"Thinking Outside the Box"

      Plato and Sartre both characterize our thinking as something that can be manipulated and altered with the encounter of different things. In "The Allegory of the Cave", people's limitations are controlled by their "closed mind", this is represented by the shackles that the people are burdened with (or are they). Then Plato implies that in order to escape the shackles one must want to do so. The characters in Plato's allegory have settled for what they have, and really have no determination to step outside of the box; in this case, the shackles. In "No Exit," we see the experiences of three people in hell. These people don't come to the terms of being in hell because their expectations of hell are much different than what they are truly experiencing. They subconsciously decide not to help each other figure out what is going on with them, they are to stubborn. Instead they create a new personal hell, and begin torturing each other. These stories are similar in their characters struggles as well as their authors use of mood, diction, and metaphors. The characters in both are unable or unwilling to figure out their problems and reach out into new possibilities and knowledge to free themselves from their restraints or a so called hell.

     Sartres' use of mood directly coincides with Plato's use. In both writings the two great thinkers portray the mood through their characters minds.  The character's all are in the mind set that they can't reach out to things beyond what they see.  Sartre's character's don't question why they are where they are and Plato's character's don't particularly want to make the effort to escape where they are. The shackles "aren't too bad" so they let their minds settle for something so simple, like the shadows.  While the people's in Plato's are to stuck in the "norm", Sartre's characters can't accept anything the other is saying there fore they wrap themselves up in a personal hell that they cannot escape.
    The diction in each of the writings are both very sophisticated.  This adds to the in depth meaning that both are trying to portray. The words in each of the works, to me, make the story what it is today.  The intense word choice and placement gives the pieces more meaning to me.
    In "No Exit", the characters themselves represent the shackles that obstruct one's thinking or actions, meaning your mind or thoughts can be controlled by outside forces such as other people. These characters are limited with their thinking because of isolation and also by what they are told. The characters need to look beyond what others think and define themselves by what they think.  

Lit Terms

Oxymoron: 

A figure of speech in which two contradicting words or phrases are combined to produce a rhetorical effect by means of concise paradox.

EXAMPLES:     "freezer burn", "jumbo shrimp", "original copies", and "same difference"

** this video is just to better understand the word and it's meaning.

Understatement:
The opposite of hyperbole; saying less than you mean for emphasis


EXAMPLES:
A good example is when you get in a car accident and you call up your parents and say "oh it's just a scratch" when there is a huge dent in your car. This is an understatement to save yourself from more trouble


Another example is when some one says "it just rained a little" when really the neighborhood or city is flooded.


Last example:

Self Search

When I searched Shannon Murray on Google I found a plethora of random sites.

-One site was a site for disabled models
-There was a music/ myspace site
-There was a bunch of Facebook sites that were not me
-A lot of sites were modeling related

These sites that popped up when I searched myself have no real relation to me.  I thought it was weird that  all of the top sites it showed me were Facebook related.  This just proves our research on filter bubbles because I was an avid Facebook user Google thought that that would be my most interested site when I searched Shannon Muray.

