#6 Golly Mr. Swift

                                  

                                      Response to Swift

The exploding population of the impoverished in 18^th century Ireland caused many to search for answers; one of the more popular proposals was made by Dr. Jonathan Swift. Passing by begging mothers flanked by a half dozen children was a sight all too common. Seeing such misery could negatively alter the mood of any passing lord. Thankfully Dr. Swift was a man of vision and came up with a solution that would be beneficial to all involved. The impoverished masses could become useful providers of goods, in the form of their young delicious babies. Swift saw human offspring as a useful untapped resource. The primary usefulness as delicacy for those with refined palates, second the fine soft leather could be used for exquisite gloves and boots. This would improve the station of the impoverished by providing a steady income to fertile women and preventing their mistreatment out of fear of harming their stock.

Swift’s suggestion despite being very persuasive is most certainly not meant to be taken seriously. He is trying to compare the treatment of the impoverished to that of livestock. His goal is to rub the land owners' noses in the inhumane way they treat their fellow man. Seeing the absurdist comparison of treating humans as livestock could potentially cause the lords to think a bit deeper about how they should treat other people.

His suggestion is very logical. He has many examples of this kind of solution being used by others in the past. A long list of potential positives outcomes are clearly outlined, and the only thing that truly stands in the way of this being a very persuasive proposal is morality. The example of the man from the island Formosa (now known as Taiwan) telling the story of how when young people were executed their meat was sold as a delicacy, is both an example and an insult. Comparing lords in Ireland to savages in a far east pacific island was probably very effective at a time when xenophobia was still very much alive.

If you have been persuaded by Dr. Swifts proposal you might find the following link on proper preparation of human meat useful.

http://www.churchofeuthanasia.org/e-sermons/butcher.html

Rhetorical Analysis.

This advertisement is super effective. The tone is similar to an action movie. It uses amazing lightning effects and intense music to catch the viewers’ attention. The narrator speaks with the confidence of a man who has survived in the wilderness and fought off many packs of wolves and at least fifteen sasquatches. Any skepticism about the knife is quickly dismissed as the first thing you see is a tree getting stabbed. I have no idea what 420 molecular steel is but it sounds pretty extreme.  The perks of the knife alone seem too good to be true. Before you can get over how amazing the knife is the grizzled narrator lets you know it has a compass built in to the handle, so you will never be lost as long as you keep this beast at your side. At this point the viewer is probably putting a loan out against their home so they can afford this monster; the narrator seems to sense this and quickly lets you know that it is only ten dollars.

The message this commercial is trying to get across is more of a question. ”do you want to survive?” This should appeal to the majority of people. It takes great pains to show you all the ways this knife can help you pick a fight with nature, and come out the other side with air in your lungs. The reaction expected was for every human that has a desire to keep on living to pick up their phone and order several dozen of these knives, insuring the future of mankind.

ROUGH DRAFT!

                              Here is my rough draft. I need to beef it up a bit and work on the conclusion but any harsh criticisms would be greatly appreciated. 

                                                             Bartleby the inner demon

                        Herman Melville’s Bartleby the Scrivener is the story of lawyer who hires an employee that refuses to work after a few days. The lawyer feels pity for the man and has a difficult time letting him go. It can be said that the narrator from Bartleby the Scrivener isn’t trying to get rid of an unruly employee but trying to get rid of his own grim outlook of the future. Bartleby’s refusal to continue working and unwillingness to change is a reflection of how the narrator feels about his station in life. His attempts to rid himself of Bartleby is actually his inner struggle with depression and monotony. Bartleby is a thought, a thought so peculiar that the narrator is unsure why he has had it.

                        The thoughts that run through the heads of men vary wildly. Sometimes the thoughts that run through an individual’s mind can vary just as much. Indecision  can be described as a man’s thoughts struggling against eachother. Thoughts can have character, they can appear from nowhere, a thought can lay dormant and arise only when the mind is in the perfect position. It is not hard to see Bartleby the character as Bartleby the thought. The narrator struggles with this thought and believes there may be truth in it. The thought is small yet poignant, it catches the narrator off guard. He did not want to have this thought but after it occurs it is difficult to forget.

                        While the narrator describes himself as an elderly man Bartleby is said to be young. The first appearance of Bartleby is described as “pallidly neat, pitiably respectable, incurably forlorn!”(15). This could be because the feeling of monotony and meaninglessness is a new idea that has crept into the mind of the narrator. The narrator claims to have a profound conviction that the easiest way of life is the best (4). This says that recently his work is proving more trouble than it is worth. The first time Bartleby says “I would prefer not to” The narrator describes performing a task that leads one to believe it has been done many times before (18). This is Bartleby the thought coming forth for the first time, the narrator questioning what he does for a living. The disbelief in what the narrator has just heard is his own denial of the thought that he has just had. He tries to deny the fact that that thought has even crossed his mind and reflects on it. He tries to purge the idea as nonsense but dwells on the question he has no answer for. Would the narrator prefer not to continue the job he had chosen many years ago? A job he chose for its lack of stress and relative reclusiveness. He chose a job where he could be alone with his thoughts.

