Age of Mistakes (Minor Age of Ultron Spoilers)

Last week we read a piece called A Measure of Restraint by Chet Raymo.  In this piece, Raymo, a science professor, discusses the "risks that are sometimes imposed by knowledge."  In other words, he is warning scientists of the dangers of experimenting with something unknown.  That weekend, I went to see the new Avengers movie and with Raymo's story fresh in my mind, I realized that Raymo's piece directly ties to Avengers: Age of Ultron's main plot.

Since the title is "Age of Ultron," it can be inferred that Ultron will be a huge part of the movie.  Created by Tony Stark to save the world, Ultron was designed to prevent any threat the world faces.  However, Ultron has artificial intelligence so he can think on his own.  Seeing all the destruction people cause, he comes to the conclusion that the only way to save the world is to destroy it.

Tony did have good intentions, but as Thor says in the picture to the right, "this could have been avoided if [Tony] hadn't played with something [he doesn't] understand."  He was so focused on the benefits of the Ultron program that he forgot about the "potential danger" this program can bring.  The larger the benefits of a discovery the greater the danger.  If Tony had a little "self-restraint," this whole crisis would have never happened.  Of course this is a superhero movie so Ultron was defeated in the end.  But if this happened in the real world, maybe not artificial intelligence but something equally as dangerous, there is no telling what would happen.  This movie and Raymo's piece should serve as a warning to scientists that good intentions can lead to dangerous results if the consequences, as well as the benefits, of a discovery aren't considered.   

Maus Close Read

On page 125 of Art Spiegelman's first volume of Maus, Vladek is discussing what he and Anja did after they left the abandoned ghetto.  He says they "didn't have [any]where to go."  The path they are walking on is swastika so it is clear why they had nowhere to go.  This path represents that it didn't matter which why the Jews went; the Nazis would catch them anyway.  Everything in this panel is shaded except for the path to bring focus the fact that the Jews during this time had nowhere to hide.  This is illustrated in the panel because there are only a few leafless trees and two houses that could be used as a hiding place.  There is mostly barren land because the Jews hiding places were next to none at this point during the war.  Vladek says that they "walked in the direction of Sosnowiec" but they didn't know what to do once they got there because the Nazis wouldn't be too far behind them.  One wrong turn and they could end up in the smoke stacks, which is represented in the right hand corner of this panel.  The smoke stacks always had a looming presence over the Jews which is why it is shaded really dark and located in the corner.  It is far from Anja and Vladek, but it is close enough for them to worry about ending up in it.

Memories

"To attempt to represent Auschwitz in language - to reduce the degradation, death and stench to a concept - drowns out the screams...it is therefore necessary that the Holocaust remains immemorial - that it remains that which cannot be remembered - but also that which cannot be forgotten.  Thus, any art attempting to represent the Holocaust should continue to haunt us with its inability to represent the unrepresentative, to say the unsayable.  It should continue to haunt us with the feeling that there is something Other than representation."

Today in class we discussed this quote by Jim Powell.  He says that it is impossible to represent the all the horrors of the Holocaust through writing, which is true.  History textbooks, for example, only state the statistics and a synopsis of the Holocaust.  One chapter in a textbook isn't nearly enough to accurately represent this tragic event.  They choose to write about the big picture instead of specific details which "drowns of the screams."  However, it is hard for the authors of the history books to get personal stories because many of the survivors don't like to talk about everything they witnessed; it's "unsayable."  Many try to forget everything that has happened to them and the best way to do that is by not talking about.  Yet, if everyone forgets about the Holocaust, an event just like it can happen again.  History repeats itself unless the world learns from the past and prevents it from happening in the future.  It is a constant battle between remember and forgetting, but neither one ever wins.  People can forget about it for a while but eventually something will bring back the memories, such as a picture or an article.  These works of art are "haunt[ing]" because parts of it may be true, but the creators are leaving out some terrible details which is very frightening to think about.

The Reality of Photographs

This week we read a section of On Photography by Susan Sontag.  In this piece, Sontag writes that photographs are for "consumerism" and do not depict reality at all.  I agree that most photos with people smiling and posing don't represent reality, but staged photographs can reveal a truth about society.  For example, consider the image above.  The photographer obviously positioned these girls to sit and act the way they are.  Most teens aren't always on their phones when they are with their friends, but the purpose of this picture isn't to represent reality; it is to illustrate how attached teens are to their phones.  Many teenagers are relying on their phones to communicate that it is limiting their ability to be able to have conversations face to face.  Having these girls sitting next to each other on their phones without talking to each other effectively reveals this flaw in society.

