While waiting at a bus stop one day, a man finds himself talking with a blind kid. At some point in the conversation, the man makes a remark about color and the kid responds by asking what color is. The man stops to think before giving the kid the scientific explanation of color; color is light that was partially absorbed by a surface before reflecting off that surface and being registered by a person’s eyes. “Okay,” the blind kids says, “but what’s light?” The man explains that light is the opposite of dark only to find the boy doesn’t know what dark is either. The man is confused as he’d believed the kid would know what dark is if dark is all a blind person can see. However, this would be impossible as a person to whom light has no meaning can’t know dark because dark can only be defined by the absence of light, just as bad can only be described by the absence of good. In Life of Pi, the threat of starvation constantly hanging over his head made Pi realize that food, even unholy meat, was vital to his survival so the meat from the ever present fish became good, even becoming described as a blessing, because it kept the life threatening hunger at bay. For a concept to exist, it’s opposite must also exist to define it and give it meaning.
Probably the most interesting paradox in existence is the fact that good relies on bad and bad relies on good to exist. Most people would contest this, saying good couldn’t rely on bad because good things are supposed to terminate bad things, and bad things treat good things in kind. However, isn’t that how the concepts of good and bad are defined? In the terms of religion, is God’s greatness not defined by His lack of sin as the Devil’s evil is by the sins he committed? Good must seek to terminate bad to make the world happy as bad must seek to terminate good to take this happiness away. When Pi was stuck in the life boat, food, even the previously evil meat, was the good that kept him from dying and stove off hunger, which was the bad thing, caused by a lack of food, that sought to steal away his happiness and even drove him far enough into desperation to taste Richard Parker’s droppings. What people who would say that good and bad can’t rely on each other will fail to question is exactly what would happen if there were no bad for the good to conquer, or if there were no good for the bad to attempt to destroy. If there had been no looming danger of starvation during the time Pi was lost at sea, food wouldn’t have become such a blessing, but rather, only be seen as plain food, neither good nor bad, without any purpose. It’s like how a blind man sees only darkness, yet has no idea what darkness is because he’s never seen light; people can only know that an object or action is ‘good’ or ‘bad’ if they know of the existence of an object or action that is ‘worse’ or ‘better’. We know there’s good and there’s bad, but imagine if there were no bad and only good. Neither would exist because there would be nothing to compare good to, and thus no way for good to be observable or discoverable by human means. The same goes for bad without good. In a world with no good, good and bad would not exist, and no one would ever protest all the ‘bad’ things that happen in the world because they’d have no way of know there was anything better. The presence of bad things are needed for good things to exist.
This good and bad paradox is not just applicable to the concepts of good and bad. This paradox also holds true when it is said that there couldn’t be pleasure without pain or pain without pleasure. For instance, if one were to rub sand paper for a long time, the sand would feel horrible and rough when they began to rub it, but by the time they stopped, the hand which was rubbing the sandpaper so long would have become numb to the texture. If they were to rub the same hand a few times against a soft pillow, however, and then rub the sandpaper once more, the softness of the pillow would first be amplified due to the contrast of the soft texture to the rough, then the switch from the pleasure of the pillow to the sandpaper would make the roughness the hand had become numb to before be felt in all it’s displeasure once again. In a world where there’s only pain, the absence of pleasure would make people unable to contrast their constant pain to, and because one can’t miss what one never had, pain wouldn’t really be pain anymore, but take the place of normalcy instead. On the island, the same happens to Pi with pleasure. There was no danger of starvation to loom over Pi’s head or any threat of being attacked or painfully killed. Pleasure was the only thing present on the island of meerkats and sugary algae, with no pain or threat of pain as long as he stayed above ground during the nights. When Pi arrived on the island, he’d believed he’d found paradise and endless pleasures, but as the time he’d spent on the island passed, the lack of pain to contrast the pleasure meant the pleasures of the island slowly transitioned from the most wondrous blessing to normalcy. The pleasures of the island lost the grandeur they’d previously had, their meaning became less, and soon, Pi, like many many people in the modern world do with their daily pleasures, began to take these things for granted. In fact, things that were at least a hundred times less miraculous, such as a freshly caught fish, had been treated as much greater pleasures when Pi was lost at sea than the island was near the end of Pi’s time ashore. Of course, the pleasures of the island were still there, physically unchanged, but, like paint on a house, the meaning that was once associated with these wonders faded when there was no longer any threat or danger to apply a fresh coat. Just like how a person who has nothing sees the meaning in all the pleasures in a home better than the one who owns the home’s contents, when any amount of pleasure is experienced everyday without threat of discontinuation, it means next to nothing. In the absence of pain, pleasure did not disappear, but so much of its meaning had been lost that it might as well have.
When one applies this paradox--the fact that every concept must have an opposite and it is this opposite that gives the concept meaning--to the concepts of Life and Death, it becomes apparent that Death is the reason Life has meaning. It’s a simple matter of comparing Life and Death to each other in the same ways we compare good to bad or pain to pleasure. If Death were compared to Life as complete opposites, meaning such concepts as life after Death or reincarnation are dropped since they would make Death more closely resemble Life that it should as it’s opposite, than Death must be infinite as Life has a beginning and end, and Death could only be described as nothing because it is only during Life that anything could happen. Death is infinite nothing, and Life is finite everything. The analogy that would probably best describe this would be a densely populated, sleepless island that lies in the middle of a dead sea. In this sea, there are no fish, no ocean floor and no land save the single island full of constant activity. The only thing that happens in this sea of Death is its constant creation of waves meant to crash upon the island’s shore and carry away the people who’ve gotten too close. This endless sea of nothing has led the people to cherish the island that is Life and are constantly reminded of their island’s importance with every wave that steals away another soul. Pi said “The reason Death sticks so closely to Life isn’t biological necessity--it’s envy. Life is so beautiful that Death has fallen in love with it, a jealous, possessive love that grabs at what it can.” Death IS envious of Life because Life does everything, has everything, and is everything. Yet Death has fallen in love with Life because Life is the whole reason for Death’s existence, and in Death’s envious love, it grabs what it can from Life’s shores to keep with it within the nothing that surrounds Life’s small island on all sides. To avoid this grasping hand of Death has been the fantasy of many a generation, each of which has never thought of what the impact of their success might be. What is Life without Death? It’s the same as pleasure without pain. Without the fear of Death, without the very real possibility that this very moment may be the last, Life loses it’s meaning. There is no drive to live Life before it ends because immortality means Life won’t end and one has all the time in the world to do what is desired. Getting back to a mortal life, all these things, from Death’s constant threat to the reality of only having a limited time to enjoy Life, are present to keep the urgency to live in mind. Death is what gives Life meaning because when we compare Life to the infinite void of Death, it becomes apparent that Life is all we really have.
