The Earthly Record of my Internal and External Experience.

The Weight of the Worlds (Poem 06-27-14)

2014-06-27T13:50:00.001-07:00

I feel so light and free
now that the weight of worlds
have fallen from my shoulders,
shattering into a million pieces,
a burden I realize now that
I had no concern for,
a burden I knew
that was only draining me
of my precious energies.
I paused and searched
through the wreckage
for the brightest, the shiniest,
the most colorful, and
the most interesting pieces
to carry along with me upon
my journey, and then I rose
and walked away,
barely looking over my shoulder,
looking forward to my new future.
My destiny is only where
I find it and I make it,
out of the bits and the pieces
of what I discover in myself,
from what I can excavate from
mankind's knowledge,
and in how I invest myself
in the creation of my own world.

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2014-05-28T10:01:00.001-07:00

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The Use of Narrative Sequence and its Effect in Getting Home Alive (U.S. Women's Multicultural Life-Writings 03-13-2013)

2013-03-13T09:49:00.001-07:00

Joseph Melanson

U.S. Women’s Multicultural Life-Writings

Prof. Koplewitz

11 December 2012

The Use of Narrative Sequence and its Effect in Getting Home Alive by Aurora Levins Morales and Rosario Morales

In the book Getting Home Alive by Aurora Levins Morales and Rosario Morales, a daughter and mother and collaborate to tell their respective struggles for finding and developing their own respective identities. Their collaboration is told through various literary forms like poems, stories, and essays. The entries of the Morales and Morales book are not continuing, do not complement one another, nor are they chronological as is found in a typical linear narrative approach. The entries of the mother and daughter instead express how the mind works, moving about through different periods of their lives as they occur, intertwining not only their individual experiences, but their separate but distinct experiences as well, in the overall narrative. The approach of the book also allows both authors to tell a universal story through a sequence of multiple of voices, relating the stories of the people who influenced them, and shaped their experience. The narrative strategies that both Aurora Morales and Rosario Morales choose, through poems, essays, and stories, allows them a broader range of expression to relate their individual respective narratives sequence of identity creation is always in process. This range of expression that Morales and Morales use allows them sequence of mental experience, the sequence of shared reality with others, and the sequence of personal identity creation.

In Getting Home Alive, the Morales women demonstrate through their writings the sequence of mental experience, or how the mind is amalgamation of lived experience, rather than a straightforward narrative with a fixed beginning, middle, and end. In her essay “Hace Tiempo”, mother Rosario shows how one’s mental experience is only ever known to the individual, how the mind can go backwards and forwards through time. The mind blends memories and recollections, with various thoughts and ideas, the mind a narrative jumble and blend that only puts itself into order for others through what it chooses to reveal, and what the meanings the mind can make of its woven experience. “Hace Tiempo” occurs over an undisclosed period of time, with Rosario Morales recalling her youth of growing up “in apartments” (28). Now her and her husband live in their first house, bought from money that came from his inheritance. Rosario Morales recalls “the rain on the roof, pit pat pat, just those first drops before the storm” (28). “How loud they are”, Morales recalls, “I can hear each separate drop hit the tin roof like a pebble falling” (28). The first home of hers is dark and gloomy, “dark all day, darker if the lights fail, the small glow of a candle in the gloom of these brown wooden walls – at two in the afternoon” (28). The very air here too makes her uncomfortable, as it is “’wet as a saturated sponge”, turning her clothes “clammy: cold and always a bit moist” (28). This dreary and damp weather of Ithaca, N.Y. where Morales and her husband reside causes Morales to “daydream fireplaces and the hot tropical sun my friends back home fantasize for me, hot tubs followed by big towels and freshly ironed sheets, and even underwear creased from the iron, all things warm and dry” (28). Rosario Morales then goes into the future to her and her husband’s decision to move to Puerto Rico. Not only to escape the bleakness of Upstate New York weather, her disinterest in her studies at Cornell, her husband’s impending graduation and his being urged by the college that he “should go to graduate school somewhere else”, but the most important factor of all was the war in Korea, and the looming probability that he would be drafted, or “jailed any day for refusing to fight” (29). The reason for escaping to Puerto Rico in particular, was because Morales had been raised there, and her husband “wanted to know it” (29). Morales, at this point of existence in her recollection, lets the reader know about the outcome of her desire and ambition to leave, “we would go”, one short sentence tells us, the following sentence tells us the outcome of their determination, “we did”. (29). Before moving on to the experience of Puerto Rico, she returns to her place within the recollection of the experience of Ithaca. “God, I hate the smell of kerosene”, Morales writes, as it “gets over everything, penetrates and never comes out again”, and “even my skin smells of it” (29). As she is cooking a meal, Morales writes about a little neighbor girl that used to live next door to her at the home in Ithaca. Morales shows us the discomfort that the girl brings out of her. “Her eyes travel from the counter to shelf to pots to wall to floor to me, picking up and storing details”, Morales writes, this girl causing her to feel “lumpish and out of place”, wishing she “wouldn’t stare so” (30). The girl who remains nameless in this piece, either because Morales forgot it or chooses not to acknowledge the name in this recollection, first comes to her in search of some herb that grows near Morales house. This herb that the girl searches for is supposed to cure a cold, either a true herbal remedy that she has been told about, or part of a little girl’s fantasy world, Morales never lets us know. The girl is granted permission to pick this “yerba buena” yet lingers to observe Morales as she prepares dinner for her family, only taking off as Morales goes where the girl can’t follow: the outhouse” (31). Morales now flashes to another place where they had moved, to a farm in the coffee region of San Felipe, in Southern California. California is more agreeable to Morales over Ithaca, “it’s bright and sunny and smells so good, of grass smells and coffee roasting” (31). At this point in the piece, Morales is pregnant, her husband is suffering from the effects of hepatitis. Morales is so much more happier in California, among “my plants, my house, my neighborhood” (33). Morales then moves on to another recollection within the same narrative, to 1955, “pregnant again” after she’d already “miscarried one, and I nearly lost this child” (33). Morales has either a dream or a fantasy, she doesn’t say which, of a “big stout woman in a Nazi uniform” who is involve in an operation in which they are operating on her daughter’s brain after they have taken the “top of her skull off” (33). Morales then flashes to her experience after having delivered her daughter, pregnant again she is now “so tired, so sleepy” (33). Morales describes this moment in her recollection as a tiredness that seems like a “dense heavy feeling that starts at the top of my head, weights my eyelids down, slows my arms, and when it hits my legs, I have to lie down” (33-34). Despite Morales exhaustion, she still has to maintain her home, taking care of her daughter, taking care of herself for the sake of the unborn child within. “I’ve got to fatten up”, Morales writes, but “how, I don’t know” as she doesn’t “feel like eating most of the time”, but “at least I’m not throwing up any more”, and “I’m not losing weight” (35). Morales is alone in the remainder of this moment, except for her daughter, and the requirements of her role of motherhood, the need to prepare dinner for the three of them: Morales, her daughter, and the unborn child within her. Taking a break from her cooking, Morales writes, the food needing twenty minutes to cook she pushes “open the lower half of the door to sit on the step in the warm sun, watch Lori play with sticks in the dirt, and wait” (36). This moment in Rosario Morales narrative piece shows how the mind experiences as a mixture of the past, present, and future, a blend that only gets sorted out by the individual to the individual’s best capacities. Our minds, in Aurora Morales piece shows, are a blend of experience of time that goes from recollections and memories, to our hopes and aspirations of the future, occurring in our ever-present experience of now. If Aurora Morales had chosen to obey narrative convention, she would have had to more clearly distinguish these several experiences that she blends together, into several distinct stories that would have had to been put into a certain order, thus giving her narrative a less personal feel to her particular experience.

The Morales women use a narrative strategy of sequence that illustrates the dimension of shared reality of individuals, an experience that while it may coincide with the presence of others, our internal experience may not correlate to others in the experience of our shared reality. In “Kitchens” Aurora describes cooking in her own kitchen, flashing back to the women of her past, teaching her how to cook. As she prepares her meal, Aurora Morales relives the experience of growing up around maternal role models, who hand down this important and necessary ability to a girl who will more than likely be in need of it one day when she has her own mouths to feed. “Mine is a California kitchen, full of fresh vegetables and whole grains, bottled spring water and yogurt in plastic pints, but when I lift the lid from that big black pot, my kitchen fills with the hands of women who came before me” (77). As she goes through the various activities that go into making the meal, she ruminates on the women who taught her this “magic, a power, a ritual of love and work” (38). Aurora Morales demonstrates in this piece that we are just the culmination of developed skills of generations and generations of people, and everything we do is only what has been passed on to us, only brought out of us in either how the world requires us to behave. If Aurora Morales constructed this in a typical, straight-forward narrative sequence she would have had to completely flesh out the individuals that she writes about, these maternal influences, putting them in their respective times and places of her existence, as well as giving more development to her own place and time, making the moment seem more like a recording of history than a recording of shared experience with others.

The third use of narrative sequence that the Morales women use demonstrates the sequence of identity creation. In her essay “Destitution” on pages 94-95, mother Rosario recalls the fear of poverty, an influence that Morales believes she inherited with her birth. “I was born in August 1930”, Rosario Morales writes, and “I have always feared destitution, always” (94). “Even before I was born, the fear seeped in with my nutriments through the thin capillary walls of my placenta into my heart” (Morales 94). Morales tells the story of her mother having to marry late in her teens, a necessary decision as the family was now destitute after losing the family store. “The older girls all found husbands in a hurry”, Morales writes of her aunts, and her uncle, “the older boy” had to settle for the practical job of being a policeman, sacrificing his dream of being a social worker (94). Morales relates how her mother was “shipped to the United States within hours of the marriage ceremony, landed in New York in time for the crash, arrived to recurrent joblessness, discrimination, poverty, fear” (94). Morales was conceived within this stressful and uncertain time and realizes that her birth may have been just another burden for her family to carry in this new land of uncertainty. Rosario Morales relates how this origin in her parents has informed he her core identity with the fear of poverty. “I could live in luxury: yachts and champagne, diamonds up to my eyebrows, and I would worry about food, about a roof over my head, about whether the money would run out” Rosario writes, “the Depression is part of every cell of my body” (94). Rosario Morales writes “my mother drank it in her teen years in Naranjito, those years of increasing poverty in the colonies before the stock market crash” and her father “migrated to New York, escaped long before he married, leaving the pan for the fire” (94). “Their anxiety was the breath of life to me, their hunger flavored my milk” (Morales 94). Because of this difficult time in her parent’s life Rosario Morales writes, “I don’t have many stories” as the family’s history “was too painful, too frightening, too omen-ous” (sic) (94). When questioned about this time “my mother often slipped quickly over the events, hinting” and my “father never spoke of it at all” (95). Rosario Morales in this moment in their book shows the sequence of how our identity forms, bits and pieces of influences from family and other people that informs how we choose to be within the world. If Rosario Morales had attempted to follow literary conventions these events would have had to be more fleshed out, names and faces given to her relatives, more details would have had to be given to the events of their past, rather than the briefest hint and summary. This piece by Rosario Morales, in this use of sequence, shows us how events and circumstances unconsciously yet strongly inform who we are, decisions and actions of others influence us, rather than us being a separate observer that we sometimes think that we are.

The Morales women through the use of poems, essays, and stories, demonstrate the sequence of mental experience, the sequence of shared reality with others, and the sequence of how our identity creates itself. The writings of the Morales women show how mental experience exists in its own sequence, or rather without any kind of sequence but how we give it sequence in how we relate ourselves to ourselves, and others. The Morales women’s writings show that despite occupying the same time and space, our internal planes of experience never completely match those with whom we are spending our time with. The Morales women, through their writings, show the sequence of how our identities form from events and circumstances, not only those of which we are cognizant of, but of other influences barely known to us, help to form the concept of ourselves that we hold in our minds, as well as coloring decisions and behaviors that we make later in our lives.

Works Cited:

Morales, Aurora Levins, and Rosario Morales. Getting Home Alive. Ithaca: Firebrand Books. 1986. Print.

GRADE: 95
Greetings, Joseph. Your approach to exploring narrative sequence, non-linearity, and the proximity of the inner consciousness and sensory awareness of mother/daughter in the text, allows the reader to see the actual results of this non-linearity through the textual examples. I am glad to see the level of detail in your focus upon specific moments, whether the young girl, herbs, outhouse, or the kitchen and foods, or the sense of nostalgia or expectation, hope or disappointment, as conveyed in the stories. Each author's voice is quite unique, and yet as mother and daughter there is a generational set of influences that are present in the texts. The movements of the mind in non-linearity of experiential living, an impressionistic and sensory world view, are elucidated quite well in your examples and your narrative analysis. One other area that might be of interest for exploration is the entire concept of how'time' utilized- i.e. in the non-linearity how is time shaped, does it move in a straight line a circle, etc. - is there a larger metaphor involved.

Thank you for your fine essay and for your conscientiousness in completing your essays. All best, PRof LK

Coming to Terms with Traumatic Experience in Shirley Geok-Lin Lim’s Among the White Moon Faces (U.S. Women's Multicultural Life-Writings 03-12-13)

2013-03-12T06:58:00.001-07:00

Joseph Melanson

U.S. Women’s Multicultural Life-Writings

Prof. Koplewitz

02 December 2012

Coming to Terms with Traumatic Experience in Shirley Geok-Lin Lim’s Among the White Moon Faces: An Asian-American Memoir of the Homelands.

It is said that in order to make sense out of traumas of the past, one must tell a story about the event in order to move toward a better understanding of the experience. In regards to the story that Shirley Geok-Lin Lim tells in her book Among the White Moon Faces: An Asian-American Memoir of the Homelands, and in my own life, I find that this is true. Shirley Lim relates in her book many traumatic events of her youth and early adulthood, two of which were the trauma of her mother’s abandonment of Lim’s family, and the trauma of her family’s fall into poverty. Comparing my own experiences of traumatic events to those of Lim, I realize that there is a relationship in relating traumatic experience and being able to understand that experience. In relating traumatic experience, the writer is now capable of perspectives that may not have been possible before the traumatic event is reexamined from a distance of time and space.

In Among the White Moon Faces, Shirley Lim writes about the trauma of her mother’s abandonment of both her, and her family, when she was a young girl. “I did not learn to love my mother, who left us when I was eight, though she is perhaps more to be pitied than my father” Lim writes (34). “As a grown woman, I know that her life was harder than his, the odds in her struggles for a good life unfairly stacked against her” (Lim 34). “But as her daughter”, Lim writes, “when I think about her, I feel instead a stubborn resistance against pity and forgiveness, an adolescent resentment that will not grow up” (34). After her mother’s abandonment, Lim writes, “Mother became a huge silence” (52). “We never spoke of her to Father, nor to each other”, as talk of her mother was “forbidden”, about “someone who was not dead and also not alive” (Lim 52). Lim realizes that her mother loved her, in her own way, “at least later in life” (35). When Lim was sixteen, or eight years after her mother’s abandonment, they visited each other in Singapore where her mother was working. Her mother introduces the young Lim to all the mother’s fellow coworkers with pride. “Her pride was so evident during that social ritual, which continued in the afternoon and evening with taxi rides to numerous of her brothers and sisters homes, was a kind of love” (Lim 35). “But as my father’s daughter,” Lim writes, “I knew love as familial and daily proximity, not as social ritual” (35). Lim writes that her mother’s “abandoning family for society”, would never get over her estrangement to her mother (35). The loss of her mother had the significant effect of not giving her someone to model her behavior after, of assisting a young Lim in making decision, and being able to take one’s bearings in life. “The problem that confused me for years, until the years themselves shaped their own ironic answer, was what to do with my life as a woman: not simply, what kind of work I wanted, but how to grow up as a woman” (Lim 101). “Perhaps” her mother’s “physical and emotional abandonment had led to my despair,” Lim writes, “to my profound distrust of any available protection”, (101). “My childhood education, illuminating, powerful adults as unloving, unjust, and violent, had driven me underground to avoid further damage, exchanging the hurts of trust for the hurts of futility” (Lim 137). “Absence was the story my mother taught me,” Lim reflects later in life, but had I more time to talk to Mother, perhaps I could have learned to forgive, listening to her stories” (137). Comparing Lim’s experience with her mother, to that of my relationship to my mother, there are many similarities. My mother had me when she was only seventeen, a very young age to be saddled with the responsibility of having to raise a child. She gave me to my grandparents at an early age and that is the only experience that I have with parents. My mother, like Lim’s mother, related to me in the same way, as a responsibility, a chore, a child that one must take with them along on their own selfish pursuits. I was made to do things that were more appropriate for enjoyment by adults, rather than children. There were the boring trips to Winterfest, Balloonfest, and countless gatherings where drinking alcohol was the main concern. I realized that I became a social ritual for my mother, a thing that must occasionally be shown attention to. The majority of our relationship though, was marked by long absences, periods of time that ranged six months or more between our awkward visits. I saw my mother as a hassle as well, someone whose inclinations had to be entertained from time to time, and so I want along with her on these gatherings which consisted of the drunks that she met in bars and considered her friends. These gatherings only ever left me feeling irritable and bored, and left me wondering for many years if there was something wrong with me, that perhaps I was miserable and didn’t want to “have fun”. There were many good times in my relationship with her before she died of asthma in 2009. Looking back on my relationship with my mother, and comparing it to Lim’s relationship with hers, I have been able to put this experience with my mother into a better perspective. Like Lim, I realize that my mother was a culmination of various forces at work, forces that will only ever be known to her. Lim’s mother, like my own mother, only acted to the best of their capacities, were unfinished pieces in a larger whole, moving in the world in the only way that they knew how relate to it. I understand, like Lim understands, that a person is only the stories that they tell, and like Lim, I would only ever have gotten to truly know her if I had only had the chance to listen to my mother tell her own.

In her book Shirley Geok-Lin Lim writes about the trauma of falling from a comfortable existence to a life of poverty in her early youth. Lim’s family lost their house and was forced to move in with relatives. She remembers reflecting on her new situation while lying in bed one evening in her youth. “For the first time in my life I felt hunger” Lim recalls, adding that “my stomach growled and I pressed back against the lumpy mattress with a lassitude that came from being alone and from not having eaten all day” (43). She defines this new “odd sensation” of hunger as “an emptiness,” that left her “giddy and weak” (43). After a while of suffering this hunger from her family’s new found state of poverty, the Lim children are tempted into stealing from her grandfather’s hardware store. Lim writes that her and her brothers stole “pipes, copper wires, shiny steel faucets, brass knobs, and iron hooks” to sell to another store on the “next street over” (49). “We knew we were stealing, although it did not occur to us that it was our own Lim family we were devastating with our thievery” (Lim 49). “How rare were those ten-and twenty-cent coins”, Lim writes, holding them “tightly in my palm” a young Lim “considered everything I could buy with them – dried lemon skins, pickled plums, sugared cuttlefish, preserved fruit” (49). “I longed for salty sweet tidbits that I nibbled slowly so that five-cents worth lasted and lasted all day”, Lim writes, “my thrift was that of the survivor who hoarded against starvation” (49). Lim writes about the trauma of losing a comfortable existence in which she had grown accustomed, for a life of poverty and all the uncertainties and difficulties that come with it. When I was young, I suffered a similar experience as well. My grandfather became very ill after coming down with cancer, and I went to live with my mother for a while. I did not have the run of the place that I was used to, my mother wasn’t as good a cook as my grandmother, and my childish selfishness had me more concerned with my state of boredom than my grandfather’s health and well-being. I stole from my grandfather’s coin collection and used them to play video games at the mall, and buy snacks. I had no understanding or appreciation for my grandfather’s hobby, only seeing the coins for what I could trade for them. These thefts only satiated a temporary sensation and relieved a temporary state of boredom. Like Lim and her siblings, I traded family loyalty for childish preoccupations when the circumstances made allowances for it. After my grandfather died, there was one less thing for our family to remember him, one more reminder of my lack of appreciation and gratitude for my relatives.

