Adventures in Comp II

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Blog Week XI

           This week there have been some crazy events that have taken place in our glorious country. Even though some people were not happy about the outcome, that doesn’t mean school was not a priority (unless you’re weak), which means that we pressed on with gaining knowledge of the Iranian culture, and learned a bit more about their history. In class we have started watching a show with world renowned Chef, Anthony Bourdain as he takes a trip through Iranian cities and experiences the food and culture from the locals and the people who have decided to live there from other countries. It is shown that the people who live in the major cities especially, the way they live their lives is actually based on three different cultures melded together, being traditional Iranian, Western, and Islamic. This happened because of the turbulence of their social and political structure over the past several decades. The complications that they have ran into have been because at first they were greatly influenced by the West, because the Shah had been loyal and had ties with France and Brittan at the time, followed by him being overthrown and replaced by the Ayatollah who instilled a strict Islamic rule heavily dictated by the Quran, and instituted some classic Persian (ancient Iranian) culture as well. This has blended the people to live their lives a bit differently than what is commonly believed by other cultures. The people are actually quite pleasant individuals who don’t shame, or use outright hatred towards anyone who is not like them. There are however, a fearful nature to the common people, because there is a group of people known as the Basij, who are people with no authoritative power, yet they go out looking around for people being “slightly” rebellious, such as women not having their headdresses on all the way, or they dying their hair, or even talking about certain parts of the country and culture to people from the outside, rat them out to the police and have them arrested while gaining small rewards for their actions. Their world is much different than ours, but ideologies are hard to change, so until there is any real reform, or another revolution, that will be the way the Iranian people will have to live their lives.

 Until next time my good people!

[obscuredtuna]

Week X

This week we are reading over the book Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi. As I stated last week, it is a story about our author and the world around her during the Iranian revolution. We can tell early on in the story that there are very different points of view where it comes to who’s side people are on for who should have power and how conservative they should be in regards to religion. If we take a look early on in the book, we see a very divided group of women who are arguing over rather or not that they should wear their religious headpieces (5, Setrapi). The head piece is called a Hijab, which is meant to cover the woman’s head, but still have her face be visible and in plain view. Since many women were on the side of the Shah (ruler before the end of the revolution) they were more westernized and believed in those causes, whereas the people who were supporting the Ayatollah (ruler after the Shah was overthrown) were hardcore religious conservatives and took the Quran very seriously. As the book goes on it is seen that with such a break in social standing due to lines of loyalty being skewed from who they believe to be the best ruler of Iran, which leads to mass social unrest and many more problems in peoples day to day lives. I will continue on this story in next week’s update!

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Week IX

This week we all got to experience the pure joy of having Dr. Jeremy Cook give us a nice informative lecture over Islam, and the Middle East, since we are now reading a book taking place during the Iran/Iraq War. Let’s start with a little bit of history; as some people do not know, the country of Iran has not always been known that way. If you have watched the movie “300”, you will recall that the Spartans fought against the Persians. Well, Persia was the old name for this country, but it was changed to Iran in 1935, because their King, Shah Pahlavi was a dedicated Muslim who wanted to make a stake and assert his authority to the people that their country would be an Islamic nation. The events that led up to the book was a massive power shift in 1979, when the Shah of Iran (who was attempting to westernize the country and had very good ties to England and the USA) was overthrown and exiled, and Ayatollah Khomeini seized power to bring Iran back to its conservative and strong Islamic values. When this occurred, an Iraqi dictator by the name of Sodom Hussein saw the uprising as a threat to his power, and that the people would attempt to overthrow his as well, because he was not of Shi’a faith, unlike the majority of the Iraq and the rest of the Middle East. To squash any attempt at an uprising, he invaded Iran so he could rally the Iraqi people against a common enemy, and he would be seen as a strong leader for Iraq. Those are the main events leading up to the book Persepolis, by Marjane Satrapi. I will elaborate more on the book in next weeks post.

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Week VIII

Blog Week VIII

           This week we are still reading the graphic novel The Sandman by author Neil Gaiman, and it for sure has been an interesting and enjoyable ride through the supernatural side of the human experience.   Throughout everything, we have ventured into people psyches, into the inner thoughts of people, and even ventured into the dark abyss of Hell. As we have gone through the adventure that Morphius he has been captured through a ritual, and was imprisoned for quite some time. We have seen him escape and find ways to put things back in order after his absence. Not to spoil the ending, but when things start to come to a close, and as a trend that I have noticed throughout the entire story, Dream likes to take part in things that everyday normal people do. A very cool incident that happened in the final chapter is that Dream met Death. She is a very curious individual, she digs into dreams mind, and he finally admits how he feel about the loss of his ruby, and it is not of pain, or anger “I feel like nothing” is what he tells us (The Sound of Her Wings, Gaiman). This shows that Dream is almost human, just with additional properties and responsibilities. The ending shows a different side, and helps to add intrigue to the story, and actually makes me want to continue the series. Until next week my friends...

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Week VI

This week in class we started a new graphic novel again, but this time the book it very much for the older crowd. Sandman by Neil Gaiman is a story set in a town called Wych, England in 1916, where a man by the name of John Hathaway is stricken with grief over the loss of his son in The Great War (World War I). in this state, he goes to a man by the name of Roderick Burgess to try and find a way to bring his son back from beyond the veil. Here we are introduced to the concept and the idea of death, and sleep being one and the same. As we venture farther, you will find pagan and occultist themes that lead us to believe that our concept of death is actually a being who has been known for centuries, but just by different names depending on the culture. In the story, we see death face to face, but he is covered in sand. Death being a dark entity, it something some are afraid of, but as we read on, we must think of the possibility that there are things worse than death. “Here in the darkness” is what is said when summoning the Sandman, which is a great lead on to how dark and powerful he truly is, especially when we take  a look at the backdrop of the page and see how everything around the people becomes void of light and meaning (Sleep of the just, Gaiman, Keith et al.) These types of events intrigue me greatly, and I look forward to reading on and giving you more information as the story progresses.

