P2 Really rough practice in 30 minutes

12. Explain, with reference to works you have studied, why writers are frequently drawn to tell stories about characters who are rebellious towards or in some way alienated from society.

[REALLY ROUGH THESIS STATEMENT + Outline]

In TFA and TATD, Mahfouz and Achebe choose to portray their main characters as characters that do not entirely conform to the society that they are in. Despite this, the protagonists are both very attached to their respective societies, and could even represent an ideal person of that society. However, their relatable characteristics and tragic ends provide commentary on the ideals of their societies, our own perceptions of ideals, and the dangers of rejecting our societies' opinions.

TS1

Okonkwo and Said represent their societies ideals, but challenge them, thus revealing various aspects of their own societies in a genuine and realistic way.

TS2

The fact that the protagonists represent the ideal of the societies, but still reject it and get rejected themselves teaches us that sometimes what we believe to be correct may not be.

TS3

They show us how society can be extremely harsh and unforgiving, and that rejecting it in favor of a fanatist ideology, even if it is supporting that society's ideology, may not be the right thing to do.

That one piece of cryptic otherworldly thing that is practically meant to not be understood...

It would seem that all of the parts where Said goes to see the Sheikh there is this certain aura of peace and tranquility. I mean “The old room had hardly changed. [...] the Sheikh’s sleeping mattress still lay close to the western wall, pierced by a window through which the rays of the declining Sun were pouring down at Said’s feet.” I mean, it sounds like a moment out of those old anime that were so calm and detached that you felt kinda high by the end. There is no other place in the story that is so calm… almost heavenly…

The Sheikh is somehow a being that seems to know it all. When Said first arrives at his house in Chapter 2 and says that he seeks his guidance the Sheikh responds “You seek the walls, not the heart.” He also always speaks in a metaphoric language that is rather off compared to the rest of the dialogues in the book. It’s almost as if the Sheikh was not human. As if he was something else. Like a perfectly wise being. A being that resides in heaven only to carry out His word.

You know, there is an interesting point made in The Matrix trilogy by the architect, the creator of the Matrix. He says that the reason that the first Matrix did not succeed was because it was created as a utopia. There was no pain or suffering, only happiness… but the humans could not live that way, and so they revolted to bring it down. It would almost seem as if this idea is repeated here. Said is talking to a man that resides in a perfect, warm and welcoming place. But Said is too human to simply stay there and devote himself to Islam. He needs that rush in life, which he will most certainly lose if he stays in that house. In a sense, it would seem that the Sheikh and his house represent a lost past to Said. A past of peace and happiness that led to a promising future, were it not for his father’s unfortunate death early on that was probably the event that kicked off the little rock that would continue to roll down the mountain until becoming a huge snowball that, literally, kills Said at the end.

However, it would almost seem like Said belongs in that house. The house is the first place that comes to Said’s mind when he gets out of prison to go to for shelter. He even says it himself: “this house is my real home as it always was home for my father and for every supplicant.” Despite this, it seems that Said cut off his ties with this world a long time ago. The Sheikh almost seems angry as he constantly repeats “Wash and read” while Said is telling him the story of his most recent tragedy, and that’s despite the fact that the book says “replied the Sheikh gently.” It would seem that Said has had the opportunity to repent for all his stealing and bad deeds many times before, but has always shunned them away. Said has already set himself on a path of destruction by the time that he comes back to the Sheikh’s house. He is too detached to understand the cryptic words of wisdom the Sheikh is trying to give to him. As Said himself puts it, the Sheikh’s “words [...] cannot be understood by someone approaching hell.” Said is beyond the point of salvation…

I’ll be honest and say that I really am clueless as to what the Sheikh symbolizes. I’ve tried to bring in as many facts as I could to look into them, but the epiphany has not hit me yet. If I had to take a guess, I would say the Sheikh is a representation of a calm, peaceful, and pure world that is beyond the reach of our unfortunate protagonist... Maybe I too am too close to hell to understand... Maybe we all are, because Mahfouz seems to be portraying the guy as way too mean and cryptic for pretty much anyone to understand.

