#9-1. The Lottery

To almost the end of the story, the writer does not mention about the real truth about 'the lottery'. The townspeople seem to be longing for the event, enjoying it, with such a certainty that even young children possesses. At the climax, the readers are shocked to learn that the purpose of the lottery was for choosing a person to kill, and then they can truly understand some mysterious details appeared previously -- why Mrs. Hutchinson seemed so frightened when she was selected, and why the nearby towns abandoned the lottery tradition one by one.

This story shows the power of tradition. According to the old man Warner, the lottery has been held for at least seventy-seven times. Now this tradition is regarded as such a crucial part of the townspeople's lives that they believe abolition of the lottery would lead to "living in caves, work any more, live hat way for a while". It is unquestionable that the lottery is a barbaric, gruesome practice that cannot be held among normal people. Still, this nonsense is happening in this town, emphasizing that tradition has power to even make the most irrational event happen.

The power of tradition is even more emphasized from the writer's setting of "commonness". The town is very common, the townspeople are very normal -- they are nothing like past-criminals -- everything seems not that different from an ordinary rural American town. Why the author appointed such a fragrant event happen in a normal place is answered by observing her childhood; .......


Comments

Rhee Ji Yoon: You write fastly and your writings are good! Your thesis is clear throughout the essay and I think this is one of your strong points (or abilities?) in writing.
 People fear new things. People feared TV when they were first invented and argued that people would go dumb because of the box. People also feared genetic science; they thought that too much of the technology would eventually devalue the importance of themselves. I think that fear of changing tradition can be understood in the same context.

Hyejoon Lee: I liked how you emphasized the importance, or the influence, of "tradition". I also believe that "tradition", once settled into the lives of common people, loses its original purpose and becomes one of the things that they always do, regardless of whether it is a cruel tradition or not. While tradition may be the means of defining a culture, it might also be a dangerous weapon against the culture and the inhabitants themselves.

Nuri Kim: The power of tradition may be one aspect Shirley Jackson used to portray what she wanted to say throughout the story -- however I don't think the story itself 'shows' the power of tradition. While mentioning the power of tradition, I think it would be better to put in ideas like "because of tradition, the townspeople failed to object to the horrible ritual practice". Also you might want to point out why they were so indifferent of the tradition (except for the child's family).

Soho Shim: I really like your opinion about the reason why the townspeople do a lottery. Yes, tradition is so entrenched to people's lives that it becomes necessary. however, I personally think that maybe they are simply doing that act because it is a "tradition". Rather than it is crucial or not, people might commit that without any apparent reasons. Well... this is just my point of view, and thinking about the other possible reasons can help you to enrich your reflection!

InHee Ho: I like how you jumped right to the story. The point about vagueness of lottery -- I totally agree with it. I also like how you linked tradition to lottery and barbarity. But it would be better if you reveal a little more about the 'tradition' (such as the reason why it can be tradition, how it changes and unnoticeably adapt to new societal trends, how it can exist forever, etc.)

#11-2. Sarah Cole: A Type of Love Story

"Hey, I got accepted in the band club!"
"Umm... I did quite well in this test."
"Have you never heard of 'Daft Punk'? They play really good electronic musics."

It was my first semester in KMLA. I was suffering from the sense of inferiority, among numbers of friends who seemed much smarter than me. My roommate was one of them; whenever she said something, I gazed at her in jealousy and envy. She was a member of a popular school club, she was often considered as one of the most good-looking girls in our wave, she did well in her classes, she knew lot more about music than I did. Every single act of her made me feel nervous; the feeling, soon, started to be expressed at my attitude toward her. Whenever she talked about her band club -- when is her debut stage, what music she is going to play, who praises her that her guitar play improved a lot -- I pretended I was busy, and didn't have time to talk with her. When she was chatting with boys, I disturbed her on purpose.

Looking back, I was just so childish and immature. But what that experience taught me is that balance is a crucial factor in human relationship. If one person is too superior, the other feels restless -- "Is this the right place for me?" "What is so superior of her?" "Why am I thinking these things? -- she's my nice friend!" all those complicated, mingled thoughts. This, exactly, is what is happening between Ron and Sarah, in "Sarah Cole: A Type of Love Story".

Ron and Sarah are very different; Ron is "effortlessly attractive, a genetic wonder, tall, slender, symmetrical, and clean". Sarah, in contrast, has "ugly face, like a wart hog's, thick, rapid voice, dumpy, off-center wreck of a body", and there are "a few women who were more unattractive than Sarah". Ron is a young, somehow-rich lawyer divorced with a beautiful fashion designer wife, whereas Sarah is a Rumford Press worker, recently divorced with "husband who was a bastard and stupid". There is nothing in common between these two characters except they both experienced unsuccessful relationships. Yet, amazingly, these two becomes lover.

