Your Choice?

Similarly to Hiromi, I’ve felt a huge sense of manipulation in regards to housing for next year. Yes, we are given choice. Who do we want to room with? Light side or dark side? Choice.  But, all of these choices boil down to something that is out of our hands: our lottery number. Once that random number is assigned, our “choices” either plummet or soar. However, even then, you’re limited by what year you are. If you’re a rising sophomore with a good number, you’re still very limited simply because of how many years you’ve attended Hamilton. Our decision is based largely on factors that are completely out of our control, and we must simply make a choice given those restrictions. We’re also influenced by our friends, or by upperclassmen that insist that you’d never want to live there, and that you should definitely try to live here. Just when we think we know what we want, our opinions are swayed by what others are saying, where our friends are living, or maybe just by our number crushing any hope of what we thought we wanted. We have a choice, but once many of those choices have already been made for us.

Do we want the freedom of choice?

With the housing lottery and class registration right around the corner, the idea of choice and manipulation has been everywhere. As I was discussing the housing lottery with many different people there were many ideas going around. Many people complained about the system and wished there were a better system. People were talking about how other schools do it online as opposed to in person. A lot of people simply wanted to put down whom they wanted to room with and rank the buildings in order of where they wanted to live (similar to the first year housing lottery). Many people complained that they wish they had more options in the housing lottery yet the idea they came up with was letting the computer do the work. Many simply do not want to deal with the stress of making a choice.

            This is also similar to how registration manipulates us. Some classes are only offered at certain times or during certain semesters and many classes conflict with each other. We are also manipulated to choose classes from a set list.  At the same time, it also works out because I wouldn’t have been in this class if it weren’t for the manipulation of the registration system.

            Even yesterday with the bomb threat incident, people had the choice to obey the warnings to stay indoors or to go outside at your own risk. Many people chose to go outdoors because it was just too nice out. Whether this is smart or not, many people failed to be manipulated by the several warning after several hours. This one unknown person proposed a threat to our school and manipulated our ENTIRE day: classes were cancelled, exams were moved, and the whole day was discombobulated. Most of the time we are all indoors yet when we are told we have to stay indoors it is very different.

            In all these cases, we want the freedom of choice but we don’t really know what to do with it when we have the freedom. Often this freedom causes great stress amongst us students. Even when deciding what essay to choose, we struggle to come to a conclusion, but it is nice to simply have the ability to choose. Personally, I do admit that I complain when I don’t have the freedom to choose, but often times I do like when things are set and manipulated because I am an indecisive person. Although the examples I chose are extreme and not daily choices we make, I want to work on not being manipulated by daily things and act on my own choice.

The Paradox of Choice

As an Economics major, all of my instincts were going crazy during Friday’s class. I realized that Truth, Lies, and Literature is essentially based off of the principals of Economics. The most fundamental assumption of economics is that “people will behave rationally”. Applied to econ, this simply states that people will buy things they need, or that consumers will not overpay for goods. Truth, Lies, in Lit challenges this assumption. Even though we have been primed our whole lives to follow authority, Janelle challenges us to not take anything for face value. This is a new concept for a lot of us (definitely myself) and is perhaps a reason we have had such a hard time choosing our assignment that is due tomorrow.

That leads me to my next economic topic: choice. There is a theory in economic thought that states that the more choices we have, the happier we will be. After all, who wants to eat mac and cheese every night? However, psychologist Barry Schwartz provides another interpretation of choice. He states that over the course of history, the amount of choices we have been subject to has increased exponentially. Now we have thousands of different options to choose in everything we do from eating to watching television. He calls this theory the “paradox of choice”. Although we should be happier being able to choose what we want to do, we are actually overwhelmed by the stress of having to make a decision. Another point he made that I thought was interesting was that we can never be sure that we made the right choice. Take, for example, our recent offered choices for the upcoming assignment. I want to do topic 1, but topic 3 also seems interesting. If I choose to do topic 1, the whole time I would be thinking about what it would be like doing topic 3, or if it were easier. This leads us to feeling more dissatisfied with decision-making. Choice and manipulation are two powerful things. I find that when I step into class each day, I need to strip myself from my economic thought, and instead open myself to new possibilities, as this class is not structured like anything I have previously taken.

