Journal #12: Antigone

Anouilh portrays the conflict of obeying leadership or doing what you see as being the right thing to do.  In Thebes, Creon supports obeying leadership and following the laws as the way to achieve happiness.  He argues that the reasons the laws are made are more political than righteous or spiritual, and that they are implemented in order to keep control over the people and keep Thebes peaceful.  Antigone argues that doing the right thing is the only way to achieve happiness, because leaving something undone will haunt you for the rest of your life.  This conflict can also be categorized as youth versus old because Creon (old) argues against Antigone and Ismene (youth) who both hold the same belief that they should ignore the law and do the actions that they view as being the right thing to do.  Creon, while arguing with Antigone, says "Life is nothing more than the happiness that you get out of it " (Anouilh 41).  As the King, it is Creon's job to supply the people with a peaceful environment in order to keep them happy.  He feels that it was his duty, although undesirable, to manipulate the truth of the two brothers around in order to provide the people of Thebes with a martyr in order to keep them happy.  Antigone, in response to this viewpoint, states "What kind of happiness do you see for me?  [...]  Whom do you want me to leave dying, while I turn away my eyes?" (Anouilh 41).  Antigone believes that happiness only comes from making the right choices, ignoring the laws if necessary in order to obey a higher set of morals.  Anouilh creates this conflict of which no side is portrayed as right or wrong in order to appeal to his audience at the time.  The audience consisted of French and German's during the German occupation of France.  Anouilh's portrayal of the difficulties in correctly using power appealed to the German occupiers, while the portrayal of Antigone and the other young characters as rebels who were acting upon higher morals appealed to the oppressed French people.

Journal #11: Antigone

At the beginning of the play, the chorus was present merely to give non-biased background information on the situation and the characters.  Now that it is later on in the play, the chorus is making more in depth comments on the elements of the play.  The chorus reveals that the tragedy has begun, and there is no chance of stopping it.  "The rest is automatic.  You don't need to lift a finger.  The machine is in perfect order; it has been oiled ever since time began, and it runs without friction" (Anouilh 23).  This quote explains that the moment in the plot has happened that starts a process of bad things that can never be reversed.  More importantly, however, the chorus gives an opinion on the lives of humans.  It says that "the machine [...] has been oiled since time began," meaning that it is natural for humans to trap themselves into these tragic situations of which there will never be an escape.  Therefore, due to this reality, there is no point in hiding the fate of the characters.  We all know that they are going to die, so there is no use for making it a surprise.  "In a tragedy, nothing is in doubt and every one's destiny is known.  That makes for tranquility" (Anouilh 24).  In knowing the fate of the characters before they die, we feel a calmness when we watch it finally unfold.  The purpose of the chorus telling this to the audience may be to inform the audience of what a tragedy is trying to portray.  The audience who watched Anouilh's version may not have been as educated on tragedies, so Anouilh might have added that part in order to help them understand the point of revealing the character's fate before it literally happened on the stage.  Whether Anouilh added this or not can only be validated if this section was compared with the original text, which I have not done.

Journal #10: Antigone

Events:

Two of Oedipus' sons battle for control of Thebes because Oedipus died.  Eteocles had been in control when Polynices raised a foreign army to fight for the throne.  The two brothers killed each other in battle and Creon, the brother in law of Oedipus, took the throne.  He buried Eteocles with honor but call Polynices a traitor and left his body unburied.  He banned any citizen to mourn or bury the body, doing do would be punishable by death.  Antigone and Ismene are sisters and are also the sisters of the brothers who killed eachother.  Ismene is very beautiful but Haemon asks Antigone to marry him instead of Ismene at a party.  Late at night Antigone sneaks out to bury her brother's body, knowing that she will be killed and she will never get to marry Haemon.

Reflection:

The introduction to this tragedy already has more tragic elements than some of the entire plays which we have read earlier.  This encompasses the belief of the author of the article we wrote in class who suggests that the Greeks were the greatest tragedy writers.  The Greeks understood the elements that made a story tragic, and portrayed them in their plays so well that any audience member would feel a great amount of sympathy for the situations and sufferings of the characters.  Anouilh, in his interpretation of the play Antigone, gives the reader the context of the play by having the chorus relay the past facts to the audience.  I noticed while reading that the chorus is very neutral while giving the information.  This supports the argument that the best tragedies include a conflict between two sides, but neither side is right or wrong, allowing the reader to identify with both.  The neutral telling of the information by the chorus gives no bias either way in whether the decisions made by the characters were right or wrong.  This way, the reader is unaltered in how they view the characters, allowing them to identify with both conflicting sides.

