The Things They Carried Journal

So much can be written about this novel; the effects of war, the consequences of actions, the burning iron of love, the twisted way of Fate, the way we cope with death. Going to war is evil. Forcing people to go is evil. Not going to war can also be evil. All our actions and lack of actions have both severe and minor consequences. Love is the deadliest aspect of humanity, deadlier than cruelty and greed and addiction, because love is the first step towards hatred. The most dangerous type of hatred is the evolved, corrupted, and mutated form of strong love. Fate always plays games with us. Fate attacks us when we are climbing up the steps, knocks us down them, then kicks us down the steps we still grip for. Fate toys our minds with the foreshadowing of an upcoming tragedy, and once we start to recover from the foreshadow it throws the real tribulation to us, burning with the heat of the sun, yet causing us to freeze and shatter. Fate gives us death, and tells us to accept it or become it, while the horrid truth of the matter is; we aren’t alive, we are pre-dead.
Thus death becomes the main theme here. O’Brien copes with death by pretending, by deluding himself into resurrecting them in his stories, reviving them in his mind. “Those who are dead are not dead; they’re just living in my head…” are lyrics by Coldplay in their song “42”. If you can make this work, congratulations in your gift. I cannot delude myself into reviving the dead, they are gone forever. I can’t hear their voices, I can’t feel their hair, I can’t caress their hands, I can’t hold them close, I can’t feel their warmth, I can’t kiss their lips, I can’t tell them I love them because they are dead. They are gone; they don’t exist with me anymore. They left and every attempt I give to bring them back causes aftershocks that rival the original earthquake, and they test the half-asleep volcano within me to see if it will ever explode. “Those who are dead are not dead; they’re just living in my head. And since I fell for that spell I am living there as well…” It’s a delusional trick that sucks you in and makes you live in the realm of the dead. But is that so bad? You are, after all, only pre-dead. I don’t know anymore. All I know is that there are great forces at work which can’t be entirely explained, forces that lurk in the darkest nights, in the dark shadows of the jungle, in the hazy fog of the mountains. I know evil and good are not exact. I know black and white do not exist in their purest forms. I know God and Satan are two hands working for the same purpose, parts of the entity I call Fate. I learn more and more from the literature we study. I recognize the same hands toying with the characters, and when I look up from the pages I see the same hands, only larger now, playing the instruments and pulling the strings of my own show tune marionette life. I see the pain of O’Brien losing his young lover to cancer, and not more than an hour after I finished this novel, the person I love more than everything else in the world combined and multiplied a thousand times over contacts me with news of a possible cancerous cist that she has had for years, only discovered now. I hear Fate utter a low horrible laugh in the way the car drives, the way the wind blows. I see Fate shake with joy in the clouds, in the trees. I’m just a doll who cut his strings, but without them I don’t know how to move, and so the puppeteer laughs and uses this old child for the final tricks he can play. “Those who are dead are not dead; they’re just living in my head. And since I fell for that spell I am living there as well. Time is so short and I know there must be something wrong.” Something most definitely is wrong. It’s this game of chess I hint to. The game that Nathan Price, Gregor Samsa, Othello, Huckleberry Finn, Abigail Williams, John Proctor, John the Savage, Faber, Beatty, Edna, O’Brien, Bowker, Cross, Sanders, and all the other characters we have read about are pawns in. But not the fictional game, the real game, the game that you and I are pawns in. Pre-dead, that’s all we are. From conception, we are developing up to die.

Living in the darkness; what a cold and lonely night. Voices in the darkness sing a sweet sweet lullaby. Something’s coming nearer; anyone to join in a game? A game? Welcome to the attic, hospitality’s my name. Eyes; so alive. I’ve been feeling dead for quite a while. Give me a smile! Dead and alive, come a little closer. You and I affiliate forever more and I’m alive; death is just a feeling. You and I swapping finitude and love for diamonds. I’m just a little pale. Don’t hesitate to sign right here, don’t be afraid to come with me. Specialized in temporizing, dead to faulty love and time, faulty time; we’ll be dancing here forever and a while day by day. Dead and alive, come a little closer. You and I affiliate forever more and I’m alive; death is just a feeling. You and I swapping finitude and love for diamonds. Value by value, I’m gonna turn into breath after breath. Love we traded for silver. Defy what they used to call death. And dust covered treasure will shine again, an unseen accolade. Larger than life, a memory, death will be just a charade. Dead and alive, come a little closer. You and I affiliate forever more and I’m alive, death is just a feeling. You and I swapping finitude and love for diamonds. I’m just a little Pale.

This is the song “Death Is Just A Feeling” by Avantasia. Love and hatred, wealth and dearth, death and life; all are assets used by Fate in the stories we read, and in turn assets used by Fate in our own conformed reality.

A Short Blunt Inspiration In Less Than Ten Minutes

A small girl. Her parents murdered in front of her. She is taken in by a drunk uncle who beats and rapes her. Her only friend is the dog. One day the dog gets in the uncle's way so he kicks it to death before her eyes. The uncle dies in a drunk car accident. She goes to an orphanage, where she is ridiculed and excluded. Nobody befriends her. She is kicked out at age sixteen. She has nowhere to go, no money. She becomes a prostitute. She cries every night, wanting someone to love her. Eventually, a journalist working on a prostitution ring story meets her, learns her life, and falls in love. He takes her under his wing, never asks for sex. He feeds her, houses her, and loves her. She feels warmth again. Then, the prostitute ring pimp has him murdered for digging into his illegal business. He leaves her everything in his will, five million dollars. She donates half to orphanage reform organisations, and half to childhood trauma research. She works public service deeds until she appeals to go to college to the city mayor. He accepts her a grant and gives her two thousand dollars out of his own account for her life. She becomes a child psychologist and retires at age 80, then dies a year later. She donates her entire monetary funds to charity.

Another Twisted Turn

She might have cancer. Fate always deals me these hands. I read The Things They Carried and in the end the author reveals his young lover dies of a cancerous brain tumor. He explains of how when people die, they are only gone, not dead. They are like books on a shelf, waiting to be read, waiting for their life and story to be told. He reveals his coping mechanism of pure delusion. And then this happens. Cancer isn't for sure, she just has a sist and the radiology reports haven't come in yet. But I think she has had it for years. Being in her ovary region, she has had an irregular menstrual cycle since she began it. Recently, it was more irregular and they discovered the sist. I am fearful, terrified, worried.

Lovers In A Storm- Written by Scarecrow and his Dark Angel

A bustling hallway, people all around. we walk towards each other, and I pick you up and hold you in a mutual embrace. The hallway blurs when I spin you, and our surroundings become a breezy meadow. You hug me and curl your fingers, and I hold you to me. The air smells of snow and white clouds begin to overtake the sun. As it begins to snow, we stare at each other and kiss. At that moment, there is a flash and all is dark. The wind is now whipping and screaming, thunder is heard from a rumbling distance as a torrent of rain falls to us. You pull me close, attempting to keep me dry. We are soaked and realize the rain won't kill us. You take my hand, and we run through the storm, farther away from it, but we are unable to escape its unending walls. We run over a hill and hide there from the wind. I hold you tight as the storm worsens, the rain falling denser and harder, the lightening closer and more frequent, the thunder booming above us and overlapping. We hold each other tight and close our eyes, and suddenly the storm and meadow are gone. You kiss my forehead and offer to help me up. We survived. We look and see a bustling hallway of people, eager to get nowhere, but taking time to glance at us, a pair of lovers caught in a storm. As we stand together the people become grey silhouettes, and we are the only real things in a world of fallacy. We ignore them and their lies. They point and notice us as we stand with colour. We don't care, we only see each other. And where does this go? We know it not, and neither do we care. We hold each other. A man passes by. He is neither grey nor coloured. He places paint next to us and asks us a favor. We agree. You paint the sky black and dot is with stars. I paint the world as it truly is with a chaotic, erratic order. The people take notice. They gnash their teeth, pull their hair, scream that it cannot be true, but they know it is and thus our duty is fulfilled. Bored by their anger we leave, your small hand warm within my melting grip. We seek what has yet to be found.

