Video

After watching the RSA video I would like to make a couple comparisions with it to Brave New World. First off i noticed the parallel between the drugs Ritalin which are given to kids with ADHD and soma which the charatcers take in the novel. Ritalin is a drug that is given to children who have ADHD which does not allow them to focus very much in the classroom. In Brave New World soma is a pill that is provided to everyone in their society and is encouraged to be taken. It is a pill that allows you to escape from reality and take a "holiday" sort to say. When the kids can not focus the doctors proscribe drugs such as Ritalin whcih helps keep the kids attention focused on school and what they are suppose to be learning. When something is wrong they just give them a pill to fix it. This draws and exact parallel to Brave New World in which the people of the society are provided with soma. "And if anything should go wrong, there's soma." (16). In Bernard Marx's society and the world that he lives in, all the people are encouraged to take soma to always be happy. If there was an accident or something happend to you that ruined your day and you just cant quite get over it, you take a gramme or so of soma. They are encouraged to cover up all their emotions and real feelings with soma. I also really liked what Robinson was saying on teh education system and how the students are not allowed to study or take classes on the courses that they are interested strongly in. But intstead they are forced to take general classes that everyone else is forced to take and learn the same exact facts which they must spew back out for the test.

Brave New World

In Brave New World human experiences are manipulated to produce family, monogamy, impulse, feeling, and desire. The quote used on the ap lit home page is saying something along the lines of humans are produced to enjoy what they must do. In Brave New World humans are no longer made the old fashion way, but are made by man and machines. While as an embryo they are then conditioned in certain circumstances in which they will be living in when they mature. The D.H.C. trained little children to scream when ever they saw or came close to a rose or other types of plants. They did this to make the children not want to be around plants. But why would they not want them around plants? Because they dont want the children who will grow up into workers, to waste their time outside slacking off from their work. They are making them more efficent workers by making them not want to stop and take a break outside. "What with mothers and lovers, what with the prohibitions they were not conditioned to obey..." (41). This quote is coming from the Mustapha mundo, hes telling all the learing students on how the world was before they worshiped Ford. The people had never been conditioned to like or enjoy the work that they would grow up and have to do. No one was ever even guranteed a job or forced into a job which they had no say in because they were given it when they were just in the beginning of creation.

Preparing to write the tempest

In the discussions of the Tempest, the main issue or debate is colonialism written in the text. There have also been various different opinions about Caliban. He has been viewed as a savage and also viewed as a person who has been taken advantage of. In the packet given to us in class with the argument about literature, George Will argues that disscussing the meaning and digging deeper for a different meaning of a text takes aaway from what the author writes about or his true meaning. He also goes on to argue that we over analyze everything we read which takes away the real meaning which the author intended us to understand. But then there is Stephen Greenblatt who believes in the exact opposite. Greenblatt argues that going deeper than just the surface meaning does not take away the meaning in which the author intended. He actually thinks that we should do just that. Greenblatt believes that we all should not just scratch the surface with the meaning but instead dig deeper and analyze the text. He thinks that analyzing the text and finding a different meaning allows us to understand the story or literature work more then just reading the surface meaning. I do have to agree with both sides though. There are various authors that write a story which leaves the meaning just in the surface of the text, but there are various authors who write a story and want you and make you analyze and overthink the meaning of the story. When an author makes a person search beneath the surface, it makes them use critical thinking to help find the true meaning that lies in the story. But then writing is a form of art because it is a way of expressing who you are or how you feel. Everyone has their own opinion and could argue their case which means no one really has the right answer. Especially when you are not the one who wrote the literature work and could not ask the author what their true meaning behind the story really is.