Reflection

When I took this class I didn't really expect a lot.  I thought I would be writing papers and reading boring books.  I love reading but I figured that taking an Intro to Literature class would mean reading books that didn't really appeal to me.  After taking this class I feel like I have learned a lot.  I read many books that I may not have picked up on my own.  I have thoroughly enjoyed reading ever book.  I never really questioned what I was doing by watching TV or how by doing things I was 'burning books'.  When I would read books I would enjoy them but I wouldn't analyze them the way this class has taught me to.  By analyzing these books I have learned what this world around me could end up looking like.  It was scary to be faced with this potential reality of mindlessness and control by media.  I have become more conscious when I watch TV and realize what I'm watching is not reality.  It may be made to seem like it's reality but its just done to keep our attention.  I would rather read books than watch TV.  This class has made me cherish books so much more.  I am excited to read the rest of the Hunger Games series and continue reading and analyzing more books.  I never realized the intense connections that books can have with the world around us.  This class as solidified my thinking that without books we would be mindless.  The activities on reality TV have made me realize that it is not reality at all but a way to distract us from thinking and using our imagination. 

Overall this class was a lot of fun.  I enjoyed reading all of the books and have found that looking deeper into the meaning beyond the text is fun and requires a lot of critical thinking.  This class has thought me a lot and I intend to use all the stuff I learned about literature when I read more books in the future.

A World Without Books?

I can't imagine a world without books.  I love to read and I would miss books if they were forbidden or completely gone.  A world without books would probably look a lot like the world described in Fahrenheit 451. The world would be thoughtless.  No one would be able to think for themselves and they would be completely caught up in mindless activity.  It is scary to think that all books would be gone.  We would be consumed completely by TV and video games.  Our lives would be bland and everyone around us would probably become strangers just like Guy and his wife in Fahrenheit 451.  We metaphorically burn books every day when we turn on the TV and become consumed by it.  We are getting consumed by media instead of by books.  The scary thing about books is that they make you look at things in a different way.  Books encourage free thinking and the ability to analyze the text and find meaning.  If books were gone everyone would be consumed by media and by being consumed by media our minds are shut off.  We don't have to analyze why two people got into a fight on reality TV.  It is mindless noise and requires no second guessing and no thought.  Books are dangerous to those who want complete control and sameness in everyone.  Books are a gift and without them people would close their minds and become completely mindless drones.

Hunger Games

I loved the book.  I could not but The Hunger Games down.  It was a page turner and it made you want to what was going to happen next.  It related to the other books we read by how the capitol was trying to show control. Just like in 1984 where Big Brother was trying to show control and in Feed where the corporations were trying to show control.  I really responded to the situation between Peeta and Katniss.  They were both intense characters.  Once I caught on to the fact that Peeta was really being serious about his love for Katniss, I wanted to know if she would realize it was real also.  The way Katniss acted and the way the sponsors responded to her actions was also very amusing.  It was also intense at the end when she decided to rebel against the capitol instead of giving them the show she wanted.  She was a complex and interesting character that kept you intrigued.
A connection that I made to The Hunger Games was the MTV show, The Duel.  The players in the Duel fight to knock each other out so only one remains the winner.  They form alliances and turn on each other throughout the duel.  It reminded me of how the tributes in the game formed alliances and knew that eventually they would have to begin to turn on one another.  I thought it was interesting how the people in the book would watch the games on TV to see who would make it out alive just like we watch shows like The Duel to see who will win, and we don't care who gets hurt just like the capitol doesn't care who dies.

Reality TV

The show that I decided to watch was Teen Mom 2.  I regularly watch this reality TV show every Tuesday.  In this episode there are 4 girls all of whom got pregnant at a young age.  Chelsea had been broken up with her boyfriend and drama continues when he asks to see his daughter.  Kailyn has been fighting with her on again off again, now off, boyfriend and is figuring out how to file custody papers.  Leah is planning a wedding to her twins dad and is also facing medical examinations for her one daughter who cannot put pressure on her legs.  The fourth girl Jenelle is facing issues with her mom after stealing her credit cards and trying to figure out how to get her life together to get custody of her son.  Here is a clip I found from an episode that shows the fighting between Jenelle and her mother.

These are obviously real people, but are they real situations? I'm really not sure.  Part of me feels like they are real situations but another part of me questions it.  All of these girls really had babies and are really facing issues.  The issues are probably built up more than they have to be for the camera but they are still issues.  I feel like some people that are on the show are there strictly for the fame, they make problems because they know that is what people want to see.  People want to see drama because drama that is on TV is better than drama in real life.  I respond mostly with Leah in these episodes because she seems to be the most real.  She never has a lot of drama and they focus mostly on her relationship with her fiancee.  They also focus on the medical issues with her daughter which keeps you in suspense because you don't know what is going to happen.  I enjoy watching this show and get caught up in the lives that these girls lead.  What makes the show alluring is that they are in a situation that you would never want to be in but want to see how they handle it and live their lives.  As a viewer if I didn't watch or if others didn't watch there would be no show.  The company purposely cuts the show to show exciting drama and suspense.  They don't show dull times in these girls life, they show the exciting stuff that keeps you intrigued and wanting to know more.

