Rule What You Know, Khan!

Who is this man? -------------->
Perhaps he is coming home from a hard business day in the 1960s. He could be a criminal (you know, one of those gangster types) walking to a court case in the late 1800s. The image could even be that of a young girl dressing up like Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen in the mid 1990s. As clear to any witness to this image, the figure here is invisible. Something described as invisible is difficult, if not impossible, to define. But every thought, every identity, you give to this image makes it easier to describe.

Calvino write an entire novel (whether or not Invisible Cities is one is debatable) about several cities described as invisible. He uses what he knows about people, landscapes, culture, etc. to fill in the picture. For sake of the story line, how can Marco Polo convince Kublai Khan of the reality of "fake" cities? I do not believe that Polo's point here is to tell the emperor about cities in his empire. Marco Polo wants to convince the emperor that to rule a people, one must know the people. By 'filling in the picture' Kublai Khan will better rule his empire. Polo is trying to make this point subtly in order to avoid offending Kublai Khan. You know, make the emperor feel like he came up with the idea himself to submerge himself in the life of a commoner. The task is explained easily when Polo says,

"At times all I need is a brief glimpse, an opening in the midst of an incongruous landscape, a glint of lights in the fog, the dialogue of two passersby meeting in the crowd, and I think that, setting out from there, I will put together, piece by piece, the perfect city, made of fragments mixed with the rest, of instances separated by intervals, of signals one sends out, not knowing who receives them."

In order for the great Kublai Khan to rule over his empire successfully, he must visit the cities himself and gain a greater knowledge of his people.

Hybrid Project: Richard Hamilton

Portrait of Hugh Gaitskell as a Famous Monster of Filmland
Richard Hamilton

The collage, Portrait of Hugh Gaitskell as a Famous Monster of Filmland, is a form of propaganda by Richard Hamilton. As Hamilton was very active in the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, this particular work parodies Labour Party Leader, Gaitskell, for rejecting unilateral nuclear disarmament, despite the views of his party members. This caused Gaitskell to lose the election in 1960. As the foreground to a crimson background, Hugh Gaitskell is depicted abstractly.

Several contrasts are evident in Portrait of Hugh Gaitskell as a Famous Monster of Filmland. Below Gaitskell's top lip, the image is in black and white. Above, the image contains a wide spectrum of colors. To the left Gaitskell's face is highlighted with "cold" colors. His eye appears almost as a deer's would in headlights. The right side of Gaitskell's face is warm, however. This eye seems lazy and sad.

The placement of each eye seems reversed. I would imagine that the left eye would be on the right side of the face with the warmer colors. The combination would have a more definite emotion of anger or passion. The right eye should be placed on the left with the cooler colors. This would depict sadness and tiredness.

I presume that Richard Hamilton's placement of the eyes was on purpose. To me, it tells the story behind Hugh Gaitskell's tension within the Labour Party. As its leader, Gaitskell must have felt sad over the party's disagreement, tired over trying to come to a common consensus, angry with those who did not agree with him, and passionate towards promoting his cause. Although this collage is supposed to make fun of Gaitskell, I believe it makes the subject's instability evident to the viewer. Potrait of Hugh Gaitskell as a Famous Monster of Filmland mocks Gaitskell's inability to keep his party unified and promote his party's beliefs.

Eutropian Territory

In Invisible Cities Marco describes Eutropia as "not one city but many"(64). Later when Kublai Khan and he are discussing the stories tales, Kublai Khan asks about Venice. Polo replies, "Every time I am talking about a city, I am talking about Venice"(86). In class we have been discussing the meaning of Invisible Cities and what classifies it as a novel. What is Polo's point?

At first, I believed the cities had no relation. The entries seemed to be simply discussing different cities and presenting to the reader their unique aspects. The entry on the city of Eutropia changes my perspective. What I find curious about this city is that only one of the "cities" within the city of Eutropia is inhabited at a time. I wonder if Calvino is making an analogy to the ups and downs of industry, economy, and bustling life in different parts of the world. It is possible that Calvino may be implying the deeper meaning that all cities are alike and work together to make up one 'city', one country. When life seems bad in one place, the people of Eutropia move to another place. "Their life is renewed from move to move" (64).