Topic Sentence: Blood Wedding

Leonardo, prior to the wedding, treats his family condescendingly in order to hide his desire to run away with the Bride.

Journal #9: Blood Wedding

Themes:

Acting rashly on selfish desires never ends up well-

This theme is shown primarily by the actions and consequences of the Bride, the Bridegroom, and Leonardo.  Leonardo have the selfish desire to run away with each other, and rashly decide to do it during the worst possible time, during the Bride's wedding with another man.  This action sparks the rash actions of the Bridegroom, who recruits a friend to help him hunt down and kill Leonardo.  Leonardo and the Bridegroom end up dead, and the Bride ends up depressed and shamed.

Get over things that have happened in the past-

This theme is shown primarily in the cases of the Mother.  The Mother constantly complains and obsesses over the killing of her husband and son, the people who killed them, and the instrument that did the killing.  She brings it up in every conversation, bringing down the moods of herself and everyone else, and instilling a feeling of hatred towards the Felixes.  Her constant references to the events in the past influence her decision to have the people help her son kill Leonardo when he runs away with the Bride.  The pursuit of the runaways leads to her son being killed again, ironically the same way that her other family members were killed.

Listen to every one's advice-

Many of the main characters, primarily Leonardo and the Bride, consistently ignored and talk down to people they think are subordinate to themselves.  These people, during those times, were usually offering good advice, which if taken seriously, might have led to a more positive ending.  Leonardo disregarded everything his Wife and Mother-in-law said about his whereabouts on the horse, and controllingly told them to be quiet and leave him alone.  Therefore they had no way to convince him to stay away from the Bride.  The Bride herself received a lot of great advice from her maid about marriage while the maid prepared her for the wedding, but the Bride treated the maid so poorly that the messages never got through.  This led to the Bride and Leonardo to make the unintelligent decision to run away during the Bride's wedding, which ended up killing Leonardo.

Journal #8: Blood Wedding

The setting reflects the characters' innocence in regards to the tragedy that will happen at the wedding.  At the start of the play, the setting is described as being full of flowers, and being colored pink or yellow.  These light happy colors reflect the character's unawareness about Leonardo and the Bride's plans to run away during the wedding.  The flowers are a motif for the eternal existence of a marriage, as is shown when the Bridegroom offers his Bride an orange blossom which he says is "all made of wax.  It lasts forever.  I would have liked you to wear them all over your dress" (64).  This shows that flowers signify that the marriage is a permanent matter, something that the Bride and Leonardo plan to prove wrong, yet all of the other characters are unaware of their plans.  These plans to runaway are portrayed in the setting when it is described as dark.  This darkness signifies how the plans to run away are hidden from everyone else.  The Bride is said to live in a cave, and that is where Leonardo rides in the middle of the night to discuss their escape plans.  A cave is usually thought of as a dark place, and the fact that they hold these discussions in the middle of the night adds to the presence of a concealing darkness in the setting, a darkness that hides their intentions from the other characters.  After they carry out their plan, they ride to a forest, which is also described as dark and dim, and it is only the light of the moon that reveals their plan and their position.  At the start of the play the setting was very light hearted and innocent to the plans of Leonardo and the bride, which were hidden by the darkness of their setting.

Journal #7: Blood Wedding

In order to break the fourth wall, Lorca includes long sections where the characters sing.  Unless I am mistaken about the Spanish culture during the time period (which I very well might be), I would guess that the singing in the play was not a normal occurrence in the society of that time.  The first instance of this is when the Wife and Mother-in-law of Leonardo are trying to sing the baby asleep.  They alternated back and forth between who was singing, and they sung about unconventional things, such as a thirsty horse and a knife.  These things related to the play, but most likely did not relate to the normal life of the people who would be watching the play.  Their style of singing and the topic of their singing was very complicated and would have had to have been well rehearsed to be sung correctly, even though the singing seemed very spur of the moment, as though they randomly broke out into song.  These actions would be nearly impossible to replicate in a normal house setting of the time period, therefore giving the audience the realization that it is just a play.  The singing is a noticeable break from the regular talking and living that the actors act out, therefore giving the audience the realization that because it is out of the ordinary, it must be important.  In the circumstance I described above, Lorca uses the singing to break the fourth wall in order to draw the audience's attention to key factors in the play, which are expressed in the words of the song.

