Post 26: Hamlet: modern hero?

Hamlet's story is tragic, but heroic. He spoke in a way that deepened people's thoughts. His word choices and comparisons and even word structure caused him to stick out from the crowd. He also was not perfect, which made him more relatable to the common people. His actions were heroic since he went after justice and his death was meaningful due to his soliloquy. He left the ongoing question, "To be or not to be?"

Post 25: Oedipus & Hamlet

Both are famous characters who come from different backgrounds and settings. Oedipus came from the times where you pray to the Greek gods and Hamlet came from a time where Catholic was the presiding religion. Even though they come from different settings, both have some sort of fate they are destined. Also both of their fathers had been murdered. The murderers of the fathers were both related to the father himself since Hamlet's uncle killed his own brother (Hamlet's dad) and Oedipus killed his own father.

Post 24: Utopia States of America

The United States of America is the land of the free where everyone has the equal opportunity to succeed in life. However, just because a country is free does not mean it is the perfect place to live. We still face war, racism, sexism, debt, bankruptcy. Maybe it boils down to who we elect in office, how we raise our kids, or what it put out on the media for everyone to see.

Utopia is a society where everyone is the same and there is no diversity...it's almost creepily robotic. So not a place I would want to live in. Yes America needs (a lot) of help and change, but I would rather live in a world where we are able to make our own decisions and not have things chosen for me.

Post 23: Prince Trump?

Machiavelli is famous for his belief that it is better to be feared than loved. President Trump is not trying to make people fear him, and quite frankly I don't think many people would "fear" him. They may fear the outcomes of his decisions, but that's because there are always going to be doubters and skeptics.

Overall Machiavelli's idea for a ruler was for him to act like an ass in order to get things done. Also, he says to stray away from flatterers and to stick with well educated, wise people. President Trump has failed to do this when it came to choose the Secretary of Education.

Machiavelli probably would be very disappointed in Trump's leadership skills.

Post 22: Analyzing Beauty in Lyrics

Grace VanderWaal - "Beautiful Thing"

You think that you know my heart
And you probably do
So I'm always with you
I could stay with you for hours
In an empty room
And never get bored
Never have nothing to do

You're my other half
You're what makes me me
What makes me smile
When I fall down and can't get back, get back, get back up
On my feet

Without you here I am boring
Something inside you is triggering
It makes me myself
Makes me funny, you're a beautiful thing

We're a beautiful thing together
Even when the weather is low
You're a beautiful thing
We're a beautiful thing together
Even when the weather is low
We find the rainbow
Up in the sky
You'd say don't you cry, it's all gonna be alright

If we ever gone through a fight oh that would be bad
'Cause you know all of my secrets
But I know all of yours

We make hours turn into seconds together
The weight of the world feel like a feather
'Cause we're holding it right in our hands

You're my other half
You're what makes me me
What makes me smile
When I fall down and can't get back up, get back, get back up
On my feet

Without you here I am boring
Something inside you is triggering
It makes me myself
Makes me funny

You're a beautiful thing
We're a beautiful thing together
Even when the weather is low
You're a beautiful thing
We're a beautiful thing together
Even when the weather is low

You and me
Together, we'll forget what we have been told
We'll live in our own dream world
You and me, forever
We'll forget what we have been told
We will take on the whole world

Without you here I am boring
Something inside you is triggering
It makes me myself, it makes me funny
You're a beautiful thing
We're a beautiful thing together
Even when the weather is low

And that's a beautiful thing

This song is describing two people who are in love and believe themselves to be a beautiful thing despite when things get rough on the outside. She explains that she never gets bored when she's with the person and how she laughs when she's with them and goes onto say it's a beautiful thing. She also says that this person makes the weight of the world feel like a feather. Her lyrics show the importance of how simple love is beautiful.

Post 21: Beauty in Your Life Poem

No matter who you are,

or where you go

No matter how far you run,

Love is everywhere.

Inspired by Rumi's Religion of Love

Post 20: Should Socrates be in Hell?

Honestly, I am not the judge should be in Hell and who shouldn't be. We know that there is only one true judge when it comes to where one's soul is going to be for the rest of eternity. 

In "Apology" he consistently claims that death is not soemthing you should fear. He then goes to say, after he has been sentenced to death, that " no evil can happen to a good man, either  in life or after death." Its ironic for him to have said this since Dante did claim to have seen him in Hell where evil is happening to him.