The not so pleasant journey into the mind of the character

When one starts reading Naguib Mahfouz's The Thief and the Dogs the weird use of italics in the middle of the text come across as one of the most intriguing parts. In these words, the narration suddenly shifts into a First Person narration that is practically being delivered as a monologue by Said towards some characters that are completely unknown to the reader. And yet, despite this unconventional break in the narration structure of the  novel, Mahfouz manages to convey his story in an extremely effective way that remains intuitive right off the first paragraph that does this, when the only context that is given is that he just came out of prison and that the weather's hot.

The stream of consciousness in Mahfouz's novel is perhaps the most natural and fluid progression ever. The author jumps around from one point in time to another inside the stream but it still seems perfectly natural. In a sense, the flow of Said's thoughts in The Thief and the Dogs is modeled after the way the human mind records and remembers events. We do not remember things in a linear progression, but rather we tend to recall things at different times in different order, the memories are all cut up, split up and distorted and this shows through in Said's stream of consciousness. He rarely recalls a memory on a specific person fully from the start. It is not until episode ten that we hear the story of how he fell in love with Nabawiyya and it's in episode ten that we learn of how his father died; both of these memories are revealed much after Said makes a first mention of them during the first and second episode respectively. Said recalling his memories in a scattered and discontinuous manner does not throw off the reader because it is natural for us to do that kind of remembering. Replaying a scene from our past in our heads comes natural, and Mahfouz uses this to his advantage to capture the reader and make his novel interesting.

One of the most interesting aspects of the stream of consciousness however, has to do with how the discontinuity and brokenness of his thoughts as well as the progression of the wrath he feels evolves throughout the story. Throughout the first chapters his thoughts are usually coherent and don't vary from one topic to another too suddenly.

Translations... Traducciones... Traductions...

There's a certain charm in the foreign, something that we never voluntarily seek to fully comprehend, but whenever it lands in our lives we can't help but be fascinated. We find it extremely intriguing that foreign human beings - who are always portrayed as an oversimplified out-group in our own media, in our own languages - could have such a striking resemblance to us in the aspects we least expect. Their core human aspects, the ones that we inherently know form a part of our daily lives, but are buried under the layer of politeness that culture spreads upon our lives. 

Texts in another language are the most genuine representation of a person's personal world. The language itself contains an entirely different culture, in their feel and their ideas and expressions. But unfortunately, language is a frontier that is not so easily crossed. Crossing it requires time and understanding, learning a new language to the point where one can connect with it and understand the culture that is engrained within the particular text. However, there is a short-cut to this understanding, albeit a perilous one where a lot must be sacrificed in order to cross over. That is the route of translation.

A work in translation will NEVER feel like the original. Try to translate any poem into any language and you will notice that it doesn't feel like the original. The concepts and ideas transmitted in the translation will lack the essence of the language. Translating from spanish to english causes the roughness and simplicity of the Spanish language to disappear, while going the other way around makes the English language's elegance and sophistication vanish. This type of sacrifice that has to be made in order to trespass the cultural frontiers in texts and gain basic understanding of the ideas. But in a constantly globalizing world where cultures become more and more easily connected with each passing year, learning a new language and experiencing other cultures first hand is easier than ever. So the question has to be asked, is the sacrifice truly worth it? Wouldn't it be better to simply learn the new language and experience the culture first hand? 

Personally, I'd say yes and yes. It would be better, but the sacrifice allows for a connection that would otherwise be hard to create.

Is deception just as bad as telling an outright lie?

Deception according to Google: A thing that deceives; the act of deceiving someone

…

Deceive according to Google: Deliberately cause someone to believe that something is not true, especially for personal gain

Lying is an intrinsic part of us human beings. It’s quite sad to say that absolutely no human being has never told a lie in their life. But that’s the truth. Lying is an essential part of our lives and it will probably always be. But when does lying become a problem?