Literature Analysis

Brave New World
by: Aldous Huxley

1.  The plot of this novel starts with the introduction of society in a new way. A place where drugs are praised, sex is everywhere and basically things "after ford" are the complete opposite of what we know today.  Human life has been almost entirely industrialized — controlled by a few people at the top of a World State.The first scene, offering a tour of a lab where human beings are created and conditioned according to the society's strict caste system, establishes the antiseptic tone and the theme of dehumanized life. The natural processes of birth, aging, and death represent horrors in this world.Bernard Marx, an Alpha-Plus (or high-caste) psychologist, emerges as the single discontented person in a world where material comfort and physical pleasure — provided by the drug soma and recreational sex — are the only concerns. Scorned by women, Bernard nevertheless manages to engage the attention of Lenina Crowne, a "pneumatic" beauty who agrees to spend a vacation week with him at the remote Savage Reservation in New Mexico, a place far from the controlled, technological world of London.In the Savage Reservation with Lenina, Bernard meets a woman from London who gave birth to a son about 20 years before. Seeing his opportunity to gain power over the D.H.C. — the father of the child — Bernard brings Linda and John back to London and presents them publicly to the D.H.C., who is about to banish Bernard. Shocked and humiliated by the proof of his horrifying connection with natural birth, the D.H.C. flees in terror. Once a social outcast, Bernard now enjoys great success, because of his association with the new celebrity — John, called "the Savage."Reared on the traditional ways of the Reservation and an old volume of the poetry of Shakespeare, John finds London strange, confusing, and finally repellent. His quotation of Miranda's line from The Tempest— "O brave new world / That has such people in it" — at first expresses his awe of the "Other Place" his mother told him of as a child. But the quotation becomes ironic as John becomes more and more disgusted by the recreational sex, soma, and identical human beings of London.The three face the judgment of World Controller Mustapha Mond, who acknowledges the flaws of this brave new world, but pronounces the loss of freedom and individuality a small price to pay for stability. Mond banishes Bernard and Helmholtz to the Falkland Islands and rules that John must stay in London. Lenina's attempted seduction provokes John's anger and violence, and, later, the death of Linda further arouses his fury. At last, John's attempt to keep a crowd of Deltas from their ration of soma results in a riot and his arrest, along with Bernard and Helmholtz Watson, an "emotional engineer" who wishes to be a poet. When his two friends leave for their exile, John determines to make a retreat for himself in a remote, secluded lighthouse outside the city. There he tries to purify himself of civilization with ritual whippings and vomiting. Drawn by the spectacle of his wild penances, reporters and crowds press in on John, who becomes a public curiosity — a kind of human animal in a zoo. When Lenina appears in the crowd, John furiously attacks her with the whip. John's frenzy inflames the crowd, and, in accordance with their social training, the violence turns into a sexual orgy, with John drawn in more or less unwillingly. The next day, when John awakes from the effects of the soma, he realizes in horror what he has done. The novel closes on an image of John's body, hanging lifeless from a wooden beam in his lighthouse retreat.

2. The theme of "Brave New World" is that of Freedom and Confinement, seen as one.  The citizens of Brave New World's futuristic society are in a constant state of imprisonment. But because they've been conditioned to love their servitude, no one seems to have any problem with this. Well, almost no one. As one character so deftly points out, being happy all the time is its own sort of prison; being a human is about having the right to be unhappy. The prison bars are made of brainwashing sayings, of drugs and promiscuity, and not of iron or steel. Because confinement happens in the mind, so too is freedom a mental state.

3. The author's tone in "Brave New World" is very serious. The authors tone was serious.  It had a sort of humor to it, but overall the idea of the novel was almost depressing.  He spoke very straight forward and made it seem like things were horrible, the promiscuous people, the sex, the drugs all made it clear that the authors tone was a very serious one. The tone was also very satirical, do to the fact that it is like our society backwards. Also because of how he uses "ford" in place of a god or christ figure.

4. Five literary elements I was able to see in this novel are diction/ syntax, satire, setting, symbols, and imagery.

Diction/ syntax: Example, "Just to give you a general idea," he would explain to them. For of course some sort of general idea they must have, if they were to do their work intelligently – though as little of one, if they were to be good and happy members of society, as possible. For particulars, as every one knows, make for virtue and happiness; generalities are intellectually necessary evils. Not philosophers but fret-sawyers and stamp collectors compose the backbone of society." The author writes colloquial, but in a sophisticated manner. You can tell he wants to appeal to many readers, but at the same time he wants to portray what's going on in a very serious way.

