V

   In the beginning of the novel when V saves Evey, V seemed to be a heroic character that acts on justice. Later on, after the murders of Delia and the Bishop V's character is revealed more as a psychotic killer. Yet, these killings were still for justice. V's methods, a.k.a. killing, are very powerful strategies in resisting societal change. Although, they might be too intense of a resistance to be deemed as a convincing or approving method to resist change in society. Even though the people he planned on killing were part of a gruesome human experimental project, killing them would not take back the conducted experiments.
   V not only resists the changes in society, but he does not live by them or recognize them in his life. For example, his lair is filled with a complete works of "old" movies and books that were banned in a sense after the war. He does not allow the new ways of society influence himself by living with the things present society does not except. The fascist ideals of the present society have changed the way people live in a negative way. Thus, V's attempt to resist this enforcing power of the "Leader" seems fitting or convincing.  

   One section of the novel that made me stop and pay closer attention to the graphics, rather than the text was the scene where V was giving a tour of the replica resettlement camp to Prothero. The specific part of this scene that made me focus on the pictures was the illustration of the door with the roman numeral five on it. The drawing was shown twice in a row, with the second picture zooming in on the roman numeral five. Because the author decided to show it twice and zoom in on the number symbolizes its importance. It is within this moment that the reader will realize how V came up with his "code-name." This is an example of how pictures can make a novel more engaging, in this case, it can explain a significant part of the story without words.

   A second section of the novel that made me stop and pay closer attention to the graphics, rather than the text was the scene where V was having a conversation with the Madam Justice statue. The scene takes up two pages of the novel and is very detailed. The pictures depict each move and action V makes, which pulled my attention away from the text.

Graphs, Maps, and Trees

    Moretti takes a data-based and scientific approach to writing literature. While I was reading the Moretti article I realized that although the graphs of each stage of the rise and fall of "THE novel" reiterated the points the author was trying to make, it also took away the power and emotions literature generally constructs. When the author mentioned that the shift from exceptional literature works to mass texts of facts made me think that the author was doing just that with this article. It was a list of facts. The drawbacks of writing this "type" of literature (a string of facts) takes away the point of well written literature. I think literature should capture the audience and intrigue them. This article did the opposite.
    The benefits of this type of literature on the other hand can help leave no room for interpretation and be mostly factual. There would no longer be any mistaken analysis on their work because the reason, goal, and point of their writing is explained thoroughly by statistics and explicitly writing exactly what they meant. This again leaves no interpretation and no confusion by the reader. It is plain black and white. But what's the fun in that? Shouldn't literature be open to interpretation and discussion so that readers may take the lessons, motivation, and goals of the author to their liking? Approaching literature in a more scientific way can be beneficial but leaves out the important factor of interpreting what the author may have wanted you to understand or leave open ended.
    The close analysis of the history of the novel can be repetitive. But a way to change that, for example with Super Sad True Love Story, is that we can take Gary's interpretation of how the future will play out and make interpretations of our own using the examples of events happening within SSTLS and realize that they are some what happening now. For instance, we can make a historical timeline of events that may have happened in our present day or may have come close to happening. We can relate these events to what Gary wants us to remember from his novel and what warnings that he is implying. A historical timeline would have to entail a list of dates and statistics, just like Moretti has done in his article but we can add interpretations to these events to make the analysis different that what Moretti has done in his.

Maybe a Butterfly?

   First off, my initial reaction after the movie ended was complete shock. I didn't see the undercover espionage coming...I was blinded by their "love". Song was definitely not a "butterfly" after all. I also thought Rene was despicable for starting an affair with another woman. 
From my three reactions above themes of politics and love come to mind. Although Rene seemed very kind and humble in the beginning of the film, the power of love changed his personality. He was willing to sneak around his wife, whom I assume he loved, to see his lover. Rene and Butterfly's love seemed unbreakable (even though scandalous as it was). Their love was so strong it even made Rene leave his wife most nights to be with Butterfly. Love is a very powerful thing and the abuse of love during this film both by Rene to his wife and Butterfly to Rene became very political. Close to the end of the film Butterfly's true identity was exposed to Rene and all of France. This exposure was as much devastating to Rene as Rene was to his wife. Rene loved Butterfly, not his true identity, so much and the betrayal was a process of karma from Rene's wife to Rene. Love can sometimes make a person blind to actual reality. This happened to Rene. It wasn't until the revealing of Butterfly's true identity did he finally see that this love was some what fake/pretend. This love was so true and pure from the beginning...but is it still true after the reveal? 
   On the other hand, as powerful as love is, politics tore it apart. The act of espionage takes an ordeal of commitment. Song (a.k.a. Butterfly) took on the likes of a woman to get political information. The power of politics is a great competitor to the powers of love within this film. These two themes go back and forth throughout the movie. It seemed like Song was still truly in love with Rene during their car ride over to prison. Song stripped his clothes and exposed his entire body finally to Rene, after Rene denied him disgustedly Song broke down to his knees in tears. Thus, the power of politics seems to travail in this film over the damaged love between Rene and Song. 


Will there ever be peace and coexistence between these two conflicting ideas of love and politics????

Depiction of Women in SSTLS

Theme: Depictions of Gender

Passage 1: p. 162 Paragraph 4
As Amy Greenburg's mother is trying to make Amy "see through Jeremy Blocks' bs" seems as if she is trying to empower her daughter. Although throughout the paragraph Amy was listing many vial things that Jeremy mad her do while they were together. Many of those things are very degrading to women. Going back to what Amy's mother was trying to do, it seems like she was trying to empower her daughter by giving her advice to not be with someone as crude as Jeremy, no matter his "rankings." Yet, the last sentence of the paragraph is one of Amy's mother exclaiming, "Be your own pimp, girl!" deliberately takes away the empowerment that was placed in the beginning of the paragraph. The two statements her mother makes about Amy deserving better and for Amy to be her own "pimp" is contradicting her previous statement, and thus degrading females even more.

