Cat's Cradle

Postmodernism is a genre of art and literature and especially architecture in reaction against principles and practices of established modernism
There are many ways that Kurt Vonnegut’s novel Cat’s Cradle is that of a post modernism theme.  This novel contains a post modernism theme through religion, and truth.  Through lies, and short poems, Bokonon spreads his religion to everyone that they think is in their karass. Having it become the "center" of the society, Bokonon manipulates people beliefs by having different rules added upon the others on a daily bases making it hard for the people to know what is right from wrong.  Where as John states that he was once a "Christian then" allowing us to believe that there was a time where the people did have a more structure guide line such as the Bible, compare to Bokonon "Anyone unable to understand how a useful religion can be founded on lies will not understand this book either" (5-6).  Postmodernism is also apparent when he mentions the game Cat's Cradle, even though you can not see an actual cat or cradle the people know it is there without even questioning it, like how we know green is go and red is stop.  The game show humans stupidity to believe in faiths that can be completely non-sense.  Christianity has a religion based on "truth" and "living" making it, its center, Bokonon has their based on "lies" and "false" having them have a center that really does not exist allowing them to prosper in anything without really giving any thought into it.  Vonnegut shows the comparison of postmodernism through the two religion allowing us to see the contrast of modernism and postmodernism with in the text.

UTOPIA!

So, I think there are a lot of topics that I could easily explore, but narrowing it down to only a few is sort of easy, yet hard. I find that when times comes, I will obviously try to dive deeper within these topics to get my point across. 1) I want to explore how their want and desire for technology has advanced the human race. One illustration of this is the rigid control of reproduction through technological and medical intervention, including the Bokanovsky Process, and hypnopaedic conditioning.  In my personal opinion, the whole baby-making-process should be made by humans, not humans using chemicals. Not only has that, but the way they can alter and chemically change a certain embryo to carry what that individual wanted, like creating Alphas, Betas, Gammas, Deltas, and Epsilons. It’s wrong, and I don’t think that the World State wants to advance their utopia and create better a better way to view science; they want to use science to improve their technology. 2) I would like to dive deeper into how George Orwell’s novel 1984 and Brave New World sort of tie in together. Like 1984, Brave New World uses government control to maintain their type of happiness. However, both differ in one aspect. In 1984 the government would control by using surveillance and other types of technology to control its public whereas in the novel we just finished, the government lets their people run wild without surveillance and makes them advance their technology. Notice how both have strict limitations and make use of technology. Those, I think are two points that I want to explore.

So I figured out which two texts that I really wanted to use. I read Frederick Winslow Taylor’s The Principles of Scientific Management 1910 –chapter 2 excerpts and I found it very interesting, oddly enough. I usually get bored of these quickly but I think this particular one caught my attention because of its direct parallelism to Brave New World. In this text, he writes, “First. They develop a science for each element of a man’s work, which replaces the old rule- of-thumb method. Second. They scientifically select and then train, teach, and develop the workman, whereas in the past he chose his own work and trained himself as best he could. Third. They heartily cooperate with the men so as to insure all of the work being done in accordance with the principles of the science which has been developed. Fourth. There is an almost equal division of the work and the responsibility between the management and the workmen. The management take over all work for which they are better fitted than the workmen, while in the past almost all of the work and the greater part of the responsibility were thrown upon the men.” All these tie carefully into the works of Brave New World with their attempts to make the utopia better. By following these four steps, you sort of get a feel for how the government in Brave New World works. Another text I would like to hopefully dig a little into would be the text Brave New World Revisited. I think it has a lot of good text that could really help me prove my two points above. It gives me a little more insight.

Brave New World/Education

Well well. I saw the video by Sir Ken Robinson and thought that, to an extent, it was pretty darn interesting! I loved the whole parallel about how society has separated students by age thinking that it’s correct and how they “manufacture” the students. (I personally don’t think that age should separate students. It should be how willing they are to adapt and how fast of learners they are.) But I was like, “Whoa! That’s so wickedly true!” And to me, it seems very accurate because teachers/parents tell their students/children how to receive a degree and that when they do, that’s the only way they’ll succeed. Sir Robinson states, “…this is in the gene pool that there are only 2 types of people: academic, and non academic. Those that are smart and the non smart.” And if you saw him drawing, you would have noticed another similar part where Robinson drew a boy being shoved by a man off the path, in the face. It’s almost like if you aren’t willing to succeed in education and hold the same standards that society has set for you then you’re automatically unwanted. In the novel Brave New World by Aldrous Huxley "… all wear green," said a soft but very distinct ... voice, beginning in the middle of a sentence, "and Delta Children wear khaki. Oh no, I don't want to play with Delta children. And Epsilons are still worse. They're too stupid to be able to read or write. Besides they wear black, which is such a beastly colour. I'm so glad I'm a Beta." (There’s another long quote but I guess I won’t throw it in here). But do you understand? It’s like they’ve (all the characters in the novel) have been manufactured to be a certain way, a certain type, and if they’re not ‘like them’ than that makes everyone else the ‘different’ ones. For society here, it’s the same way! If we aren’t smart, and aren’t willing to work hard and do well, we’re automatically pushed under the bus and considered not smart.   

