The More Obvious It Can get

Through out the book I realized the whole point of all the topics in class, Candide is the typical example of a satirical novel.

As we go through Candide's story we understand how he is not a real hero, but the circumstances make him one. In chapter two we see how, "after being turned out of this earthly, Candide wandered off without thinking which way he was going"(22). Along his journey he finds some men who ask him if he is devoted to the King of the Bulgars, and he with no doubt affirms.  What is quite ironic or absurd, both apply to the case, is that after saying that he is captured and kidnapped but out of nowhere, "The King of the Bulgars passed by at that moment and asked what crime the culprit had committed"(24). And after that of course he is saved. 

I didn't retell chapter 2 for no reason, I just want readers to notice how obvious or dull can this story be. It is quite absurd to be banned from love, and also to be saved just because casually a King cam passing by and he was merciful.

What is Voltaire trying to say here? That life is what you create? Maybe he is trying to make us see how people create heroism out of no reason and don't understand that life isn't as easy as a fairy tale. Voltaire wants us to understand that we are the creators of our own destiny and that the utopia everyone dreams of does not really exist.

Candide is the novel that will open our eyes into the real world.

Not The Right Time

As this is a handbook,  we have the choice to decide if we use his advice or not, but relating it to the Advice to Youth text we read today I certainly want to omit Epictetus. 

It's quite interesting how we are asked to read something that in a way is so meaningless. How can you expect children our age be able to , " do not laugh a great deal or at a great many things or unrestrainedly"(33), when what interests us most is to try to find happiness. It is as if Epictetus was taking the natural instinct of youth. I know this was not precisely written for youth but after all we are the ones reading it. 

When Epictetus wrote: "Speak rarely, when the occasion requires speaking, but not just about any topic that come up but, not about gladiators, horse races,athletes, eating or drinking-the things that always come up; and especially if it is about people, talk without blaming, or praising, or comparing"(33), he is write about the moral of the situation, but come on, lets be realistic. How can he ask someone at this point in time to not compare or blame? It is totally impossible because of the superficial world teenagers live in. I tell you a at this point of age no one can survive without talking, unless you want to become a social reject. And not just talking but talking about, "gladiators,horse races, athletes, eating or drinking"(33), which of course it is not precisely that but more or less things like: facebook, msn,gossip, and all those things that make it funner for a teenager but make the world fail in success.

It may be adequate to teach all this stuff but not right now, youth does not even mind.

Dear Mr. Frost:

As I read your poem, I was quite frustrated with the way you wrote it. It was quite impressive how you describe the opportunities you may have in life. How destiny fulfills a person's life and the journey is up to one's decision not others. But as I closely read, I understood that you are expressing it more as a person who chooses his/her own destiny:".  I think it's your choice to live up to it but its someone else's job to create it. If you read my handbook you can clearly see my point: "Remember that you are an actor in a play, which is as the playwright wants it to be: short if he wants it to be short, long if he wants it long"(17).   As you can see there is a Playwright, someone who writes the destiny, what I mean is that we have to play our life as it was meant for us because " to choose it belongs to someone else"(17). 

I may disagree with some of your points but the way you want someone to get along with his destiny is quite interesting.

Best Regards:

Epictetus

Being Fearful

In section 21, I completely disagree with Epictetus.  It is true that men should overcome fear, and once it is accomplished nothing will be "craved excessively" (21). But, what are men without there fears?

 

We wouldn't be anything at all. Fear itself made great discoveries. Avoiding fear of death or "everything that is terrible" (21) makes us practically deny men's nature. Fear and everything that is terrible is what makes us stop and think what we don't want to be, if we overcome that what will be of us? We will be wrecked in a world full of everything with no stop at all.

Epictetus in a way  is right, if we overcoming fear there will be no stress, and after all we have to learn not to fear death. But fear and the fact of being scared of something is part of a human, it's what makes us sinners, beggars, our conscience is made of fear. 