Satire: Brave New World is a satire because it is today's society, backwards. Sex is glorified and celebrated, and monogamy, where in today's society is seen as the "best" way, is laughed at and tossed aside. Another satire in the book is the class and race system being simplified into colors of clothes, ("I hate khaki"), I personally think that this is hilarious, simplifying it so a moron can understand it. Another satire is the use of drugs. Throughout the book the characters indulger (or over-indulge) in the taking of "soma", which takes them on a relaxing high of some sort that is referred to as a "soma holiday". This is satire because in today's society drug use is strongly frowned upon, wherein Brave New World, not using the drug is frowned upon and considered not "normal". Yet another satirical bit in Brave New World is the people that live on the reservation in New Mexico, and how they do things much in the way that we do today, and they are referred to as "savages" and primitive beings. One of the things that disgusts people of the New World the most is natural child birth, opposed to the popular "jar birth" of the New World. Those are four of the biggest satires on modern society in the book. Everything is backwards.

Setting: England, Savage Reservation in New Mexico.  2540 a.d., referred to in the novel as 632 years, "After Ford", meaning 632 after the first model T car was produced.  The setting gives the novel suspense because it's hot and dangerous in the reservation. Also it allows the reader to have an imagination because this is all happening so far in the future.

Symbols: The drug soma is a symbol of the use of instant gratification to control the World State’s populace. It is also a symbol of the powerful influence of science and technology on society.

Imagery:  There is use of "animal imagery", the author uses unique description of animals and their actions to convey a point with in the novel for example, "straight from the horses mouth." 

My Big Question

-Does our thought process affect our outcomes in life? Does positive thinking create a positive result? And vice versa. Do our minds have more control than we think, considering people do say "if you believe it you can achieve it." Is this true?

"There is no real excellence in all this world which can be separated from right living."

-David Starr Jordan

I Believe I can Fly ( flight of the frenchies). Trailer from sebastien montaz-rosset on Vimeo.

This video really intrigued me because it showed that people have no limits. We can do what we want. While yes this is very dangerous, it's just cool to see people push the limits and actually live life to it's fullest. They are experiencing things not many people will experience in their lives and it really amazes me. I can't wait until I get to go SKY DIVING!

Hamlet Essay Redo

        A sense of “self” is something someone can only determine, literally, with in themselves.  How your thoughts connect with your actions, and how your actions coincide with your morals.  Your sense of “self” is just you and your mind.  Hamlet and other characters with in the play of Hamlet have a sense of “self“ that is complicated because they all have different intentions at hand.  Hamlet’s sense of “self” is to avenge his father’s death, but his actions state otherwise showing him as a very confused character. Ophelia, Guildenstern, and Rosencrantz all really have no sense of “self” because they do not think for themselves, instead they let others influence all there actions.  Then there is the King and Queen whose actions all show that they almost have no sense of “self” at all, meaning there morals and standards are so low that their minds cannot tell the difference between right and wrong.  The idea and context of each characters sense of “self” defines the plot within Hamlet because each action that is portrayed in the play is solely determined on the individual characters “self” decisions.

           

            The play Hamlet is a combination of revenge, confusion and sadness that leads into a tragedy of an ending. The play is written to captivate its audience and allow them to know more than every other character present within the play does. I feel Hamlet, the character, had an indecisive state of mind, and was caught between his thoughts and his actions. This is where we see his revengeful threats not coinciding with his conclusive actions. The performative utterance came into affect because it didn’t really matter whether Hamlet talked about what he did and whether he actually followed through with it.  Words can speak just as loudly as actions do in many cases.  This is so in Hamlet’s case because his words, or thoughts, define him as a character not his actions; even though he did not follow through with his revenge his utterances throughout the play defined him as a character. Hamlet’s words, not actions, impact the characters specifically through out the play.  Ophelia is thrown into a sense of madness when Hamlet reveals his real feelings towards women and Rosencrantz was called out by Hamlet with numerous offensive lines.  The performative utterances’ impact the play because no character had to actually carry out any kind of action to stir the pot of drama and suspense they simply had to use their power of speech.

           

            Diction and Syntax proved to be greatly cherished in the writing of this play because each line has a point to it, while having a point, it also has a separate interpretation.  Shakespeare wrote each word down, but not everything we see is the intended interpretation because one persons mind differs from their neighbor.  This idea therefore shows that everyone’s self-overhearing will alter the meaning for another person if discussed.  Hamlet words are faulty, in a sense, because he never follows through with any of his revengeful actions, but this does not mean they have no meaning at all according to De Boer. This idea leads into the fact of how Hamlet’s words don’t constitute his actions, but it does effects the performative utterance intended by Shakespeare with in the play.

