This sucks Butt

"Conjoined" like two onions...

When learning about marriage, it is often referred to as “happily ever after,” but as many know, that is not always the case. In her poem, “Conjoined,” Judith Minty helps reveal this idea, noting that it is hard work for two to become one peacefully and effectively. Through the use of metaphors and similes and word choice, she is able to paint the picture of the troubles of a marriage.
The speaker in the poem is unhappy with the way her marriage has resulted and explains the obstacles in a marriage. She creates a metaphor, calling marriage a deformed onion, where two separate onions begin to grow together, “a monster, actually.” Marriage is expected to be a whole, where two halves were put together to make one, not two separate entities growing on one another, ‘deformed,’ as Minty suggests. The connotation of a deformed onion does not give a very inviting nor loving idea of marriage to someone who may be looking into forming a union of matrimony of their own, yet this is what she chooses to describe it. This means that she is not happy in her marriage and knows first-hand that it is not precisely what all it is cracked up to be, nor what she expected. She knows the troubles and trials of marriage. She describes the monster of the onion, “two joined under one skin.” In this, the two onions refer to the man and wife, joined under the skin of marriage. Each onion is “flat and deformed where it pressed and grew against the other.” In relation to marriage, the two people try to grow with one another, and end up changing in order to conform. In the poem, the onions become deformed, alluding to the fact that when people change in their marriage, it is not always what they or their partner may have expected, and may not exactly be a change for the better. This leaves a rather gloomy cloud over the idea of marriage and sharing one’s life with another, which is obviously the poet’s intent.
Judith Minty also uses similes that are not very pleasant to contribute to her portrait of marriage. She describes it, “like the two-headed calf rooted in one body, fighting…” In this, the reader can imagine a two headed cow, which can be referred to as sort of a freak of nature. The two heads are separate cows, just stuck together in one body. As she says, they are forced to live that way, fighting one another constantly, starting with fighting one another for milk from their mother. In a marriage, the two cows in one body could be likened to the two people in one union or house. They are constantly fighting to get along and adapt to one another, which is a challenge, especially to Minty. Additionally, she brings up the idea that marriage is also, “like those other freaks, Chang and Eng, twins, / joined at the chest by skin and muscle, doomed / to live, even make love, together for sixty years. Chang and Eng were Siamese twins, and, like the cows, would be considered freaks of nature, possibly featured in a side show at a carnival of some sort. This depicts marriage as a sort of show at times, which needs to be put on for outsiders. The people involved need to be able to cooperate with one another in public, as Chang and Eng (or any other pair of Siamese twins) would, were they put in a show. Minty is reminding the reader that marriage is a challenge that is natural, but needs to be worked at and overcome. In the last part about the twins, she mentions that they are “doomed to live… together for sixty years.” This helps depict the fact that she and her husband are now conjoined, and cannot escape one another, and adds to the gloomy cloud she depicts with the onion, reminding the reader that marriage that she sees it as more of a burden than a blessing. She is obviously not enjoying her marriage experience, and wants others to know, before they themselves become “doomed.”
Additionally, Minty uses specific word choice to give her poem this gloomy connotation. Words such as ‘monster, ‘deformed,’ ‘accident,’ ‘doomed,’ and ‘kill’ have negative connotations to begin with. She uses them to describe the idea of marriage itself, and the joint of husband and wife. They help to add to the gloomy cloud as well, to remind the reader of the way she sees and has experienced marriage. The last stanza is a reflection of her marriage directly, and the very last line, “we cannot escape each other,” is chosen to elucidate the fact that once one has joined a marriage, it cannot be avoided, even if desired. “To sever the muscle could free one, but might kill the other.” This beginning of the stanza is chosen to describe the fact that if one person changes (or even leaves) to suit themselves, it may have a worse impact on the other person. There is no choice but to join with your partner, in ways you may not know, and it is not always pleasant.
Marriage can be the best thing in someone’s life, but it is not always as easy as it may seem. Judith Minty uses metaphors, similes, and connotative word choice in her poem, “Conjoined,” to help describe the troubles, struggles, and cloudy sides of a union between two lovers.

