Journal #3: Consider which characters are at fault for the events that
are unfolding and why? Is there a character without blame? Why or why
not? Is there a character who should carry more of the blame? Do any
of the characters take responsibility?
I think the character who is mostly responsible for everything happening like it did is Gina because she could have avoided all this from the very start by telling Hjalmar the truth. I feel like if she was under bad circumstances with having a child with a married man then she should have gone away but she shouldn't have been accepting money from a man that didn't want anything to do with her or her child. She keeps too close of a relationship with Werle and is open to the fact that he is pretty much providing everything for her family. She does accept responsibility but is only because she was forced to, she didn't have another choice. I think that if it was up to her she would have carried out the lies throughout their whole lives. I also think Greggers is to blame too because he unleashed all this truth when it didn't need to be. He still has the belief that he was doing the right thing so he does not need to take responsibilty for anything because he believes he did not do anything wrong. Hjalmar and his family were fine and he came in and destroyed their family, and by unleashing the truth he sent Hedvig to her death.I think Hjalmar also has some blame for what happened to Hedvig because it was his reaction that sent Hedvig to kill herself. She only wanted the love of her dad and when he acted as if he didn't want her that changed everything for her. Hedvig is the only character without blame. She was only an innocent child who was unaware of her unfair circumstances.
Thursday, April 26, 2012
Wild Duck #2
Journal #2: How does Ibsen use the motif of decay, disease, illness,
etc and to what effect?
Ibsen uses the motif of illness to show that Greggers himself affects people with the truth and that the truth is sometimes better left unsaid and covered up. Greggers starts out with this "illness" from the very beginning. He gets it from his mother. I say this because in the beginning it is known that his mother did suspect that something was going on with Gina and her husband and she never got over it. I think she let Greggers know it as well because Werle tells him, "Your conscience has been sickly from childhood. It's an inheritance from your mother..." I think she started the disease and as time passes he gets worse and is described as having "a case of moralistic fever". When Greggers tells Hjalmar the truth, he infects him as well.
Ibsen uses the motif of illness to show that Greggers himself affects people with the truth and that the truth is sometimes better left unsaid and covered up. Greggers starts out with this "illness" from the very beginning. He gets it from his mother. I say this because in the beginning it is known that his mother did suspect that something was going on with Gina and her husband and she never got over it. I think she let Greggers know it as well because Werle tells him, "Your conscience has been sickly from childhood. It's an inheritance from your mother..." I think she started the disease and as time passes he gets worse and is described as having "a case of moralistic fever". When Greggers tells Hjalmar the truth, he infects him as well.
Wild Duck #1
Option 2: Examine how characters perceive themselves or others. Who
has false conceptions of him/herself? Who has misconceptions of
others? Who recognizes the facades created by other characters? Does
the character embrace the facade, ignore it, or confront it?
I feel like the two characters who really have a false sense of themselves are Greggers and Hjalmar. Greggers believes that he is a man who has a mission, I guess you could say, or a destiny as he calls it. But he does not understand that his actions are going to lead to Hedvig killing herself, which I don't believe were his intentions. He has also a misconception of how Hjalmar was going to react upon knowing the truth. He believed that it was going to make him have a "true marriage" with Gina but it ended up destroying their family, and ultimatly destroying Hjalmar. Hjalmar is living a lie. He embraces it without knowing it though. He truly believes he is a hard working man, although Gina and Hedvig are the ones who do his work for him. He also believes that he has a family of his own when in reality his child is biologically another mans. The people who recognize all these lies are the ones who are aware of the truth. Gina tries to enforce all of the facades in regards to Hjalmar.
I feel like the two characters who really have a false sense of themselves are Greggers and Hjalmar. Greggers believes that he is a man who has a mission, I guess you could say, or a destiny as he calls it. But he does not understand that his actions are going to lead to Hedvig killing herself, which I don't believe were his intentions. He has also a misconception of how Hjalmar was going to react upon knowing the truth. He believed that it was going to make him have a "true marriage" with Gina but it ended up destroying their family, and ultimatly destroying Hjalmar. Hjalmar is living a lie. He embraces it without knowing it though. He truly believes he is a hard working man, although Gina and Hedvig are the ones who do his work for him. He also believes that he has a family of his own when in reality his child is biologically another mans. The people who recognize all these lies are the ones who are aware of the truth. Gina tries to enforce all of the facades in regards to Hjalmar.
Monday, April 9, 2012
We #3
Motifs
D-503 still describes peoples faces, "The triangle of her eyebrows grew sharper, darker." He seems to describe eyebrows in various past entries. I feel like because he describes them as "triangle" because a triangle in math is delta which represents change. And now he and I-330s and his relationship did change in a drastic way. No longer are they close, reason has overpowered him and he prefers to stay loyal to his government. The unknown variable X is again mentioned in the book and the meaning of it still doesn't really change.