Another example is this photograph to the right.  I feel that this image, although staged, represents how women feel the need to look perfect.  She seems discouraged because she has one minor imperfection.  Although this isn't a candid picture, it still has some truth to it.  I know I have felt like this at one point or another.  I do not agree that photographs are "mental pollution."  Even though most images these days are edited or staged, they don't fill people's mind with useless images.  They reveal an underlying truth that is beneficial to society.

Hair Straighteners

Over the years, the hair straightener has become more and more popular.  Women all over the world use it to get their hair perfectly straight.  God forbid there be a single curl or wave in their hair.  I don't think I have a friend who doesn't have a straightener in her home.  But why do some girls feel like having straight hair is the only way they feel confident about themselves?

I have a friend who straightens her hair almost every chance she gets.  She naturally has curly hair, but has repeatedly told me how much she hates it.  She even wants to get it permanently straightened.   Just like how David Foster Wallace is "confused" on the morality of killing lobsters, I am "confused" on her motives.  I do not understand why she wants to get rid of her naturally beautiful, curly hair for stick straight hair.  I understand why people want to straighten their hair sometimes; it's fun to chance your appearance once in a while.  But permanently changing your appearance to conform to a standard is very nonsensical.  What part of society has made it alright for women to believe they have to change themselves in order to fit in?  Women should be able to feel confident without feeling like they need to change something as simple as the way their hair looks.

The Hours

This week in class, we finished Mrs. Dalloway, by Virginia Woolf and watched the movie The Hours which is based off of the book.  I thought it was very clever how they made the book apart of the movie.  They had Virginia Woolf writing it and they had Laura Brown reading it.  I really liked how they combined characters to make one character in  the movie, such as Richard and Septimus.  Richard, like Septimus, is tired of "the hours" always following him so he decides to fall out the window, freeing himself from "the hours."  Woolf based Sepitmus off herself and I can see that when she is talking to her husband, Leonard, about how she is the only one who understands her illness.  Leonard reminds me of Rezia because he wants to help Virginia get better, but he doesn't understand what she is going through so it is impossible for him to help.

Laura Brown reminded me a little bit of Miss Kilman during the movie.  She is so distant and isn't very affectionate towards her family.just like Miss Kilman is towards everyone.  The only person we see Laura Brown show fondness towards is Kitty in the same way we see Miss Kilman only loving Elizabeth.  Laura Brown is so unhappy with her family that she decides to leave and live by herself because they only thing she desires is the one thing she can't have.  At the end of the movie, Laura has the same realization that Clarissa has at the end of the novel.  The realization is that life is beautiful and that no matter how many hardships you may face, you should keep on living. 

Unexpected Friendships

      "But this young man who had killed himself - had he plunged holding his treasure?  'If it were now to die, 'twere now to be most happy,' she had said to herself once, coming down in white.
       Or there were the poets and thinkers.  Suppose he had had that passion, and had gone to Sir William Bradshaw, a great doctor yet to her obscurely evil, without sex or lust, extremely polite to women, but capable of some indescribable outrage - forcing your soul, that was it - if this young man had gone to him, and Sir William had impressed him, like that, with his power, might he not then have said (indeed she felt it now), Life is made intolerable; they make life intolerable, men like that?" (Woolf 185).

Although Clarissa has never met Septimus, she seems to have a great understanding of his mind and his decisions, even more than Reiza has.  Earlier in the party, Clarissa hears that Septimus was in the war which is why he suffers so much.  However, Clarissa realizes that it wasn't his illness that caused him to commit suicide, it was the doctors, like Sir William, that made his life "intolerable."  The "treasure" that Clarissa mentions is Septimus's soul.  By flinging himself out the window, Septimus saved his soul from being corrupted by the doctors' wrong solutions for his condition.  Clarissa is the only character in the novel to understand that by killing himself, Septimus saved himself.

