What a Tiger

Maus Tails

For this blog we're going back in time, yes, to a review published in the year that Maus II was, 1991. This source is an interview with Art Spiegelman himself and review written by Meredith Berkman for Entertaiment Weekly. She explores some intriguing topics with Spiegelman that I find helpful for the essay writing process required of us later this month.

The first portion of the article Berkman questions Spiegelman about his daughter:
[What does cartoonist Art Spiegelman's 4 1/2-year-old daughter, Nadja, know about the Holocaust?
''Nothing!'' says Spiegelman, dismayed at the prospect.
''She's too young. Obviously at some point her innocence will be burst and she'll have to learn the rather cruel aspects of the world.''
And what will Spiegelman, 43, tell his little girl when that time comes?
''I'll say, 'Honey, let's read this book,''' he says. He refers to a slim volume resting on the drafting table in the cluttered studio of his downtown Manhattan loft. ''That's a good place to start.'']
I believe this would be a great resource for my essay, because I can examine not only Spiegelman's text by itself, I can take his words from an interview on the text to support certain theories behind his writing. Through this selection, I would like to go in the direction of how Spiegelman himself views his work. From these comments I would infer that he believes it is a good introduction to the holocaust, but not an indefinite explanation, and overall I think he tries to convey this idea throughout his novel, and once again here he is just identifying this through stating it would be a good place for his daughter to start when she begins to ask about the holocaust.

Furthermore, from this I see that he is also confirming that his book is not a simple child's comic book as many who have not read it may categorize it as. It is in fact an insightful look into his family's past in the holocaust. Therefore, when he states in shock that his daughter knows nothing of it, he means to convey that this is not simply child's play. It is a book with pictures yes, but no picturesque ideas or endings. Overall, this novel is not for children as most comics appear to be, and this is just another avenue I wish to explore in my essay, hopefully with sources from critics who believe it to be childish and not, to cover both sides of the spectrum.
http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,316498,00.html

See the cat? See the cradle?

Newt may be young, but he is not ignorant. His repetition of the line "See the cat? See the cradle?", is not by accident. Vonnegut's title ties right into this line, and undoubtedly is meant to help convey his views of postmodernism. Vonnegut uses the concept of a cat's cradle, the unsolvable hand and string game that looks nothing like how it is described to be a symbolic image for the postmodern view on life.

This view appears to make sense in our ever evolving world. Knowledge is a limitless factor now. There is not one way to learn everything, and in Cat's Cradle, Vonnegut mocks the idea of there being one way. For instance, he traverses the tricky subject of religion. In real life, religion is hard to describe. Everyone has their own viewpoint in one way or another on the subject, and it seems more of a personal aspect of life than anything else.  Yet, there are those who attempt to make it a universal way of thinking. This violates postmodern theory. Personally, I feel that the postmodern concept of life is a more enlightened way of viewing things. Just as Vonnegut metaphorically portrays a closed mind way of thinking as a cat's cradle, postmodernism justifies it in the same way. There is no solvable end to a cat's cradle, and in the same way there is no correct answer for life. Truth is nonexistent. It is simply what we chose to believe that we make the truth. There are too many ways, whether religious views, or just walks of life, to justify one as being correct, and those who attempt to make one way right will never win. In this life we have a choice, and acceptance of everyone, whether you are religious or not, will be the only way to coexist peacefully in a world where a collision of values, religion, and society takes place on a daily basis.

What's brave about this world?

Ahhhhh Brave New World that has such people in it!! How do I even begin to find an essay topic that clearly defines what I wish to talk about? As of this moment I have a few general directions, but there are so many explorable avenues relateable to this topic that grab my attention. One of these would have to be the individuality of John, and upon entering the brave new world, how he is socially viewed, and how his interpretations of life are so different than theirs. I believe a comparison with a character such as a Pochantas, or even Miranda or possibly Caliban would be parallels that would all fit well, and therefore I think I would use textual evidence from each respective character. Also, I would like to further expand on the Shakespearean topics mentioned in the novel, and how the parallels from both  The Tempest,  and from Romeo and Juliet fit well, along with the references John makes in regards to both.
Additionally, I would like to pull from Brave New World Revisited, for I find it interesting how Aldous Huxley goes over the content of his own noveland explains each aspect. I believe that if I was to take from this I would add insight to my paper that would help to fully back my argument, because I would be using the actual explanation given by the author. A topic I would like to explore form Brave New World Revisited would be the idea  of our freedom being threatened, for instance Huxley states freedom "is threatened from many directions, and these threats are of many different kinds-demographic, social, political, psychological." I like this idea presented and I would like to present it in a modern times view and explore if Huxley's assumptions are beginning to become more of a reality.

Don't be a Twinkie

 The standard education model's simplistic definition given by Sir Ken Robinson does not seem so different from the terrifying one in Brave New World when it is also so simply defined. Both process and ship children, just the form in the novel is a tad more extreme.