Shirley Lim had suffered many traumas in her life, many of which occurred in the same short period of time during her early years, the loss of her mother, her families fall into destitution are only two of them. In writing about traumatic events, the writer is able to come to better terms with the events, now able to look at these events with more clarity and insight that one may have been capable of at the time. Generally when we suffer some traumatic event, we are only capable of a limited perspective, and one that is clouded by emotions. It is only through later revisiting these traumatic moments of our lives in our writings, can we not only put our past in clearer terms, but also clarify how the events still affect us to this day.

Abstract Analysis:

Writing about traumatic experience may be one of the most difficult things to try to accomplish in one’s life time. Traumatic events cause the sufferer to want to shut down in order to prevent more suffering, may result in various addictions and dangerous behavior in order to distract or deal with the trauma. Not coming to terms with early traumas can have us unknowingly pursuing habits and behaviors that only continue to harm us in some way throughout our lives. These habits and behaviors may not only hurt us, but other the other people in our lives as well.

Writing about traumatic events allows us to put events into perspective, not only of the event at the time, but also in how we perceive ourselves in the present moment. Rather than a victim of circumstances, we are actually agents of change and action, it is only that we learn this lesson much later in life. When traumatic events occur we are often blind sighted by them, caught totally unaware and unprepared for these events as they occur. Instead of knowing how to react or even think, we instead shut down to the traumatic event, or lash out, not knowing how to proceed or act from the event. As each individual is a reflection of various influences, we can only proceed from what we are taught from our care takers when we are young when traumatic events occur. Later as we mature, our influences help us to better understand events as they occur, allowing us a broader range of ways in which to react and manage stressful situations.

It is only after maturing, that when we choose to write about painful moments of our past that we can analyze and examine these moments with the proper detachment, making sense of these moments and assigning them a more honest meaning through understanding, without the strength of emotions and feelings clouding our thinking. For instance, in the behavior of the nuns toward Lim, Lim relates this experience as harsh, once having to stand on a chair before the rest of her class, with a piece of chalk in her mouth for hours after getting caught talking in class. To a young Lim, this may seem harsh and abusive, perhaps even racist. But perhaps Lim intuited after writing about the time of her schooling that she played a part in the nuns decisions as well. The nuns may actually have had positive intentions in their forms of punishment towards Lim and her socially negative behavior. The nuns may only have treated Lim as they would have any other child, only punishing Lim for her behavior, and not intentionally singling her out like a youngster may lead herself to believe. Perhaps the nuns, despite their different ethnicity, only treated a young Lim as they had been treated during their school years, only following what was seen as appropriate within the educational system of that time. The nuns were supposed to teach proper social behavior, as well as the school’s curriculum. Perhaps the nuns believed that this form of punishment was necessary to keep control of the class, that if the children weren’t set these examples the school would end up in chaos. This view, while painful, may show Lim that a traumatic event may actually only be the experience of our being within certain circumstances, and that others actions and decisions are only the product of many other forces and influences. Writing about traumatic events allows us to see them in a new and different light, giving these new events meanings that we may not have been capable of at the time, and giving us a new light in which to shine upon the events that most disrupted and changed our lives.

Works Cited:

Lim, Shirley Geok-Lin. Among the White Moon Faces: An Asian-American Memoir of Homelands. New York: The Feminist Press. 1997. Print

GRADE: 96
Joseph, greetings. You have written with a poignant, heartfelt sense of the difficulties of Lim's life, including her mother's abandonment of the family and Lim's later trauma of poverty and having to move in with relatives. The analytical and experiential basis of your narrative is filled with many observations from your own life, the conflicts and difficulties of reconciling how to interact with your own mother, and then later, examining your relationship in terms of family memories and your grandfather. The complexities of looking back and examining how one feels, in retrospect, with painful childhood experiences, can be quite revelatory and even healing, but it is not easy to do. I appreciate your courageousness in speaking candidly about your own life story, and your thoughts about Lim are compassionate, focused, and articulate.

Thank you for another very finely written essay. All best, Prof. LK.

Analysis of a Moment in Eva Hoffman's Lost in Translation through the insights of Ruthellen Josselson's article "Imagining the Real: Empathy, Narrative, and the Dialogic Self" (U.S. Women's Multicultural Life-Writings 03-06-2013)

2013-03-06T08:25:00.002-08:00

Joseph Melanson

U.S. Women’s Multi-Cultural Life Writings

Prof. Koplewitz

08 February 2013

An Analysis of Moment in Eva Hoffman’s Lost in Translation: A Life in a New Language,

through the insights of Ruthellen Josselson’s article “Imagining the Real: Empathy,

Narrative, and the Dialogic Self”.

Ruthellen Josselson examines in her article “Imagining the Real: Empathy, Narrative, and the Dialogic Self” the idea that the story or narrative that a person creates of their life is based on an attempt at meaning-making of their world and thus their place within it. The narrative of the self in dialogue with itself and its environment is constantly in a state of revision as the meanings the individual makes during their life evolves and changes due to a greater awareness and understanding that only comes with maturation and development. It is the awareness that this process is always in a state of change, and only comes from the individual’s present but unfinished state that Josselson argues one needs a more empathetic stance to appreciate how the individual fits themselves within their world at any given place in time. Using a moment in Eva Hoffman’s Lost in Translation: A Life in a New Language, one can see how Hoffman gives voice to this dialogic self, or the multiplicity of dialogues of the self in conversation with itself, and with the individual’s dialogue with its social environment as well.

Josselson takes the title for her article from Martin Buber, an existentialist philosopher, whose concept of imagining the reality of other people is to attempt to understand “what another…is wishing, feeling, perceiving and thinking” not in a detached way, not as a set of variables, but as part of a process of a living Other”, or how the individual attempts to fit in with their greater world at large (4). Josselson argues that the individual is a “multiple of discourses” that is always in an ongoing process of making meaning in order to relate to its place in the world, and “it is this multiplicity of discourses that resists being reduced to a single voice” (7). This multiplicity of the selves that the individual is comprised of, Josselson states, is “a dialogue between different orders of individual experience” and “the dialogue of the individual with the social world of others” (11). This confluence of multiple dialogues of both the individual’s internal experience, along with the individual’s desire to gain what they understand as a favorable view of themself within their social environment is “a product of interpretation, grounded in social conditions in which we live, formed by inescapable ideology, and spoken in a consensual language” (2). As each individual comes to their own interpretations to the best of their ability, yet these interpretations change as the individual grows and learns new ways of both perceiving itself and his or her environment throughout the individual’s lifetime. It is because of the awareness that this “dialogic self”, a term Josselson takes from literary critic Mikhail Bakhtin, is in a never-ending struggle to come to terms with itself, and its environment. It is the dilemma of suffering that never-ending struggle with uncertainty that Josselson argues for the need for an empathic stance in understanding the narratives of other individuals relating about their life experiences.

In this moment in Eva Hoffman’s Lost in Translation: A Life in a New Language, pages 167 to 171 in the book, Hoffman is attending a party that is comprised of artists and intellectuals of whom she sees herself as an equal. The various members of the group display their varying degrees of social competence, being successfully rewarded for their insights or not, despite their literary gifts and talents, and despite what must have taken much effort and many years of education to develop them. Throughout the party Hoffman displays her ability to read the flow and shifts in the currents of the topics of the discussions which can range from Saul Bellow to the Castro regime, to “feminism and Nicaragua and psychoanalysis and Woody Allen”, to “the latest clashes between the PLO and the Christian militia in Lebanon, or the fin de siècle Viennese revival” (170). At this gathering Hoffman displays her capacity for social rules and customs, her knowledge of world events and history, and her skill and competence participate accordingly among various topics. At the end of the party, as she relates, outside of this familiar social environment with its learnable and rules and codes, she relates to herself as this “animal thing” (171), This “animal thing” that Hoffman relates her dialogic self to at that moment, this piece of meat that perhaps we all are as individuals at our cores, is demonstrated in this moment in Hoffman’s book as only as successful as it is aware of its environment, its capacity to learn to react to it’s information accordingly, and how it can apply the meanings and values that we learn are the most favorable within our social structures.

It is only after one matures, can we look back on the memories of our youth, and place a different understanding of them that we were not capable of at the time. At one point in her narrative of this gathering, Hoffman writes, “the daughter of the hosts, six years old and pink with excitement in her Laura Ashley dress, runs by, clearly in heaven, and I flash back to a party about thirty years ago” (168). This flashback occurs “in a peasant house”, and while recalling “the echoing steps of people dancing on the wooden floor”, she remembers “my mother taking a glass of vodka from my father’s hand because he had had too many” (Hoffman 168). “He couldn’t hold it, she reminded him, she had a stronger head for it” Hoffman recollects (168). Josselson states, “narratives select the elements of the telling to confer meaning on prior events – events that may not have had such meaning at the time” (7). At the moment of the event that Hoffman recalls of her youth, her younger self probably had no means to discern what to make of her father’s inability to handle his alcohol, and her mother’s superior ability to withstand her intoxication. Perhaps some kind of assumption that the environment may have given her at the time would have her believe her father did not measure up to some kind of standard. It is only after having at this current moment of her later life, after experiencing intoxication herself, and the inebriation of others, can Hoffman now put this moment of her past in another perspective, perhaps clarifying and redefining her concept of her father as a man, rather than as a standard.

Eva Hoffman, at this moment that she has chosen to write about, at times reflects on her location within her new country, the United States of America. “This goddamn place”, Hoffman writes, referring to America, a country that she now has resided for almost two decades now, after emigrating to the East Coast from Poland, “is my home now” (169). “Sometimes I’m taken aback by how comfortable I feel in its tart, overheated, insecure, well-meaning, expansive atmosphere”, words that she chooses to apply to her homeland, can just as easily apply to herself as well (Hoffman 169). Hoffman writes “I know all the issues and all the codes here” (169). “I’m as alert as a bat to all the subliminal signals sent by word, look, gesture”, and she knows “who is likely to think what about feminism and Nicaragua and psychoanalysis and Woody Allen” (Hoffman 170). Josselson states, “only by observing the tensions and flow” in the dialogic nature of the self “can we construct a metanarrative of whole people, not by reducing people to their parts, but by recognizing in the interplay of parts the essence of wholeness” (11). It is only after we understand that there are many positions and many depths within the individual that are unknown to others unless expressed, and that the individual is comprised of many different positions of different understandings and interpretations as they are attempting to locate their self within their environment, can we then begin to position ourselves “to imagine the real”, or the true experience of another’s existence (Josselson 11). The country that we live in gives us its own meanings and value systems, and this information influences not only our perceptions of others, but influences us in how we examine ourselves as well.

One influence upon the self that one needs to face in a lifetime, is the influence of culture, and how well we are able to place ourselves within it. “When I think of myself in cultural categories – which I do perhaps too often”, Hoffman ruminates, “I know that I’m a recognizable example of a species: a professional New York woman, and a member of a postwar international new class; somebody who feels at ease in the world, and is getting on with her career relatively well, and who is fey and brave and capable and unsettled as many of the women here – one of a new breed, born of the jet age and the counterculture, and middle-class ambitions and American grit” (170). According to Josselson, “the self can exist only in relationship to some other, whether that other be another person, other parts of the self, or the individual’s society, or her or his culture” (8). Like the many influences that the environment places upon us, one’s culture is one of the most important, as we judge ourselves by cultural values, and how well we are living up to those values throughout our lives, perhaps we learn to see ourselves and others in the polarizing categories we that we can divide ourselves and others into.

Hoffman, in this moment, can observed to liken the process of her dialogic self to the process of triangulation or the process to attempt to find “a position or location by means of bearings from two fixed points a known distance apart” (http://www.merriamwebster.com/dictionary/triangulation). “A voice, almost unconscious, keeps performing an inaudible, perpetual triangulation”, Hoffman writes, her dialogic self trying to find its place within her environment as the “ancient Greeks tried to extrapolate, from two points of a triangle drawn in the sand, the moon’s distance from the earth” (170). “From my removed, abstract promontory, this Upper West Side apartment looks as surreal as a large foreground object in a Magritte painting”, a Belgian surrealist painter whose paintings which prompts the perceiver to question their perceptive reality (Hoffman 170). “Weightlessness is upon me”, Hoffman describes her experience at the gathering, “I am here, feeling the currents of conflict and warmth, but from that other point in the triangle, this is just one arbitrary version of reality” (170). Hoffman goes on to say “nothing here has to be the way it is; people could behave in a different manner; I could look different, flirt differently; I could be having entirely different conversations” (170). “Not any specific conversations”, Hoffman states, “as the other place in my mind no longer has any particularity” (170). Hoffman acknowledges to herself that being at this particular place and time, and with these particular people is just being aware “that there is another place – another point at the base of the triangle, which renders this place relative, which locates me within that relativity itself” (170). In analyzing a psychological interview Josselson states, we can track the “dialogue between different orders of individual experience or the dialogue of the individual with the social world of others” (11). This attempt at triangulation that Hoffman illustrates is the internal dialogue that we, consciously or not, do across the whole of our lifetimes. This process of triangulation is the social process of trying to find our own place within the particular environment that we find ourselves within at any given moment, and finding ourselves in the process by the reactions that our social worlds cause within us. The individual strives to settle its various dialogues that we have within ourselves and with the dialogues that come from our social worlds. These different dialogues within ourselves, along with our dialogues with our social worlds, are always evolving and becoming ever more complex. It is perhaps by learning to better socially triangulate that the dialogic self can better clarify itself to itself, and within its social worlds as well.

As this gathering has stretched into the early morning hours, Hoffman decides to leave and calls herself a taxi. “Had a good time tonight?” the taxi driver asks tentatively, exploring my willingness to get into a conversation” (Hoffman 171). “Pretty good,” Hoffman replies to the man “laconically, signaling my preference not to” (171). Understanding Hoffman’s terse and contrite answer as her disinterest in pursuing conversation with him, the taxi driver “turns on the radio” to fill the air with noise. As a Madonna song plays, Hoffman ruminates over her location in this present moment of space and time. “This is not a place where I happen to be, this happens to be the place where I am; this is the only place”, Hoffman writes, “how could there be anywhere more real?” (171). Josselson states, “narrative models of knowing are models of process in process”, and “when we record people’s narratives over time, we can observe the evolution of the life story rather than see it as a text in a fixed and temporal state” (7). Hoffman illustrates in this cab ride home, that the majority of life is actually a continuous line of temporary conditions and states, many of which we take for granted, giving them only thesignificance with which we are compelled to attach depending upon the many factors that influence us. But the essential meaning of this particular cab ride home for Hoffman is that no other place than where we are at any given moment is real, not the future, not the past, but where we are in the process of our lives the ever-present now.

The taxi driver eventually delivers her to her apartment and Hoffman goes inside. Hoffman tells us that she is so tired that she gets “into bed without turning on the light” (171). As she begins to drift off into sleep she reflects back the evening, how the decisions and events of a lifetime have brought her to where she is now, creating the person that she is at the present moment. “How strange”, Hoffman marvels, “how strange what I’ve become, and then words cease and, in my drowsiness, I’ve become an animal thing I’ve always known, only myself” (171). Josselson states, “the essential message of hermeneutics” or the science of interpreting texts, “is that to be human is to mean, and only by investigating the multifaceted nature of human meaning can we approach the understanding of people” (11). As Hoffman likens herself to an “animal thing”, this concept seems to reflect on the basic, fundamental being that we all are at our cores. In life we are all essentially equal, made of the same substance, yet it is only how well this “animal thing” is capable of interpreting the environment, getting to where we will go in life by the meanings we make from our interpretations, and the ability with which we can put these ideas into practice. The only differences between us “animal things” is the meanings and interpretations that we make, and those meanings and interpretations are based on various factors that is only ever truly known to the individual.

This moment that Eva Hoffman writes about in her book Lost in Translation: A Life in a New Language perfectly illustrates the working-through of the processes of her dialogic self, both with itself, and also with its environment as well. Eva Hoffman demonstrates that the dialogic self evolves over time, redefining itself and its experiences as it accumulates more knowledge of itself after going through life experiences and the maturation process. The dialogic self as illustrated in this moment in Hoffman’s life, learns to the best of its ability how to comprehend its place within social structures after interpreting the values and meanings of the environment, and then attempts to reciprocate to the best of its ability. Hoffman shows us in this moment of her existence how the dialogic self applies to the degree that it is able, knowledge gained within the environment to how it communicates itself to others using criteria that the dialogic self believes will gain itself a favorable view within its culture. The process of triangulation that Hoffman writes about in this moment, informs how the dialogic self analyzes the social world by its components, clearly separating various environments and experiences, and behaving accordingly to the rules and customs of each environment. Hoffman, in this moment, portrays the dialogic self as a thing in a process of synthesis, comprising a combination of various experiences, sensations, and environments, becoming an amalgamated reality that is only ever known to the individual. This moment in the experience of Hoffman’s life gives an example of how the dialogic self evaluates both its inner reality within its environments, assigning meaning and worth according to criteria that evolves based on the dialogic self’s best ability to appraise experience both inward and without during the individual’s lifetime.

Works Cited

Hoffman, Eva. Lost in Translation: A Life in a New Language. New York: Penguin Books, 1989. Print.

Josselson, Ruthellen. “Imagining the Real: Empathy, Narrative, and the Dialogic Self” Interpreting Experience. Volume 3 of The Narrative Study of Lives. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications, Inc. 1995. 27-44.

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/triangulation

GRADE: 96
Joseph, thank you for your essay! This is an excellent analysis of Hoffman through the theories of Josselson, you expand upon the concept of the dialogic self and provide many fine examples for analysis within the text itself. This is a 'short' review as I wanted to make sure to get your grade to you now. This is a highly ariticulate, insightful essay, and it is clear that you have grappled with central themes in Hoffman's writings, putting forth a paper that is well organized and has both depth and breadth of ideas.

