Dialectical Journal #10: Where Angels Fear to Tread

Passages From The Text	Pg #	Comments & Questions
·         “’The meaning is quite clear-Laila is to be engaged to be married… How dare she not tell me direct! How dare she write first to Yorkshire! Pray, am I to hear through Mrs. Theobald- a patronizing, insolent letter like this? Have I know claim at all? Bear witness, dear’- she choked with passion-‘bear witness that for this I’ll never forgive her!”’	·         15	·         (R) I’ve just started this book and I already don’t like most of the characters. I’m not sure where this story is set in yet or the time but I think it must be set in a time period long ago because this woman, named Laila, is being controlled by her deceased husband’s family! And the family believes that have to control her for fear that Laila will shame the family name. I think she is in an unfair situation, but don’t necessarily feel bad for her. She seems to have a lot of problems and she is apparently creating more already!

Assignment 1&2: 1984

In the first half of 1984, George Orwell introduces the reader to a middle aged man named Winston Smith who lives in the dystopian London in the year 1984 (he thinks) and works at the Ministry of Truth. At the very beginning of the book Winston committed thoughtcrime by opening a diary. His world is ruled by the Party and the head of the party is Big Brother. His pictures are posted all over the city, as well as the party’s slogan: War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, Ignorance is Strength.  There are telescreens within every room that record everything. So people in the Republic of Oceania must always watch the faces they make, the words they say. If they don’t the Thought Police will come and take them away. They will essentially be erased from existence

This is the fate Winston resigned himself to as soon as he opened the diary. Winston was unhappy with his life. He spends his days altering newspaper articles, speeches, anything that could make the Party look bad. In essence he, and the other people within his branch, is “rewriting history.” He spends his nights drinking victory gin in his filthy apartment. That is until he meets Julia. She works in other branch of the Ministry of Truth. Winston begins to see her around and fears she maybe a member of the Thought Police tracking him. Then, after she sends him a secret message, he realizes that she’s in love with him and they start a forbidden affair. After meeting in odd places at infrequent times, Winston rents out the room above the thrift store from which he bought his diary, owned by a man named Mr. Charrington, who is a prole, which is basically a the lowest of the lows in the Republic. They are seen with such little humanism that they do not have to follow the rules that the people of the Party do and are rarely put under surveillance. This is why Winston decides that the thrift store is a great place to have a secret hideout.

“’Do you remember,’ he went on, ‘writing in your diary ‘Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two equals four?

‘Yes,’ said Winston

O’Brien held up his left hand, its back toward Winston, with the thumb hidden and the four fingers extended.

‘How many fingers am I holding up, Winston?’

‘Four.’

‘And if the Party says that it is not four but five-then how many?’

‘Four.’

The word ended in a gasp of pain. The needle of the dial had shot up to fifty-five….

‘How many finger Winston?’

‘Four.’

The needle went up to sixty…

‘You are a slow learner, Winston,’ said O’Brien gently.

‘How can I help it,’ he blubbered. ‘How can I help what I seeing what is in front of my eyes? Two and two are four.’

‘Sometimes, Winston. Sometimes they are five. Sometimes they are three. Sometimes they are all of them at once. You must try harder. It is not easy to become sane.’”

I think this passage is really profound. I mean, what stops two plus two from being five, really? The Party has the ability to control the past, which means they can make the future whatever they want it to be. If you know, with all your heart, that two plus two equals four, but you can’t prove it, then what good is that? What if everyone around you says it equals five, and they can give you “proof” that it has always been that way, then aren’t you the crazy one? Maybe sanity is whatever the majority says it is.

“Winston, sitting in a blissful dream, paid no attention as his glass was filled up. He was not running or cheering any longer. He was back in the Ministry of Love, with everything forgiven, his soul white as snow… The long hoped-for bullet was entering his brain. He gazed up at the enormous face. Forty years it had taken him to learn what kind of smile was hidden beneath the dark mustache! O cruel, needless misunderstanding. O stubborn, self willed exile from the loving breast! Two gin-scented tears trickled down the sides of his nose. But it was all right, everything was all right, the struggle was finished. He had won the victory over himself. He loved Big Brother.”