In my opinion, it is always a problem. A society where nobody needs to tell a lie would be a nearly perfect society. A society where everyone would have to live up to the truth and deal with it. A society where everyone can trust everyone and cooperation is actually possible. But this is not the case, we are living in a lying world. However, the thing that makes this lying world so bad is not really the fact that we’re telling lies. It is the fact that over time people have learned how to lie properly in order to get the masses to believe them.

Outright lies are easy to catch out. An educated audience will always be able to catch one of these. The thing that can often make them effective is when the truth about something is not actually known by the population. But eventually the truth always comes out, and outright lies will eventually be righted. In fact, I believe that the thing that really keeps them from dominating is the fact that it’s possible to provide counter-evidence. If the people can be shown the truth, then a lie will lose credibility.

Deception however, is a different story. Deception is sneaky. When done right, there’s no way to perceive it. Deception is much more carefully orchestrated so that it isn’t caught out. Facts can be true, but the message that will be given may not be a truthful one. It is the fact that deception is so powerful that makes it much worse than just telling outright lies. Deceiving someone is much more likely to succeed because the facts are so well manipulated to be credible. But the undeniable fact is that it is still lying. And because of that, we cannot have a society where trust is consistent. Use of deception is something that has been deeply ingrained into our culture, and it will be difficult to get rid of it, given that it can be so effective to further personal agendas.

Because of all this, I’m going to side up with the other corner in the classroom. I strongly disagree, not because deception is better than lying, but because it is much worse.

Learning how to be Biased: writing a biased article

The following is an attempt at rewriting this article: http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/09/tripped-refugee-heading-spain-football-academy-150916142230899.html by portraying an ideology different than the one portrayed in it.

Syrian Refugee Crisis a Hoax?

Recently Osama Abdul Mohsem, the refugee who was tripped by the Hungarian camerawoman Petra Laszlo was discovered to be a football coach back in Syria and was taken in by a football academy in Spain to come and work as a coach. This wonderful humanitarian act would not have been possible without the media's constant repeated reporting of the seemingly awful story of the Hungarian camerawoman's actions. However, how many people have stopped to think about why the camerawoman tripped the man in the first place?

The Syrian refugee crisis is perhaps the most reported and continued news story that we've had in a while. But is the way that the media portrays the crisis actually truthful? Is the tale of the “Syrian refugees” truly as sad as we have been demonstrated it is? Part of it is. It is undeniable that Syria is right now going through a time of crisis and that the conflict has caused large displacements of the population both within the country and outside of it. But is the flood of refugees in Europe we've been hearing so much of actually made up of fleeing families?

It turns out that the media has been skewing our perception of the refugee crisis in Europe. While it is true that tragic stories like that of Osama Abdul Mohsem are a reality, the media focuses far too much attention on stories like this.

Out of all the “Syrian” refugees arriving at Europe, it is quite often that as many as 90% of the refugees claiming to be Syrian do not actually have the documents to prove it. As a matter of fact, the vast majority of Syrian refugees that are interviewed by the media state that the thing that they want the most is to return to Syria, so that their lives can go back to normal. If that is the case, then why are there so many refugees making the perilous journey all the way to Germany, when the UN's convention relating to the Status of Refugees states that countries are obligated to grant asylum to anybody who declares a refugee status in the first country that they report in? Clearly Jordan, Lebanon and Egypt are already over-saturated, with refugees, so then considering that the Arab Gulf states don't want to offer any help to their Muslim brothers, the next option in line is Europe. But why go all the way to Germany when all the other countries are capable of providing asylum? Eastern Europe may not be economically developed enough to provide optimal conditions for refugees, but neither are Lebanon and Egypt, at least in comparison to the likes of Germany. It is obvious that these “refugees” are looking for more than just a place to stay in until the conflict subsides. They are looking for a country where they will be showered with money.