Journal #6: Blood Wedding

The characters of the Bride, Mother, and Leonardo seem to be in misery throughout the start of the play.  The mother's misery is different from that of the Bride and Leonardo because she is sad about her dead husband and son.  She knows that she will never be able to fix this, so she is very open about portraying her misery.  This is especially apparent in the first scene when she has a break down when the Bridegroom asks for a knife.  To deal with her sadness, she projects her emotions on other things, like knives and the Felixes.  She knows her anger toward them won't fix anything, but it is just a method for coping with it.

The Bride and Leonardo, however, feel a very different kind of misery.  Their misery stems from not being able to see each other, even though they are still in love.  Unlike the mother's misery, they believe that the situation causing it can be solved.  They meet late at nights, probably to plan their escape.  In order to mask this attempt at eliminating their misery, they lie and talk down to their families and friends.  This constant lying and harsh language gives them control over the people around them, therefore they can hide their secret.  This concealed way of dealing with their misery contrasts the open way that the Mother deals with her misery.  Since all three characters did not end up happy at the end of the play, it shows that Lorca was trying to say that there is no correct way to deal with your misery.  This conclusion would make sense because Lorca himself suffered from depression, and maybe through this play he was trying to portray how hopeless it seems trying to escape it.

Journal #2: Blood Wedding

Leonardo is the perfect example of an archetypical character.  He is very self-centered, which is proven by his tendency to lie to his family and talk down to people.  Both of these tendencies are illustrated when Leonardo reacts to the mother-in-law revealing that he was formerly engaged to the bride.  "But I stopped seeing her!  (To his Wife)  Are you going to cry now?  Stop it!  Let's go see the child" (23).  Leonardo blatantly lies about whether he is still seeing the bride, and then follows up the lie by commanding his wife not to cry.  His tendencies to lie and talk down to people reveal his self-centeredness, which explains why he was greedy enough to ride of with another person's bride on their wedding day.

The bride is a copy of Leonardo in regards to their personality.  She talks down to her maid and lies about knowing whether Leonardo had been by to see her or not.  The maid, excited about the wedding, inquires about seeing what the wedding presents were.  The bride responds by saying "Be quiet, I said!  Let's talk about something else" (37).  The deeming tone in the bride's dialogue indicates that she thinks higher of herself than she does of other people.  Later on, when the maid expresses that she had seen Leonardo at her window last night, the bride responds by yelling "That's a lie!  A lie!  What would he come here for?" (38).  Her blatant denial of the fact that she had been seeing Leonardo reflects Leonardo's insistence that he had not visited the bride.  This, along with both of them having the tendency to talk down to people, shows that the bride's personality is a copy of Leonardo's.  This allows Leonardo to persuade the bride to run away from her wedding with him, because there high egos and ability to lie allowed them to get away with it.

Journal #1: Blood Wedding

The symbol of the vineyard represents masculinity.  This symbol is repeated many times in the first scene, and it is portrayed as something that one must work hard to earn and maintain.  Males in this society were supposed to tend the land and provide for their family, so the work that goes into the vineyard parallels the work of a man.  The bridegroom has been preoccupied thinking about his bride when his mother reminds him that he "better hoe the vines over by the little mill.  You've been neglecting them" (11).  The mother is trying to remind her son not to forget his masculinity in the coming marriage, because masculinity will bring her lots of grandchildren.  The vineyard also represents the property that only males can own and maintain in order to provide for their families.  Mother expresses her feeling of being out of place in a man's setting when her son asks to take her to the vineyard.  "What would an old woman do in the vineyard!" (7) she exclaims, portraying that the vineyard is a man's place and a man's place only.  The vineyard represents land that only a man can own, therefore earning him respect and portraying him as a wealthy powerful person.  This will come into use later during the marriage because wealth was a big influence in marriage during that time.  Lorca uses the symbol of the vineyard to portray that a man earns his power and respect through what he owns.

The symbol of flowers represents innocence.  When the mother is ranting about the knife, she describes her murdered husbands as having been "two men who were like two Geraniums" (7).  Flowers are connotated as fresh, young, and clean.  Given these descriptions, the men could be determined to have been good, hardworking men who were in their prime of life and had not been involved in any criminal business.  The tragedy in their death comes with the death of people who were so innocent, and that is what makes the mother so sad.  Flowers will likely be used later on in the play to foreshadow whether a character is innocent or not.  If the character rejects flowers or doesn't like them, it may mean that they have bad intentions.  The flowers create the obvious tension between the Felizes and the mother because the mother hates the Felixes for killing her innocent family members.  Seeing flowers may later on remind the mother of those actions and revive her anger at the Felixes.  Lorca uses flowers to represent innocence because he thinks that the worst deaths are those of young innocent people.