Calvino also says, "The inhabitants repeat the same scenes , with the actors changed..."(65). I believe this refers to the fact that the cities are not really different at all.

Train of Thought, Interrupted

After watching and later discussing Girl, Interrupted I am very interested in the director's motives. We talked about how the story teller hides things from the viewer and leaves ends untied, if you will. Upon arriving at Claymore, Susanna meets her roommate Georgina. They talk about the other girls' and their conditions. They also discuss why they have been sent to Claymore. Georgina tells Susanna the story of Polly's burns. After all is said Georgina closes with the fact that she has been "sentenced" to Claymore because she is a pathological liar. As a viewer, I am unsure if Polly really burned herself or not. Also, what is the deal with the chickens? I keep asking this in class but don't feel like I'm getting a real answer. There's got to be something deeper than "The chickens connect to Daisy's father because he sells chickens". I plan on further researching this and getting back to you later.

An 'Unreliable' Source

I have found that literature has all kinds of parallels, metaphors, etc. I question the parallel in The Yellow Wallpaper. Could it be that the woman being set free from the paper is the on looker herself? Is it possible that the narrator rips up the paper to set free herself?
Have you ever told a story and realized there's a vital part you left out? Sometimes I have to go all the way back to the beginning to explain a certain detail to make my story more understandable to the listener. I think this is what is happening in this short story. Because of the narrator's condition her sense of time is skewed. She tells about her condition and confinement to the room with the gross yellow wallpaper. Could it be that she was the one who tore it up to begin with? Could it be that the bars were put on the windows to confine her? I wonder how reliable the narrator is as the story teller due to her condition.
I predict that John, the narrator's husband, put up the bars in the room with the yellow wallpaper. The narrator wants to include this fact in her story but forgets that they weren't there to begin with. She did not move in with the bars in place. Also, I think the narrator tore up the wallpaper herself. She wants a sense of freedom from her confinement. She seeks control of her own life. The narrator satisfies this by removing the wallpaper, releasing all the build up and stress from her own life.

Women as Mirrors

On page 35 of A Room of One's Own Woolf says, "Women have served all these centuries as looking glasses possessing the magic and delicious power of reflecting the figure of man at twice its natural size". To sum up her point, women encourage men. Let's think about this for a minute. Woolf is relating the role of women to that of a cheerleader. She states that our goal is to lift the spirits of men and be his driving force. I'm a little confused. By including this, one may argue that women are good at their job and should stick with it. Hasn't Woolf been arguing that women deserve equality? Why would she insist the importance of women nothing more than cheerleaders when her main and original argument is that we need to be in the game? I do understand the validity of her point: Woman is man's motivation. However, most women want to be more. They want to not only motivate themselves but also succeed themselves. If I were Woolf I would have left out this point. I feel that it does not contribute to her argument.

say what..?

What is writing? Is it the five paragraph essay, a research paper, a letter, a novel, a poem, or haiku? Writing drives me absolutely crazy because every teacher seems to wants the job done a different way. Honestly, a paper is so less genuine when written under specific guidelines.

1. What are your strengths as a writer?

I am somewhat of a perfectionist when it comes to papers. Although sometimes this can be bad (because I over edit), often times it's really helpful. I refuse to turn in a paper before it has been proofread at least twice.

2. What do you need to improve in your writing?

I need a practical structure for all my papers. This doesn't have to be something everyone will use. I just want to figure out what method works for me.

3. What two or three aspects of your writing would you like to work on this semester?

I need to improve sentence structure. It's easy for me to ramble. Sentences that make sense to me often "run on" to the reader. Also, I need to widen my vocabulary and learn how to make words jump off the page for the reader (especially in intros and conclusions).

4. For me, writing is like...

...driving a car. I am terrible at directions, but once I figure out where I am going it all seems to flow from there. I get to where I need to go, even if I have gone WAY out of my way.