Thinking Outside The Box

Plato used the cave and the prisoners to describe our limitations. The cave was a dark place that sheltered the minds of the prisoners. Even though the prisoners were able to see the shadows on the cave walls they were not able to experience the real thing and Plato said that a student must experience something to learn it they cannot just see it or hear about it. Sartre used the drawing box to limit the thoughts of the characters. Sartre physically limited the though process while Plato used metaphors to express the limitation of the prisoners.

No Exit by Jean Paul Sartre

-Sartre was as French literary critique and playwright
-The play is an Existentialist play: stresses the individuals unique position as a self-determining agent responsible for the authenticity of his or her choices
-"Hell is other people"
-"People are condemned to be free"
-the entire play takes place in a drawing room
-the four characters are Valet, Garcin, Estelle and Inez
-the rules are the cannot sleep, there are no mirrors and no darkness
-Garcin and Valet are in the room together a few minutes later Valet leaves and returns with a woman named Inez
-Inez believes that she should be with Florence and she accuses Garcin of being her torturer
-Valet enters again with Estelle, Estelle is scared because Garcin does not have a face he begs him to not look up at her
-Garcin and Inez take interest in Estelle (Inez is gay)
-Estelle wants to fix her makeup but there is no mirror for her to fix it in, Inez offers to help her but Estelle declines because she is not interested in women
-Estelle is in denial that she is actually dead
-Inez accepts the fact that they are all dead and frequently announces that they are in Hell
-Garcin wants to be left alone as he thinks they will hurt each other so he doesn't think that they should speak
-Garcin was a journalist in Rio that owned a newspaper he was shot for standing up for his opinion
-Estelle was a poor orphan, she married a rich man to take care of her. she died of pneumonia
-Inez was a postal worker
-they are allowed to have glimpses from their lives, Garcin watches old friends talk, Estelle watches an old friend betray her and flirt with a boy she use to love, Inez watches new people move into her apartment
-In real life Garcin was an adulterer, his wife loved and adored him but he treated her poorly and was not faithful. Estelle was not faithful to her husband either and had a child with a younger man, she ran away to Switzerland and drowned the baby while her lover watched. Inez lived with her cousin and his wife, she turned her cousins wife against him and took her for herself.
-the groups hell is: Garcin tortures Estelle because she wants him to love her but he wont, Estelle tortures Inez because Inez is attracted to Estelle, Inez tortures Garcin because he wants to feel like a hero and seeks Inez approval but she wont give it to him.
-the group realizes that hey are never able to separate and they all erupt into laughter and fall onto the hard floor.

1) My version of Hell is one in which I watch my family go on in with their lives not even noticing that I am not there with them. My Hell is equipped with literal instruments like Dante's inferno it is more painful for me to watch this then it would be to physically be hurt. The mind can be in a beautiful hell because every person has there own version of hell and something that may be beautiful can really be a hell place for someone to be. I don't think there is ever a way to find peace in a hellish place. Living in Sartre's hell night and day would be hard, knowing that you are stuck there would be hard for me to understand and cope with I do not like being told what to do and I do not like being stuck with something I am unable to change.
2) Hell could be described as anything without a break moderation is good and keeps people sane.
3) Sartre creates a sense of place with the character's speaking to each other the readers are able to really capture their sense of place and frustration. Staying awake all the time would make me go crazy. I need to sleep and be in the dark to let my mind clear itself and start fresh for the next day but if there was not dark how would I know when a new day started and ended. Garcin reacts to his hell by deny that it was happening to him.

Sonnet

Sitting in the dark

Shackled hands, shackled feet, shackled mind

Seeing and hearing the world 

But never able to experience it.

The shadows speak to me

The voices of the free

Echoes bounce off the empty walls

Making my mind curious.

The faint light burns my eyes

The dank cave is my hell

It has consumed my entire being

Without escape my life will be over.

My trapped body and mind

A soul will never find.