Journal #3: The Wild Duck

None of the characters are without blame for the tragedy of Hedvig dying except for Hedvig herself.  Old Werle was at fault for having the illegitimate child with Gina, who kept it a secret.  Gregers tried to reveal the secret and in doing so brought about Hedvig's death.  Hjalmar was probably the least to blame out of all the main characters, yet he was the only one to blame himself after the affair was over.  The secrets were hidden from him, and one could not blame him for leaving for a short amount of time after being told that his daughter wasn't his.  In the chaos he comes to the conclusion that Hedvig faked her love for him.  He realized he was wrong after Hedvig died and blames himself.  "And I drove her from me like an animal!  And she crept terrified into the loft and died out of love for me" (215).  Hjalmar believes his actions were the sole cause of her death, yet other people were responsible for making Hjalmar act that way.  The other characters blame Gregers for bringing out the truth and ruining the family.  Relling says "[o]h, life would be good in spite of all, if we only could have some peace from these damned shysters who come badgering us poor people with their 'summons to the ideal'" (216).  Gregers is blamed by most of the characters for Hedvig's death because he revealed the truth.  Through this blame, Ibsen is trying to say that the truth should not always be said in every situation..

Journal #2: The Wild Duck

Ibsen used the motifs of decay, disease, and illness to express the revealing of the truth.  The motifs of disease and/or illness are most evident in the case of Hedvig's eyesight.  The fact that she is doomed to be blind gives evidence to her blood relationship to Werle, who is also going blind.  This situation is one that Gina tries to keep a secret, but Hjalmar eventually figures it out on his own.  "Don't come near me, Hedvig!  Keep away.  I can't bear seeing you.  Oh, the eyes!  Goodbye" (196).  Hjalmar made the connection between Hedvig and Werle's eyesight, revealing the truth.  Hedvig, because of this, feels that Hjalmar doesn't love her anymore and her eyes reflect the chaos that ensued after the truth was revealed.  "(with desperate eyes).  He's left us, mother!  He's left us!  He'll never come back again!" (196).  The chaos that happens after the revealing of a truth is also expressed earlier in Act 4 through the motif of decay.  Once Hjalmar learns that Gina slept with Werle before they were married he describes his situation with words that have the connotations of decay.  "A man's whole moral foundation can crumble under his feet; that's the dreadful thing" (186).  The revealing of the truths about Gina's past dealings with Werle and the true father of Hedvig result in the portrayal of the motifs of disease, illness, and decay.  Through displaying that the telling of the truth has these negative effects, Ibsen is trying to say that the truth should be kept a secret in certain situations.

Journal #1: The Wild Duck

Option 2:

Hjalmar has a false perception of himself.  He views himself and his family as being in a condition which they don't deserve, which may be partially true.  However, he claims that he is trying to restore his family's honor by building a great invention, although during the entirety of the play he is never mentioned to have been working on the invention.  His time is actually spent attending dinner parties, hunting with his father, and building little contraptions for the wildlife in his attic.  These things, along with taking away time that he could spend working on his invention, also distract him from his work.  The people who actually do his work are his wife and daughter, who he ironically bans from getting an education and who he labels as the members of the family who take care of the little, unimportant things.  "My general rule is to delegate the routine matters to her, and that leaves me free to retire to the living room to think over more important things" (167).  This quote captures his arrogant attitude, and his complete unawareness that the women are the ones who actually take care of the house and family.

Hjalmar has misconceptions about the women in his family.  He believes that they are dependent and devoted to him.  This belief is reinforced by the fact that both Gina and Hedvig act submissive and thankful to him whenever he is around.  This gives Hjalmar the feeling of being important and in control, when in reality he doesn't do much to help the family.  His job as a photographer is in most cases done by his wife or daughter, who also keep the house clean and keep track of money.  When Hjalmar is not around, however, Gina and Hedvig take on the more important roles that Hjalmar pretends to fill.  They do his work and Hedvig reads books, an action forbidden by Hjalmar.