A fine essay, insightful and well developed. All best, Prof LK

"Self-Research and Self-Experimation" - Discussion Four Post (U.S. Women's Multicultural Life-Writings 03-04-2013)

2013-03-04T15:17:00.000-08:00

“The results of our experiments are never self-evident in their import. They are merely the occasion for us to try to weave a narrative in which obtaining a certain set of “significant” results makes sense – sense in the context of ongoing narratives both of epistemology and of a developing communal tale of human experience. And “sense” is a product of interpretation, grounded in the social conditions in which we live, formed by inescapable ideology, and spoken in a consensual language.” (Josselson 4)

In her essay “War Doll Hotel”, Kiana Davenport likens mental experience to that of photographic snapshots. Snapshots are a bare narrative of brief seconds of our lives, a single second record of existence, only holding with it the true experience of our reality at the moment, and how we value that experience later on in reflection. Davenport’s metaphor can lead one to believe that our existence is one long collection of snapshots, each one to be examined on its own. Our minds, like the camera, capture the ever present now. Snapshots of our lives are just one way of looking at things one way amongst many, some that we can appreciate, learn, anticipate, intuit, some that will forever be lost to us unless they are revealed to us.

Our lives are essentially our experiments, experiments that are defined by the circumstances with which we are born and raised, our natural proclivities and predispositions, and the rituals and habits with which we find comfort in performing throughout our lives. At first we take the opinions and prejudices of our parents and families, not knowing whether they are right or wrong, not even being able to consider our parents capable of being wrong. We are too young to know for ourselves enough of the world to do anything other than follow what others tell us how the world is, and how it should be interpreted. As we grow older the opinions of our peers become just as important as those of our parents, giving us awareness that the interpretations of our parents may not be quite right for the present day and age as each generation sees its own collective experience and perception of its current world in different ways. In the world of our peers, we recognize our own collectively shared experience as a culture separate from other generations. As we reach adulthood we realize that there are all kinds of ways to interpret our personal reality, and what works in one situation does not necessarily broadly apply to all others. Once an adult, our experience of our lives becomes a blend between our mental phenomena and the social environment. The snapshots of our lives are neutral, have no meaning other than what meaning and value that we give to them, and this meaning and value changes over the course of a lifetime according to our education and experiences. Once we accept that the experience of our life is nothing more than the ever-present reality, mixed with reflections of the past, and assumptions of the future, we could perhaps experiment with our reality, examining it as thoroughly as we can a tangible second of our lives. This experiment also allows us examine our experience in the moment, offering us the chance to enhance our present experience through self-examinations to best comprehend our “interpretations” of the current “social conditions in which we live”, what the “inescapable ideology” is that we live within, and how best to speak the “consensual language” with others during the ever-present state of temporarily shared experience (Josselson 4).

Works Cited:

Davenport, Kiana “War Doll Hotel” Daily Fare: Essays from the Multicultural Experience. Ed. Kathleen Aguero. Athens: The University of Georgia Press, 1993. 65-77

Reducing the Risk of Calcium Oxalate Kidney Stones (Human Nutrition 02-20-13)

2013-02-20T06:00:00.002-08:00

Joseph Melanson

Human Nutrition

Prof. Ortiz

7 December 2012

Reducing the Risk of Forming Calcium-Oxalate Kidney Stones through Making Healthier Choices in the Diet.

“Urinary tract stones”, or what is referred to in medical terms as urolithiasis, has “been known to mankind since antiquity” (Barnela, Soni, Saboo, & Bhansali, 2012, p. 1). According to Harvard Men’s Health Watch, (2012), the problem of kidney stones has “even been “diagnosed” in Egyptian mummies that date back some 7,000 years” (p. 1). Kidney stones, according to Barnela et al., (2012), are composed of “organic and inorganic crystals amalgamated with proteins” that form in the urinary tract (p. 1). Of the four different types of kidney stones that occur: calcium-based, struvite, uric acid, and cystine stones, “calcium-based stones are by far the most common, with nearly 80% of stones composed of calcium compounds” such as “calcium oxalate, and in rarer cases, “calcium phosphate” (Barnela et al., 2012, p. 2). As the causes of these four types of stones arise from different causes, the prevention of kidney stone formation “must be tailored to the stone type” (Wells et al., 2012, p. 1). The causes of calcium oxalate stones in particular, have been mostly traced to: eating certain foods high in oxalate, a high sodium intake, dehydration, and “certain types of eating disorders” (Rodman, Sosa, Seidman, and Jones, 2007, p. 4). These findings clearly make the origins of calcium oxalate stones, as well as their preventions, directly dependent upon one’s nutritional intake. The risk of the formation of calcium oxalate kidney stones can be greatly reduced through making healthier, more nutritious choices in one's diet.

The problem of calcium oxalate kidney stones is becoming an ever more increasing problem in our modern era. “Since World War II, the incidence of stone disease has been increasing dramatically in the Western industrialized nations” (Rodman et al., 2007, p. 5). Globally the lifetime risk for kidney stones is “estimated between 15% and 25%, and changes in diet and lifestyle may have contributed to increased incidence in women and adolescents” (Wells et al., 2012, p. 1). Kidney stones, Dawson (2012) has stated, “accounts for about 1% of hospital admissions worldwide and is the reason for 80,000 emergency department visits per year in the U.K.” (p. 468). “At present, kidney stones send almost three million Americans to the doctor each year, including over 500,000 trips to emergency rooms and between 5% and 10% of all active stone passers may require hospitalization (Harvard, 2012, p. 1). According to Rosenfeld (1995), 500,000 people in the United States “rush to their doctors’ offices or to emergency rooms in excruciating pain from kidney stones” (p. 10). In the United States alone, “the prevalence of kidney stones increased from 3.2% in the mid-‘70’s to 5.2% in the mid-‘90’s, and the rates are continuing to rise” (Harvard, 2012, p. 1). Urolithiasis is “currently more prevalent in men than in women (13% vs. 7%, respectively)”, and is “three to four times more likely to present in white than nonwhite patients” (Wells et al., 2012, p. 2). “Most vulnerable are men; Eurasians; anyone living in dry, hot climates, especially in the United States; people who are physically inactive; athletes who fail to replace fluid lost in perspiration after a workout; and persons with gout” (Rosenfeld, 1995, p. 288). According to Harvard (2012), “more than one of every eight American men will develop a kidney stone at some time during his life; the highest risk occurs between the ages of 20 and 50, with a peak age at age 30” (p. 1). “Men with a family history of stone disease are two-and-a-half times more likely to form stones than men without stone-forming relatives” (Harvard, 2012, p. 1). According to Barnela et al., (2012), calcium oxalate stones are “the most frequent type, accounting for up to 80%” of kidney stones that form in human beings (p. 1). Kidney stones are an increasing problem globally and calcium oxalate stones in particular are by far the most frequently found in patients.

Calcium oxalate stones originate as a result of the natural functioning of the kidney. The kidneys are the major organs of the urinary system, which is comprised of “two kidneys, two ureters, the bladder, two sphincter muscles, and the urethra” (NIDDKD, 2007, p. 2). “We are born with two kidneys that lie against the back of the abdominal wall, just above the waist” (Rodman et al., 2007, p. 9). The kidneys are “bean-shaped organs, each about the size of your fist, located near the middle of your back, just below the rib cage, one on each side of the spine” (NIDDKD, 2007, p. 2). “Though they account for just 0.5 percent of the body’s total weight, the kidney’s use up to 10 percent of the body’s oxygen supply, indicating intense metabolic activity” (Sizer and Whitney, 2011, p. 92). The kidneys have “two basic functions: cleaning out toxic substances from the blood, and keeping the things your body does need in proper balance” (Rodman et al., 2007, p.10). “Every day, your kidneys process about 200 quarts of blood to sift about 2 quarts of waste products and extra water” (NIDDKD, 2007, p. 3). “Your blood transports nutrients and oxygen to the cells of the body and carries away waste materials which are then brought back to the kidney to be excreted” (Rodman et al., 2007, p. 10). “The kidneys work by filtering the blood that comes into each kidney, through a very efficient system of microscopic nephrons” which could be described as a small tube (Rodman et al., 2007, p. 11). Each kidney has around one million nephrons and they are responsible for much of the work of the kidney. The nephrons “eventually join and lead into the collecting ducts that finally empty into the renal or kidney pelvis”, or a basin-like structure (Rodman et al., 2007, p. 12). “By the time the fluid in the nephrons has passed through the collecting ducts to reach the kidney pelvis, it has become urine” (Rodman et al., 2007, p. 10). “Urine accumulates in the collecting system of a kidney, which includes the pelvis and calyces” which can be described as a cup-like structure (Rodman et al., 2007, p. 11). “The kidney pelvis has smooth muscle that periodically contracts and squeezes urine into the ureter” or the tubes that connect the kidney to the bladder, and “additional muscular contractions of the ureter propel the urine into the bladder” where is stored until the bladder is relieved (Rodman et al., 2007, p. 11). Urine, according to Rodman et al., (2007), is “composed of water, salt, small amounts of acid, and a variety of waste products such as urea, oxalate, uric acid, potassium, magnesium, creatinine, and other unwanted things (e.g., lead)” (p. 10). “Although urine may look like a simple fluid”, Harvard (2012) has reported, “it’s actually a complex liquid” that contains many chemicals and “many minerals” (p. 1). “When blood coming to the kidney for filtration contains too much of any substance, it crystallizes in the urine, forming sediment and sludge, which can eventually end up as stones” (Rosenfeld, 1995, p. 289). The function of the kidneys act as waste removal for the body, and kidney stones are likely to form when there is a lack of fluids to decrease the accumulation of substances that make their way to the urinary tract.

Of the four main types of kidney stones, those composed of calcium oxalate are by far the most common. “Kidney stones may be as small as a grain of sand or as large as a pearl”, but sometimes they are “even as big as golf balls” (NKUDIC, 2007, p. 5). “Stones may be smooth or jagged”, according to NKUDIC (2007), and generally “they are usually yellow or brown” (5). According to Barnela et al., (2012), calcium oxalate stones are “the most frequent type, accounting for up to 80%” of kidney stones that form in human beings (p. 2). The other three types of kidney stones are uric acid, found in “8-10 %” of cases, with cysteine and struvite stones found in the remaining cases (Barnela et al., 2012, p. 2). According to Rosenfeld (1995), “struvite stones (15 percent) form in persons with chronic urinary tract infections; uric acid stones (8 percent) occur in person’s with gout; and cystine stones account for some 4 percent of cases” resulting from a “congenital abnormality that interferes with the kidney’s ability to reabsorb cystine, an amino acid” (p. 289). Calcium oxalate stones are the most frequently seen type of kidney stone as it is generally caused by dietary choices. Oxalate is a common substance found in many foods and drinks, like fruits, nuts, vegetables, milk, and chocolate to name a few. When oxalate builds up to high levels in the blood, it can aggregate with calcium in the urine with the tendency to “precipitate the calcium” to form the “nidus, or center, of a kidney stone” (Townsend and Cohen, 2009, p. 134). Calcium oxalate stones are by far the most commonly encountered type of kidney stones, due to the amount of oxalate found in our modern diet.

There are several different means to medically treat calcium oxalate kidney stones. “Kidney stones are not a true diagnosis; rather it suggests a broad variety of underlying diseases” Barnela et al., 2012, p. 1). “Classically, a patient with kidney stones presents with sudden onset of severe pain in either the right or left flank” and the pain usually “radiates to the groin in the same direction as the passage of the stone. (Townsend and Cohen, 2007, p. 128). Symptoms that are typically associated with kidney stones are: “extreme pain in your back or side that will not go away, blood in the urine, fevers and chills, vomiting, urine that smells bad or looks cloudy”, and a “burning feeling when you urinate” (NIDDKD, 2007, p. 1). “Although most stones form in the kidney, they don’t usually cause symptoms until they drop into the ureter, the thin muscular tube that carries urine down the bladder” (NIDDKD, 2007, p. 1). When symptoms present themselves, the doctor will typically use either an X-ray, an ultrasound, or a CT scan to determine the size, location, number of stones, as well as any obstructions of flow in the urinary tract. Often the doctor will provide a means for the patient to collect urine in a container, and/or strain the urine flow to catch any stones that may be passed. This allows the doctor to determine which of the four types of stone the patient may have in order to best treat that particular type of kidney stone. When the doctor determines what kind of stone that is present within the patient, medical treatment can range from various kinds of surgery like lithotripsy, tunnel surgery, ureteroscopy, or through pharmaceutical drugs like thiazide diuretics or citrates. Lithotripsy is a “procedure of crushing a stone in the urinary bladder or urethra by means of a lithotripter, a device that passes shock waves through a water-filled tub in which the patient sits” (Townsend and Cohen, 2009, p. 134). “The shock waves break a large stone into small stones that will pass through your urinary system with your urine” (NIDDKD, 2007, p. 6). “In tunnel surgery, the doctor makes a small cut into the patient’s back and makes a narrow tunnel through the skin to the stone inside the kidney”, and using “a special instrument that goes through the tunnel, the doctor can find a stone and remove it” (NIDDKD, 2007, p. 6). Ureteroscopy is the use of a slender instrument, called the ureteroscope that is “inserted into the urethra – the short tube that carries urine out of the bladder, then into the ureter” (NKUDIC, 2007, p. 7). A camera within the ureteroscope allows the doctor to use a cage on the wire that is inserted within the patient to grab the stone and pull it out, or the doctor may pulverize the stone “with a device inserted through the ureteroscope” (NKUDIC, 2007, p. 7). Various medications exist as well to lower or prevent the risk of calcium oxalate stones from forming. Thiazide diuretics, generally one of the “first line therapy in most patients with uncomplicated hypertension” have the added benefit of lowering the amount of calcium passed in the urine, thus greatly reducing the formation of stones containing calcium (Townsend and Cohen, 2009, p. 134). This method is also the cheapest as thiazide diuretics generally cost “about a penny a pill” (Townsend and Cohen, 2009, p. 134). According to Dawson (2012), another common pharmaceutical treatment that is used by doctors in the treatment of calcium oxalate kidney stones is known as citrate supplementation and is “a particularly effective therapeutic intervention” (p. 1). Kidney stones, no matter the type, require that the “management of stone disease needs individualization” for the best treatment and prevention of their recurrence (Barnela et al., 2012, p. 6). Several methods exist for the treatment of calcium oxalate stones, and the patient’s doctor can choose the best method to treat this particular type of kidney stone.

The risk of the formation of calcium oxalate kidney stones can be easily prevented through changes in one’s own diet and lifestyle habits. “Though the pathogenesis of stone disease is not fully understood, systematic metabolic evaluation, medical treatment of underlying conditions, and patient specific modification in diet and lifestyle are effective in reducing the incidence and recurrence of stone disease” (Barnela et al., 2012, p. 1). “After many years of trying to find a medicine that would “cure” people of kidney stones, doctors found that two-thirds of patients seen with recurring stones stopped making them with basic dietary advice” (Rodman et al., 2007, p. 6). “Limiting sodium in the diet is important as increased sodium intake is accompanied by increased absorption of calcium and increased likelihood of stone recurrence in the case of calcium stones” (Townsend and Cohen, 2009, p. 135). “A moderate calcium intake is recommended as research has shown that limiting calcium in the diet may result in an increased chance of developing osteoporosis, or weak bones”, and it does “not decrease your chance of developing further calcium stones” (Townsend and Cohen, 2009, p. 135). Calcium binds with oxalate in the diet and a certain amount can prevent them “from being absorbed in the first place so it gets lost in the stool when you have a bowel movement” rather than allowing it to make its way to the kidneys (Townsend and Cohen, 2009, p. 132). Avoiding foods high in oxalate is an important factor in preventing the formation of calcium oxalate kidney stones. The single most important factor in reducing the formation of kidney stones though, no matter the type, is an increased intake of fluids. According to NIDDK (2007), “you can drink ginger ale, lemon-lime sodas, and fruit juices” but one should “limit your coffee, tea, and cola to 1 or 2 cups a day because the caffeine may cause you to lose fluid too quickly” (p. 9). Other fluids to avoid are grapefruit juice, alcohol, and Gatorade “mostly because the sodium in it tends to increase the urine calcium” (Townsend and Cohen, 2009, p. 135). The best fluid for one to drink in order to prevent calcium oxalate stones in the urinary system is water. “The key to preventing” the formation of calcium oxalate stones, according to Rosenfeld (1995), is “to drink all the water you possibly can thus diluting whatever substance may form stones and reducing the chances” of these substances from “solidifying” (p. 296). According to Barnela et al., (2012), “clinical presentation, proper history, and laboratory tests have shown that increasing urine volume to at least 2 liters a day can reduce the recurrence of stone disease by up to 40-50%” (p. 1). “So if you are prone to kidney stones (and that’s virtually everyone), drink more water than you lose in perspiration, sweat, urine, and stool – at least two quarts a day” (Rosenfeld, 1995, p. 297). Townsend and Cohen (2009) have recommended an intake of “ten eight-ounce glasses” of water a day”, or 2 glasses with “each meal”, “2 glasses in the late afternoon, and 2 glasses at bedtime” (p. 136). The risk of forming calcium oxalate kidney stones can be greatly reduced by simple changes in the diet such as limiting one’s sodium intake, avoiding foods and drinks high in oxalate, consuming a moderate amount of foods that contain calcium, and especially through increasing one’s consumption of water to at least ten eight-ounce glasses a day.

Kidney stones, especially calcium oxalate stones, have been a problem to mankind for at least several thousand years, and the incidence of their occurrence is increasing all over the globe. Our modern era has only increased the prevalence of calcium oxalate kidney stones due to the abundance of unhealthy foods and drinks that are becoming increasingly easier for people to gain access to. The natural functioning of the kidneys cause calcium oxalate stones to form when there is an abundance of oxalate in the blood which eventually makes its way to the urinary tract. Of the four types of kidney stones that are likely to occur, calcium oxalate stones are by far the most commonly found in patients. There exists several different medical techniques to treat the problem of calcium oxalate kidney stones. The prevention of calcium oxalate kidney stones can be easily reduced and prevented through making simple choices in one’s nutritional intake, and especially through consuming enough water to prevent the substances that form kidney stones from accumulating within the urinary tract in the first place.

Works Cited:

Barnela, S. R., Soni, S.S., Saboo, S. S., & Bhansali, A. S. (2012). “Medical Management of

Renal Stone”. Indian Journal of Endocrinology and Metabolism. Mar-Apr 2012, Vol. 16, Issue

2. PDF.

Dawson, C.H., & Tomson, C.R.V. (2012) “Kidney Stone Disease: Pathophysiology, Investigation, and Medical Treatment”. Clinical Medicine. Vol. 12, No. 5 467-71. PDF

Harvard Men’s Health Watch. (2012). “Kidney Stones: Common, Painful, Preventable.” Harvard Health Publications. Vol. 16. No. 6. PDF.

National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (2007). What I Need to Know about Kidney Stones. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. NIH Publication No. 07-4154. PDF. www.kidney.niddk.nih.gov

National Kidney and Urologic Diseases Information Clearinghouse. (2007). Kidney Stones: What You Need to Know. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. National Institute of Health. NIH Publication No. 08-6186. PDF. www.kidney.niddk.nih.gov.

National Kidney and Urologic Diseases Information Clearinghouse. (2007). “Kidney Stones in Adults”. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. PDF. http://kidney.niddk.nih.gov/kudiseases/pubs/stonesadults/.