                        Most people have struggled with a thought at some point in their life. The thought of how things could have been different had they chosen a different path or how things could be different tomorrow if they change right now. The narrator is struggling with the thought of why. Why does he continue to write these documents that the majority of people will see as worthless after a short period of time, papers that most won’t understand or ever see at all? Barleby’s appeareance happens at point in the narrators life when he has taken on more of a work load than he his used to. The frustration of being buried under paperwork causes him to wonder about the nature of the documents he is toiling over. This happens only after a few days of working hard and seeing little improvement. The young, silent and lonely image he has conjured to help him get through the new workload soon turns into a roadblock that causes him to stop and wonder about how sad and lonely his life would be if he had to continue to work like this. He feels as if he has been trapped in a brick building with no human contact and bent over a desk. At first this thought only haunts the narrator when he is at his place of work. “As yet I had never of my personal knowledge known him to be outside of my office” (23). As he is out enjoying himself and living his life outside of his work, Bartleby waits in the corner of his office for him to return.

                        Why is it the narrator has so much trouble getting rid of this idea? He lets it out and tells others about it to get their opinion on it and presumably so he can see the absurdity of it.

             

Bartleby more than a little luny

                                        See page for author [Public domain or Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

                             “"I think, sir, he's a little luny," replied Ginger Nut with a grin”(22).

• This passage pretty much summed up exactly how I feel about the Bartleby character, I could hear this quote every time the story focused heavily on Bartleby's actions. The twelve year old errand boy Ginger Nut has a better grasp on the mental capacities of the grim Bartleby than the narrator. The other characters are well defined and lively, a stark contrast to the lifeless titular scrivener. While the descriptions of the other characters lead one to believe they are also a bit looney, their eccentric qualities pale in comparison to the growing malaise of Bartleby. The story begins with a humorous and lively tone and spirals into despair and darkness after the appearance of Bartleby. Bartleby is a leach that sucks the life and joy out of the complacent narrator. The depressing demeanor of Bartleby is as infectous as his catchphrase “prefer”. As the other men begin to unconsciously quote him while performing their daily tasks the color of their character begins to melt away and the only focus is of the charitable narrator’s inability to deal with this negative force that has invaded his life. The narrator who tries in several ways to help this miserable character, seems to realize that there is clearly something wrong with this man but can’t understand that his mind works in such a vastly different way than his own. Bartleby sees futility in copying the documents that will surely end up at the position he once held at the dead letters department. The narrator realizes this connection after Bartleby has taken his own life and finally understands that Bartleby refused to alter his position because in his mind he was fully aware of where he would end up.

  
  

  

  By Moses King (King's handbook of New York City, 2nd ed. 1893) [Public domain], via    Wikimedia Commons
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Learning more about Herman Melville and the time he lived in can help understand quite a bit about Bartleby the Scrivener. This link is a pretty in depth look at the life and works of Melville.
                       http://www.melville.org/
  
  
  

  If you were wondering about the Colt and Adams characters that the narrator mentions in the story give the following link a click. It is a very interesting tale of a notorious murder that happened several years before Bartleby the Scrivener was published.

  
  
  
  
          The Corpse in the Shipping Crate
  
  

The joy of explosions, explaining summary vs. analysis

                                     By U.S. Navy photo by Photographer’s Mate 2nd Class Aaron Peterson. [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Many of the best things in life involve explosions. Some even say Life itself was caused by an explosion. When a violent reaction happens between certain chemicals heat, noise and pressure is released. When driving a car a steady stream of explosions is creating the mechanical force that pushes the vehicle forward. A summary of an explosion is a pretty dull affair. There was a deafening boom and a blinding light a forceful wave of heat could be felt rushing by. But analyzing an explosion can be extremely fascinating. There is no question that an explosion happened but there are numerous questions around why the explosion happened. Was it a natural occurrence? Was it an accident? Was it intentional? What caused it? Who caused it? Where did it start?  The possibilities are nearly endless.

When asked to summarize something, all that is required is a person’s memory of a specific event or thing. If a group of people were to describe the same explosion odds are the descriptions will all be pretty similar, the main differences will be perspective. If the same group were asked to scrutinize the explosion the likelihood of getting a similar answer is greatly reduced. Investigation, speculation and reflection of the event are not required for a summary. Searching for the reason behind an event could lead down many varying paths; the primary difference between which path is taken depends entirely on the searcher.

 If your fancy has been tickled and you would like to read more about explosions, give this link a click. http://www.groundzerofx.com/explosions.htm

By NASA (NASA) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

By The High Fin Sperm Whale (Self-taken photo) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) or GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)], via Wikimedia Commons

           

Blog Post #1 (Creative name isn't it.)

What does Nabokov think makes a good reader? Do you agree? What do you believe are the characteristics of a good reader? Do you consider yourself a good reader?

                What makes a good reader? This is not a question I have asked or given a moment of thought to. I know how to decipher the text on the page and I understand most of the stories I have read. Nabokov has tried to answer this question in “Good Readers and Good Writers”. He has a list of ten definitions that he asked students to choose four of.  The four definitions he suggests have to do with memory, imagination, artistic sense and a dictionary.  

                I can understand how a dictionary and good memory might come in handy, but do you need an imagination or artistic sense to be a good reader? Artistic sense is such a wide and varied thing from person to person. Knowing what you like and what you don’t is what I think of when I hear ‘artistic sense’. Maybe I should look it up in the required good reader dictionary. On the other hand imagination is something I always thought of as the ability to materialize things from nothing. Nabokov uses the word ‘enchanter’ to describe a good writer. If a reader has a good imagination would this make them a conjurer with the ability to release whatever enchantment the writer has laid down on the pages?  

                I really don’t consider myself a good reader. I am not swimming in a pile of books at the moment, I don’t have a library card and I haven’t read many of the books considered classics. But according to Nabokov I have all the right stuff except for that pesky dictionary.

Introductory Video