Gregers is the only one who realize these misconceptions placed on Gina and Hedvig by Hjalmar.  He actively attempts to make them aware of this fact by bringing up circumstances where they do the important jobs that Hjalmar was supposed to do.  While Hjalmar is hunting with Old Ekdal, Gregers says to Gina, "[s]o we might say that it's you who runs the business" (165).  Gina immediately defends her husband by saying that she does the job when Hjalmar is busy with other things.  The truth is that Hjalmar is busy with other things that are not as important as his job.  He claims to be working on some big meaningful invention but in reality he is just being distracted by other things.  He is unaware to the fact that he doesn't get anything done and that it is the women who get it done for him.  Gregers is the only one who notices this and intervenes by trying to make these circumstances obvious to the women.

Journal #3: 1984

Motifs:  Orwell uses the motif of food to represent Winston's hope of a better way of life.  The higher quality of the food coincides with his beliefs that people are supposed to live a better life.  In the beginning of the novel, for example, the quality of the food is very bad.  Him and his Party members live off of stale bread and thin soup.  This low quality food relates to Winston's belief at the time that their way of life was worse than it should have been, and he believed that at some point in the past it had been better.  Later in the book, when Winston starts meeting up with Julia, she starts to smuggle in higher quality food to their hiding place.  It is at these times that Winston believes that their style of living was how people were supposed to live. "He wondered vaguely whether in the abolished past it had been a normal experience to lie in bed like this, in the cool of a summer evening, a man and a woman with no clothes on, making love when they chose, talking of what they chose, not feeling any compulsion to get up, simply lying there and listening to peaceful sounds outside" (146).  This thought of Winston's comes after he had some of the higher quality food.  This prompts him to think that his present lifestyle is of a better quality than what he had previously been experiencing, and that all people should be allowed to live like him.  Later in the book after Winston was captured by the thought police, a starving man is placed in the cell with Winston.  Another inmate tries to offer him food but the guards stop him.  This shows how the Party is controlling the quality of life in the prison.  Good food has represented a better, freedom filled lifestyle for Winston so the thought police are depriving him of that by putting him under constant surveillance and depriving him of food altogether.  Orwell uses food to represent Winston's hope of a better way of life.  The quality of food changed throughout the novel, showing Winston's struggle to find a better way of life, his success in finding a better way of life, and then his loss of that lifestyle when the thought police captured him.  Orwell uses food to show this because it is something that is essential for human life, and he believes that a free lifestyle is essential as well.

Setting:  The setting in the last third of the book is very restricting.  Winston is either physically restricted or under surveillance at all times.  This differs from the first two thirds mainly because Winston is now in prison, where he can no longer avoid the eyes of the thought police.  The oppressive state of the prison is shown in the first page of part three as Winston is examining his cell. "Concealed flooded it with cold light, and there was a low, steady humming sound which he supposed had something to do with the air supply.  A bench, or a shelf, just wide enough to sit on ran around the wall, broken only by the door and, at the end opposite the door, a lavatory pan with no wooden seat.  There were four telescreens, one in each wall" (231).  The connotations of the words concealed and cold gives off a very oppressed feeling, and that feeling is verified by the fact that there is four telescreens watching Winston at all times.  The loss of his ability to express himself due to the restrictive setting takes away Winston's individuality, and allows him to ultimately be brainwashed like all the other Party members.  After a long time in confinement, he starts believing the things O'Brien tells him because he doesn't have the option to oppose any argument that he is given.  Through this restrictive setting, Orwell is trying to show the reader that an oppressive society is bad because it takes away people's individuality, making them prone to the brainwashing that happens in Totalitarian societies.  Orwell included this because he saw parts of the world heading in that direction, and he wanted to warn the world of what might happen.

Language:  Orwell uses irony in the description of O'Brien to express the irony within the whole society.  Winston has always viewed O'Brien as an intelligent individual who had the mental capacity to see through the lies of the Party.  He believes this even more once O'Brien reveals that he is on Winston's side in the battle against the Party.  Yet in the end, O'Brien really was with the Party all along, and was blind to the lies which the Party portrayed.  Winston first realizes this when he is being interrogated by O'Brien. O'Brien had just destroyed an incriminating piece of paper, and Winston responded "'it did exist!  It does exist!  It exists in memory.  I remember it.  You remember it.''I do not remember it,' said O'Brien.  Winston's heart sank.  That was doublethink" (255).  Winston discovers that O'Brien practiced the Party term doublethink, and therefore is not even aware that he is practicing it.  This is ironic because O'Brien is portrayed as a very insightful and intelligent man, yet he is blind to how the Party has brainwashed him.  This irony is present in the rest of the society in 1984.  The people in the society constantly celebrate the successes of the Party, but in reality the quality of life has been deteriorating.  Orwell, through his use of irony, has shown how a Totalitarian government could corrupt and brainwash even the most intelligent people into  believing the government's ideals.  He shows that a whole society could be corrupted as well, and therefore be blind to the fact that their quality of life is slowly getting worse.  Orwell opposed Totalitarian governments because of this, and he wrote this book as a warning because he saw such groups as the British Labor Party, USSR, and the Nazis as exhibiting the start of the behaviors that he wrote about in his book.