           

            Performative Utterances’ impact on my self over-hearing is different than what I would have thought in the beginning of the play.  With De Boer’s paper in mind I see myself realizing that the words with in the play have more of an effect on the plot than the actually actions or events that are carried out.  The words are the focus and the importance.  As I read, and thought thoroughly about the play, my mind altered greatly. I went from thinking Hamlet was a coward who wanted to kill himself to thinking his words/ thoughts were not in sync with his actions, making him more complicated than first thought.  The idea of self-overhearing allows me to replay each and every soliloquy stated by Hamlet and form it as my own in my mind, making it different.  Sometimes I learn it’s not what I think and sometimes I alter it to make it what I think, after all our minds change things to make them what we want them to be right? What we want to remember is what we do remember, and that is what I feel self-overhearing his; learning in your own mind from event, words, or even plays like Hamlet.  Your interpretation is the ultimate learning cycle come to an end.

           

            The idea of self-overhearing, and performative utterance now reminds me to put meaning behind my words, and if they result into actions, put meaning behind that too!  The experience and exploration of these ideas will reflect my real world experiences because I will not allow the end result of my words to be my demise, like what was seen in Hamlet. Reflecting on certain experiences and allowing your mind to change the past is what our brains are trained to do and this is seen consistently through out Hamlet. Hamlet talks himself in and out of things all of the time in the play, and I can closely relate to this idea.   I feel, that if you put stronger meaning behind your words, the actions will portray your ideas, but even if no events come about, your words are still a meaningful impact.  This idea completely differs from what people hear everyday, “actions speak louder than words,” but with the idea of performative utterance in the play and in my own life experiences, (with De Boer’s paper in mind) words can impact people in the same way as actions do.  Overall because of self-overhearing and performative utterance, the power of words can overcome the power of actions in the right context and the right state of mind, this is seen through Hamlet as well as real world experiences.

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same." 

We're Creating Something Beautiful

Throughout my time in this class I honestly have learned to give myself a little more credit than I do. I learned other people believe in me more than I had thought and with a little push I can do the things I never thought I could. Dr. Preston does test me.... al lot; I tell him I can't and he comes right back saying, "oh but you can". This class has honestly put me on a better path with in myself because it has built up my confidence in many ways, through writing, through speaking, through reading, and even through my overall confidence in myself. Take the Hamlet soliloquy for example, I gave up the day it was assigned and good ol' Dr. Preston pestered me and pestered me and kept telling me I could do it until I finally took his word for it and tried. What do you know, I did, and I did really well actually. I have learned a lot from this class, not only about school, but about what awaits me in the real world. I know now that my words mean a lot more than I had thought, and I do have an effect when I speak or try and make a point. All thanks to this course so far.

I feel as if this class is leading up to so many successful people and it amazes me. It's creating confidence in more people than just myself because we are all getting our ideas out on the web, whether people read them or not, I feel the whole concept is just a great experience. The song I chose is just describing the success I see within our class because I know each and everyone of us is on the right track to accomplishing great things, "something beautiful". The song is talking about a relationship, but I'm using it in a different content, he's waiting for the beauty of success that the world holds for him. I know this class will only better me as a person as the year goes on and I am actually excited to be pushed to the best of my ability. It's a good feeling when you achieve what you never thought you could and the ultimate goal in my mind after this class is getting into a good college! I hope that is something that I achieve in the end.

Roy Christopher's Video Chat

I really liked the video chat that we had with Roy Christopher because it was so different. I didn't stay for the whole thing, but while I was there it was very interesting.

Roy Christopher, despite all the input and ideas he has on technology doesn't have a smart phone?? That caught me by complete surprise, but it kind of gave him more of an edge to how he analyzed thing because it wasn't all at his fingertips like it is for us.  Another thing that I really retained from the video chat was the quote he said, "program, or be programmed".  This statement really stuck with me because it's saying, to me, that you don't have to stick to the status quo, you can start something yourself rather than follow someone else.