Their relationship, however, is unstable from the start. When Ron invites her to his house, and asks her to sleep with him, Sarah hesitates and answers, "I don't know ... You and me... we're real different. ... I gotta go. I gotta leave now." Ron also "won't go out in public" with Sarah, in embarrassment to admit that such a good-looking-man is going out with an unattractive woman. At the end of their relationship, Ron cruelly abandons their relationship, cursing "Go on and leave, you ugly bitch".

To anyone, it is clear that Ron's stance in their relationship was superior, while Sarah's was inferior. Throughout their relationship, however, it is mostly Sarah who approached to Ron first. It was her, for example, who starts the relation by sitting next to Ron at the bar and initiates a conversation. Though Ron is interested in knowing someone different from him, and responds to Sarah's approach, he rarely acts first; it is, again, Sarah who starts their second conversation, who quibbles over their relationship (inquiring Ron about not going out with her in public, for example), etc. During such of her active approach, Sarah must have felt anxious about Ron's passive response -- she must have suffered from numerous questions, such as "Why isn't he showing stronger response?" "Do I love him more than he loves me?" "Am I not his lover -- just someone who follows and irritates him?". All these questions drives Sarah to be impatient, nervous to Ron, which creates more and more conflicts so that it ends their relationship at last.


"The Most Beautiful Woman in Town" also deals with similar topic; Cass, the most beuatiful woman in town, goes out with the narrator, one of the ugliest men. Although this story ends with Cass's death -- another "end" of relationship -- it is evident that the relation between Cass and the narrator is more stable than that of Ron and Sarah. To suggest a possible cause, Cass, the superior, is the one who approaches first to the narrator, the inferior. Compared to Ron and Sarah's relation, which the inferior approaches the superior first and therefore felt all more inferiority that she alone is expressing too much attention to the superior, Cass the superior allows the narrator opportunity to see that the superior also has weak points and needs to lean over the inferior.


"Balance", without doubt, is an important factor in human relationship. Once one starts to feel inferior to the other, the questions arise endlessly so that one cannot stare the other without envy or nervousness any more. This is what happens in "Sarah Cole: A Type of Love Story". To minimize the effect of unbalance, it is important for the superior to show that he/she also has inferior points that needs to be comforted by other -- as Cass did in "The Most Beautiful Woman in Town".

#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.

#8-2. Faction: Motivated from "The Conversion of the Jews" -- No Impact Man Project

Ye Ji Park / 111053 / 11b3

Mr. Richard Menard

American Literature

September 26 2012

Faction (Motivated from The Conversion of the Jews): No Impact Man Project

No Impact Man Project (n.) a project devised and performed by Colin Beavan and his family; living a life that influences the environment as least as possible

"You know that you're a real freak to put this plan into practice, right?" Nicolle asked. "No Impact Man Project? Are you sure this is a feasible plan?"

"Relax, Nicolle, take it easy. Just a half century ago people lived well without using all those transportations and electronic goods. There's no reason that we cannot do this," I said.

"Why do you care about the Earth for anyway?"

"Well, you know what I would say. Earth is constantly being contaminated by us; even at this very moment, our air-conditioner, on-television, and leftovers of fast food we just finished off few minutes ago contributed in Earth's decay. I'm suggesting helping the Earth a little bit by restraining ourselves a little bit," I concluded, reading my wife's countenance to see if she was angry with her irksome husband. And yes, she was; Nicolle turned her back on me and gazed into the television, which her favorite TV show was playing on.

"Okay, understandable. But why do WE need to do this? There are so many people who are enjoying their life without paying slight attention to the Earth. I'm definite that our acts would result in nothing but a very, very minuscule delay on the Earth's collapse. ... You know what I mean? I don't see a clear outcome that will justify all the inconveniences we would be demanded to suffer for next twelve months," Nicolle finally said. Her shoulders were trembling.

I suddenly felt sorry for her; yes, she was right. No matter how arduously my family performs the project, millions of people would continue to waste, consume, dump, etc. The Earth would keep on decaying despite our project, and the outcome of this project must be tremendously small compared to all the efforts we are going to devote.

Still I wanted to challenge; I wanted to see if it was possible for us to live without televisions, newspapers, fast food, air conditioner or electric heater, etc. I wanted to see if I could live with influencing the environment as least as possible. And... this is my secret hope that I didn't tell to my wife, because I was sure that Nicolle would gaze me as if I am the greatest nut in this world, but I sincerely hoped to achieve victory in No Impact Man Project, thereby instigate people around me to follow me and do the project themselves. Maybe then, the outcome would be larger, and it may contribute … “significantly” in delaying the Earth's decay. MAYBE. But holding expectation and hope is not something bad, right?

Isabella was crying. I looked at the watch; it was definitely not a meal time, so she must be calling me to change her diaper. I groaned -- this was, actually, the moment that I did not want to confront. I made few contracts with Nicolle to make her participate in this project, and Nicolle negotiated by letting me do some bothersome and irritating tasks. Changing Isabella's diaper was one of them.

