The Great Gatsby
Original Text
It eluded us then, but that's no matter--to-morrow we will fun faster, strech out our arms farther....And one fine morning-
So we beat on, boats against the current, borned back ceaselessly into the past.
Converted Text
It will escape us. But it doesn't matter. We are going to head into future. With hope. So we move on, letting ourselves flow as it wants.
*****
The Road
Original text
In the deep glens where they lived all things were older than man and they hummed of mystery.
Converted Text
Most of the nature is definately more archaic than its parasites, the humans. Now that it is all destroyed by them, the mystery still remains in veil.
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
The Tale of Road
Walks with his son who is getting weaker
On a barren field of ash with no foodIn hope to one day finding a canned good.
The world has perished from a comet strike
And the streets have become a lawless dike.
The only weapon for their protection
Is a pistol, with short ammunition;
A round was used to kill an assailant
Who tried to threat them with an evil comment.
Like this, they are always under a threat
One time they were withering and dying
When they find in the grass a hatch lying.
It was full of food and supplies that fed
Both people, and it even had a bed.They start out on the road in a few days
To reach a beach side with islands and bays.
Yet the man finds out that he is really sick;
Sick in the lungs that makes him cough in shriek.
He tells his beloved son that he is fine
At last they get to shore, but it is dead
Just like the road that is on fire and red.
However the man finds an abandoned boat;
Strips all the goods and even finds a nice coat.
They go on to celebrate the dark night
With a new flare gun that makes the sky bright.
The kid gets a fever rear that event
And suffers for days on the ground that's dent.
With the help of sugar water he lives
The thief pulls out his keen-edged butcher knife
But soon drops it to save his precious life.
The thief starts shooting arrows towards them
And an arrow hits the man - he shouts "damn."
Hence he finds the station of the demon
And even bears to pull out the flare gun.
He shoots the gun which knocks the attacker
But his lag was deeply wounded, no wonder.
They keep at the road, but he stops suddenly
Because his whole body becomes more achy.
That night he sleeps, to be found dead next day;
The whearabout of them's hard to pinpoint.
The kid gets a fever rear that event
And suffers for days on the ground that's dent.
With the help of sugar water he lives
Along with the asprins his good dad gives.
And they have a good time with a nice talk.
When they get back, they find the cart is gone,
The cart with food; the man thinks he's a moronThey quickly look for the trail on the ash road
And soon they find a man with the cart erode.
The man points the pistol at the dirty thief
To shoot his brain out with a very strong motif.The thief pulls out his keen-edged butcher knife
But soon drops it to save his precious life.
To his little tent and sleeps, packs back-packs
And starts heading to the road once again.
Yet, they meet another threat; a bowman!The thief starts shooting arrows towards them
And an arrow hits the man - he shouts "damn."
Hence he finds the station of the demon
And even bears to pull out the flare gun.
He shoots the gun which knocks the attacker
But his lag was deeply wounded, no wonder.
They keep at the road, but he stops suddenly
Because his whole body becomes more achy.
That night he sleeps, to be found dead next day;
Fortunately, a man finds the poor boy
And takes him to his family to convoy.
The Tale of Road finishes at this point;The whearabout of them's hard to pinpoint.
The Road Review
I almost never feel moved, become sentimental or overwhelmed while reading a book. People have been throwing me books to read attemtping to fill my eyes with tears, but usually they failed to do so. Yes, I am not much of an emotional person; plus I literally hated reading until the start of my senior year. Once I held a book in my hands I usually ended up dozing off in a few minutes--in other words, books acted as a sleeping pill for me. AP Literature class, whether I like reading or not, keeps me awake while I read, surprsingly.
