Great Success!

I finished my blogs! I even did the two comments, so that means I'm completely done. I feel incredibly accomplished now. I feel so accomplished that I feel like I need to go celebrate by watching an entire disc of Beavis and Butthead. It amazes me how I can do work for an AP class one minute and then go fry my brain with that show the next minute. Versatility is excellent.

The Handmaid's Tale- Finished

"'Well officially,' he says. But everyone's human, after all.'
I wait for him to elaborate on this, but he doesn't, so I say 'What does that mean?'
'It means you can't cheat Nature,' he says. 'Nature demands variety, for men. It stands to reason, it's part of the procreational strategy. It's Nature's plan.'
I don't say anything, so he goes on.
'Women know that instinctively. Why did they buy so many different clothes, in the old days? To trick the men into thinking they were several different women. A new one each day'" (Atwood 237).




Analysis of Quote-

This quote from the Commander creates a biological justification for the desire for men to be polygamous in their sexual relationships. It is something that human beings in nearly every society in the world struggle with and it is one that seems to have no solution. This type of behavior is, most of the time and especially in our society, frowned upon, although as most people will agree, it is animal and therefore human nature to have multiple mates. However biological this behavior is, it is still going against one of the Ten Commandments in the Bible. This quote is an excellent example of Atwood's use of religious satire to point out the many corruptions that are present. In the Christian faith, people are told that premarital sex is forbidden, and once you are married, you are then permitted to have sex, but only with the person you marry, and then you are never allowed to divorce them. Christians are expected to go against human nature, something they have absolutely no control over, and have sexual relations with one and only one person for their entire life. In The Handmaid's Tale, the Bible is preached to the women on a daily basis and they are expected to be free of sin and not do anything against the word of the Bible or of Gilead. However, the Commanders, the very people who are in charge of the society, are the ones who don't practice this at all. This parallels the lives of so many priests and "hardcore religious fanatics" (for lack of a better term) in our society who are caught having affairs or doing otherwise "unholy things." It proves the hypocrisy that exists in both Gilead and in our own society that is present, especially in the world of religion.

Analysis of Symbols: Syntax and Language-

One of the most prominent aspects of The Handmaid's Tale is Atwood's syntax and word choice. Her language plays almost as important, if not as important, of a role in the story as the plot and the characters themselves. The system of naming in Gilead is likely the most effective and major areas where Atwood uses word choice to reinforce her point. By giving the men their own personal names, and ranks such as "Commander," it is obvious that this is a society run by men, in favor of men. Women are not only not allowed to keep their own names, but the names they do have are simply those of the Commander, with the possessive "of" in front of it. Many would likely find this system of naming more demeaning than giving the Handmaids no names at all, or a number like the people of OneState in We. Certainly it would be less of a degradation to be given a number than it would to be given a name that blatantly points out that you are the property of another person, essentially making you less of a human being. With a numbering system, at least everyone receives their own unique number. With the "Of_____" system, women are very obviously displayed as inferior to men and only exist to serve one purpose: to be the property of their Commander and to procreate. Naming is an important tool in the real world as well. Militaries and governments all over the world use very specific terms that even someone without sufficient knowledge of their practices could infer the meaning of. Military ranks, for example, are used in our society just like in the novel. Something such as "Commander" or "General" is obviously a position of much higher power than something such as "Private." Even without a knowledge of military ranks, one could determine how much power a certain person has just by their title. Titles have been used in the social class system for hundreds, if not thousands of years. In feudalist goverments, for example, a person's social importance is known simply by the title of their social class. "Serfs" are the peasants who hold no power, and whose only job it is to serve those who are "above" them socially, and can be compared to the Handmaids or the Marthas in Gilead. Those with the title of "nobility" are above these peasants, however, they are still not at the top of the social ladder; they still are below others. These "nobles" are comparable to the rest of the men in the society who do not hold the rank of Commander. The Commanders in Gilead are obviously the "lords" of feudalist societies. They are the all-powerful ones who have complete control over the rest of the people in the society. They are the only class with full rights, and are permitted to do anything, even if it goes against the laws they have created themselves. This abuse of privileges is found in many instances in The Handmaid's Tale, from the Commander's secret meetings with Offred to the nights at Jezebel's, etc.