I looked environmental-friendly diaper that I decided to use instead of disposable one, in hope that my discomfort would help the Earth. Reading the instructions carefully, I folded the new diaper and attached it with a pin between my daughter's legs -- which was the most thrilling and frightening moment that made my hands shake frantically.

Actually, changing my daughter's diaper was not the only ordeal I faced during practicing No Impact Man Project. The project demanded me eat only local food, made of agricultural products within 500 miles, and this meant that Nicolle could not drink coffee anymore. She was literally mad at me, and after appeasing her for more than an hour, I promised her to grow peppermint and make her mint tea every day. That was a labor.

Nicolle and I were both suffering from the steaming hot of NYC, August. We opened the window, fan ourselves frantically, nibbled chunks of ice, but never turned on air conditioner. Nicolle was missing her Chelsea Lately, and I missed electric light bulb that enabled me to work even after the Sun sets. We were exhausted after climbing stairs to the fourteenth floor, and we thought that we were going behind time, since we could not read newspapers and catch the top issue for that day.

#8-1. Reflective Essay: The Conversion of the Jews

Ye Ji Park / 111053 / 11b3

Mr. Richard Menard

American Literature

September 22 2012 

Reflective Essay: The Conversion of the Jews

Parents, when their child reaches the age of four or five, suffer from those entire "Why?" questions the child asks. "Why?" questions are tolerant for a young child, but unacceptable when a questioner is old enough. Oscar Freedman, a thirteen-years-old protagonist of The Conversion of the Jews (Philip Roth, 1959), is considered as an irritable boy who keeps asking trifling questions about God – for example, "... why couldn't He let a woman have a baby without having intercourse?" or "How Rabbi Binder (his teacher) could call the Jews "The Chosen People" if the Declaration of Independence claimed all men to be created equal?", etc. People who Oscar expects to give him answers to the questions – Rabbi, his mother, and other adults – all consider his questions as profane and nit-picking; so instead of giving answers, they "hit Ozzie (Oscar) across the face" or "flicked out at Ozzie's cheek".

Oscar is, however, not asking these questions to resist to the religious doctrines or screw over the adults. Actually, he respects "his mother lit the candles" – rituals on the Sabbath – by "pressing the phone to his breast" and making no sound. The sole intention of Oscar asking questions is pure curiosity. However, people disregards his curiosity, just as a firefighter asks the Rabbi "What, is the kid nuts or something?". People do not understand why Oscar cannot "accept" religious precepts. Instead of embracing of social consensus recklessly, Oscar tries to understand things logically. Maybe this is why his surname is "Freedman" – a "freed man", not fettered by conformity to his community.

Reading The Conversion of the Jews, I reminded of someone who resembled Oscar Freedman a lot. Colin Beavan, the author of No Impact Man (2010), is a New Yorker who, over a year, lived in NYC, affecting the environment as least as possible. From the very basic step – stop using disposable diapers or tissue – Beavan practiced inconvenient, sophisticated acts, such as giving up reading newspaper (a thick collection of dead trees), staying away from fast food and eating only local food, not using transportations, elevators, and even electricity, etc. When Beaven first started to carry on this plan, which he entitled "No Impact Man Project", his co-workers, friends, family, virtually everybody, dissuaded him, arguing that his acts would not stop the Earth from being contaminated. The community's belief, in short, was to relish all the conveniences modern society provides; there was no reason for Colin Beavan to "question" about the harmful effects people are giving to the Earth. To NYC residents, Beavan was an Oscar Freedman boy who nit-picked about their uses of modern technology and did not conform to the general belief of staying inattentive to the Earth.

Beavan’s "No Impact Man Project", conclusively, was not a meaningless struggle; his book called forth majority's attention, he was introduced as a noticeable environmentalist by New York Times, and a lot of impressed readers make attempts to practice the project, at least partially.

As a person who has conformed to the community and enjoyed environmental-harming technologies without any guilt for seventeen years, I highly value struggles of Oscar Freedman and Colin Beavan. I did hear that excessive use of air conditioner results in global warming; still I did not stop myself from setting the temperature 19℃. I did hear that dozens of trees were being logged to produce white, fresh papers; still I did not stop myself from dumping one-sided paper without second use. It was too irritating and bothering to question the impacts of my acts; the easiest way to live was to passively accept the general paradigm and follow what others do. What Oscar and Beavan tell me right now, however, is that such an irksome questioning can bring out positive outcomes to society; Oscar offered his community opportunity to reconsider about its indiscreet religious fervor, and Beavan helped his community to recognize the decay of the Earth due to the community’s thoughtless consumption of conveniences. Healthy skepticism of questioning a majority opinion is what I and my community need right now – not rash recalcitrance but mere curiosity, which would help the community to find out its fault and resolve, thereby improve.