This book was different though. I tried my best not to tear up. Well, yes, I might be exaggerating a little in terms of being sad--but it was that close. "He slept close to his father that night and held him but when he woke in the morning his father was cold and stiff." (pg. 281) Not only this sentence came to me as a sudden shock, but it approached me as if my own relative died. That's the style I like about McCarthy. The change of scenes are so abrupt, that not only do I have to be alert for what is to come next but it also removes the dramatic aspects away from the book just like our reality. For instance, when the man and his son confronted a man who stole their cart, the transition from a happy walk along the beach to an urgent atmosphere was drastic: "The tarp was gone. Their blankets" (pg. 253). On the other hand, most fictional books had so many dramatic features in them that eventually I started avoiding them.
The cause for the disasterous perishment of the country still remains in veil. The author never explained the cause to the catastrophe, except depicting burned corpses and properties. Some of my friends told me that the reason to such demolishment was due to resource depletion, therefore people became lawless in order to survive. However, I think it is more probable that the cause to such destruction was from a natural disaster--in this case, a comet strike. Pretty much the whole world had been combusted, and some corpses even remained on their beds proving that the disaster came as a sudden. Then again the man seemed to know something was to come because: "He dropped to one knee and raised the lever to stop the tub and then turned on both taps as far as they would go" (pg. 52~53). I guess it's an open end. Actually the book itself ended in an open end, because the kid was picked up by an unknown man and his family, not letting the readers know the result.
The book contained so many themes including: survival, love, evil, justice, dooms-day and death. I really want to rewatch to movie properly, so I can see the difference between the book and the movie. It is one of the best books I have read so far, and certainly the kind of book I would like to keep.
Asteroid Strike |
The book contained so many themes including: survival, love, evil, justice, dooms-day and death. I really want to rewatch to movie properly, so I can see the difference between the book and the movie. It is one of the best books I have read so far, and certainly the kind of book I would like to keep.
The Road by Cormac McCarthy |
Sunday, September 19, 2010
Response: [The Great Gatsby Revisited]
Hatchet by Gary Paulsen |
I do have certain books I reread on a monthly basis. However, unlike Sonya, I only reread my favorite books. In other words, if I read a complex book, the chances are I would never try to reread it again. One of the books I reread is a book called Hatchet. Not only it's a simple read, but it's also action-packed as I like it. It's about a kid who is trapped in a no-man's island from an unexpected plane crash, who survived a whole 2 months on his own. Now that I think of it, I think I like books that contain vivid descriptions of the plot.
On the other hand, The Great Gatsby was not the kind of book I enjoyed. It was okay I guess, but to be honest, the sole reason I finished the book was to not to fall behind my class, and to do well on the essay. Plus, I thought the book was pretty straightforward, therefore I didn't see the need to reread it for a more precise understanding of the author's intention.
Howbeit, after reading the blog post, I have come to realize that I have missed many points regarding the allusion of the plot. I have only reached the thought to where The Great Gatsby was representing the futility of American Dream, whereas Sonya noticed that the lives of the characters in the book were acting as a mirror for ourselves.
Moreover, Sonya pointed out that Fitzgerald composed some excellent sentences throught the story. Honestly, I don't know if it is my ignorance that overlooked his apparent talent, or my reluctant attitude towards the reading, but I did not see anything special about his writing style. It's undeniably well written, but in fact, his sentences seemed only as good as any other authors I know. Here are the examples of some good sentences Sonya noticed.
Reserving judgments is a matter of infinite hope.
Two o’clock and the whole corner of the peninsula was blazing with light, which fell unreal on the shrubbery and made thin elongating glints upon the roadside wires.
He came alive to me, delivered suddenly from the womb of his purposeless splendor.
All the lights were going on in West Egg now; the electric trains, men-carrying, were plunging home through the rain from New York. It was the hour of a profound human change.
No amount of fire or freshness can challenge what a man will store up in his ghostly heart.
Again, yes, they are well written, but I still have trouble recognizing what's so excellent about these sentences.
Finishing the blog post, I felt a bit ashamed of my ignorant attitude for overlooking the significance of rereading. The rest of the points Sonya tried to make did not appeal to me strongly, not because she was being unreasonable, but because I wasn't able to recognize the catches. Consequently, I should start doing so.