Here is a Ted Talk about the Paradox of Choice. It’s pretty short!

http://www.ted.com/talks/barry_schwartz_on_the_paradox_of_choice?language=en

Manipulation

Well, if any of us were having trouble finding ways we are manipulated in our everyday lives, yesterday's bomb threat solved that problem. The supposed bomber and shooter threatened our safe environment, manipulating us to think that a package in KJ was a bomb and that we were going to be victims of a shooting. We were no longer in control of our own safety, and that was scary. The act of one phone call sent students and faculty into hiding on the most beautiful day of the year. And then there was the domino effect it created: classes canceled, papers pushed back, deadlines changes, ect. Manipulation is not an isolated act. Of course, a bomb threat and lockdown is an extreme example of manipulation that is not (thankfully) common.
Before yesterday's events, I was planning on writing this blog post on our need for manipulation. Janelle gave us the option to come up with our own essay topic, and it sent us down a rabbit hole very much like the one in Aura. We had trouble deciding on a topic, and I myself, began wishing that she had simply told us what we needed to do and how to do it. Having a choice was intimidating because, as students, it is rare that we get to design our own education. Sometimes manipulation can eliminate chaos, not cause it. 

Facebook group

Hey y'all!

In class on Friday we talked about making a facebook group to discuss what we wanted to do for the upcoming chapter addition assignment. I don't think anyone has already attempted this, so I'm going to go ahead and make a facebook group and try to add everyone to it. Also, I don't think anyone said that they don't have an account, so this should work.

We can use it to talk about and vote for which option we want, how we're going to coordinate possible meet-ups, etc.

P.S: Hung Hoang and K.C. Kelly- I did some extensive stalking but I can't find either of y'all on Facebook. Add me or someone else and join in on the festivities!

Paper 2... OPTION 3!

Dear All,

This repeats what I sent earlier in an email to each of you, but I thought that by posting it to our blog this would allow you to converse more immediately about it via the comments function -- and thus arrive at a decision:

I want to clarify:  just as the paper 2 assignment instills (however playfully, illusively) a "choice" w/ regard to what text you can write on and how many words you can use, my offer to you of coming up with another/different paper 2 assignment is also a choice. In other words, I'm not judging you either way, with regard to the choice you ultimately make. I just want you to make an informed, conscious one, rather than one merely dictated to you. (And I want you to experience that the possibility for determining your own evaluative approach to the course material does exist... and what the ramifications/implications of this might be.)

That being said, it occurs to me that a third option (thus far) for your paper 2 assignment could be that you, in fact, write a critical paper defending the choice you would have made for the assignment, had you had to choose b/w either my "defend your own paper" assignment" or your "boardgame" assignment. In essence, then, for next Wed (4/15), you would bring a draft of this defensive argument with you to class and we would workshop this. A relatively straightforward assignment, yet also with a creative edge. This might be the most effective way to approach this assignment of "choice," as it were, b/c it hinges not on you developing a separate creative piece or inventing a new boardgame, but on the critical defense of why you would have chosen the one assignment over the other. Articulate the steps of your reasoning, replete with the thesis that says what you chose and how you plan to argue the choice and a conclusion that follows up with what you learned as a result of writing about choice as you did. Thus, you could argue for/bring into articulation the decision-making process that would have led you to execute one project over the other -- without actually doing either one -- all while engaging in a fairly analytical, self-aware approach to why you arrive at the decision(s) you do! (For my purposes, this then also allows us to hold in class next Wed the discussion about defensive, persuasive writing [and thus also offensive -- as in playing offense, not being crude!] that I do believe is an important discussion to have.)