Rodman, J.S., Sosa, R.E., Seidman, C. & Jones, R. (2007). No More Kidney Stones: Revised and Expanded Ed. The Experts Tell You All You Need to Know about Prevention and Treatment. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Rosenfeld, Isadore. (1995) Doctor, What Should I Eat?: Nutrition Prescriptions for Ailments in

Which Diet Can Really Make a Difference. New York: Random House.

Sizer, F. & Whitney, E. (2011). Nutrition: Concepts and Controversies. 12^th ed. Cengage Learning.

Townsend, R. R., & Cohen, D. L. (2009). 100 Questions and Answers about Kidney Disease and

Hypertension. Massachusetts: Jones and Bartlett Publishers. 127-136.

Wells, C.C., Chandrashekar, K.B., Jyothirmayi, G.N., Tahiliani, V., Sabatino, J.C., & Juncos,

L.A. (2012). “Kidney Stones: Current Diagnosis and Management.” Clinician Reviews. Feb

2012. 22. PDF.

Aging and Dietary Issues Discussion Post (Human Nutrition 12-17-12)

2012-12-17T15:51:00.003-08:00

The impairments of old age can be minimized and made more manageable through living a more active lifestyle and consuming a more balanced, nutritious diet. According to Sizer and Whitney (2011), “current thinking refutes the idea that declining energy needs are unavoidable” (552). The elderly body still requires “staying physically active” as well as an “adequate diet” (Sizer & Whitney, 2011, 553). If these conditions are not met, according to Sizer and Whitney (2011), “sedentary behavior and mental and physical losses” may result in what is referred to as “the dwindles” (553). “The dwindles” refers to the most “compounding frailties in the elderly, including: decreased physical ability to function, diminished mental function, malnutrition, social withdrawal, and weight loss” (553). According to Sizer and Whitney (2011), “over 90 percent of older adults fail to meet national exercise objectives and miss the opportunity for more robust health and fitness in later years” (553). Maintaining an active lifestyle as well as eating a more healthier diet are the two main important means to prolonging one’s life, and enjoying a more robust, and functional quality of life in one’s later years.

Works Cited:

Sizer, F. & Whitney, E. (2011). Nutrition Concepts and Controversies. 12^th ed. Cengage Learning.

Recreation of Bloom's Taxonomy (U.S. Women's Multicultural Life-Writings 12-16-12)

2012-12-16T13:01:00.003-08:00

One of the most important concepts that I have learned in this course is the one of Bloom’s taxonomy. Bloom’s taxonomy is a useful tool for college studies. It is a tool that is used by teachers to create assignments, but can be applied to one’s own use in learning and research. It provides a means to look at a subject from multiple points of view through the various levels of knowing and understanding.

After looking at these domains, I began to wonder what these concepts meant to me personally so I decided the best way to learn them was to put them in my own words. I think we take much of what we know for granted, thinking we know something, like the definition of “knowledge”, until we are forced to use it in some form or fashion. This state of assuming something, to me, is still one of the lowest forms of knowing something, perhaps not even qualifying for knowledge as it is based on an unclear and undeveloped idea or thought that we know something, when in actuality we don’t know what something truly means. So to go beyond the realm of assuming, I came up with my own definitions for the domain of Bloom’s taxonomy as well as verbs which commonly are associated with them.

Knowledge: Knowledge is reliable information that enhances one’s experience in the world, and one’s ability to participate within it. There are many different kinds of knowledge, and many different levels of knowing a subject. The better one can make use of one’s knowledge is in proportion to how well this knowledge is embedded in the mind, and how readily it can be recalled when necessary.

There are two types of knowledge, declarative, and procedural. The first is the ability to recall known facts (i.e. state capitals, the alphabet, colors, etc.), while the latter is knowing how to perform the steps that are required of a form of knowledge (driving a car, starting a lawnmower, playing a sport). Declarative knowledge exists on a conscious, verbal level of mind, while procedural knowledge is knowing how to perform the knowledge without necessarily being able to verbalize it in words. This knowledge is contained in being able to perform and activity, expertly too, but not necessarily being able to translate it into words for others. Associated verbs: locate, draw, outline, define, identify, label.

Comprehension: Comprehension is how well some form of knowledge is learned and use it in a context that it may not have previously been used or intended. Comprehension is how fully and how deeply a form of knowledge is understood. Associated verbs: Explain, Relate, Describe, Paraphrase.

Application: Application is the making use of knowledge in practice. A person may understand a form of knowledge very well, but it is at the application stage that knowledge is used some form or manner. In applying one’s knowledge, one extracts what is still mental phenomena, and begins to make this form of knowledge real in the material world. Associated verbs: Modify, Construct, Build, Sketch.

Analysis: To analyze something requires being able to take apart concepts and ideas, as well as physical things, in order to study their component parts separately and how they function together as a system. Each component will require a balanced examination and understanding of itself on its own, as well as its place within the functioning whole. Associated verbs: Examine, Categorize, Compare, Differentiate.

Synthesis: Synthesis is combining parts, parts that are not necessarily intended to be used or put together, into a system that can function on its own. Synthesis is successfully bringing together of combination of diverse ideas and concepts. Associated verbs: Combine, Invent, Compose, Design.

Evaluation: Evaluation is being able to examine something to determine its value, worth, or significance in context of the environment. Evaluation is being able to discern a things potential, and the extent to which a thing can be used, or its practicability. Associated verbs: Appraise, Assess, Criticize, Solve.

This is a brief attempt at creating my own version of Bloom’s taxonomy, and I am sure that one can really develop one’s own version with enough time, research, and application to making this tool more sharply defined and useful to the individual in their studies.

An Analysis of Atkins For Life (Human Nutrition 12-04-12)

2012-12-04T15:36:00.001-08:00

Joseph Melanson

Human Nutrition

Prof. Ortiz

09 November 2012

An Analysis of the Diet Program taken from the book Atkins for Life: The Complete Controlled

Carb Program for Permanent Weight Loss and Good Health, by Dr. Robert C. Atkins.

This diet program, The Atkins Diet, is taken from the book Atkins for Life: The Complete Controlled Carb Program for Permanent Weight Loss and Good Health, by Dr. Robert C. Atkins. This particular diet emphasizes the control of carbohydrates by reducing the amount of carbohydrates one takes in in one’s diet as a means to losing weight.

“Atkins for Life”, Dr. Atkins (2003) claims, “will help you incorporate healthy carbohydrates along with protein and fat into a nutrient-rich, varied, and delectable way of eating for a lifetime”, teaching one to “distinguish between “good” and “bad” carbs so that you can select those foods that are lower in carbs and have a more moderate impact on your blood sugar” (p. x). Dr. Atkins (2003) states that his diet program “allows you enormous variety in the kinds of foods you can eat” (p. xi). With the exception of unhealthy foods, “you can eat almost everything else in moderation if your individual metabolism permits” (Atkins, 2003, p. xii). The real objective of the Atkins diet, Dr. Atkins (2003) states, is to “maintain the weight you lose and maintaining a level of health far beyond that which you started” (p. x).

Dr. Robert C. Atkins received his medical degree in 1955, and is a specialist in cardiology. He is the author of several bestselling weight loss books, and “the founder and medical chair of The Atkins Center for Complimentary Medicine in New York City” (rear cover).

Criteria for diet program analysis from Nutrition: Concepts and Controversies. (Table 9-8, p. 348).

1). It does provide a reasonable amount of calories as one can consume what one wants but must reduce only the consumption of carbohydrates. 10 Points.

2). The Atkins diet provides as much protein as one desires, emphasizing more healthier choices, of course, focusing instead on carbohydrate reduction. 10 Points.

3). Fats are not so much of a concern as are the reduction of one’s carbohydrates. 10 Points.

4). The Atkins diet focuses on carbohydrate consumption and expects the follower to consume in its four stages; 45 grams (345 calories), 58 grams (447 calories), 85.5 grams (659 calories), and 105.5 grams (814 calories) respectively. So only at the end of the program is the diet in agreement in with the Daily Recommended Intake. 0 Points.

5). As the Atkins diet promotes reducing “bad” carbohydrates, which are mostly useless, one gets their vitamins and minerals through other food groups. 10 Points.

6). This diet program allows a great deal of variety in what one can choose to eat. 10 Points.

7). The Atkins diet does not require “special, expensive, or unusual” foods (348). 10 Points.

8). This diet does not promise any kind of dramatic weight-loss, but weight-loss through gradual, healthy eating practices along with regular exercise. 10 Points.

9). This diet encourages the follower to engage in healthier eating, along with pursuing an exercise regimen, in the goal of living a permanent healthy lifestyle. 10 Points.

10). The Atkins Diet doesn’t use any “counselors”, or require large sums of money, or necessitate signing a contract. 10 Points.

11). This diet does not promote any kind of weight-loss aids, devices, or supplements. 10 Points.

12). Dr. Atkins advises pregnant and nursing women “should not follow this weight-loss diet except for the Lifetime Maintenance”, or the fourth and last stage, and that anyone trying to lose weight should do so “under the supervision of a doctor” (10). 10 Points.

Sample Meal Plan 1 (Atkins, 2003, p. 161).

45 Net Carbs		60 Net Carbs		80 Net Carbs		100 Net Carbs
Breakfast ½ cup Fiber 1 cereal ½ cup low carb soy milk ½ cup blueberries	10 1 8	½ cup Fiber 1 cereal ½ cup whole milk ½ cup blueberries	10 5 8	½ cup Fiber 1 cereal ½ cup whole milk or 1/3 small banana	10 5 8	½ cup Fiber 1 cereal ¾ cup whole milk Or 1 peach	10 7.5 8
Lunch Large green salad with dressing, ½ tomato Hamburger patty Macaroni and Cauliflower Salad	6 0 4	Or Atkins Cole Slaw 6 Hamburger patty 0 Cauliflower Macaroni Salad 4	6 0 4	Large green salad with dressing, ½ tomato Hamburger patty Or 1/3 cup green peas	6 0 4	Or 1 small red pepper, sliced Hamburger patty ½ whole-grain bun Or ½ cup low carb pasta	6 0 15 4
Dinner Miso-Soy Glazed Salmon ½ cup green vegetable stir-fry ½ cup raspberries	5 5 3	Miso-Soy Glazed Salmon Or 1 cup broccoli ¾ cup edamame ½ cup raspberries	5 5 9 3	Miso-Soy Glazed Salmon ½ cup green vegetable stir-fry ½ cup brown rice ½ cup raspberries Frozen Lemon Mousse	5 5 20 3 7.5	Miso-Soy Glazed Salmon ¾ cup green vegetable stir-fry ½ cup brown rice ½ cup raspberries Frozen Lemon Mousse	5 7.5 20 3 7.5
Snack 1 ounce macadamia nuts with 2 ounces cheese	3	1 ounce macadamia nuts with 2 ounces cheese	3	1 kiwifruit 1 ounce macadamia nuts with 2 ounces cheese	9 3	Or 1 peach 9 Or ½ cup cottage cheese 3	9 3
Total 45 58 85.5 105.5

Meal Plan 1 (p. 161).

This diet has scored a total of 110 points.

I would recommend the Atkins diet as a reasonable diet that does not promote dangerous practices, expensive costs, or complicated food choices. Anyone can do the Atkins diet as it is very simple in its main focus on the adherence to reducing ones’ carbohydrate consumption. The consumption of carbohydrates can raise one’s insulin and blood sugar levels which can have detrimental effects to the body. In reducing one’s carbohydrate consumption one can lose weight in a safe, healthy way, increasing one’s energy levels, and optimize the functioning of the body. The diet practices mentioned in this book can actually help someone live a longer, healthier life.

Works Cited:

Atkins, R.C. (2003). Atkins for Life: The Complete Controlled Carb Program for Permanent

Weight Loss and Good Health. St. Martin’s Press. New York.

Sizer, F. & Whitney, E. (2011). Nutrition Concepts and Controversies. 12^th ed. Cengage Learning.

Nutritional Education (Human Nutrition 11-28-2012)

2012-11-28T07:31:00.000-08:00

Despite the many advances of our modern societies, there is still a great deal of ignorance as to what constitutes a nutritious diet. Many people in this day and age still lack the knowledge to make food choices for themselves and their offspring. That is why it is more important than ever to spread this necessary information in the hope of educating people in order that they may increase and prolong the quality of their health through nutritional education. It is only through nutritional education that people can make informed decisions as to what comprises healthy eating for healthy functioning throughout the life cycle.

According to Sizer (2011), “significant numbers of U.S. children in families of low food security consume enough calories each day, but from a steady diet of inexpensive, low-nutrient foods, such as white bread, fats, sugary punches, and crackers, with few of the fruits, vegetables, milk products, and other nutritious foods children need to be healthy” (575). This problem is due to a lack of understanding as to what constitutes healthy eating and the effect that these foods have on not only one’s growth and development, but long-term health as well. This lack of knowledge can lead to malnourishment, which can have as much of an effect on growth and development, as well as overall health to adults as well as being undernourished. People may be foolishly led to believe that just because they have adequate amounts to eat that this is sufficient to their health until problems such as diabetes, and hypertension begin to occur. A lack of knowledge about healthy food choices may not become a concern until after their overall health becomes effected and necessitates medical interventions.

In the U.S. food stamp programs provide benefits to lower-income and poverty-stricken families and individuals to assist in their being able to obtain enough food to feed themselves. The problem with the food stamp program is that “nutrition education is not a mandatory component” of these programs (Cason 4). People are allowed to use these funds to choose nutritionally inadequate foods which may actually have a detrimental effect to ones health over the long-term. According to Cason (1999), “individuals receiving food stamps” actually have “less than adequate diets than those low-income individuals who do not receive food stamps” (4). The lack of encouraging those receiving benefits to receive nutritional education may actually be a detriment when food choices are not made with informed decisions as to what is necessary nutrition and effects overall long-term health.

Lack of nutritional education in mothers adversely effects the health of children. According to Brundtland (2000), “malnutrition and infection in children is the outcome of poverty, ignorance, and, among other factors, high-risk pregnancies (14). “One of the most important factors in reducing child deaths and the vicious cycle between nutrition, infection, and poverty is female education and literacy” (14). Pregnant women are especially in need of nutritional education in order to prevent health problems and deaths of their defenseless children.

The lack of nutritional education can have many adverse effects. Individuals without the information to make healthy food choices can become malnourished, as well as undernourished, causing lifelong health problems. Parents who are uninformed about how to make healthy food decisions not only adversely affect their own health, but also put their children at risk as well for health problems. Nutritional education is a very important matter and should be more heavily promoted to allow individuals to make better decisions towards their diet and ensure a longer, healthier life.

Works Cited:

Brundtland, G.H. (2000). “Nutrition and Infection: Malnutrition and Mortality in Public Health”. Nutrition Reviews. pp. S1-S4.

Cason, K.L. (1999) “Hunger and Food Insecurity”. Journal of Family and Consumer Sciences. 91.1. 49-55.

Klein, B.W. (1998). “Could There Be Hunger in America?” Nutrition Insights. Insight 8,

Sizer, F. & Whitney, E. (2011). Nutrition Concepts and Controversies. 12^th ed. Cengage Learning.

Food Poverty (Human Nutrition 11-25-2012)

2012-11-25T16:43:00.003-08:00

Food poverty is a problem that exists in every country around the globe. In the U.S. alone it is said that there are “11.9 million households” or “12 percent” of households that consistently experience hunger in their daily lives (Klein 1). In America, “people go without nourishing meals not because there is no food nearby to purchase, but because they lack sufficient money to pay for both the food they need and other necessities, such as clothing, housing, medicines, and utilities” (Sizer 575). According to Cason (1999), “living below the poverty line puts tremendous strains on a household budget, adversely affecting the ability to purchase a nutritionally adequate diet” (3). Food poverty is one of the major problems facing our global society and eradicating it is a major concern for the future of our planet.

In the U.S. during the 1960’s, according to Cason, “food security became a high-priority issue at all levels of government” (4). In the past few decades many programs were instituted to combat the growing epidemic of hunger in our society, examples of which are the “Food Stamp Program” and the “Special Supplemental Program for Women, Infants, and Children” or WIC (4). Despite the institution of these programs though, often times the receivers of supplemental benefits may use these funds to “pay utility bills or other necessities” (Klein 2). Another problem concerning the Federal program coverage, according to Klein, is that not all “communities sponsor the range of Federal Food assistance” and these programs are only “available in a limited number of places” (12). In our recent economic climate, “state and local governments and private charities, enlisted to make up for federal cutbacks and budget restraints, are increasingly unable to shoulder the burden”, and have had to make “severe cuts” in their programs (Cason 6). The only solution to this problem is to learn how to better allocate already limited funds and resources and minimize their waste.

Food poverty has another detrimental effect upon our society. A lack of an adequate nutritious diet during the formative years of the individual can lead to “stunting and wasting”, which limits the “mental development” of the individual, and “decisively handicapping the affected millions that do not die” (Brundtland 12). According to Brundtland (2000), these survivors of malnutrition have “special difficulties in terms of their cognitive and physical development” resulting in a more limited adulthood where the individual is “less productive”, and “earn less” (12). This situation can result in a “drain on human resources” in terms of medical costs that burden the state, and result in less productive citizens (12). This situation can be detrimental to an individual’s community as well as to the overall society when an inadequate diet results in diminished functioning, behavior problems, and physical handicaps that cause the individual to become a drain on society, rather than a healthy person who can enjoy full participation in their society. The only means to eradicate this problem is to ensure that all of our citizens have an equal access to the nutrient-dense foods that allow for healthy growth and functioning throughout the life cycle of the individual.

Food poverty can have several detrimental effects, not only to the individual but also to the individual’s society. When people do not receive an adequate, nutrient-dense diet in their growing years, development becomes retarded and one’s potential is not the same as if the individual had received the proper nutrition during the formative years. Children who are unable to receive an adequate diet may not be able to concentrate in school, and may develop behavioral problems. Individuals who are unable to gain access to a nutrient-dense diet may develop health problems throughout their life cycle for which they may need medical assistance provided by the state, further draining available resources. When individuals are unable to get their dietary needs met, their functioning in their society is reduced, and instead of being able to have a healthy and full function and participation in their society, they instead make the social environment weaker. It is only addressing the problem of food poverty that we can be more healthy as a society as a whole, as the health of the individual also effects the health of our society as well.

Works Cited:

Brundtland, G.H. (2000). “Nutrition and Infection: Malnutrition and Mortality in Public Health”. Nutrition Reviews. pp. S1-S4.

Cason, K.L. (1999) “Hunger and Food Insecurity”. Journal of Family and Consumer Sciences. 91.1. 49-55.

Klein, B.W. (1998). “Could There Be Hunger in America?” Nutrition Insights. Insight 8,

Sizer, F. & Whitney, E. (2011). Nutrition Concepts and Controversies. 12^th ed. Cengage Learning.