Blind men cannot fully understand the concept of darkness because they have never know the concept of light. A person can not know anything good of they have never seen bad. It is the comparison to it’s opposite that allows a concept to be observed, and the proof of this statement is the fact that all concepts have an opposite. Good is to bad as pain is to pleasure as dark is to light as Life is to Death. The meaning in a concept is also defined by its opposite. When pain is taken out of the equation, pleasure is less pleasurable because there is nothing to interrupt it and renew it’s meaning. Death is what gives Life meaning because Death brings out all the good things in Life. The meaning of a concept, and even the actual existence of a concept is defined by it’s opposite. That’s how it is, and that’s how it will be until we find something better.
Monday, March 14, 2011
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
The Life and Times of a Paperweight
A simple paperweight of coral and glass can sometimes seem like more than it really is. The coral in a glass shield that protects can seem untouchable. The paperweight holds fast; when papers fly away in the pressuring wind, the coral in it’s glass remains immobile, seeming so strong when the winds pass. However, the truth is beginning to show through small cracks in the dome around the coral, overlooked by most every person, until the day the desk where the weight resides is shaken rigorously. The desk’s great lurch sends the paperweight over the edge, crashing to the floor in a shower of shattered glass, and the coral, no longer protected by its shield, snaps in half. The strength of the coral’s protection was underestimated, and the coral had to pay the price; a scene comparable to Winston Smith’s life in 1984. Like the paperweight, Winston was protected by a glass shield he believed able to keep the thought police from catching him and let him start the beginnings of a revolution against the Party. The only difference was that Winston’s “shield” was only in his mind.
If one were to look close enough one would see that Winston and and the paperweight he purchased in 1984 were very similar. The coral, for instance, is like Winston in the sense that it’s a individual of something bigger. It’s part of the reef but broken off and separate in the same sense that Winston is part of the Party but not with the Party. The coral is part of the reef, but isn’t the reef itself, and Winston is the same with the Party. Winston and the paperweight are also the same in the sense that, to an extent, both are somehow separated from the world around them. With the paperweight, the coral is kept mostly isolated from the world by the glass around it, which bars the coral from the world outside, and, though Winston has a better grasp on reality than most, he is also detached from reality because he believes he is protected from it, which means he chooses not to live in it. Winston knows that what he’s been doing will only lead to a horrible ending for both himself and Julia, but he still pretends that he has some kind of safeguard and that what he’s doing will make a difference when almost no one knows of the felonies that have occurred. No body, that is, except for the thought police, who would make sure that Winston and Julia’s acts against the Party were some how used to make the Party stronger. However, Winston chose to hide behind his glass screen and let it warp his world view and, in the end, the coral found that a glass shield is hardly a shield at all.
Actually, it wasn’t the fact that the shield was glass that set the paperweight or Winston up for destruction so much as the illusion that there was ever a shield in the first place. The coral paperweight was an antique from a time before Winston was even born--it’s more than possible that the old glass over the coral had cracks and chips in it from year past, especially since many of those years saw the bombing and deterioration of much of the city. In all probability, the paperweight was fragile enough by the time Winston found it, that it would have broken from falling a short distance if it hadn’t been smashed like in 1984. In a similar way, if Winston were to make his mental shield a reality, it would be a frail thing resembling very old glass, full of cracks and imperfections. Every fracture would be a loose end left untied, every imperfection a mistake, and every lapse in judgment or overlooked angle making it less protective. Even without the cracks, the shield itself would be lacking in protection; its very substance consisting of lies O’Brien let slip and fantasies encouraged by agents of the Thought Police. In fact, if Winston’s imaginary shield were real, it’s entire existence would, ironically, be mostly controlled by the people it was meant to protect Winston from. The greatest problem, thought, is just that; Winston’s protection from the world was completely imaginary. The Thought Police knew what he was going to do seven years before he even thought of doing it--Winston never had any protection, and any protection he thought he had was in his head only. In the end, Winston’s ultimate demise was from a head full of cracked, old glass painted like armor.
Winston’s downfall, and the like destruction of the paperweight, while brought about by his own illusions, was fated to happen one way or another. A paperweight cannot, by itself, change the fact that it’s made of breakable glass, nor could Winston change the fact that he was not entirely with the party without going insane. The thought police knew this; they knew Winston wasn’t with the party and he couldn’t be because Winston’s version of right and wrong wasn’t the same as the party’s. They knew this seven years in advance. The party also knew that the only way to make Winston see the world through their eyes was to make him insane--under the influence of a controlled insanity. It made sense; after all, what is insanity at its heart, but one’s loss of the ability to tell right from wrong and true from false? How exactly is one supposed to do this when they’re confused and the entire world is telling them everything they believe in is a lie? The answer is simple--they can’t. They have no proof for themselves or the people around them, nothing that they can use to back themselves up when they say ‘I know this is right’ other than their own mind, which is the very thing in question. If there’s no proof, no contradicting ‘fact’, no real support to the contrary, then the only real conclusion that can be drawn, for the general public, and perhaps even the person in question themselves, is that everything said person knows is wrong. This is what the Thought Police did, and they even took it a step further, not only telling Winston he was wrong, but proving it, with facts and force. After alleged fact and theory have been proved wrong, it’s part of human nature that people will seek to find truth and fact to cling to and rely on to make the world make sense again. For Winston, O’Brien stepped in to provide these facts and, in time, like how coral or glass will eventually break and disintegrate for one reason or other, Winston was fated to accept these facts, becoming one of the many others to succumb to the controlled insanity of the Party.
