A Profound Experiment

Brave New World Notes- Chpt 1

¿Quiénes son los muertos?

No son los muertos los que en dulce calma

la paz disfrutan de la tumba fría,

muertos son los que tienen muerta el alma

y viven todavía.

No son los muertos, no,

los que reciben rayos de luz en sus despojos yertos.

Los que mueren con honra son los vivos,

y los que viven sin honra son los muertos.

Por eso, hay muertos que en el mundo viven

y hombres que viven en el mundo, muertos.

-Ricardo Palma

--There are people whom although live are truly dead, and others who have died but continue to live and survive--

Literary Terms #6

simile - noun a figure of speech that expresses a resemblance between things of different kinds

soliloquy - noun a (usually long) dramatic speech intended to give the illusion of unspoken reflections; speech you make to yourself

spiritual - adj. noun a kind of religious song, folk song

speaker - noun speaker; narrator

stereotype - noun a conventional or formulaic conception or image; cliché

stream of consciousness – attempts to imitate flow of thoughts, feelings, and images as occurring in one’s mind

structure - noun the manner of construction of something and the arrangement of its parts

style - noun a way of expressing something (in language or art or music etc.) that is characteristic of a particular person or group of people or period

subordination - noun the semantic relation of being subordinate or belonging to a lower rank or class

surrealism - noun a 20th century movement of artists and writers (developing out of dadaism) who used fantastic images and incongruous juxtapositions in order to represent unconscious thoughts and dreams

suspension of disbelief – suspend not believing in order to enjoy it

symbol - noun an arbitrary sign that has acquired a conventional significance

synesthesia - noun a sensation that normally occurs in one sense modality occurs when another modality is stimulated

synecdoche - noun substituting a more inclusive term for a less inclusive one or vice versa

syntax - noun the grammatical arrangement of words in sentences

theme - noun a unifying idea that is a recurrent element in a literary or artistic work

thesis - noun an unproved statement put forward as a premise in an argument

tone - noun used to create mood and atmosphere of literary work; author’s perceived point of view

tongue in cheek – humor in which speaker feigns seriousness

tragedy - noun drama in which the protagonist is overcome by some superior force or circumstance; excites terror or pity

understatement - noun a statement that is restrained in ironic contrast to what might have been said

vernacular - adj. being or characteristic of or appropriate to everyday language; noun the everyday speech of the people (as distinguished from literary language)

voice - noun textual features that convey a writer’s or speaker’s persona

zeitgeist - noun the spirit characteristic of an age or generation

More Aldous Huxley

Aldous Huxley

I was searching a few things about Aldous Huxley, and came across this quote.

“The real hopeless victims of mental illness are to be found among those who appear to be most normal. "Many of them are normal because they are so well adjusted to our mode of existence, because their human voice has been silenced so early in their lives, that they do not even struggle or suffer or develop symptoms as the neurotic does." They are normal not in what may be called the absolute sense of the word; they are normal only in relation to a profoundly abnormal society. Their perfect adjustment to that abnormal society is a measure of their mental sickness. These millions of abnormally normal people, living without fuss in a society to which, if they were fully human beings, they ought not to be adjusted.”

Now, I have already read Brave New World and did enjoy it greatly. It's one of those books that you would gladly read again because you know that you can extract something new from it each time you open it. I observed that a main underlying theme in both the book and in the quote above is the conformity of an individual to society and the thereof loss of humanity. We cannot simply adjust to an environment which we disagree with simply because it it expected of us, we must utilize what makes us different in order to obtain what is best for us. We believe we find comfort and stability in fitting in with a specific pattern and merging with the crowd, but in reality we only lose the most important part of ourselves. In Brave New World my favorite character by far was John because he saw a world in which although happiness reigned it was false and where there was no individual but only a mass, and he detested it. He tried to fight against it, stood up to it alone and when he could not defeat it he resorted to suicide. Death was a worthy alternative to losing oneself in such a sick society.

The Love of Learning

Learning has lost its value for some people. It has become that requirement that we must all meet in order to move on to the more interesting parts of our lives. Most no longer go to school excited, wishing to learn more about algebra or history. It has become more of a mechanized routine: sit down, take notes, cram everything into your head, pass the test, and forget it all. I admit that this has also occurred to me, not because I dislike learning, but because I have lived with a false definition of learning for so long. Most of my life I have believed learning consisted of memorizing information that others wanted me to, of researching topics that we need to know in order to survive in our society. That is far from what learning truly is.

Learning should arouse excitement, it should make you wake up every morning eager to start a new day. Learning should be shaped around your interests and should be devoted to that which catches your attention. It should keep you up at night and make you forget about whether or not you have eaten in the past six hours. If learning is pure and consistent it can be innovative. It will bring about changes because it will come from individuals whom experience changes everyday and whom embrace new things with passion. 

There was a specific line in the interview that really struck a chord. "You can't take a human being and put them to work at a job that under uses the brain and keep them working at it for decades and decades and then say 'well that job isn't there, go do something more creative'. You have beaten the creativity out of them." I, for one, am that kind of person that states that they are not creative at all. I cringe when asked to draw a picture and get frustrated when I cannot see shapes in the clouds. I admit that I have not felt excited about learning as I once did. Now I begin to question whether I have been using my brain correctly all this time, whether I have been learning what truly interests me. That then leads to a different question, how do I know what interests me and not the system that has influenced us all in different but inevitable ways? I want to feel excited again. I do get glimpses of it every once and a while, but I want it to accompany me all of my life.

Literary Terms #5

parallelism - noun similarity by virtue of corresponding

parody - noun humorous or satirical mimicry; a composition that imitates somebody's style in a humorous way

pathos - noun a style that has the power to evoke feelings

pedantry - noun a display of learning for its own sake

personification - noun the act of attributing human characteristics to abstract ideas

plot - noun a secret scheme to do something ; the story that is told in a novel or play or movie etc

poignant - adj. keenly distressing to the mind or feelings; arousing sorrow/sentiment

point of view – the physical point from which the observer views what he is describing

postmodernism - noun genre of art and literature and especially architecture in reaction against principles and practices of established modernism

prose - noun ordinary writing as distinguished from verse; matter of fact, commonplace, or dull expression

protagonist - noun the principal character in a work of fiction

pun - noun a humorous play on words

purpose - noun an anticipated outcome that is intended by the author

realism - noun artists and writers strove for detailed realistic and factual description

refrain - noun recurring phrase or verse in song; chorus

requiem – noun a song or hymn of mourning composed or performed as a memorial to a dead person

resolution - noun denouement; problem in a story or literary work is worked out

restatement - noun a revised statement

rhetoric – noun using language effectively to please or persuade

rhetorical question – question that does not require an answer; used in argument or persuasion

rising action – advancement towards climax; plot build-up

romanticism - noun a movement in literature and art during the late 18th and early 19th centuries that celebrated nature rather than civilization; reason over fact

satire - noun witty language used to ridicule weakness and wrongdoings of humanity

scansion - noun analysis of verse into metrical patterns

setting - noun the context and environment in which something is set