A Diary Entry by Ruth

Dear Diary,
I'm so glad we moved into our new house!  There were so many problems with that old "rat trap" (44) of a house.  For one, we've put in "enough rent ... to pay for four houses by now" (44).  Also, I couldn't stand those "cracking walls" (93) and the armies of cockroaches "marching ... like Napoleon" (55).  But besides the house's problems, there were many disputes among the family there, mainly revolving around Mama's check of ten thousand dollars.  Bennie, Travis, and I knew "that ain't none of our money" (34), but Walter wouldn't understand.  Walter strongly believed that, with his partners Bobo and Willy Harris, he could invest into a "little liquor store" (33) and obtain money for the family.  I realize and appreciate that he just wanted to provide a better life for his family, especially for Travis - Walter felt ashamed that his own son "sleeps in the living room" (34) and all Walter "got to give him is stories about how rich white people live" (34) - but there is bound to be trouble when working with Willy Harris, who is a dishonest, "good-for-nothing loudmouth" (32), and I think Walter learned his lesson about working with people like him.  Despite losing all of the money that Mama entrusted him, I am so glad that, when faced with the Clybourne Park Improvement Association, he decided for us to still "move into our house" (148), affirming that his father "earned it for us brick by brick" (148).  Mama and the rest of our family is proud of Walter, and Mama and I decided that he had "finally come into his manhood ... like a rainbow after the rain" (151). 

Walter had "finally come into his manhood ... like a rainbow after the rain" (151). 

I'll write to you later, Diary.  Mama is calling me.  I think she is going to start planting her garden today. 
                                                             Love,
                                                                 Ruth

Fitzgerald and Princesses

Throughout "The Diamond as Big as the Ritz", F. S. Fitzgerald conveys that immorality is caused by self-interest.  Although it is possible to manifest this theme by writing with in-depth rhetoric, it would not be as meaningful as by portraying it through stories, such as fairy tales that, today, everyone is familiar with. 
Fitzgerald's theme is found most prevalent in Disney princess movies.  Once upon a time, Snow White is given a poisoned apple because the Queen wanted to be "the fairest one of all".  The Evil Stepmother locked Cinderella in her room so Cinderella could not marry Prince Charming; the Evil Stepmother wanted to continue to own her, like the stepfather of Moses wanted to continue to own his Hebrew slaves.  Maleficent casts a curse on Aurora as revenge on King Stefan for not inviting her to a celebration for Aurora.  Ursula transforms Ariel into a human for three days, a request as absurd as wanting to witness pink elephants, as part of her evil scheme to become the ruler of the sea.  Mother Gothel kidnaps Rapunzel and channels the magic in Rapunzel's hair to herself continuously in order to look young for eternity.  Mother Gothel's selfishness is evident in the special song that activates Rapunzel's magic hair:  

Flower Gleam and Glow
Let your power shine
Make the clock reverse
Bring Back what once was mine
Heal what has been hurt
Change the Fates' design
Save what has been lost
Bring back what once was mine
What once was mine 

 

What is It to Be Successful in America?

Success is steadfastly defined as the accomplishment of an aim or purpose, but in The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald compares the beliefs of characters Jay Gatsby and Nick in order to explicate how the definition of success is distinct to different people in America.  
In the 1920s, the American Dream was characterized as the achievement of success through wealth, and Jay Gatsby is a prime example of an American Dream, rags-to-riches success story.  Gatsby grew up poor, as his "parents were shiftless and unsuccessful farm people" (98), and, as a young adult, Gatsby found work as "a clam-digger and a salmon-fisher" (98) "along the south shore of Lake Superior" (98).  Later, Gatsby, with Meyer Wolfsheim's help, "bought up a lot of side-street drug-stores here and in Chicago" (133), and he became a bootlegger, making Gatsby immensely wealthy.  This was important to Gatsby, since he strongly believes that a person can "repeat the past" (110) and change it to the way he or she wants it to be. 
Unlike Gatsby, Nick believes that success is achieved through "at least one of the cardinal virtues" (59).  Nick personally believes that his is honesty, stating that he is "one of the few honest people" (59) that he knows.  Not everyone can obtain wealth comparable to Gatsby's, except by being dishonest.  Therefore, it is better and more acquirable to be morally successful than having success through wealth. 