A simple paperweight can give the illusion of life outside of reality; it can give the appearance of a shield that isn’t there, and hide it’s fate to eventually break apart from view. It’s amazing how an object of no particular function other than to sit around, can portray the life of its owner so closely. Winston’s life, from the lies that spurred him on, to his destined decline to insanity, is all showed there, in the small orb of glass that he used to own. Winston was an individual who wanted to make a difference, was lied to, deceived, broken down, and destroyed, despite his best efforts, in the worst way possible. His fall was the remainder of a time passed shattering, the last man in the world dying, and the final trace of any truth flying away in the wind among fragment of broken glass and coral.
If one were to look close enough one would see that Winston and and the paperweight he purchased in 1984 were very similar. The coral, for instance, is like Winston in the sense that it’s a individual of something bigger. It’s part of the reef but broken off and separate in the same sense that Winston is part of the Party but not with the Party. The coral is part of the reef, but isn’t the reef itself, and Winston is the same with the Party. Winston and the paperweight are also the same in the sense that, to an extent, both are somehow separated from the world around them. With the paperweight, the coral is kept mostly isolated from the world by the glass around it, which bars the coral from the world outside, and, though Winston has a better grasp on reality than most, he is also detached from reality because he believes he is protected from it, which means he chooses not to live in it. Winston knows that what he’s been doing will only lead to a horrible ending for both himself and Julia, but he still pretends that he has some kind of safeguard and that what he’s doing will make a difference when almost no one knows of the felonies that have occurred. No body, that is, except for the thought police, who would make sure that Winston and Julia’s acts against the Party were some how used to make the Party stronger. However, Winston chose to hide behind his glass screen and let it warp his world view and, in the end, the coral found that a glass shield is hardly a shield at all.
Actually, it wasn’t the fact that the shield was glass that set the paperweight or Winston up for destruction so much as the illusion that there was ever a shield in the first place. The coral paperweight was an antique from a time before Winston was even born--it’s more than possible that the old glass over the coral had cracks and chips in it from year past, especially since many of those years saw the bombing and deterioration of much of the city. In all probability, the paperweight was fragile enough by the time Winston found it, that it would have broken from falling a short distance if it hadn’t been smashed like in 1984. In a similar way, if Winston were to make his mental shield a reality, it would be a frail thing resembling very old glass, full of cracks and imperfections. Every fracture would be a loose end left untied, every imperfection a mistake, and every lapse in judgment or overlooked angle making it less protective. Even without the cracks, the shield itself would be lacking in protection; its very substance consisting of lies O’Brien let slip and fantasies encouraged by agents of the Thought Police. In fact, if Winston’s imaginary shield were real, it’s entire existence would, ironically, be mostly controlled by the people it was meant to protect Winston from. The greatest problem, thought, is just that; Winston’s protection from the world was completely imaginary. The Thought Police knew what he was going to do seven years before he even thought of doing it--Winston never had any protection, and any protection he thought he had was in his head only. In the end, Winston’s ultimate demise was from a head full of cracked, old glass painted like armor.
Winston’s downfall, and the like destruction of the paperweight, while brought about by his own illusions, was fated to happen one way or another. A paperweight cannot, by itself, change the fact that it’s made of breakable glass, nor could Winston change the fact that he was not entirely with the party without going insane. The thought police knew this; they knew Winston wasn’t with the party and he couldn’t be because Winston’s version of right and wrong wasn’t the same as the party’s. They knew this seven years in advance. The party also knew that the only way to make Winston see the world through their eyes was to make him insane--under the influence of a controlled insanity. It made sense; after all, what is insanity at its heart, but one’s loss of the ability to tell right from wrong and true from false? How exactly is one supposed to do this when they’re confused and the entire world is telling them everything they believe in is a lie? The answer is simple--they can’t. They have no proof for themselves or the people around them, nothing that they can use to back themselves up when they say ‘I know this is right’ other than their own mind, which is the very thing in question. If there’s no proof, no contradicting ‘fact’, no real support to the contrary, then the only real conclusion that can be drawn, for the general public, and perhaps even the person in question themselves, is that everything said person knows is wrong. This is what the Thought Police did, and they even took it a step further, not only telling Winston he was wrong, but proving it, with facts and force. After alleged fact and theory have been proved wrong, it’s part of human nature that people will seek to find truth and fact to cling to and rely on to make the world make sense again. For Winston, O’Brien stepped in to provide these facts and, in time, like how coral or glass will eventually break and disintegrate for one reason or other, Winston was fated to accept these facts, becoming one of the many others to succumb to the controlled insanity of the Party.
A simple paperweight can give the illusion of life outside of reality; it can give the appearance of a shield that isn’t there, and hide it’s fate to eventually break apart from view. It’s amazing how an object of no particular function other than to sit around, can portray the life of its owner so closely. Winston’s life, from the lies that spurred him on, to his destined decline to insanity, is all showed there, in the small orb of glass that he used to own. Winston was an individual who wanted to make a difference, was lied to, deceived, broken down, and destroyed, despite his best efforts, in the worst way possible. His fall was the remainder of a time passed shattering, the last man in the world dying, and the final trace of any truth flying away in the wind among fragment of broken glass and coral.
Thursday, November 4, 2010
The Ashes of Humanity
A response to Fahrenheit 451
A phoenix stands in its nest, waiting for the sun to rise a little higher. As it waits, it recalls the things it has learned in it’s life; the discovery's made, the inventions created, the people met. The phoenix has forgotten a few things, some he would not remember knowing if one were to remind him, and some are forgotten for the moment, like the repeated memory of the end and beginning of all of his past lives. The sun has risen farther, and soon, the nest begins to smoke, then burn, and a fire suddenly roars to life. As the flames engulf the scrawny bird, the searing pain summons the memories forgotten of the ends of the lives past, too late. After a while, the flames shrink, then flicker, then become nothing more than smoldering embers and ash. After a while, some disturbed ash tumbles down the heap that once was the phoenix, and a small feathered head rises from the dust. The young new phoenix, already stronger than the old one was in his beginning, tests it’s new wings, then flies away, the memories of his past lives still with him, though some important ones still forgotten for good, and the memory of his recent death already at the back of his mind. Fahrenheit 451 shows us that humanity is much the same way. Humanity has been destroyed and resurrected many times, and each time, the legacy of what came before stays with us, though some important details are always forgotten. Humanity is like a phoenix, destroying itself then building itself back up again in an eternal cycle of reincarnation.