Setting
Previously I think I mentioned or at least meant to say something about the weather. The government controls the weather to show that they have ultimate control even over nature. But now a lot of things are happening, one of course being the revolution that I-330 is a part of. D-503 begins his 29th journal with, " Strange: The barometer is falling, but there is still no wind. [...] Clouds are rushing madly. There are still few-separate jagged fragments." The government is losing control which can be shown through the weather. This image also contradicts with D-503 earlier observations of the "immaculate sky" that he describes in the beginning of the book. That is because at the beginning the government did have complete control but now it is being challenged with this revolution. The One State is still not fond of nature so when birds come in D-503 writes, "Their sharp, black, piercing falling triangles filled the sky.", this is obviously not a good imagine because they do not like nature, which kind of the point of the Green Wall. It is there to keep nature out so when this happens and birds come in it creates chaos.
Language
D-503 is still describing himself as two versions of himself, "You know that it was the other I, the old one, and now..." His language of course is still revealing his internal conflict which is having a soul now, he has decided to end his conflict with an opertation. D-503 is starting to go back to his "old language" meaning not only mathematical but scientific and literal which supports his decision of staying loyal to the One State, "And my heart-an unpleasant, a painful compression, connected with a sense of pity. (But the heart is nothing but an ideal pump; compression, shrinkage, the sucking in of fluid by a pump are technical [...]) " I feel like even though D-503 has chosen a side, I guess you could say, he still knows within him that there are feelings, like he experienced but again, his logic and reasoning ultimatly won, as he goes through with the operation of removing his imagination and his soul.
D-503 still describes peoples faces, "The triangle of her eyebrows grew sharper, darker." He seems to describe eyebrows in various past entries. I feel like because he describes them as "triangle" because a triangle in math is delta which represents change. And now he and I-330s and his relationship did change in a drastic way. No longer are they close, reason has overpowered him and he prefers to stay loyal to his government. The unknown variable X is again mentioned in the book and the meaning of it still doesn't really change.
Setting
Previously I think I mentioned or at least meant to say something about the weather. The government controls the weather to show that they have ultimate control even over nature. But now a lot of things are happening, one of course being the revolution that I-330 is a part of. D-503 begins his 29th journal with, " Strange: The barometer is falling, but there is still no wind. [...] Clouds are rushing madly. There are still few-separate jagged fragments." The government is losing control which can be shown through the weather. This image also contradicts with D-503 earlier observations of the "immaculate sky" that he describes in the beginning of the book. That is because at the beginning the government did have complete control but now it is being challenged with this revolution. The One State is still not fond of nature so when birds come in D-503 writes, "Their sharp, black, piercing falling triangles filled the sky.", this is obviously not a good imagine because they do not like nature, which kind of the point of the Green Wall. It is there to keep nature out so when this happens and birds come in it creates chaos.
Language
D-503 is still describing himself as two versions of himself, "You know that it was the other I, the old one, and now..." His language of course is still revealing his internal conflict which is having a soul now, he has decided to end his conflict with an opertation. D-503 is starting to go back to his "old language" meaning not only mathematical but scientific and literal which supports his decision of staying loyal to the One State, "And my heart-an unpleasant, a painful compression, connected with a sense of pity. (But the heart is nothing but an ideal pump; compression, shrinkage, the sucking in of fluid by a pump are technical [...]) " I feel like even though D-503 has chosen a side, I guess you could say, he still knows within him that there are feelings, like he experienced but again, his logic and reasoning ultimatly won, as he goes through with the operation of removing his imagination and his soul.
Thursday, April 5, 2012
We #2
As for motifs colors don't seem to be as big in the book anymore. D-503 still uses the color pink when describing things but its not as often as in the first third of the book. I feel like this is disappointing and I don't quite understand why the author used the colors so much in the last part of the book. Something that did stay constant but changed a little was D-503 face description. In the first third he talked about lips and eyes being like scissors and at one point he said that a smile looked like a parabola, I believe. In the second third of the book, he still writes about peoples faces or facial expression but now he seems to notice that behind peoples facial expressions there are feelings. This contradicts with the first third because he would just describe faces using mathematical concepts or language. Which is very logical and now its more of an emotional description. As for the rest of the motifs, glass still seems to be the way in which the government keeps everyone in check. "something
infinitely huge and at the same time infinitely small,the square root of negative one" .The imaginary number of the square root of negative one shows up again. It seems like this imaginary number has a direct relationship to the soul and what it is. A big part of it is imagination. This also ties in with D-503 having dreams at night which the One State makes them believe is an illness.