I welcome your feedback!

j

Cards Against Humanity

Just thought of this for the communal game. Here we can see The Nannersman and friends playing probably some of the most offensive cards possible in one setting. The goal of the game is to win the most rounds. The rule for winning can vary and card contents can be either critical observations of the texts we read. Or they can be racist, obnoxious, offensive, but in good faith. That's all I have so far.

Have a look and let me know what you guys think.

Miscellaneous sticky notes

Wow. I’m kindof mindblown right now. I’m in that post-finishing a book state where you’re still trying to process everything that you just read and everything is coming back to you and making sense. That was one weird story.
              Whenever I read a book, I always put sticky notes on pages where I just notice something odd happening or something that I think is or will be important later on. My very first sticky note was on page 39 at “’Excuse me,’ you say, looking at the two extra places, the two empty chairs, ‘but are you expecting someone else?’” When I first read that it stuck out to me as odd. My first thought was that maybe the fourth chair was for the servant. Now, it makes a ton of sense that the chair was there for the late General Llorente.
              Next, I noticed two instances when Senora Consuelo did not appear to know what Senor Montero was talking about, like the cats and the garden. This made me think that perhaps she was slightly senile and living in the past, or living in some type of different environment. I’m still not exactly sure why those two instances occurred.
              Now, I have a lot more sticky notes and I feel like I could talk about every one for a long time, but I’ll just focus on one more. On page 91, Senor Montero sees Aura in the kitchen cutting up this animal. Then, he goes into Senora Consuelo’s room and sees her making the motions of skinning an animal. Even after finishing the book, this still confuses me. Was Senora Montero directly controlling Aura’s movements and actions? Or was Aura doing what Senora Montero did herself when she was that age- like, is Senora living in her past right now? I’m very confused on this at the moment. I’m excited to find out what others think in class tomorrow.

Hidden Clues

I just finished reading Aura and I cannot tell whether I liked or disliked the novel. It was definitely very creepy and mysterious. On p.73, I wrote a note to myself that maybe Aura and Señora were the same person. After I made that guess, every action that Aura and Señora took and all the observations Felipe was making only supported my hunch. What I didn't notice until later on in the novel was that Felipe was the husband.

After the realization and big reveal of Felipe and Aura's true characters, I realized how many clues I had missed. From the very beginning, Felipe noted that "all that's missing is your name" (Fuentes, 5). Then, so many different events from the beginning of the story rushed into my head. The color green is also is constantly observed and was one of the biggest clues for me personally.

This novel reminded me of "An Occurrence on Owl Creek Bridge" from the beginning of the year. While there were so many clues in the beginning of the novel, I did not catch them or question any weird or peculiar actions until after I found out the true identity of the characters. Upon finishing the novel, I still question what the point of the novel was. It's also interesting to note the effect of an epigraph before reading a story and the way you read it after finishing a novel. There is also a cat on the cover of my book with green eyes. I am not really sure what the significance of the green eyes or the cats is in this novel. I also wonder why the author chose to keep things in French. I still haven't really thought of a good reason for why the author chose to use second person either. Perhaps because I just finished reading the novel a few minutes ago, I still have a lot of questions to sort out in my head.

Second Person Is Weird

After reading Aura, I realized that, to me, the strangest thing I felt was getting used to the second person point of view that the author was writing in. Maybe it was all the extra attention I paid towards the title in the wake of my failure with Chabon’s The Final Solution, or just the fact that I am always extra wary of books when I read them for this class, but I actually felt that I saw where the story was going from very early on.

What kept throwing me, however, was that the story was written from my point of view, especially with phrases like the one on page 35, where Fuentes tells me that “[I] could enjoy playing with the door, swinging it back and forth. [I] don’t do it.” Well yes Mr. Fuentes, I probably could enjoy playing with a door; I have the attention span of a ten year old and am very easily entertained. That I agree with him on. But then he tells me that I can’t.

