Last Lit Blog-Haroun

Judging from the title of this unit, “Relevance”, and how simple a read Haroun and the Sea of Stories was, I can make two acceptable assumptions. The first is that this book contained a plethora of hero and heroism aspects which we have studied thus far. This being the fact that Haroun has many call to actions, trials, and other journey steps. In addition, this book contained, at least, mentioned a female hero, a heroine. This was Blabbermouth, who said that a woman cannot have power unless they pretend to be a man. This book contained a lot of concepts that were ‘relevant’ to the Hero Unit as a whole, which is my second assumption of why we saved this book for last. It was a clear read, and almost every idea or hero-type connection was easy to notice. It’s a good book to wrap up any loose ends or questions we may have about Heros, because this book contains the answers to those questions. Though simple and fairly easy to read, Haroun and the Sea of Stories contained a lot we can learn from.

If everything I have said so far is in fact not any of the reasons why we should end with a story like this, then I do not have a clue as to why things happened this way.

The Female Hero

Blabbermouth says that women cannot be heros because of the stereotypes that people give them. For the most part, this is true. People do stereo type the typical female hero, especially in recent movies such as Elektra and Watchmen.

In both representations of the original comics, the female heroes are sexy and wear revealing outfits. Elektra wears a skin tight red leather suit, and both Silk Spectres from Watchmen, again, wear skin tight leather. These and most of other movies portray the female heros as these women who kick ass and look good while they do it. From all the advertising that these hero movies pay for, it seems that the main attraction is not the fact that their heroine has might and all other heroic values. They seem to value the fact that their representation of a certain heroine is a sexy woman.

Where I think Blabbermouth is wrong is when she says that girls cannot be strong or heroic because of stereotypes. The stereotypes they have is just an added quality that goes along with being heroic. Elektra and the Silk Spectres, as they were represented in the movies, were not any less mighty or heroic than any other male heros. The directors now just have to add in the sexy factor.

Comment on the underground man’s actions. How is acting here in relationship to the claims he made in Part 1?

Through part 1, we are able to understand the underground man, and how he is a man of acute consciousness. He never actually takes action. A man of acute consciousness does not need to take action. He fondles the idea of what would happen if he did take action and every consequence otherwise, but never does anything. He will eventually come to the conclusion that his actions are inevitably meaningless. Part 2 of the book is quite different, because here he gives us his account of events in his life in which he actually does something. He also tells us that he will give us the complete truth of what happened to him years ago.

Part two begins with the underground man at age 24, where he becomes jealous of a man who gets thrown out of a bar window. He too wants to get thrown out of a window, because at least then people would acknowledge his existence. After this is the confrontation with a police officer who shoves him aside as if he were never there. This makes him even angrier, because he immediately begins tearing this event to shreds inside his anti-social mind. He wanted revenge on this police officer, and he eventually gets it by later bumping into the police man's shoulder hard enough so that he notices the underground man.

The immediate difference I notice between the underground man's actions in part2 and the claims he made in part1 is that while he seems to be the 21 year old version of himself he act upon his thoughts. At age 40, he is stuck in a state of chronic thought, which leads to no action. His recount of his early 20's shows us that he is still a man of acute consciousness except for the part about never taking action. He thinks about every little thing that happens; however, some of his thought bother him to the point where he reacts to those thoughts. For example, he react to his old school friends at dinner when they make fun of him. He feels the need for revenge, and eventually gets it by slapping Zverkov. In part 1 the underground man claims that he will be honest in his recount of his former life, and thus far I think he has been true to his word.

Othello 2

• I feel sympathy towards all the characters except Iago. I feel the most sorrow for Othello, because of all the people Iago manipulated, it was worse with him. He instilled suspicion, jealousy, anger, and in the end grief into Othello. He drove him mad untill he destroyed the people he most loved and eventually his own life too. Ealier in the play Othello said that he would have rather not known about Desdemona’s affairs and continued living with the love he knew. Othello being the man he is had to kill Cassio and Desdemona so he planned to do so. On top of the grief of knowing that his wife has been cheating, Othello finds out, after he strangled Desdemona, that his whole love rage was false. In the end, he couldn’t live with so much grief and dishonor, so he took his life. I could not imagine going through all of that, thinking that you are doing the right thing, and then finding out that it was all a lie. The natural reactino to a play like this is to be angry ith Iago for setting everything up the way he did. However, he too was plagued by his emotions. Iago was filled with hatred toward so many people, and that alone had to be hard to live with. His anger and jealousy caused him to set Othello, Cassio, Roderigo, and Desdemona up. I do feel pity for Desdemona and Cassio; more so for Desdemona because she dies. In the end, Casio lost his reputation, honor, job, and endured a stab wound. Desdemona had to deal with the pressure of accusation, and those accusation brought upon her death. I can think of events similar to this, though not as extreme, but I would rather not blog about it.

Othello Act 2 Scene i-ii

Iago’s plan is to manipulate Roderigo, Cassio, Othello, and the townspeople/guards to his favor. He has brainwashed Roderigo to do and believe whatever he says. Iago has also led Othello to believe that he can be trusted simply because he appears to be an honest man. Iago plans to use Roderigo’s love for Desdemona to trick him into believing that Cassio is in love with her. Iago will also say bad things about Cassio to Othello to lead him into believing that Cassio is a untrustworthy and lustful man. If all goes according to plan, Othello will fire Cassio and hire Iago. In the beginning of act 2 we also find out they Iago plans to sleep with Desdemona to get back at Othello for supposedly sleeping with Emilia.

At the end of Act 2 Scene 3 all seems to be going according to Iago’s plan. By insulting women in the beginning of scene 2, he caused Cassio to whisper with Desdemona and hold her hand. To most, what Cassio did with Desdemona would be perceived as being a gentlemen; however, to those under the influence of Iago’s will, it would appear as lust. Roderigo is one of those people. He now believes that Cassio loves Desdemona and the only way to her is to get him out of the way. Iago’s plan has only begun and it seems that it will follow through. I still have doubt, though. I believe that Iago is underestimating and overlooking Othello’s greatness, and that in the end Othello will see right through Iago’s plotting and evil deeds.