Quote Sandwiches

WL Paper 1 Quote Sandwich: The Stranger

After Marie and Meursault go for a swim, they embrace and Marie decides to stay the night with Meursault. In the morning Marie further expresses her love for Meursault. “She asked me if I loved her. I told her it didn’t mean anything but that I didn’t think so. She looked sad,” stated Meursault nonchalantly. Meursault’s apathetic attitude and emotional detachment illustrates his perspective on relationships. He finds little interest in activities that do not directly benefit him, portraying his selfish character. He answers Marie’s question bluntly, completely and honestly. His bluntness illustrates his ignorance of conventional society’s most treasured aspect of life: love. In a rational world, Meursault would be ridiculed for his selfishness; however, Marie continues to express her love for Meursault despite being debased constantly. Meursault states that love “doesn’t mean anything”, which points out another central theme of the book; absurdism: the belief that humans live in a purposeless universe. Meursault’s behavior is irrational, but he is convinced that our existence is just as irrational, explaining Meursault’s inherent hostility and indifference towards others.

 

WL Paper 1 Quote Sandwich: The Metamorphosis

After Gregor’s new insect-like appearance scares the boarders out of the house, Grete becomes infuriated with her brother Gregor, saying, “We must try to get rid of it. It will be the death of you, I can see that coming. When one has to work as hard as we do, all of us, one cant stand this continual torment at home on top of it.” Grete refers to her brother as “it”, as if he were some inanimate object. She has lost her sense of family, and her parents have as well. Instead of accepting Gregor’s new condition and trying to co-exist with him, as he is their only son, they want to “get rid of it”. The irony of the situation is that Gregor spent the majority of his life working of his family’s debt, a no-thank you job. Yet, Grete acts as if she and her parents tirelessly toil around the house and the workplace, despite the number of years Gregor devoted to improving his family’s economical condition. In a rational world, Gregor would be rewarded for his selflessness, yet his family deems him a “torment”. Evidently Gregor lives in an irrational world, where the choices people make are independent of reason and overridden by emotion. His family’s decision to get rid of him is purely emotional; they are disgusted by his appearance and their loss of a steady source of income. Gregor’s sudden realization that he lives in a world that will be hostile and indifferent towards him ties in to absurdism. What worth is Gregor to his family if he cannot provide them with money? In fact, what use is Gregor to society at all? It becomes to clear to Gregor that humans live in a purposeless universe, filled with irrationality.

 

The Varied Connotations of Modernity

Modernity has many different connotations, both good and bad. Modernity can represent efficiency but at the same time, impersonality. In the movie Kafka, modernity is portrayed negatively. Doctor Murnau states, “I have embraced modernity”. To make society more efficient, he has ‘body snatched’ people by inviting them to the castle and brainwashing them and investigating their brains. This act of modernity is against the will of the people being acted upon, adding another connotation to modernity, oppression.

On the other hand, Dr. Murnau views his modernity as progress, change, invention, and growth.  Evidently, perceptions of modernity differ based on the eye of the beholder. After all, as Dr. Murnau said, “it all depends on which side of the microscope you’re on.”

Dr. Murnau says that he and Kafka are different from “the great faceless mask”, which symbolizes the common people. He and Kafka are the initiators and craftsmen of modernity. Although the doctor takes modernity to its extremes, artificially creating modernity through the use of his machines, rather than gradually waiting for its progression, as Kafka does.

In The Metamorphosis, by Kafka, the Gregor’s transformation could be interpreted in a positive light. Gregor is changing, evolving, and progressing into a different being. In addition, he is adapting to his environment in his new physical form, learning how to embrace a high fall and changing his food preferences to raw vegetables. All of these characteristics are representative of the positives of modernity. However at the same time, Gregor is becoming more and more impersonal towards his family. They are unable to relate to him, and thereby alienate him from their family dinners, keeping him locked in his room for the majority of the day. Towards the end of the short-story, his family considers Gregor meaningless, with no purpose in life, which relates to existentialism. He is affecting their traditional family values, and his sister believes that he must live in isolation. All of these characteristics are representative of the negatives of modernity. If we are the objects of modernity, we may regard ourselves differently than those who observe us from a glass house.

Franz Kafka himself symbolized the imbalance of modernity. Kafka was unorthodox, inventing new conceptions in the literary world. In his works, he sometimes wrote sentences spanning an entire page. He would put full stops in the most bizarre places, which is evident in his work regardless of the translation. Various individuals have embraced Kafka’s modernity in the literary world; García Márquez said that Kafka’s writing of The Metamorphosis showed him “that it was possible to write in a different way.” However, we know through our analysis of the film Kafka and the short-story The Metamorphosis that modernity’s perception differs based on the perceiver, and that it is very possible that many literary critics during Kafka’s time despised his idiosyncratic writing nature.