Reflection-

I can honestly say that I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book, which is highly unusual for me. First of all, I typically get incredibly bored with the books I have to read for English class, mainly because they all tend to have a very old, outdated, and difficult to concentrate on style of writing. I think that books written in the 1800's were designed to be read by people who actually talk like that. Second, I actually really don't enjoy reading in general (you're probably wondering, then why am I in AP Lit? Well the answer is, because I can be, but that's a whole other story that I won't start on right now). It's actually quite ironic that I dislike reading books as much as I do. It's actually not reading books that I don't like, it's reading long novels of fiction. Give me Mein Kampf or The Heroin Diaries by Nikki Sixx, something that actually can happen, something that actually DID happen, and I'll be more than happy to read it. Also, give me something controversial (see above, for instance. A book written by Adolf Hitler and a book written by a former heroin junkie who killed himself three times from an overdose and still manages to be alive and sober to tell about it. That's controversial. Besides Dr. Seuss, these people are my favorite authors). Anyway, back on track here. Controversy. This is probably one of the main reasons why I enjoyed The Handmaid's Tale so much. I love it when people get offended by things, call it horrible, but it's true, I won't lie. I personally love these kinds of books because it's very difficult to offend me, so I can read these and then I can enjoy hearing about what others have to say about it... those who may have a different opinion. Besides this controversial aspect of the novel about which I have just been ranting for the past twenty minutes, I loved Atwood's use of language in the novel. It wasn't written in 19th century old English that no one uses anymore, nor was it censored or cut off in the middle of ideas (like in We... that really bugged me about that book. Wow.). It was written just like Offred herself would be talking to a close friend about her experience, making it so much easier to get into the story and not want to put the book down, and it takes a lot for me to say that I didn't want to put a book down. It was almost a work that I could see myself writing if I had more of an aptitude for writing fiction and a much longer attention span to sit and write a whole novel.

Fahrenheit 451- Finished

Analysis of Symbol- Mildred

By doing absolutely nothing worthwhile with her life, it can be argued that Mildred does the most in the story as far as symbolism of ideas. Her robotic lifestyle with nothing but her television walls seemingly keeping her alive symbolizes what many (if not most) dystopian authors are attempting to prove in their works: when you try to create a "perfect" society with censorship, oppression, and forced equality, what really results is characters just like Mildred, who even if they don't display the same type of behavior in a boring, meaningless life, inside, this is who they are: a person who has nothing to live for besides what the people on TV, or in the society in general, tell them. Mildred is the epitome of a dystopian character's quality of life as a human being.

Reflection-

Considering that it had a rather cliche plot and theme (censorship and burning of books to create a "utopian" society), I thought that the novel was actually fairly well-written. Like Anthem, it was not too long and complex of a story, and it was one that could be read and digested without having to sit and think about it and therefore taking away from the story itself. The use of language and images was excellent (I would cite a few if I still had the book), particularly the ones describing the flames of the burning books. I also liked the element of reality in the story that can be related to our society. Unlike Anthem and We, this society is more like our own and is not as far-fetched and robotic. With The Handmaid's Tale in first place, I would say this book is my second favorite out of the ones we have read in class so far this year.

Analysis of Lyrics- Finished

"Acrobat"

Don't believe what you hear

Don't believe what you see

If you just close your eyes

You can feel the enemy

When I first met you girl

You had fire in your soul

What happened your face

Of melting in snow

Now it looks like this

And you can swallow

Or you can spit

You can throw it up

Or choke on it

And you can dream

So dream out loud

You know that your time is coming 'round

So don't let the bastards grind you down

No, nothing makes sense

Nothing seems to fit

I know you'd hit out

If you only knew who to hit

And I'd join the movement

If there was one I could believe in

Yeah I'd break bread and wine

If there was a church I could receive in

'Cause I need it now

To take a cup

To fill it up

To drink it slow

I can't let you go

I must be an acrobat

To talk like this

And act like that

And you can dream

So dream out loud

And don't let the bastards grind you down

What are we going to do now it's all been said

No new ideas in the house and every book has been read

And I must be an acrobat

To talk like this

And act like that

And you can dream

So dream out loud

And you can find

Your own way out

You can build

And I can will

And you can call

I can't wait until

You can stash

And you can seize

In dreams begin responsibilities

And I can love

And I can love

And I know that the tide is turning 'round

So don't let the bastards grind you down

The first four lines, especially "If you just close your eyes/ You can feel the enemy" can be connected to The Handmaid's Tale quite literally. Offred's "enemy" is the society in which she is nothing but an object, a body used to procreate. A society that she is stuck in and could not escape until the very end. The Commander is the one whose job it is to make the Handmaids useful, and therefore can be called "the enemy." The song references the Ceremony where Offred describes how she just lies there, eyes closed, waiting for it to be over.

"And you can dream/ So dream out loud/ You know that your time is coming 'round"could refer to the time when Offred finally leaves Gilead at the end of the novel. Since the very beginning she had been dreaming of her old life, but it had only been to herself. She had never been allowed to verbalize her dreams out of fear of being sent to the Colonies, but at the end, even though we never learn her fate, the time has finally come for her to leave the society.

