The Great Depression Video

Song: Darkness

Artist: Disturbed

For this video, I was originally planning on using the song “Land of Confusion” to show the problems and struggles of the Bonus Marchers. In my head I saw certain pictures matching to parts of the song so I made it accordingly. A short ways in I decided that pictures of the Bonus Marchers alone were not going to be enough so I started adding more pictures of the Depression in general to give the video some depth. However, after I was mostly finished with the video, I started to think that perhaps the song was almost too upbeat for the time so I found another song by the same artist which was more quiet and sullen. When I added the new song, it seemed to fit really well with the pictures that I had already placed so I decided to call it good there. In the end, my purpose in this was to show the struggles of not only the Bonus Marchers but also the struggles of all Americans during this time.

How and Why We Remember

--Memorializing and remembrance are activities that should be carried out often and with the highest regards as well as respect. Remembering the fallen, the deceased, and the lost has always been important for mankind. It is a way to show that we care or cared for that person and to show that they were important in some way or another.
--Today in the 21st Century, we remember and memorialize others and ourselves in a very different fashion than the people of centuries past did. In centuries past, people were remembered through obituaries articles in newspapers and large memorials. With technology today, the way we remember people is a little bit different. Remembrance is done through news articles on the internet, sites dedicated to certain people, and of course there are still obituaries and monuments. However, technology seems to be taking over more of the obituaries actually published in newspapers. Technology is slowly taking over and changing the way that we memorialize and identify ourselves.
--An example of the above could be the Seattle PI. In the event of the PI closing, the employees took to the internet and blogging to try and remember it and even keep it from closing. In the end the Seattle PI closed anyway so in a sense, it could be considered a failure. The employees tried to remember the PI in their own, different way even if it was not the most effective way of doing so. Another example of remembrance is the site called MyDeathSpace.com. Because it contains online obituaries and news articles, it could be considered successful. Since it is keeping up with modern times and has all these things on the internet, it could be thought of as successful.
--There are some important things to think about on the topic of remembrance, specifically with the Seattle PI. As I said before, the employees of the Seattle PI took up blogging to memorialize the closing of the newspaper. The problem was that this “strategy” did not work. Considering how the paper was going to close no matter what the employees said or did the whole idea of blogging was just a sentimental movement to ease the pain and sorrow of the employees as well as regular readers. However, the employees telling their stories had meaning to it because it showed how committed the employees had been to the newspaper while it was still in business.
--Remembrance is not just secluded to remembering the dead or fallen. It can also be used to remember a time and a way of life. A large way that this is done is though literature. The remembrance of an era can be done through books, short stories, and poems. An example of such could be the era of the flappers. Books such as Ernest Hemingway’s “The Sun Also Rises” memorialize the flapper era by having a big emphasis on Brett who seems to be the embodiment of the Flappers. Shorter pieces such as “What Became of the Flappers?” and “Eulogy on the Flapper” by Zelda Fitzgerald memorialize the Flappers by describing what the Flapper was and what she stood for. Therefore remembrances are literature depending on what form they are in. As long as it is in some form of writing it could be remembrance and literature. But again, that is all up to personal opinion.
--With the whole idea, sometimes, issue of remembrance and memorialization, certain problems can arise. The main issue being what happens when there is no agreed upon form of memorialization for a nation. The issue is that if there is no agreed upon form, then there is no cohesion among the nation. Everybody has their own idea of how we should memorialize and not everyone agrees. If there is no agreed on form, then everyone begins to fight. An example being from Ben’s presentation about how soldiers should be remembered in England after they were brought back from the war. Some wanted to do it in their own special way, some wanted it to be very uniform to show that all the soldiers fought and died as equals. Without an agreed upon form of memorialization, there can be no real national identity. Here in the United States, we have funerals and articles as a national form of memorialization but we also simply remember the lost.
--A good example of national identity and cohesion in terms of memorialization is the remains of the twin towers. The destruction of the two towers and all the live's lost, for a short time, brought cohesion to the people of the United States. The site of the destruction is a national memorial to everyone that was lost. Seeing the pictures of the destruction has ensured that I never forget about it and will therefore remember all those that died.
--This all can relate back to what we learned about memorialization in relation to World War 1. All the graves of soldiers were uniform to show that they fought and died as equals. In a way, these uniform graves helped make sense of the death toll of war. Having them all look the same helps people see the enormity of death from the war. If the graves had all been different, then it would have been harder to see or picture the total amount of lives lost. Therefore the memorialization of World War 1 could be seen as successful.
--Memorialization is one of the most important activities that man can do. The remembrance of people or events is a natural necessity of all people. Memorialization and remembrance can be done in all sorts of forms from written materials to videos to websites. Remembrance of a past event can help us to make corrections for the future. Memorialization of people can help us see or understand parts of ourselves and help make ourselves better. Without remembrance or memorialization, we are nothing. To remember is to be human. Memorialization is relevant to life and being alive. If we cannot or choose to not remember, then perhaps we are not really human.