Comic book and crossword puzzles.

http://www9.georgetown.edu/faculty/bassr/218/projects/oliver/MausbyAO.htm

Forgive my blog for being late, please.
I found this article, which is apparently an electronic essay, discussing MAUS by Art Spiegelman.
The essay speaks about three different subjects pertaining to the graphic novel: Techniques of Remembering the Holocaust by Second Generation Jews, The Unusual Structure of MAUS, and The Holocaust as a Demonstration of Man's Brutal Nature.
In the first topic, the author, Antonio S. Oliver discusses the widely known theory that the Holocaust may not ever be properly represented, due to its grave tragic history that killed so many, and because of this, many try to still remember it with respect.
He praises Art Spiegelman’s work in narratives through the graphic novels of MAUS and MAUS II, by saying that Spiegelman complements his father's narrative by presenting a portrayal of the life and struggles of second generation Jewish people whose existences are extremely influenced by the Holocaust despite not being born during its occurrence, due to the tragic loss of family members to the Nazi reign. Oliver says that this trait separates MAUS from other Holocaust narratives, because their limits can only offer one side of the story, one view of the event, one version of the pain.

The second topic of Oliver’s electronic essay discusses the interesting and unusual structure of MAUS itself. For being a graphic novel, which is not seen often, it makes it interesting enough, and even more so for dealing with such a subject as the Holocaust and Jewish entrapment in Nazi concentration camps. Also, because of Spiegelman’s use of animals such as cat and mouse to portray German and Jews, Oliver finds deeper meaning and praises it, since the Nazis often referred to the Jews as the ‘vermin of society.’

The third topic of Oliver’s essay talks about The Holocaust as a Demonstration of Man's Brutal Nature. In this, he relates the millions of deaths linked with the Holocaust to the deaths of the Nagasaki Bombing. He relates them not only by the deaths, but by the recollection of memories from the survivors of either experience, which typically include disgust toward the brutalities that had occurred.

"Make it New"

From what I have gathered, postmodernism is the most current ‘era,’ one might say, of contemporary culture. The term, ‘postmodernism,’ is a play on the ‘modernist’ movement of objectivity and progress that is often related with the Enlightenment. Chronologically, the postmodern way of thinking and cultural forms of art, music, architecture, literature, etc., includes anything developed or created after the closing of World War II. If you thought about it, anything from Elvis Presley’s rock and roll repertoire, to J. K. Rowling’s fantastic wizard world of Harry Potter and the Hogwarts school, to the pop art works of Andy Warhol, or the creepy cinematic adventures of Alfred Hitchcock can all be collectively considered as ‘postmodernist.’ Another way to describe postmodernism is that it goes against modernism- it goes against the grain, you could say. “Stepping outside the box,” and not following the rules or guidelines previously set is what postmodernism is about. As we read in “Postmodern Architecture,” new age architects are said to have actually began the postmodernism movement, by going against the “retro, ancient, cluttered, nineteenth century styles. No more custom. No more inherited designs” would be followed. In doing this, they jet set a completely new style of culture that would inspire the rest of the art-world to follow. In this, I do believe that Kurt Vonnegut’s Cat’s Cradle should be considered a postmodernist text. Despite the fact that it was written in 1963, automatically ‘categorizing’ it as postmodern, since it followed World War II, the content of the book actually makes it postmodernist. For example, when Castle is asked why he mentioned Jesus Christ just minutes before, he first didn’t recall the name, then went on to say, “People have to talk about something just to keep their voice boxes in working order, so they’ll have good boxes in case there’s ever anything really meaningful to say.” In this, he is saying that people just talk to make sure they still can, because there is nothing important to say anymore. This is obviously going against the grain, but it still makes sense in displaying postmodernism, because it shows what may happen to society in the time to come, and makes a critique on ‘modernism,’ and what used to be the norm as opposed to what will be the norm.

