Things (like jenga) Fall Apart

I think that sexism is a main problem in Things Fall Apart. The women are treated mainly as a piece of property because they are sold into marriage, stolen from other men, and so on. They are mistreated and sometimes abused by men such as Okonkwo. He beats and threatens his wives because of one thing that they did to his displeasing. He is ungrateful for his wives and so he “ruled his house with a heavy hand” causing his wives to live “in perpetual fear of his fiery temper” (Achebe 12). The way he lives with his family causes his family to become afraid of him. He is the dominant character in the novel and in his own household. No one in his family will dare to defy Okonkwo’s rules because he is an independent man.

He acts sexist because of his farming and with his attitude. Okonkwo farms yams, and yams “stood for manliness, and he who could feed his family on yams from one harvest to another was a very great man indeed” (Achebe 29). When I think of growing yams, I think of a garden with a woman tending to it with her green thumb. But with the word “farming” it puts an image of a male working in the orchard or fields. I am going to write about the sexism and lack of Feminism in Things Fall Apart.

In Feminism, many women are insulted by traditional men because the men feel that the women do not need their share of rights. Women are seen at a lower standard than men; as “barmaids, b******, w*****, brainless housewives, or old maids” (Feminism 182). These titles often relate to women as being foolish and succumbing, submitting, and yielding to men. Women are not like this, however. Many feminists argue that women need to break away from the male-dominant society and “see themselves as autonomous beings” (Feminism 173).

i cant... write... anymore... :3

Neil Postman’s Technopoly is about the machinery changes throughout humanity. Technocracy and technopoly are two different things that will lead to the future advancement of technology in our world. Technocracy makes it easier for new things to be created because the society has the impulse to invent new things. More machines are built to assist more of people’s needs. But where do these needs stop? People always want more of what seems impossible at the time, but then the impossible becomes possible, and once that has occurred, they want even more. When technocracy was at a complex level, people started believing that “if something could be done it should be done” (42). Industrialization became more advanced and faith was put into the new inventions. From writing a response for an article to catching up on the football game from last night, people rely on technology for multiple needs. People depend on the telephone to keep in touch from far away and cars are counted on to get people to places. Progress has improved through technocracy because technology has triumphed over the world: “technocracy [has sped] up the world. We could get places faster, do things faster, accomplish more in a shorter time” (45).

In Brave New World, tradition is replaced with what is thought to be better for the society. “Feelies” are substituted for dramatic plays and written works, such as the Holy Bible and Shakespeare. Mustapha Mond explains to John the Savage that this “is the price [they] have to pay for stability. [They’ve] got to choose between happiness and what people used to call high art” (Huxley 220). Mustapha Mond believes in technopoly. He removed certain works of art making “them invisible and therefore irrelevant” (48). These arts are not available to the citizens in Brave New World because Mond does not believe that it would help the society. He controls what the people see and this causes it to be a technopology because it is controlling.

Frederick Winslow Taylor created a system that was thought to be capable of solving problems. His system ended up thinking for industrial (factory) workers; “That is crucial, because it led to the idea that technique of any kind can do our thinking for us” 52).

Singularity...will create singles??

Singularity can relate to the advancement of technology. These advances have come into the world at a fast rate, threatening the human lifestyle. In the article, 2045: The Year Man Becomes Immortal by Lev Grossman, technology is written out to be more than what it currently is. In 1965, a young man named Raymond Kurzweil presented a computer system that can compose its own music. By creating a computer to compose music, Kurzweil caused a line to “blur that cannot be unblurred, the line between organic intelligence and artificial intelligence” (Grossman). Tools have been improved to help create machinery that can think and take action on its own. This is a very risky situation that scientists have put civilization into. Technology is so advanced (and still advancing) and this causes reliance on an average human to decrease because the trust will alter and be in the higher intelligence figure.

This article relates to Brave New World through the technological advances. In Brave New World, George Orwell creates imagery of the society growing old in age, but not in appearance. The people “don’t allow them[selves] to be like that…. [They] keep their internal secretions artificially balanced at a youthful equilibrium” (Orwell 111). To keep the entire society of London, England looking young is accomplished through blood transfusions. This science improves the lives of the people, but it is done synthetically. Bernard Marx is against this because he knows that there are more things out in the world than what he is presented. He wants to be used for more than for working to create newer and enhanced people. Bernard likes “to look at the sea in peace…” because it makes him feel “as though [he] were more [himself]” and “not so completely a part of something else. Not just a cell in a social body” (Orwell 90).

If people and technology unite together, the world would not be the same, but the people would all be very alike. Each person is taught the same things in Brave New World through hypnopædia; therefore, every person has the same amount of knowledge. Each person would have an advanced mind than before, but inventors will never be fully satisfied with what is the best at the present time. There will always be a search of improvement for a way to become even smarter. Creating technology to achieve this will need to be done and applied to everyone authentically.

(Example of intelligent robots!!)

Chronicles of Narnia!!: Rhetorical Analysis

In Alicia D. Costello’s article, “Examining Mythology in "The Chronicles of Narnia" by C.S. Lewis,” there is discussion about the amount of myths in the series, Chronicles of Narnia. The author’s purpose of writing this is to show how the characters in the stories take in narratives about Narnian history. The purpose of this is so that we may understand what makes up a myth. When something happens, a story is told about it and many times these stories are not the complete story because it will be told in words, passed down from generation to generation. Though after being retold many times the stories are still believed in even though the ones hearing the stories may not have been there, they still believe what they are told and they still believe in what happened. The audience for this essay is for people who have read the Chronicles of Narnia books and for people who are interested in myths. The author writes to this audience by using the character names from the books that you would not know unless you had read the books. They seem unaware that anyone other than readers of the books would ready this essay, so they continue to write, referencing back to the books.

I was not surprised much while reading this article because of the way it was written. The way this essay was written was sort of written in a predictable way because each paragraph started the same way. The author explains the features of a myth and then gives examples from the Chronicles of Narnia of how each myth is believed. This is a common pattern of writing that stays constant throughout each paragraph.

The writer of “Examining Mythology in "The Chronicles of Narnia" by C.S. Lewis,” Alicia D. Costello, proves herself as a reliable authority figure for this subject about myths. Alicia D. Costello has many resources listed in her text and she cites them all. This shows that she studied many things while she was writing including works published by C. S. Lewis, the author of the Chronicles of Narnia, and books that examine certain aspects, from the Chronicles of Narnia, that seem to be more than what they are to the general reader.

Alicia D. Costello does not use very many transitions between the paragraphs that she writes.  A problem that I found while reading was that some of the explanations that were written were too long for me to fully understand what was being said. The ideas of myths were restated efficiently after each example, and this made it hard to recognize each idea. The paragraphs about the qualities about the myths in the Chronicles of Narnia were not very easy to follow because the specifications about each myth were not completed thoroughly before the author started a new one.

The writer’s choice of words made it easier to understand. She used many words that were related to the Chronicles of Narnia and because I have read the book series, I could understand the point that Costello was trying to get across. The author used characters’ names and scenes from the books while explaining the myths and this made it easier to relate to what was being said.

This essay was interesting to read and analyze because it showed me new things about the Chronicles of Narnia series that I did not know. I did not know how many myths were told throughout each story, so it was interesting! :D