Journal #2: 1984

Motifs:  The glass paperweight with the piece of coral in it is a motif for privacy.  Winston  feels that the coral on the inside is shielded by the layer of glass, protecting it from the outside world.  Winston constantly strives to achieve a similar condition as that piece of coral by finding places where he is protected for the watchful eyes of the telescreen and the Party members.  "He had the feeling that he was inside it, along with the mahogany bed and the gateleg table and the clock and the steel engraving and the paperweight itself.  The paperweight was the room he was in, and the coral was Julia's life and his own, fixed in a sort of eternity at the heart of the crystal" (Orwell 150).  Winston acts on his desire for privacy, and rents out the bedroom from Mr. Charrington.  Winston and Julia now have their own secluded world where they are shielded from the rest of society's judgements.  Winston realizes this is just like the coral which is its own little world inside the glass.  He realizes he is just like the coral in the fact that he has his own privacy in the room, and in the room he and Julia live the life that Winston thinks people have the right to live.  This shows that Orwell is trying to say that privacy is something that everybody should have a right to.

Setting:  The setting in the second third of the book constantly depicts objects representing freedom.  This reflects the fact that Winston has started to find places where he can speak and act freely.  In Winston and Julia's first hiding spot in the bushes, Winston listens to a singing bird.  "The music went on and on, minute after minute, with astonishing variations, never once repeating itself, almost as thought the bird were deliberately showing off its virtuosity... Winston watched it with a sort of vague reverence.  For whom, for what, was that bird singing? (Orwell 126).  Winston realizes that the bird feels the freedom to sing whenever and wherever it wants, a privilege that is denied to the humans in his society.  Winston develops a lust for this type of freedom, and it leads on to him later renting the bedroom from Mr. Charrington.  There Winston watched out the window as a prole started singing a song as she hung up clothes to dry.  He concludes that all hope lies in the proles because they are the only humans left who still exhibit a kind of freedom by singing whenever they feel like it, whereas all aspects of the feeling of freedom have been eliminated from people in the Party.  This all shows that Orwell believes people deserve freedom because it is natural to just want do something just for the sake of doing it.

Language:  Orwell uses longer syntax when Winston is thinking about love. This shows that the feeling of love is quite knew to Winston, and he is devoting a lot of thought towards what it means.  Near the middle of the novel, Winston suddenly feels very angry when Julia says she can not meet with him that day.  He realizes that "when one lived with a woman this particular disappointment must be a normal, recurring event; and a deep tenderness, such as he had not felt for her before, suddenly took hold of him" (Orwell 142).  The long syntax highlights Winston's long thought process when he is trying to decipher what it feels like to be in love.  The society he lives in is so deprived of it that he doesn't know what to expect, and therefore must analyze his own feelings toward Julia in different situations.  In the situation from the quote, he at first feels jealous and angry that he can't be with her, and then he realizes that he just misses her because he loves her.  The feeling of deep tenderness gives this away to him.  Orwell is trying to say that love can be felt by people who have been deprived of knowing what it is their whole life.  Therefore love is a natural feeling, and shouldn't be taken away from society.

Journal #1: 1984

Motifs:  A reappearing motif in the novel is the cigarette.  George Orwell always describes Winston's interactions with cigarettes whenever he stops to smoke.  Most of the time the cigarettes are of low quality, and the poor tobacco usually falls out of the cigarette if Winston is careless enough to tip it over.  The purpose of this motif is to mirror the situation of the society.  The poor quality of the cigarette relates to the present condition of the society.  Whenever Winston manages to poor out the tobacco, or makes a negative remark about its quality, it coincides with something that is depreciating within the society around him.  At the start of the book, Orwell portrays the setting as deteriorating and of a fake and low quality.  At the end of this description, Winston "took a cigarette from the crumpled packet marked VICTORY CIGARETTES and incautiously held it upright, whereupon the tobacco fell out onto the floor" (Orwell 5).  This shows how the cigarette mirrors the quality of the society around it.  The cigarette is portrayed more positive than it really was, just like how the Party portrays life in society as better than what reality is like in the society.

