Table Notes: Bloodchild

Table Notes: The Smallest Woman in the World

Reflection on Semester and Narrative

I think this has been a really great semester. I have enjoyed all of our class discussions, explorations, reading, and writing that we've done over the last 5 months.

Looking at my narrative, I've realized something that I've never quite been able to put my finger on before: the immense progression and evolution of my ideas throughout my writing. My ideas often morph from my first sentence to my last, and I never truly noticed nor payed any attention to that before. So Mr. GK's comment and suggestion about revisiting and possibly rewriting my introduction–where all the ideas start–after I've completed the rest of my essay really makes sense. This is a strategy I will definitely try with our upcoming essays for this semester.

I have a few goals for this term, with both my writing itself and other management strategies. For my writing, I will work on keeping my introductions tight, relevant and succinct. I will also pay close attention to transitions, and make sure that each one briefly outlines the main idea of the upcoming paragraph–and consequently, making sure that the paragraph fulfills the statements and hook of the transition sentence. I also want to plan my time out more evenly and with more structure for future essays, so I will be able to stay calm and confident with my work during the process and not feel so overwhelmed.

In summary, the first semester of Literature of the Americas has been a very positive experience for me, and I am confident that it will continue to be.

Final Project: Allegory

Now, this may sound kind of shallow and silly, but no. "Oreos?" I know... but I think my experience with oreos very much relates to the class- when you read this, imagine the oreo cookie itself as Literature class.

(I'm going to bring in oreos; also, this whole presentation/skit will make more sense in class).

So, I don’t know about you, but I’ve always loved cookies.

mmmm.

Their smell, their taste. delicious.

Especially oreos.

I hadn’t tried oreos until very recently, actually.

My parents are kinda sorta health nuts, so I’d never actually had a box of oreos at my own house. I’d dreamed of it, but my parents would never by the name brand oreos.

We went through tons of fake oreos, because that was all I could get. Newman’s o’s? bleh.

Back to nature, “classic cremes?” Ick! 

“All natural Trader Joe-Joe’s?”
Even “WhoNu’s nutrition rich cookies!”

Ah! I desperately wanted that real oreo.

So I decided I’d work really hard to get it, begging, pleading, plotting day after day.

And finally, I came home from school one day, opened my kitchen cabinet, and there it was.

The royal blue, shiny package with the beautiful, bold, white letters spelling out “O,” “R,” “E,” O.”

I was ecstatic.

Finally, I would get the chance to eat a totally real oreo.

But suddenly, I got a little nervous.

I guess I had always wanted the oreo so badly that I never took into account how hard it would be to open the package and just take a bite.

There was a picture of the dreamlike cookie on the package itself.

So I grabbed it, staring at the picture of the cookie, and then shockingly realized the package was sealed tight, and I had no idea how to open it. So I searched and I searched looking for some instruction like “tear here,” or “pull here,” but I couldn’t find it.

After a few days of looking though, I started to get it. No one was going to tell me exactly how to open the package. Only I could open it for myself. And so I decided I’d give it a try.

So I held my fingers to the edge of the package, took a deep breath, and ripped it open.

It worked! I’d done it! 

Infront of me were 29 twinkling, delicious looking bundles of joy just staring at my face. So I greedily grabbed one, stuffed it in my mouth, tried to take a bite!!

But I couldn’t! I’d assumed that once I opened the package, everything would be a breeze. But the cookie was hard. And even I couldn’t bite it yet, I could tell it tasted good. Really good..

But that cookie was hard. I tried, again and again, using different strategies to try and take a bite!

It was just too difficult. Too unbreakable, too solid. 

And just as I was starting to feel crushed that I would never be able to taste that cookie, that oreo, that one I’d been dreaming for for so long, I heard a crunch.

I trusted my intuition and I bit further.

I crunched and crunched on that cookie, doubting my crunching abilities at times but never stopping, until finally, this brilliant taste filled my mouth. I’d hit the creme.

The cream, now mixed with bits of chocolaty cookie, it all made sense. That taste was fulfilling, I realized, only because I went through everything to get there. In order to get to that creme, I had to open the package. I had to bite hard.