The phoenix was a Egyptian bird which supposedly set itself on fire, then rose again, stronger more power than before; a pattern that is almost exactly the same as humanity’s. Rome is a good example of this. Rome had many ideas and inventions that worked well. Then, after Rome’s fall, the societies that came after used and improved those ideas and inventions, resulting in some of the modern day things known so well, such as Rome’s method of making buildings taller and stronger leading to the invention of skyscrapers. The key word here is improved; the phoenix got stronger and more powerful after it rose from the ash, and to become more powerful, one must adapt and improve the tools they have. In Fahrenheit 451, America had improved its technology so much, it had things like planes that could fly faster than the speed of sound and even faster than that, and America became more powerful, winning two atomic wars because of it. Another instance in the book would be after the city was blown up and the book-keepers go to see of there’s anyone still alive in the ruins. The book-keepers had something from the legacy of the old society that would help the people build a new one; the knowledge they obtained from books. The knowledge would allow them to see their mistakes and adapt so as to not repeat them, and thus become more powerful, just like the phoenix.
Like the phoenix, humanity becomes progressively more powerful, but all the power in the world is useless unless one remembers their mistakes and what was learned from them. An undeniable fact of life is that there must be mistakes and failures before there can be success or experience gained. If one forgets their experiences, their failures and mistakes, anything gained from them would be useless, and that person would be forced to repeat the very mistakes they forgot. Taking a look at Mildred, a person who tries hard to forget her mistakes and never learns from them, can prove this point. Mildred almost died from an overdose of sleeping pills, maybe because she kept forgetting that she’d already taken some before and kept taking more and more and more. However, what makes this even worse than it already is, is the fact that she’s done this who knows how many times before, and forgotten what happened each time. Mildred had no chance to become a better person or to become more powerful because she chose not to learn from her mistakes or even remember them, and in the end, there was no phoenix to rise from Mildred’s quite literal ashes. Granger also makes a good point about humanities mistakes and defeats. Granger says, quite truthfully, how humanity must have been related to the bird, as we build up fires then jump into them because we forget to not repeat our mistakes until it’s already too late.
Humanity’s mistakes and it’s uncanny ability to forget them has resulted in a repeated cycle of destruction and reincarnation. Time and time again, a great civilization has risen, only to fall under its own weight of mistakes, failure and misleading ideas. Rome, once again, can show this process. Rome was a powerful nation full of great people and their ideas. However, Rome had many flaws; it was too big to be easily controlled, its churches became too powerful and began to conflict with the working of the empire. Its army had even become lazy and too weak to wear their heavy armor in battle. All these things and more lead to the eventual fall of the Roman Empire, and from the legacy of the fallen nation, other societies were able to rise. Fahrenheit 451 continues this into the future, where America, one of the nations who were able to use Roman ideas to become powerful, is destroyed by it’s flaws and mistakes. It was a combination of mistakes, both new, like ignorance and detachment of society, and lack of respect for life, and some near repeats of Rome, such as wars, and a sense of being invincible and letting their guard down a bit, lead to the ultimate destruction of Montag's city. Though tragic, the destruction of society opened the door for the book-keepers to come and show the people society’s mistakes and help them rebuild it into something new. The destruction and rebirth of society and its uncanny resemblance to the phoenix goes on until the day the humanity finally remembers not to repeat its mistakes.
The cycle that humanity goes through is always the same. Humanity rises and becomes powerful, only to be destroyed by its repeated mistakes and then rise again, stronger than before. The mistakes humanity makes are all the same; war, detachment, lies, and other such things. They are always present in humanity and human nature, but so are the abilities to learn and to remember. The phoenix will always be setting itself on fire and rising from the ash, and humanity has been doing the same thing. The difference between humanity and the phoenix is that humanity doesn’t have to. Granger points out this difference, that we remember what we’ve done, and humanity's knowledge of history can prove this. Humanity keeps destroying itself and building itself back up, but that doesn’t mean it has to.
A phoenix stands in its nest, waiting for the sun to rise a little higher. As it waits, it recalls the things it has learned in it’s life; the discovery's made, the inventions created, the people met. The phoenix has forgotten a few things, some he would not remember knowing if one were to remind him, and some are forgotten for the moment, like the repeated memory of the end and beginning of all of his past lives. The sun has risen farther, and soon, the nest begins to smoke, then burn, and a fire suddenly roars to life. As the flames engulf the scrawny bird, the searing pain summons the memories forgotten of the ends of the lives past, too late. After a while, the flames shrink, then flicker, then become nothing more than smoldering embers and ash. After a while, some disturbed ash tumbles down the heap that once was the phoenix, and a small feathered head rises from the dust. The young new phoenix, already stronger than the old one was in his beginning, tests it’s new wings, then flies away, the memories of his past lives still with him, though some important ones still forgotten for good, and the memory of his recent death already at the back of his mind. Fahrenheit 451 shows us that humanity is much the same way. Humanity has been destroyed and resurrected many times, and each time, the legacy of what came before stays with us, though some important details are always forgotten. Humanity is like a phoenix, destroying itself then building itself back up again in an eternal cycle of reincarnation.
The phoenix was a Egyptian bird which supposedly set itself on fire, then rose again, stronger more power than before; a pattern that is almost exactly the same as humanity’s. Rome is a good example of this. Rome had many ideas and inventions that worked well. Then, after Rome’s fall, the societies that came after used and improved those ideas and inventions, resulting in some of the modern day things known so well, such as Rome’s method of making buildings taller and stronger leading to the invention of skyscrapers. The key word here is improved; the phoenix got stronger and more powerful after it rose from the ash, and to become more powerful, one must adapt and improve the tools they have. In Fahrenheit 451, America had improved its technology so much, it had things like planes that could fly faster than the speed of sound and even faster than that, and America became more powerful, winning two atomic wars because of it. Another instance in the book would be after the city was blown up and the book-keepers go to see of there’s anyone still alive in the ruins. The book-keepers had something from the legacy of the old society that would help the people build a new one; the knowledge they obtained from books. The knowledge would allow them to see their mistakes and adapt so as to not repeat them, and thus become more powerful, just like the phoenix.