The Road [pg.101~150]
This book reminded me more and more of a movie called The Pianist as I continued reading the book, because the characters of both pieces were put in an amazingly similar situation.
The Pianist is about a Jewish pianist in the Nazi era who was forced to stay in the ghetto. He had seen so many people opressed in the ghetto including some of his family members and friends that he decided to escape. He survived in an empty compartment, but kept moving around so that the Nazis would not realize his existence. He is almost always deprived of food and proper clothings for bitter winter. Eventually he is found by a Nazi general who is amazed at the pianist's piano skill and is safely hidden by him.
When the characters of The Road confronts another group of "bad guys" who passes just over them, the man tells his son "Shh. No crying. Do you hear me? You know how to do it. You put it in your mouth and point it up. Do it quck and hard..." (pg. 113), I found it pretty syncronizing to a scene from The Pianist. As far as I remember, there was a scene where the pianist had to pretend to be dead among the dead bodies on the street when the Nazis patroled the area.
Another scene from The Pianist was when the pianist finally found a can of peach in a demolished, ruined house. He lacked so much energy from food deprivation that he couldn't even open the can--so he had to use a metallic bar to crush it open. In The Road, on the other hand, the two charcters find a temporary underground shelter full of food, clothings and water just before dying from starvation. Through the author's descriptions I was able to vividly illustrate the scene in my mind. "What is all this stuff, Papa?//It's food. Can you read it?//Pears. That says pears.//Yes. Yes it does." (pg. 139) When I read this line, I, myself was also excited that they found an abundant amount of supplies. It was just like the scene from The Pianist.
Reading this book, it tempted me to rewatch the movie--I remember watching it back in my 6th grade year, which is now mostly forgotten in my memories.
The Road [pg. 51~100]
The emergence of the assumed threat. The killing of one of the threats. The end of the man's wife. These topics emerged so abruptly that at first I couldn't realize what was happening. Apparently, the man and his kid were survivors of some kind of a huge assualt from "bad guys", who eat other human beings. One of the bad guys who tried to kidnap the kid was killed by the man, therefore to disguise the presence of themselves they ran away for days.
"He dropped to one knee and raised the lever to stop the tub and then turned on both taps as far as they would go" (pg. 52~53). From this line depicting a peculiar action, I was able to assume the man's prior knowledge to the potential disaster that was to come. Informing the fact to his wife, the wife leaves them. However, I was frustrated because the author never really explained what was the reason to the cause. I read on, but I still couldn't find an explanation.
*****
Here is a list of interesting/difficult vocabulary.
Bureau drawer
Skatebed
Gravelbar
Lanyards
Scrawny
The Road [pg.1~50]
The Road |
The book started out peculiar. From "He pushed away the plastic tarpaulin and raised himself in the stinking robes and blankets..." (pg. 3), I was able to assume that two of the main characters (names were never mentioned throughout the story) in the book were going through some troubles out in the wild. As I read on, I also noticed that the place they lived was perished by some kind of devestating force. "...he took the pistol from his belt and laid it on the cloth and then he just sat watching the boy sleep." (pg. 5) insinuates that the characters were under danger, or possibly being chased off by some hazardous threat. Until pg. 50, the author depicts the situation the characters are confronting.
But it wasn't actually the plot of the story that caught my eyes; it was the author's strange writing style. The author used some unique styles in terms of grammar and writing format. Some of the noticeable structures are as the following:
the use of repeated "and"s in one sentence ("the boy had found some crayons and painted and..." pg. 17)
exclusion of quotation marks ("Death is not a lover.//Please dont do this" pg. 57)
removal of apostrophies ("I cant do it alone" pg. 57)
Cormac McCarthy simply ignored some of the most basic grammar rules, and this was actually making all the senteces look choppy. The reason he used this style, I don't know, but surely he succeded in making the readers delve into his book.