And all I wanted was another cookie. More, more.

With each one I ate, I got a new taste. A new strategy.

With each cookie I tried to bite, it would be hard, it would be difficult, it would take the work of my teeth, but it all unfolded into something, all the flavors swirled together, all logical, all sensible, all purposeful, all meaningful, all delicious!

I had finally eaten a real oreo, and it was worth it.

Tree Map and Essay Draft

Tree Map

Essay Draft

(Bolded/italicized phrases and words - what I want to further edit specifically.)

In the dystopian world of Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, controversy is considered a bad thing. Throughout the novel we see recurring/constant examples of characters being exposed to what we could consider the “truth,” often through literature, and we see how this knowledge is instantly equated with sadness. When Mildred’s friend, Mrs. Phelps, starts crying after Montag reads a poem out loud, instead of recognizing these tears as an expression of a positive resonation for Mrs. Phelps, Mildred immediately gets angry and assumes this unexpected burst of emotion is negative. In this world where books are burned, fire chief Captain Beatty claims, “colored people don’t like Little Black Sambo. Burn it. White people don’t feel good about Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Burn it. Someone’s written a book on the tobacco and cancer of the lungs? The cigarette people are weeping? Burn the book.” To the people of this world(?) it seems illogical to expose the truth when all it does is cause disagreement.

This idea clearly infers that the society is against different opinions and wants everybody to think the same way. In addition to this being an absurd claim, it seems that both preventing and maintaining an entire general public without/from having personal and varied beliefs would be nearly impossible to achieve. The most unique quality about humans, as oppose to robots and machines, is our ability to think for ourselves. We can process information from our surroundings and each form our own opinions from a unique perspective. If abnormal information shown to characters like Mrs. Phelps causes such an intense reaction, it seems the citizens of the society are pretty brainwashed, thus inferring the government has set up a very strategic system that is fairly successful in limiting and controlling what people are exposed to. So how is controversy prevented?

One way to think about this is to consider the role of technology in the book. Technology itself is used as a form of censorship to suppress multiple things. It not only fills the gap of natural hunger for information that is present without books, but is also employed to limit human interaction. We’ll see Mildred, for example, so wrapped up with her various devices that she rarely has time for any meaningful interactions with her husband, Montag. The impediment of human interaction is vital in preventing controversy because with conversation comes both disagreement, and new ideas, which leads to more disagreement, more ideas, and back again. Controversy is prevented in this society because technology operates as the expurgation of human interaction, thus creating a world of uniform thought in which nobody has a way of forming their own opinions.

First and foremost, technology is a cover up for the gap that becomes present without books. Although often unconsciously, people love to learn, love to understand, love to observe. This comes through all types of media: books, magazines, television, film. A world without any of these “information feeders” would be quite empty, and leave people alone and confused.

People need to be told what to believe–we see this quite evidently in the novel, as nearly the entire society is brainwashed and does exactly what they’re told. People are so dependent on their countless devices such as parlor walls and seashells because they’d be lost without them. And when we see characters like Mrs. Phelps exposed to information that, unlike most media, doesn’t have a concrete command or “answer,” per se, the immaturity and bewilderment is astonishing(/clear).

Just like Mrs. Phelps realizes, there’s more of a freedom of expression that comes through books, writing, literature. There’s more room for interpretation, especially because of the lack of visuals. With visual media, the information we receive is more concrete because we get to see, and that is definitely something most people really believe and trust. With dialogue and sound as well, the same is true for what we hear. So in fact, using this type of media makes it easier to persuade and convince people because there’s less room for people to form their own opinions. Using technology to provide this, the government can control what people believe.

Right from get-go we see Mildred intensely absorbed in her world of technology. In one of the first few scenes, Montag comes into the dining room one morning and approaches Mildred, ready to have a conversation with her, only for her to respond with a nod because “she was an expert at lip reading from ten years of apprenticeship at Seashell ear thimbles.” Mildred has adapted to this life style so much that she now chooses electronics over family. In fact, technology has become her family, what with the “aunts and uncles” of the “parlor walls”: she goes to these imaginary relatives that are so real to her that even “they” know her better than her own husband does. Mildred is a fair example of the majority of the society in which technology has hugely limited human interaction.