How Did Women Fashion and Attitudes Change During the 1920s?

After researching on the 1920s as well as cultural details for homework, I learned that, according to our McDougal Littell Literature textbook, women, specifically flappers, "embraced new fashions and the urban attitudes" (825).  Thus, I wanted to research more on the different women fashions and "urban attitudes" of the 1920s.  
Women fashion changed dramatically with "the passing of bustles and corsets" (1920-30.com).  As a result, fashion designers were able to create more aesthetically pleasing and meaningful clothes for the young generation.  For example, dresses became more colorful, fabrics became lighter, and dresses became shorter.  By making clothes more colorful, designers "echoed the joy felt by a war weary population following the end of hostilities" (1920-30.com).  Designers used "less material and new synthetic fabrics" (1920-30.com) to make fabrics lighter.  Dresses became shorter because American women wanted to dress like the flappers, "the trendy young women" (1920-30.com).   

Women Fashion of the 1920s

 Although women fashions were very vibrant, their brilliance can only be observed in illustrations, as photographs were black-and-white then.  

Black-and-White Photograph of Women Fashion

In addition to the emerging distinct fashion trends, women started having new "urban attitudes".  Women wanted to be like the trendy flappers, and as a result of the major cultural change of the Roaring Twenties, it was more acceptable for women to be smoking and to be drinking outside of the house. 

A Synthesis on the Value of Punctuation and Its Impact on Technology

Communication, including punctuation, evolves as a result of societal and technological progression, and although society is examining its value in everyday usage, social media needs punctuation in order for messages to not lose their clarity and coherence.  
Punctuation is vital when using technology to express thoughts and to create conciseness.  According to Henry Hitchings, "Digital communication and social media have produced new opportunities" (Source A) to do these.  This ranges from memes to Twitter.  In memes, it is important to convey a funny and/or purposeful message in a few words, and a helpful way to assert a message is to apply punctuation.  

Meme

As the above meme demonstrates, different uses of punctuation create different meanings to a sentence.  The commas in the first sentence define a woman without a man, while the semicolon in the second sentence - the semicolon is portrayed as "a particularly intelligent ... friend" (Source E) that can be depended on "for easing ... through a complex thought" (Source E) - defines a man without a woman.  This illustrates the importance of establishing clarity while writing because, without it, the message can be confusing or not necessarily convey the meaning wanted.  In addition, without punctuation, language itself becomes chaotic.  In Twitter, "Tight character limits force users to ... 'Omit needless words'" (Source A).  "tweets must be 140 characters or less" (Source F), so there is "very little room for adjectives" (Source F).  As a result, people change their writing style to become "obscure" (Source F) while tweeting:  they do not use punctuation and diction becomes unspecific.  Eventually, this negatively impacts a person's writing by also making it unclear and not concise.  

How do Modern African American Artists Convey Their Thoughts on Racism?

After analyzing the painting Officer of the Hussars, by Kehinde Wiley, I was interested in finding out his artistic purpose.  I learned that he "engages the ... visual rhetoric of the heroic, powerful, majestic and the sublime in his representation of urban, black and brown men found throughout the world" (Kehinde Wiley).  Kehinde's enthralling paintings made me wonder how other modern African American artists convey their thoughts on racism.  After some research, I found out that Glenn Ligon, a conceptual artist, explores the impact of language and gender on racism.  
Glenn Ligon has created many famous works, such as We're Black and We're Strong.  

We're Black and We're Strong by Glenn Ligon

Ligon has had many art exhibitions.  One of his more momentous exhibitions was "America", at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York.  "America" explores "American history, literature, and society across a body of work that builds critically on the legacies of modern painting and more recent conceptual art" (Whitney).  An interesting piece there is Sun (Version 2) #1.  