To Artemis

Perhaps one day you will see you and I as reflections in the water; not quite the same but very close. He took you in, loved you, used you, dropped you and left. You took me in, loved me, used me, and after I messed up, you dropped me and left. This screw just digs deeper and deeper into the wood we call life, and it seems there will be no end until the wood is split. Love is blind, and through this darkness we see the truly dim light.

A Joint Idea

How Does The Universe Continually Expand?

My former Algebra II teacher and I discussed gravity one day. I brought up my theory that all objects of mass have a gravity field, but we do not notice this gravity because we are a very small mass, and therefore an extremely weak gravity force (gravity is one of the, if not the weakest forces), and due to this our gravity force is overtaken and made neutral by forces such as electromagnetism, and the overwhelmingly great force of gravity from a celestial body such as the planet earth. This discussion brought us to black holes, how can we explain their very strong gravity for what appears to be a lack of mass, a giant consumer of all things? Perhaps Black Holes are truly worm holes, and they lead to exceptionally densely massed realms? Or perhaps something else? Scientists tell us our universe is continually expanding. So what if Black Holes take the current decaying matter of the universe and transport it to the outer edge is new forms? This happens on earth in the form of biological decomposition for one example. Something dies or is killed, and it is eaten, decomposed, dispersed, and is used to create and build more. Matter is not just created, it is recycled. So it could therefore be a fair theory to say that Black Holes may be the recycling centers for the universe after their enormous mass of a star implodes and becomes the cleansing consumer for matter.

War, Religion, God

I open my eyes and see the world; conflict, hatred, love, faith and the lack thereof, desire, pain, greed, lust, anger, frustration, loyalty, betrayal, irrationality, destruction, horror, suffering, learning.

Gaza and Israel

            What can I say? More needless bloodshed over the most pointless matter of conflict ever utilized by humankind; religion. Faith, my dear friends and critics, is good. Religion, however, is the worst invention humanity has ever conjured up in its pot of horrifying intolerance. Study religions, and you will see that they are all mirrors of each other, facing in a circle-like pattern, angled slightly up, reflecting the different rays of light emitting from the light coming from above. No religions are wrong, none are absolutely right. They are all simply different interpretations of the particles of light we are granted, reflected and refracted in different ways and from different sides. "Why target religion so heavily?" you may ask. The main problem with religion and in turn faith is the corrupted incorporation of politics. This is the real reason behind Gaza and Hamas; intense desirable greed for political power. I do not discriminate against all the people of Gaza, nor do I condemn Hamas. I simply say that they are puppets, rook in the giant game I have described before. Israel is also a bishop or rook in this game.

War

          Evil. Pure unadulterated evil. Necessary at times? Certainly. Still evil? Yes. I used to desire to be in the Armed Forces. Now, well I can't say it would be a very good idea for me. Morally, ethically, I may object heavily to conflicts. I do not want to become involved in any conflict I do not agree with. For instance, the shrouded events behind the toppling of the first government of the free Congo. I would not be able to allow myself to take the orders to invade, attack, kill, and destroy the chances at freedom and happiness of people who I deem as innocent of any true crime against humanity beyond the universal crimes humanity commits against itself. Atop this, I would be a threat to myself and others. I am unstable as it is, with all this emotional burden on me. Adding war and severe injustice would push me beyond my already dwindling "sanity".

Life and Death: Rights?

            Do you have a right to live? Society seems to think so, since taking someone's life away is a crime. Is your death then also your right? I believe so. This is not an easy or simple topic. Why would I say it is a human's right to kill itself? It is not easy for me to say, I know how hard it is to love someone who is extremely suicidal. I also know I am extremely suicidal myself. But I just don't know, it's unbelievably difficult to figure out. I ask anyone who has an opinion to please state it, comment below.

I need to kill something. The weight of my life is getting fairly heavy right now, and just in time to wait in the forest alone and stare at some scurrying animal, knowing I hold its life in my hands, having the power to take it, and on occasion I do. The bloodlust is intense, the sheer desire to kill becomes so enlarged that is everything there is for a period of time. i had the oppertunity to kill on Saturday. A black bear walked within twenty feet of me, and I held its life, nearly took it away, but decided to show mercy on another hunter. Next time will be a different story. I will show no hesitation when the time is right, and I will take the life of the beast. A wonderful experience, I must say. I have always wanted to cripple my prey then climb atop of it and end it with a passionate opening of its throat. Anyways, enough of the kill ranting for now.

Loving A Witch

~Oh Abigail| poor lovely girl| come stand here in my arms

I know the world you see|

Please listen to my plea|

The scary eyes of condemnation rain on you| on me|

Oh blessed heart| oh wretched heart| come now into my arms|

Please don’t stand far away|

Just hear what I will say|

I want to make the scary eyes of zealots go away|

Miss Williams, dear, you precious soul| come warm yourself with me

I feel your pain|

There is no gain|

The scary eyes, those who revile, shall over your name reign|

Poor little one| all grown up girl| come run away with me|

Not worth your time||

But you’re worth mine|

Please come to me before you cross above the final line

Abigail! Abigail! Send Proctor far away!|

I’m here for you!|

Abby, I love you!|

These scary eyes will only judge| condemn| and misconstrue|

No Abby, Abby! Abigail!| Please do not pull away!|

You’ll make yourself the greatest subject of their evil reign|

If you go I cannot cross this great dividing line|

Will you really let them take your life and let them misconstrue?|

Fate has won| God and Satan as one

A shade of grey| shall rule the day

Oh Abby, why did you go away?| When all you had to do| was come to me| let me hold you~

The Crucible Journal

Of all the heart-breaking, gut-wrenching, and emotionally taxing tales I have ever known, this is by far the greatest. We see innocents condemned, fearful men and women lie for their lives and the sake of their loved ones; we see Abigail Williams, John Proctor, Reverend Hale, Giles Corey, so many complex people in a story that will never be fully understood. Tears well up in my eyes from the raw pain blasted into my soul from this agonizing plot of despair; blind condemners being played by the hand of a heart-broken, mind beaten, soul torn young girl. Who is innocent? Nobody is ever innocent, this fact has been explained lightly in A Handmaid’s Tale, and it is personified here. Oh the agony! Writing for this is so incredibly difficult, and yet the message arising is incredible in its own unforgettable way, therefore is must be said. Who do you side with in this story? I side with no one and everyone. They are all at fault, but God stop your people from destroying themselves! Abigail, used and left as a whore, what else could she do? As I read this, it is all I can do to not scream aloud! Why? Because I can do nothing, I am a helpless useless bystander, watching these events unfold with no way to stop the severe tragedy unfolding before my eyes. Abigail loves John, she loves him. He used her in his lecherous lust, and then he and his wife cast her out. Abigail is driven past the realms of reality when she realizes what has happened to her. If I could reach out to anyone in this story, it would be her.