If it weren't for the fear of consequences or causes, we would not have the little voice in our heads warning us of danger. It is perfectly normal to have these feelings they are part of us and the don't necessarily make us "crave excessively" (21). On the contrary, those things might be beneficial for our lives.

Are We All Actors?

I researched in Wikipedia something about the Handbook we were reading. I found out that, "To Epictetus, all external events are determined by fate, and are thus beyond our control, but we can accept whatever happens calmly and dispassionately"(Wikipedia.com). In section 17, I realized that what Wikipedia said was true when I read, "Remember that you are an actor in a play, which is as the playwright wants it to be: short if we wants it short, long if he wants it long"(17). The playwright is fate, who puts the challenges in our lives, and we are the actors who have to play along. Once we accept our role the better our play (life) will come out. Its not our choice, what we have to play but, "What is yours it to play the assigned part well"(17).

Moving on towards something else I found myself interested in the introduction. It said, "The works of the earlier Stoics survive in only fragmentary quotations from other authors, but from the renaissance until the nineteenth century, Stoic was ethically thought was one of the most important ancient influences on european cities" (Introduction). Suddenly I had a flashback that took me back to a Shakespeare's play called As You Like It, "follows its heroine Rosalind as she flees persecution in her uncle's court, accompanied by her cousin Celia and Touchstone the court jester, to find safety and eventually love in the Forest of Arden"(Wikipedia), where she meets with her father,(The duke) who lost his power to her uncle. Anyways, my point was that in this play there is a scene where a character makes a similar reference to section 17:

All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts, 
infant, Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms.
His acts being seven ages. At first, the
then the whining schoolboy, with his satchel And shining morning face, creeping like snail 
to his mistress' eyebrow. Then a soldier, 
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover, Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad Made
Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard, Jealous in honor, sudden and quick in quarrel, Seeking the bubble reputation 
al cut, Full of wise saws and modern instances; A
Even in the cannon's mouth. And then the justice, In fair round belly with good capon lined, With eyes severe and beard of for
mnd so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts Into the lean and slippered pantaloon, With spectacles on nose and pouch on side; His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide 
 Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
For his shrunk shank, and his big manly voice, Turning again toward childish treble, pipes And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all, That ends this strange eventful history
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything. ( As You Like It Act II Scene VII)
 
As you can see both literal and symbolical level are expressed similarly. Shakespeare and Epictetus refer to the acting part, but as doing a close reading both interpret it as fate. 
With this I want to prove how the Stoics philosophy has been very influential to the perspective of the world.

The world has based all of its progress in ancient discoveries, the past has made what we are today. If it weren't for Epictetus or Stoic philosphy, Shakespeare would not have written this act. Maybe he would but not with the intention that he wants to express.

I saw the play, at first I did'nt understand why Jaques (a servant of the duke) started saying that to the duke, but then as I read Epictetus, it all came to me. The Duke was upset and questioning his exile in the Forest of Arden, and Jaques refers to his dialogue as fate, and how to live up to it. Just as Epictetus stated it in section 17.

The greatest minds all create some kind of allusions in their works. We could not be anything if other pople greater than us would'nt have existed.

The Psychoanalysis

The door opens, my psychologist is waiting for me to sit down. I greet her with a smile. As I sit down my problems come fast and vividly as a flashback, making it easier for me to express my depression to her.

I am sick totally overwhelmed with society, I need some relief, maybe thats why I have psychological help. 

I start talking about how I had to lie to my friends about my clothes. I told them they were designer's clothes when they really weren't, and now they accept me because they think I wear fashionable clothing.

She stays silent for a moment and then answers: "If you think that things naturally enslaved are free or that things not your own are your own, you will be thwarted,miserable and upset, and will blame both god and men"(1).

It was quite wise what she said. Then I thought, "she is totally right, I am suffering for being something I am not, why should I keep on with this?"