Sun (Version 2) #1 by Glenn Ligon

In this, Ligon uses multiple colors, predominantly black, in order to scorn the racism that was taught to children.  The school that is colored black signifies the segregation of schools, where white children were taught in white schools and colored children were taught in colored schools.  The people in the lower left corner are scribbled over with black, indicating that children were taught that colored people were not accepted by society.  The word "shades" in the upper left corner is blackened to suggest that all colored races were treated like how blacks were.  Also, by adding (Version 2) to the title, Ligon conveys that there were "two suns", one for whites and one for colored people. 

How Can Eye Color Be Changed Both Temporarily and Permanently?

In The Bluest Eye, Pecola dreamed and "prayed for blue eyes" (Morrison 46), believing that "if her eyes ... were different, that is to say, beautiful, she herself would be different" (Morrison 46) and "maybe Cholly would be different, and Mrs. Breedlove too ... say ... 'We mustn't do bad things'" (Morrison 46).  Although it is impossible to genetically change eye color, people are able to modify their eye color both temporarily and (soon) permanently through advances in technology. 
A common method of temporarily adjusting eye color is with colored contacts.  Colored contacts have a diverse set of hues to choose from, ranging from blue and green to purple and gold.  They are convenient to use, since they are becoming cheaper and can come in prescription.  Also, they last for a long time, as long as they are taken care of properly.  

Colored contacts

A technique that is being developed to permanently change eye color is called the Strōma procedure.  The Strōma procedure is a process that, with a gentle, low-energy laser, alters eye color from brown to blue.  Researchers assert that everyone has blue eyes, but brown eyes are a result of a thin brown pigment layer on the surface of the iris.  The Strōma procedure removes this brown pigment, exposing a person's natural blue eyes.  Eyes that have gone through this procedure are indistinguishable from genetically natural blue eyes, and it is so effective that, afterwards, the brown pigment cells do not regenerate.  There is no set date of release for the procedure since it is still being tested, but it is expected that the general public will be allowed to use it in fall 2015. 

How are Feminist Ideas Simulated in Art?

According to Emily Prager in "Our Barbies, Ourselves", Barbie dolls were created by Jack Ryan as an indirect tool used by men to combat feminism in the 1960s.  However, I feel that it would be very extreme to combat feminism through children's toys.  Nevertheless, I wanted to research how feminist ideas are portrayed through art.  

I discovered that the messages on feminism are portrayed the most successfully through installations.  Judy Chicago shows this in The Dinner Party.  It is a part of the Center for Feminist Art in the Brooklyn Museum.  

The Dinner Party by Judy Chicago

The Dinner Party is composed of a banquet table in the shape of a triangle - triangles symbolize equality - with thirty-nine place settings.  Each place setting is for a notable woman from history and mythology, such as Sophia, Saint Bridget, Sojourner Truth, and Virginia Woolf.  In addition, the names of 999 prominent women are painted on the tiles below the table, such as Abigail Adams, Eudoxia, Enheduanna, and Mary Shelley.  With this installation, Judy aimed to participate in the "feminist revision of history", an undertaking where feminists strived to rediscover women icons forgotten due to the conspicuity of male icons throughout history. 

How is a Building's Significance Expressed to Different Groups?

Earlier this week, we talked about the article "So What?  Who Cares?", which examines the importance of addressing the questions "Who is the target audience in this essay?" and "Why is this essay important?".  During the discussion, I realized that these questions apply to more specialties than writing, such as architecture.  There are many architectural feats around the world that answer both of these questions, in particular the Bata Shoe Museum in Toronto. 