Like the phoenix, humanity becomes progressively more powerful, but all the power in the world is useless unless one remembers their mistakes and what was learned from them. An undeniable fact of life is that there must be mistakes and failures before there can be success or experience gained. If one forgets their experiences, their failures and mistakes, anything gained from them would be useless, and that person would be forced to repeat the very mistakes they forgot. Taking a look at Mildred, a person who tries hard to forget her mistakes and never learns from them, can prove this point. Mildred almost died from an overdose of sleeping pills, maybe because she kept forgetting that she’d already taken some before and kept taking more and more and more. However, what makes this even worse than it already is, is the fact that she’s done this who knows how many times before, and forgotten what happened each time. Mildred had no chance to become a better person or to become more powerful because she chose not to learn from her mistakes or even remember them, and in the end, there was no phoenix to rise from Mildred’s quite literal ashes. Granger also makes a good point about humanities mistakes and defeats. Granger says, quite truthfully, how humanity must have been related to the bird, as we build up fires then jump into them because we forget to not repeat our mistakes until it’s already too late.
Humanity’s mistakes and it’s uncanny ability to forget them has resulted in a repeated cycle of destruction and reincarnation. Time and time again, a great civilization has risen, only to fall under its own weight of mistakes, failure and misleading ideas. Rome, once again, can show this process. Rome was a powerful nation full of great people and their ideas. However, Rome had many flaws; it was too big to be easily controlled, its churches became too powerful and began to conflict with the working of the empire. Its army had even become lazy and too weak to wear their heavy armor in battle. All these things and more lead to the eventual fall of the Roman Empire, and from the legacy of the fallen nation, other societies were able to rise. Fahrenheit 451 continues this into the future, where America, one of the nations who were able to use Roman ideas to become powerful, is destroyed by it’s flaws and mistakes. It was a combination of mistakes, both new, like ignorance and detachment of society, and lack of respect for life, and some near repeats of Rome, such as wars, and a sense of being invincible and letting their guard down a bit, lead to the ultimate destruction of Montag's city. Though tragic, the destruction of society opened the door for the book-keepers to come and show the people society’s mistakes and help them rebuild it into something new. The destruction and rebirth of society and its uncanny resemblance to the phoenix goes on until the day the humanity finally remembers not to repeat its mistakes.
The cycle that humanity goes through is always the same. Humanity rises and becomes powerful, only to be destroyed by its repeated mistakes and then rise again, stronger than before. The mistakes humanity makes are all the same; war, detachment, lies, and other such things. They are always present in humanity and human nature, but so are the abilities to learn and to remember. The phoenix will always be setting itself on fire and rising from the ash, and humanity has been doing the same thing. The difference between humanity and the phoenix is that humanity doesn’t have to. Granger points out this difference, that we remember what we’ve done, and humanity's knowledge of history can prove this. Humanity keeps destroying itself and building itself back up, but that doesn’t mean it has to.
Sunday, October 24, 2010
Death of a Salamander
A salamander sits on a log in a fire, thinking himself invincible. While sitting, it looks around and sees some people sitting near the fireplace, talking and laughing. The salamander looks at them, disapproving, and maybe even a little jealous, before deciding he will not take this. The salamander jumps from the fire, the flames traveling with him scorching the carpet near the people, sending them into hysterics as they try to run away. As the fire quickly spreads, burning the house as the people flee, the salamander look on in satisfaction, until he discovers he's starting to feel a bit warm. The growing fire becomes extremely hot as it rages out of control, and before the salamander can get away, the fire he thought himself impervious to burns him to death. In Fahrenheit 451, Beatty’s death goes much the same way. He took everything he could from Montag, and Montag returned the favor, taking Beatty’s life. However, Beatty’s death may stand for more than just the death of Montag’s rival, which makes it and important scene in the book.
Beatty’s death could be described as the salamander dying in its own flame. He did in fact build up and create the very flame that ultimately destroyed him, but the flame that killed Beatty wasn’t just the fire of the flame thrower; it was also the raging inferno of anger he had built up inside of Montag. Beatty knew that Montag was unhappy, so he picked at it. He waved everything in front of Montag’s face, he criticized him, he taunted him every step of the way, but more than anything, Beatty was the very image of the problem Montag had had to face from the very beginning; society. Beatty was everything about society that Montag had found he disliked, so when Beatty told Montag to burn his problems, it’s no surprise that Montag turned the flamethrower on him. What is a surprise is how Beatty didn't seem too scared of being burned to death, and kept a straight face right up until Montag pulled the trigger. This may have been Beatty underestimating human emotion, which is a sub theme in the book. People in this time were out of touch with their emotions, so it would be quite easy for Beatty to overlook that part of his plan as Montag turned on the flame thrower and burned the effigy of his greatest problem.
The salamander's death by flame could also stand for events that have yet to happen, from a world view. If Beatty stood for his society, which is in fact the American society, Montag may not have stood for himself, but for the world apart from the American society. In Fahrenheit 451, the rest of the world doesn’t live in nearly as much luxury as the people of America do. If one who had very little in life suddenly had everything taken from them by one who had virtually everything, why wouldn’t they feel feel upset? The technology of the time, which is another theme in the book, would have taken this further, as people were so absorbed in their luxuries they hardly ever acknowledged the rest of the world. After all, if one has everything they need right at home, what’s the point of leaving home? It would be just like Montag and Beatty, and once you throw the fire in, the result couldn’t be anything other than war. This may mean that later in the book, society may ‘die’ in some way due to the war society itself started.
Though there are many ways it can be interpreted, no matter how one views the scene or what one sees in the symbolism, it’s quite obvious that Beatty’s death is an important point in both the book and Montag’s life. The end of Beatty also marks the end of Montag the fireman, but it also marks the beginning of a different Montag, which plays with the themes of Life and Death. In the end, Montag seems to walk away a different man, like a phoenix risen from the the ashes, figuratively and a bit literally. This wouldn’t have happened if Beatty hadn’t died, as Montag, instead of burning Beatty, would have ended up in prison, and never would have changed or learned any of the things he did afterward. Beatty’s death was indeed vital, and nothing would have been the same without it.
Beatty’s death could be interpreted in many ways; a symbol of Montag’s struggle, a foreshadowing of the the future, and as many other things. But what stands firm is the fact that Beatty’s death is more than just the death of the story’s villain. It stands for more than that, whether one sees it as a big step in Montag’s journey, or Montag the salamander becoming Montag the phoenix. There are many important things that can be learned from this equally important part of the book.