Brain with 10 legs

My group which consits of Whintey Houg, Sarah Stevens, Breanna Timmons and Amara Sharp. We are reading Catch 22. Our plan is to discuss the book through group message and in person if we have time in class or just around school. We also have Dr. Preston to ask questions due to the fact that this is one of his favorite books. Our reading schedule is that all group members have to have the books finished on or before December 1st. 

Plato's Allegory of the Cave

1. According to Socrates, what does the Allegory of the Cave represent?
- The Allegory of the Cave represents what we believe is our reality and when we are taken out of what we know and what is our reality we are confused and lost.




2. What are the key elements in the imagery used in the allegory?
- The darkness is used to represent the reality in which the prisoners live in while the light represents the unknown world they have been deprived of. 




3. What are some things the allegory suggests about the process of enlightenment or education?
- I believe the allegory suggests that by stepping out of your comfort zone and doing something different we can learn new things.





 
4. What do the imagery of "shackles" and the "cave" suggest about the perspective of the cave dwellers or prisoners?
- The shackles and the cave represent the walls and restraints that confide people. The shackles are restricting the movement of the prisoners so they can only see what is right in front of them. The cave is like their comfort zone it is all they know and they never leave it.




5. In society today or in your own life, what sorts of things shackle the mind?
- I believe that people are the shackles to your mind. When you have a large amount of people telling you that you can't do something at some point you are going to believe that you can't do it and you are going to give up.



6. Compare the perspective of the freed prisoner with the cave prisoners?
- Unlike the cave prisoners, the freed prisoner is able to see things the cave prisoners can't like the sun. This leads him into the world of imagination as he is able to imagine what other things may be out in the world. Before the freed prisoner escaped, he would never have imagined something so bright like the sun existed. The cave prisoners still believe in only the shadows because it is the only thing they have ever known.  


7. According to the allegory, lack of clarity or intellectual confusion can occur in two distinct ways or contexts. What are they?
-Lack of clarity can occur when one simply doesn't know of any other possibilities. If someone is taught one thing all their lives and someone suddenly tells them they are wrong or there are other possibilities, how could they have known that in the first place? Intellectual confusion can occur when you are trying to explain something to someone they didn't even know existed. 




 8. According to the allegory, how do cave prisoners get free? What does this suggest about intellectual freedom?
- The cave prisoners can get free if they simply just try to escape. This tells us that in order to do something new you need to step out of your comfort zone. Though it may be scary at first, that one decision can hold a million different  opportunities. 




9. The allegory presupposes that there is a distinction between appearances and reality. Do you agree? Why or why not?
- I agree with this statement. In the allegory, the cave prisoners only saw the appearances of the shadows on the walls. In reality, those shadows were different things like animals and people. 




10. If Socrates is incorrect in his assumption that there is a distinction between reality and appearances, what are the two alternative metaphysical assumptions?
- One assumption could be that everything you see is indeed what it appears be and nothing else. Another assumption could be that all the things you know of are the only things that exist in the world.

We Hang Together

• Many schools believe that collaboration is cheating.
• Communication and trust play an important role in collaboration
• companies that let there employees work together and show the human side of the company will usually have more trust
• medieval guilds are an example of relationships with trust and personal bonds
• Survival of the fittest is about being the most adaptable
• Interdependence requires that one party do for the other and vice versa
• To gain interdependence you must sacrifice a sense of community or teamwork

Sonnet Remix

Sonnet to Death by Heath Bailey

Cold Death, who lays an icy hand on all
The children of the Two who fell from grace,
Boast not — thy victory's scope is sliver-small
And but a moment mars the human race.
Although the grave, in season, houses bones,
And Age, thy minion, plays me like a pawn,
Though for a day thou rulest, 'neath the stones,
Thy grip, though fearful, thee will fail ere dawn.
For in these realms of Love thou canst not reign:
The widow's faith, the kinship in a home,
And lover's vows. Thy frightenings are in vain,
For these thou hast not strength to overcome.
What then if for a moment Death bring grief?
From Death, Love plunders Life, a welcome thief.