With human interaction often comes controversy, because conversation is all about comparing opinions. What often triggers the controversy, however, is outside sources that cause debate: exactly why books are such a threat to the society. In this world, the solution to this controversy is simply burning the books: as Captain Beatty argues in his long, persuasive lecture to Montag, “colored people don’t like Little Black Sambo. Burn it. White people don’t feel good about Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Burn it. Someone’s written a book on the tobacco and cancer of the lungs? The cigarette people are weeping? Burn the book.” The problem deepens, though, when we start to question what is really meant by controversy, because it very well could be a cover up for something deeper. Controversy typically means the disagreement of ideas, but in this context it’s more about the ideas themselves than about the disagreement. When people interact with each other, ideas are concocted. There’s this unstated yet vital claim that idea as always lead to controversy, and that controversy is bad. Beatty claims that books are burned to keep people happy. So he’s also saying that books and ideas make people unhappy. There’s so much to be analyzed about this idea chain that clearly, the government tries to rarely address because they themselves know that it’s fairly illogical.

In some ways, though, Beatty’s claim–a way for readers to see the ideals of the society in general–does seem to make sense: maybe it would just be easier to have everybody think the same way. But the way that many characters handle their feelings and reactions when exposed to ideas that are outside of their status quo shows their insecurity and the faults in this system.

Overall, they seem to be successful in making “controversial ideas” look like a bad thing. (yes, mrs. Phelps becomes “unhappy” when she hears Dover Beach. But it is the design of and the circumstances within the society that makes this reaction inevitable.)

Technology is a form of censorship, but what does censorship really mean? It’s all about fear; having power and control.

Beginning of Conclusion:

As a censor, a way to prevent human interaction, and a barracade of(to) controversy, technology the root of so much more than it initially seems. From the instability and immaturity of the characters to the lack sensitivity and expression to the indoctrinating ways of life, all the societal issues within Fahrenheit 451 are a result the distraction caused by technology. (add more)

Although it could easily be dismissed as science-fiction, the world of Fahrenheit 451 is disturbingly similar to our world today in more ways then initially obvious.

Formula for Fahrenheit 451

Claim: In the society of Fahrenheit 451, controversy is prevented by using technology as a form of censorship to limit human interaction.

Stronger Claim: (needs stronger wording)
The reason for being able to prevent controversy is that technology is used as a form of censorship to limit human interaction so the people of the society have no way of forming their own opinions. We can see strong examples of this system in characters like Mildred and Mrs. Phelps, who are so brainwashed by technology to have a confident, personal grasp on their own lives.

(In the essay, I’ll go on to discuss examples of characters who rebel against this modus operandi and prove that the use of technology is in fact a weak system and is easy to break.)

Question: How do they attempt to prevent controversy?

Trouble: This idea infers that the society is against different opinions and wants everybody to think the same way. In addition to this being an absurd claim, it seems that preventing an entire general public from having personal and varied beliefs would be very difficult to do.

Status Quo: In the world of Fahrenheit 451, controversy is considered a bad thing.

Exploratory Draft for Fahrenheit 451

Hmm.... where to begin?

My proposal: I am interested in writing about the similarities between the society of Fahrenheit 451 and of today, because I want to understand why we dismiss sci-fi for being unrealistic and impossible when it might really reflect on and help us understand our world today. One way to investigate this might be by more deeply exploring some of the similarities that we find within the book itself, such as the characters’ relationship with technology, human interaction, and censorship.

One idea I find particularly fascinating and that I want to explore more is the human interaction that goes on in this book. This seems to encompass–or be a result of–the other ideas of technology and censorship.

I did a text exploration on the scene where Mildred is in their dining room with her ears plugged into her seashells and the toaster has a hand that gives her her toast; Montag than comes in but Mildred, although she acknowledges him with a slight nod, seems to be more interested in her device than Montag. Technology often seems to prevent a lot of quality human interaction.