Another point that was made by Roy Christopher was how he is optimistic on the idea that, while technology is thriving, he feels books and things on paper will not disappear. I liked the idea of this because I feel like the world cannot just jump completely out of the old ways, there has to always be something to remind us of our roots.  Having this said, Christopher has trust in our generation, meaning the future is in our hands and he believes we'll do right with it, and I liked the confidence he had with that idea.

These are the main ideas or highlights I took away from the video chat, and it was really just a super cool experience to hear from people out in the real world. People who know so much more about social media than I do because it really put things into perspective for me.

Hamlet Beowulf Comparative Essay

     In the plays of Hamlet and Beowulf we see two comparable "heroes", one being Hamlet, and the other being Beowulf. Although both are heroes in the different ways, they are heroes all the same according to the time.  Both characters are faced with numerous challenges that they must overcome and this leads to their over all demise in the end.  Both are seeking of revenge and then they ultimately lose their lives in a manner at which classified them as an "epic hero". The differentiation between the two is not their actions or death, it is their authors.  Author's of both works have very diverse diction and syntax as well as the use of tone in describing the plays through their own eyes, while the characters remain heroic.
     Hamlet, the play, is an intricate play on emotion and actions.  As we have seen throughout the play of Hamlet, the reading of performative utterance, and Hamlet’s character as a whole, it is clear that all of his actions depend solely on his thoughts (even if they really only remain within his thoughts). The language used with in the play form a complex meaning as it is spoken by the characters. The words can be taken into context in many different ways, but nonetheless they have impeccable meaning.  For example, in the following passage, “Tis not alone my inky cloak…/nor customary suits of solemn black,/Nor…forced breath/No, nor the fruitful river in the eye,/Nor the dejected ‘havior of the visage…/with all forms, moods, and shapes of grief,/That can denote me truly,” Hamlet's strong language and ideas form the mindset of how complicated of a character he really is. This idea leads to the fact of how the language with in the play really does have a huge impact. The word choice and arrange meant used by Shakespeare really makes the words seem more important because you can tell each word was placed in a specific spot for a reason.  Shakespeare's tone with in the play was on that was very ominous. He used little details such as starting the play at midnight to give the play that eery feeling that it had. Overall Hamlet's use of performative utterance through diction, syntax and tone made the play what it is today and it is what truly contrasted Hamlet from the play of Beowulf.
      In Beowulf we see the author’s use of syntax and diction in a different way; it creates a unique and balanced flow in helping convey the main points. Beowulf was a “hero” and was proud of it; and everyone knew it. His performances were often overly exaggerated to make it seem more than what it was. The performative utterance seen through Beowulf's actions in the play set a solid tone of bravery and heroism unlike that of Hamlet.  An example of Beowulf’s bravery is the seen following passage: “Over all the world, or between the seas, / Or under the heaven, no hero was greater." The words seen in Beowulf were used as strong language to make the play seem like a godly one. Beowulf proved to be an epic because of the way it was written and the way the tone was set from the beginning and that is why it is so famous today; because it is a classic tale of a great hero.
     Overall, “Beowulf is much admired for the richness of its poetry - for the beautiful sounds of the words and the imaginative quality of the description.” While Shakespeare is mostly known for his “complexity of human characters.” And each author contributes greatly in using language to depict each of the protagonists' characteristics and make them unique to the situation they derive from. Through this we see in Beowulf how his strength in his actions makes him who he is; whereas in Hamlet, he is a man who proves strength through his own thoughts. Beowulf knows he’s a hero and is constantly ready to jump into the next battle. Yet, Hamlet is too weak to make the decisions. He was always contemplating on what he should do. This idea, being their both hero but one doesn't truly know he is, sets the different tones with in each play.  Throughout each play we see the characters act upon what they think is right and they do so for the sake of revenge, this is shown through each authors use of performative utterance, but it ultimately leads to the death of two tall tale heroes.