work, and his thought process.
-
-
lti.hypothesislabs.com lti.hypothesislabs.com
-
Blake Edwards
DarkElement
-