"What are we going to do now it's all been said/ No new ideas in the house every book has been read" can be connected to the dystopian theme of the society of Gilead. In these types of societies, knowledge is forbidden, if not impossible. The Handmaids are simply objects, they exist in Gilead for one purpose, and having any sort of knowledge would be a major threat to the goal of the society. There is supposed to be nothing new for them to come up with, since everything they are intended for has already been said, and this is all they are permitted to know.

Ranting

Looking at a blog screen makes me feel like ranting a lot. I won't do that now though.

Anthem- Finished

[I really wish I hadn't procrastinated doing this blog for so long. I picked the quote and by the time I turned the books back in I forgot a lot of the details of the story, so I hope this quote analysis is sufficient enough considering I forgot said details a month ago.]


"Many words have been granted me, and some are wise, and some are false, but only three are holy: 'I will it!'" (94-95)

Quote/ Theme Analysis:

This quote expresses the significance of personal freedom and decisions in Anthem. The main character (I really can't think of their [his?] name at the moment), has finally come to realize that he in fact can think for himself, contradicting the goal of this dystopian society in the first place. This has been a common theme in several of the utopian/dystopian books we have read so far this year. In Fahrenheit 451, Anthem, We, and The Handmaid's Tale, the main character is distinguished from the rest of the society by one central factor: their ability to transcend the rules and structures of the robotic societies in which they live. Although knowledge and the ability to recognize what is real and what is not is important to the main character of Anthem, what is more important is being able to decide for oneself how to learn, what to think, and how to live without restrictions and oppressions of the "utopian" society that is intended to eliminate these necessities of thought.

Reflection:

Well, I definitely enjoyed the simplicity of this novel in comparison to We. I find that I enjoy books more when I can actually fully understand the story and be able to analyze it without having to work around complex sentences and unclear plots, because at that point all I am doing is trying to figure out what the author is trying to say, and it takes away from the meaning of the story. Although the style was very different from any book I've ever read before (the main character(s?) referring to themselves in the plural, as a unit) and this concept was a little confusing to begin with, I ended up liking how the author used this "unit" of people to refer to a single character as it emphasized the absence of individuality in so-called "utopian" societies.

We- Finished

"For every equation, every formula in the superficial world, there is a corresponding curve or solid. For irrational formulas, for my [square root of] -1, we know of no corresponding solids, we've never seen them... But that's just the whole horror-- that these solids, invisible, exist. They absolutely inescapably must exist" (98).

Analysis of Quote-

This quote describes the mathematically robotic society in which the people live in We. Its members are so accustomed to this lifestyle that anything outside it that cannot be solved mathematically is appalling and something that they absolutely cannot stand to think about. The only way to think about these types of irrational mathematical concepts is by possessing at least somewhat of an imagination, an ability to think about the things that cannot be seen, things that do not exist in the physical world. This horrible feeling that D-503 has toward mathematical illogic almost seems to foreshadow the end of the novel when he is brainwashed of all imagination and thoughts that are forbidden in this dystopian society. Without imagination, he cannot know the difference between logic and illogic since illogic cannot exist without imagination.

Analysis of Symbol- The Benefactor and OneState

Zamyatin's descriptions of OneState and the Benefactor can be connected to the principles of communism. Living in communist Russia, this was likely a major influence on Zamyatin's writing of We. In a communist society, every citizen is intended to be equal, and therefore the work that they do and the things that they accomplish mean nothing in the eyes of the society. This is the same concept found in We as well as most other dystopian novels. Both communism and utopian societies are founded with the intention that they will create a "perfect" society free of social inequality and necessity, when in reality, neither one can actually exist in the real world. Instead, the people in the society are oppressed, not allowed to think or create anything for themselves, trivializing their existence as human beings.

Reflection-

As far as all the books we have read in class so far this year, I would definitely say that We was my least favorite. The language (most likely since it was translated from the original Russian novel to English) made it difficult to focus on and sitting down and trying to concentrate on actually reading it was a painful experience. I especially didn't like the use of unfinished sentences and thoughts in the novel. Not only did it make it more difficult to actually read and understand the book, but these unfinished thoughts were never revisited. I also thought the ending was very disappointing. Even though I didn't enjoy the book at all, I believe the ending could have been much better than it was written to be. The rest of the story, especially with all the unfinished thoughts, left a lot to be discovered for a good ending, and the only thing that happened was D-503 being brainwashed and having his imagination removed, something that one expects to find in dystopian stories to begin with, since this brainwashing is ultimately how these types of societies come to exist in novels in the first place. If nothing else, I would have liked to see more of an explanation and more closure from D-503 in the ending.