Despite this, countries like Hungary have received a tremendous backlash in the media for not accepting refugees. But with a real calamity waiting behind the floodgates, one can truly understand the reasoning behind Hungary's decision. The culture that all these refugees carry with them is completely opposing to the standards of European culture. It would be extremely difficult for any country to not be gravely affected by the sudden massive influx of refugees. There have even been reports of a school in Germany close to a refugee camp having to ban miniskirts for the fear of possible rape by refugees. And this is in fact not as far fetched of a statement, considering that there have already been rapes of women and children within a refugee camp in Europe.

The massive, rapid influx of refugees means that the refugees are not having to adapt to Europe; Europe is having to adapt to the refugees. These refugees, who could easily be Pakistanis or Jordanians who threw their passports to the sea and then claimed to be Syrian upon arrival, are bringing in a massive and abrupt change to the European way of life. Perhaps it is about time for the media to begin to understand that Syria is not the only country with problems. As the saying goes: “You can't take care of others if you can't take care of yourself.” Perhaps it is time that the NATO affiliated countries stopped complaining about Russia and Bashar Al Asad, and found a way to stop the violence once and for all so that the senseless mass migration can stop and Syrians can go back to where they truly want to be: “Home.”





Rationale:

The article was meant to go against the ideology of Al Jazeera regarding the Syrian refugee crisis about how the refugees are victims and anybody who doesn't want to offer them help is the enemy. The article is a continuation to all the series of news stories regarding the reporter that tripped the refugee, so it is following the ideology of the refugees being victims and the non-conforming Europeans being the aggressors.

The main idea of my article is to shift that focus and, while still keeping the idea that refugees are victims, show that the European states have a point when they say they don't want to accept refugees. The ideology in my article does not go against the Syrian refugees, but rather it goes against Western media in general, by claiming that their focus on the problem is not only ignoring the negative aspects of that the refugees are bringing to Europe; but also portraying their focus in the media as "wrong" and not focused on where the real issue lies: in the governments' incapacity to cooperate together.

This is English

Here I sit, intrigued at the fact that I will actually post this before sundown and pondering why on Earth did our teacher ask us to a simple literary analysis of such a... speech... that only goes to how does this guy develop his thesis and how does that thesis relate to the question “How can literature develop empathy and emotional intelligence?” Although personally to me it seems that the speech is so good and blunt that there isn't really a need to explain the concept(s) exposed. So on with the typical English stuff:

https://vimeo.com/68855377

He starts off his speech with a humorous and rather unlikely metaphor that really captures the audiences attention. He then explains what the metaphor means and then goes on to explain what it really means. He talks about the whole routine. About how people just get up, go to their difficult jobs. Work. Get stressed. Work. Get back home. “Unwind.” Then go sleep to do it all over again. Then he goes into what happens when you run out of food. And well, “you have to drive to the supermarket.” And then suffer like I think pretty much everyone does while trying to get all you need and then pay (the queues..!). And etc etc. So in this first part he goes on using a simple description of this deadly routine and uses a simple form of it, so that everyone can relate. He goes on it in a very sulky and depressing tone so that people really get the idea that the routine is depressing and annoying.

Then he takes a tone shift as soon as he says “But that is not the point.” He goes on to explain how it's all about choice. Making emphasis on the whole “choice” part. He talks about how it's our default setting to think that everything revolves around us and uses the example that maybe everyone else around us that is stressing us out is just as equally stressed. Basically saying in a very long way that life isn't as depressing as we see it all the time in our default setting, but that it's up to us to make it seem depressing.

He finally wraps it up by saying that even though the speech isn't inspiring like homecoming speeches tend to be, it is a lesson to be assimilated by anyone. The end, pretty much... Shout outs to the people that made the video above for recognizing these three sections of the speech.

Now then, how does this relate to the inquiry question? Well simple. When we read we get to consider perspectives of people different to us. We get to consciously go through the thought process of other people. Do that in real life and well, you've made the conscious choice to not perceive life as the monotonous depressing routine it might be. In other words, literature consists of doing precisely what this guy says it's good to do in his speech. Isn't that nice?

On a side note, I'll just leave one of the things I've learned from a friend. A thing that in my opinion counters the whole depressing atmosphere of the video.

Keep things interesting.