Victoria's Secret's New Direction (wink wink)

"Jewish Life During the Holocaust"

In the article entitled “Jewish Life During the Holocaust”, there are several topics discussed.  These topics include the following: Jewish Immigation, Jews in Hiding, Life in the Ghettos, Jewish Resistence, and Life and Treatment in the Concentration and Death Camps.  One of the center points of this article was that the Holocaust was not just an event for European Jews, it was life.

The Holocaust truly began when Jews in Germany began to be gradually more and more restricted under Hitler’s regime.  First, they were labeled with the star of David. Second, they were to confined to cruel ghettos such as the Warsaw Ghetto where 400,000 Jews were crammed into a 2.5 acre are.  Third, they were sent to the concentration or death camps where they were either worked to death or simply killed. 

The article makes it clear that this wasn’t simply grown up stuff.  Rather, it effected every generation of Jew that existed.  This is why the horrors of this “event” live on today.  Children may have been exempt from wearing the star of David, but they were often sent away from their families as a means of escape from the pending doom that awaited many of their parents.  Those that met the same ultimate fate as their parents in the concentration or death camps usually found themselves at the bottom of the gas chambers, stepped on by the panicking Jews who were about to die for their religion and culture.

Some Jews did try to resist.  However, those who did were met with a tough choice, attempt to resist and succeed or attempt to resist, fail, and sign the death warrant of all of the Jews you were residing with.  An example of this principle is seen in the Warsaw Ghetto riot in 1943.  After a month of deal with rioting Jews, the Germans took the easy way out and burned the ghetto with all of the Jews inside.

The Holocaust was defined by two main things: conditioned racism and “The Final Solution.”  Hitler created racism in the Germans by glorifying the Aryan race and trashing the Jewish race by covering them in the filth of the overcrowded ghettos.  “The Final Solution” was the extermination of the Jews as if they were bugs.  This cannot happen again.

I find a lot of lens value for this essay in regards to the graphic novel, Maus II.

Here is the article's link: http://jewishfederationpittsburgh.org/page.aspx?id=148359

The Invisible Cat and Cradle

                Kurt Vonnegut’s novel Cat’s Cradle follows as post modernist theme in a number of ways.  Before we elaborate as to how Vonnegut constructs the novel as a post modernism novel, let us first address what post modernism actually is.  Post modernism was a reaction to the modernism movement.  It rejected the modernism movement.  This rejection was evident in many areas such as literature, architecture, cinema, and so forth and so on.  Modernism was centered around standardization and uniformity and regarded democracy as sin.  Post modernism, on the other hand, was overwhelmingly democratic in nature.  It rejected the idea that though had to be controlled and universal.  It rejected that there was a set meaning in anything.  Cat’s Cradle has a strong undertone of post modernism.

                One of the strongest areas in which Cat’s Cradle relates post modernism is in chapters 74-79.  In these chapters one of the main focuses is Newt’s painting and the reactions to it by Newt Hoenikker himself, Julian Castle, Angela Hoenikker, and the narrator.  The painting is described by the narrator when he first arrives at Frank Hoenikker’s home.  “Newt’s painting was small and black and warty.  It consisted of scratches made in a black, gummy impasto.  The scratches formed a sort of spider’s web, and I wonder if they might not be the sticky nets of human futility hung up on a moonless night to dry.”  The painting is very abstract, as an art form it is very different than the modernist box buildings.  What’s more, it follows the post modernistic characteristic in that it has no real set meaning.  Each person sees it differently.  As stated in the above quote, the narrator sees it as a symbol of the “sticky nets of hum futility.”  Newt, however, sees it as a representation of the absence of a cat or a cradle in the string game called cat’s cradle, but rather just a succession of x’s.  Angela sees it as a simply ugly mess and Castle sees it as a representation of hell and throws it off the terrace, calling it “Garbage-like everything else.”

                This is but one example of how Kurt Vonnegut’s novel Cat’s Cradle contains a post modernist theme.  There is evidence of this theme all over the novel.  This example speaks very loudly to me.  I really liked the symbolic meaning of Newt’s painting.

Pretend Pleasure

                Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley, relates the tale of a utopian society in which everyone is supposed to be happy, but when we read the novel, none of us can imagine being happy if they were in these shoes.  Or, that’s at least how I feel.  When I write about this novel I want to discuss how despite that everyone on the planet wants to live in a perfect world where there is no unhappiness, that being a utopian society, and constantly implores the government to achieve universal happiness, we don’t actually want that because we would end up in a society like that in Brave New World in which the happiness is artificial. 

            Of course I will have outside sources to back this up.  The two on the class forum that I have found that really speak to me are the Naomi Klein piece and the Frederick Winslow Taylor piece.  I’m attracted to the Taylor piece because I feel like I can use it to prove the point that when we move towards a “better” society such as in this piece and in Brave New World the focuses get warped to something that, from my perspective, is far from the happiness that people actually want.  For example, consider this quote from Taylor’s piece.  “It is no single element, but rather this whole combination, that constitutes scientific management, which may be summarized as:
Science, not rule of thumb. Harmony, not discord. Cooperation, not individualism. Maximum output, in place of restricted output. The development of each man to his greatest efficiency and prosperity.”  This of course sounds very similar to many passages within the novel itself, most especially the last sentence in which man’s “greatest efficiency and prosperity” is discussed.  People are looking for true happiness.  They want to live life.  Living life is not about efficiency, it’s about savoring the small stuff.  This is where I believe utopian societies like the one in the novel are backwards.  I would like to use the Klein piece because unlike the Taylor piece it doesn’t praise the process of moving towards an efficient society, but rather condemns it.  From this author’s perspective this move towards universal happiness robs people of freedom.  This is a prevalent theme throughout the novel itself.