            I feel like this is going to become another Brave New World for me; I may be the only person on this road. Yes, Abigail condemned many “innocents” to their deaths, yes she lied in the face of the law and the law’s god, yes she is the ring leader to a giant circus of a condemnation scheme of retribution, but why? Did she do it just for the Hell of it? No! She has been broken, used, betrayed, cast out and away from the man she loves, the same man who betrayed her. Can you honestly say that you would not be completely distraught, unstable, and driven purely mad if you were in Abigail’s position? Your life is ruined! Who will marry an impudent deflowered, presumably whore, girl in a puritan extremist ultra-theocratic society? Certainly nobody with any substantial valor or integrity, nobody with any sort of good standing. And if you did marry someone noble, somebody better than a town drunk? Well he would do away with you after your first night in bed. Not to mention the fact that you are in love with someone else, but the man who has betrayed you. Abigail does what many people do in these situations; disassociation of guilt. She cannot fathom that her love would be such a betraying hypocrite, and as we see in the removed Scene II of Act II, she disassociates the hypocrisy to everyone else in the town, which is truly not all that false. I feel incredibly strong sympathy and adoration for Abigail, more than any other character from any book, play, movie, or story I have ever known. Am I saying that she is the white angel in this story? Not by any means! She was driven into shear madness and thus began condemning everything that caused her pain except for the one thing she loved. Can we place blame on any one person for the initial split atom in this immense chain reaction? Not without blindness. Let us analyze this chain. The end result is the execution of those who have not committed the prescribed crime. The cause for this is Abigail. Abigail accused them because she was driven mad. She was driven mad due to the actions of John Proctor. We could draw the line to Proctor and drop the guilt on his head, but this has a deeper less visible connection. The actions drove Abigail insane due to the repercussions that will arise from them. The repercussions are in place due to the overly zealous theocracy that rules the land. The theocracy is in place because the theocracy is desired by the society. Society is the root of all problems! Who makes up society? The citizens of the society. So the circle of guilt is complete, people are condemned to hang because of their own ridiculously accepted and formed society; another case of a horrifyingly destructive cycle of emotion and “piety”. Is there no way to end such madness? Why, the tree of ignorant life, the forbidden land of Eden, the painless, non traumatic,  lacking of conflicting emotion world and society created by Aldous Huxley. Yet, much like we have always done in the past and will always continue to do until something truly global and devastating happens, we will remain in our corrupting society of conforming to anguish and accepting of woeful despair.

The Haindmaid's Tale Journal

An excessively zealous theocracy based on distorted versions of a religion is extremely dangerous. Gilead is a great example of the possible corruption that can arise from any desperate situation. Throughout A Handmaid’s Tale, we see some of what early Gilead is transforming into. We see the freedoms that we take for granted evicted from life during the desperation of infertility, caused by the irresponsible disposal, or lack of, hazardous chemicals and radioactive materials, on top of the rampant sexually transmitted diseases. We see lives torn apart and harsh justice laid down onto the land. We see fertility become the weight for the worth of women, and we see infertility of men become an oxymoronic term in this society. We see the mindset of the government resort back to that of the sixteenth century.

            Knowledge and education are freedoms we take for granted. What would be a good symbol of these freedoms? Schools, yes of course. But in the society of Gilead, this symbolizes something else. In the case of Harvard University, the school stands for indoctrination and fallacy. Executions are taken place constantly at the former college, showing the death of publicly expressed knowledge. However, education is quite possible from what happens at Harvard. Those who know of the wickedness committed in the distorted name of God are educated into the understanding of the evils surrounding them.

            Yet again, however, Gilead is not the sole transgressor in this situation. Blame should be given equally to the continued irresponsible dumping of hazardous materials by the former United States government, as well as the rampant sexual actions of the society. The old USA allowing hazardous waste to be dumped carelessly into sewers and other unsafe locations, and the actions of the society did not only open the door for the Gilead regime, but kicked it off the hinges and turned it into a sign, saying “Please overthrow us and turn this nation into an unbearable land of prejudice and evil!”

            Gilead views its actions as justice, much like every other nation; but what is justice? Justice is nothing more than a euphemism for revenge. The authorities of Gilead, believing in the distorted message derived from Christianity, feel justified in their actions, while in all honesty, they are taking revenge on others for a multitude of personal reasons. While some may disagree that justice is revenge, answer to yourself this; if a man mugs and murders your most beloved family member, and you are the decider of his fate of life in prison or death, what would you do? No doubt the emotional trauma would affect your judgment, but many people wish the man death. Why is this? They say it is justice, they claim it to be fair, but no. The truth is that fairness does not exist, and so in order to make themselves feel better, they take revenge on the one who transgressed. This distorted justice is the same that rains from the reign of Gilead, only here to fit a political agenda.

            In a world of low fertility, would you not rationally view both men and women as capable of infertility? Unfortunately for women, Gilead is not rational. Gilead views only women as capable of infertility, like the minds of the men of the old world. Men are superior; they are incapable of being unable to bear children. For lack of a less crude situation, a crude statement is given: bull crap! If a man can be castrated and rendered infertile, then a man can be affected by other outside forces such as chemicals and radiation to render him infertile, just as the women can be. The incredibly stupid beliefs of Gilead cost it even more for the sake of its male dominant society, and the apparent necessity to oppress women.

"Education? What is that and how am I interfering?"

Joseph Tucci, Brian Tokar. Nice guys, nice guys. But for the love of your jobs, Why?! Why do we have to interrupt our classes to commemorate and clap for the football team and the cross country state qualifiers? Are we not going to do this at the designated assemblies later in the year which also will interfere with our education? Good God men! You MUST realize that the people who are genuinely proud of this team and the school's athletic program (as I am) will congratulate them, go to see them play. Making the student and teacher body stand in the halls instead of learning or taking a test to clap for the football team or cross country state qualifiers is not genuine! It is similar to North Korea forcing it's citizens to weep for the death of their leader; it is fake, not real. The people who care will do something about it. Why make everybody join in and clap and praise this almighty team? "Well, it gives the school a good name!" Guess what would give the school a better name; a consistently good academic record, not an inconsistently adequate athletic record every few years. This is an insult to those of us who care and those of us who do not. Do the athletic "superiors" not receive enough credit in this school? How about state qualifying wrestlers? Holy Hell, we stopped class to watch the matches on the Promethean board! It's time to wake up and smell the rotting roses beneath your feet, because you are walking on a bridge of them, and time is short before it falls out from under you.

A Well Spent Page

A Glimpse at Spiritual Gnosis

I've been unsure as to what I believe, in the sense of a diety. I was born into a Christian family, raised in the faith, and I was for the most partly blindly following my raising. i started questioning everything about a year or so ago. I started to realize I was a Christian because I was told to be, and it was some final article to hold onto when everything else was gone or worthless. I believe in god, just not any singular god. I do not believe that any single religion is the only true religion. They are all the reflections of whatever supreme force that created us. With this out of the way, I now face another puzzling question; is there an anti-god? Ying and Yang, I hold this to be true. And like Ying and Yang, there is evil in the gods and good in the anti-gods. Granted, good and evil are terms of perception. What is good to one can be bad to another can be indifferent to another and yet still be a grey area to another. So my opinion of good and evil, they are Ying and Yang, but ying and Yang are not black with a white dot and white with a black dot, they are two shades of grey, continually swirling arounfd each other, blending where they connect, and changing their shade to the point that neither Ying nor Yang, god or anti-god, is the lighter or darker choice. I feel that at times they are even, sometimes Ying is lighter than Yang, and sometimes Yang is brighter than Ying. neither can exist without the other, because they are of the same body. As it is written in 1 Corinthians 12:21, "The eye cannot say to the hand, 'I have no need of you,' nor again the head to the feet, 'I have no need of you.'"