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Week V

This week in class we watched a Japanese animated film called Graveyard Fireflies, which takes us on a story of a young boy and his very young sister during the last few weeks of World War II. As we follow the two, we can get a feel for how rough life was for the common people of Imperial Japan, when America was in the final winning strokes of the war. We notice that there are extreme ration practices that take place, which take quite a toll on the people, because as time goes on the food supply gets more scarce. While the movie does provide an informative message, some of it is displayed in ways that are not very common in animated movies. There are several scenes that are quite morbid. For instance, you see their mother towards the beginning of the movie after a bombing raid, where she was caught in a blaze, and was horribly burned from head to toe; only you can’t tell it is her, because she is completely bandaged. As the movie goes on, it does get a bit more intense, but I will let you go watch it for yourselves. When it comes to who had everything drawn out, you can see very vibrant colors and great detail in two very important sets of objects; the food and anything having to do with the military, regardless of the side. This highlights what were the most influential, and most life changing factors that the people came into contact with, rather they helped sustain life, or take it away. I would say this was a fairly enjoyable movie, and I would recommend it to anyone looking for a first had feel of what life was like at that time, but just be prepared for something you may find uncomfortable to hear, or see.

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Week IV Blog

As I take up where we left off last week, I have gained a bit more of an understanding of the graphic novel Fruits basket and I am a bit more in a positive mind set. There has been some fantastic illustrations that help put a lot of detail into the story, which I honestly wasn’t too sure about, because at first glance, this novel does seem a bit to laced in fantasy, and with it being focused on young girls (age 11-13 I assume). The way that the it shows how someone really feels in regards to feeling anger, happiness, or even frustration is very well illustrated, where as it is not necessarily overwhelming, but there can be hints of subtlety. There is a decent example of subtle frustration in the cite (3, 4 Takaya). There are other great examples of the way emotion really play out into the story of the novel as you go along. So far, I would actually recommend this to anyone who is the slightest bit interested in manga. While it is not traditional for Americans like myself, It still tells a story that can be somewhat relatable to a vast amount of people. After this, I may even look into my work by Natsuki Takaya, just to expand on what is not quite the norm for my society.

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“Fruit Basket” Case

This week, I’ll be talking a bit about the graphic Japanese novel “Fruits Basket” by Takaya Natsuki. When I first cracked the cover of this book there was a bit of an embarrassing incident that took place. Unfortunately, I had forgotten that the way the Japanese write things down is not at all the same as it is done in English, so I feel foolish for that. After that fiasco though, I started to read this story, and I’m not completely sure what to make of it. As I have never read manga before, I am still not completely on board with it, but there are some parts that are interesting. For instance, it is not set in reality, because there is this young girl who lives in a tent in the park, because her mom died, and she believes that no harm will come to her. Now if this is just youthful ignorance or the story just being farther into fantasy than I thought before is yet to be seen. Not only that, but when people hug in a tight embrace, they transform into the animal that they are on the Zodiak. This whole story has me a little confused, but we’ll see where this goes in the coming days, and I’ll check back in on the story next week.

 Until Next Time

-Kyle

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Unsounded, a graphic novel by Ashley Cope, is an epic tale following a youngster named Sette, who is quite a head-strong and precocious child,  while she is sent off to complete a task given to her by her Father (Da), while she is accompanied by a “zombie” by the name of Duane. Yes, I know, this all seems a bit out of the ordinary, but that is what can make a fantasy story so great, is that parts of the story that may not be real in the world we live in, but we can all still enjoy the plot, relate to characters, and just enjoy the adventure as it unfolds. Something that has had me wondering though is why is Duane a zombie in the first place? The way it looks to me, is that from the storyline thus far, Duane has possibly done some very questionable things in his past, which might have been morally ambiguous. Meaning, to relate to someone in real life, he is not physically dead, but more, dead inside and feels a great weight on his conscience, which would be why he is fighting so hard to protect Sette, and other children he meets in their travels. An example of this would be in the second chapter, where Duane is having what might be a flashback to an event that happened long before they arrived, and Duane sees this girl on a stone table, surrounded by black eels, and she has a terrible abdominal wound. “No one sould have to die of plagues, illness, or hurts” (2-58, Cope). That quote is the girl on the table telling Duane that people shouldn’t have to die is such a horrible manner, and while Duane does try to save her, she passes, and he holds her body in his arms, because he feels great sadness that he could not stop what was inevitable. Something else that has had me wondering, is why does Sette have a tail? The best answer I can think of is that it is symbolic to show that she is wild and untamed, like an animal. Throughout the story so far, she does what she wants, without taking into consideration what the outside effects will be. I would not be surprised though, if later on in the book, that she will learn to be humble, and considerate of the world around her, where she will lose her tail to showcase this.

           This graphic novel is something quite special in the messages that are portaed so far on the adventure that we are just strapping in for, and we don’t know where Sette and Duane’s lives are going to take them. I am excited to press on with this story, and find out just how far either of them is willing to go to complete their mission, and I will make sure to keep you up to date on their whereabouts.