Beatty’s death could be described as the salamander dying in its own flame. He did in fact build up and create the very flame that ultimately destroyed him, but the flame that killed Beatty wasn’t just the fire of the flame thrower; it was also the raging inferno of anger he had built up inside of Montag. Beatty knew that Montag was unhappy, so he picked at it. He waved everything in front of Montag’s face, he criticized him, he taunted him every step of the way, but more than anything, Beatty was the very image of the problem Montag had had to face from the very beginning; society. Beatty was everything about society that Montag had found he disliked, so when Beatty told Montag to burn his problems, it’s no surprise that Montag turned the flamethrower on him. What is a surprise is how Beatty didn't seem too scared of being burned to death, and kept a straight face right up until Montag pulled the trigger. This may have been Beatty underestimating human emotion, which is a sub theme in the book. People in this time were out of touch with their emotions, so it would be quite easy for Beatty to overlook that part of his plan as Montag turned on the flame thrower and burned the effigy of his greatest problem.
The salamander's death by flame could also stand for events that have yet to happen, from a world view. If Beatty stood for his society, which is in fact the American society, Montag may not have stood for himself, but for the world apart from the American society. In Fahrenheit 451, the rest of the world doesn’t live in nearly as much luxury as the people of America do. If one who had very little in life suddenly had everything taken from them by one who had virtually everything, why wouldn’t they feel feel upset? The technology of the time, which is another theme in the book, would have taken this further, as people were so absorbed in their luxuries they hardly ever acknowledged the rest of the world. After all, if one has everything they need right at home, what’s the point of leaving home? It would be just like Montag and Beatty, and once you throw the fire in, the result couldn’t be anything other than war. This may mean that later in the book, society may ‘die’ in some way due to the war society itself started.
Though there are many ways it can be interpreted, no matter how one views the scene or what one sees in the symbolism, it’s quite obvious that Beatty’s death is an important point in both the book and Montag’s life. The end of Beatty also marks the end of Montag the fireman, but it also marks the beginning of a different Montag, which plays with the themes of Life and Death. In the end, Montag seems to walk away a different man, like a phoenix risen from the the ashes, figuratively and a bit literally. This wouldn’t have happened if Beatty hadn’t died, as Montag, instead of burning Beatty, would have ended up in prison, and never would have changed or learned any of the things he did afterward. Beatty’s death was indeed vital, and nothing would have been the same without it.
Beatty’s death could be interpreted in many ways; a symbol of Montag’s struggle, a foreshadowing of the the future, and as many other things. But what stands firm is the fact that Beatty’s death is more than just the death of the story’s villain. It stands for more than that, whether one sees it as a big step in Montag’s journey, or Montag the salamander becoming Montag the phoenix. There are many important things that can be learned from this equally important part of the book.
Monday, April 26, 2010
The Corruption of Power
You're home alone on a Saturday morning. Your parents are out running errands and left you in charge of the house. As you stroll through the kitchen, you spy the family cookie jar on the counter, full of you favorite cookies. The temptation to take one is awful-the cookies are right in front of you!-but you know you shouldn't. Wrestling with your conscience, you stand there, indecisive, until you realize your parents put you in charge of the house and everything in it. Besides, they wouldn't miss one little cookie, would they? You pop the lid open and take a cookie, soon reaching in for another and another, saying they couldn't possibly miss just one more, until you find that the jar has become quite empty. This is what happened to the pigs in Animal Farm. The pigs were put in a position of power and they used it to gain more and more until there was no more to gain. George Orwell points out how, when it comes to greed and human weakness, power taken out of selfishness is no different that cookies taken out of a cookie jar.Absolute power corrupts absolutely, but many people don't see this because power corrupts a little bit at a time. When a kid steals cookies from the cookie jar in the kitchen they don't take all the cookies at once. They take one cookie at a time, to avoid a situation where the stolen goods have been missed, and the thieves have gotten themselves into trouble. The same is true with power; the one in power starts out with a few extra privileges, then, after a while, they've given themselves so many extra privileges that people are wondering how things got to be this way. The pigs started out giving the orders during the harvest rather than doing any work. Then they took the milk from the cows, rather than give some to all the animals on the farm. From there they slowly took grew in power, taking the beds, drinking alcohol, changing the commandments, and stuffing themselves to the point of obesity while the other animals starved. Each time, the changes seemed so little by themselves that no one noticed them, but once the results were seen as a whole, the reality of the situation was much worse than the animals had realized. This could be shown with Napoleon's secret army; the power hungry pig took the dog pups from their mothers and raised them, secretly, keeping them away from the other animals until they were all but forgotten by the time they were set upon Snowball. The sad truth was, the pigs took advantage of their position of power and made the situation for their "comrades" much worse than when they had started, under the rule of Jones.
When power corrupts people like this, it's not confined to one person, as people, no matter how greedy, tend to share their findings, whether rightfully earned or not, with their friends and allies. Before the Russian Revolution, the Czar held all power in Russia, some of which he gave to the church to better preach the citizens to lives in the manner he saw fit. The rest, the Czar used to keep himself and his family amused and away from work, wasting untold riches gained from his kingly privileges on decorative eggs, only good for collecting dust, rather than using these riches to feed his starving subjects. Farmer Jones, the Czar of the farm, then later Napoleon, giving in to greed, did much the same, living in a warm house among pleasurable trinkets, eating more food than they could ever possibly need, while the subjects of the farm, the slave driven animals, slept in an old barn with barley enough food to live off of. And it wasn't just Jones or Napoleon who enjoyed these special treatments; Jones shared the farm with his hired hands, Napoleon made sure ALL of the pigs had only the best living, food, and education. Like a child sharing stolen cookies with friends hiding under the slide in the playground, the Czar, Jones and Napoleon shared the spoils of their power, and through it their corruption, exclusively with those who could keep them in power.
When a person in a position of power and those around them take advantage of privileges they've been given and use it to gain even more power, they drain the equality and freedom of all people. In communism, all power and ownership is eliminated and everything belongs to everybody; all people are equal. The exact second someone takes something for themselves without distributing it among others who have need for it, they've gone against everything communism is about, not only taking ownership, but conjuring themselves up a small bit of power by having more than the others around them. Equality is shattered and, because of human weakness, there are very small chances that restoring it will be easy. The pigs in Animal Farm did exactly this before they began to walk on two legs, before they brought about the secret police, before the Battle of the Cowshed had even occurred, during the harvest. The pigs stole the milk that the cows had produced, keeping it for themselves, and no one else. In fact, the pigs had shattered equality even before that. During the first harvest the animals had worked on by themselves, without a farmer there, the pigs did no work, but stood there shouting orders to the working animals, taking charge. There is no equality when there's someone in charge. As a result, the other animals got no milk from the cows, slaved away in the fields while the pigs wrote on paper that was burn when the writing as done, had no freedom of speak when the secret police were introduced, and had no freedom by the time it was discovered what the pigs had ultimately become.