Many times I wonder what I have to do to become happy again; genuinely happy, for more than just the momentary amount of time that I am doing something. Maybe I just need to go out and hunt again. It has been quite a while. Maybe I just need to stop caring. Caring seems to be tearing me apart.

Journal: Brave New World

Pain and suffering are powerful conditions. They shape us, develop us, make us who we are. How do we combat these conditions? Some of us turn to a god, a supreme being for emotional release and hope, for something to hold on to in a dark world. Others turn to literature, or to science or knowledge. Many turn to secular means; sex, drugs, thrills. In the creation of a peaceful world, all types of escape cause extreme conflict, except for the secular. The secular become a conflict due to the other means to escape. So in order to maintain a peaceful society in which everyone should be extremely happy, gods are cast away, controversial information is censored, and everyone is made happy. In Brave New World, most everyone is happy. Epsilons, Gammas, Deltas; all are blissfully happy in their stupidity. Most Betas are happy with their lives, easy lives with luxury. The only category that has the occasional member who is not content is the Alphas. This is due to their intelligence. Being so bright, some of them may rebel against their surroundings. The system has a fix for that, small colonies of those who do not conform to the society, where they can be happy.

            Dystopia? Nay, this society has it figured out. The goal is happiness and efficiency, and this society has achieved these goals. A non-dependant drug, a relatively flawless system for human recreation, and the right balance between duty and play. Indoctrinated from “birth” almost every human believes in what has been told to them and while in our world this leads to the blindly biased arguments and the indoctrinated conformed conflict, in the future created by Huxley, it leads to peace, prosperity, and happiness. So what is learned here? That we must sacrifice knowledge for peace? Yes. Sadly enough there is no way for humans to coexist in harmony with so many opposing viewpoints, and so many people who will fight until the stars won’t shine for whatever system’s sales pitch they bought. From a biblical standpoint, Adam and Eve were at peace until they ate from the tree of knowledge. Knowledge or life? Take your pick. If you eat the knowledge, you learn that the tree of life was the correct choice. If you eat the life, you never know what knowledge was or is. Can you have both worlds? Yes, but not the best of them. Taking knowledge, then understanding that life was the correct choice so you take life also, it leaves you moderately content but still burdened by knowledge (much like Beatty from Fahrenheit 451), or you could view it as being incredibly knowledgeable yet forever burdened by the incredible desire for sheer happiness. Now we see how John, the savage, may have felt; caught between two worlds, the desire for everlasting joy yet being held on the convictions of his acquired knowledge, such powerful convictions that when he commits what he views as a sin, as a horrible wrong-doing, he hangs himself out of guilt. Thus proving that the system of happiness instilled by this society works in almost every case, and those who do not conform should live with each other in a place where they will not negatively affect society and society will not negatively affect them.

            A system of near perfection; that is what Huxley has created; a world of happiness, nearly no emotion. Conformed not to fear or have any negative emotions towards death, indoctrinated to follow suit and be happy, and so most everyone is. This is a world I dreamed of since eighth grade, a world I wish I could live in. This is no dystopia, this is a utopia! And at last, one that may feasibly exist! But alas, it does not. In fact, this world is far more like a dystopia than Huxley’s. Love, it has caused good for me, but all the good was transformed into an overwhelming bad in time. So give me this world of bliss, it has been long awaited.

                                  USED TO FORMULATE ARGUMENT FOR BOOK

Why do you believe this world is bad, why do you disagree with what goes on? Because you have been conditioned by your raising, by your society, and by your personal quest for knowledge. This has caused you to naturally take some deep moral or religious or ethical opposition to what takes place in this book. Why? Why can’t you let this system work and let the people remain happy? Sure they are blind and in ignorance but so are you! “If you don’t conform to what you were born into then you go the other way.” – Foster the People. That song’s title is “Call it what you want” and you very well may call this book and what happened in it whatever you very well please to, but I will call it utopia. War, suffering, pain, all gone. Yet you will gnash your teeth at the sheer idea of the means to reach it! And those who can’t live in this society, they live with others like them where they can be content with life, where they will not harm society and society will not harm them. Balance remains, wars pass, conflict abolished. End of story, happiness achieved, goal made, set, match, game.

Journal: Fahrenheit 451

Knowledge is a powerful thing. Ignorance is bliss. Knowledge brings pain. Ignorance brings blind joy. Given the ability to choose, what side of this treacherous coin would you pick? If you choose knowledge, you will be persecuted by the ignorant. If you choose ignorance, you will be persecuted by the knowledgeable. Fahrenheit 451 illustrates this truth about life through the characters. In the end, happiness does not exist in a true form. Nobody has true happiness in this novel. Nobody has true happiness in life.

            How can I believe such a depressing statement? What do I have to support this claim? In the novel, the first hint of unhappiness is in Clarisse, when she asks Guy if he is happy. He replies to himself later that he is so obviously happy, how could he not be? Then he arrives home to find that his wife has attempted suicide. It appears that Mildred is excessively happy with her blindly moronic life throughout the rest of the plot, yet this act and her continuous taking of sleeping pills and her nonstop escaping through her shows reveal that she is not as content as she may seem. Guy’s bliss is shattered, and from that point onward the broken pieces are removed. He grows attached to Clarisse, and then she is gone, killed by the rampant society around her, the society she never conformed to. Montag becomes sick with himself after the woman stays in her burning house. He can’t stand himself. When Beatty comes to visit him, we see that the fire chief is not like the rest of the ignorant humans in the book. He is obviously someone who once loved literature very much. He has an abundance of quotes and lines memorized in his mind. Beatty is perhaps the most intriguing character of them all. On page 122, Montag realizes “Beatty wanted to die.” Beatty was plagued by his knowledge of the Catch-22 he is in, with the rest of his world. He sees that not only is knowledge evil, but so is ignorance. There is no way for him to know which is worse, and so when Montag threatens to kill him, Beatty welcomes this warmly.