Brave New World

In chapter 3 of Brave New World, Mustapha Mond gives the kids a tour of the factory where he then leads them into a conversation about a mother, relationships, and "home." He attempts to say that the relationship between a mother and a child can be corrupt for the reason that it can be "dangerous, insane, and an obscene relationship" (37). Not to mention, he says that a home, "has no air, no space; an unsterilized prison; darkness, disease and smell" (37). For relationships, he states, "It's such a horribly bad form to go on and on like this with one man" (41). Basically, what he means to say is sticking around with one person can create heartbreak and destroy ones self. For instance, if there were heartbreak within a relationship, it could easily cause one person to miss work and to corrupt the community as a whole. Thus he believes that there should be NO relationships and that going around and being promiscuous is okay. Another example would be when the D.H.C. asks the the students what they believed about emotions. Students answered that being capable to feel things was "stupid." One of the controllers states, "Our ancestors were so stupid and short-sighted that when the first reformers came along and offered to deliver them from those horrible emotions, they wouldn't have anything to do with them" (45).
Without having emotions and desires, it gives you no source of attachment to one another. Thus letting you be free and "happy" in their society. Therefore marriage will not be upon them and they can casually live with whomever they want and whenever they want.

10/3 Blog

We have had a variety of discussions going on with the novel The Tempest. We have the discussion upon colonialism, Will vs. Greenblatt, and manipulation. All have taken different tolls on the novel and have geared all of us in different directions.
             In Cultural Studies: Post colonialism, African-American Criticism, And Queer Theory we have the winners and the “savages” that represent the Americans and the Native Americans. It ties deeply with The Tempest because they portray Prospero as the Americans and Caliban as the “savage.” Therefore saying that Hollywood and many others have always depicted other minority races as the blood-thirsty animal and the Americans as the ones that come along to ‘help’ and ‘teach’ them, to help make them more ‘disciplined.’
             Not only that, but there was also that debate Literary Study, Politics, and Shakespeare: A Debate between Will and Greenblatt. Where Will believed in only one way to convey and interpret a novel and Greenblatt believed in many ways to interpret the book. I personally believe that we should interpret books in new and challenging ways, not just ‘ne way.’ I know the author may or may have not seen it the way we see it now, but I think it’s always nice to see things from different perspectives. It makes it more interesting and intriguing.
            Then there was manipulation that was also brought up. I realized how manipulative many of the characters are. Prospero is great at making Ariel believe he’ll receive his freedom some time soon after he fulfills his ‘duties’ and then he makes Miranda believe that he’s not at all at fault for being kicked out of the dukedom when in reality, his carelessness and lack of concentration on the dukedom caused his fall as king. Then there’s Caliban whom Prospero, once again, tricks and manipulates by saying that Caliban is alive only for the reason that he (Prospero) helped him get where he is today. He taught him how to behave, how to speak, and how to live. However, everyone is unsure of whether who’s really at fault or not.
            Although those are just a few, there is a lot more to The Tempest and there is a lot more that could be discussed. However, I’ll cut it short here.

Toodles!

"Literary Study, Politics, and Shakespeare: A Debate"

Man, I sure hope that I did this right. I felt the Literary Debate was a bit confusing but I tried! (There’s a reason why I don’t like political debates….or debates in general.)

There was a debate between George Will and Stephen Greenblatt in a "Literary Study, Politics, and Shakespeare: A Debate" where Will believes that "all literature is, whether writers are conscious of it or not, political." Afterward, he then states, "Shakespeare's 'Tempest' reflects the imperialist rape of the Third World." (111). Basically what he means to say is that changing books and translating them for others to get the true underlying text is a wonderful thing. Not only that but Will believes the topics of colonialism and feminism are unimportant issues that Shakespeare’s readers do not need to know of.

However, Greenblatt states, “It is, I believe, all but impossible to understand these plays without grappling with the dark energies upon which Shakespeare's art so powerfully draws.” What he means to say is it is okay to explore beyond what an author has written. You don’t have to stay in the bounds of what they’ve created for you. Therefore he states, "the art that matters, it is not cement."

If anything, I think I’d rather take the side of Stephen Greenblatt. I personally think that both are correct in their own way because there is no “one way” to see things. You can see things from all sorts of views (exactly why they’re in debate). However, I’d personally rather side with Greenblatt because I see it as this: you don’t have to stay in the bounds of what has been said or written. They might have given you things to think and talk about (I.e colonialism, feminism, etc) but you are “allowed” to think outside the box. You aren’t confined to limited issues and topics. Feel free to think my child!

Tempest, Acts 11 & 111

First off, I want to start by saying that Hollywood and Americans have usually portrayed Native Americans as “foreigners” and anything but the winning side. And by the “winning side” I mean the dominant group that is either always portrayed as good or better. Even the video states this, “They say history is written by the winners.” They’ve made the representation of Native Americans (and other races) look worse off than they really are which is horrible because history must be seen from two sides, not just one. (Which eventually builds on to be a dangerous one-sided story).  I dislike colonialism and from just watching that 5 minute video, it made me feel disgusted by what Hollywood has done. They make Native Americans look like “savages” that are brutal and blood-thirsty and those aren’t even my own words. It says, “Yes they fought savagely for they were a primitive people and self-preservation is a primitive instinct.” They have poorly depicted other races or, Native Americans to be exact and from that, they falsely represented a certain group of people. “A nation that does not know its history has no future.” 

I personally think that Shakespeare purposely made Caliban represent that of a foreigner and has made Stephano and Trinculo attempt to be the dominant group. Of course there’s evidence to prove this because I’m sure at one point in time the Americans found Native Americans and others to be “monsters”, “foreigners”, “others”, and/or “savages”.  Just like how Stephano and Trinculo call Caliban a “monster…an awful monster.” (107). However, although throughout history they’ve described the Natives to be violent, I don’t think that was the same as Shakespeare because he hasn’t and he didn’t show Caliban to be violent in any way besides the cursing.

Representation is important and I can’t stress that enough. It reveals and attempts to show others how a certain peoples are and if you are misrepresented in any way, of course that makes that certain group look awful.