Alienation and Assimilation Discussion Post (U.S. Women's Multicultural Life Writings 10-21-12)

2012-10-21T12:29:00.000-07:00

Discussion 1 - Alienation and Assimilation

Melanson, Joseph

9/23/2012

In “War Doll Hotel” by Kiana Davenport, we are given the glimpse into what it was like for her growing up, and her later running away from her home in Hawaii, and the denial of her mixed race, to go to New York City in the hopes of finding a sense of belonging on the mainland. She finds a group of women hoping to do the same, some moving on to success like her, and others who are destroyed by the big city.

Davenport has a special ability to fit in with whites, giving her a unique perspective to see them when they are amongst themselves, comfortable with their own kind.

For instance, she relates her experience sharing an apartment with the “racquet-swinging blondes from Massachusetts” who thought she was from a rich family who could afford to live in Hawaii year round, and the writer she dated whose family made racist remarks and jokes in front of their African-American help. They did not now that she was of mixed race and probably would not have reacted the same way towards her as they did.

Her journey through this life in the ability to hide her darker and less socially acceptable self taught her many things. For instance, “I learned that recognizing who you are isn’t the subtext of a life. It’s the main point” (14).

Her stay at the YMCA taught her that “such profoundly dislocated, homesick young women could buoy each other up, assemble, and take aim; well, that was the important thing. New York, the target, was insignificant. Targets change” (15). I liked this statement for its profound truth. We go through many stages in life and are forced into situations with people. In all of them we have to find friends and companions to accompany on our journey, leaving some people behind, as others leave us behind. As we move through life the things and places that we place importance upon change, and whoever we are is not static, but continually changes.

In “All My Relations” by Joyce Zonana we have the story of a woman who earns her Ph.D. and cannot find a job except in Oklahoma, forcing her to leave familiar territory in which she was already comfortable and accustomed to, to find employment in her chosen profession of teaching.

She, like all of us in different parts of our lives, lets others intimidate her. Sitting next to the state trooper at her road test, she is unable to control the car, to master the rules of the road before this state trooper who seems like a metaphor for the people who we let do this to us, those who are barely even there, who come and go out of our lives for mere minutes, yet we give them this power over us, letting them decide where to go, how we succeed and fail.

In both of the stories we find the problem of alienation in a world that forces us to find how we can assimilate. Both of the women are not able to appreciate the culture and ethnicity to which they were born until they are much older, and have left their familiar worlds. Once they are separated from which they came from, they later learn to appreciate what they were born into, and Zonana even goes so far to begin to pursue a degree in order to learn more about her people’s history and culture from which she came.

I myself am of a mixed race, Caucasian-mixed (French, Irish from my maternal grandfather, Ukrainian from my father), and Mexican-American, and possibly Native American from my maternal grandmother, she does not know if her father was Indian or not she thinks he might have been. I was always a dull shade of brown, yet I could become dark brown in the summer depending upon how much time I spent in the sun. I never felt connected to anything, no culture or people to be proud of, yet now as I am older it doesn’t mean anything to me, it is more of a matter of how proud of yourself that you are, of being proud of the person that you have created. I heard a song on the radio today that summarizes it for me. “It doesn’t matter where you came from, it only matters where you’re going”.

Davenport Discussion Post (U.S. Women's Multicultural Writings 09-30-12).

2012-09-30T12:25:00.000-07:00

Summary

Davenport relates her essay “War Doll Hotel” as a series of snapshots over various portions of her lifetime, focusing on her stay at the YMCA in NYC during the 1970’s as its central focus. Davenport, in her essay, reconciles her divided self of her youth in NYC that had not yet embraced multiculturalism as openly as it does today, by looking back through the lens of her present state, one of a more profound appreciation for not only her own uniqueness, but realizing that we all come from a place of searching for what we are, and having to go through our own journeys to find ourselves as well.

Analysis

Born to a Hawaiian mother, and a Caucasian father, neither of which imprinted their culture upon her during her youth, she flees her native Hawaii for NYC in the hope of escaping the place of her birth and youth in the hopes of becoming successful in assimilating to the larger, corporate America.

“You see the trouble I was in; I still didn’t know who I was. I would lose a whole decade, all of my twenties, before I learned that recognizing who you are isn’t the subtext of a life. It’s the main point” (14).

She arrives at NYC in her early twenties, hoping to find success in corporate America, a form of America that was mostly Caucasian, believing that the assimilation into this culture is the definition of happiness. She finds herself at the YMCA, amongst other refugees from other places and cultures, that had caused these women to be labeled outcasts by others, or causing the women to see themselves as outcasts from a circumstance that they were running away from. Some women are more readily able to assimilate themselves into the culture, Davenport herself appeared white and thus had an advantage. Other women had a more difficult time in assimilating, using other methods such as finding husband’s which they believed would give them a way into being accepted by the larger community. The women at the YMCA became their own tight-knit family, in order to support each other, and help each other make sense of this new society that they had to somehow navigate. Other women could not so readily fit in and develop this ability (the suicide and the woman who appeared to have gone insane), and I noticed Davenport did not mention these women by name, as they were probably incapable, possibly through their own negative self-beliefs, to join and participate within this group of women. The women who did succeed were able to reconcile themselves within the needs and requirements of the larger society as a whole. Some retained their personal uniqueness, while other women may have had to shed their past identities completely to adopt one that they felt would compel society to accept them.

“I think the fact that we could do that, that such profoundly dislocated, homesick young women could buoy each other up, assemble, and take aim; well that was the important thing. New York, the target, was insignificant. Targets change” (15).

Synthesis

One is not the sum of one’s potential lineage although the traditions and rituals handed down to people through their heritages gives them their sense of identity as a means to participate in the world before the person find’s their own traditions and rituals with which to adhere. One is how well one can read one’s environment and meet its needs and help participate toward its goals. As society becomes further fractured there is very little holding it together. In the past there were more clear and precise demarcations for the roles of women and men, and for black and white. Society used to be much less difficult to read and participate within as most of us looked like each other, causing us to mostly copy one another in behavior and thinking. Now that society is becoming more increasingly used to seeing various races and cultures, the lines of what is acceptable as to what group to belong to, and thus what behaviors and ideals to adopt and emulate as our own are more confused. We are now subject to the value judgments of many kinds of different people, each one right according to their own culture and place. It is now up to the individual to have to successfully mitigate many different kinds of what is right and wrong in many different kinds of circumstances. To the uninformed individual, our society may appear as just a random set of happenings, causing the individual much confusion and distress in one’s participation of the world. The individual, in this day and age, is compelled to not only try to make sense of the world in order to better fit in it and prosper in a myriad of forms, but to make sense of the world to define ourselves, and what is proper for us as the individual as to how much of society has a personal worth, and what of its values are worth devoting our energies to, and which have no worth to the individual whatsoever. Essentially our lives are a series of photographs, it is only through our environments, and an informed study of it, which gives us the meanings that we assign these moments of time in our personal history.

“When we’re young, we record things very fast. Life develops the film. Ritual for sleepless nights: shuffle mental snapshots, fan them out like playing cards. Choose one” (13).

II.

Bloom’s Taxonomy is actually unfinished, having only completed the first two domains. Others have attempted to create and define the third domain but it has not yet been officially recognized. The taxonomy that we have been exposed to in the course only touches upon the Cognitive Domain, and not the Affective Domain, or the Psycho-Motor Domain. If the other two domains were taken into account, the taxonomy may become even more of a useful and powerful tool in its application.

Taxonomy should be made available to school children, as well as teachers. It would perhaps better inform the students as to the process of teaching, understanding the fact that there is a tool being used in how they are taught by the teacher. Students would be perhaps more interested in learning if they could engage with the subject of learning by anticipating the possible approaches the teacher may use in their teaching, recognizing at what level the subject is being taught and tested upon by being informed of the various keywords with which are being used. It would also be helpful for the student to be aware that there is a higher process of thinking than only one, and that everyone is capable of these higher processes in some form if only they are given the means, and one devotes oneself to using them for their personal gain.

One’s thinking occurs on several different levels, active engagement with a subject is the only means to which one can achieve the higher orders of thinking concerning any subject. Ones ideas can go from the general to the sophisticated and the taxonomy is a useful tool to examine any subject from multiple points of view in order to not only retain the basic fundamentals of the subject, but to achieve more than a superficial understanding of the subject as well through being able to see and use the subjects through a variety of means.

I watched some videos on YouTube and looked at the various images of “Bloom’s Taxonomy” through Google. Seeing it in its many forms helped to more deeply appreciate it and make it all come together. I think seeing it from various perspectives better informs one’s sense of what Bloom Taxonomy is, and better gives a broad awareness of what the taxonomy is. It is after one finds a broad view, or overview of the subject, the learner can then narrow down further into the respective categories of what the taxonomy is. When one finds a multitude of ways of how others have presented the subject, it makes it more readily able to choose which one fits us the best, yet understanding that other people may understand the subject in a completely different way from ours.

The difference between Declarative Knowledge, and Procedural Knowledge was something that I needed to define.

Declarative knowledge is knowing that something as an indisputable fact – “that J is the tenth letter of the alphabet, that Paris is the capital of France. Declarative knowledge is conscious; it can be verbalized” (para. 1).

Procedural Knowledge, on the other hand, “ involves knowing HOW to do something – ride a bike for example. We may not be able to explain how we do it. Procedural knowledge involves implicit learning, which a learner may not be aware of, and may involve being able to use a particular form to understand or produce language without necessarily being able to explain it” (para. 2).

Definition of terms used in Bloom’s taxonomy were also necessary for me. Most people assume the given meanings of everyday terms, and to help myself I had to define various terms in order to know that my understanding of the terms used were not based falsely on assumptions, thus leading to a misunderstanding.

Works Cited:

Davenport, Kiana. "War Doll Hotel." Daily Fare: Essays from the Multicultural Experience. Ed. Kathleen Aguero. Athens: The University of Georgia Press, 1993. 65-77. (in Selected Readings booklet). Print.

http://unt.unice.fr/uoh/learn_teach_FL/affiche_theorie.php?id_concept=90&lang=eng&id_theorie=1&id_categorie=3. “Declarative Knowledge vs. Procedural Knowledge”. Accessed 09-27-2012.

Icebreaker Post (U.S. Women's Multicultural Writings 09-21-12).

2012-09-21T10:32:00.000-07:00

My multicultural experience occurs every time I go to the gym, the Aspen Athletic in Driver’s Village at Cicero, N.Y. In the gym, there are several different types of people. There are the stay-at-home mothers who come religiously every morning, bringing along their multiple children to the facility’s day care, who scream and run through the gym every time they come. There are the hardcore weightlifters that look like they could rip you apart with their bare hands, who throw heavy weight around, and watch your pathetic workout from the corner of their eyes. There are the kids out of school who come to do one rep, then occupy the machine/equipment for a half an hour, sitting there resting and staring into space or pretending not to be self-conscious, while playing on their cell phones, or gather together and converse. There are the guys who have the expensive exercise clothes, and brings a gallon of drinking water every time along with their pads and papers to keep track of what exercises they did, how often, and how much. There are the guys who show up and exercise in jeans and designer t-shirts, yet work out as intensely, or more so than the average gym-goer. Then there are the starlets of the gym who come and do an intense workout in the midst of several men, each one surreptitiously studying her while she pretends to ignore all of them. Lastly there are the local celebrities. I’ve worked out next to Tom Hauf, one of the local Syracuse weathermen, and another one who I think is an anchor for one of the news stations. I have seen many people come and go, some people coming religiously for awhile and then mysteriously disappearing, perhaps from some change of job, or like me occupying themselves while they are unemployed, then either giving up the gym, or coming again at a different time. Then there are the types like me, who wish they were married to someone who could support them while all I had to do was watch the children, and my figure, more of the day belonging to myself and my children, rather than trapped in some place of employment. There are the types like me who wish they were massively muscular, and get respect wherever they go, who never have to suffer the slights of the occasional emotional or inconsiderate person. There are the types like me who wish they could go back to being a teenager, living in this day and age of more tolerance and acceptance, rather than the oppressiveness of cliques that prized the jocks over everyone else. There are the types like me who should probably put a more scientific effort into their workouts, rather than showing up and winging it every time as I do, just trying to get a quick but intense session in to keep oneself in general good health and shape. There are the types like me who wish they had an audience to ignore, who had a body that keeps other people captivated. There are the types like me who wish they had some kind of employment that made them local celebrities, all they have to do is read off of the teleprompter, looking good while they do it.

Final Reflections (Shakespeare 09-14-12).

2012-09-14T06:26:00.002-07:00

Joseph Melanson

Shakespeare

Prof. Tryon

30 August 2012

Shakespeare Final Reflections

I selected James Holmes for this essay, the apparently bright and gifted graduate student who walked into a theater on July 20^th of this year, in Aurora, Colorado, and killed 12 people, while injuring another 58. He had entered into the crowded theater dressed combat gear in, and opened fire on people who had come to see the newest Batman movie, “A Dark Knight Rises”. When he was apprehended he had underneath his

combat gear, the appearance of the character the “Joker” from the Batman series of comic books and movies, the nemesis and antagonist of the Batman.

James Holmes did not seem like the typical person who would throw away his life, as well as carelessly destroying others as well. He is described as a bright and gifted, yet socially awkward graduate student who was attempting to pursue his doctorate and applied to multiple universities. He writes in an application letter about a youth that seemed strict, yet agreeable. Holmes writes about his ability to gain the trust and love of children as a camp counselor, as well as children with mental illnesses. Holmes had pursued his desire to study neuroscience, in the hopes of helping to unlock the mysteries of the mind.

Holmes was denied admittance into his school of choice, the University of Iowa, after earning his degree at the University of California at Riverside, and turned down an offer of acceptance at the University of Illinois. Holmes presented himself as an unsuitable candidate at the University of Iowa, despite the many awards and accomplishments that he had made. Dan Tranel, a “neurology professor and director of psychology” strongly recommended against his admittance into the school’s neuroscience program (Hill, para. 2). Holmes would have probably never heard the reasons for the denial of his admission, but he would probably wonder forever what the reasons behind it were. Perhaps it was the final thing that needed to happen to set off Holmes’ madness into violence.

All of us are the stars of our own shows in our heads, having the leading role in a story that is always evolving, gaining and losing characters, some bringing with them tragedies, while others bring us comedies. In all, they are both the histories that we share, only to later be forgotten in the passages of time, but like all history it repeats itself, and we can all find much of ourselves in others lives.

One has to wonder if Holmes, like a character of Shakespeare was compelled by ghosts that only he could see like Hamlet, felt himself betrayed and manipulated by his personal circle like Othello, persecuted and prejudiced against without recourse like Shylock, surrounded by enemies and seemingly unreliable allies like King Henry, or consumed to fulfill his own dark prophecies?

Was James Holmes a weak character, suffering from either a mental illness, a personality disorder, felt shunned by his society, his madness finally erupting into violence like a burst pipe to people like this who have no means to unburden themselves of life’s inevitable pressures, trapping within themselves their emotions, which inevitably spill over into our shared world, after becoming compacted and mutually destructive to all?

Did James Holmes possess a character flaw which became a madness that could not properly interpret this world, limiting his participation within it, and thus driving him into murdering innocent people who he probably had never met?

Does our culture play a part in how people like James Holmes seem to end up at their inevitable homicidal rampages? What kind of home life, what kind of parents and friends did he have that he thought it was a good idea to massacre strangers? It seemed he presented warning signs, yet did anyone think to approach him and try to show him how to live and be, or does our culture still encourage us to shy away from, and shun people like him? Influenced by a culture that glorifies violence, prizes audacity and vulgarity, a society that offers weapons of mass destruction for sale, perhaps a rampage against the Dark Knight is in effect an attempt to attack a culture that abandons people thus betraying them, leaving people like Holmes with only their dark obsessions, and the voices of ghosts that will forever haunt them?

Hmmm... definitely a terrible story from the recent news. Really unreal. But did you realize that you only made reference to Shakespeare in one sentence out of the whole paper: “One has to wonder if Holmes, like a character of Shakespeare was compelled by ghosts that only he could see like Hamlet, felt himself betrayed and manipulated by his personal circle like Othello, persecuted and prejudiced against without recourse like Shylock, surrounded by enemies and seemingly unreliable allies like King Henry, or consumed to fulfill his own dark prophecies?” I think this is a really interesting comparison, but I’d love to hear more specific reasons that you think this is an apt comparison. What lines from Hamlet, for example, call James Holmes to mind for you? What lines from Othello? Because the point of this paper is to help you take away from this class a sense of the relevance of Shakespeare in modern society, I would challenge you to really think on some of those amazing passages that have stood the test of time—that we hear ringing in our brains when news stories like this come up. At some place in your brain, those stay with you forever… 86%.

Works Cited:

Hill, Cole Garner. “Read Dark Knight Shooter James Holmes’ Rejected Grad School Letter”. Books and Review. August 30, 2012.

An Attempted Portrait Essay of My Grandmother (Creative Nonfiction II 09-12-12)

2012-09-12T08:17:00.001-07:00

Joseph Melanson
Creative Nonfiction II
Prof. Cahan
21 August 2012

My Grandmother - A Portrait

My grandmother is eighty-two years old, one of the last of the two surviving members of our two person family, and one of the last two of her own large brood. Born in Del Rio, Texas she grew up in stories she told me, of Catholic school which seemed uneventful, as well as being one of two girls in a family of six brothers.

She tells me she thinks her father may have been Native American, as well as old Mexican, now new American, as many became after we won the Spanish-American War in the early 1900's, winning from our mostly Hispanic neighbor the great state of Texas, as well as other bits and pieces of our now southern states.

She speaks Spanish and English, inspiring me to learn more about these two languages, hoping that some day I could master both.

She cooks the best food that I have ever eaten, causing me to carry extra weight, and being heavy for the majority of my life. Recently I was told I have high cholesterol and am pre-diabetic. I don’t stay away from her food, I only choose to exercise more so I can keep enjoying it.

In 1988 grandfather died, my father died several months later, her mother, my great-grandmother died when I was in high school in the early nineties, and her only child, my mother Dolores died in 2009. Together my grandmother and I have watched death come and go all of our lives it seems.

My grandmother met my grandfather and they married, my grandfather staying in the Air Force, finally retiring in the seventies, and they ended up staying in Syracuse, N.Y. because my grandfather’s last station was Hancock Air Force Base, which is now nothing more than an industrial park for a few small businesses, and dilapidated apartments that are now homes for animals and insects, occasionally being trespassed by neighborhood vandals, and the occasional person who wanders through imagining what life was like for the people who lived here so many years ago. Before my grandfather retired they crossed the world, being stationed in San Antonio, Germany, Japan, my mother being born in San Antonio.

I have watched her go from a strong, tough able-bodied woman, to an aged, elderly state, as I floated through the past few decades in my own smoldering cemetery.

She gets several checks a month that enables our lifestyle. I have been living with her for the past several years, unable to find any kind of tolerable job that would allow me to depend upon for a steady paycheck to find a place of my own. I am unconcerned, as I have a girlfriend who loves me, and a grandmother who enjoys my company. We are not the same people that we were when we were young, we have gone through too much together for me to be so ready to abandon the nest.

