Digital Books

With the idea of every physical book going online, it can be a scary concept for many people. Remember when there were those random people that would refuse to buy DVDs because they thought that the original VHS version of movies were better, and that DVDs should just go away? I feel like this situation is very similar.

I feel like no matter what your opinion is about books becoming digitized, it is going to happen whether you like it or not. You may sit there and complain and whine and buy as many physical books as you want, but eventually, most likely, all text is going to be digitalized and distributed to the masses in the blink of an eye.

It does, however, take some of the mystery and fun out of things. Imagine a world where the latest Harry Potter book was about to be downloaded at midnight when it was released. Everyone would be at home, in front of their computers, waiting for the download to start that evening instead of lining up outside a Barnes and Nobles’, dressed as their favorite character. In this way, I would have to say that digitalized text definitely takes away the ritual and fun of things.

You may be able to take a tablet everywhere and read as many books as you want, but you don’t get the memories from the pages, like getting caught in the rain with the book, and all the pages of a section are warped and turn in a funny way. If that happened to your tablet... well, you’d probably have a dead tablet.

Wikipedia

Wikipedia is very interesting, if nothing else. I enjoyed reading this article because I feel as though so many English classes sort of just ignore Wikipedia’s existence and just say “Don’t use it for this paper, okay?”, and that’s just the end of the discussion. Nothing more. Nothing less. However, I think that there should be a dialogue about it, especially in middle and high school. I feel that this article shows that yes, Wikipedia can be accurate, but it is not suitable for research papers or any sort of documented work because it can be edited by those who have not gone through the editing and approval process of being published. I feel that many, many teachers in those lower grades do not explain this to their students.

I think the article was a very interesting read. I am an avid user of Wikipedia for my personal life, and I feel as though it does help me learn a lot of things. If I’m listening to a band, and I particularly like their song, I’ll use Wikipedia to go find their page to see what album the song comes from so that I can go listen to the entire album. As music is basically like therapy for me, I find this to be quite a help. When a band doesn’t have a Wikipedia page, I’m almost lost.

But, besides musical tastes, I’ve used Wikipedia for many other things such as hearing some sort of event on the news occurring in another part of the world, and I’m curious what it is all about, so I “wikipedia” (notice how the site has also been converted into a verb amongst modern internet users) that country to discover what is really going on. I don’t think Wikipedia is all that bad, but I feel as though it still has a lot of growing to do before teachers and professors will trust it, if they ever will. 

Acts 3 and 4

So, in the end of Pygmalion, Eliza finally brings herself to the forefront as a human being and she has definitely had enough of Higgins and Pickering trying to tell her what to do and whatnot. I’m a bit disappointed by this. Of course, it’s great for the character that she developed enough to finally stand up for herself and show those two men what she’s really made of... but I think I liked her better when she was just this annoying character that kept making absolutely no sense to anyone. Not that that mattered because Higgins and Pickering basically just ignored her existence anyways.

I think I found the whole situation amusing. Eliza is trying to express ideas that she has, but no one seems to care. This concept seems to still be a bit true that no one cares about her except for Higgins. When she finally expresses her opinion of everything via slipper to a face, Higgins starts to show interest in her. But, honestly, how is she any different from before except now they’re actually sort of paying attention to her? She always made a giant exclamation with nonsense syllables like “aw-oh-oh-oh-oh” or whatever, but now that it has gone physical, they finally pay attention? What kind of turn around is that?! 

I just found the ending to be a bit of a disappoint. It sounds weird, but I think I would have enjoyed it more if they just didn’t care about her still in the end. Would’ve been quite humorous for me.

Pygmalion

I had never heard of nor read the play Pygmalion prior to being assigned to do so in this class. I wasn’t particularly sure what the term “pygmalion” meant, so upon further investigation, I found that it meant a sort of transformation, which I figure will be a large theme in the play. Titles are obviously very important to a work.

I don’t seem to identify with any of the character so far in the play, but I do find Higgins and Eliza’s relationship to be an interesting one. His constant idea of women and how he showcases them to others is interesting, and as the play seems to promise a sort of transformation, I have a theory that the main character that will developed or transformed will be Higgins.

Orwell

I found Orwell’s view of how the English language has been deteriorating and withering away to practically nothing sort of entertaining. I can’t imagine what he would think of how much the English language has changed since his death. With the onslaught of text messaging between cell phones and social networking websites such as Facebook and MySpace in the modern technology age, our language has become sort of impossible to recognize nowadays with abbreviations such as “LOL” or “BTW”. I think Orwell’s concerns are so much before his time, and he has no idea how real his concern really is.

I think the set of rules that showcases at the end of the article are rules that could indeed still be applied to most writing in the modern age, particularly formal writing such as literary essays or reviews. His way of encouraging people to display the English language in the easiest way possible without confusing readers seems to be his goal, and I believe that this is something that most people today fail to do. In formal writing, it is fairly common to read students’ work that involves so many metaphors and similes that can pollute a paper in order to just fill up a page requirement that it takes away from the real topic that’s supposed to be discussed. The idea of using a short word instead of a long word is something that I personally struggle with because this is also a need for most students in today’s academic society to seem more intelligent than their peers. 

As a whole, I feel that society has totally gone against everything Orwell suggests. He urges writers to be more simplified and to the point while still, it seems that the more “intelligent sounding” a piece of writing is today, the better marks it could potentially get in the classroom.

Feminist Perspective on Wuthering Heights

Wuthering Heights was quite head of its time when you sit and consider what Lyn Pykett argues in her feminist point of view. When deciding between the two identities of the two Catherines, Pykett uses a certain way to show how both Catherines seem to resist what society would like for them to be by their upbringings and overall maturation into adulthood. One Catherine has been talked about as being quite wild and unladylike. When this Catherine becomes a bit more mature after venturing to Thrushcross, it would seem that her life is finally on track to a point. I believe she was meant to be unrestrained and “out there”, and perhaps her need to be this way was what led to her destruction, via Edgar and Heathcliff.

The other Catherine seems to endure a particularly similar journey, and I really do enjoy the correspondence between the two. It would appear Brontë did this on purpose, but this time, the other Catherine gets a choice. Sure, she is trapped in Wuthering Heights with no real freedom to an extent, but she gets to choose the love that she wants and it’s just a much nicer ending for her in the end. 

Cultural Criticism

“Nostalgia is a particularly appropriate emotion to invoke in establishing one's innocence and at the same time talk about what one has destroyed" (page 430).

This quotation from this section really made an impact on me because it is something that I’ve always thought about. I’ve often gone back to a moment in my mind and thought about how spectacular a certain event was in my life only to discuss it further with my parents where I was told just how absolutely different the entire occurrence was in reality. It’s sort of an amazing human feature: the ability to delete what is bad from our memories with little to no effort. It is our own personal historical bias.

I believe that perhaps Brontë had this issue with the moors. Perhaps all of her supposed happiest memories were truly there, and she really did love the setting and the atmosphere the entire time she lived there. But isn’t it possible that she only remembered the greatest of the goods from that setting? 

For most people nowadays, it is assumed that someone would be much more in love with the idea of growing up on a beach than in a moor, but seeing as everyone has a unique mind and idea of living, it would make sense that there would be people out there who enjoyed the moors a lot more than a beach. However, if you prefer the beach, are you forgetting all the bad things about the beach like getting sand in your shoes? Salty, frizzy hair? Year round unbearable sunlight? Or are all these things wiped from our memories at the thought of just how much fun we used to have at the beach as children?