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Weekly Reflection 3

The transcendence is one of the central themes in which the manga Hikaru no Go centers. Most of the character develop through transcendence specially the three main characters: Hikaru, Sai and Akira.

Sai, a ghost from a very far away past who is an expert in Go, at first wants to focus on reaching the divine move when he meets Hikaru. Later on he starts realizing that there is something more important which is to mentor Hikaru into becoming an excellent Go player. The plot leads Sai into discovering that his purpose is not exactly to reach the divine move by himself but to help others reach it or at least let them being able to teach other generations so that they can reach it.

I think other themes in Hikaru no Go may be solidarity and persistence for what you are passionate about. Hikaru and Sai were both a bit selfish with each other, both want to play Go and reach their own goals but then realize that they must let the other develop and be more solidarious. This teamwork is also seen more at the end, where Hikaru, Akira and Yashiro support each other, specially between Akira and Hikaru, who both learn to recognize the talents of the other and accept their rivalry in other to improve and reach the divine move with the other.

I think personally, the persistence is what stayed with me the most. Hikaru is so persistent and disciplined such as Akira. The plot happens in very large time lapse of years, and these characters are as passionate at Go as they were when they started playing it. They don’t give up (well, Hikaru does give up after Sai disappears, but still he makes a comeback to Go), and are always willing to improve.

[literature10091960]

Weekly Reflection 1

So far in this semester we have learnt about cinematographic language. As I am very interested in film, I already knew a lot of what the teacher explained us about composition, shots, angles, however I think it was good for me to retake this concepts so I could remember them better. The way I watch movies did not change very much with what we saw in class, however, I am keen to talk how my vision of films has changed through the time.

At first I thought filmmaking was just about telling stories. I was amazed with the worlds and situations you could get into by just watching a movie. Later on I started to learn about the storytelling devices that are commonly used in filmmaking, Still I was scratching the surface of how I conceive movies nowadays.

Learning about storytelling devices I was led into the other crafts that are needed in order to make a film. I learnt how to edit, how does cinematography works, what does an art director is in charge of, etc. I started watching more films, and realized that the are many ways a filmmaker is able to tell a story by experimenting with the elements that make it possible.

I took some workshops with the objective of expanding my film knowledge. I went to some acting classes, then to film appreciation classes (where I watched Andy Warhol’s films… ugh… but also very eye opening ones like Maya Deren’s Meshes of the Afternoon). One of the most important workshops I went to was the Direct Cinema one. There I started to watch cinema as some kind of art capable of way many things than just telling a story. By that time I read Walter Benjamin’s “The work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction” and felt awestruck from the revelation I got. Film was no longer just a device to tell a story, but rather a medium of perception. The way something is perceived through the camera and the edition was the art itself rather than what was recorded. I started watching films as an experience containing ideas and no longer just stories.

Because of what I just have explained, I am not keen in comparing how literature and film tell stories in their most efficient way. Try comparing how Dvorak’s New World Symphony is able to tell a story with David Friedrich’s Stages Of Life, I can’t find sense in that since it is quite obvious both work in pretty different ways. One is through sound and the other through sight. The same way film and literature work under different rules. Film is an audiovisual medium, and literature is done through words.

[literature10091960]

Weekly reflection 6

Heart of Darkness, by Joseph Conrad, is a novella that encloses the brutality of  human nature in the context of the European colonialism journey into an allegory to the human condition and moral consciousness. Through the novella, we found some specific moments in which we empathize with the actions of the characters even though these actions are correct, right, bad or wrong; the position in which the reader perceives the actions are directly influenced by the way it is written, so in Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad emphasizes the presence of darkness using sensorial resources through rhetorical devices such as imagery for alluding to the human condition.

The essence of being a human being is subverted by showing how the common Western ideas of what humanity means are actually contradictory when put into action. Conrad also had the ability to introduce all these ideas by using elements that are sensorially perceived and imbuing giving them with a significance. He wrote about how civilization is uncivilized, and how as humans in a human context are actually entering into a void of fog,- of anthropological ignorance. With all said before, this is how Hearts of Darkness is able to exhibit the irony of men and their lack of self-awareness by the way humans perceive their own reality,- in a sensorial manner.

[literature10091960]

Weekly reflection 5

Heart Of Darkness, by Joseph Conrad, is a literary work that breaks into the dark side of humanity. The story is about a sailor, called Marlowe, who travels in a marvel trade expedition to the Congo during its colonial era. In this novel, Conrad, outs Imperialism hypocrisy, by contrasting the morals of London society and the brutality that was used in the Congo colonization. It represented through the character of Mr. Kurtz, who is was a man of accumulated reputation in England and was very respected by the company men. However, this man exploited the Africans and was a personification of the European capital interests.

The presence of fog is another symbolism that represents the smoke and mirrors game that the powerful people make for manipulating others and not letting know about their wrongdoings.