I continued with my problems, telling her about how the people I hang out with are always telling me what to do and I have to change for them.  I told her that in my school there are other people that are much fun, but they are total losers.

She paused, sighed and then answered: " At each thing that happens to you, remember to turn to yourself and ask what capacity  you have for dealing with it. If hardship comes to you will find endurance. If it is abuse, you will find patience. And if you become used to this you will not become carried away my appearances"(10).

When I looked at the time, my session was over. I turned to the door and thought: "I have a lot to think about..." 

Just in case none of this is real, any similarities with reality are just coincidence.

Analytic Essay

Thesis Statement: Kurt Vonnegut is part of Slaughter House-Five by being the narrator of Billy Pilgrim's life.

Sections for close reading:

"Now Billy and the rest were being marched into the ruins by the guards. I was there" (212).

"That was I. That was me. That was the author of this book" (125).

"The war parts, anyway, are pretty much true. One guy I knew really was shot in Dresden for taking a teapot that wasn't his. Another guy I knew really did threaten to have his personal enemies killed by  hired gunmen after war. And so on. I've changed all the names "(1).

"I went to the University of Chicago for a while after the Second Word War. I was a student in the department of Anthropology"(8).

"He [Billy Pilgrim] graduated from Ilim High School, in the upper third of the class, and attended night sessions at the Ilium School of Optometry for one semester before being drafted for military service in the Second World War" (24).

Argumentation points:

1. Who is the narrator.

2. Why is it Vonnegut and not Billy.

3. How do Vonnegut and Billy relate.

The Endless Timetravel

I was very disappointed to come to the end of the book, with "World War two in Europe was over" (215). That was Vonnegut's way of ending Slaughter House-Five, which was king of mediocre.  We end up expecting another chapter, but unfortunately half of the story is opened to personal approaches. 

It has come to the end of Billy Pilgrim, his unresolved story has ended with the "Poo-tee-weet"(215). We didn't even get the chance to understand Billy's misery, his reason for time traveling or many other things that opened doubts to readers. 

What really made me think was how Vonnegut prepared the reader for the ending, this was more frustrating because when you read you don't pay attention to the details. Vonnegut wrote at the beginning of Chapter 1, "with a breath like mustard and gases"(4), then in Chapter 10 he comes back to the beginning, "But then the bodies rotted and liquified, and the stick was like roses and mustard gases"(214). Obviously it is not a coincidence, Vonnegut must have wrote it to relate it to something. Perhaps death? Failure? Memories? Maybe how we lose our conscience when we are drunk as when we are dead, or how we keep on living rotting inside. It is interesting how an author can twist information and make a reader think. 

This novel needs to be read closely otherwise Vonnegut's real message wouldn't be evident.

Billy's little journey through time was the way Vonnegut used to express his anti-war position capturing people's attention through irony and time travel. 

Vonnegut's last words were, "there was only one vehicle, an abandoned wagon drawn by two horses. The wagon was green and coffin shaped" (215). Its the end of the war, of Vonnegut's attempt to change the human mind. Thats the coffin, the end of something, a stored memory that will never fade.

We don't realize that not everything has an ending...

Not Courage But Failure

At the end of the chapter there is a curious little illustration (Pg.209) I realized how Vonnegut mixes illustrations with significant phrases. Personally when I saw the drawing I did not pay much attention to it, I was just excited because I was coming to the end of the chapter but  then  I read "god grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom always to tell the difference."(Pg 209) 

Something that just bumped my thoughts was the fact that Billy was never like that, he didn't have any courage, he hardly believed in God, and "among the things Billy Pilgrim could not change were the past, the present and the future."(Pg.60) As we can see, Vonnegut again plays with a bit of irony.  It's strange how Vonnegut represents the total opposite of Billy in Montana. She's beautiful, she had a life Billy didn't. But maybe that's the reason why he did it, Billy needed someone who actually complimented him, not like Valencia who was a wife for convenience. 