Seashells. Television. Parlor walls that replace humans because they themselves–the robotic walls–are considered “family.”

Then there’s censorship: If colored people don’t like blablabla, white people don’t like blablabla, burn it, says Beatty. Without this possibility for controversy, there’s peace, Beatty claims.

                        (questions: how does this idea of burning books connect to controversy? Or how do books connect to controversy?)

Well, what do people do? What’s special about people as oppose to robots, or any technological device? People can think. They have ideas.

With interaction comes thinking, with thinking comes ideas, with ideas come controversy, and what Beatty–and the whole societal system itself– argues is that controversy is bad.

So seems the “inventors,” the “creators,” the “game-makers”–or, the government–of this seemingly sci-fi society probably thought to themselves, to stop controversy, we must stop the root of it: human interaction.

So they’ve used technology as a form of censorship to limit human interaction to prevent controversy!

I guess my argument could be that technology is the root of all the problems within the society of Fahrenheit 451, but it needs to be richer.

Wait, I just realized that I’ve discounted the idea of burning books themselves.

Maybe the technology is a cover up for the gap that becomes present without books. People, often unconsciously, love to learn, love to understand, love to observe: this comes through all types of media, books, magazines, tv, movies. A world without any of these information feeders would be quite empty, and I think people would drive themselves mad. But I guess there’s more of a freedom of expression through books and literature and writing. And there’s also a lot of room for interpretation, especially because of the lack of visuals. But with video–tv and movies–maybe the information we receive from that is more concrete, because not only do we get dialogue and sound, but we get to see. There’s definitely something to take into account about trusting and believing what we see. Same for what we hear. So maybe using this type of media makes it easier to persuade and convince people because there’s less room for people to form their own opinions. The government can control what people believe because of this.

Although he doesn’t say it so bluntly, this is what Beatty is implying if you read between the lines. However, he seems to believe that all of this is okay. Having a government that filters the information you receive seems wrong, but Beatty justifies it as being a good thing because it prevents controversy and argument.

So technology is a cover up for so much more than it initially seems.

The argument could be further spun/&proven because Bradbury kindly provides us with characters that are not under this influence, like Clarrise. By seeing the intellectual capacity of her character and the incapacity of others, we start to wonder where this comes from. Clarrise does all the opposite things of most others: instead of watching the tv and the parlor walls, she reads books- instead of listening to seashells, she talks to her uncle. Faber, too; Granger and his group, too. As readers we are more attracted to them because, contrary to what Beatty argues, they seem at peace with themselves and the world, despite the fact that they’re exposed to everything society tries to hide from them.

Our status quo, in sense, could be that according to society (of the book), controversy is bad. This is troubling, though, because it seems like there’s something deeper to this... a question would be, how would a society control controversy?

            {I think I’m going to forget about comparing the F451 society to today’s–maybe I’ll include that in the end of my essay.]

What makes me ask this, though? About controversy in the first place?

Well, when reading the book, I always had a hunch that even Beatty himself might be oblivious to the fact that there is a larger initiative of the society//government than burning books to try to keep people happy. After reading many sci-fi books, it’s always a fishy topic when the rulers always claim, “all we want is for you to be at peace.”

But maybe what they really want is control. They want to be the books themselves.

They’re jealous of books.

AHHH. They realize the power of books.

(who’s they?? gov.?)

So somewhere along the line they’ve acknowledged what a powerful tool books really are.

They’ve figured out what it is that makes books powerful, and then manipulated that to become even more powerful and controlling.

So what it is that makes books powerful? Their abilities to suggest certain claims, but then provoke thinking and new ideas to the readers.

Although the government wants to be able to “suggest certain claims,” they don’t want to “provoke thinking and new ideas.” They don’t want to suggest certain claims, they want to enforce them and make sure everybody believes them.

So while books are strongly looked down upon, they’re also secretly admired.

This seems to be a pattern with a lot of characters and their relationships with books, though. They’re not willing to give books enough credit, because they’re too obsessed with themselves??//?