Dr. Murnau stated, “A crowd is easier to control than an individual.” In WE, the upper class society controlled the general people, rather than individuals. There was either the upper class, which was the oppressive government, or the proletariats. In Kafka, the oppressive government works in a castle, promoting modernity by artificially transforming humans into “efficient” zombies. In WE, the oppressive government promotes modernity by subjugating the people because they are the few individuals who can see modernity and therefore know what’s best for the people. The movie Kafka reminds me of WE tremendously, as the portrayal of the government is clearly negative and at times even eerie. Kafka said, “What makes one human being different from another is the man’s soul,” which is why the One State in WE homogenized the proletarians. D-503 and Kafka, single individuals, directly stand up to the heads of society along with the help of others. Furthermore, I believe the message of modernity in society in Kafka could be applied to 1984 as well. In 1984, Winston goes up against Big Brother, the symbol of progress and modernity.

 

Blog Portfolio C

Below are a number of posts representing my personal thoughts on certain topics. Some of these topics have been initiated through the HL English class, while others have been posted based on my own personal interests. I encourage you to read them, and post whatever comes to mind. Whatever your opinion, feel free to share it.

The majority of the posts in this portfolio involve existentialism. The books we’ve read this quarter are Hunger and The Stranger. In addition to these books, we’ve read a number of short stories, including Metamorphosis, The Hunger Artist, and Knut Hamsun’s Christian Perversions. Below is a quote by Jean-Paul Sartre, which he stated in Existentialism is a Humanism:

“In life man commits himself and draws his own portrait, outside of which there is nothing. No doubt this thought may seem harsh to someone who has not made a success of his life. But on the other hand, it helps people to understand that reality alone counts, and that dreams, expectations and hopes only serve to define a man as a broken dream, aborted hopes, and futile expectations.”

Jean-Paul Sartre (French Existentialist Philosopher)

Coverage: These are the required blog entries for Blog Portfolio C

Hunger Distraction

Hunger and The Hunger Artist

Hunger Pastiche

Knut Hamsun’s Christian Perversions

Bubblus Mind Map

Questions on Metamorphosis

Exformation

Modernity

Depth: These are the blog posts where I felt I went far and beyond. I thought about these topics, conducting outside research and discussing the issues at hand with my peers.  Some of the posts contain their reactions.

In, Exformation, I conducted outside research by exploring Kafka’s personal life, and investigating his other works and comparing them with his more famous novels.

In the Bubblus document, I learned new literary terms and elements, and then applied them to the Mind Map.

In the Knut Hamsun’s Christian Perversions blog response, I did some research on the narcissistic personality disorder, and related the  book and characters in Hunger to other famous literary works, such as The Catcher in the Rye.

In the Modernity blog response, I gathered responses on Kafka’s writing from well respected authors such as García Márquez and connected Hunger to various novels we have studied in the past for HL English. I used quotes from the movie, Kafka to illustrate my points.

Interaction: This blog post was initiated due to another student’s blog post. I had a certain view on interpreting Kafka’s humor that differed from Marlee’s perspective. Therefore, I wrote this blog post, which goes into depth about my particular view and the reasons behind my point of view.

Exformation: A Response to Marlee’s Blog Post

Discussions: As expected, some of my posts incited a number of differences on certain issues. Therefore, debate ensued and in some cases, conclusions were made. It was rewarding to see comments on my blog; I felt that people were clear when presenting their opinions and ready to share and discuss their ideas.

Knut Hamsun’s Christian Perversions

Hunger Distraction

Exformation

Xenoblogging: I felt that one of my strengths as a blogger was my ability to post detailed responses and questions to people’s blog posts. I made sure to follow up on their responses, and contribute to the entire online classroom community.

Marlee’s Blog (comment primo)

Suruj’s Blog (comment primo)

Jonathan’s Blog (comment grande)

Georgia’s Blog (comment grande)

Carl’s Blog (comment grande)

Anushka’s Blog (link gracious)

Naoise’s Blog (link gracious)

Wildcard: Very rarely are students given the opportunity to share their views on any topic on such a grand scale. With this in mind, it is tough to decide on exactly what to write about. You think about your audience, your tastes, and how to merge the two so that you can appeal to both. The wildcard in this blog portfolio was about the NBA All Star Game. After all, basketball is a passion of mine. Although this wildcard did not draw as much readership as my past wildcard posts, the objective of the wildcard is not to draw comments, but a chance for me to develop as a writer and person. The wildcard was simply a post by me, for me.

A Different Kind of “All Star”