If I Die Young by The Band Perry

This music video is as you can tell about death coming to young. The sonnet immediately made this song come to mind, when I listen to it I can hear the pain in the words that are being sung. I had the same reaction with the sonnet. The line in the song "the sharp knife of a short life" and the line in the sonnet "Cold Death, who lays an icy hand on all" are both powerful phrases that make me realize how intensely serious death is and how it is inescapable.

 

Picture Collage of meaningful images

 

This song is a about a young couple that is in love and are newly married and right after the wedding the husband goes off to war. (foreshadowing tells us that in most country songs the husband will not be coming back.) The young widow is trying to deal with the death of her new husband and trying to figure out her life without her husband.

 

Sonnet Analysis #1

Sonnets

Sonnetto- little song or sound in Italian

There are two types of sonnets both composed of 14 lines

Petrarch/Italian

• Composed of an octet (8 lines) and a sextet (6 lines)

Shakespearean

• Composed of three quatrains (4 lines) and one couplet (2 lines)
• the last two words in each line of the couplet rhyme making it easy to identify as Shakespearean

A Poetic Inquiry

Sonnet to Death by Heath Bailey

Cold Death, who lays an icy hand on all
The children of the Two who fell from grace,
Boast not — thy victory's scope is sliver-small
And but a moment mars the human race.
Although the grave, in season, houses bones,
And Age, thy minion, plays me like a pawn,
Though for a day thou rulest, 'neath the stones,
Thy grip, though fearful, thee will fail ere dawn.
For in these realms of Love thou canst not reign:
The widow's faith, the kinship in a home,
And lover's vows. Thy frightenings are in vain,
For these thou hast not strength to overcome.
What then if for a moment Death bring grief?
From Death, Love plunders Life, a welcome thief.

 

The sonnet I chose does not relate to my Big question but I found this one very interesting and it relates to the times our country is facing with death coming to soon in peoples lives.

 

Hamlet Essay Remix

http://youtu.be/W9VZp7IFfXQ
This is the video of the last scene. Where almost every character dies.

This picture represents the weight I believe one would feel on their shoulders after they have murdered someone.

The twists resembles how the characters relationships with each other were insanely crazy and were completely messed up.

Hamlet Essay

Rachel Nolan

Fourth Period  

November 4, 2013

Hamlet and Hamlet

Performative Utterance is something that makes Hamlet the play make sense to me.  Hamlet was a twisted play that particularly made me think of people’s actions and how they stick with you forever. Hamlet’s character spoke in ways that made self-overhearing relevant in the play.

            Through out Hamlet the characters would talk about different plans but did not always carry them out but on the other hand a lot of plans were executed during the play. Performative Utterance is a way of speaking but not always doing. This made it easier for me to understand actions in the play. The way that the characters in Hamlet spoke made me think about how important it is to pre filter your words before you say them. Small conversations and small action ended with people dead. That has to stick with people for a long time, killing a person is not a small act that goes away that is a weight that is almost never lifted off ones shoulders. The way Hamlet speaks constitutes action in the way he goes so deep into explanation and feeling. His emotion breaks through the text and becomes evident and makes the words speak in more ways than one. Hamlet is able to shit the mood of the play, which is exactly who is character is he is able to act on way and then immediately switch back to being sane. In doing this he is able to completely alter the plot, with just words and small actions he drives Claudius mad trying to figure him out.

Self-overhearing is a concept that personally freaks me out but is so true. While Hamlet speaks he can hear is plans out loud and it makes him wonder if they are good or not. This happens to us all the time. Things always sound better in our heads that they do when we say them aloud to other people. It also helps us understands and memorize things better. The more I hear something said the better I understand it, repetition makes me think more and more about it making it easier for me to wrap my head around. When I was trying to memorize “To be, or not to be” hearing myself say it out loud made it stick with me and made the memorization process easier for me.

            Hamlet is a play that will be a classic forever. The use of performative utterance makes it easier for the reader to understand why Hamlet and the other characters do and say the things they do. This play has themes that are meant to teach and to entertain at the same time. Backstabbing, death and love are all parts of Hamlet that make is so unforgettable