I think she used weight loss pills in the late eighties as she used to have these extreme mood swings or inappropriately intense reactions to inconsequential things, or go maudlin telling me “Oh God, I wish I was dead”, alternated occasionally with “I wish I could crawl into a hold and die”. I gave up trying to please her, or have any contact with her, as her low level of mental functioning or lack of the desire to increase her mental capacity, caused me to understand any real attempt at being understood and appreciated as I needed to be at the time, only left me with the burning sense of frustration as conversations with her took bizarre tangents, unjustified reasoning, and strange lines of thinking, concepts. When I had the clarity to see through the fog of her befuddlement, knowing that she made no sense at all, she would remark that talking to me was like “talking to a brick wall”. I realized at a young age that I was essentially home alone.

            She lost her wedding ring having put it in a wadded up Kleenex, then one day having taken it out and forgetting that anything was in it, or just cleaning up around the house one day, she thinks that she threw her diamond ring in the trash.
            She drove a 1997 Chevrolet Celebrity, long after it had been completely replaced piece by piece, after mechanical breakdown after mechanical breakdown, long after it had been completely devalued for any kind of trade-in value, long after my mother and I had given up trying to get her to replace it. When she finally sold it to some unfortunate kid who either was too broke to afford anything else, or had no sense about cars, he bought it off of her for a measly five hundred dollars. To this day she thinks the kid got a good deal. If the kid was smart he would have driven the worthless piece of crap to the scrap yard and made more money off of the metal.
            My grandmother does the jumble in the paper every day, generally completing it that day, her mind figuring out its words. I tried to tell her a few times how to more easily solve it by collecting the letters of the words that she had already solved, and use them to plug into the final answer at the bottom, thus giving her a means to solve the other remaining words. She sticks to her own method, as it has always worked for her before.
            She enjoys gardening, and has always had a colorful yard and maintained a garden. The past few years though, she has slowed down, a garden is a lot of work, and these new summers with their consistent days of ninety degree weather, against the rigors of aging has made the act an ordeal. Now instead of tomatoes, cucumbers, and the occasional watermelon, she limits herself to flowers which are a a lot less of a chore, and less likely to be afflicted by the bugs and the squirrels.

Joseph, this is a fine capstone for your course writing portfolio this term! I enjoyed reading your essay and how you lock in reader interest from the outset with your engaging narrative voice. From there, you do quite well blending factual with emotional truth and vivid specific descriptions, personal impressions, facts, examples, reasons and explanations to support your impressions of your grandmother. (Were you to revise I’d suggest adding even more dialogue to help create a sense of scene and characterization unfolding before the readers’ eyes, rather than mainly telling about what happened.) Your flowing and rhythmic writing style controls the conventions of the writing system, while the important themes you explore command reader interest with their universal implications of aging and surviving/overcoming challenges of life – excellent. Grade for Essay 4 is A-. 90% - Prof. Cahan.

Sonnet Analysis, Creation, Reflection Assignment (Shakespeare 09-11-12).

2012-09-11T06:56:00.002-07:00

Joseph Melanson

Shakespeare

Prof. Tryon

30 August 2012

Shakespeare Sonnet Assignment

I). Analysis of Sonnets.

1). SONNET 15

“When I consider every thing that grows
Holds in perfection but a little moment,
That this huge stage presenteth nought but shows
Whereon the stars in secret influence comment;
When I perceive that men as plants increase,
Cheered and cheque'd even by the self-same sky,
Vaunt in their youthful sap, at height decrease,
And wear their brave state out of memory;
Then the conceit of this inconstant stay
Sets you most rich in youth before my sight,
Where wasteful Time debateth with Decay,
To change your day of youth to sullied night;
And all in war with Time for love of you,
As he takes from you, I engraft you new” .

1). What is your general impression of what the sonnet is about?

This sonnet is about how everything that lives eventually grows old and dies.

2). Who is speaking? To whom?

The text says that the sonnet is directed from Shakespeare to another man, but I don’t see how it can be determined, on the face of it, whether or not it is directed at a man, or a woman, or anyone in particular. It could still have been an imaginary and unformed character in Shakespeare’s mind.

3). Is there a dominant image, or a variety of imagery?

The dominant images are of the natural world: vegetation (“everything that grows” (15,1) , “plants” (15,5), “sap” (15,7); the heavens (“stars” (15, 4), “sky” (15,6); and images and measures of Time (“youth” (15,10), “memory” (15,8), “night” (15,12), “decay” (15,11) (Shakespeare 22).

4). Which words, phrases or lines appeal to you the most?

“Whereon the stars in secret influence comment” (15.4). I like how it infers an outside influence on the events of our lives.

5). What is the sonnet’s tone or mood?

Sentimental, nostalgic.

6). Is there a ‘turn’ (where the mood or meaning changes)?

7). Which words or lines do you find difficult?

“Presenteth”, “debateth”. I know what they mean on the face of them. It makes it seem as if you could get away with, in Shakespeare’s time anyway, with adding “eth” to words and they are still valid, while adding another syllable as needed.

8). Read the guidance provided with each sonnet page, then attempt the activity

suggested.

b). Create a title for the sonnet.

The Rebirth of Youth

2). SONNET 29

“When, in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes,
I all alone beweep my outcast state
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries
And look upon myself and curse my fate,
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featured like him, like him with friends possess'd,
Desiring this man's art and that man's scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least;
Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,
Haply I think on thee, and then my state,
Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven's gate;
For thy sweet love remember'd such wealth brings
That then I scorn to change my state with kings”.

1). What is your general impression of what the sonnet is about?

The sonnet seems to me to be about jealousy, or envy, at other people’s more handsome features, and/or talents.

2). Who is speaking? To whom?

The text says the sonnet is directed by Shakespeare towards a male friend, but it does not appear to me to be definitively directed toward anyone in particular, whether man or woman.

3). Is there a dominant image, or a variety of imagery?

4). Which words, phrases or lines appeal to you the most?

“And trouble deaf heaven with bootless cries” (29,3). Bootless means useless according to the text, I would not have come to that conclusion on my own.

“Desiring this man’s art and that man’s scope” (29,7). It sounds good and flows.

“Like to the lark at break if day arising” From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven’s gate” (29, 11-12). I like the imagery of it.

5).What is the sonnet’s tone or mood?

Melancholy, despair.

6). Is there a ‘turn’ (where the mood or meaning changes)?

The turn seems to occur in line, “Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising” (29, 9). Shakespeare seems to chastise himself for these feelings.

7). Which words or lines do you find difficult?

“Haply” was a word I found difficult to interpret on my own, Gibson defines the word as “Fortuneately, by chance” which I have to take his word for it (38).

8). Read the guidance provided with each sonnet page, then attempt the activity suggested.

b). There is much uncertainty about line 8. What was it that Shakespeare most enjoyed but which now gives him little pleasure: his acting? His writing? Whatever it was, do you feel that the line expresses a familiar experience of a depressed person?

“With what I most enjoy contented least;” (38). There is no discerning whether it is his “acting”, or his “writing” as Gibson offers, it could be anything, it could be the fact of life that everything becomes old and tired eventually, a going through the motions after one does something long enough, no matter how much joy or pleasure it offered in the beginning. The line does suggest the “experience of a depressed person” as Gibson suggests.

SONNET 144

“Two loves I have of comfort and despair,
Which like two spirits do suggest me still:
The better angel is a man right fair,
The worser spirit a woman colour'd ill.
To win me soon to hell, my female evil
Tempteth my better angel from my side,
And would corrupt my saint to be a devil,
Wooing his purity with her foul pride.
And whether that my angel be turn'd fiend
Suspect I may, but not directly tell;
But being both from me, both to each friend,

I guess one angel in another's hell:
Yet this shall I ne'er know, but live in doubt,
Till my bad angel fire my good one out”.

1). What is your general impression of what the sonnet is about?

The sonnet appears to be about conflicted emotions, the battle of good and evil that one fights in oneself.

2). Who is speaking? To whom?

Shakespeare is speaking to himself.

3). Is there a dominant image, or a variety of imagery?

There are references to the afterlife, heaven and hell (“angel” (144,3,6,9,12,14) “spirits” (144,2,4), religion (“saint” (144,7), cleanliness (“purity” (144,8), “corrupt” (144,7), human emotions (“comfort” (144,1) “despair (144,1), “pride” (144,8).

4). Which words, phrases or lines appeal to you the most?

“Two loves I have of comfort and despair” (144,1) “I guess one angel in another’s hell” (144,12). I like the contrasts of both, especially the imagery in the second.

5). What is the sonnet’s tone or mood?

The mood of the sonnet seems dark, gloomy, and sad.

6). Is there a ‘turn’ (where the mood or meaning changes)?

No, it seems that the theme continues throughout, at the end Shakespeare is still in doubt.

7). Which words or lines do you find difficult?

None

8). Read the guidance provided with each sonnet page, then attempt the activity suggested.

b). Create a title for the sonnet.

Two Spirits, or The Spirits Intertwine.

II). My Original Sonnet.

1).When light of youth wanes upon its shadow

2). And thy sweet dreams depart thy mind in flight

3). When thy blood no longer flows in marrow

4). Whose star is seen in our heavens less bright

5). A shell no longer gilded cage thy ghost

6). The inevitable dissolve a cruel blow

7). This earth our stage no longer serves as our host

8). As we depart the world to leaving woe

9). Our curtain closes all things find darkness

10). As the old hears another baby’s cry

11). Find your peace on earth or find thy madness

12). To make sure the truth of our life is no lie

13). We emerge hot into cold world from womb

14). To lose our heat forever to haunt a cold tomb

III). My Process.

I bought grid paper in which I would create my lines. I figured grid paper would help me keep track of lines, words, and better help me keep track of my syllable count. I made a list of words that stood out as having a common usage, and power of imagery. I created rhyming words to go along with my selected words, and decided upon the best pairs. I started with a loose idea about what a sonnet was and began to compose some loose lines, expecting to fine tune the sentences later. The fine tuning began after I had decided on the best idea of both my sentence structure and overall story I wanted to tell. The only struggles that I had were with coming up with ideas, necessitating dropping or changing words to maintain my syllable count while having to overlook proper grammar. I also could not figure out how to make a turn that seemed to make a difference, or change the outcome. In all, I think I would find it a lot easier to master this method with practice.

First of all, great sonnet. I love that you worked with grid paper. That wouldn’t even occur to me, but that’s an incredibly logical way of doing it. You adhered perfectly to the structure on an Elizabethan sonnet, which isn’t always easy for people to do. Again, the point of the assignment was really to get people to struggle with all of the work that it takes to “build” this type of art, so hopefully you got a good sense of that. Your analysis of the three sonnets seems like you were in a rush, correct? I’d love to hear more than a one or two word answer from you for some of the questions. The questions are seemingly simple, but some do merit a bit of exploration to really explain the answer as you see it. 88%.

Works Cited:

Shakespeare, William. The Sonnets. Ed. Rex Gibson. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge. 1996. Print.

An Unfinished Literary Analysis of "Somehow Form a Family" by Tony Earley (Creative Nonfiction II 09-10-12)

2012-09-10T13:23:00.002-07:00

Joseph Melanson

Creative Non-Fiction II

Prof. Cahan

24 June 2012

Literary Analysis of Somehow Form a Family by Tony Earley as it applies to the criteria

of Memoir.

Memoirs invite us into the lives of their authors, and offer us a unique perspective about the world we share. Memoir either remains on a specific day and what it caused, or it embody significant events across a period of time in the author’s life. Memoir is told from the perspective of things that had already occurred, or from the present moment, or it can go back and forth from the present to the past, and then back again. Memoir records events that occurred in the order occurred, having a clear linear timeline, or it can cross backwards and forwards through the author’s life in order to tell its story. Memoir allows us into the life of its writer, in order to relate a story in which we can compare to our own, perhaps even seeing ourselves in the writer’s recollections of his or her past. Memoir attempts to answer questions that are relevant to both authors and their readers. The authors of memoirs utilize scene and detail with a compelling and authentic voice that attempts to make sense of their past to show us how they came to be the person they are now. Memoirists offer a glimpse into their personal memories, and use various techniques mostly specific to the criteria of the memoir. In “Somehow Form a Family” by Tony Earley, one can see how this essay applies to the genre of the memoir.

“Somehow Form a Family” by Tony Earley, is his personal and family history in front of the television as it was interspersed with the episodes of his own life; the July 1969 lunar landing in which the television failed to do what it was built to do, the death of his sister, dad moving out, his contemplating suicide, dad moving back in, his marriage to a woman who couldn’t care less about the events of television, and his glimpsing Ann B. Davis who played Alice on The Brady Bunch, a woman with whom he had spent countless hours watching on television but with whom he “could not think of anything to say to her about the world in which we actually lived” (199). “Somehow Form a Family” illustrates how we are unknowingly seduced into becoming spectators to the rest of the world by the empty images and sound that comes from the television.

Memoir can comprise “a single day and its effect”, Perl and Schwartz state, “or it can capture key moments over time” (182). “Somehow Form a Family” occurs across the significant events of the life of its author, Tony Earley, coinciding with the shows that were on television at the time. It begins with his anonymous, but perhaps typical youth. Then a new television arrives to replace an on outmoded and barely functioning model, this new television bringing into his home what would later become an integral part of his life. Television became almost a retreat and an escape to Tony Earley, influencing his rebellious adolescence, occupying what seemed the majority of his time and developed into an addiction, coloring his memories of his youth, serving as an empty distraction through his sister’s death, serving as the greatest gift that he could give his parents when he received a Christmas bonus from work one year, and then later losing it’s power over him when he later marries a woman whose family did not make television their religion as much as his family had.

According to Perl and Schwartz, memoir is “told in past tense, or in present tense, or shift between past and present” (182). Tony Earley, in “Somehow Form a Family”, relates his personal history in the mostly in the past tense, yet occasionally the present intrudes upon his memories. Looking back on his deceased sister, in one memory of her she frolicked in the backyard imitating weightless astronauts, and chasing lightning bugs, Earley relates “I am tempted to say that she was beautiful in the moonlight, and I’m sure she was, but that isn’t something I remember noticing that night, only a thing I need to say now” (193). On the same night as his memory of his sister, during the night of the July 1969 lunar landing, he recalls “the moon, as I remember it, was full, although I’ve since learned that it wasn’t” (192). “Somehow Form a Family” is an essay that relates Tony Earley’s youth, occasionally colored by his present self.

Memoir, according to Perl and Schwartz, can be “chronological, a memory told form beginning to end, or it can jump back and forth in segments of time” (182). “Somehow Form a Family” is told chronologically, with a structure that Perl and Schwartz state, “moves forward from beginning to end in a straight narrative line”, generally having a “rising action, climax, and resolution” (34). The rising action of the essay is the arrival of color television into his family and how it eventually overtook their lives, the climax occurring at his sister’s sudden death when Earley was a freshman in college, and the resolution comes as Earley realizes how much television became a substitution for living, rather than what should have been a true participation in the world.

According to Perl and Schwartz, memoir invites us into the author’s past lives and how we will connect and identify, even find some of ourselves in the writer’s memories” (182). Earley, in his essay, relates the shows that he was watching at a particular time in his life. “We watched Hee Haw, starring Buck Owens and Roy Clark; we watched All in the Family, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, The Bob Newhart Show, The Carol Burnett Show, and Mannix, starring Mike Conners with Gail Fisher as Peggy; we watched Gunsmoke, and Bonanza, even after Adam left and Hoss died and Little Joe’s hair turned gray; we watched Adam-12 and Kojak, McCloud, Columbo, and Hawaii Five-O; we watched Cannon, a Quinn Martin production, and Barnaby Jones, a Quinn Martin production, which co-starred Miss America and Uncle Jed from The Beverly Hillbillies” (Earley 195). What Earley seems to be saying by relating this list of shows is how he, as

well as the rest of us watched our lives pass before our eyes, squandering our youth and our years in front of the television.

The authors of memoirs, according to Perl and Schwartz, attempt to “answer personal questions such as “why, of all the stories I can tell, am I telling this one?”, and “what’s at stake here for me - and for my readers?” (182). 2 Examples. Look back on how much we invest of ourselves into our distractions and entertainments, rather than actively participating in the world and learning how to better relate to and appreciate the people in our lives.

Memoirs, according to Perl and Schwartz, use “detail and scene to make the past come alive” by creating “one or more appealing voice for telling his or her story” to show “how each struggles with and reflects on the past”, and how this voice or voices “makes connections to whom they are now” (10).

According to Perl and Schwartz, “it’s only through details that you can relive that moment – and recreate it for others” (23). “In July 1969, I looked a lot like Opie in the second or third season of The Andy Griffith Show” Earley begins his essay, giving us a clear and specific picture of his appearance using one of the most well known characters with a unique and distinct first name from one of the most popular shows in television history (191). Earley then minimal of description of his family, likening them to the stereotypical television cast of most popular television shows by saying “I was the brother in a father-mother-brother-sister family” (191). Earley then casts the focal character of his essay, the television, and it’s massive antenna that was attached to the roof, as a predatory insect. “It looked dangerous, as if it would bite, like a praying mantis” (193). Of the television that was beginning to fail he later states, “It’s picture narrowed into a greenly tinted slit (Earley 199). “It stared like a diseased eye into the living room where Mama and Daddy sat” (Earley 199).

“Scene makes characters come alive on the page”, Perl and Schwartz state, “using dialogue and description to zoom in, like a camera close-up, on key moments in the story” (50).

“Voice”, according to Perl and Schwartz, “conveys personality” and “counts as much as information” because it is through the writer’s stance that helps us decide whether our perception(s)

According to Perl and Schwartz, “reflection offers the writer’s thoughts about what is happening and what it means” (52). “Shelly died on Christmas Eve morning when I was a freshman in college”, Earley informs us, his sister died in a car accident (198). Earley allows us to see that he knew no other means to deal with his grief other than turning to the television for comfort. “That night I stayed up late and watched the Pope deliver the Christmas mass from the Vatican” (198). “There was nothing else on” (Earley 198).

“Connection”, according to Dictionary.com, means “a connecting or being connected, a thing that connects, a relationship; association” ( ). “And what I’m trying to tell you now is this: I grew up in a split-level ranch-style house outside a town that could have been anywhere” (Earley ). “I grew up in front of a television” (Earley ).

Populated world

Works Cited:

Earley, Tony. “Somehow Form a Family” Writing True: The Art and Craft of Creative Nonfiction. Eds. Sondra Perl., Mimi Schwartz. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company. 2006. Print.

Neufeldt, Victoria. Sparks, Andrew N. Sparks. Webster’s New World Dictionary, Pocket Books Paperback Edition. Simon & Schuster Inc. 1990. Print.

Dictionary.com

Joseph, you did very good work with your literary analysis. Frequently quoting Earley offers your reader a comprehensive look at his essay as well as a clear perspective of your classification of “Somehow Form a Family” as a memoir. With originality you offer evidence of close analytical reading, as you integrate literary terms and concepts into your essay’s overall fabric to prove your main point (i.e. “Somehow Form a Family” fits the textbook definition of a memoir). You offer plenty of specific details to support your general statements as you create a convincing perspective. You control your essay with a well defined thesis and, with effective diction (word choice) and variety of sentence structures, engage reader interest from beginning to end. Grade for Literary Essay #2 is B+. 87%.