The green wall is part of setting but might be able to be a possible motif as well. It is the line that keeps out nature which most people in this society are not too fond of. They make fun of the ancients for thinking so much of nature while they find it somewhat repulsive. D-503 has not expressed nature in a positive way so far. He almost seems disgusted by it. He thinks that it keeps the "irrational, hideous world of trees, birds, animals" out of their "perfect" society.
Language: I think that in this part of the book we can see D-503 and his internal conflict even more. He still has what at this time he considers to be a "disease" of the soul and an imagination. He keeps having dreams and keeps describing himself as "the real me" and the "new me". He is aware that he has two sides to him, the new one being the one with an imagination and the old one which is the one that is a loyal citizen to his government. He often uses metaphors and similes to get his points across and tries to connect it back to the reader. Something that our group noticed during our discussion was the fact that D-503 seems to lose his thoughts more often in this part of the book, so it is a little more confusing trying to follow with whatever his intentions were. Before it seemed like he was aware of what he was going to write but its more like, "And then..." Then he'll start a new entry or keep going but won't explain his previous journal.
The green wall is part of setting but might be able to be a possible motif as well. It is the line that keeps out nature which most people in this society are not too fond of. They make fun of the ancients for thinking so much of nature while they find it somewhat repulsive. D-503 has not expressed nature in a positive way so far. He almost seems disgusted by it. He thinks that it keeps the "irrational, hideous world of trees, birds, animals" out of their "perfect" society.
Language: I think that in this part of the book we can see D-503 and his internal conflict even more. He still has what at this time he considers to be a "disease" of the soul and an imagination. He keeps having dreams and keeps describing himself as "the real me" and the "new me". He is aware that he has two sides to him, the new one being the one with an imagination and the old one which is the one that is a loyal citizen to his government. He often uses metaphors and similes to get his points across and tries to connect it back to the reader. Something that our group noticed during our discussion was the fact that D-503 seems to lose his thoughts more often in this part of the book, so it is a little more confusing trying to follow with whatever his intentions were. Before it seemed like he was aware of what he was going to write but its more like, "And then..." Then he'll start a new entry or keep going but won't explain his previous journal.
Tuesday, April 3, 2012
We #1
Motifs
So far in We there is a motif of colors, mostly pink and blue. The main character D-503 uses the colors when describing O and D. O is a female and they have a close relationship, he uses pink to describe her and I think this is because she is a female. R on the other hand is his poetic male friend and blue is associated with him because it highlights the fact that he is male. D-503 says things like, "Yes marvelous." O-90 smiled rosily at me, and also, "I came out and immediatley saw O on the corner-all pink with pleasure at the meeting." And also "O laughed roundly, rosily." "I tore off the stub-and could not tear myself away from her pink mouth." These quotes are all found within the first third of the book. There also seems to be a motif of the letter X. The first thing I thought of was that X can be many things, in math of course it's the unknown variable that one must solve for but again it can be anything. D-503 doesn't like the variable X and he expresses this in the following quotations. "But her smile there was that constant, irratating X." "But in the eyes, or in the eyebrows-I could not tell-there was a certain strange, irritating X, which I could not capture, could not define figures." It is clear that D-503 doesn't like when things don't follow logic. The same thing appears when he thinks about the square root of negative 1. This is because it is actually possible to find the square root of negative one but it involves the imagenary number i. He says, "This irrational number had grown into me like something foreign, alien, terrifying. It devoured me-it was impossible to concieve to render harmeless, because it was outside ratio." A couple pages later this quote comes up, "I had to do something to expunge, to drown out that damned square root of negative one." This has to do with the fact that it is an imagenary number. He finds out later that he has an imagination which he considers a disease and thinks he is ill. This leads him to come to the conclusion that he now has a soul which is also a disease.
Setting
So far D-503 makes it clear that everything is made of glass. This includes their apartments and houses so everyone can see everything and it is evident that there is no privacy. The only way one can close their blinds is if they have a "pink slip". This is something you obtain that lets you close your blinds when you are going to have an encounter with the opposite sex. Only then can you shut the blinds. There are also people who are reffered to as Guardians. These people follow everyone and supervise people to assure that everything is in order and no one is out when they are not supposed to be. The book also references the "Two Hundred Years War" D-503 writes, "I am speaking of the Great Two Hundred Years' War-the war between city and village. The primitive peasants, promted perhaps by religious prejudice, stubbornly clung to their "bread". But in the year 35 before the founding of the One State, our present food, a petroleum product, was developed. True, only 0.2 of the earth's population survived the war." The One state believes that love an hunger rule the world, "Ergo: to conquer the world, man must conquer its rulers." They believe that with the Two Hundred Years' War they were able to conquer hunger but they also admit that they haven't fully conquered love.