See, what disagrees with me in this second person writing is the fact that I can’t disagree. Fuentes is engaging in an exceedingly blatant form of author manipulation when he quite literally tells the reader what to do, over and over again. Furthermore, it feels to me that he takes away our choice in the matter by telling us what our impulses are and overruling them.

Why Did I Like This?

I am a little concerned that I liked this book. I'm not sure what it says about me, but I'm just going to let that go and write about some things I thought about. I was drawn to the second person narrative, which I felt pulled me deeper into what took place. For some reason, I felt that the story was more suspenseful because of it. Perhaps because I cared just slightly more about what happens to "me" than another character. It also probably had something to do with the fact that I was completely helpless. As I kept reading, I knew I had no control over what happened to "me."
I took notes while reading and picked up on a few questionable parts of the text.
First, I found it strange that Senora kept denying parts of the house existing. She denied that there were cats even when Senor sees cats. She also denies that there is a garden. (i.e. "what garden?" p.63). I thought Senora remembered the house as it used to be and not as it is in modern day.
I also found it strange how many times animals came up. Cats, a rabbit, and a kid. Why did Senora hurt animals?
There were other thoughts, but one more I want to talk about is gender. From the epigraph, I knew there was going to be an emphasis put on female dominance over male. Aura has a unique charming power over Senor that is unbreakable. I thought that perhaps the gender of the rabbit may also have a significance, but I could just be making that up.

Cat's....Cradle?

When reading Aura, I couldn't help but notice the cats. This is probably a reflection of how we talked in class about creating meaning when it isn't there, but because we read Cat's Cradle earlier in the year, I was drawn to the cats in this novel. When I thought about it, there were actually some similarities to Cat's Cradle The cats in Aura seem to be purposeless, and yet the lady hates them. She tortures them for seemingly no reason, and this wins over the heart of her future lover in a later session of passionate lovemaking? What the fuck?!

However, never mind my disgust, there is clearly something going on here with the cats. They are first mentioned with a sound, "you stop when you hear the painful yowling of a number of cats" (37). Aura dismisses this by saying that there are a lot of rats in this part of the city, but I think that this howling that he hears may be a memory that was triggered, as he is the lady's late husband. In this way then, the cats may be a symbol of illusion. To the reader, they represent the illusion of the "two" women in the house where Felipe lives. Later, the old lady dismisses Felipe's comments about cats to deal with her rat problem as if to dispel his suspicions about the illusion. In addition to this, the cats only seem to come up when Felipe is in the presence of one of the women, which would further support the illusion theory.

As always, Professor Schwartz hit me by surprise from our last meeting. In our class on Wednesday, we were manipulated by our professor to think that the Final Solution had similarities with the Final Problem. However, to no surprise our understanding and perspective of the book was disoriented. When Professor Schwartz brought up the fact that we found out the thief and murder but never found out the meaning behind the parrot, I knew that we were in for a treat. We were once again manipulated on the topic as the author might have intended to do. Since it is never explicitly said that the parrot was talking about the train cart numbers, we will never be able to know the author's true intentions. Just like in both the Cat's Cradle and The Things They Carried, I feel like the author manipulates the readers into thinking a certain way. However I feel like Chabon does this in a different matter by giving various context clues throughout the novel. For example, the book begins with introducing the time to be 1944 which is clearly the time of World War II. Along with that, we find that the boy is Jewish and was taken in probably due to the war. Finally, as brought up in class, the parrot only talked numbers when a train was passing by. Horrifically, it is quite possible that the trains were filled with Jewish people being sent to concentration camps. In my opinion, I think this is the true meaning for the numbers the parrot talks about. As mentioned in class, the book edition I read had a picture if train tracks and numbers covering the background. Lastly, the fact that Hitler had his own Final Solution really opened my eyes. This and the context clues were what really swayed my opinion. However, as Professor Schwartz mentioned this could just be the difference of detection and invention.