The Motif of Robbery and Rebellion in Henry IV, Part 1 (Shakespeare 09-09-12).

2012-09-09T08:09:00.000-07:00

Joseph Melanson

Shakespeare

Prof. Tryon

16 August 2012

The Motif of Robbery and Rebellion in William Shakespeare’s Henry IV Part 1.

Motifs are an important part of most narratives, acting as a literary device to help tell the story, and some narratives can contain several different motifs. A motif, according to is a “recurrent thematic element in an artistic or literary work or a dominant theme or central idea” (Dictionary.com). Within William Shakespeare’s Henry IV Part 1 we find several motifs occurring in the play through the words and deeds of its various characters. One particular motif that we find in Henry IV Part 1 is the motif of robbery and rebellion. The definition of “robbery” and “rebellion” according to Neufeldt, is respectively “1) to take money, etc. from unlawfully by force; steal from” or “2) to deprive of something unjustly or injuriously” and “1) armed resistance to one’s government” or “2) a defiance of any authority” (509, 491). In William Shakespeare’s Henry IV Part 1 we see the motif of robbery and rebellion through the actions and words of its various characters.

Robbery and rebellion as a motif is featured through King Henry’s plan to invade the Holy Land and take it from the Muslims which would also rid himself of potential threats by sending his armies to Jerusalem, stealing glory for himself through these men’s deaths. “Therefore friends, / As far as to the sepulcher of Christ – / Whose soldier now, under whose blessed cross / We are impressed and engaged to fight – / Forthwith a power of English shall we levy, / Whose arms were molded in their mothers’ womb / To chase these pagans in those holy fields / Over whose acres walked those blessed feet / Which fourteen hundred years ago were nailed / For our advantage on the bitter cross.” (King 1.1.18-27). King Henry amasses his power by stealing it, while occupying those who may become a threat to him with the accrual of the Holy City.

The motif of robbery and rebellion is also demonstrated in how King Henry feels robbed of a proper heir and important ally in the rebellious activities of his son Prince Hal. He voices his discontentment with the prince to Westmoreland of Hotspur’s numerous victories on the battlefield, and his own son’s seeming lack of promise. “Yea, there thou mak’st me sad, and mak’st me sin / In envy that my Lord Northumberland / Should be the father to so blest a son, / A son who is the theme of Honor’s tongue” (King 1.1.77-80).

King Henry even goes so far as to wonder whether their sons were switched at birth. “Whilst I, by looking on the praise of him, / See riot and dishonor stain the brow / Of my young Harry. O, that it could be proved / That some night-tripping fairy had exchanged / In cradle-clothes our children where they lay,” (King 1.1.83-87).

King Henry continues this motif when he admonishes his rebellious son Prince Hal for his behavior. “I know not whether God will have it so / For some displeasing service I have done, / That, in His secret doom, out of my blood / He’ll breed revengement and a scourge for me. / But thou dost in thy passages of life / Make me believe that thou art only marked / For the hot vengeance and the rod of heaven / To punish my mistreadings. Tell me else, / Could such inordinate and low desires, / Such poor, such bare, such lewd, such mean / Attempts, Such barren pleasures, rude society, / As thou art matched withal, and grafted to, / Accompany thy greatness of thy blood, / And hold their level with thy princely heart?” (King 3.2.1-19). King Henry, in his remarks, continues this idea several times throughout the play how he is robbed of a virtuous heir in his rebellious son, Prince Hal.

Robbery and rebellion as a motif reoccurs in how King Henry robbed his throne from the previous King Richard II, according to the leaders of the rebellion against his majesty. Hotspur remarks to this effect in one conversation between Hotspur and his uncle Worcester. “He will forsooth have all my prisoners, / And when I urged the ransom once again / Of my wife’s brother, then his cheek looked pale, / And on my face he turned an eye of death, / Trembling even at the name of Mortimer.” (Hotspur 1.3.143-147). Worcester responds, “I cannot blame him. Was not he proclaimed / By Richard, that dead is, the next of blood?” (Worcester 1.3. 148-149). Hotspur again reiterates the claim that King Henry has wrongfully gained his crown. “Nay then, I cannot blame his cousin king / That wished him on the barren mountains starve. / But shall it be that you that set the crown / Upon the head of this forgetful man” (Hotspur 1.3.162-165).

Hotspur again restates his and his company’s belief that King Henry was wrongly installed upon the throne when the king’s own envoy, Sir Blunt, comes to them to find out the reasons behind their revolt.

“The King hath sent to know / The nature of your griefs, and whereupon / You conjure from the breast of civil peace / Such bold hostility, teaching his duteous land / audacious cruelty.” (Blunt 4.3.47-51). Hotspur responds, “The King is kind, and well we know the King / knows at what time to promise, when to pay. / my father and my uncle and myself / did give him that same royalty he wears.” (Hotspur 4.3.58-61). Hotspur

elaborates upon the reasons behind the rebellion. “Broke oath on oath, committed wrong on wrong, / and in conclusion drove us to seek out / this head of safety, and withal to pry / into his title, the which we find / too indirect for long continuance.” (Hotspur 4.3.108-112). The leaders of the rebellion against King Henry believe that the king has wrongly obtained the throne.

Robbery and rebellion also features as a motif in how the rich profit off the poor, and how they plunder the country for their own gain. Shakespeare uses characters unnamed, using their professions to designate them as common workers, and thus everyday, common people. The characters designated as “carriers” converse about the conditions for their kind.

“Peas and beans are as dank here as a / dog, and that is the next way to give poor jades the / bots.” (Second Carrier 2.1.9-11). His reference to “jades” is a term for a horse, or a common work animal, much like the common workers like them, can easily end up with some kind of intestinal illness by having to eat such low quality of food due to their inability to afford anything else.

A second everyman that Shakespeare designates as only “second carrier” remarks concerning another destitute ostler, or a person who tends to traveler’s horses. “Poor fellow never joyed since the price / of oats rose. It was the death of him.” (First Carrier 2.1.13-14)

The character of Gadshill remarks to them how he is no common thief but operates with impunity as an ally of such powerful people like Prince Hal and Sir Falstaff. “I am joined with no / Foot-land-rakers, no long-staff sixpenny strikers, / None of these mad mustachio purple-hued malt- / Worms, but with nobility and tranquility, burgo- / masters and great oneyers, such as can hold in, such / As will strike sooner than speak, and speak sooner / Than drink, and drink sooner than pray, and yet, / Zounds, I lie, for they pray continually to their saint / the commonwealth, or rather not pray to her but / Prey on her, for they ride up and down on her and / Make her their boots.” (Gadshill 2.1.78-88). Those in power rob the country with impunity, perhaps in some form sowing the seeds of a future rebellion against them. √

Other characters have the power to add strength, or to rob it from the rebellion. Northumberland robs from his comrades some of their strength in their rebellion against King Henry. Hotspur remarks to his uncle Worcester about his father’s sudden mysterious illness. “Zounds, how has he the leisure to be sick / in such a jostling time? Who heads his power? / Under whose government come they along?” (Hotspur 4.1.19-21). “Sick now? Droop now? This sickness doth infect / the very lifeblood of our enterprise.” (Hotspur 4.1.30-31). Worcester affirms Hotspur’s chagrin at his father’s pulling himself out of the battle. “Your fathers sickness is a maim to us.” (Worcester 4.1.45). Hotspur relates how serious his father’s sudden illness will become a blow to their rebellion. “A perilous gash, a very limb lopped off!” (Hotspur 4.1.46). Worcester again relates how much damage to their cause that Northumberland has wrought, his actions will certainly create doubt in their success in the allies of the rebellion. “And think how such an apprehension / may turn the tide of fearful faction / and breed a kind of question in our cause.” (Worcester 4.1.69-71). The character of Northumberland steals a majority of the force of the rebellion, and lending doubt to its success by the remaining characters in choosing not to participate.

Robbery and Rebellion features as a motif in how an irresponsible and opportunist Hal steals Hotspurs glory and valor in the service of his king and country. Prince Hal remarks to Sir Falstaff about Hotspur’s exploits upon the battlefield in the service of his father King Henry. “I am not yet of Percy’s / mind, the Hotspur of the north, he that kills me / some six or seven dozens of Scots at a breakfast, / washes his hands, and says to his wife “Fie / upon this quiet life! I want work” (Hal 2.4.104-108).

Later in Act 5, Scene 4, the two men meet and converse before their inevitable duel to the death. “Why then I see / a very valiant rebel of the name. / I am the Prince of Wales; and think not, Percy, / to share with me in glory any more. / two stars keep not their motion in one sphere, / nor can one England brook a double reign / of Harry Percy and the Prince of Wales” (Hal 5.4.62-68). Hotspur responds, “Nor shall it, Harry for the hour is come / to end the one of us, and would to God / thy name in arms were now as great as mine.” (Hotspur 5.4.69-71). Hal boasts to Hotspur that he will make himself glorious in the eyes of others when he kills the valiant Hotspur. “I’ll make it greater ere I part from thee, / and all the budding honors on thy crest / I’ll crop to make a garland for my head” (Hal 5.4.72-74). After the men fight and Hotspur lays dying, he tells Prince Hal that he has stolen his life, and the honor he bestows upon himself, from him. “O Harry, thou hast robbed me of my youth. / I better brook the loss of brittle life / than those proud titles thou hast won of me.” (Hotspur 5.4.78-80)

Robbery and rebellion as a motif, is also represented in the character of Falstaff who is the type of person who allies himself with powerful people but only serves his own selfish purposes.

Falstaff boasts about his duplicitous nature. “I was as virtuously given as a / gentleman needs to be, virtuous enough: swore little; diced not above seven times – a week; went to / a bawdy house not above once in a quarter – of an / hour; paid money that I borrowed – three or four / times; lived well and in good compass; and now I / live out of all order, out of all compass. (Falstaff 3.3.15-21).

Falstaff again reiterates the motif of robbery in speaking with Prince Hal, remarking how they take advantage of their positions. “Marry then, sweet wag, when thou art king, / let not us that are squires of the night’s body be / called thieves of the day’s beauty. Let us be Diana’s / foresters, gentlemen of the shade, minions of the / moon and let men say we be men of good govern- / ment, being governed, as the sea is, by our noble / and chaste mistress the moon, under whose countenance we steal” (Falstaff 1.2.24-31).

Lastly Falstaff presents his predacious nature, in how he takes advantage of the rebellion. “Well, God be thanked for these / rebels. They offend none but the virtuous. I laud / them; I praise them” (Falstaff 3.3.201-203). Falstaff represents the type of person that only takes advantage of whatever opportunity that arises, pursuing his acts of robbery, perhaps including himself in any rebellion that would put himself in a better position.

The motif of robbery and rebellion occurs in many different ways during the play Henry IV, Part 1 by William Shakespeare. King Henry attempts to steal the holy land from the Muslims, and rob men of their lives in the pursuit of attaining his glory. King Henry believes that he has had stolen from him a true heir in his rebellious son Prince Hal. King Henry himself has stolen his throne, a rebel himself against the previous king, Richard II. The motif of robbery and rebellion also occurs in how those in authority profit off of those without wealth or power. Another form of the robbery and rebellion motif occurs in how other powerful characters can rob their allies of their strength to properly ensure the success of the rebellion against King Henry. Prince Hal robs the glory from the rebel Hotspur. The motif of robbery and rebellion is also represented in characters like Falstaff, who has no true allies or enemies, but puts himself in whatever advantageous position that presents itself, stealing for himself whatever he can gain, even glory in fighting against the rebel Hotspur, when he did not participate at all.

Nice exploration of the themes of robbery and rebellion in this play, especially in your discussion of Falstaff and his role in playing out this motif. Kudos. 94%.

Works Cited:

Neufeldt, Victoria. Sparks, Andrew N. Sparks. Webster’s New World Dictionary, Pocket Books Paperback Edition. Simon & Schuster Inc. 1990. (509, 491). Print.

Shakespeare, William. Henry IV, Part 1. Eds. Barbara A. Mowat and Paul Werstine. Washington Square Press. New York. 1994. Print

Dictionary.com “Motif”

An Unfinished Literary Analysis of Anne Fadiman's essay "Do Doctor's Eat Brains" (Creative Nonfiction II 09-08-12)

2012-09-08T09:03:00.000-07:00

Joseph Melanson

Creative Nonfiction II

Prof. Cahan

20 August 2012

A Literary Analysis of Do Doctors Eat Brains? by Anne Fadiman as it applies to the criteria of Literary Journalism

Literary journalism mixes reportage with a personal intimacy of the writer, relating a tale with skillful use of language. Instead of traditional journalism’s focus on the cold facts, literary journalism puts us in the scene with its characters, showing through its characters their perspectives. In this way we arrive at an understanding without the journalist being strong presence within the story, yet still we come to understand the true meaning of what the piece of literary journalism is trying to express. When it is successful, the piece of literary journalism allows us to reexamine our own world through the lens of the article or essay. “Do Doctors Eat Brains?” by Anne Fadiman one finds an example of literary journalism as it meets the criteria of the genre.

Anne Fadiman in her essay “Do Doctors Eat Brains?” relates the dichotomy between the Hmong people of Laos in the refugee camps of Thailand, and their culture of shamanistic healers, homeopathic types of medicine, and their reaction to Western medicine. Fadiman’s essay also gives us the perspectives of the western doctors and nurses that staff the medical camps, and their practices which often contradicts the Hmong’s cultural beliefs. Anne Fadiman is absent in her tale in this contrast of opposites, rather we are given a narrative that intertwines the opposing cultures. She immerses us in the Hmong culture of superstition and belief in shamanistic healers who battle the spirits whom they believe cause sickness, the use of dermal treatments like acupuncture, and herbalism, versus the typical procedures and practices of western medicine with its focus on taking samples of body fluids, vaccinations for illnesses that they do not have, and dismissing the importance, or even the existence, of the soul. In “Do Doctors Eat Brains?” by Anne Fadiman uses the genre of literary journalism to demonstrate a clash of cultures.

Literary Journalism, according to Perl and Schwartz, “combines investigative reporting with personal voice, story telling, and memorable language” (13).

Fadiman begins her essay by opening with the return of Mao Thao, a “Hmong woman from Laos who had resettled in St. Paul, Minnesota” who returned to “Ban Vinai, the refugee camp in Thailand where she had lived for a year after her escape from Laos in 1975” (304). “She was the firs Hmong-American ever to return there, and when an officer of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, which administered the camp, asked her to speak about life in the United States, 15,000 Hmong, more than a third of the population of Ban Vinai, assembled in a soccer field and questioned her for nearly four hours” (Fadiman 304) . Mao Thao was asked many questions such as: “Is it forbidden to use a txiv neeb”, or a shaman, “to heal an illness in the United States?” (304) “Why do American doctors take so much blood from their patients?” (Fadiman 304). “After you die”, one question went “why do American doctors try to open up your head and take out your brains?” (Fadiman 304). Another question Thao was asked was “Do American doctors eat the livers, kidneys, and brains of Hmong patients?” (Fadiman 304). And in another instance a refugee wondered “When Hmong people die in the United States, is it true that they are cut into pieces and put in tin cans and sold as food?” (Fadiman 304).

Rather than the cold, objective reportage of traditional journalism, with its center on the facts; the who, what, when, where, and why that only tells us what had occurred, instead literary journalism immerses us in the scene of the event being studied, and into the perspectives and experiences of the characters that had experienced it. (13). Fadiman relates in her essay “Do Doctors Eat Brains?”, the perspectives of various people who had inhabited the medical camps with which the essay is set, immersing us into the experience of the camp.

Anne Fadiman balances her essay by relating the perspectives of the Hmong people for whom the medical camps were built. In one instance she relates the experience of a Hmong couple named Foua Yang and Nao Kao Lee. When they brought their three sick children to the hospital at Mae Jarim, Fadiman states, “they were engaging in behavior that many of the other camp inhabitants would have considered positively aberrant” (306). The Hmong believed that these western staffed hospitals “were regarded not as places of healing but as charnel houses” (Fadiman 306). The Hmong had come to believe, Fadiman states, that the hospitals were “populated by spirits of people who had died there, a lonesome and rapacious crew who were eager to swell their own ranks” (306).

“So I heard them tell this Hmong minister” Fadiman quotes a Wendy Walker-Moffat, woman who had worked the Bin Vinai camp “that if they let a shaman work in the medical center he could only give out herbs, and not perform any actual work with the spirits” that the Hmong believed were so important to appease for their health (307). During this conversation the Hmong minister was asked “Now you never go to a shaman, do you?” (Fadiman 307). Being a Christian convert, and knowing that it was a sin to lie he, he first admitted that he did. But when the western staff of the hospital seemed to become unnerved by this answer, the minister retracted, saying “No, no, no, I’ve never been”, and tried to make it seem as if he misspoke restating “I’ve just heard that other people go” (Fadiman 307). What the doctors and nurses failed to realize in all honesty, Fadiman quotes Walker-Moffat, that “no Hmong is ever fully converted.” (307). The reason for this Walker-Moffat is quoted by Fadiman as saying, some of the westerners who staffed the medical camps “were there to provide medical aid, but they were also there – though not overtly – to convert people” and one “part of becoming converted was believing in Western medicine” (Fadiman 306).

There’s a strong authorial presence even if the “I” is mainly a guide, rather than a key character.” (13). Fadiman relates her essay through the various characters of her essay, the Hmong, and the western medical workers letting them relate the story without making it known whether or not she ever set foot inside one of these camps or only pieced together her essay from those who did. Fadiman through her essay though, lets us feel as if we are truly there, witnessing events as these people did, and experiencing both sides of opposing cultures.

“Rather than just tell what happened”, literary journalists “show characters and scene” in order to take the reader to the “deeper levels” that give the true meaning to the “facts” (Perl and Schwartz 14). The difference, according to Perl and Schwarz, separates “straight journalism, the apparent subject (what happened), from literary journalism, or the real subject (what the events mean)” (13). Fadiman writes about Dwight Conquergood who was hired to improve the participation of the Hmong in the medical camps. His first challenge Fadiman writes “came after an outbreak of rabies among the camp dogs prompted a mass dog-vaccination campaign by the medical staff, during which the Ban Vinai inhabitants failed to bring in a single dog to be inoculated” (308). Asked to design a new campaign he came up with the idea for what he called “Rabies Parade, a procession led by three important characters from Hmong folktales – a tiger, a chicken, and a dab” or jungle spirit “– dressed in homemade costumes” (308). “The cast, like its audience”, Fadiman states “was one hundred percent Hmong (308).

“As the parade snaked through the camp, the tiger danced and played the qeej, the dab sang and banged a drum, and the chicken (chosen for this crucial role because of its traditional powers of augury)” or divination, explained the cause “of rabies through a bullhorn” (Fadiman 308). “The next morning”, Fadiman states “the vaccination stations were so besieged by dogs – dogs carried in their owner’s arms, dogs dragged on rope leashes, dogs rolled in on two-wheeled push carts – that the health workers could hardly inoculate them fast enough” (308). “Conquergood’s next production”, Fadiman states, was “a sanitation campaign in which a parade of children led by Mother Clean (a huge, insanely grinning figure on a bamboo frame) and the Garbage Troll (dressed in ragged clothes plastered with trash) sang songs about latrine use and refuse disposal, was equally well received” (308).