Post 19: Dante's Concepts of Hell

According to Dante, there are 9 levels of hell. All of which have their own certain punishment for the level of sin committed. The sins are limbo, lust, gluttony, greed, anger, heresy, violence, fraud, and treachery. These sins are similar to the seven deadly sins that are: pride, envy, gluttony, lust, anger, greed, and sloth. 

Dante may have been influenced by the seven sins.

Throughout Dante's journey he supposedly saw many people he knew or had heard of. This is kind of ironic considering most of us like to believe that everyone goes to Heaven but there are some that to go to Hell. 

If Dante's idea of Hell were to be modern, there would be a lot of people in Hell. But luckily, for most people, they believe in Jesus being the Savior and work to earn their right in Heaven through Him. 

Post 16: Leading by Example

No matter if you're the president of the United States, mayor of a small town, or the big sister of 4 younger siblings you should always lead by a personal example. If you hold a position where there are people underneath you, you need to always make sure you are leading in the right direction.

If high government officials work without caring for the people, then they are working for themselves and are bound to make selfish/ignorant choices. For example, a high government official forgets to humble his or herself, they may make a decision that could cost them their job. Either they could scam a way for more money, or have a scandalous affair that leaks out to the people.

Overall, anyone who is leading anyone needs to make good choices because every move they make is looked at and may or may not be followed.

When it comes to government officials, the people need to be able to trust that their country is being ran by trustworthy and humble people.

Post 15 Presidency with the ideals of Socrates & Confucius

The president of the United States serves as the most well-known job in America. The president is the leader of a whole county and he or she speaks for all of America. The president's roles are to work with Congress to make laws, to act as the Commander in Chief, enforce laws and treaties, prepare national budget, and to appoint federal officials.

Confucius' ideas were more involved on the people as a whole rather than oneself. For example, the government needs to be ran with the people first in mind. Therefore, the president should make decisions thinking about how it will affect Americans.

According to Socrates, his ethics and values were much more personal. He taught that a person's happiness is chosen by themselves. He also believed that in order to change/move another person, one must work on themselves before. This can compare to the president's work experience in local governments before they move to the national government. Theses officials must work on bettering themselves with education and experience before they can lead a nation.

Post 12: Tragic Public Figure

Robin Williams
Comedian & Actor
July 21, 1951 - August 11, 2014

I grew up watching Mrs. Doubtfire, Jumanji, Hook, Flubber, RV, and many of the other movies Robin Williams was in. Robin Williams could make anyone laugh or smile or even cry. His was a dynamic actor and a hilarious comedian. He was truly loved by America, that is why his death was devastating to nearly everyone.

I remember when the news came out, I couldn't believe it. Then I found out his committed suicide I was in even more disbelief. How could someone who makes people laugh for a living, be suffering with depression?

President Obama said, "Robin Williams was an airman, a doctor, a genie, a nanny, a president, a professor, a bangarang Peter Pan, and everything in between.  But he was one of a kind. He arrived in our lives as an alien -- but he ended up touching every element of the human spirit.  He made us laugh.  He made us cry.  He gave his immeasurable talent freely and generously to those who needed it most -- from our troops stationed abroad to the marginalized on our own streets." http://www.cnn.com/2014/08/11/showbiz/robin-williams-dead/index.html

For some, his death hit close to home. We realized no matter what a person portrays on the outside, we never know what they are battling on the inside.

Modern tragedy is something that moves an individual or group in how they perceive the world. We become affected by the tragedy since we can relate to it in our personal lives.

Classic tragedy normally involves a hero or heroine and the gods. This isn't relatable to our everyday lives, but the classic tragedies have a deeper meaning that we can relate to.

Post 11: Tragic Short Story

October 23, 2012
"What about naming it Alexander Wren if it's a boy and then Auden Rose if it's a girl?!" she exclaimed excitedly as the points at the circled names in her notebook dedicated to their first born child. Her husband smiles at his wife and says, "Sure, I love them both." This made his wife smile and jump with excitement.
The couple was going to wait until the day the baby was born to find out the sex of the baby. The couple chose on a yellow and green bedroom set and already decorated the whole room. The wife spent hours and hours in the room rocking in the white rocking chair reading to her unborn child.

