Brave New World (II and III)

Chapters 2 and 3 really establish the philosophy of the government and how they are able to go about without any opposition. People are indoctrinated, through the usage of hypnopaedia, to believe whatever the government wants them to believe. There is no free will, no free thought. Any semblance of original or artistic idea has long been banished. What you have is an army of sheep, willing to do whatever you ask of them.

Remembered an interesting quote from Mordin Solus (and no it's not I MADE A MISTAKE!) ") “Cultural artistic expression reflects philosophical evolution, interest in growth, perspective, observation, interpretation."
As we can see, the people in Brave New World have no interest in philosophical evolution, interest in growth, perspective or observation. They are simply tools for the Reapers. I mean government.

Find it interesting how the government opposes all values that we uphold today: no promiscuity until 18, democracy, etc. And the reasons for it, while heavily flawed, aren't malicious. After all, who wouldn't want to live in a perpetual state of happiness?

I think I have a new quote of the day: "Those who feel themselves despised do well to look despising." Kind of a tongue twister though.

All I know is I would hate being put into a caste and losing all individuality. Because, as evidenced by my writing style, individuality defines me.

Write as a 5pectator Sport

The first one: What they should start doing? Well this one is easy! First, Hayden, perhaps you could write something that looks like it was written A.D.?! I am usually sharp at reading horrible handwriting and listening to less than coherent English, but by God I feel as lost as when people use sign language or Braille around me! Also, have you read H.P. Lovecraft? That guy has 100000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000synonyms for the word "grotesque". I swear that guy has a thesaurus next to him when he writes, and anytime he thinks up a word like "creepy", he automatically pulls it out and searches for the most obscure synonym possible. Hint hint, enough with your prolix writing. Having 50 words in one sentence that no one knows does not make you a great writer by default.
What to stop doing? Writing in damn Chinese! Unless you can pull a stunt like this nobody is going to be able to read your work. Including me.
What to continue? Honestly, because I could not read your work, I don't know what to say. Keep up the good (if not illegible) work I guess?

The second one: What should they start doing? Take a picture that doesn't look like I'm viewing Santa Maria through the Hubble telescope! I can't critique what I can't see. And considering that most kids did not do 5pectator sport, my choices are limited as is!
What to stop doing? Nothing I can think of besides using the camera to actually zoom in on something so I can read it. Or write down the essay on another post. One or the other.
Continue doing? Keep surprising Feli and Isiah. Nothing makes my twisted demented self laugh more than seeing pitiful fools forced to write an essay in ten minutes.

The third one: What should they start doing? Finishing the third paragraph for one thing. And have a more complex pre-write! Just kidding, I've never been one for pre-writes. Find they waste too much time. And where's the proof? I want evidence.
What to stop doing? Commas. I would not like them here, I would not like them anywhere. I do not like commas and ham, I do not like them Sam-I-Am.
Continue doing? Writing style. I like it, just not the overflow of commas EVERYWHERE.

The fourth horseman: What should they start doing? Being a little more timely. I can tell that the pre-write took way too much time.
What to stop doing? Writing a whole page as a pre-write. This isn't some novel we're talking about, it's a ten minute essay. The last thing you need to worry about is a pre-write.
Continue doing? Writing neat. After having to endure what is simply known as "Hayden Robel", I feel like I'm swimming in an oasis.

The fifth one: What should they start doing? Writing a little neater. While maybe I'm a bit harsh (anything after Megan looks like chicken scratch), I still find it difficult to read that handwriting.
What to stop doing? I dunno, the essay seemed fine, if not a little short.
Continue doing? Writing. Soon, those three paragraphs (while a *little* demanding if you ask me) will be finished!

5pectator Sport

As per the request of my sister: Open Essay Prompt 1971

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Edit: After noticing that Isiah could not read any of my writing, I decided to write it down here for you:

"O wonder! How many godly creatures are there here! How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world. that has such people in't." - Brave New World

"It was a joy to burn." - Fahrenheit 451

At first, the titles seem innocuous. Fahrenheit 451? Brave New World? What the hell does that mean? And yet these titles, so simple, are filled with meaning, much more so than Twilight ever could. 

In Fahrenheit 451, you start off wondering the significance of 451. Why 451? And then the opening statement "It was a joy to burn." Right there, you are already starting to catch on. And once the mention of books is introduced, BAM! You already are starting to catch on about the message of the story. Ray is constantly mentioning 452, reinforcing in your mind that society hates books. He constantly alludes to fire, and he has the main character, Guy, be a fireman for a good reason! To point out the holes in a society that hates books.