When literary journalism is working well, Perl and Schwartz state, “readers not only enter our worlds, but they reenter their own worlds in new ways (14).

Fadiman summarizes the problem of the cultural misunderstanding which held back the promise of the camp by quoting Conquergood. “In his opinion”, Fadiman states “the physicians and nurses at Ban Vinai failed to win the cooperation of the camp inhabitants because they considered the relationship one-sided, with the Westerners holding all the knowledge” (308). “As long as they persisted in this view, Conquergood believed that what the medical establishment was offering would continue to be rejected, since the Hmong would view it not as a gift but as a form of coercion” (Fadiman 309).

Works Cited:

Fadiman, Anne., “Do Doctors Eat Brains?” Writing True: The Art and Craft of Creative Nonfiction. Eds. Sondra Perl, Mimi Schwartz. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company. 304-309. 2006. Print.

Joseph, thank you for your detailed analysis of Fadiman’s essay, clearly explaining how “Do Doctors Eat Brains?” meets the criteria for literary journalism as defined in the course textbook. I like how you offer plenty of specific facts, examples, reasons, quotes and explanations to support your general assertions, and how well you organize the overall details by stating the textbook’s definitions and then demonstrating that these definitions are surely manifested in Fadiman’s work. Please note that there likely was some misunderstanding of the literary journalism writing assignment option, as the assignment is to write an original piece of literary journalism rather than to analyze a literary journalism essay. Nevertheless, your diligent effort processing/developing this analysis from beginning to end is quite evident. Grade for Essay 3 is B. 84%.

Ideal Worlds Final Reflection (Ideal Worlds 09-07-12)

2012-09-07T07:11:00.000-07:00

Joseph Melanson

Ideal Worlds

Prof. Monte

30 August 2012

Utopia Final Reflection

1). What have you learned during this term?

I have learned several things during this term. Utopia arises from the human desire to create a better place in the world, utopia is a dream in which one desires to enact a place where everyone is treated equally, and human suffering is minimized. Utopia is a possibility but needs much work, and participation among people to successfully create an ideal place where everyone can share in its benefits, but generally it seems that the people who would live their would have to learn to sacrifice some amount of individuality for the sake of the greater good. I have learned about the various kinds of utopias Golden Age, Arcadia, Paradise, The Land of the Cockaygne, The millennium, and The Ideal City. Utopias usually mirror the ages that the utopian, or dystopian story arises. Utopia, if it were to be created, depends upon the political, cultural, social, and economic systems where it would be enacted as a utopia in one place for some people, could become a dystopia for others. Utopia comes from our human condition that desires peace, stability, and sharing for the benefit of all people. Utopias generally arise in some form or version for a period of time in some eras, but usually fall apart due to some factor or another. The ideal of utopia is still a work in progress, and perhaps will be for some time.

2). How is your present understanding of utopian literature different from what it was

when you entered this study?

I had taken the concept of utopia for granted but now I notice utopias or dystopias in stories take place in I watch or read. I have learned that utopian literature has a long tradition, coming perhaps from a desire to criticize contemporary society in an era that did not tolerate freedom of expression. Utopias are generally a narrative journey of a traveler who enters an ideal world, sees its inner workings, and the reasons how it came to be. The narrator then either returns to his familiar world to bring home his revelation, or remains, only relating his tale to the reader.

Utopian literature is generally divided between a ideal society, or a dystopia or a society that is run more like a prison. Utopia is a society that the people participate in its functioning for the common good, and a dystopia is where rules of law are strictly enforced in order to maintain itself but limits human freedom.

Utopian literature includes social theory as well, even when the writers of social theory, like Marx for instance, do not use a narrative journey in their works.

3). What effect will this understanding have in your professional or personal life?

The effect that I believe this course will have on my professional and personal life is how much importance I place on wanting to help create utopia, and how much we can play a part in making our worlds a better place for everyone. In life we are a part of many small worlds that may seem separate, but they overlap with the worlds of others, and form a part of the larger world as a whole. It is necessary to always keep this in mind as we function in our various roles and responsibilities, rather than pursuing our selfishness.

4). What future study of utopian literature would you like to undertake?

I would like to examine more closely some of the inner workings, the details, and motifs used in some utopias, and then perhaps catalog my own ideas. I would like to look at contemporary society, and perhaps see how utopias have been reflected in it. Perhaps I would consider doing more research into social theory, or other literature such as mythology, religion and how it could apply to the creation of my own imaginary utopia. As someone who has always wanted to be a writer, I realize now that the places in which the characters I would create counts just as much as the people that would inhabit them.

Sonnet as Literary Device (Shakespeare 09-05-12).

2012-09-05T17:02:00.002-07:00

I would say as a playwright, Shakespeare would have had to have some kind of literary device to keep his writing skills sharp, as well as recording his ideas in a structure he was trying to master. A writer does not spontaneously produce great writing, it is only through the mastery of one’s art that one develops ones talents.

I would think he would have to keep his ideas within the boundaries of the sonnet, it would help to have him see both how the words look together on paper for their readability, perhaps to even keep his writing distinguishable enough to protect himself from plagiarization. He would need to see how the words would be spoken as well.

I would even consider that the other poet that he writes about may only be a simple structure for a protagonist that he would have modeled on historical people, and people with whom Shakespeare would have been familiar. The same could even be said for the “dark mistress” that is alluded to.

These sonnets could be a possible left over sentences that he had left over from other works, a collection of sentence structures to be used later.

These sonnets could be loose notes for a work, or works, that he was never able to bring to a complete fruition like his other published works.

A Literary Analysis of Under the Influence by Scott Russell Sanders (Creative Nonfiction II 09-01-12).

2012-09-01T10:25:00.003-07:00

Joseph Melanson

Creative Nonfiction II

Prof. Cahan

20 August 2012

A Literary Analysis of Under the Influence by Scott Russell Sanders as it applies to the

criteria of the Personal Essay.

The personal essay is a sub-genre of the literary genre of creative nonfiction. Also known as a familiar essay, the personal essay, unlike the memoir which focuses on the past, it is the present that the perspective is told from, examining some contemporary topic which may still find some relevance in past events. Research is often used to inform the topic of the personal essay. The writer of the personal essay uses their own life to examine contemporary society. If the personal essay is successful it elevates the writers life into a common experience shared by many readers. “Under the Influence” by Scott Russell Sanders fits all of the criteria of the personal essay.

“Under the Influence” is Scott Russell Sanders examination of his youth under the influence of his father’s alcoholism, and how this influence has not only effected Sanders and his family, but also how it is effecting his own children as well. Sanders relates his youth growing up watching alcohol transform his father whom Sanders describes in one part as “playful, competent, and kind when sober” into a character he likens to a man who became “a stranger, as fearful as any graveyard lunatic” when intoxicated (242, 243). His father’s alcoholism created an environment of fear in which Sanders family experienced his father’s drunken behavior which alternated between rage and melancholy. He relates how his father’s alcoholism caused his brother to become rebellious, his sister retreated into herself, while Sanders felt compelled to become “the stalwart and dutiful son who would hold the family together” (248). It was only after Sanders grew up that he discovered the disease of alcoholism, its effects upon the family members of its sufferers, and the prevalence of this debilitating addiction within our society. It is through his present perspective that Sanders can look upon his youth and both understand what he was going through at the time, making sense of the chaos of his youth, and understanding how it effects him even now, causing him to become a workaholic, carrying with him a secret fear that someday the slightest drop of alcohol may cause him to sacrifice himself to the demon of alcoholism from which his father could never escape.

The personal essay, Perl and Schwartz state, “focus less on the past and more on the present, exploring some aspect of the here-and-now, which can also include connections to the past” (11). Sanders begins his essay describing his father’s compulsive drinking. “He drank as a gut-punched boxer gasps for breath, as a starving dog gobbles food – compulsively, secretly, in pain and trembling” (Sanders 237). “I use the past tense not because he ever quit drinking but because he quit living” (Sanders 237). “That is how the story ends for my father, age sixty-four, heart bursting, body cooling and forsaken on the linoleum of my brother’s trailer” (Sanders 237). “The story ends for my brother, my sister, my mother, and me, and will continue so long as memory holds” (Sanders 237). Sanders then remarks on how the past continues to haunt his present, “in the perennial present of memory, I slip into the garage or barn to see my father tipping back the flat green bottles of wine, the brown cylinders of whiskey, the cans of beer disguised in paper bags” (237). He relates his and his family’s experience of growing up under the influence of his father’s alcoholism, concluding his essay with the fear of one day of being overtaken by the lure of alcohol. Sanders remarks that he takes a drink, “once a week, perhaps, a glass of wine, a can of beer, nothing stronger, nothing more” (250). “I listen for the turning of a key in my brain” (Sanders 250).

The writer of personal essays can also “use research near and far” (Perl and Schwartz 218). Sanders used research in finding terms of intoxication illustrated in the following sentence, “consider a few of our synonyms for drunk: tipsy, tight, pickled, soused, and plowed; stoned and stewed, lubricated and inebriated, juiced and sluiced; three sheets to the wind, in your cups, out of your mind, under the table, lit up, tanked up, wiped out; besotted, blotto, bombed, and buzzed; plastered, polluted, putrified; loaded or looped, boozy, woozy, fuddled, or smashed; crocked and shit-faced, corked and pissed, snockered and sloshed” (239). Sanders quotes the biblical prophet Isaiah, “Woe to those who are heroes at drinking wine, and valiant men in mixing strong drink” (242). “The priest and the prophet reel with strong drink, they are confused with wine, they err in vision, they stumble in giving judgment” (Sanders 242). “For all the tables are full of vomit, no place is without filthiness” (Sanders 242). Sanders later relates the tale told in the Bible, of Jesus exorcising a madman, and sending the possessing spirits into nearby swine. Sanders later uses this parable to describe his own father’s possession by a different kind of spirits.

Personal essays”, Perl and Schwartz state, “use life experiences to make larger social statements” (218). When Sanders was growing up there was no common knowledge about the disease of alcoholism, no Alcoholics Anonymous, no rehabilitation centers. The alcoholic, like his family, was unable to turn to anyone for help, had no refuge to escape the demon of alcoholism. “Left alone with our grievous secret, we had no way of understanding Father’s drinking except as an act of will, a deliberate folly or cruelty, a moral weakness, a sin” (Sanders 242). Nowadays we live in a society that has many programs and groups for those suffering from alcoholism, treating it more as a curable disease for the sufferer who truly desires change, rather than a shameful stigma that encouraged those to hide their addiction and keep it a secret. But when Sanders was young there was not this climate of tolerance and understanding towards addiction. Sanders, at the time, was left to wonder “why our father, so playful and competent and kind when sober, would choose to ruin himself and punish his family, we could not fathom” (242).

When the personal essay is working well it “tells a larger truth about the writer’s experience, one that readers can relate to their own lives” (Perl and Schwartz 11). Sanders relates how his father’s alcoholism, and the chaos it caused, forced him to become the perfect son who was responsible, and always remained in control. “If my father was unstable, I would be a rock. If he squandered money on drink, I would pinch every penny. If he wept when drunk – and only when drunk – I would not let myself weep at all” (Sanders 249). Sanders relates how his son and daughter noticed the sadness which lingered in his father from his youth. His daughter gave him a “placard for the wall: WORKAHOLIC” (Sanders 249). His son tells him when he notices Sanders in the grip of his sadness “he feels responsible” (249). And so Sanders is weighted down, in some way as we all are, by the things we inherit from our families, their addictions, their shames, their dysfunctions, either blindly continuing in their behavior helpless, or in some way overcompensating and trying so hard to prove ourselves to others.

From the present Sanders looks back upon his past, on the effect that his father’s alcoholism has had on him, and is now having on his children who know their father carries some sadness from his youth. Sanders informs his essay with research, the various terms for alcoholism, biblical references to drink, and the data about the prevalence of alcoholism in America. Sanders, through his essay, relates a common experience for many children of adult alcoholics, and the effects of alcoholism on the family of its sufferers. Sanders, by sharing his experiences, reminds us that all of us are effected in some way by dysfunctions of our families, and their dysfunctions can unknowingly become our own, and if we are lucky enough to escape our youths intact, many people out there in the world do not.

Works Cited:

Sanders, Scott Russell. “Under the Influence.” Writing True: The Art and Craft of Creative Nonfiction. Eds. Sondra Perl and Mimi Schwartz. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company. 2006. (237-250). Print.

Create a Personal Utopia, Manifesto, and Reflection (Ideal Worlds 08-26-12).

2012-08-26T11:17:00.002-07:00

Joseph Melanson

Ideal Worlds

Prof. Monte

21 August 2012

Utopia Final

Utopia:

One night I fell wearily into bed, after a long, busy day, unknowing that within my slumber I would have such a dream, when generally upon awakening I have no recollection of the substance of my nightly unconsciousness, but in this one night I dreamt and recalled with more intensity and clarity than was my usual sleeping experience.

I saw within my dream, an unknown place, peaceful and serene in its appearance. I found myself within the green and placid suburbs upon the outer edge of a great city, seeming bejeweled as its various structures of an unknown substance that shined like glass and mirror, yet retaining a great deal of reflectivity on their polished surfaces, but in no way becoming harsh in its glare upon the eyes. I moved forward towards its tall structures, seeming innumerable in their quantity and quality, curious about that place, knowing that my interest would be more aptly rewarded there than where I was in this placid and green, yet anonymous seeming suburbs. I saw other people approaching what seemed some kind of small building, made of what seemed like glass, seeming to me some kind of transportation system, as a strange light emanated from it when a person went inside. I intuited that this structure would serve me in my purpose to find my way to

the city.

I approached a man heading toward this small building, and asked him about it and how I could most quickly arrive within the place of this foreign city. He looked at me warily, but gestured towards this small edifice with which I had interrupted his progress.

“The channel will take you to whatever destination you choose, all you have to do is say it in the channel, and within the voice of your mind”, he said, and I followed him towards the building. It had a number of people approaching it, yet when I entered it was empty. I saw the man with whom I had acquainted myself enter within its confines, and disappear in light before my eyes.

“To the city”, I said to myself after within this small structure that was continuously absorbing people into a burst of light, while also delivering instantly in another part of the building other people in a same burst of light.

After arriving within the streets of these enormous edifices, I spotted what seemed to be a popular temple, and made my way towards it, believing that it would have been one of the more safer places that I could find to help me get more information about this city, and my bearings within this strange world.

As soon as I entered the temple I was observed several people and overheard them talking. As I looked around I saw inscriptions upon the wall that informed me that where I was, was dedicated to a new religion of science in human development, and it’s emphasis on the attainment of high levels of mastery in all of one’s various levels and functional capabilities.

There was a video playing on a screen on one of the walls near me, and I made my way over in order to view it and hear its message more clearly. After some years of a terrible war the country resumed with the surviving inhabitants. Later a prophet appeared revealing his visions to the populace and he became an important architect in the rebuilding of this destroyed civilization, due to the number of various yet useable ideas that seemed appropriate to this society’s reconstruction. There were multiple temples that were built in dedication to the salvation of the world’s surviving knowledge, an attempt to recall and record what was lost, and rebuilding a society that would not degenerate back into the madness that had been our human tradition. The prophet developed the workbook Stages and Levels of Being: Instruction in the Attainment of Your Human Potential, and this book became an instructional primer expected to be read by children in the first years of their education.

Before his death, this prophet finished several dozen other works that were published with great success, and the only title that I can recall from the televised documentary is his The Use of the Reciprocation Machine: The Study and Practice of Evolving One’s Various Selves in the Natural World through Education and Technology. Apparently this book provided a means to use several important methods of accelerating one’s capacity to learn and function within this new society.

Averting my gaze from the television, I noticed upon the wall of this temple were written its fundamental laws and tenets that were applicable to the whole of this society, and offered as practical knowledge to every individual in the proper participation of their society. If there were any more fundamental rules to this new religion I cannot recall as my mind does not permit me to recollect any more of them from the substance of this dream. Here is all that I can recollect:

Laws of (some unreadable name):

1). All people are equal under God and the Law.

2). Development of the self is the highest goal in life.

3). Development of the self in others is the second highest goal in life.

4). Development and maintenance of the soul of the community is the third highest goal in life.

5). Everyone is entitled to food, health care, shelter, and the wealth of the community.

6). Everyone must play an equal part in the welfare of the community through work, service, and volunteering.

7). One’s gifts and talents belong to the community from which they came, as much as they belong to the self which has spent the time and effort in their development.

I began to think of seeing this community in action, excited in the need to see the theories of this new religion as they were practiced by its citizens. I made my way to the temple door desiring to leave and begin my exploration of the inner workings of the city. When I reached the door to the temple, and upon laying my hand upon the handle of the door, I awoke instantly from my dream, returned to my regular life of expectations and responsibilities. I wrote down everything that I could remember as it was still fresh in my mind. I hoped that someday these words that I was setting down on paper would bring me some later advantage, and hopefully be useful to people for ages to come.

Reflection:

1). The most appealing features of my personal utopia are: the idea of a place without arduous labor, yet offering people several purposes with which they can expect to live out their life, and a community that had a high value for the life of the individual.

2) The most significant barriers to the achievement of this utopian community would be: the cost and expenditure of creating it, resistance from other people and other social groups, and the dedication to the ideals of the community by its members.

3) The connection between my utopian vision and the readings of utopian literature was an influence in several different ways. It seems that one person’s utopia can be another person’s dystopia. Utopias are often begun with the best of intentions, yet oftentimes they fall apart as people cannot successfully maintain a utopia for very long. Utopia needs to function on the local level, as well as the community level, and the societal level. Utopia is a narrative journey, perhaps a metaphor for the journey of life that we all take, and perhaps we all should in our own way contribute towards the development of utopia here on earth.

4) The reading of utopian theory in Kumar’s Utopianism shaped the creation of my utopia in several ways. There needs to be an individual who can function on the level of this new society, and be able to create and maintain the best qualities of it. Utopian theory needs to be taken very seriously and considered how it would apply in one area, as well as another, as it seems that utopian theory is generally a criticism of one system over another, denouncing one set of values for another.

5). The difficulties in creating my utopian plan were: what to fill the utopist structure with, considering how a society truly functions, and what would be proper behavior for people living in this place. Other considerations that needed to be developed was the design of a social blueprint, an agreed upon standard for appropriate behavior, and a community that encouraged this behavior, while punishing inappropriate behavior without harsh penalties for the individual. One must consider in creating a utopist plan is whether the state needs to conform to its people, or do the people need to conform to the state, and what does it mean for both to “conform”?

6). The difficulties of writing my utopian fiction were: having never considering writing a utopia before, creating a narrative out of my theories, as well as developing theories for my narrative that did not seem childish or unbelievable.