There is no greater corruption than power. It twists the hearts of the greatest of people and can turn even the most honest of people into scheming liars. Power made Napoleon greedy, and his greed sent him off in pursuit of more. The one who was supposed to keep order and peace on the farm became the cause of chaos and death, dragging his fellows pigs down to his level. In the end, power made Napoleon and the rest of the pigs exactly what they had hated most, and the worst part was, the pigs didn't even notice. Power is like cookies, everyone wants one, but only a few have them. The pigs are like the children that steal the cookies from the jar in the kitchen, but for the pigs, the cookies never ran out.
Thursday, March 4, 2010
Superstition
A response to The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.
Thinking back on childhood, you can think of many instances of childish belief, and superstitions that now seem so irrational and impossible, that it’s hard to imagine that you yourself had once believed in such things. The truth is, however, that you did once believe in such things as black cats bringing bad luck and putting pennies in your shoes to make good things happen, and so went around stepping over cracks in the sidewalk and avoiding ladders at all costs. In Mark Twain’s book Tom Sawyer, every decision that Tom makes is affected by superstitions, from getting rid of warts to deciding whether or not he was going to get a new suit; he lost plenty of his prized marbles because of one superstition, and was saved from Injun Joe because of another. Superstitions are powerful things, affecting the decisions of those who believe in them, thus affecting the events of their lives, for better or worse.
Everyone in the romantic world of Tom Sawyer has a strong belief in the superstitions they use in every task they perform, even when their superstitious charms don’t work. When Tom loses some of his marbles, he relies on a supposedly fail-proof superstition, which makes all the marbles he ever lost come to collect in one spot, then blames a witch when he returns to his charmed spot and finds that the marbles have not returned after all. He doesn’t take into account the fact that he’d tried this trick several times before, and doesn’t bother to think why a witch would bother the charm him out of his marbles, if witches even exist. Then, to confirm his belief, Tom turns to yet another superstition, the informative ‘doodle bug’, and counts his suspicions as proved when that, too, fails, as the bug appears, only to dive back under the sand in fright at the sight of the boy in front of him. Even the adults in the book, who are supposed to be above such things, have their strong beliefs in superstitions; when the wound on the body of the dead doctor bled, the towns people took it to mean that Muff Potter was the murderer-though it turned out to be a false accusation-and used bread stuffed with quicksilver in the attempt to find the allegedly drowned boys, bringing forth fruitless results.
Strong beliefs in superstition can change or cause events in a person’s life. During the time Tom and Huckleberry Finn were digging for treasure, they postponed their hunt due to the day being Friday, as well as Huck having a nightmare about rats; both were bad signs in the boys’ superstition, so they stopped digging for the day rather than explore the haunted house, where Injun Joe would have caught them. The whole reason Injun Joe was even after Tom and Huck was because they had been in the graveyard at the time he murdered Doctor Robinson, trying to get rid of warts with an old superstition involving devils and a dead cat. If Tom and Huck had not gone to the graveyard, they wouldn’t have seen the ordeal and wouldn’t be witnesses of Injun Joe’s crimes and deceptions, which would mean Injun Joe wouldn’t have a reason to be after them. In the real world, people can go around avoiding ladders and black cats for most of their child hood, but, because they stayed away from these things, there was less of a chance of the ladder or something from the top of the ladder falling down on them, or of catching parasites or illnesses carried by stray cats. Either of these things would have had some kind of affect on the person’s life, though the affects probably wouldn’t be that dramatic.
The changes in the events of a person’s life due to superstition can be good or bad. The dead cat superstition caused Tom and Huck to sneak away during the night, which can be dangerous and would certainly get any boy in trouble, but because they were at the graveyard, they saw the murder, which made the two boys able to save Muff Potter from being hung. The cannon superstition the searchers used to look for the non-existent bodies of Tom, Huck, and Joe wasn’t very smart; shooting off a cannon at random poses more than just minor dangers, as the people shooting the cannon would find it difficult to see innocent bystanders that just happen to be boating down the river. However, the cannon showed the boys on the island that they really were missed, which led to Tom sneaking back home and hatching the plan that brought the three runaways home to a welcome fit for heroes. There’s many a time when children go out on adventures for four-leaf clovers or other superstitious talismans, and experience heartache when it’s discovered that the good luck charms aren’t magic after all, and the day’s been seemingly wasted by a wild goose chase in the park. While looking for these charms, however, a person can find so many other things; the beauty of nature, if looking in woods or parks, the importance of friendship if searching with a partner. Sometimes, though, the wonders along the journey are forgotten, wasted on the searcher, and the only thing gained is the knowledge that good luck charms are a hoax, often not even that, when the superstitious talismans aren’t found at all, resulting in an unhappy child, feeling betrayed by their beliefs.
Superstitions are white lies, imaginary beliefs, playing on the imagination, and affecting decisions of those who care to believe in them. Some have practical purposes; made up by adults trying to keep children out of trouble in ways they would understand better than simply being told, like walking under ladders or breaking mirrors. Others were most likely invented to influence the decisions of others with the future in mind; the superstition that putting pennies in shoes brings good luck was probably meant to teach children to save their money, while avoiding outright telling them. Still other superstitions have no purpose at all, creations of children, adults, coincidence, and even literature; Tom Sawyer’s howling dog prophecy more likely than not began in a story brought to the characters’ attention, as howling dogs are used to symbolize tragic events to come in literature. No matter what the purpose for superstitions, they are powerful things, changing the flow of people’s lives, effecting their decisions, and teaching some important lessons, if a person bothers to watch out for them. Indeed, life as we know it would be very different without superstitions; anyone can deny it as much as they want, but we’d miss so much of what we have now, that superstition could very well be one of the most powerful things there are.