[literature10091960]

Weekly Reflection 4

Structuralism is a form of analysing literary texts that focus on how the author creates code for the readers to understand certain message. The structuralist analysis could be made considering different factors contained in the story, such as the codes, literariness, conventions, naturalization, opposites, etc. For example, last week I read William Wilson and analysed it in a structuralist form. By reading carefully it can be noticed that there are constants which show a code with the purpose of creating a constant opposition between the narrator and his double. The things in which both are different are the ones having to do with the morally right and wrong actions. While the narrator sticks to wrong doings, the double functions as an opposition to him by boycotting the wrong doings as also advising him to be more prudent. This is accentuated when the narrator starts despising him each time more and more. So this duality draws stronger with the codification Poe builds with each symbol alluding to this.

This way of analysing is different from others, because it is based completely on the idea that language is a code and therefore any literary text has within itself a codification. Structuralism doesn’t analyse the code of a text, but rather the way it is constructed. This is important because it allows a point of view in which the use of language of the author as a code is recognized and lets the opportunity to be conscious about the thinking process of him.

[literature10091960]

Weekly Reflection 3

Edgar Allan Poe’s short stories are characterized by the way he describes the ambient, the sensation, the places, and the characters, so that it is makes the readers biased to perceive the text in a specific form. In the case of Hop Frog, this especially happens with the description of characters. We can notice that the characters have very different qualities between themselves. In one instance there is Hop-Frog, who a jester dwarf and that is also disabled. Then there is the king and the seven ministers, who are grotesquely big and chubby. By comparing both kinds of characters, we get the feel about who is the one that has the control and power over the other, and who is the one who is subdued to this. With this we can tell why it is important to put on attention over how the characters are described, because these descriptions are actually in the text, for the purpose of giving roles information.

The whole description of Hop-Frog and the king, is the one that makes us finally decide whether Hop-Frog’s actions where justifiable or not. In the text we are told that that Hop-Frog has a disability that makes him unable to walk normally and without pain, this has an impact on the way his actions are judged. The king has an abusive behaviour over Hop-Frog and trippetta are there are also hints about how Hop-Frog and Trippetta were taken from their village to serve as an amusement to the king. So the disability part makes us cringe on the circumstances that Hop-Frog has to endure despite his difficulty to walk. So by now we think the proportions of the king’s abusive and unfair power Hop-Frog. So when Hop-Frog commits his vengeance it is not quite as we think he is being completely evil, but thank he is thinking he is making life a little bit fair.

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Reflective statement

We are reading My Name Is Red, written by Orhan Pamuk. By making the oral activity, I learned many things that helped me understand better my reading of this novel.

First of all I made an investigation about Orhan Pamuk’s life. I got to know that he was a very important Turkish writer, who wanted at the beginning to become an artist, then studied journalism and finally decided to only work as a writer his entire life. I also learnt that he has always lived in his house in Istanbul. Orhan Pamuk is well known for writing novels that represent Turkish culture in a very detailed way, while making protest of the atrocities lived in his country. But this description of own culture is made in a sort of in love way, highlighting the uniqueness of the culture. I could notice this even better by knowing Pamuk’s intense love for his city that could be easily noticed by his permanent residence in his own city. A lot of detail in the description of the streets also spills this fact.

A lot of references to the Islam, the predominant religion in Turkey, are also mentioned.

We also saw in class the different types of narrative structures. It was nice to be able to identify this different ways of telling a story, but right now, I am just going to focus in My Name Is Red. My Name Is Red is a novel with a collage structure. This means his narrative centres in a specific event, which is in this case the aftermath of a murder. What makes the collage structure different is that this event is told from different points of view. Some chapters are narrated by the murderer, others by the murdered one, and even some arte narrated form the point of view of animals and things.

[literature10091960]

End Term Reflection

During this term I learnt several things, not only literary stuff but also things as an IB student.

We read Dante Alighieri’s The Divine Comedy. That is why we had to learn about poetry and rhetoric figures. We analysed the rhetoric figures in Dante’s and therefore upgraded our understanding of it. There were some rhetoric figures that were more kind of technical such as the rhythm of the poem. Others were more of content like the allegories. I acknowledged the importance of the rhetoric figures in The Divine Comedy, as it was infested with them. For understanding those allegories we needed to know about Dante’s context. We investigated about poets from his time and also the previous ones to him. A lot of information about Greek mythology came out with this. Another important task was to include in our analysis Dante’s political issues in his natal city: Florence. All this process made me realize the important to know the most of subjects surrounding a literary work as possible, so the understanding of it can be a better one.

I learnt to improve essays and a lot about narrators in a literary work. This two mixed also helped me reinforce my knowledge as an IB student.

During class, the matter of values was also discussed. We got done some definitions of a lot of values such as respect, responsibility, liberty, among others. It was a nice thing to do, because we can improve our work as students and as human beings by knowing these fundamental things. Now I am more conscious about the values in my life and my IB works as student.