             After the publishing of Fahrenheit 451, Bradbury wrote a play for the extended revelation of the characters, found in the afterword of the novel. In this revelation, he explains who Beatty is, and why he is. He loved books, devoured their contents. Montag asks what happened, and Beatty responds “Why, life happened to me. Life. The usual. The same. The love that wasn’t quite right, the dream that went sour, the sex that fell apart, the deaths that came swiftly to friends not deserving, the murder of someone or another, the insanity of someone close, the slow death of a mother, the abrupt suicide of a father—a stampede of elephants, an onslaught of disease. And nowhere, nowhere the right book for the right time to stuff the crumbling wall of the breaking dam to hold back the deluge… and [when I] opened the pages of my fine library books… Blank! Oh, the words were there but they ran over my eyes like hot oil, signifying nothing. Offering no help, no solace, no peace, no harbor, no true love, no bed, no light.” When I finished this book and the afterword, I said aloud “I see myself in Beatty.” It is said that we are all just reflections of each other. When I peer into the mirror of character, I see Beatty grinning at me before he is engulfed in flames. In Beatty, I see myself; a man who once held so much faith in his world, his love, his God. I see the man whose spirit has been broken, a man with nowhere to run, no one to run to. He says “I looked in the mirror and found an old man lost behind the frightened face of a young man, saw hatred there for everything and anything, you name it, I’d damn it…” I see the same betrayed dying soul in Beatty that resides in me. We differ when it comes to blame. Beatty desperately needed something to pour all his hate upon, and he felt books betrayed him, so he took the opportunity. He fails to recognize the true root of our turmoil, the cause of our despair; humanity. Beatty says “Here we go to make the world happy, Montag!” but he fails to recognize that so long as humanity stays and humans live, happiness will be a temporary moment of bliss in life. Love and happiness are here and then they are gone. Why do Beatty and I hate the world? Because we love it. And when you love something that tears itself apart despite all the efforts to keep it together, despite all the love for it, the love is forged into sheer contempt and hatred, yet the love is still reminiscent. This is why Beatty wants to die, for he knows this fact deep within himself, but refuses to bring it into light. The only way to escape the pain of his repressed subconscious is death, and so Beatty takes it.

Journal: The Awakening

The Awakening by Kate Chopin is a painfully home hitting novella that expresses the truths about love, sanity, captivity, and freedom. Chopin seemingly pulls every emotion hidden within the heart, soul, and body out and into conscious comprehension. The empathy felt for Edna Pontellier is gut wrenchingly intense and personal. Through this story, Chopin expresses her feministic rebellious views and her dark gnosis about salvation from captivity.

            Through Edna and the rest of the characters in The Awakening, Chopin tells us that love is nothing more than a misconstrued infatuation. Edna does not love her husband, she claims to love Robert. She lived her life in blindness until she began her transformation of knowledge with her deep connection to and desire for Robert. Her philosophical eyes slowly opening, she senses her despair when she is either not with Robert or not alone. She remembers her lovers when she was young, when she felt less restricted. She becomes seemingly bipolar with her tremendous mood swings, so much that Léonce believes her to be going mad, not understanding the truth of sanity.

            Sanity is a conformist term. Sanity is what the majority of the world calls itself. Sanity is how the majority of the world thinks. The minority is called insane, crazy, or on occasion genius, but never the latter before one of the prior. Every visionary, every genius has been dubbed out of their mind by the world at one point in time. For instance, General Billy Mitchell envisioned an independent Air Force from the Army for the United States. Fellow generals ridiculed him and had him expunged from the military. His ideas were recognized as genius after his death, and he was given a posthumous promotion. When the world conforms to believe its way is the only sane, sensible, and correct way, then sanity becomes the general consensus. Edna is thought to be insane by her husband. He is simply conforming the term sanity. Edna does not assimilate with her environment any longer. She does not conform to the corrupt anti-feministic views of her world. She recognizes the corruption and evils around her and she recognizes that she has no way to abolish them. Due to this she is now plagued by her new found truths and is greatly misunderstood by Léonce.

             Edna’s position has her captive. She is a slave to her society, her family, her lover, and to herself. She cannot break the bounds of the biased environment that holds all women captive and inferior to their male counterparts. Her society has condemned her to a life that is not her own. She is owned by her husband and children. She must morph to the whims of Léonce. She has to give everything to her family. She rebels against them, saying she will not give them herself. She dedicates her soul to Robert, whom she loves. His actions directly affect her psyche and her emotions. She it held captive by Robert’s decisions. More importantly, she is captive to herself. She cannot escape her own desires, her own choices, beliefs and knowledge. She is plagued by her own existence, and the accumulation of all these captivities drives her to see the only true escape, the sole true freedom.

            Let’s be honest; are we free? Are any of us free? Of course not! There is no way to be free on Earth, no possibility to be free of pain, free of captivity, slavery, emotion, debt, responsibility, consequence, or of self. Edna recognized this, and upon losing the one thing that held her to this enslaving world, she acquired the dark unaddressed gnosis of freedom. The only way to be free is to die. Death is the only door out of slavery and captivity, and therefore she took that door gladly. Many critics question if Chopin means to illustrate Edna’s cowardice after her emotional destruction, however I believe that it is a final testimony to escape, to salvation, to freedom.

Journal: A Doll's House

Henrik Ibsen leaves me uncertain of who to support in A Doll’s House. Every main character is both a protagonist and an antagonist. Every man and woman of large importance is both empathized with and shameful. I found myself switching sides between Nora, Krogstad, Rank, Torvald, and Christine, until I came to the realization that this story is parallel to the real world where no party is ultimately innocent or guilty, exempting certain extreme situations.

            It appears obvious that we as readers are meant to identify Nora as the protagonist and empathize for her throughout the progression of the play; however is she completely worthy of our singular devotion of empathy? By no means is this the case. She is not an innocent little doll throughout this play at all. She eats macaroons against her husband’s wishes, however selfish of him, and lies about it. She has committed forgery, and despite the desperate necessity, this is regardless a crime. She refused to tell Torvald the truth of her actions to save his life, granted however after he brutally condemns Krogstad to her. She expects Torvald to be a great white knight and love her to the point he is willing to sacrifice himself for her, like he said he would physically. Unfortunately for Nora, only the dark knight will sacrifice his honor, reputation, and image to save what he loves (yes that is a Batman reference). When Torvald does not deliver, Nora leaves him.

            Krogstad is certainly my favorite character of the play. A conscious character throughout the whole play, he is perhaps the most developed of all the main characters, equal with Doctor Rank. He too was driven by desperation to forge a signature, which makes his job at the bank rather ironic. However I heavily empathize the loss of a lover, in a manner worse than death. Christine leaves Krogstad for a man with a larger pocket book, and Krogstad is left with an emotional void in his being, only to be partially healed when Christine speaks of her loving him again. When Krogstad’s job is jeopardized by Christine, he is driven into desperation to save his children by threatening to reveal Nora’s transgression into his same actions. When his desperation is calmed and love fills the long open wound, he regrets his blackmailing and wishes to take it all back.

            Doctor Rank is the most innocent of the characters; it is the character he was born to be. Dying from a spinal disorder contracted from his drug addicted father, he is innocent from day one. He is secretly in love with Nora and reveals this to her along with the knowledge of his soon arriving death. His only crime in the story could perhaps be of revealing his feelings for Nora to her, yet this is meager, making Rank practically clean from all guilt in the matter.

            Torvald is something else. He is your typical every day egotistical holier-than-thou man. He condemns Krogstad for his past and thus condemns his children to a father without a job while providing for the seemingly noble Christine who has no one but herself to provide for. Torvald loves Nora like a child loves a toy. So long as she does what he wants, doesn’t break, and looks nice, well then it is a wonderful toy! But should this toy have free will, a less than perfect emotional state, or a blemished appearance, well a new toy must be bought, but for a fair price of course. Torvald loves himself above all else and will never sacrifice his reputation for anything, causing Nora to stop believing in his love. Yet Torvald has some justification. He has children, a life, and he cannot simply discard these for a woman he rightfully sees as a deceiver.