Setting:  The extent to which the setting is described directly relates to how safe and free Winston is feeling.  In the Totalitarian society in which Winston lives, he is almost always under watch.  Therefore, he puts lots of effort into not doing anything out of the ordinary, and only focusing on the one thing which he is supposed to be doing.  When Winston is out of view of the telescreen, however, he feels free enough to observe and appreciate the beauty he finds in his surroundings, a dangerous act performed under surveillance.  Winston was on one of his usual walks, when he decides to duck in a shop in the "prole" part of the city.  He feels free in this shop because there is no surveillance, so he displays his freedom by taking in his surroundings.  "Winston noticed that the furniture was still arranged as though the room were meant to be lived in.  There was a strip of carpet on the floor, a picture or two on the walls, and a deep, slatternly armchair drawn up to the fireplace.  An old-fashioned glass clock with a twelve-hour face was ticking away on the mantelpiece.  Under the window, and occupying nearly a quarter of the room, was an enormous bed with the mattress still on it" (Orwell 99).  The fact that the setting is always described through Winston's eyes due to Orwell's use of first person narration results in a much more detailed description of the setting when Winston feels free.  His happiness at being able to act as he wants in these situations tends to result in the setting being described by him as being more positive, while the setting when he is under surveillance tends to be negative and drab.  In the quote, his feeling of freedom leads to a very detailed description of the setting by Winston, and the setting takes on a warm, homely feeling because Winston feels happy that he is momentarily free.

Language:  Orwell, through first person narration and dialogue, shows when Winston fears he is being watched.  When Winston fears he is under surveillance of a telescreen or Party member, he keeps his talking to a minimum, and we are aware of his thoughts due to first person narration.  However, when Winston feels free of being watched, he says his thoughts out loud.  In the first third of the novel, Winston enters a pub full of proles in search of an escape from the constant watch of the telescreens and in search of some political information.  He finds an old man and asks him "'Do you feel that you have more freedom now than you had in those days?  Are you treated more like a human being?'" (Orwell 93).  If Winston had been in a setting where he felt he was under surveillance, he would have thought of those same questions, but he would have kept them inside his head.  Therefore, the reader can tell whether Winston feels fearful of being watched or not by noticing whether he portrays his opinions by thought or by dialogue.

Journal #5: The Stranger

My Philosophy:  A life worth living 

Learn from the Past, Prepare for the Future, Adapt to the Present:
The past has already happened, and nothing can change it.  But it doesn't mean you can't find ways to improve yourself by being conscious of it.  Self reflection is important, which leads to preparing for the future.  Use what you have learned to plan for what you predict will come ahead.  Making goals and constantly challenging yourself is essential to living a full life.  Don't, however, hold onto goals that become unreasonable.  Instead, adapt.  Whatever situation you are in is never completely under your control.  Therefore, the unexpected can happen rather easily.  Being able to roll with the punches is one of the most important skils one can have in life.  Plus it makes life more fun.  Its not interesting when you always know what is going to happen.

Get Over It and Move On:

Although it is important to reflect on the past, people still get stuck on it for longer than they should.  Whether you are ready for it, lives goes on.  If you can't get over something, you will be losing time which could be spent having better experiences somewhere else.  Use what you learn and make something better out of it than just sitting around and moping.

Don't be afraid to Judge:

Saying that you should live or do live without judging things and people is naive and false.  Being able to make quick decisions on gut instinct or speedy logic is an important skill for being aware of your surroundings.  Some of the most successful people are the best judgers.  Beware, however, that judgements are not always right, and one shouldn't directly act upon them unless it is absolutely neccessary.

Be Openminded:

Although this contrasts the above principle, both principles need to be used at the right times in order to be successful.  Snap judgements are for the present moment, but open mindedness occurs during reflection.  One must always review things with an openmind, otherwise key things will be missed.  Humans are notorious for clinging on to our old beliefs and being unwilling to change our views when there is greater evidence for something else.  I think that beliefs should be based on evidence, and they should be able to shift if one finds more evidence in support of something else.

Live for Experiences:

I personally haven't been exposed to enough proof to accept a religion, therefore I don't presently believe in a higher power.  I accept that one could exist, but I don't have enough information to commit myself to that belief.  What I know to be true though, is that life is filled with experiences to be had.  I emphasize that I am not advocating pursuing illegal or dangerous experiences, but life would be boring without truly knowing what life has to offer.  Experiences don't always have to be and shouldn't always be comfortable, but should be aimed to give oneself a knew perspective that could only be truly appreciated by going through something unordinary.  This will make you question what ordinary really is, whether it exists at all, or whether "normal" is just a concept which we have complete control over.