Lost in Translation

While reading each page of Aura by Carlos Fuentes, I began to look at both the English and Spanish pages. I know a fair bit of Spanish, and was able to verify that the text that appeared on the left side aligned consistently with the text on the right side, at least with respect to literal translation. However, I began to think about the idea of translating a piece of literature. 

My grasp of language is enough to understand most sentences on a literal level, but most idioms or metaphoric language would probably go over my head. This means that there is an amount of trust I have to place on the translator, that what they are conveying to me is the closest possible to what the work says in the original language. For some reason this thought caused me to be more suspicious than almost any other work that we’ve read so far this year.

Sure, for many aspects, such as the plot, there aren’t too many decisions that have to be made. However, the diction an author uses in writing a novel is integral in creating certain moods and tones. In this way, the translator may face a dilemma similar to O’Brien’s passage on truth-happening versus story-happening. A less accurate word to word translation might more accurately convey the “feeling” of the story. And yet, this means that the novel is heavily influenced by the style and choices of the translator, becoming something at least slightly different from the original. 

One of my favorite authors, Haruki Murakami, is Japanese. All of his works are translated into English by one of three different translators. Over the course of reading his novels, I’ve come to identify and have a preference for two of the translators, and a dislike of the third. However, the fact that I’m able to distinguish the translators means that the work has become something beyond just Murakami’s work. Perhaps the differences in translations in all of these works are minor, and don’t truly change the meaning or feeling of the novel, but I suppose I’ll never know without having a fluency in two languages.

Disney's The Haunted Mansion

I’ll get to that part.

First off, I really liked this book??? It’s kind of weird to admit because this might have been one of the weirdest stories I have ever come across.

Like some of you guys have mentioned, I read this in one sitting not only because I forgot about it, but also because it was really addicting. I was constantly questioning what was going on and just wanted everything to be explained. And I don’t ever think it ever really was… like sure we pretty much put together the fact that Aura is a younger Consuela and that Felipe is transforming into General Llorente, but we never exactly find out how or why this is happening (unless I missed it, which is very possible).

I predicted somewhat early on in the story that  something spooky was going to happen to Felipe as soon as he said that the advertisement “seems to be addressed to [him] and nobody else… all that’s missing is [his] name” (page 3, 5). He happens to walk into a creepy, Haunted Mansion-type building. I don’t know how familiar you guys are with that movie, but I’ve seen it approximately three zillion times. There are a lot of similarities—how Felipe enters the house blindly (literally) on business that seems too good to be true, how the only other three characters in the story (including the butler) are almost ghost-like, and how a love story is wickedly trying to be preserved. That’s basically the extent of my comparison and analysis to The Haunted Mansion, but it was cool to kind of read the story with that movie in the back of my mind.

Classic "Boy Meets Girl", am I right?

Weird book, huh? I am going to write my blog post about the epigraph of this book, because Janelle got angry when no one addressed the epigraph of The Final Solution.

“Man hunts and struggles. Woman intrigues and dreams; she is the mother of fantasy, the mother of the gods. She has second sight, the wings that enable her to fly to the infinite of desire and the imagination…the gods are like men: they are born and they die on a woman’s breast…” – Jules Michelet

So, what does this quote mean? It seems to place a lot of power in the hands of women. I interpret man to be “hunting” for a woman who is “the mother of fantasy”. It also implies that man’s great downfall is women. This quote, along with those beginning all of the previous books we have read, provide insight as to what is going to happen. Felipe is initially drawn to the job for money. Then, he is tempted by Aura. She is “the mother of fantasy” and he must have her. However, we later find out that Aura is really a younger version of Consuelo. So it truly is a “fantasy” that is tempting Felipe. In the end of the book Felipe is changed into General Llorante, the deceased love of Consuelo. Just as Consuelo is projecting her youth through Aura, she manipulates Felipe to embody Llorante. Therefore, women, whether it be Consuelo or Aura, lead to Felipe’s (as we know him) ultimate demise.