            Christine is one of my least favorite characters. She leaves Krogstad, a man who will love her forever, for a man with a larger bank account. She returns after her husband’s death and begins causing a mess again. She is the trigger that shot the gun inadvertently. She just expects Krogstad to love her again (which he does). Finally, she decides that she knows what is best for Nora and Torvald, so she leaves Krogstad’s letter to be discovered by Torvald. She is the reason for the collapse at the end of the story. Yet, in a sense I admire her for doing so. She took it upon herself to destroy the blind bliss that Nora and Torvald live in, and for that I congratulate her.

            No party is ultimately guilty or innocent, expect for in obvious cases such as murdering babies or blaming a child for being a bastard child. For the rest of the world however, it is grey. No situation is every truly white or black. Evil and good blend together so consistently that they are misconstrued terms. It every situation, every party holds blame and is partially at fault. A Doll’s House is no different. All the characters hold some faulted hand in the collapsing climax, and all are partially innocent. Most of us critique fully some and support fully others. The truest critic is the one who recognizes all faults and all justifications of all parties, and then makes whatever personally distorted opinion based on individually acquired bias.

Conformed to the Corrupt: Essay on The Poisonwood Bible, The Matamorphosis, Othello, and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

A man slaving for his indebted family awakes one day transformed to a giant arthropod and his new body leads to his death. A zealot leads his family into the depths of darkest Africa and changes their lives forever by exposing them to truth. A young boy rebels against his environment. A man is accused of witchcraft for marrying a white woman. How are these stories connected? They all contain a seldom addressed aspect of life; we are all conformed, and conformed to whatever corrupt environment we bask in. Gregor Samsa is forced to pay for the sins and debts of his parents. Nathan Price only sees his truth and Africa only sees its truth. Huckleberry Finn believes that he is committing a wrong and may go to Hell for aiding a runaway slave from his worst fears. Othello is accused of having to use some evil witch magic in order for the fair white skinned Desdemona to fall in love with the dark Othello. All of the societies displayed contain deep corruption and the members of the society conform to this corruption, while the few that rebel are disgraced, killed, or punished. Yet it seems that nobody sees that they are rebelling against the corrupt and that they are simply conforming to their own corruption.

            In the course of history, it most often is the case that the sins of the parents are paid for by the children. Many times the actions taken in a lifetime do not directly affect the actor’s life, but the lives of their descendants. Gregor Samsa’s parents are indebted to a business owner, the head of a traveling sales business. Gregor must compensate for this debt, because it is now his debt also, and the debt of his beloved sister Grete. Gregor wants only what is best for his parents and Grete, when he suddenly creates a vacuum of what once was Gregor Samsa. Only when catastrophe struck did the parents take up action to pay off their own debts with their own work and give their daughter the chance to success, the chance that never came for Gregor, who had to work off the debts of his parents. Gregor and his family are conformed to the idea that the children are indebted heavily to their parents, and so the debt of the parents is effortlessly dropped upon the children, for it is only the settling of the score. This corrupt idea has infiltrated out society today and is an agent in tearing it apart. “The decisions of my life will not affect me”, one may say, “so I do not care. They may only begin to affect my children and grandchildren.” but what of their children and grandchildren? And if all the descendants continue the corrupt trend then the debt eventually piles up so high that it consumes everything. This is found in our economic decisions, environmental decisions, political decisions, moral decisions, legal decisions, and it appears that there is no end to the debts collected in all fields. Perhaps the world needs purged and consumed before it can heal. Perhaps sixteen trillion dollars can consume the world.

            Nathan Price; call him a zealot, call him a misguided sheep, call him whatever comes to mind, he is merely a pawn of a greater plan to ruin the world; like all humans. Nathan drags his family into the Congo, the center for oppression, despair, corruption and evil in the world, and over what? For Nathan, it is for the child-like idiocy ridden hope that he can convert the minds, no souls, of Africa to believe in his Messiah, and through what means? Church every Sunday filled with empty verses and sermons given to a crowd with no intentions of firmly placing faith in anything but survival. And truly, who can blame them? Who in their right mind, if anyone on Earth can be said to have a right mind, would abandon their beliefs for what some man who comes with the oppressor says? Would anyone in America believe the religious converters of the Muslim Brotherhood if the organization was to occupy the nation?  The answer is a blunt no, and America is in no condition like the Congo is in. What has made the Congo so insufferable? The cursed ground it is on. The diamonds so desperately desired by the world. So the Belgians move in, enslave the population, take all the money it can before the revolution, then high-tail it out of the Congo before the inevitable evil occurs; the corrupt powers of the world want the easy diamonds back. And so what happens? All order is abolished and replaced by the order of evil corruption. Race becomes definition. Slaughterings and imprisonments by the masses become the Congo, and all the while the world sits back, shakes their heads and says “Tsk tsk! What a shame!” Nathan only sees that his God and God blessed country are incorruptible, and will succeed in transforming the dark outreaches. Africa only sees that survival is the key to this life, while they allow the power hungry to feed on their lives. Nathan, like his country, fails to recognize that they are the cause for the chaos in Africa. Their interference has ruined the area, placing Nathan a pawn and America as a Bishop in the inanimate yet obviously existent devolution of humanity into an end of entropy.

            For America, it took over two hundred years to treat racially different people equally. For Huckleberry Finn, it took a childhood. But this does not mean that Huck is uncorrupt and not conformed. Huckleberry Finn believes that for aiding a runaway slave, he is stealing property and could very well go to Hell. Huckleberry believes that he is committing evil and defying his world. He has the latter correct. He defied his environment; all that he was taught and believed in. Yet he was not committing evil. In fact, he was working for liberty. The conditions of Huck and Jim are very similar. Both are in a sense owned by another. Both are forced against their will. Both are endangered every day of their lives. Both have one straw that breaks their backs and makes them run from their prisons. For Huck it was his father nearly killing him. For Jim it was being sold to New Orleans. At the time the novel was written, the reader would sympathize with Huck and his situation while perhaps scolding him for aiding a runaway slave. All the while, they would never realize the extreme oxymoron they have been placed in. What entitles Huck above Jim? His skin color? His deoxyribonucleic acids? The novel clearly challenges the unreasonable bias of the age, and it challenges all ages beyond. This novel challenges what we believe in; it challenges our systems, our morals. The novel shows that people believe whatever they grow up to conform to, or whatever they have rebelled to believe in. All of these beliefs are corrupt, thus all humans are conformed to their corruption. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a powerful novel with an essential message for the human race; in a world where the most advanced race turns on itself for reasons as juvenile as heritage, race, and beliefs, how can this race be expected to exist for much longer? And more importantly, should it be allowed to?

            Magic! Witchcraft! Evil enchanting! The only reasonable way for a beautiful white woman to love and desire a dark Moor, is it not? Why is it that humans always turn to the most ridiculous accusations in matters such as those portrayed in Othello? Because of desperation and a corrupt mindset. How can a man claim something as ridiculous as witchcraft against a famous protector of the State over an “offense” with a daughter the man didn’t care enough about to not realize that she had been living married for days, if not weeks, away from her home? Because the man has been conformed to corruptly think he has power over this woman, and the darker skinned man, because he is a father, older, and white. Right, because that makes so much sense. Brabantio can make children, congratulations Brabantio, you have functioning reproductive organs. Brabantio was born before Othello, congratulations Brabantio, you have lived longer. Brabantio is white, congratulations Brabantio, you had the luck of being born white and powerful, instead of black and powerless. He is corruptly conformed to believe he is above his daughter and her lover, and this is what has allowed his mind to claim witchcraft against Othello. This is the same with all people. Our conformity deeply affects our minds and can alter our rationality and decision making to extreme ends. Because of this, we are a dangerous race of corrupt and conforming irrational morons, blindly stumbling into situations that we exploit to our benefit, or to the benefit of whatever false ideology we have conformed to believe, to the point that we are destroying our world, our lives, and our chances to truly understand.