Synthesis Week 3

--This week, all of the readings seemed to connect better than last week’s readings. The readings themselves were “The Sun Also Rises, Letters to F. Scott Fitzgerald, Eulogy on the Flappers, What Became of the Flappers, The Big Blonde, and Poems by Dorothy Parker.” The main theme for the readings this week seemed to be the lives and issues of the Flappers in the 1920’s and early 1930’s. On Monday we discussed the “Sun Also Rises” which covered the daily life of a typical Flapper. It was all about drinking, dancing, and dating multiple men. The “Letters to F. Scott Fitzgerald” and the pieces on the Flappers were all about who the Flappers were and what they stood for and believed. Finally there was “The Big Blonde” that covered the issue of alcoholism among Flappers. Some of this was covered in history on Monday when we discussed the sexual revolution in the 1920’s. We talked about how women were now allowed or better yet chose to engage in their sexual desires. Finally women were starting to be able to live their lives as they saw fit and not as men believed they should.

Synthesis Week 2

--There does not seem to be a large, overarching theme that connects all four of the reading for this week. However there does seem to be some themes that connect the first two readings and connect the second pair of readings. The theme that seems to connect “The Yellow Wallpaper” and “Herland” is having to live under someone else’s laws and/or rules. In “The Yellow Wallpaper” the heroine is forced to stay in her room day and night under her husband’s orders until she is “better.” In “Herland” the men are forced to change their ways and live according to how the women of Herland believe life should be. The overarching theme in “In Another Country” and “The Sun Also Rises” seems to be the idea of having to deal with life after war. Both pieces are based off of Hemmingway’s experiences so they reflect what life would have been like after being injured in war then having to go about life with the rest of civilization. The first two reading seem to connect with what we learned in history about how women fought to have the same rights as men and early in the 19th century fought for women’s suffrage. The last two reading connect to history about how Ben spoke on remembrance and how we remember the fallen or the lost. For the first theme, it seems that women in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s finally started to get the guts to stand up for what they wanted and it makes me question why they did not try sooner. For the second theme, it seems like the idea of remembrance would be a bigger issue since everybody has a different idea of how to remember someone or something.

Synthesis Week 1

--This week, we mostly covered women’s health. There were multiple ways that doing this was and is accomplished. Photography, writing in general, and literature as well seem to be the three main ways to capture this.
--First there is photography. In the late 1800’s, Jacob Riis managed to invent a more effective form of photography that was better quality and easier to use on the go. Through the use of this new form of photography, the everyday working of life could be captured without it being staged. This was a way to capture the ills of society and get them to the public’s attention.
--There is of course general writing. Most of the readings this past week seemed to be of this category. Some of these readings could be considered literature but I say that that is just up to debate. Each reading touched on the issue of women’s rights, what was expected of women, and how they were treated. This all lead to Woman Suffrage in the early 1900’s.
--What I understand is that women were put down in every possible way. By put down I mean that they were kept under control. Any kind of ambition or free thinking seemed to be grounds to call the woman crazy or otherwise. Force feedings, electroshock therapy, and constant bed rest were just a few of the things that women might have or did go through. As a result of all this oppression, women began to make a stand which was the Woman’s Suffrage. Women slowly began to take on a more integral part of society and started to gain positions that men most often held and began to so start writing on topics that typically only men wrote about. By 1920, it their efforts had succeeded and women finally gained the right to vote, and with that, began to gain other rights and started to take on more of a role in society other than just being a house wife. From 1920 on, American society began to see a lot of change.