PS: sorry about the beginning. I really needed to clarify to myself what postmodernism really is.

blaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhgggggg

Thinking of a topic for the next essay pertaining to Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley, I think I am going to go with a topic that would connect the novel to our world today, and the similarities, but obviously more the contradictions between our world and the Ford worshiping world. I can use George Orwell’s 1984 to draw similarities between those two worlds, and also to see how the two reflect the opposite spectrum of what our world is today, and how we see it. Both of the stories relate in that their societies are completely manipulated by government control, leaving the citizens stripped of rights that they don’t even know they should have. Reading both, and seeing how the majority of the societies react to their poor treatment is absurd to me, because they don’t even know what a true life is like. It’s like they are simply Barbie dolls being manipulated, without any sense of feeling or direction. They just do what they are trained and told to do and what they know to do. The video we watched from Sir Ken Robinson would also be a useful outside work that can help me draw contrasts and comparisons as well, to our world today, and the education system. He feels that children are being pushed through their schooling almost robot like, very similar to the Bokanovsky process in Brave New World. Kids are just told things and tested on them, without really learning much of anything, except how to guess on a Scantron. In Brave New World, the people just go through what they call their life after first being almost injected with knowledge that they must use to ‘live their life.’ SIr Ken Robinson uses a brilliant illustration to better prove exemplify his theories on the current educational system, which was created and designed along the same time as America, itself.

Educacion

This video that we watched was actually quite interesting, once you get past the squeaky noises at the beginning. The way it was presented obviously made the speech more interesting and easy to follow, which was good because it portrayed the otherwise slightly boring stream of words in a more upbeat visual aspect, which actually helped his message in the long run.
In regards to the relation of Sir Ken Robinson’s observations and Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, there are many similarities, but at the same time, they are at different ends of the spectrum for whatever it is. For example, Sir Robinson comments on the ‘epidemic,’ it seems, of ADHD, in which children across America are just fed pills such as Ritalin or Adderall, in order to strengthen their focus in school and help them pay attention better. In comparison, this relates to the soma in Brave New World, because it is, in essence, a drug that helps the people to all think alike and focus on the same thing: losing themselves in pleasure and happiness.
Another similarity between the two is when Sir Ken Robinson describes the ‘date of manufacture,‘ which is what kids are grouped and labeled as. This is similar in Brave New World, as a “bokanovskified egg will bud, will proliferate, will divide…[producing] from eight to ninety-six… embryos.” These embryos grow up into people, technically as huge sets of twins, worked like machines all living near the same lives. Their ‘date of manufacture, as Sir Robinson would describe, would be when they were concocted like a Bokonovsky science experiment, emerging out of the tubes they will have spent eight months ‘growing’ in.

My neighbors just brought some homemade butterscotch cream pie, just so you know.

"Wheels must turn steadily, but can not turn untended. There must be men to tend them, men as sturdy as the wheels upon their axles, sane men, obedient men, stable in contentment."
This passage from chapter three of Brave New World is describing the value system in that warped society. It is referencing the mechanical and somewhat robotic system of life that they live by, making sure to note the men that are used to make sure this mechanical way of life runs smoothly.Their society is basically a system of robots, in human form. The people are literaly created, as if to be science experiments, and raised to be used and manipulated in their specific role in society, wherever they are placed. Once they are too old to function or unneeded, they are merely disposed of. This form of life is not really living. They are not to experience true love or marriage, or really any other form of feeling. I can only really relate it to a human robot, because they have figured out a way to produce in massive numbers, whenever they please. There really is no point in living for them, because they really are not living, yet they have no sense of this, because this is all they know.

“Or the Caste System. Constantly proposed, constantly rejected. There was something called democracy. As though men were more than physico-chemically equal.”
This quote references the past, prior to the days of Ford’s presidency, and it proves that what they know as life is completely normal to them, rather than actually being people and being able to live your life freely with thoughts and feelings. It refers to democracy as something in the distant past that was more of like an idea or myth, as if it didn’t really happen. This is because they have no idea; the idea of democracy was long gone, as well as the idea of being able to express yourself as person or human being, not just a physical entity that was created to serve a specific purpose.