Bata Shoe Museum, Toronto

The Bata Shoe Museum is both visually appealing and answers both of the questions, "Who Cares?" and "So What?".  Architect Raymond Moriyama uniquely designed the building to represent the museum's purpose of showcasing shoes from history and different cultures - the museum is constructed to look like a shoebox.  Because of its purpose, the museum has a huge audience that includes tourists, shoe fanatics, and architects, and its importance and impact ranges for different sectors of its audience.  Tourists come to the museum for its unique exhibits and its stature as a distinguished attraction in Toronto.  They leave the museum with new and uncommon knowledge about shoes.  Going to the Bata Shoe Museum is probably on a shoe fanatic's bucket list because it contains a diversity of shoes.  They are impacted the same way as tourists:  they receive remarkable information about a distinctive field.  Although the information that can be acquired at the Bata Shoe Museum is important, architects value the building's outward appearance and functionality more because they are important factors to the museum's success.  Architects are also impacted differently since they are primarily searching for inspiration for their own designs. 

How Does Setting Affect Artwork?

Early in the week, during the class seminar of The Scarlet Letter, a question came up concerning the effects of the settings, the forest, in chapters 17 to 19, and the meeting house, in chapters 20 to 22.  I believe that the forest helped represent the dark and secretive situation that Hester and Dimmesdale were in.  Also, I regard the meeting house as a gathering place for strict, law-abiding residents.  Moreover, I think that setting has a profound effect on artwork because it helps create mood.
Different art periods throughout history have different ways of expressing itself, therefore composing different moods.  For instance, artwork from the Romanticist period aesthetically glorified abstract concepts, such as survival, hope, and despair, and was based on strong emotions rather than exact truth.  An example of a Romantic artwork is The Fighting Temeraire, by Joseph Mallord William Turner.  This painting creates a tranquil mood by having a peaceful setting. 

The Fighting Temeraire by Joseph Mallord William Turner 

In addition, the Expressionist period expresses the emotional responses from an object or event by using color aesthetics.  A well-known example is The Scream, by Edvard Munch.  By using intense colors in the setting, the painting establishes moods of chaos, disorder, and alarm. 

The Scream by Edvard Munch

How Has the Portrayal of Women Changed Throughout Art History?

After reading "There Is No Unmarked Woman", by Deborah Tannen, I connected Tannen's purpose, that all women are "marked" in an unfortunate way, to how women have been portrayed, or "marked", as aesthetically pleasing (or not) in art.  Women were looked down upon for much of history, and this has been reflected in art history. 
The negative portrayal of women in art began in the early modern period, also known as the Renaissance; portraits emerged during the early modern period.  It would seem that portraits made it easier to depict this deprecation, but, during this period, women and men were portrayed similarly, and the deprecation was composed through the details.  These details, which are excellently portrayed in Portrait of a Lady, by Rogier van der Weyden, include:  stiff posture, downcast eyes, head coverings, arms' positions, no showing teeth, bound hair, and uncrossed legs.  Because Portrait of a Lady has most of these details, the lady was considered to be very virtuous.  However, not all artists back then wanted women rendered as obedient or virtuous, as shown in Self Portrait, by Judith Leyster.

Portrait of a Lady by Rogier van der Weyden

Self Portrait by Judith Leyster

Women continued to be belittled until the Feminist Movement in the 1960s.  The Feminist Movement changed the perspective of women from submissive subsistence to independent individuals that are in control of their own lives and are able to act however they want; this change has affected all forms of art since the Feminist Movement began, such as the photograph Untitled, by Cindy Sherman, and the acrylic painting Hotline for Troubled Teens, by Joe DeMers. 

Untitled by Cindy Sherman

Hotline for Troubled Teens by Joe DeMers

How Have Criminal Punishments Evolved, and How Does Technology Aid Investigations?

