"Big Petroleum"

Maus

Spiegelman uses irregular styles of writing to describe the difficulties his father faced during the holocaust. The comic book style of writing allows Spiegelman to transition from past and present very easily and smoothly. The different pictures make it easy to see what point in time the story is being told. The use of animals to portray the different characters further supports the stereotypical qualities of each race. The Germans are cats, but they are not nice and gentle house cats, they are dark and dominant figures. The Jews are illustrated as mice because they were seen as the inferior race during by the Germans during this time period.  The pictures in the comic book also help to explain the atrocities faced in the Nazi death camps. The novel could be pointing out that humans can be really hypocritical at times. This is shown when Vladek makes a racist comment about a black man on the side of the street. Franciose, another characters, points out to Vladek that he is treating the black man just like the Nazis treat the Jews, and Vladek says these two instances cannot be compared. Vladek calls Art by the name of his dead brother. Vladek is deeply affected by this and maybe will never overcome this tragedy. The holocaust scarred millions of people indefinitely and most of these people never recovered mentally. Spiegelman's comic book attempts to explain the tragedies of the holocaust, but he tries to avoid the notion that his novel is complete truth. His comic book allows him to depict the emotions of the characters very easily, and he can make the events of the holocaust more vivid. Even though Speigelman uses a non-traditional way to tell a serious topic in history he is still able to explain some of the horrific events that took place in the holocaust.


http://www.docshare.com/doc/158846/Textual-Analysis-of-Art-Spiegelmans-Maus-I-am

Post-modernism in Cat's Cradle

Modernism was the era of enlightenment and the search for the absolute truth in life by using science and logic to disclaim all the myths and past grand narratives. As we kept advancing in technology and expanding our knowledge of the universe around us we seemed only to confuse things more rather than finding the ultimate solution to everything. We believed that this conquest of never ending knowledge would bring us to be a happier people and possibly one day create a utopia. What did all this science and research bring us? It surely did not bring us happiness it actually lead to nuclear weapons and two World Wars. This truth that we were looking for through science did not bring us to this utopia we envisioned it actually happened to be just the opposite because it lead us to chaos and turmoil among opposing nations.

Now we are in the era of post-modernism. Post-modernism is a movement that ultimately contradicts the ideas of modernism, but post-modernist never say this because that would be a grand narrative in itself and they avoid the idea of central narrative because that becomes oppressive and there is always a minority. Post-modernism supports the idea that each different community has their own set of narratives that they live by because it fits to their culture. Also in the post-modern era the belief is that there is no actual truth that can serve everyone. Everybody has their own interpretation of life, and we all make understanding of life in different ways.

Cat's Cradle definitely serves as postmodern text because all the themes in the novel revolve around skepticism and what it actually true. For example, Newt becomes obsessive with the string game called Cat's Cradle and repeatedly states, "See the cat? See the cradle?" (Vonnegut 179). This statement is shows that there is no actually no cat and no cradle, but it is actually a bunch of X's that make no sense. This game of X's never ends. This metaphorically shows that life has no one truth, but we all see things in different ways and one person's truths can be another man's lies.

Post-modernism in Cat's Cradle

Modernism was the era of enlightenment and the search for the absolute truth in life by using science and logic to disclaim all the myths and past grand narratives.

"Brave New World"

In Brave New World Aldous Huxley portrays a new society in which everybody is happy with their economic position in society. The World Controllers control every aspect of humans' lives. They have eliminated natural birth and have made all reproduction processes take place in a laboratory setting. They also condition every human at a very young age to serve whatever needs they see fit for the community. Most of the ideas relate very closely to the insights in 1984. For example, in 1984 the government, "Big Brother", also controls everything by manipulating reality through rectification of the past. In both novels humans are conditioned to support the government or World Controllers. In both cases they use different techniques to keep their citizens under oppression and to keep them always in support of the government. I think these authors were criticizing some of the industrial motives that we have seen in the past and present day society. We have attempted to create a perfect society or otherwise known as a utopia.  In both books there are characters that do not quite fit in with the rest of the perfect society. Bernard Marx in Brave New World feels out of place probably due to his differing physical appearance from the rest of the Alpha class. This leads him to believe that he is also different in some sort of emotional or mental way. He feels there is more to life than what he is experiencing in this new world that the World Controllers have created. Also in 1984 Winston also feels that he does not belong and that there is more to life than just serving every need of the government and being happy while doing it. These characters are looking for some alternate purpose in life than what the government or World Controllers have given them.

"Brave New World"

The speaker in the video criticizes today's education system because our education is trying to teach us our economic position in society. It is a common fallacy that if you possess a degree you will have a guaranteed job. Education was discovered in a different era and has not changed with time. In "Brave New World" everything is based on stability. Mainly they are focused on on achieving social and economic stability. They have succeeded in creating stability which is the goal of every economic system but most of them fail.  World controllers control everything about human production. They genetically engineer humans to act in a certain way and to enjoy every aspect of their life. Humans are conditioned are conditioned at very young ages by a technique called "hypnopaedia." Humans are conditioned to dislike nature because if they enjoyed nature they would not be consuming and taking part in the economic machine. Everything is accounted for so there is always economic stability. For example, Mustapha Mond is lecturing interns and he states, "Wheels must turn steadily, but cannot turn untended. There must be men to tend them, men as steady as the wheel upon their axles, sane men, obedient men, stable in contentment."  Everything is controlled like a machine that cannot fail.  They condition people to not have any intimate connections with each other. They have eliminated family.They are even conditioned to death and to accept it as a part of life at a  very young age. Basically they have taken everything out that could cause emotional instability. Because if somebody becomes upset over a death of family member for example then they cannot be as efficient as possible while doing their job, and if somebody does not do their job as efficient as possible then somebody will be affected by their poor work quality.

"Brave New World"

Mustapha Mond is comparing humanity to a machine. They worship Mr. Ford because he created the assembly line which acts as a machine pumping out more supply than ever before. Mustapha Mond and other world controllers want their people to always be focused on their specific job and not have emotions affect their work. For example, the narrator states, "Cryimg: My baby, my mother, my only love; groaning: My sin, my terrible God...how can they tend the wheels?" (Huxley 42). If people have emotional ties with other people than their duty to the society could be influenced by emotions. Someone could have a death very close to them and their output into the economy might not be up to standard. When people aren't putting their greatest effort into their job then the community as a whole becomes unstable. The governments whole foundation is based off stability. They condition all the people in the population to act a certain way and have certain instincts. The world controllers use a method called "hypnopaedia" to condition children when they are very young. They can insert whatever information they wish into the childrens' minds. They control what people they will interact with, favorite colors, food, hobbies, etc. With this sleep teaching technique they can account for all the people because they exactly what they will consume. The biologically engineer each human to be happy with their job in life. If everybody is happy with what they are doing then it creates stability, which is the goal for every economic system. They create different social classes so every individual has their place in the community. It is basically an extreme and successful version of communism.Communism was unsuccessful because some people were not happy with their place in society, but Musapha Mond and other world controllers have discovered a way to engineer humans the same way a person would hard-wire robots.