December 14, 2012
The couple was on their way to their last doctors appointment before their due date. The wife was in the passenger seat pinning things to her Pinterest page while her husband drove. The weather out was nice, but there was a lot of traffic due to the holidays.
"I'm so excited for our growing family. This will be the best Christmas present I will ever receive," said the husband as he reaches for his wife's hand. His wife looked up from her phone and had tears of joy in her eyes. This was the last time her husband will ever see her smile. The couple was hit head on by a drunk driver. The couple was taken to the hospital. The wife was taken into the O.R and had an emergency delivery. The wife lost too much blood and did not make it. The husband suffered minor injuries and survived. The baby was delivered and was healthy.

December 25, 2013 (one year later) Christmas Day
The husband sat in the yellow and green room holding Auden Rose in his arms. His daughter was one year old. He sat there looking at the best Christmas gift he ever received. He sat there and was mesmerized by how a tragic accident was both the worst and best day of his life. He knows that he could not have made it through this year without his daughter. He is living every day trying to be the man that his wife knew he was.

Post 10: Comparing Modern Epic Heros

After reading a few of my classmate's post, here are 2 that stuck out to me: One was Shrek and the other was Katniss Everdeen. Both of these characters are heroic in their own ways. Both characters go on a journey that make a change in their world. However, Shrek's acts are more revolving around himself while Katniss' acts are selfless out of love for her sister. When it comes to my chosen character, Oh, I think he may compare more closely with Shrek. Both are characters going onto a journey for the better of themselves (for the most part.) This does not make either character less of a hero though.
These 3 characters are similar to classic epic heroes in the sense that they are all brave and make a huge change without that even being their drive for doing whatever it was that they were doing.
These characters are all heroes because they took it upon themselves to make a change.

Post 9: Modern Day Epic Hero

An epic hero is defined as a character in a poem who is noble and brave and is affected by great events or admired by his achievements.

In the CrashCourse video, John Green states that tragedy is most interesting when the mostly good character makes a big mistake. This invokes compassion and more emotion from the audience. This statement made me think of the animated movie called Home.

In this movie, the alien named Oh, is a clumsy alien and most of the other aliens do not like him. However, the audience cant help but to fall in love with his cute, quirky character. But since Oh is clumsy, he makes a big mistake and ends up sending out an email to the "bad guy" telling him where him and his people are moving to. Long story short, Oh ends up fixing the situation, with the help of his human friend Tip. While fixing his mistake, he leads his new friend back to her mom and he helps save the planet Earth. Oh shows bravery when he is on is journey to fix his mistake.

The aliens who first did not like Oh and were annoyed by him, end up admiring him for his achievement and befriend him.

Post 8: Views about my Wikipedia article

So far, "The Pillowbook" has been my favorite piece of literature. The thing I like the most about it is how it feels like I am reading a diary. However, the Wikipedia article fails to emphasize any of that. All it states is an overview of it. It mentions the "Borgesian Lists" but gives as little as their titles for an explanation as to what it is. It also states it is "as valuable as a historical document" but gives little to no explanation as so why it is valuable.
It closes of by saying, "In general, this piece is written in brief statements, where the length of one paragraph is relatively short, and it is easy to read the contents, even for modern Japanese speakers."
So basically this article leaves a lot of room for me to work with and add to since the original author failed to add much detail to parts I saw meaningful and worthy of more detail. Even though this story is short and easy to read that does not mean her work should be looked over. Her work is worthy to be analyzed in detail and that is what I plan on doing by adding to this Wikipedia article!

Post 7: LOVE

Love. Love is everywhere. It is in every city, every era, and every religion.

When I think about where love was first developed, I think about Shakespeare and his sonnets and plays on love. I also think back to the movie called "Letters to Juliet" which is a movie inspired by Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet.

I believe that for some people to believe in love, they need to know that there is an origin to it. I think that is why people have no let go of love poems and sonnets written centuries ago. Of course there is the element of the fact that is his history and culture, but there is still the fact that love existed then, it still exists now. As for this movie, their love was compared to Romeo and Juliet's love. Romeo and Juliet were both young, dumb, and in love. Their love was genuine and pure. However, if you compare their idea of love to someone like the Wife of Bath, you're in for a rude awakening. For most of her husbands, their love was not pure nor genuine. It was lustful as is was greedy.

Since we have both works of literature that illustrate so called "love" we can easily say that the idea of love has been around or years and years and within many areas of the world. There is no specific answer as to why the idea of romantic love began in the aristocratic courts of early countries other than these stories were pleasing and entertaining and still are today.