This passage was poignant to me. I don’t know why, but I thought good would triumph over evil and somehow Winston and everyone else oppressed by the Party would rise together and rebel. Unfortunately, Winston was caught by the thoughtpolice and broken down, just like everyone else. It was sad, beginning this book with Winston writing “DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER” in his forbidden journal and ending it with him loving the very person he was willing to do anything to take down. I would’ve thought that the human spirit was stronger, more resilient than that. I was hoping that the experience would make Winston stronger. Instead, it broke him so completely that what was left was not really a person anymore. Just like the rest of the Party citizens.

Dialectical Journal #9: The Hunger Games

Passages From The Text	Pg #	Comments & Questions
“I want to tell him he’s not being fair. That we were strangers. That I did what it took to stay alive, to keep us both alive. That I can’t explain how things are with Gale because I don’t know myself. That it’s no good loving me because I’m never going to get married anyway and he’d just end up hating me later instead of sooner. That if I do have feelings for him, it doesn’t matter because I’ll never be able to afford the kind of love that leads to a family, to children. And how can he? How can we after what we’ve been through?                  I also want to tell him how much I already miss him. But that wouldn’t be fair on my part….                 Already the boy with the bread is slipping away from me.	373-74	(R) Dear Katniss, YOU DON”T DESERVE THE BOY WITH THE BREAD. You are rude and selfish and I have no idea how you can live with yourself for making Peeta sad!!! I feel so bad for Peeta! I know Katniss is supposed to be one of those tough heroines and she’s loyal and stuff, but she’s just so dumb! I understand that she’s confused and stuff, but seriously? I know Gale has been your illegal hunting buddy for so long, but Peeta is… Peeta! He’s “the boy with the bread”, the one who can connect with people so easily, the boy who sees the good and tries his best to work with the bad (like Haymitch!). He’s just so wonderful. Turning him down is like meeting the leprechaun at the end of the rainbow, but refusing to take his gold! It’s ludicrous.

Dialectical Journal #8: The Hunger Games

Passages From The Text	Pg #	Comments & Questions
·         “Rue, who when you ask her what she loves most in the world, replies, of all things, ‘Music.’ ·         ‘Music?’ I say. In our world, I rank music somewhere between hair ribbons and rainbows in terms of usefulness. At least a rainbow gives you tips about the weather. ‘You have a lot of time for that?’ ·         ‘We sing at home. At work, too. That’s why I love your pin,’ she says, pointing to the mockingjay that I’ve again forgotten about… ·         I unclasp the pin and hold it out to her. ‘Here, you take it. It has more meaning for you than for me.’ ·         ‘Oh, no,’ says Rue, closing my fingers back on the pin. ‘I like it on you. That’s how I decided I could trust you…’”	·         212	·         (R) This part made me start wondering- just when was it decided that Katniss would be the face of the rebellion? Ever since the beginning of the book, people have been making it hard for her to forget about it that mockingjay pin. When she forgot it on the train when she arrived at the capitol, Cinna made sure that she had it before she entered the arena. Coincidence? I think not. ·

Dialectical Journal #7: The Hunger Games

Passages From The Text	Pg #	Comments & Questions
·         “This teaming up with the Career wolf pack to hunt down the rest of us. No one from District 12 would think of doing such a thing! Career tributes are overly vicious, arrogant, better fed, but only because they are the Capitol’s lapdogs. Universally, solidly hated by all but those from their own districts. I can imagine the things their saying about him back home now. And Peeta had the gall to talk to me about disgrace? ·         Obviously, the noble boy on the rooftop was playing just one more game with me. But this will be his last. I will eagerly watch the night skies for signs of his death, if I don’t kill him first myself."	·         162	·         (E) It’s things like this that make me truly dislike Katniss. I know there wasn’t really a way for her to know that Peeta was just tricking the Careers, but she should have more faith in the boy! In the passage before this one, she was hoping that wherever Peeta was he was ok, then in about 10 seconds she’s willing to kill him herself! She’s ridiculous! I can understand why she was so surprised about Peeta’s love confession and didn’t even believe it until the end of the book. They are polar opposites- Peeta is kind, considerate, generous and an empathizer. Katniss is none of these.   The only people she really cares about are Gale, her sister and mother (kind of). Other than that she tends to keep people at a distance. And Peeta does not deserve that! The only reason I wanted Peeta and Katniss to end up together by the end of the book series is so Peeta would be happy.