In Brave New World, it is much different. We aren't given any significance about the title until halfway through when we meet John the Savage. There, he quotes Miranda from Shakespeare, and then we start to understand. Huxley is using irony in that quote. To the naked eye, the world is wonderful. Everyone is happy, no crime, etc. Yet we know that isn't true. And by having John continually repite (sic) that phrase, Huxley is rein (sic)

Brave New World (I)

Unfortunately (or fortunately for those who are not of the reading-minded) for me, my latest literature analysis happened to be Brave New World. So this may come off as a little succint compared to others because I have already read the novel. Anyways, the foreward starts things off with a warning by Huxley. He notes how, compared to other dystopian novels, there's no mention of nuclear fallout. That's because he's not worried what science can do to hurt us. It's what it can do that benefits us that worries him. As demonstrared in the first chapter, science has made the world almost complacent. With disease no longer a problem, the government has to resort to unique measures to get the people to do something. That involves creating artificial castes by tampering with the zygotes, drugging the population on soma, encouraging sex but discouraging reproduction, etc. The world worships efficiency, and to no surprise also worships Henry Ford. This, as Aldous Huxley noted, was the future of America. Some would say it's present-day America.

Lit Terms The E.N.D.

Rising Action: plot build up, caused by conflict and complications, advancement towards climax.

Romanticism:  movement in western culture beginning in the eighteenth and peaking in the nineteenth century as a revolt against Classicism; imagination was valued over reason and fact.

Satire:  ridicules or condemns the weakness and wrong doings of individuals, groups, institutions, or humanity in general.

Scansion: the analysis of verse in terms of meter.

Setting: the time and place in which events in a short story, novel, play, or narrative poem occur.

Simile:  a figure of speech comparing two essentially unlike things through the use of a specific word of comparison.

Soliloquy: an extended speech, usually in a drama, delivered by a character alone on stage.

Spiritual: a folk song, usually on a religious theme.

Speaker: a narrator, the one speaking.

Stereotype: cliché; a simplified, standardized conception with a special meaning and appeal for members of a group; a formula story.

Stream of Consciousness: the style of writing that attempts to imitate the natural flow of a character’s thoughts, feelings, reflections, memories, and mental images, as the character experiences them.

Structure: the planned framework of a literary selection; its apparent organization.

Style:  the manner of putting thoughts into words; a characteristic way of writing or speaking.

Subordination: the couching of less important ideas in less important  structures of language.



Surrealism: a style in literature and painting that stresses the subconscious or the nonrational aspects of man’s existence characterized by the juxtaposition of the bizarre and the banal.

Suspension of Disbelief: suspend not believing in order to enjoy it.

 The most powerful synthetic beings in the entire galaxy are able to be beaten through the usage of a quarian fleet when the entire Alliance fleet could barely take down Sovereign.

Symbol: something which stands for something else, yet has a meaning of its own.

Synesthesia: the use of one sense to convey the experience of another sense.

 "I can smell you!"

Synecdoche: another form of name changing, in which a part stands for the whole.

Syntax: the arrangement and grammatical relations of words in a sentence.

Theme:  main idea of the story; its message(s).

 You mean like this?

Thesis: a proposition for consideration, especially one to be discussed and proved or disproved; the main idea.

Tone: the devices used to create the mood and atmosphere of a literary work; the author’s perceived point of view.

Tongue in Cheek: a type of humor in which the speaker feigns seriousness; a.k.a. “dry” or “dead pan”

Tragedy: in literature: any composition with a somber theme carried to a disastrous conclusion; a fatal event; protagonist usually is heroic but tragically (fatally) flawed

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

Vernacular: everyday speech

Voice:  The textual features, such as diction and sentence structures, that convey a writer’s or speaker’s pesona.

Zeitgeist: the feeling of a particular era in history

First Quarter Review

A) For this semester, I would probably give myself a B. I've done almost all of the assignments (with the exception of Lit Terms Rising Action-Zeitgeist) and have done them to the best of my ability (at least to me). However, I also have been late on a couple (Lit Terms 31-56, I am Here and Lit Terms 57-82) which for me is unacceptable. Regarding the Senior Project, the musical with Josh, Alex and Co. is already beginning beta stage, and I've been reading up on Dr. Seuss to see which rhyme scheme I like the best.
B) While I have previously said I'm not good at goals, my goal is to stay more prepped and focused for the journey ahead. I feel I went off the beaten path, and it lead me to no where. Fast. Hopefully, that can change.
C) My suggestion for the course is as follows: if we are indeed to read Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, then why not finish off the trifecta? 1984 and Fahrenheit 451 are simply begging to be read in conjunction with Brave New World. To simply read one and not the others is criminal. Another suggestion of mine is to abandon Shakespeare. I like Shakespeare moreso than many others, but it's time to move on. In terms of the course, he's stale old news. He's the Carl Fredrickson to our Russel. Reading Macbeth, while certainly interesting, serves us no real benefit when we've barely moved on to Dickens, and still have a ways to go. Let's be honest. Will reading Shakespeare be more beneficial than reading, say, Tolstoy, Hemingway, Steinbeck, Chekhov, or Poe at this point in time? I really don't think so. And if we *really* wanted to keep things interesting, if not a little creepy, why not add some H.P. Lovecraft? There's a perfect example of a prolix writer who uses way too many synonyms for "grotesque". There are so many great novels post-1500s and yet that's where we seem to be stuck on!