We are not purposely molded at birth, nor have we been cut off from all permanent relationship bonds, yet we still suffer from parallel forms of educational injustice.  Bernard questions Lenina in the novel, "Don't you wish you were free Lenina?" She so ignorantly responds " I am free. Free to have the most wonderful time. Everybody's happy nowadays." Her freedom is unknowingly limited, just as ours is. She has been bred to be her class, to act her defined way, and so have we through our educational system. Robinson comments on how children are brought up through school like an assembly line, each age group being specifically designated and each student being forced to adhere to the class guidelines given for their distinct age group. The government does not see is that a person can not be compared to another for we are all individuals and all have different abilities that could benefit society in our respective ways. This runs parallel to the hypnopedia techniques by the schooling system in the novel, for both systems emphasize conformity, a seemingly futile goal when it is common knowledge that each and every person is an individual. People cannot not be packed and processed like a box of Twinkies, it would be impossible for every person in the world to fit the cream filled yellow cake mold of such idealistic thinking.

Furthermore, it appears that Huxley emphasizes the limitation in the novel to reflect the disastrous ways of the current public schooling system, just as Robinson did through his presentation. As a student in such a system, I find it disturbing that I am being forced to comply with guidelines that do not fit the needs I require to be a functional part of society, or the functions my peers need to achieve to the best of their abilities. For instance, every morning on school announcements throughout the nation, the flag salute is mindlessly recited by millions. Yet do none of these reciters associate this salute with a brainwashing form of complete contradiction such as in Brave New World? Was this not the very country formed for the reason of religious tolerance? And do we not have an unmeasurable number of religions who practice freely here? Then why then are we "one nation under god"?  It is absolutely hypocritical of us a nation to have a national slogan representative of one branch on the religious tree. However, in most cases it is a mentally numb state of mind in which one recites the pledge, and I know not until recently I had been one of the mentally numb. So with that I challenge you to break free of the conformity, and be who you want to be, while giving others the chance to be able to be themselves the best way they know how. Whether or not we will ever acquire freedom from educational standardization is unknown, but one can refrain from being a standardized Twinkie packed and processed and ready to go for the world in the mold of what this educational system defines as successful.

We Will Always be Mending

"Ending is better than mending, ending is better than mending, ending is better..." (Huxley 54)

This particular line immediately caught my eye while reading. Although it is intended to be a reference to throwing out old clothing, there is no doubt that more lies beneath the surface. This is only one of the disturbing mottos being ingrained into the younger generations of society in the Elementary Class Consciousness.

Just the mere fact that a room full of children are being brought up together, yet so alone, not bound by any familiar characteristics such a family, with just a general primitive need for promiscuity to fill the voids of  their barren souls, is a powerful image in itself. One cannot imagine a world which such a life exists, yet Huxley describes it so eloquently startling. Although it is all but an utopia of splendor, it is clearly a warning to future generations, and it is meant to fire a red flag in one's head as soon as the unsettling  concept is fully processed.

In regards to the words being repeated countless times so that the young minds must soak in every syllable,  they are no more comforting than the situation they are presented in. Huxley emphasizes these five words to identify the problem, and provide a solution.  Ending something completely, as in how the very social structure of the world has been abolished in the novel is troubling, and is no way to live. The human race is constantly mending itself socially, and always will be . Although the people of the novel believe that they have ended the social ways of society, in reality they have only mended it temporarily, for it will always change, and not even with the removal of the basic provisions of a social network, will the human race falter. Therefore "ending is better than mending" is a faulty statement, that Huxley uses to show the pure ignorance of the people, for they do not realize that they can never put a limit on their own potential.

Fill in the Blank! This assignment was ___________!!!!!

In discussions of the countless interpretations of The Tempest by William Shakespeare, one controversial issue has been the excess of different opinions by highly acclaimed critics on whether the context of the play was intended to portray the immoral acts of imperialism, or if it is merely a commonplace expression of the time period by ShShakespeare. On the one hand, George Will argues that an author creates their work of writing with one purpose. With that in mind, it seems that Will supports a literal reasoning behind the meaning of The Tempest, and that the explanations of the play being intended as an-anti imperialistic message are faulty in his opinion. On the other hand, Aime Cesaire contends that the play is in fact an outcry against the destructive imperialistic nature of the age. In Cesaire's work,a rewrite of The Tempest entitled A Tempest, Cesaire emphasizes the imperialistic message by giving the reader better insight into the the minds and emotions of the characters involved, therefore exposing the underlying meaning behind Shakespeare's lines. My own view on this concept is that Cesaire is mostly correct. However, I do believe that the play can be interpreted in any way one chooses, and although Will's idea does seem feasible, as a student of literature, we are encouraged to expand our thoughts and be continuously looking for new ways to analyze a piece of writing. So, in this way it seems that Cesaire's view is one which is more logical to develop new ideas and interpretations with. In discussions of  the correct interpretation of the text, the traditional view is that Shakespeare intended to involve imperialism as a centered theme. However, there may be other ways to think about this text. For one thing, Greenblatt explains that literature is an art, and therefore can be viewed in endless ways, just depending on the mindset of the viewer. Greenblatt also contends that attempting to set a structure for how a piece should be explained is futile. Therefore, taking these positions into account, we can see that in analyzing The Tempest, there is no right or wrong answer, as long as the answer given is justified through facts given from the piece of writing.