Find your Limits:

Living without ever pushing yourself isn't living to your fullest.  Never knowing your true capability is a waste of time and life.  Searching for your limits is an experience in itself, and will lead you to discovering things about yourself that you couldn't have known otherwise.

Don't be Afraid to ask for Help:

Our species has spent thousands of years finding and recording solutions to problems and acquiring vast amounts of information.  It is more than one can ever hope to absorb.  Therefore, using our collective human intelligence effectively requires seeking out advice from other people.  Being timid and not asking for help will just hold you back.

Live to Benefit Society:

The only true impact people have on this world are what they leave behind in memories.  People can build and lead and create, but all things eventually fall apart.  How people remember you can last forever, and the only way to leave a good impact is to live with the purpose of benefitting society.  The historical figures we respect are the ones who spent their life with this goal in mind, and the notorious historical figures we remember were the ones who brought society down.  We live to promote our collective human race, and doing so successfully will get you inscribed in the memories of other people, making your life worth living.

Live Curious:

Live with a drive to improve your knowledge of the world around you.  This doesn't mean don't worry about grades, because grades are what get you into the higher class of learning; college.  Knowledge can be found in an unlimited amount of ways, and people should never stop seeking it.

Journal #4: The Stranger

Meursault comes to the conclusion that even though death is inevitable, life is still worth living.  He himself has no religious beliefs, and states that he thinks when people die, that is it.  One with a view on life like that might seem like they think that life is pointless, but Meursault comes to a different conclusion.  He reflects this when he thinks about Maman.  "For the first time in a long time I thought about Maman.  I felt as if I understood why at the end of her life she had taken a "fiance," why she had played at the beginning again.  Even there, in that home where lives were fading out, evening was a kind of wistful respite.  So close to death, Maman must have felt free then and ready to live it all again" (Camus 122).  Meursault understood why these old people enjoyed life so much even though they knew they were close to death.  He understood that although he didn't know the meaning of life, he did know that life was given to us.  You can make life living without knowing its purpose.

Camus wants the reader to reach the same conclusion as Meursault because his conclusion represented the philosophy of absurdism.  Absurdism states that humans are unable to figure out if there is a meaning of life, or know what it is.  Camus, through his writing, wants the reader to accept this philosphy, but also understand that although we don't know the meaning of life, it doesn't mean there is no point to living.

Journal #3: The Stranger

I think Camus divided The Stranger into two parts in order to show the change in Meursalt's attitude towards life.  Camus uses longer syntax as a textual way of changing how the reader perceives Meursalt's thoughts.  "But at the same time, and for the first time in months, I distinctly heard the sound of my own voice" (81).  This longer syntax creates the feel that Meursalt is thinking more in depth, which is true because he is reflecting back on things a lot more than earlier in the book. "And the more I thought about it, the more I dug out of my memory things I had overlooked and forgotten.  I realized then that a man who had lived only one day could easily live for a hundred years in prison.  He would have enough memories to keep him from being bored" (79).  Meursalt is just now learning the value of reflecting back on his life.  He concludes that memories are what is really important to us, especially if our life is no longer under our control, such as his is because he is in prison.  This shift in mindset was purposely put in place by Camus in order to illustrate the philosophy of existentialism, where on tries to make their life have purpose through the things they do.  Meursalt, through recollection of his memory, is trying to figure out whether his former life had purpose because now, due to prison, he is no longer in control of his actions.

Journal #2: The Stranger

Option 2:  I think Camus chose to write The Stranger in first person because then the narration can reveal more about how Meursalt thinks.  Since his unique viewpoints and ways of reasoning are important in this novel, that was a wise choice.  Camus is able to use literary techniques to characterize Meursalt through the way he thinks.  For example, many of the sentences are choppy and to the point.  This reveals that Meursalt is very direct and logical in the way that he thinks, and doesn't devote time to the lengthy process of assessing emotions.  A problem of this analysis, however, is the fact that the book is a translation.  The lack of accuracy and necessary objectiveness when translating a piece of writing can really change our perception of Meursalt, especially in our view of how he thinks.  So in conclusion, Camus made a wise choice in writing in first person in order to reveal the thought processes of Meursalt, but this effect breaks down once it is translated due to inaccuracies in sentence structure that come with translation.