As our class began The Scarlet Letter, the terrible yet strange punishment that Hester received, the letter "A" - it stood for adultery - stitched onto her gown, immediately stood out to me.  Although adultery is a sin, I feel that Hester's punishment was too unusual and cruel.  However, in her time, this was among the standard solutions that society had to deal with convicts.  With this in mind, I decided to research the evolution of solutions that people apply for crimes, as well as how technology has changed the process of investigating a crime.  
Criminality has existed since primitive times.  In ancient society, crimes, including treason, witchcraft, sacrilege, and breaches of the hunting rules, were punished by either extinction or banishment.  As time progressed, people began using torture and death sentences as new solutions to accost criminals.  The objective of these punishments was to penalize the wrongdoer.  But, during the Dark Ages, under the feudal system, authorities regulated the criminal system in order to prevent others from doing bad deeds, using any degree of punishment to stress their point.  The criminal system became practiced more often in society, and it was brought to the Americas with the pilgrims while establishing their new society.  Cruel and unusual punishments continued to be administered, until the French Revolution evolved these punishments, making them less harmful to the welfare of the malefactor.  
Today, new technologies, such as robots, GPS systems, and advanced cameras and computer systems, greatly aid the investigation and surveillance of crimes. 

Image of a technologically advanced camera

The most important technological advancement is the computer databases.  Computer databases allow police departments to exchange information anywhere.  Also, they are a superb solution to lowering the crime rate.  This solution has been proven to be accurate, since a news report in 2012 declared that the crime rate has been the lowest since the early 1960s due to the aid of computer databases. 

How are Stereotypes Addressed by Artists?

Subsequent to reading The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven, by Sherman Alexie, and "Black Men and Public Space", by Brent Staples, our primary focus in class was about stereotypes and how it can alter a person's perspective of a race.  Stereotypes affect all races, but it is more prevalent for African Americans because, for a large part of American history, African Americans have been negatively classified as second-class citizens, thus being treated inferior to whites.  This problem has been addressed by many artists, but I feel that the artist Charles White creates works of aesthetic value while addressing this issue.
Charles White is an African American artist that lived during the Civil Rights Movement, and whose artwork depicts the lives of African Americans in Black America.  While researching his work, I came across one of his lithographs that I found interesting, called Sounds of Silence 11.

Sounds of Silence 11 by Charles White 

Sounds of Silence 11 was White's way of expressively describing the distress of African Americans due to racism and stereotypes during the Civil Rights Movement.  The focal point of this lithograph is the conch shell.  In many cultures around the world, the conch shell, due to its loud vibrations and religious ennoblement, calls people to gather and support a cause.  Therefore, in White's lithograph, the conch shell symbolizes the awakening, or call, of African Americans to gather and take action in the Civil Rights Movement.  Stereotypes are the basis of prejudice and vice versa, and artists, such as Charles White, address this problem in hope that people realize the problems that stereotypes create.  

Can Hunger be Resolved?

This week, we discussed how the children's hunger, due to the parents' selfishness, plays a significant role in the memoir The Glass Castle, by Jeannette Walls.  The children weren't well fed, but when they found food they did not waste it.  However, there are many people that waste food, and I think it is important to address this problem. 

Hunger can be alleviated if people do not waste food.  In 2012, according to Modern Farmer, a report by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) says that 43 billion pounds of food was wasted in the US in 2008.  Also, Modern Farmer estimates that even a 15% reduction of food waste can feed 25 million Americans each year. These statistics are great, but realistically, many people do not truly care or look into this problem because hunger does not affect them like it does for others and they feel that keeping track of their own food waste is too much work.  It will take a long time for people to become psychologically aware of their food waste, but in the meantime, technology is proposing solutions to make it easier.  One way is with smart fridges; pioneered by LG and Samsung, smart

Image of Samsung smart fridge

fridges monitor the food in it, alert its consumer when food is going to spoil, and uses the Internet to create recipes with leftover foods.  Another solution is with apps - three popular food apps are:  Green Egg Shopper; Love Food, Hate Waste; 222 Million Tons - that help a person shop for groceries smarter.  They keep track of when the food is going to be wasted, create portion planners, and give ideas of how much of a food a person should really buy.  By advancing and introducing new technological solutions, hunger, both nationally and globally, shall decrease immensely.