Billy's life is a clear example of failure, of going everywhere without going anywhere.

Not a Concrete Idea

Despite my laziness, this chapter inspired me on writing.

One thing I noticed in chapter eight of Slaughter House-Five was how Vonnegut relates all of Billy's time travel to his anxieties and internal problems. If we see in chapter eight when Billy feels that"The experience was definitely associated with those four men and not what they sang."(Pg.175) Obviously Billy has been impacted by something that happened in the past which always comes back when he sees the barbershop quartet. As I read along I found the past incident that produced the melancholy in Billy: " The guards drew together instinctively,rolled their eyes. They experimented with one expression and then another,said nothing, though their mouths were often open. They looked like a silent film of barbershop quartet." (Pg. 178) But that is not my point, it is to show you how not only his past and present, if we can say, were marked by the barbershop quartet but also his future (its all relative, avoid recalling Billy's time travel) "The barbershop quartet was singing "Wait Till the Sun Shines Nelly,"when the plane smacked into the top of Sugarbush Mountain in Vermont." His life is predetermined to never change, no matter the time in which he is living.

Thats not all I wanted to write. When Mary O'Hare said, "You were all babies in the war-like the ones upstairs!"(Pg.14) That little phrase stuck in my head. I thought to myself, " Vonnegut has a point there, after all it is an anti-war book, he must be trying to say something." Evidently I was right, he keeps on repeating these type of phrases through satire: "Billy told trout about Rosewater." "My God-I thought he was about fourteen years old" said Trout. " A full grown man-a captain in war." Its quite interesting how Vonnegut uses a bit of humor and irony to prove his point.

 I just have to end my blog saying that "we are all afraid of something"( Pg. 171) No matter how big or small is our fear, we will still be more weak as ever. Through our actions we show our fear.

Dragged By Ignorance

“I like Hugo Chavez because he hates bush, and I hate Bush.” These were the words that ruined my day.

Is it possible than one little comment can ruin your peaceful mood? Well if it is an ignorant and superficial comment, it can.

As a reader you might think I am over reacting, I must tell you I’m not. It’s not just the comment; it is the people that say it. Just because they have everything in life, it doesn’t mean they can go saying inappropriate comments that reflect their superficiality. This might be a despicable appreciation, but why is there a space in this world for people that shallow? Isn’t it enough that our world is torn apart? Come on people, there are children dying of famine, human rights are constantly violated, there is a climate crisis, wars, etc. There is just no more room to deal with people who are more interested in texting a friend about the latest gossip.

I really thought humans had something animals didn’t: reason. I am not denying most of us have it, but some others lack of it. Maybe they misuse it, but it seems as if they did not even know what it was.

If you don’t agree with me, don’t worry I can give you an example: you go outside to hangout with your friends. Everything is going as you planned, until you see children begging on the streets, Chavez inventing excuses to create war, Uribe wanting reelection and many other problems that despise you. But what really vexes you is, the annoying person who is in front of you that whines because he/she is fat, that complains because the taxes are too high when they just bought a Porsche, or simply that criticize someone because they are not wearing Abercrombie.  Every single day there is breaking news about another crisis in our country and we have to deal with these comments or complaints? They are simply making our world worse than it is.

I think if we thought less about ourselves and actually concentrate in what is happening today, we could really avoid all this drama. We could actually support our society, which is overwhelmed with violence and negativity.

I am just saying that some people do want to make a difference. They don’t want to be dragged by today’s world that is based on superficiality, materialism and ignorance.

Its your choice, which path will you take?

 

The Slip

"Every creature and plant in the Universe is a machine." (Pg.154) There is nothing to do about it, its just the truth. We are insensitive, arrogant, superficial people, that act based upon other's actions.

I'm tired of reading the same thing, and writing the same. Today's blog inspired me into writing a constructive criticism to society. 