Thinking back on childhood, you can think of many instances of childish belief, and superstitions that now seem so irrational and impossible, that it’s hard to imagine that you yourself had once believed in such things. The truth is, however, that you did once believe in such things as black cats bringing bad luck and putting pennies in your shoes to make good things happen, and so went around stepping over cracks in the sidewalk and avoiding ladders at all costs. In Mark Twain’s book Tom Sawyer, every decision that Tom makes is affected by superstitions, from getting rid of warts to deciding whether or not he was going to get a new suit; he lost plenty of his prized marbles because of one superstition, and was saved from Injun Joe because of another. Superstitions are powerful things, affecting the decisions of those who believe in them, thus affecting the events of their lives, for better or worse.
Everyone in the romantic world of Tom Sawyer has a strong belief in the superstitions they use in every task they perform, even when their superstitious charms don’t work. When Tom loses some of his marbles, he relies on a supposedly fail-proof superstition, which makes all the marbles he ever lost come to collect in one spot, then blames a witch when he returns to his charmed spot and finds that the marbles have not returned after all. He doesn’t take into account the fact that he’d tried this trick several times before, and doesn’t bother to think why a witch would bother the charm him out of his marbles, if witches even exist. Then, to confirm his belief, Tom turns to yet another superstition, the informative ‘doodle bug’, and counts his suspicions as proved when that, too, fails, as the bug appears, only to dive back under the sand in fright at the sight of the boy in front of him. Even the adults in the book, who are supposed to be above such things, have their strong beliefs in superstitions; when the wound on the body of the dead doctor bled, the towns people took it to mean that Muff Potter was the murderer-though it turned out to be a false accusation-and used bread stuffed with quicksilver in the attempt to find the allegedly drowned boys, bringing forth fruitless results.
Strong beliefs in superstition can change or cause events in a person’s life. During the time Tom and Huckleberry Finn were digging for treasure, they postponed their hunt due to the day being Friday, as well as Huck having a nightmare about rats; both were bad signs in the boys’ superstition, so they stopped digging for the day rather than explore the haunted house, where Injun Joe would have caught them. The whole reason Injun Joe was even after Tom and Huck was because they had been in the graveyard at the time he murdered Doctor Robinson, trying to get rid of warts with an old superstition involving devils and a dead cat. If Tom and Huck had not gone to the graveyard, they wouldn’t have seen the ordeal and wouldn’t be witnesses of Injun Joe’s crimes and deceptions, which would mean Injun Joe wouldn’t have a reason to be after them. In the real world, people can go around avoiding ladders and black cats for most of their child hood, but, because they stayed away from these things, there was less of a chance of the ladder or something from the top of the ladder falling down on them, or of catching parasites or illnesses carried by stray cats. Either of these things would have had some kind of affect on the person’s life, though the affects probably wouldn’t be that dramatic.
The changes in the events of a person’s life due to superstition can be good or bad. The dead cat superstition caused Tom and Huck to sneak away during the night, which can be dangerous and would certainly get any boy in trouble, but because they were at the graveyard, they saw the murder, which made the two boys able to save Muff Potter from being hung. The cannon superstition the searchers used to look for the non-existent bodies of Tom, Huck, and Joe wasn’t very smart; shooting off a cannon at random poses more than just minor dangers, as the people shooting the cannon would find it difficult to see innocent bystanders that just happen to be boating down the river. However, the cannon showed the boys on the island that they really were missed, which led to Tom sneaking back home and hatching the plan that brought the three runaways home to a welcome fit for heroes. There’s many a time when children go out on adventures for four-leaf clovers or other superstitious talismans, and experience heartache when it’s discovered that the good luck charms aren’t magic after all, and the day’s been seemingly wasted by a wild goose chase in the park. While looking for these charms, however, a person can find so many other things; the beauty of nature, if looking in woods or parks, the importance of friendship if searching with a partner. Sometimes, though, the wonders along the journey are forgotten, wasted on the searcher, and the only thing gained is the knowledge that good luck charms are a hoax, often not even that, when the superstitious talismans aren’t found at all, resulting in an unhappy child, feeling betrayed by their beliefs.
Superstitions are white lies, imaginary beliefs, playing on the imagination, and affecting decisions of those who care to believe in them. Some have practical purposes; made up by adults trying to keep children out of trouble in ways they would understand better than simply being told, like walking under ladders or breaking mirrors. Others were most likely invented to influence the decisions of others with the future in mind; the superstition that putting pennies in shoes brings good luck was probably meant to teach children to save their money, while avoiding outright telling them. Still other superstitions have no purpose at all, creations of children, adults, coincidence, and even literature; Tom Sawyer’s howling dog prophecy more likely than not began in a story brought to the characters’ attention, as howling dogs are used to symbolize tragic events to come in literature. No matter what the purpose for superstitions, they are powerful things, changing the flow of people’s lives, effecting their decisions, and teaching some important lessons, if a person bothers to watch out for them. Indeed, life as we know it would be very different without superstitions; anyone can deny it as much as they want, but we’d miss so much of what we have now, that superstition could very well be one of the most powerful things there are.
The Pink Tree
"But this tree in the yard--this tree that men chopped down...this tree that they built a bonfire around, trying to burn up its stump--this tree lived! It lived! And nothing could destroy it."~Francie Nolan, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
My project for A Tree Grows in Brooklyn was a tree hung with ornaments with quotes written on them. I chose to use a tree because going from innocence is like growing a tree; the tree can't grow with out a seed and experience can't be gained from innocence and gaining experience is like the tree growing. Francie is like a tree, growing into experience from the seed of innocence through out the book. She is also like the tree that grows in her backyard in the sense that the world tried to change her, to knock her down, but she just kept on growing. I chose the quotes I did because I thought that they showed this or show who Francie was the best. The tree I used was a pink Christmas tree. It wasn't pink for any reason other than it was the only kind of tree I could find that was the right size and with lights. The lights symbolize the hope that Francie always gave off and spread to everyone, amd her bright, fighting spirit the refused to be brought down, to be ignored. The tree,and everything in it , symbolizes Francie and all that I think she is. If I could do this again, I'd try to see if I could find a plastic Tree of Heaven, or maybe a living pine tree sapling, because I think that would have worked better, the Tree of Heaven being the one from the book, and the sapling representing Francie's growing into experience as the sapling grew.
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