I am Here

I have made some progress towards my SMART goal, but in all honesty, not a lot. I have never been one to set goals, as I tend to forget them, and this case is no different. While I try to prep up for college, it's still difficult to combine that with trying to maintain a classroom environment. I feel you can't have both: a class designed to prep you for college and one intended to teach you everything for a test. It simply leads to a Frankenstein monster of a class that has no real direction, and doesn't do either objective really well. So, in short, I feel like I'm in a rut.

Lit Terms 57-82

Genre - a category or class of artistic endeavor having a particular form, technique, or content.

Gothic Tale - a style in literature characterized by gloomy settings, violent or grotesque action, and a mood of decay, degeneration, and decadence.

Hyperbole - an exaggerated statement often used as a figure of speech or to prove a point.

Imagery - figures of speech or vivid description, conveying images through any of the senses.

Implication - a meaning or understanding that is to be arrive at by the reader but that is not fully and explicitly stated by the author.

Incongruity - the deliberate joining of opposites or of elements that are not appropriate to each other.

Inference - a judgement or conclusion based on evidence presented; the forming of an opinion which possesses some degree of probability according to facts already available.

 Skip to 7:32

Irony - a contrast or incongruity between what is said and what is meant, or what is expected to happen and what actually happens, or what is thought to be happening and what is actually happening.

Interior Monologue - a form of writing which represents the inner thoughts of a character; the recording of the internal, emotional experience(s) of an individual; generally the reader is given the impression of overhearing the interior monologue.

Inversion - words out of order for emphasis.

Juxtaposition - the intentional placement of a word, phrase, sentences of paragraph to contrast with another nearby.

Lyric - a poem having musical form and quality; a short outburst of the author’s innermost thoughts and feelings.

Magic(al) Realism -  a genre developed in Latin America which juxtaposes the everyday  with the marvelous or magical.

Metaphor(extended, controlling, and mixed) - an analogy that compare two different things imaginatively.

See: Imagery

Metonymy -  literally “name changing” a device of figurative language in which the name of an attribute or associated thing is substituted for the usual name of a thing.

Mode of Discourse -  argument (persuasion), narration, description, and exposition.

Modernism -  literary movement characterized by stylistic experimentation, rejection of tradition, interest in symbolism and psychology

Monologue:  an extended speech by a character in a play, short story, novel, or narrative poem.

"And what does he do?"
"He starts monologuing! He starts like, this prepared speech about how *feeble* I am compared to him, how *inevitable* my defeat is, how *the world* WILL SOON BE HIS! Yada yada yada. I mean, the guy has me on a platter, and he won't shut up."
Mood -  the predominating atmosphere evoked by a literary piece.

Motif - a recurring feature (name, image, or phrase) in a piece of literature.

Myth -  a story, often about immortals, and sometimes connected with religious rituals, that attempts to give meaning to the mysteries of the world.

Narrative -  a story or description of events.

Narrator -  one who narrates, or tells, a story.

Naturalism - extreme form of realism.

Novelette/Novella - short story; short prose narrative, often satirical.

Lit Terms 31-56

Dialect - the language of a particular district, class or group of persons; the sounds, grammar, and diction employed by people distinguished from others

Dialectics - formal debates usually over the nature of truth

Dichotomy - split or break between two opposing things

Diction - the style of speaking or writing as reflected in the choice and use of words

Didactic - having to do with the transmission of information; education

Dogmatic - rigid in beliefs and principles

Elegy - a mournful, melancholy poem, especially a funeral song or lament for the dead, sometimes contains general reflections on death, often with a rural or pastoral setting

Epic - a long narrative poem unified by a hero who reflects the customs, mores, and aspirations of his nation of race as he makes his way through legendary and historic exploits, usually over a long period of time (definition bordering on circumlocution)

Epigram - witty aphorism

Epitaph - any brief inscription in prose or verse on a tombstone; a short formal poem of commemoration often a credo written by the person who wishes it to be on his tombstone

Epithet - a short, descriptive name or phrase that  may insult someone’s character, characteristics

Euphemism - the use of an indirect, mild or vague word or expression for one thought to be coarse, offensive, or blunt

Evocative - a calling forth of memories and sensations; the suggestion or production through artistry and imagination of a sense of reality

Exposition - beginning of a story that sets forth facts, ideas, and/or characters, in a detailed explanation

Expressionism - movement in art, literature, and music consisting of unrealistic representation of an inner idea or feeling(s)

Fable - a short, simple story, usually with animals as characters, designed to teach a moral truth

Fallacy - from Latin word “to deceive”, a false or misleading notion, belief, or argument; any kind of erroneous reasoning that makes arguments unsound

Falling Action - part of the narrative or drama after the climax

Farce - a boisterous comedy involving ludicrous action and dialogue

Figurative Language - apt and imaginative language characterized by figures of speech (such as metaphor and simile

Flashback - a narrative device that flashes back to prior events

Foil - a person or thing that, by contrast, makes another seem better or more prominent

Folk Tale - story passed on by word of mouth

Foreshadowing - in fiction and drama, a device to prepare the reader for the outcome of the action; “planning” to make the outcome convincing, though not to give it away

Free Verse - verse without conventional metrical pattern, with irregular pattern or no rhyme