We act as if,  "Everything was beautiful and nothing hurt"(Pg.122) besides of the noticeable irony, its a fact in today's society. We go around as if nothing mattered, as if the only thing on our minds were gossip, talking and Facebook. We are just a machine thats repeats a routine for no purpose at all. 

At the beginning of the week,  I saw a movie called: Peaceful Warrior. A great movie i must say, but not only the film was good but the message. It said that our lives end up being a daily thing, with no appreciation, at all. Life ends up being irritating for most of us. We just let it slip through our hands, and never realize. 

We don't want to end like Billy: "She asked Billy Pilgrim what he was supposed to be.Billy said he didn't know. He was just trying to be warm." (Pg.159) Or maybe we do...

On Living Latin Response

I agree with the blogger, that a language most be lived or  be expressed in daily routines: "The 'most alive' languages have native speakers and transmit from parent to child between generations. Latin is plainly not alive in that sense." But the fact that "The Lexicon Recentis Latinitatis came out a few years ago - over 700 pages of modern vocabulary." It does not make it for me a reliving language. I think that for a language to relive, it needs to be spoken by a lot of people, and it must have evolved with modern times. Its hard to relive a language that has been stuck in time, languages evolve to. There may be new vocabulary, and people who speak it, but i think it is not enough. 

Slaughter-house five: A Real Masacre

After today's discussion in class, about Billy Pilgrim's time travel, I kept thinking it was more of an allegorical reason. After all it is an anti-war book, Vonnegut must have done it to leave a clear message to the reader. 

"He was marking the boundary between the American and English sections of the compound"(Pg.144) What could this possibly mean? That even as allies, we fight. That there is nothing in common among us except hatred, vengeance and massacre.

If we see, Billy Pilgrim is the reflection of man kind, of how he goes through the world being an optometrist, curing the eyesight. But it will never be cured because, its not the eye, its what you see. We have been used to everything and letting it pass through our lives without finding a solution:"It was a familiar symbol from childhood."(Pg.144)

Billy never changed, even if he traveled through time. He was always the same coward, who went through life as miserable as ever, who was never content with anything and who was always hopeless.  That is what war is and how men are in war, something that never changes, it will always be useless and meaningless but always stuck in human mentallity.

 "Its time for me to be dead for a little while-and then live again"(Pg. 143) I relate this quote to how war sometimes ends, but somehow men always bring it up again.

Slaughter-House five time travels, to show how men really are.

A Resolved Doubt

While reading chapter five, I kept on thinking on who was the narrator of the book. It was really driving me crazy. Billy pilgrim's adventures distracted me and the fact that he was never happy with his life:" Are you happy here?" "About as happy as i was on earth said billy" He was in a cage, with no-one to socialize, being exposed as an object as an entertainment, normal people would be unhappy. But clearly this was as miserable as his life on earth, showing how hopeless he was. BUt the idea kept buzzing in my head. 

Until... KAPOOM!!!  "That was I. That was me. That was the author of this book" those words enlightened me. These words were said when Billy went to the latrine, and "an american wailed that he had excreted everything but his brains" that, my friends,  was Kurt Vonnegut.

Maybe the class was right. At the end, Vonnegut would meet up with Billy in some point of the book, but why would he write about billy and not his war story?

Maybe Not That Useless

After Chapter four, I was extremely disappointed with the book. I was actually enjoying it, the book reflected a clear perspective of the loneliness soldiers could get to feel in something as useless as war. It showed the atrocious acts in war and how it has no point. But most important of all a person's feelings in it,"He sincerely believed that he would shatter like glass."(Slaughter House-Five pg 81) I was  really into it, its hard for a writer to make a reader feel compassionate, but that was what Konnegut was doing, at least in my case. 

But you know how all happiness ends quite quickly. It ended for me with the "The flying saucer"(Slaughter House-Five pg 75) its so unreal. Its as if Konnegut didn't have anymore to write. What is  the point of it? Is "Trafalmadore" trying to say something? Because I just cant seem to get anything out of it.  I understand the way he is traveling through time, its quite interesting, but its really getting out the sense of the story. Its suppose to be an anti-war book, but how can a Trafalmadorian express that topic?