We influence these "games" by watching.  We want drama and excitement.  Something that we don't always get out of life.  We want to be kept on the edge of our seats till the next week.  They keep us intrigued by putting themselves or getting put into situations that aren't normal every day situations.  I believe reality TV will be around for awhile because networks keep finding different ways to keep us wanting more.

Big Brother -- 1984

1984 shows a scary world where absolutely no privacy exists.  The only privacy that exists is in their mind.  It is scary to think of a world that is like that.  I believe today we still have privacy, not as much as people used to but at least an amount that it doesn't feel like we are completely trapped in our minds.  We have lost privacy in ways that probably don't really occur to people on a regular basis.  We go shopping and cameras in stores watch us, we go to the mall and mall cameras watch us, we go to the gas station and cameras watch us, its little things like that, that probably don't occur to us.  There are also things like tiny spy cameras that people can place anywhere and people will not be able to see them, there are even nanny cameras where teddy bears have cameras built into them, and there are tiny microphones that can be hidden, phone calls can be bugged.  It is crazy to think that we can be watched without knowing it, kind of like how Winston and Julie were being watched the whole time they were in the room and didn't know it because the telescreen was hidden behind the picture on the wall.  It is a scary thought that we are not realizing how much we are actually being watched on a daily basis.

Creative Blog

I try to think back to the first day I heard of this thing called the "feed", it seems like so long ago.  I remember the people saying that it will give our children an advantage, that they will have the encyclopedia on them at all times.  I didn't even know what to think, it was as if having computers in front of us wasn't close enough, the computers now needed to be built into us.  I was already feeling knowledge slipping away from younger generations but this felt like it was going to far.  I got a feed, one of the first, the oldest one that now made me look ridiculous.  I refused to let the feed change my view on teaching.  I still taught my students history, things that were important, but with the feed nothing was important to them other than what they could see and I couldn't.  Life without the feed was good, everyone seemed to care a little more about what was going on around them instead of what they wanted.  I gave in to letting my daughter Violet get the feed.  I knew she wanted one, all her friends had one, so I gave in.  I decided homeschooling her was the best idea, I didn't need her in those corporate owned schools, they didn't teach you history or anything going on in the world that was important, they just taught you about your feed, what the feed could offer you, and how to use it.  The feed has this way of making everyone with it feel super smart, when actually they are not, and I was not going to let my daughter rely on her feed the way others did.  People are all the same now, there is no individualism, what was left of it before the feed is now gone.  They seem brainwashed and self-centered, sometimes I doubt they even know what their kids look like.  People with the feed don't care about anything, nature is no longer existing in our world.  I regret the day I bought my daughter the feed.  Although she never abused the feed like others around her, it is taking her from me and there is nothing I can do.  When they invented the feed there was no time taken to think about the consequences of what would happen if things went wrong with someones feed, it was all about making things easier for the corporations to get inside our heads, now they have, and now look what the world has turned out to be.

A life of solitude?

Emerson and Thoreau both wrote about the solitude, and it makes you wonder what would it be like if we were really able to live in solitude, is there even solitude out there anymore? A quote from Emerson that I liked was "It is easy in the world to live after the world's opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude."  This quote makes you think about how much we all are living in a way that is not our own.  We live to please others by dressing the way everyone else dresses and doing the things that everyone else does.  The solitude that Emerson writes about is a place that seems perfect and that seems so easy to do but I don't think there is solitude anymore.  Solitude is gone.  Emerson and Thoreau made me think about what I read in Feed.  There was no solitude for the characters in the book, they had the world's opinion living right in there brain.  They didn't control what they saw anymore, the corporations did.  They were constantely being told what was cool, what everyone else was doing, and what they should wear.  It was sad to think that this is happening to us today, not to the extreme that its built into our brain but it somewhat is if you think about it.  The idea of solitude in the book made some of the characters cringe because they had no idea what a world without 'noise' would feel like.  Solitude is a great concept but today I do no believe there is any way to get to complete solitude.  I honestly do not believe I could live in complete solitude for a year, away from everyone and everything.  It would be hard, I'm sure I would learn a lot about myself and have the ability to reflect on my life but it would be too much to handle.  Giving up facebook for a year? I could do it.  But living in the middle of no where with nothing and no one is a great idea but would be too hard for me.