Language
The book is writen in first person and has journal entries. Throughout the book the narrator speaks in a mathematical way. He says things like, "This function of man's highest faculty, his reson, consists precisely of the continuous limitation of infinity, the breaking up of infinity into convenient, easily digestible portions-differentials. This is precisely what lends my field, mathematics, its devine beauty. D-503 never forgets about the reader and usually in the beggining he realizes that he might have not explained the entry before in a way that his reader can understand so he clarifies things. He also uses things that would help the reader understand whats going on. Like the concept of a family. He said it was like a triangle and explained it. "And yet, he, I, and O-we are a triangle nonetheless. To put it in the language of our ancestors (perhaps, my planetary readers, this language is more comprehensible to you), we are a family. And it is so good occasionally, if only briefly, to relaz, to rest to enclose yourself in a simple, strong triangle from all that..." Since it is told from D-503 point of view we are able to see the internal conflict that arises when he meets I-330.
So far in We there is a motif of colors, mostly pink and blue. The main character D-503 uses the colors when describing O and D. O is a female and they have a close relationship, he uses pink to describe her and I think this is because she is a female. R on the other hand is his poetic male friend and blue is associated with him because it highlights the fact that he is male. D-503 says things like, "Yes marvelous." O-90 smiled rosily at me, and also, "I came out and immediatley saw O on the corner-all pink with pleasure at the meeting." And also "O laughed roundly, rosily." "I tore off the stub-and could not tear myself away from her pink mouth." These quotes are all found within the first third of the book. There also seems to be a motif of the letter X. The first thing I thought of was that X can be many things, in math of course it's the unknown variable that one must solve for but again it can be anything. D-503 doesn't like the variable X and he expresses this in the following quotations. "But her smile there was that constant, irratating X." "But in the eyes, or in the eyebrows-I could not tell-there was a certain strange, irritating X, which I could not capture, could not define figures." It is clear that D-503 doesn't like when things don't follow logic. The same thing appears when he thinks about the square root of negative 1. This is because it is actually possible to find the square root of negative one but it involves the imagenary number i. He says, "This irrational number had grown into me like something foreign, alien, terrifying. It devoured me-it was impossible to concieve to render harmeless, because it was outside ratio." A couple pages later this quote comes up, "I had to do something to expunge, to drown out that damned square root of negative one." This has to do with the fact that it is an imagenary number. He finds out later that he has an imagination which he considers a disease and thinks he is ill. This leads him to come to the conclusion that he now has a soul which is also a disease.
Setting
So far D-503 makes it clear that everything is made of glass. This includes their apartments and houses so everyone can see everything and it is evident that there is no privacy. The only way one can close their blinds is if they have a "pink slip". This is something you obtain that lets you close your blinds when you are going to have an encounter with the opposite sex. Only then can you shut the blinds. There are also people who are reffered to as Guardians. These people follow everyone and supervise people to assure that everything is in order and no one is out when they are not supposed to be. The book also references the "Two Hundred Years War" D-503 writes, "I am speaking of the Great Two Hundred Years' War-the war between city and village. The primitive peasants, promted perhaps by religious prejudice, stubbornly clung to their "bread". But in the year 35 before the founding of the One State, our present food, a petroleum product, was developed. True, only 0.2 of the earth's population survived the war." The One state believes that love an hunger rule the world, "Ergo: to conquer the world, man must conquer its rulers." They believe that with the Two Hundred Years' War they were able to conquer hunger but they also admit that they haven't fully conquered love.
Language
The book is writen in first person and has journal entries. Throughout the book the narrator speaks in a mathematical way. He says things like, "This function of man's highest faculty, his reson, consists precisely of the continuous limitation of infinity, the breaking up of infinity into convenient, easily digestible portions-differentials. This is precisely what lends my field, mathematics, its devine beauty. D-503 never forgets about the reader and usually in the beggining he realizes that he might have not explained the entry before in a way that his reader can understand so he clarifies things. He also uses things that would help the reader understand whats going on. Like the concept of a family. He said it was like a triangle and explained it. "And yet, he, I, and O-we are a triangle nonetheless. To put it in the language of our ancestors (perhaps, my planetary readers, this language is more comprehensible to you), we are a family. And it is so good occasionally, if only briefly, to relaz, to rest to enclose yourself in a simple, strong triangle from all that..." Since it is told from D-503 point of view we are able to see the internal conflict that arises when he meets I-330.
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