Thursday, September 9, 2010
Progress Report
My group has done a fairly good job to interpret both love and religion into our design, which are two of the main significant themes in The Canterbury Tales. One of our peers was clever enough to create a cross and write quotes in four ends of the cross, with illustrations filling the gap between the quotes. I had hard time looking for a quote for The Miller's Tale, but fortunately my group was able to help me out. Most illustrations was done by me, and other members contributed in designing the general outline of the work. If we can add anything to our work, we will color them in order to enhance the visual beauty of it.
Sunday, September 5, 2010
"The Raven" by Edgar Allan Poe
I never used to like poems before--so I have barely read any poems in my life. The only reason I know Edgar Allan Poe is because people talk about him a lot. Today, I finally got to encounter his poem: The Raven. After reading this poem, I searched for more poems written by Poe and realized that most of his pieces are gloomy, dark, and somewhat creepy. The Raven is one of the examples.
The word "raven" already gave me a gloomy feeling. Author's repeated rhymes in each stanza gave me a chill somehow because it was creepy, especially when I was listening to the poem. The constant knocking sound, which I assume it was more of an auditory hallucination from an intense longing for his lover Lenore, caused the man to get up and open the door. Each time he opened, there was no one except a talking raven that flocked into the house. The raven keeps saying "Nevermore" to everything the man asks (again, auditory hallucination). One time the man almost explodes and slowly fades away when he askes if Lenore can be seen when he reaches heaven--the raven's answer was "Nevermore."
Due to this reason, the raven symbolizes death, because the character in the poem says "“Prophet!” said I, “thing of evil!—prophet still, if bird or devil!"" which he thought it as a devil that came to take his life away. In the end, I believe the man died because he says "And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor Shall be lifted—nevermore!"
Illustration of the man's final line |
It is probable that this poem could have been about Edgar Allan Poe himself because he was a very dark and deppressed writer. He may have been sad that his cousin and wife died and was imaging himself alone with a raven only. This poem shows even more greatly that maybe he had killed himself.
The Pardoner's Tale + Prologue
Nobles from the Chosun Dynasty |
"Your majesty, the crime scene was brutal to watch. Three men laid dead in a forest having a full bag of gold, food and poisoned-drink near them. One of them had been choked, and the other two seemed to have drank the poisoned-drink. Sir, I am afraid to report that I cannot find any solution to what might have happened in the forest."
Listening to the prosecutor, the king started to laugh softly and said, "I don't think it is a hard case at all. I think I can infer what could have happened in the forest."
The prosecutor begged the king for his opinion. The king went on to say,
"According to what you reported me, a man was choked and two other men were poisoned. They had a bag full of gold in front of them. From this I can assume they were robbers who stole the gold from someone. Then they decide to celebrate their fortune, so they send the youngest one to go grab some food and drink. When the guy leaves, two of them decide to kill the guy as soon as he comes back from the local shop so they could get more share of gold. Meanwhile, the man who was sent to buy the drink decides to take all the gold by killing the other two. So he buys some poison and puts them in the drink he bought. When he comes back, he is choked to death by the other two. The other two robbers, not knowing anything about the poison, celebrate their fortune, drink the poison and die. Don't you think this is what happened?"
The prosecutor, stunned with such a clear solution to the case, thanked the king and was able to close the case. Citizens of the Chosun Dynasty praised the king for his intelligence.
*****
I was very surprised with how The Pardoner's Tale resembles a very famous story in Korea. These two stories are almost exactly the same, and puts me into confusion--how could this happen? How can a story that had happened for real be written in a country half-lap around the earth from Korea? Although the motif of The Pardoner's Tale is "greed corrupts people," which is a different theme from the perspective of Korean story, it is cool that stories can overlap by a mere coincidence.
Wife of Bath [Tale]
Wife of Bath was very familiar to me, because I remember reading an "online-wit" about it. It has an exact same plot as Wife of Bath, and the only difference is that the "joke version" was written in a funny way. Therefore in spite of reading in old English, the tale was easy to understand.