My questions  were all  answered, as I read the chapter. The chapter showed how " Billy was guided by dread and the lack of dread."(Slaughter House-Five Pg. 73)   He looses family, friends and even is blamed of someone's death.  He felt alone in german lines, and he was hopeless.

It took me some time to understand that perhaps, even if I don't like it or see the point, there is  a reason for Trafalmadore: a place that can open Billy's eyes, showing him that there is no escape or change in his life. That he is and will always be "Trapped in another blob of amber."   (Slaughter House-Five Pg. 85) 

So we can just go back again to the same citation that may clear it all: "Among the things Billy Pilgrim could not change were the past,the present and the future."( Slaughter House-Five Pg. 60) 

Maybe that is war, something with no change, no matter the reason, it will always be hopeless.

 

Chapter 3 Slaughter House-Five: So It Goes

"So it goes", the main words i've read over and over, after Vonnegut's description of an episode in  Billy's life. What could they possibly mean? Perhaps, the fact that he does not want to retell the details, but to stick to the immorality of the situation:"There were just  six live colonels in there-and one dead one." "The germans carried the corpse out. The corpse was Wild Bob. So it goes." He, in a way makes the reader focus on the situation but with the,"so it goes" he wants to express the situation as Billy lived it, it was seen as something normal, not a big deal. But towards reality, he wants readers to see the consequences of men's actions, or sometimes men's fate.

That's what maybe Billy wanted to change. To foresee his life differently, to be someone else:"Among the things Billy Pilgrim could not change were, the past, the present, and the future." 

These words, cleared my thought of Billy. Although he wanted to have a different life, to erase all the dreadful things he lived, to feel at least a bit happy. He could not, "Every often, for no apparent reason, Billy Pilgrim would find himself weeping."  Thats the journey he is taking, to find if life is worth it after all the suffering. Vonnegut wants us to find it out by taking us back and fourth over time, searching for an answer to Billy's disgrace.

Maybe there was a reason for his weeping or disgrace, it was War. It created a void in his soul, making it impossible to move on. Those memories he had were not many, but they were hurtful, hunting his life up to the present: "The person who was performing the introduction was telling the major that Billy was a veteran, and that Billy had a son who was a sergeant in the green berets - in Vietnam."

His life was destined to live my the memories of war, how can you judge someone who was been haunted with the shadow of violence?

Is Time Ripe Now?

As I read a long, i noticed something quite repetitive.Vonnegut wants to express how the character has experienced war in every sense: "His father died in a hunting accident","Billy's son robert had a lot of trouble in high school (...) He straightened out, became a young man,and fought in vietnam. We can clearly see how, Billy has felt, seen and lived the war in all of its dimensions. We can understand the characters fear, his hate for war.

Throughout the chapter, I was interested in the way the character went through time, re-living every moment of his life according to his feelings: "And then Billy swung into life again, going backwards until he was in pre-birth." Somehow,Vonnegut is retelling Billy's life, but always from the perspective of war. In a way his strongest memory, is when he was in war.

When we meet with the end, we understand the desire of the soldiers in war of getting back their lives. The constant remembrance of the past, the lust, the anxiety of being able to survive. The desire to kill for personal vengeance, barbarities that have been always present in men's morality, "He had a dirty picture of a woman attempting sexual intercourse with a Shetland pony." 

When Billy tries to talk about his fantasy stories with the Tralfamadorians, I see it as a way of escaping the real world. What he wanted to be, to feel when he faced so many deaths. His only hope, after the unwanted life he lived: "The most important thing i learned on Trafalmadore was that when one person dies he only appears to die. He is still very much alive in the past, so its very silly to cry at his funeral." Its maybe his own soul who is dead, but stays in the past. That is what we read, his life, what stayed.