Passage 2: p. 72 Paragraph 1 (Letter to Eunice from her Mother)
Eunice's mother is describing the many things her father has said about her. They include many degrading statements that put shame upon her family such as, "He say you probably with black man. So shocking!" The entire letter is a dictation from Eunice's father about what she should do and should not do. The fact that her father is dictating how Eunice should live her life (and for her mother to send the message on to Eunice, in support of her father) shows the value of a woman's opinion or freedom in Vietnamese culture during the futuristic time of SSTLS. Again, not as degrading as the first passage but it is demeaning to take a person's, or woman for this matter, rights away to be their own person. To add to this, Eunice's mother stated at the end of the letter, "Please forgive me because I am bad mother and bad wife." Eunice's mother seems to always blame herself for everything. She thinks down upon herself when there is no need to. Part of this is because of the father who makes her feel as if she is a bad wife or mother...but would a bad mother try to contact her daughter to see if she is willing to mend things together with her father?? I think not! I think Eunice's mother is a good mother and should not degrade herself to less.

Passage 3: p. 168 "Unlike others of her generation..." and on
Because Lenny says that unlike others of Eunice's generation, she does not get lost in the moment, he's saying that she is different than the other females of her age. During the futuristic time of the book, young women are so entranced and "completely steeped in pornography", yet Eunice has a "need for warmt instead of debasement" thus proving that she is not what the typically young female is like during intimacy. She does not look for debasement like the others, this says a lot about the theme because the general depiction of gender for all other young women is....not a good one, and Eunice is not the general depiction of women. She is different.

Blog Title

I chose motivation trials as my blog title by simple referencing my mental state after coming back from a relaxing winter break. It is always hard trying to get back into the groove of things after having a couple weeks of nothing to worry about. After break, coming back up to Davis, I'm sure every student goes through a phase of "un-motivational times." For me... let's just say that I needed motivation more than ever during this quarter. To say the least, it took me forever, it felt like, to have enough motivation to actually get caught up with all of my assignments. Actually it was short after finishing my first couple blogs, after adding the class late, did I finally get my "motivation trials." It was enough to kick-start my work ethic back to what it used to be, of course after I realized how much I was behind. :)

"All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace" Pro or Anti?

 Richard Brautigan has artfully taken sarcasm to another level in this poem. The first time I read the poem I couldn't help but fixate my attention on the statements in parenthesis accompanied by a rather loud exclamation point. This screams sarcasm. Such a tone lead me to translate the poem in a humorous way. Brautigan portrays an "over-excited" voice that is anxious for a technology take-over. A take-over that would even invade nature. Being that nature is the exact opposite of our present day futuristic-technological-social-networking world, one can only take his tone as anti-technology. As he suggests in his last stanza humanity would be joining back with nature as machines or technology taking over our places in society is a very eery image. It reminds me of movies where technology takes over the world and tries to kill off the human race. This image alone shows an anti-technology tone. The last few words of his poem and the exact words of his title, "all watched over by machines of loving grace" can be an ironic phrase if you go back to picturing the image I stated earlier about technology taking over the world. It seems as if the author uses this phrase to make the reader think about what he's really trying to say.
 On the other hand, Brautigan uses beautiful imagery so that the reader will picture this beautiful meadow with forest creatures like the deer strolling around. You can see the clear sky, pine trees, and blooming flowers all so peaceful in an untouched forest setting. Pairing this pretty image in your mind can help the reader see this future eutopia of nature and technology "[living] together in mutually programming harmony." The statements in the parenthesis could be interpreted as optimistic and anxious for this eutopia to arrive. Futhermore, proving a pro-technology tone by the author.
 I personally think that the anti-technology tone is more convincing because of the overwhelming sarcastic tone the author uses throughout the poem. Since analyzing poetry is not always about looking surface deep, but looking deeper into the poems true meaning. If we were to take the poem literally, we could argue that this was a pro-technology message. Yet, the clever use of punctuation allows for interpretation of more than the literal meaning but a mocking tone that demonstrates ANTI-technology.

"Casabianca" Flames

IMAGES:

• burning deck
• flames all around
• boy standing on top of ship
• flames capturing the the flag and sails while flying in the wind 
• thunder and explosions

INTERPRETATION:
 The related themes of fire, flames, and burning can be brought to interpret the endearing faithful"ness" the young boy has for his father. At the beginning of the poem the flame that started the initial fire could represent the men from the other ship initiating a rescue for the boy. Throughout the poem the flames start to get larger and more immense. The way Hemans describes the flames wrapping around and streaming over the boy could represent his father's desire for him to stay on the boat. As the men from the other boat try to save the boy the flames get larger and at the boy's end, the author describes the flames almost as if they are circling above the boy. As the boy would not go on without his father's word, the flames spoke for him. The flames could be interpreted as the father speaking to his son after his death. Those flames were almost like the father trying to reach him before the other men did in order to keep him on the boat and not allow the other men to take him.
 If you think of a fire or a flame at that, you would describe it as bright, warm, powerful, and some might even say beautiful. These are some of the words the author even uses to describe the boy as he stands on the ship. He is beautiful and bright. The author also describes the boy as proud, just as a flame would be burning in the wind, relentless of its surroundings. The boy is like a flame or fire. As he burns proudly on that ship only to obey his father's commands. He stands there before the flames proudly and brave. He proves faithful to his father; to stand on such a ship that is burning down resulting in his death. That young and faithful heart!
 Moreover, the images of the flames relates to the commands of the father and the willing to obey by his son. A fire can be interpreted to describe the boy and his brave last stand on that ship.