            What is the message here? What is being said? The point of this essay is to challenge the readers to rethink everything. Rethink your morals, rethink your beliefs, your systems, your reasoning, your rationalities. Analyze everything you believe in, and question its existence. On what grounds are you standing, and how have you reached those grounds? How much of what you believe has been fed to you as rhetoric by a higher power? Open your eyes and see that you are a pawn to the bishops, rooks, and knights who work for the king and queen of a cause that is neither black nor white, but grey, fighting against other grey warriors for a fate that plays both sides, aiming for the sole purpose of the ruining of the warriors. So let the scales fall from your eyes! Awaken and see that you are being played like the rest of the pawns! End this twisted game and defy the cruel fate that has you bound so. If humanity cannot awaken, then it will plunge into eternal darkness, and the only solution shall be a Carthaginian Solution.

Journal: Othello

Othello written as a play by William Shakespeare is a tale of greed, love, power, and conformity. Placed in Venice and Cyprus, the tale is centered around the Moor, Othello, and of the greedy Iago seeking revenge on Othello for giving the lieutenant position to Cassio, and on Cassio for stealing the position. The situation could be better explained by saying that it is as if Iago is the enlisted long member officer, while Cassio is the near fresh officer out of a service academy, and Cassio was given the position over the experienced Iago.

            Being a Moor, or black, he is not the most common man in Venice or Cyprus. He won the heart of Desdemona, daughter of senator Barbantio, and they married in secret to her father. Of course, this caused the typical outrage that would occur when a black man married a white woman; the hand of evil must be at work. Accused of witchcraft, Othello had to appeal to the court. The claims were obviously void and ridiculous, but in a more realistic society of the time, would a Moor have even been given a trial? Or would the claim be taken as true from the start and the man be lynched by the hands of the people? In our society, the latter would have most certainly been the case.

            Iago is a crafty man, twisted by his lust for power, his greed for position, his covet for Cassio. Iago somehow decides that he will take revenge on Othello, Cassio, and Desdemona in one fatal game. By sparking the fear of faithlessness in the heart of Othello against Desdemona with Cassio, he caused the long consuming doubt that eventually forces Othello into murdering his wife. When Cassio, wounded by an assassin sent by Iago, tells Othello of the conspiracy, he is now overwhelmingly pushed over the edge and kills himself and dies atop his love.

            Confucius said when seeking revenge, dig two graves. Iago should have dug five graves; one for Othello, one for Desdemona, one for Cassio, one for his assassin, and one for himself. Iago’s twisted hatred and jealousy drove him to commit such a dastardly plot. Truly, not being lieutenant is a very weak reason to kill four people. It seems that Iago would have some sort of an emotional or mental complex. Or perhaps it is solely the downfall of Shakespearean literature plays. Written in Iambic Pentameter, it is rather difficult to create a play in such a manner, especially one with a completely sensible plot. Perhaps the actions of Iago are ridiculously rash for the provocation, yet it is still a remarkable story written as a poem. The plot is touching, and most people can empathize with the pain that Othello can feel, while all the while suffering the dread from the dramatic irony.

            Some criticize Shakespeare for being boring, repetitive, and pagan. His stories are all the same, some may say. All the tragedies are the same, named after the main character, who falls into an infatuated love which leads to their deaths. Yes, this is all true, yet there are different themes to all the stories. Othello is a tale fighting against racism and greed. Romeo and Juliet denounces hubris and tradition. Perhaps they all follow a similar plot skeleton, but all humans have similar skeletons, and that does not make us a repetitive and boring species. It is the features and mind that show the differences and make us truly unique. The same is for the tragedies and works of Shakespeare.

Journal: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Samuel Clemens, better known as Mark Twain, is revered as one of the greatest authors of all time. His work Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is the sequel to The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, and arguably twice the novel of its predecessor. It is the tale of corruption, conformity, deception, and morality. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a novel that challenged the world Clemens lived in, and continues to challenge our world today.

            Huckleberry “Huck” Finn is an “uncivilized” boy by his society’s standards, his corrupt society with their conformed mindsets and morals. After all, they do live in a state where a free black man must live in the state six months before he can be sold into slavery; what a crime, wait six months to auction that heathen. Huck lives in a nightmare world by today’s standards, or so we would like to think. He is raised conformed to the corruption, but the conformity has only penetrated as far as his sense of right and wrong. When Huck must decide between helping Jim and turning him in, Huck feels what he must do from the pit of his being, and he realizes that it is in direct conflict with what he has been told is right all his life. Therefore he decides that he will go to Hell if that is the punishment for his decisions, not realizing that it is not he who is in the wrong, but the rest of his pitiful world.

            Many claim this novel to be racist, using the profanity of the word “n-----” often and never saying anything to the wiser. These critics are either looking for something to condemn or are simply not very intelligent, and require a direct explanation on the opinions of the author. The novel does not oppose racism and slavery in direct text, but by the events of the novel. It is well said that actions speak louder than words, and the actions of this novel clearly demonstrates an opposition to the evils of the day.

            How does The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn apply to our lives today? It plants the thought in our mind; “Why do I believe what I do?” Well, answer that question. Do we believe what we believe because we have been raised to believe it? Are you a Christian? Why? Because God has appeared to you and showed His glory or because you were either raised in it or came across it with the deep need to believe in something greater than yourself, and purer than the world? If you lived in Turkey, would you follow the Christ figure or Mohammed and Allah? If your family was Islamic, can you say you would not be also? Or if you were raised a Jew, would you think to yourself “wow, I have been taught wrong my entire life.” and suddenly change religions? Or are we all so deeply conformed to our environment that we will blindly believe in whatever we were taught to? How is it that men and women will not only willingly sacrifice their lives, but the lives of their children also over events that may or may not have happened over two millennia ago, then were taught orally for years before they were written down, then censored and selectively chosen, then translated over and over again until a compilation named “The Holy Bible” is formed, then taught to the masses however the priest, reverend, or preacher decides to interpret the cloudy and indirect verses? Adventures of Huckleberry Finn shows us that our world is nothing more than the conformed corrupt bias that we are raised and surrounded in, and that only the seldom few will ever have the scales fall from their eyes to show the truth of our lives, that there is no truth but what you interpret, and this is what I interpret.

Journal:The Metamorphosis

Franz Kafka, an Austria-Hungary citizen, was an existentialist anarchist socialist. He attended meetings of Klub Mladých, an anti-militaristic and anti-clerical Czech organization. His novella The Metamorphosis was translated from German to English and holds many possible interpretations. Some may read the story literally, others may read it as a metaphor, and it can even be read as an allegory for an event that had yet to happen.

            As a literal interpretation, The Metamorphosis makes little sense. Some may feel that Kafka is an over-imaginative fantasy writer. However, read literally The Metamorphosis can allude to Kafka’s existentialism. Existentialists do not believe in spirituality, and therefore a human metamorphing into a different species is existentially possible as there is no spiritual transfer that would nullify the metamorphed person’s place as a child of any deity. Therefore a literal interpretation could help the reader understand Kafka’s political standing.

