#11-1. Sarah Cole: A Type of Love Story

The Most Beautiful Woman in the Town	Sarah Cole: A Type of Love Story
Similar contents: beautiful man/woman and ugly partner (àWhy? Expectation for humanity) è  Appearance, though, clearly is working as a tool of authority. Ending: no complete understanding of each other (unresolved scar)  (ex) The Most…: male character did not contact Cass for days. (à Cass’s loneliness?)                 “I love both your body and you.” (à View Cass as other men do (sex machine, beautiful object…) to some extent)      A Type of…: Sarah “We are different”, refuse to have sexual relationship                 Ron later abandons Sarah (refuse to go out public with her, etc.)
Cass is superior to the narrator (b.c/ Cass approached the narrator first, thus the narrator is impressed and proud that Cass chose him. à Cass believes the narrator would not leave her that easily.) Paid less attention to social commentary	Paid lot of attention to social commentary Who is superior? è  At the ending… Ron abandons Sarah “Go on and leave, you ugly bitch.” è  Sarah tries to resist (“I won’t leave, I got nothing to lose’) but fails.

l  Just a feeling…

The Most Beuatiful Woman…: narrator seems to succeed, at least, partially at understanding Cass.

A Type of…: mere curiosity toward a new type of person, lack of understanding

Comments

Soho: I think you can elaborate more on this idea (“Just a feeling” part) when writing a reflection. You can think about what exactly “the curiosity toward a new type of person” means in the story. Well… I think you can develop ideas with the details and analysis you did on the front! J

Hyunseok: Creative organization. Even though this wasn’t an essay, it was easy to compare stories and summarize those. I’m looking forward to your essay with this information and your stunning opinion!

Chonghyun Ahn: Thinking about the power structure with the beauty would be very interesting. Certainly there will be plausible analysis able from this idea.

#12-1. Fish Cheks

Fish Cheeks

 Fish Cheeks, a reflective essay written by Amy Tan, is one of the top-notch examples of well-written reflections. Even with its short length – only 500 words – it conveys a lot of contents, including Tan’s emotions (when she felt ashamed in front of the boy she was crushed on), a life lesson that Tan’s mother wanted to give Tan (“You must be proud you are different”), etc.

 There are several factors that make this essay so attractive: first, vivid descriptions; second, honest tone; third, use of transitional words; finally, irony of the last sentence.

 First, Amy Tan vividly describes the Christmas food, the people’s actions, and words, even though this event happened when she was only 14 and more than 10 years have passed. It is evident that Tan would not be remembering all the details of her 14^th Christmas; nevertheless, she described things vividly – “The kitchen was littered with appalling mounds of raw food”, for example. This makes the reader forget that this event happened a very long time ago, thus focus into the story much more.

 Secondly, Tan’s tone throughout the essay attracts the readers. Tan is being very honest about her emotions to the readers. From the very first paragraph, she confessed that she was crushed on a boy – which is, definitely, a “secret” for a fourteen-years-old girl. Throughout the essay, she speaks honestly about the embarrassment she had experienced.

Comments

InHee: Fist Cheeks, indeed, is undoubtedly a very well-written, concise yet content-ful essay! But I was surprised how you analyzed the reason why this essay is great with four factors. You would have read this story very closely J But the term “honest tone” seems a little ambiguous here. Are you referring to the general tone writers in the Confessional Period had? Amy Tan was recollecting her memories from 20 or 30 years ago, and we here naturally doubt the accuracy or honesty. Did Tan actually have that much going in her mind about identity when she was just 14? Probably not. I hope you make the term “honest tone” clearer, referring to the things we talked today in class.

Hyunseok Lee: It was great to see well-organized analysis about Fist Cheeks! However, I would like to listen to “your own opinion”. How four interesting factors in the story affected to your reading? What should be supplemented? What was your favorite point? If you connect the story with yourself, the essay would be much more fascinating.

James Han Jong Hyun: A great reflection. You have made clear points of Amy Tan’s detailed description and her tone. However, you could have gone into further details in discussing how post-colonialism has affected this literature piece, and as we have discussed in class, how Amy Tan’s own lens has caused this essay to become, well, biased. We cannot say that this essay is an accurate description of what had really happened on that Christmas Eve, although Amy Tan is describing the event “vividly” as you have mentioned. Try to go into more details, and a much more fruitful outcome can come out.

#10-1. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

 Better known for the movie “Blade Runner”, Philip K. Dick’s science fiction, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, discusses a post-apocalyptic future in which Earth and its populations have been damaged greatly by nuclear war during World War Terminus. In this era, there are a lot of androids that are strikingly similar to real humans except one peculiarity: unlike humans, androids have no empathy towards animals.

 The most controversial question in recent technology is whether a computer can be “emotive”: technicians claim that if they program a software that contains a list of situations that evokes a special emotion, and instill it on computers, machines could feel. I see things differently. I believe that no matter this program works or not, computers would never be able to be emotive.

Comments

InHee: Your POV is totally different from what we talked in class! I think this is really worthy to contemplate on, and believe you would be able to make a more profound conclusion than “Androids don’t need to be emotional.” The role of Androids in the society, the primary reason of making those, and following consequences shown in the book (&film) might give some clues.

ChongHyun: As a matter of fact, I respect more for people who write less for a given amount of time. But only one problem is, however, that the commenter finds less to discuss about. (ㅋㅋㅋㅋ) Nevertheless, the idea of considering the relationship between emotion and computer seems very interesting. I’ll look forward to your future completion of the writing.

James, Han Jong Hyun: I was quite surprised to read your body paragraph as you have talked about how androids cannot possess emotions even after reading Do Androids Dream of an Electric Sheep?. Well… As you have much more to write about, I am sure you can present us with very convincing supports that justify your perspective. But for now, I have to say that humans portrayed in the novella are much more inhumane and lacking in human characteristics than the clones.