This reminded me of an episode of Merlin where the main character, Merlin, meets a boy named Daegal and doesn't fully comprehend his motives until he dies.  This isn't an exact comparison because Clarissa and Septimus never met but it still applies because Daegal and Merlin barely know each other.  Originally, Daegal was working Morgana, the evil witch, and tricks Merlin into going far into the woods so Morgana can kill his best friend, King Arthur, without Merlin interfering.  However Daegal has a change in heart and decides to help Merlin save Arthur from Morgana.  While they were saving Arthur, Daegal was shot and died.  Merlin realized after his death that he didn't come back and help him just to be nice, he did it to prove to himself that he still has goodness in heart after everything evil he has done.  Everyone in the kingdom thinks he is just a nice guy; only Merlin knows the truth about Daegal's actions just like Clarissa is the only one who understands Septimus' decisions.

Flashbacks

"Of course I did, thought Peter; it almost broke my heart too, he thought; and was overcome with his own grief, which rose like a moon looked at from a terrace, ghastly beautiful with light from the sunken day.  I was more unhappy than I've ever been since, he thought.  And as if in truth he were sitting there on the terrace he edged a little towards Clarissa; put his hand out; raised it; let it fall.  There above them it hung, that moon.  She too seemed to be sitting with him on the terrace, in the moonlight" (Woolf 42).

This passage represents how the past directly affects the present.  Peter Walsh just returned to London after five years of being in India and the first thing he does is visit his former love Clarissa.  He reflects back to the night he proposed to her, also the night she rejected him.  He sees the moon which they "looked at from a terrace."  His old feelings of love and "grief" are coming back to him through his flashback, proving how past events correlate with current events.

Just like Mrs. Dalloway, the TV show Arrow begins with no back story, it goes straight into the plot.  The show follows Oliver Queen, the son of a billionaire who goes missing for five years until he finally returns home, and his quest to protect his city by using his knowledge of the past to help with his current situation.  During each episode, there are two different time lines going on, one in the past and one in the present.  In order to understand the events occurring, you must understand the events that caused it to happen.

In this passage, there are also two timelines, one where Peter is in Clarissa's room and the other is the moment that Peter wishes he can forget.  But just like Oliver, he can't escape the past; the past is what shapes the present and the future.

Different

Steve in the 1940s                         Steve Today

This week, we read "Fish Cheeks," a short story by Amy Tan.  In this story, Tan discusses what it was like to grow up being Chinese in America.  She recalls being embarrassed of her culture at the time of the story, but later she realizes that she should not have tried to change herself and becomes "proud [she is] different" (Tan 95).  This reminded me of how Steve Rogers must have felt when he made the transition from the 1940s to the culture of today.

Although Amy Tan is discussing the difference between two cultures, the difference between two time periods can be viewed in the same way.  Each decade has their own slang, music, morals, technology, clothing, manners, and many more items and techniques associated with them.  If someone was to go from one time period to another, they would need to learn the culture of that period in order to fit in which is exactly what Steve Rogers had to do.  He dressed differently, thought differently, and he definitely didn't know what a cell phone was.  Just like Amy Tan and her "miniskirt in beige tweed," he thought if he looked the same on the outside he would fit in (Tan 95).  However, he will always be different.  A part of him will always be from the 1940s just like a part of Amy Tan will always be Chinese.

Charles Xavier

This week, we read a short story called "Disability" by Nancy Mairs.  In this story, Mairs reveals that the media severely hurts the disabled by failing to represent disabilities as normal.  In addition, the media's portrayal also hurts the "Temporarily Abled" because it influences people to believe that disabilities can't happen to them (Mairs 15).  However, people can become disabled "without warning, at any time" (Mairs 15).  Charles Xavier, also known as Professor X, fell victim to the media’s lack of portrayal when he gets paralyzed from the waist down.

Charles Xavier, along with the other X-Men, is a mutant.  Each one of them has a different special ability.  Charles has the ability of telepathy.  While on a mission with the X-Men in Cuba, he was accidentally shot in the back, paralyzing his legs.  He adjusted well at first, but over the years he becomes very depressed.  Charles was already an outcast of society because he is a mutant; now he is also an outcast of his own community because he is in a wheelchair.  He wants to be seen as "normal" so badly that he enlists the help of his friend to develop a serum that will allow him to walk again.  However, if he takes the serum, he will not be able to use his telepathy again.  In order to be considered "normal," he is willing to give up apart of himself that makes him truly special.  Nevertheless, he takes the serum anyway.  Finally he realizes that being true to himself is far better than conforming to society's standards.  Maybe if the media portrayed disabilities as something that "complicates but does not ruin human existence," the transition for Charles would have been easier (Mairs 15).