Post 6: S&M compared to The Wife of Bath

'Cause I may be bad but I'm perfectly good at it
Sex in the air, I don't care, I love the smell of it
Sticks and stones may break my bones,
But chains and whips excite me

It is clear to see that Rihanna is open about her sexuality when the song S&M released. It caused a huge debate about Rihanna's openness even though she was very blunt about it.

Or where did he command virginity? . . . He spoke this

to those people who wished to be perfect; and by your leave,

gentle people, I am not one of those people. I will use the

flower of my life in the acts and fruits of marriage.

In this quote from The Wife of Bath's, she questions where the idea of virginity even came from as well as claim herself to be imperfect. Next, her quote about using the flower of her life and fruits of marriage could easily mean she will use her sexuality for her benefits and she will use her fruits of marriage hence her multiple marriage and sex partners.

These two quotes are from two total different time periods, but both have the same concept of freedom within their sexuality. Rihanna mentions the fact that she "doesn't care" just like how the Wife of Bath basically does too when she says she is not perfect. By saying she's not perfect, she's giving herself the excuse to be sexual and flirtatious.

However, even years after The Wife of Bath, the norms still haven't been set. Rihanna's sexual lyrics had people sitting uneasy, even though the fact of women liking sex has been around for centuries.

Post 5: Wife of Bath's Approach on Sexuality & Romantic Love

Chaucer's "The Wife of Bath" was written nearly 600 years ago embodies much of today's beliefs when it comes to women and feminism. The wife of bath probably thought of herself as God's gift to men since she thought she knew all there was to know about love and sex. She was married 6 times, enjoyed sex, and did her own thing with no shame. In the 14th century, this type of confidence and fearlessness was not at all common. However, unlike today's approach on "feminism," The Wife of Bath did not try and persuade other women to believe like her. I am not saying that it was today's feminists do, but today women will voice their ideas publically in a convincing manner whereas The Wife of Bath seemingly had no idea her actions would have any meaning on other women.

"I think the degree of a nation's civilization may be measured by the degree of enlightenment of its women."

Poat 4: Archetypes in Metamorphoses

Metamorphoses is full of mythology stories that explain how or why something is. Some stories are over dramatic and exaggerated, while others not so much. Of the stories, the story of Jupiter and Io caught my attention. Jupiter, sounding like an arrogant man who believes he can get any girl, saw Io and yelled for her saying "Virgin, worthy of Jupiter herself, who will make some unknown man happy when you share his bed . . . Do not fly from me!" At this point Io had already started fleeing. He began to chase after her, caught her, and then raped her. Jupiter got what he wanted from Io. It is unfortunate that this story is still relatable to today's world given that rapes occur often times when a man forcefully places himself upon a woman. Furthermore, Jupiter's arrogance reached a whole new level when his wife, Juno, came down from the heavens and confronted Jupiter who had turned Io into a heifer. Jupiter lied to Juno telling her Io, who was now a heifer, was just a gift. He failed to mention how he forced himself upon Io and raped her. Again, it is unfortunate that even today man will lie and cheat to his wife. In conclusion this story symbolizes the corrupted sense of nature that humans had and still had. Humans then believed they were entitled to what the wanted despite the circumstances, as do some humans do today.

Post 3: Archetypes Within My Life

An archetype is an action or situation that represents something. It's almost like  a natural reference you make when you see an object, or a particular situation. In class, Professor Hamon mentioned how an archetype could be something as simple as a meal. This made me think of the meal of chocolate syrup and biscuits. Yes, I know, it doesn't sound good and it sounds weird, but its delicious. Growing up my Mema always made us chocolate syrup and biscuits in the morning when we would spend the night. Also, at family gatherings its a tradition to have this meal made. My Mema's mom passed this down to her, then my Mema passed it down to my Dad, & now my dad has passed it on to me and my siblings. To other people this may not be by any means symbolic, but its a meal that has and will always make me remember the times spent with my great aunts and uncles, cousins, and grandparents.

If you ask a person from Wyoming what does a peach mean to them, their response is going to be vague and confused. If you ask a person from Georgia what does a peach mean to them, their response will be more in depth and meaningful since Georgia is known for their peaches. However there are some people who have overlooked the meaning of a peach or just don't care, but to me it symbolizes my home, my high school, my first job, etc. All my life I have lived in Peach County and I've known nothing else.

So in conclusion archetypes can be found on a national level, global level, and even  personal level.