To relate my experiecne of the story with Wife of Bath, I will have to explain briefly what the original tale is about.
King Arthur |
In the era of King Arthur, a lusty knight rapes a maiden ["By utter force, he took away her maidenhead." (888)]. The knight is taken to the court, and King Arthur sentences him to death by decapitaion. However, Arthur's wife suggests him to spare the knight's life, only if the knight brings an answer to a riddle in a year. Arthur, loving his wife so much, grants her suggestion. The riddle was "what do women most want from the world?" Since the day, the knight roams around the country and asks every women he meets about the riddle ["He seeks every house and every place Where he hopes to have the luck." (919-920)]. Disputing his hope, most women had different answers to the question. Going through such hardships, he almost gives up and heads home. Fortunately before he even gets to his house, he sees a group of women dancing and singing, so he decides to ask them about the riddle. When he approaches, the group vanishes but an old ugly woman emerges. The woman claims she can help with the riddle, but she needs to get something in return from the knight ["Pledge me thy word here in my hand" (1009)]. The knight agrees, and the woman supplies him with an answer: "women want to be in charge of their husbands and lover." The knight presents the answer in the court, and he is set free.
Old Woman |
Shockingly, the ugly woman proposes the knight to marry her. The knight becomes extremely confused, and tells her to take something else away from him. However despite his desperate plead, he eventually marries her. Asking the knight one day why he is so sad, and he replies "I am embarrased because I have an ugly wife." Instead of taking offense, the woman offers him two options: she could be pretty but not loyal, or stay ugly but become very loyal. The knight thinks, and he tells her that the judgement is up to her ["Choose yourself which may be most pleasure..." (1232)]. Thanking the knight, the ugly woman decides to become pretty and loyal at the same time, because the knight let her choose her own destiny ["That she so was beautiful, and so young moreover..." (1251)].
The joke and the tale both have the same theme: men should respect women, and should not take a full control over them. However, the joke version ended up more funny because it was related to sex, and the way the ugly woman offered the options was satiric. She said something like "If you want to have a good sex with me, I will stay pretty and sexy. Yet, if you dont' need sex because you are busy with your own work as a knight, I will stay loyal, but ugly." I took this as a metaphor to where most men are now busy with their work and return home late. I don't know why this phrase pops up in my mind: "Boys are stupid, girls are evil."
Wife of Bath [Prologue]
The story starts with a woman called "Wife of Bath" who claims that she has an extensive knowlegdge about marriage, having been married to five different men ["Experience, though no written authority Were in this world, is good enough for me To speak of the woe that is in marriage." (3)]. Her first marriage had been arranged when she was twelve, and kept marrying men each time her husband died. Thus due to people's religious perspective, she is criticized heavily for having had multiple husbands, but she rationalizes herself by saying most religious figures enjoyed multiple wives. At that point, someone points out that virginity is very significant for women; however, Wife of Bath disputes his opinion and even goes on to say that she uses her sexual attraction to control her husbands ["I will envy no virginity. (142)"].
Then a Pardoner interrupts her story. The Pardoner shows apprehension about the woman whom he will marry soon, afraid that she might take a full control over him. Instead of advicing him in a direct way, Wife of Bath relates the situation to her own story. She says that out of her five husbands, three of them were good and the other two were bad. She goes on to say that her three husbands were good because they were easy to control since she did not love them much in the first place. She was able to control them with her sexual attraction, and verbally persuading skills. In other words, the sole reason she married them was due to their money.