An Attempt at Defining Literature

--What is literature? In those mere three words a very difficult question is posed. What literature is can be different from person to person, group to group, and culture to culture. I will discuss some of these differences as well as my own belief of what literature is.
--My experience with literature has always been boring articles and novels that my teachers always made me read. Such “literature” has always been fifty plus year old short stories or old novels such as Great Expectations and Silas Marner. Based off this I can conclude that most of my past instructors believe literature to be novels or stories in general that have stood the test of time. I assume that “the test of time” means any novel that has been around for fifty years or more.
--Personally, I disagree with this. I believe that literature can be any written text that interests the reader and makes him or her want to read more. Based on this definition, the answer to what literature is will obviously vary from individual to individual. I do not believe that what literature is or is not should be decided by only certain people. It should be up to every person to decide what they believe to be literature. Many is the time that I have asked an instructor if the book I intended to read for their class was a good example of literature and they almost always responded that it was not. I am absolutely sure that their answers were always based on whether or not they thought the book was good literature. It would be nice to be able to choose a novel and not have someone else decide that it is or not literature based on what they believe.
--There are of course researched and more official definitions as to what literature is. Webster defines literature as “writings having excellence of form or expression and expressing ideas of permanent or universal interest” or “the body of written works produced in a particular language, country, or age.” (1) Examples of such are the works of Shakespeare and the works of Edgar Allen Poe. This basically means that any written work that has universal appeal, that is, any written text that the majority of the population enjoys, is considered literature. As well, any text written in another time period or in another country can also be considered literature. This general definition for the most part seems to be the generally accepted definition for literature. Most people seem to believe that any text at least fifty years old and falls into any of these categories is considered literature while any other text is considered pleasure reading.
--This broad definition is of course, subject to interpretation. What one person sees as excellent writing may also be seen by another person as terrible. As such, a person’s socialization often plays a part in their definition of literature. What a single person sees as literature may reveal information about that person’s beliefs, socialization, or attitudes. (2) This can mean that what we think is literature is actually the beliefs of another person or group. What one person believes to be literature will be passed on and taught to us through family, education, and standards for reading. “We don't get to decide what is literature because our parents, teachers, exams, etc. define that for us. We are trained to value the kind of writing that they value.” (2) Anybody who has not realized this is more than likely not going to have their own definition for literature because what they know of literature is what someone else taught them. Anyone who has realized this may therefore create their own idea of what literature is which most likely start the cycle all over again.
--Some also believe that literature can only be literature if it meets a certain list of criteria. If a written work meets whatever the given criteria is then it can be considered literature. A man known as Jim Meyers suggests that any literary work should be “written texts, marked by careful use of language, including features such as creative metaphors, well-turned phrases, elegant syntax, rhyme, alliteration, meter, in a literary genre, read aesthetically, intended by the author to be read aesthetically, and should contain many weak implicatures.” (3) He says that he believes English speakers will have the strongest confidence and belief in works that show all of the above qualities.
--Literature should be studied so that we can better understand language. It seems that literature is also a way to peer into language. By reading that which is considered good literature we have a way to look at our language and examine it and its different uses. Writing, specifically literature in this case, has always been a way to express one’s self through unspoken language. By studying this language, we may be able to find out more about ourselves and why we use language the way we do.
--Of course, the most obvious way for us to study literature would be to read. This does not just mean read anything that is considered good literature, but actually read any and every book possible. Regardless what it is one reads, that person will be studying literature whether or not they know it or care. Therefore, the best way to study literature is to read plenty of literature or read about literature. Although I am not sure how that would help.
--As shown above, literature and what it is, is subject to interpretation. Any work can be of literary content depending on who is being asked. Any individual, group, or culture can tell why they think something is considered literature. Since what constitutes literature is very broad and open, anyone’s definition could be right, or it could be wrong. Literature is everywhere. Is it excellent literature? Is it poor quality literature? Is it literature at all? Well that just depends on who is answering the question. I say, that if the piece in question is written well enough to keep you interested from start to finish, then it must be an excellent example of literature and therefore should be studied.



Resources


1. “literature.” Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary. 2009. Merriam-Webster Online. 24 March 2009. http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/literature
2. Laga, Barry. "What is Literature?" Mesa State. Mesa State College. 21 Mar. 2009. http://home.mesastate.edu/~blaga/theoryindex/literaturex.html
3. Meyer, Jim. "What is Literature? A Definition Based on Prototypes." UND. University of North Dakota. 21 Mar. 2009 http://und.edu/dept/linguistics/wp/1997Meyer.PDF

Products of Boredom

If vegetable oil is made from vegetables, then what is baby oil made from?

My mind is just a valve from which nothingness flows.