            As a metaphor, one may realize that Gregor Samsa did not become a giant “verminous bug” but became like a giant pest to his family, key word; like. If the story is read as a metaphor it is clearly seen that Gregor switched from being a great help to his family to becoming a hindrance that crippled his family.  It is entirely possible that The Metamorphosis is a very creative way to expand a simile; Gregor Samsa became like a giant pest to his family; to a metaphor; Gregor Samsa became a giant pest; to a metaphor of a novella; The Metamorphosis. Because Gregor became (like) a verminous bug to his family, they are forced to begin working again instead of depending on Gregor. Kafka may mean to depict on how after a calamity, a group of lazy people may again take up working instead of depending.

            The third and most peculiar interpretation of The Metamorphosis is that of reading the novella as an allegory. Granted it is impossible for Kafka to have intended the novella to be an allegory, as he died in 1924 and The Metamorphosis was published in 1915, for the story emulates the history of Germany and the Nazi Party.

            Allegorically, the Samsa family represents post World War I Germany; indebted beyond their wits with new generations growing, so they turn to the only visible and viable source they know of to pull them out of their Hell. Gregor represents the Nazi party, the dependable brother who through perseverance, determination, and hard work can pull the once mighty nation, the beloved family, out of its depression and debt. The dependable brother works diligently for years to save his family, and all seems well until one day, the saviour dramatically transforms into the greatest monster ever to be seen by the poor family, and perhaps the entire world. The brother does not see that he has become a hindrance, a menace, a burden, another debt to the family he so desperately wants to help. Parts of him recognize that he may be the opposite of what he desires to be and the opposite of what his family needs him to be, but they are minor thoughts that never cause an impact for the good, only the weakening of the brother. Grete is the young generation that falls victim to believing and loving the monster after its transformation. Mrs. Samsa represents those persecuted during the Holocaust, and Mr. Samsa represents the citizens of Germany who must pick up the slack working in the nation. The three lodgers represent the three major nations of the Allied forces who occupied Germany after the war; Russia, Britain, and the United States. After some time torturing the family, a blow is dealt that cripples the monster of a brother and eventually leads to its death. Before the death the family denounces the monster as a brother, and after the death moves on towards healing and preparing for the future of the next generation.

            The Metamorphosis, read allegorically, is powerful, and an excellent representation of how a dependant body can fall victim to its saviour, and how a force of good can distort and warp itself into a great hindrance for the body it desires to help when placed under great pressure.

            It is plausible that Kafka wrote The Metamorphosis as a literal fiction novella in order to represent his philosophical beliefs. It is probable that Kafka meant his story to be a metaphor for Gregor’s shift from a help to a hindrance. It is impossible for Kafka to have written this classic as an allegory for the historical events of World War Two, however the reading of the novel as an allegory is the most powerful of the three possibilities. Perhaps Kafka wrote The Metamorphosis as an allegory for a different turn of events that mirrored those of Nazi Germany. In conclusion, The Metamorphosis should be read and interpreted all ways possible as to give the reader as much as the reader can receive from this novella.

Journal;Poisonwood Bible

The Poisonwood Bible written by Barbara Kingsolver is a tale of an American missionary family in the Congo, during the controversial years following World War II. The reader is able to see most every side to the story due to the chapters that are told from the different view points of the Price children and Orleanna. The only family member whose mind is not opened for the reader is Nathan, who is viewed from the second person and second hand accounts of his family, perhaps because Nathan does not even have a grip on his own mind himself.

Kingsolver is telling the story of corruption; the corrupt mind of Nathan, and how his zeal destroyed the faith of his family, excluding Adah, who already lost what little faith a child has. Nathan’s zeal caused him to forget the parable of the sower; “And he spake many things unto them in parables, saying, Behold, a sower went forth to sow; 4And when he sowed, some seeds fell by the way side, and the fowls came and devoured them up: 5Some fell upon stony places, where they had not much earth: and forthwith they sprung up, because they had no deepness of earth: 6And when the sun was up, they were scorched; and because they had no root, they withered away. 7And some fell among thorns; and the thorns sprung up, and choked them: 8But other fell into good ground, and brought forth fruit, some an hundredfold, some sixtyfold, some thirtyfold. 9Who hath ears to hear, let him hear.” Matthew 13: 3-9. Nathan fails to see that Africa is a rocky land sprouting thorns to house birds. The Word of God as most Christians view it is not well received. There are no roots to take hold, tradition and customs choke it out, and it almost seems that it is fated for the seeds to be eaten by the endless organized chaos that is Africa.

Many people have read The Poisonwood Bible, and denounced it as atheist, as opposing the Christian God. This is not true. The Poisonwood Bible is not atheist; by far it is the opposite.

Read from the perspective of a Christian, the novel may be the tale of the dangers of zealots, and how they can destroy the faith of not only possible converts but also of their own families. Nathan’s blind zeal combined with the revelations of Africa caused the destruction of the faith held by his wife and daughters.

By the conclusion The Poisonwood Bible also clearly states a belief in God, only not bound by the egotistic human nature that is found in most major religions. It states (in Adah’s opinion) that God does not want only mankind to win; “Now I understand, God is not just rooting for the dollies. [humans]” 529. God put creation into a state where all of the created are in constant conflict and competition so they may run their course of evolving, epitomizing, and falling into entropy. Therefore the human belief that we are above all else is wrong. God placed humans as the humble servants of Earth, not the righteous and rightful conquerors. Over time we failed that duty, and are now condemned to Hell on Earth. The animals never disobeyed God, to our knowledge, and therefore needed no saviour. Humans however have and continue to, thus the Saviour is needed. If anything, humans are below animals, thus why we receive special attention. That and without guidance, we would destroy the competition God created.

The Scent Of Roses

I walked upon a path one day,

Its name was life, I chose to stay.

I knew not where I stood at all

But there I was, so proud and tall.

The world was mine, I ruled it well

Until one day a cursed spell

It fell upon me, as woman old

And said to me quite weak yet bold

“Perhaps, young man, a break must be.

Stop now fellow, smell roses, see!”

And for my ignorant mind I wept,

For quickly I knew my eyes had slept

And the nose of my face had turned away

From what I walked on every day.

Roses in abundance lay

On the ground they rot away.

And thus the path became a cell

To my eternal world wide Hell.

The Cry Of The Lost Ones

You don’t have to cry anymore to the whispering wind at night

‘Cause now there’s always someone at your door to convince you it’s alright.

Open the door to the man outside

I’m the safest one to whom you can confide

All the secrets and pain I know in my life

Can be remedied, if we both only tried.

You don’t want a knight clad in armor bright

You don’t need a god standing proud and tall

The soldier he isn’t right, sneaking around at night

Go for the outcast, the scarecrow who stands

At your door, by your window, I reach for your hand-

But the rest of the world wants to pull you away

The rest of the world only feeds off your pain

For from your life, what else can it gain?

Or at least that’s the way

This blind world loves to play.

Come and join me, in my prairie of gnosis~

Leave this horrendous mess behind

Come with me and see that the truth is

Nothing like you thought you would find!

There’s a bond here between us

It’s the demon inside

For a reason he chose us

And I trust that you’ll find

He believes if we love it’s the best for our lives!

But how can we know, if you cry there inside

While the scarecrow, I wait at your door

In the dead of the cold

Whispering

Night

~ gnosis- Greek for a deep philosophical knowledge and understanding

boy part--- girl part---duo