After that, she describes herself as fourth husband's purgatory on Earth, always trying to make him jealous for more attention and love. However, he died while she was on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. The fifth husband, Jankyn, is the one whom Wife of Bath truly loved ["My fifth husband -- God bless his soul!" (525)]. Unfortunately, Jankyn treated her horribly: he would beat her and curse at her. Despite his terrible treatment, Jankyn regained Wife of Bath's love by providing her with sexual satisfaction on bed every night. Wife of Bath then admits that she fell in love with him right after her fourth husband died. Howbeit, one day she rips out some pages of "a book of wicked wives" which Jankyn used to read her everynight and hits him across the face. Out of huge anger, Jankyn smites her back, the reason for one of her ears deafness. Fortunatley, they both manage truce by hading over Jankyn's estate over to Wife of Bath, and end up happy.
From the tone of the prologue, I could not pin-point out the mood of the story. From my own point of view, Wife of Bath seems like a "gold-digger" because she admitted she married four of her five husbands just for money. Then in the end, she became happy after recieving an estate from her fifth husband. Also, her opinion about the role of women contrasts greatly from the perspective thereabout. It was a bit shocking for me when she said she controls men with her sexuality, because that sounded very demeaning to me as a man.
Her characteristic reminded of my friend's ex-girlfriend--she was a pure gold-digger, always asking her boyfriend for new bags, shoes and earring. From my friend I learned not to make acquaintances with girls whom I consider light-headed.
Her characteristic reminded of my friend's ex-girlfriend--she was a pure gold-digger, always asking her boyfriend for new bags, shoes and earring. From my friend I learned not to make acquaintances with girls whom I consider light-headed.
Saturday, September 4, 2010
The Miller's Tale + Prologue
It was dirty, and hilarious. Reading a novel that involved toilet-humor, written in old English, had caused some difficulties for me to stay serious. The best part was when Nicholas farts on Absonlon's face, and gets his "ass" branded with an iron poker, screaming for water ("Help! Water! Water!). The story was grotesque, but it was an easy read.
The Miller's Tale contrasts greatly with its previous tale, The Knight's Tale, in terms of mood; while The Knight's Tale is considered tragic, The Miller's Tale was full of ridiculous situations. I am guessing the author arranged the stories in this way in order to create a feeling of complete contrasting moods of the two different tales, still using the same topic.
*****
Here are some vocabulary I had looked up while reading The Miller's Tale.
Wanton: lewd
Censer: a type of vessel that is used for holy rituals
Hapless: unlucky
Hasty: hurrying
Kneading: dough
Suffice: enough
Recapitulate: repeat
Smite: hitting strongly
Gable: type of a roof
Spouse: husband/wife
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
The Knight's Tale [Pt. 3-4]
Finishing the tale, I realized the story was close to tragic; however I had been almost assured it was comedy until the end of Part 2. The dual, seemingly a symbol of foreshadwoing truce between the brothers, actually turned out to be a tragic event. It also made me think that the style of the tale was typically Greek/Roman myth due to the involvement of various of Greek/Roman Gods who change a person's given fate based on their perspective.
To briefly explain the climax and the end, Arcite and Palamon have a "mock" battle--that is, they each bring a small amount of army and fight to the death ["...To gentle blood to fight in the manner Of mortal battle now in this undertaking." (2539)] . By a chance, Arcite throws Palamon on the ground and gets ready to kill him. However, Saturn, who was on Palamon's side, forces an earthquake that eventually kills Arcite. Palamon becomes the winner, and although Emelye was extremely sad since she prefered Arcite over Palamon, both Palamon and Emelye end up together happily.
It is undeniable that The Knight's Tale is a tragic story, hence apart from the plot itself, I came to discover some other aspect of the tale: Human beings are very weak and fragile. Cousins who have known each other since they were youngsters fought over a total stranger, a person's given fate easily altered by God, and the strong having a full control of the weaks are the examples of my thought.
Trojan War |
In terms of love, I was able to relate this story to Helen of Troy, a very famous story of two countries, based on two men, fighting over a woman. Because of Helen, a man and his enormous number of citizens, followers, friends, and soldiers died, then his empire was completely anahilated. At the same time, many of the heroes who were involved in the war encountered death due to God's support, or sometimes imprecations. From all these, I realized that humans are weak beings.
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