Assignment 4: Krapps Last Tape

The most significant part in the play for me is the end.  In this part, Krapp has just finished listening to the tape he made when he was 39, it was made 30 years ago, and then starts a new tape. “Just been listening to that stupid bastard I took myself for 30 years ago, hard to believe I was ever as bad as that. Thank God that’s all done anyway.” The reason I chose that part was because even though Krapp is now 69 and seems to detest the man he was when he made that tape recording, he appears to be the same. Over the tape he talks about his problem with bananas and alcohol (“Have just eaten I regret to say three bananas and with difficulty refrained from a forth. Fatal things for a man with my condition. Cut it out!’’) and how he should put an end to those habits but thirty years later he is still doing the same thing. “Krapp switches off [tape recorder], broods, looks at his watch, gets up, goes backstage into darkness. Ten seconds. Pop of a cork. Ten seconds. Second cork. Ten seconds. Third cork.”

Krapp is the only character in this play. He is very strange; he doesn’t seem to be mentally stable. I find his ability to stay the same over such a long period of time astonishing. He is a little different than he was at 39, but he seems to be essentially the same person. Samuel Beckett is the author of this play and he did a very good job writing this. Even though the 39 and 69 year old Krapps each talked about very different subjects on their tapes, during very different times in their life, the style in which they speak is the same in both. The Krapps’ both seem to lose their thoughts mid-sentence and are always pausing throughout their dialogues. It’s almost as if Krapp was frozen in time. In the play Krapp replays a certain part of the tape he made when he was 39 numerous times, giving the audience the feeling that even though he acted as though he is better now than he was then, he would give anything to be able to have that experience again. “We lay there without moving. But under us all moved, and moved us, gently up and down, and from side to side. (Pause) Past midnight. Never knew such silence. The earth might be inhabitited. (Pause) Here I end-(Krapp switches off, winds tape back, Switches on again)”

The authors’ use of stage directions adds a lot more to the story. They allow the readers to see how spastic and weird Krapp is through his movements."He turns, advances to edge of stage, halts, strokes banana, peels it, drops skin at his feet, puts end of banana in his mouth and remains motionless, staring vacuously before him. Finally he bites off the end, turns aside and begins pacing to and fro at edge of stage, in the light, i.e. not more than four or five paces either way, meditatively eating banana. He treads on skin, slips, nearly falls, recovers himself, stoops and peers at skin and finally pushes it, still stooping, with his foot over the edge of the stage into pit." The stage directions allow the readers the ability to imagine the way the character's mannerisms and actions. They, along with the writing, help to thoroughly bring Krapp to life.

Dialectical Journal #6: Candide

Passages From The Text	Pg #	Comments & Questions
·         “’Whatever shall be, shall be,’ said Candide. ‘But one thing consoles me. I see that people one never thought to see again often do turn up. It may well turn out that, having run into my red sheep and Paquette, I will also run into Cunegonde.’ ·         ‘I wish,’ said Martin, ‘that she may one day make you very happy. But I very much doubt she will.’ ·         ‘You’re a bit hard,’ said Candide ·         ‘That’s because I’ve lived,’ said Martin	·         78	·         (R) I don’t understand what Voltaire has against optimism. Candide wasn’t even going all crazy like before, he was just thinking happily about his future. But then Voltaire had to go and bring him down. Or perhaps it’s foreshadowing! I wouldn’t be surprised if by the time Candide and Cunegonde end up together (if they ever do), they would be miserable. That girl is just too much trouble and I doubt Voltaire would let Candide live happily ever after anyway.