Concidence? I think not!

            Hey y’all! Seems like I’m breaking records here, this is my third post this month! Sweet! So I finally finished reading 1984 and it was downright AMAZING. And that is a surprising statement from me because the first satire novel that I read, Catch-22, I absolutely loathed reading it. Sorry Mrs. Smith! Anyways, I was surprised that I enjoyed it because it was emphasizing the matter of the government and Communism (Sam you would be proud of me!).

            Like I said before, the basis of the satire in this book is through the government’s (Big Brother, in this case) power over the community. Big Brother used propaganda to post phrases like, “BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU,” and he really was, all of the time. Big Brother and his government constructed televisions with cameras on them so he could literally see society’s every move. There was only one corner where the camera could not reach and that was it (as shown in my last post). To continue this dystopian society, pens were so very rare and it was basically illegal to write in a diary. How crazy is that? This type of ruling makes me think of the terrorist attack on September 11, 2001. Long story short, former President of the United States George W. Bush and Congress passed the Patriot Act in which the government could tap into phone calls, emails, and other personal connections without gaining permission from the user(s). Coincidence that Orwell basically predicted this controlling society?

            On top of that, Orwell wrote 1984 only 4 years after World War II, or more specifically, Nazi Germany. To add onto the increasing number of coincidences, in the film adaptation of this satire, Big Brother looks like a replica of Hitler. Anyways, Orwell basically inferred the corruption of the government and quite frankly, he was basically correct (for the American government anyways). Too many Americans are very skeptical of the government and how many secrets are being held by them. Orwell was criticizing this government control and how it was going to become real in 1984. It may not be 1984, but it sure is real.

            To add onto the Communism topic, many people believe places like Russia and North Korea are the correct representation of Communism. In reality, Communism is to make all of society equal, not just the citizens, but the government as well. Putin and Un (respectively) are horrible at representing this concept. And who knows…will America become Communist? Is that why they want to tax the rich more than the poor to make everyone “equal?” I guess we will see.

            This post was not as fun as they usually are, but that is alright. I felt like being a little more insightful today and we were talking about Communism. The fact that Orwell’s prediction of the government’s control is slightly true scares me a little bit because everyone needs their privacy. Will America be the next Communist country? Will Orwell’s dystopian future become fully true? Tune in next week to find out! (Just kidding I don’t know when it will happen if it even does). Catch ya later!!

EG 

INGSOC?

Hey y’all! Long time, no blog. Actually, I think this is the shortest time span from this blog to the previous one. Sweet! New record! But in all seriousness, it’s time to talk literature. Yeah, I know, it sounds boring, but I hope to make it as enjoyable as possible.  Every term, our teacher has us choose an independent reading book for us to read based on what we are learning in class. Last term, I chose Euripides by Medea (personally, I don’t remember what we were studying, but I think she had us choose any book we wanted). This term, I chose 1984 by George Orwell because we are about to begin studying satirical writing. I know, it is a famous book, but I was really interested in reading it because I read his other great satire in eighth grade, Animal Farm. I read the first half of the book and all I can say is: wow.

I know this may come off as very narrow-minded since the first half of the book was filled with information, but I really want to focus on the impact of the first few pages. First, we have to talk about the structure of the satire. Orwell arranged his novel into three parts: One, Two and Three (so original), or Books One, Two and Three. Within these books are sub-chapters titled with roman numerals. Anyways, back to the story. The opening line of the novel goes, “It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen” (1). Immediately, you notice that something is off: Why did Orwell use thirteen instead of one o’clock? That was my question anyways. I also immediately went to military time, because the military uses a 24-hour clock instead of a 12-hour clock, like most do. Red flags went up because I knew that this had to be about war of some sort, because what else does the military do?

I continued reading and noticed the first word of the second sentence was the first name of a Winston Smith. Now I don’t know why, but it immediately made me think of Winston Churchill. And just as I typed in George Orwell into the handy-dandy Google search engine, I learned that he was born and raised in London. Coincidence? I think not! (shout out to my sophomore Honors Chemistry teacher Mrs. Derocher for that). Anyways, I made the connections! Winston Churchill led England during World War II and guess what? 1984 was written in 1949, only four years after World War II. Another coincidence? You can finish that phrase!

I know this post probably wasn’t very insightful, but I really just wanted to focus on these connections (whether true or not) that I made within the first 15(!!!!!!!) words of the novel. Wow. I’m actually surprised that I made these connections because usually just blow right past them until another classmate mentions the allusion or indirect connection, and then I feel really dumb. But now, I see myself making progress, even if this connection was small. Either way, I’m growing. And that’s the most important part of schooling.

Until next time,

EG

The Blame Game

Hey y’all, I am back. I have been busy with all of this schoolwork! College is very stressing as well and I just turned in applications! Ahhh! Anyways, my class and I started and finished reading Othello by William Shakespeare. Honestly, it was one of the better plays that I have read, which is very minimal to begin with. In addition, I really do not like reading poetry or analyzing it so knowing that his plays are big poems was a hard start to the play. I pushed through it! Moreover, I actually understood most of it so that was great too. Big thanks to my teacher, classmates, and Spark Notes (I really did not use this a lot, really!). Anyways, the tragic hero Othello committed some pretty heinous acts, including murdering his wife, Desdemona. However, he did this based off of lies told by his bff and ancient, Iago. The question is: Who’s to blame?

My number one pet peeve is lying and people who lie. I lose so much respect for people who have the audacity to lie to me. I really do not see a reason in lying because people always find out the truth, especially my nosey self. From that reason alone, I blame Iago more than I blame Othello. From the beginning, Iago has done this all for himself. He sacrificed his best friend Roderigo, his marriage to Emilia, and his government position all to wreak havoc on Othello because he was jealous. He was jealous because he THOUGHT that Othello slept with his wife. He was also jealous that Othello chose Michael Cassio to be lieutenant instead of him. I think these are awful reasons to lie to someone to be honest.  So yes, I am blaming this all on Iago. Yes, I think Othello should have believed his wife more than his ancient, but Iago initiated these lies on RUMORS and ACCUSATIONS. There was no logical reason for Iago not to confront Othello and ask him why he did not choose him to be his lieutenant. This whole debacle is just outrageous! It made me so mad reading the play because I did not see how everyone could just believe Iago without finding out some truth! Before everyone died and killed themselves! Baffling.

That’s my rant for today. You all should read this play, I really enjoyed it and I usually don’t enjoy these types of genres. Shakespeare, you’ve done good. (Yes, I know that is grammatically incorrect so please do not hate me). I am still angry that Iago actually committed these acts of cruelty and that everyone believed him! Maybe I feel this way because I knew everything as the reader. I knew Iago’s whole plan from the beginning and I knew that he felt nothing towards the lives of his friends and family. He betrayed everyone. He betrayed me too! I had faith that he was going to turn around, tell everyone his plan, and save so many lives. But nope. That didn’t happen. Oh well. Until next time, my readers!

EG