                Thus, I believe that these two articles will help me analyze the novel and present my view that utopian societies are the result of foolish and unrealistic desires for no unhappiness in the world.

Education Factories

                The video posted on Mr. Dominguez’s blog (D, by the way is super cool :D)draws many parallels with regards to education with Aldous Huxley’s novel Brave New World.  I was actually really amazed by the similarities between the two.  What’s more I actually agree with most of the things said in the videos.  As we move forward in life the education system we currently have becomes increasingly outdated and alienates more of the world’s children. 

                First of all, I was amazed by the comment made in the video about how today’s education system is very similar to the workings within in a factory.  Split into groups based on age, “batches” of children are bussed into schools that operate according to a bell schedule and split into specific pieces, also known as subjects.  What’s more education, according to the video, is resulting in losing its subjects by splitting students into two main groups, those who succeed and those who do not, and by assigning ‘grades.’

                In Brave New World, children are produced, much like supposed intelligence and individuals are produced in school, in “hatcheries”.  Within these hatcheries, the children are put on an assembly line, for Henry Ford, whom they worship, created this noble device.  Just like there are desks in which each student is confined to at school where they develop, in the novel there are “racks upon racks of numbered test tubes” in which the children develop.  What’s more each learning process in the novel is separate, just as subjects are in school.  There’s a room for birthing, a room for establishing a fear of books and flowers, and there’s a room for erotic play, and so forth and so on.  Furthermore, the people are split into groups during the “pregnancy” based on how dumb or successful they are supposed to be.  These groups are Alphas, Betas, Gammas, Deltas, and Epsilons.  These groups are similar to grades.  There are even pluses and minuses within each grade.

                All in all, there are so many similarities between the views of education and the happenings within the novel Brave New World.  It is made very obvious how detrimental these practices are to society, regardless of the good intentions that may be attached.

               

Assembly LIne for Embryos

                Chapter 3 of Brave New World by Aldous Huxley paints an apt picture of the morals and values in this society.  Let’s begin by considering the quote from the text, “Wheels must turn steadily, but cannot turn untended. There must be men to tend them, men as sturdy as the wheels upon their axles, sane men, and obedient men, stable in contentment."  This quote is super meaty, so there are so many places you can go with it.  Plus, the book itself is meaty.

                This quote, which is said by Mond, who is the Resident Controller of Western Europe, has a great deal of significance with regards to why the society is run the way is it.  The society itself can be compared to a machine through this metaphorical quote.  The wheels are the way the society operates.  Thus, when the quote says, “wheels must turn steadily”, it is comparable to saying, and “society must operate steadily.”  The quote goes on to say that these wheels cannot turn untended.  What this means is that society needs a government and people to make sure it operates steadily.  The remainder of the quote, “There must be men to tend them, men as sturdy as the wheels upon their axles, sane men, obedient men, stable in contentment” goes on to reveal the purpose behind the mass production of human beings as is told of in Chapter 1-4.   According to this society’s mind set, in order for them to be successful and productive they need to have massive amounts of men who are strong, not necessarily physically, but in terms of their usefulness.  These men need to be sane, obedient, and always content.  This will allow them to work more efficiently, which is the purpose of this society: to run as efficiently as Henry Ford’s Model T production assembly technique.

                Through the chapter’s skipping of point of view, you gain a very good sense of how the value system works on different personal levels in the society.  For example, in efforts to make sure that people serve the government to the best of their abilities, they eliminate emotions, such as those between a parent and child.  With regards to monogamy, the view point of society is ever so clear with the case of Lenina.  Her friends scolds her for going out with Henry again.  She goes so far as to say, “ ‘It’s such horribly bad form to go on and on like this with one man.”  Current society is a proponent of monogamy; however, if this quote is taken seriously, then she has said anything. 

                What’s more, impulse, feelings and desires are also frowned upon.  According to Mond, they there outrageous and led only to government failure.  For, once again, the money is crucial to the security’s success.

DIscussions of Post-Colonialism Within The Tempest

I wasn’t here on Friday, so I’m very unsure how to do this, but here is my best shot.  If it’s wrong then I’m deeply sorry. 

In discussions of The Tempest, by Shakespeare, one controversial issue has been the appearance of post-colonialism within the text. On the one hand, critic George Will argues that it is unfortunate that all literary works, such as The Tempest, are subject to the liberal victimization of all minorities.   On the other hand, Stephen Greenblatt, a critic who directly challenges Will, contends that it is the very purpose of literature to highlight such injustices so that society can become increasingly aware.  He argues that if literary criticism is checked as Will would like then it will enslave people in unawareness outside their own life. Others, such as Aime Cesaire’s in his parody of The Tempest, which is also called the The Tempest, maintain the same views as Greenblatt, by portraying Prospero as a disgusting slave driver under which both Ariel and Caliban stuggle.  However, my own view is a blend between those of Will and Greenblatt/Cesaire.

In discussions of The Tempest, the traditional view is to condemn Prospero for his conquering and enslaving of the island and all of its inhabitants.  However, there may be other ways to think about this text. For one thing, I believe that Shakespeare is portraying post-colonialism, which explains the events throughout the play. The existence of traditional European post-colonialism is clear afterall.  I; however, am not convinced that Shakespeare is portraying this to necessarily condemn the Europeans.  Rather, I believe that he is portraying it more as a way to show that it happened.  And Greenblatt also contends that literature’s purpose is reveal things about the past, whether they be injustices or triumphs. Therefore, taking these positions into account, we can see that, while The Tempest does expose European post-colonialism that does not mean by any circumstance that they do so out of criticism.  It may have been done merely to tell a story.