Archetype

According to the Merriam Webster dictionary, the word archetype means the original pattern or model of which all things of the same type are representations or copies. It can also mean the perfect example. For example, Superman is an example of an archetypical character that represents justice, truth and wisdom. Superman is some typical romantic heroes that save the day and defeat the villain. According to Carl Jung, in order to achieve mental health, one needs t realized our own archetype and make up stories with them in it. For example, in the movie Star Wars, the story is full of archetype. Luke skywalker represents owns own idealized self that we went through adventures in life. The archetype of an evil man is Darth Vader, who in the end is actually a reflection of oneself. An archetype of a mentor or a helper in life is Obewan Kenobe, who help Luke, the self, to achieve own ultimate goals. To make people an archetype, it has to be a model or a typical model of a certain thing. In literature, it often include archetype like the innocent self, evil opposition who gives you the conflict, a helper who give you advices and help you overcome your difficulty, and the ultimate goal of winning back and earning someone who loves them. 

Contemporary

 Throughout the year, we have looked at several literary movements in American Literature class. We have witness the Rationalism period. This is the time when literature contained element that believed that god created the universe and that people arrive truths by using reason instead of feeling. They believe strongly in religion that everything is a reflection of god and that we are ultimately predetermined in our fate since we are born and we work in this word seemly to redeem our sin. Moving on, we then have the Romanticism. This is the period where people started to move away from reason and believe that intuition and feeling valued over reason. Romantic heroes were created during this time and imaginative stories were created. However, as Civil war started, Americans finally realized the violence of war and were brought back to reality. In the Realist movement, people stopped to idealize the world; instead they focus on observing and characterized ordinary events and daily life, trying to portray life as realistic as possible. Then we came to the First World War where we move on to Modernism. In Modernism, artists and writers begin to look and explore the word with a different and unique perspective. In the contemporary, or post-modern, movement, we are willing to look back at the past and use them fearlessly to include culture diversity and all multiple meaning. 

Reflect on Your project

I did a project on the Handmaid’s Tale with Judy and Alyson. When I heard that instead of writing an essay for Handmaid’s tale, we were doing a group project, I felt relieved that I wouldn’t have to type essay again. During the first group discussion, Judy came up with an excellent idea by making a 3D display of the project instead of a conventional 2D poster. We decided to use three shoeboxes with each of the boxes to represent a category of connection including text to text, text to self and text to world. In each of the shoeboxes, we will place cards each with example and a picture of our connection. Each one of us will come up with an example for each category so it will be fair that neither one of us will have to do a harder category of connections. I feel lucky to have Alyson and Judy on the team, who stay till 2 in the morning in school making the poster. We work peacefully and cooperate well all the time. Although we have some sort of schedule problem with the meeting time, mostly due to me, we are able to get the project done on time. Great job everyone! 

A Horror Story?

Is “A Rose for Emily” a horror story? Yes I will definitely say it’s a horror story. Unexpected and horrific things happen at the end of the story. This type of horror story is often called a Gothic horror which combines elements of both horror and romance. This type of horror story is somewhat different from the horror movies of the modern error. Many horror movies or novels focus on supernatural event such as aliens or monster coming out of a corner of dark gloomy rooms. Horror movies often include violence and revolting scene such as blood spilled all over the place in a room or crazy monster that screams and have blood all over its teeth. In horror movies, with the story and the abnormal setting enables the audience to know ahead of time that something terrible is going to happen. As in “A Rose for Emily”, readers don’t really have a sense of fear as the only thing we know is that poor Miss Emily is overly protected by his father and has a crushed on Homer Barron, a Yankee whom the southerner hate. Puzzles pieces were slowly shown to us as we progress through the story such as Homer Barron never ever came out of the house again and the strange smell that lasted for week from Miss Emily’s house. The shocking ending is the final kicker that truly makes this story a horrific one to read. 

Homer's End

The end for “A Rose for Emily” is truly frightening that I was indeed very surprise by the result. After Emily’s death, the town people found a dried mummy of a man lying on a bed upstairs in a room in Emily’s house. The room seems to be untouched for decades that the room is filled with ashes and dust. Everything in the room is beautifully decorated as if it’s a honey moon room. The mummy seems to be Homer Barron that Miss Emily probably poisoned him with the arsenic, which supposedly to be used for rat, she brought in a drug store. Miss Emily probably poisoned Homer Barron because she wanted to marry him so badly that she is afraid Homer will leave her and doesn’t want to marry or settle down. Wishing Homer can forever stay with her, Emily probably put some arsenic in a glass of wine and tricks Homer into the bed with her. After Homer is dead, Miss Emily probably decided to leave Homer’s dead body along on the bed for it to decay for a couple of weeks, which causes an awful smell described in the beginning of the story. She probably later sealed the room for some reason and occasionally come up to lie next to him which later result of a gray strain of hair on the pillow next to Homer. 

Nobel Prize

In Faulkner’s Novel Prize acceptance speech, he urges young writers to tackle the old universal truth such as love, honor, pity, pride, compassion and sacrifice. In Faulkner’s short pose in A Rose for Emily, he seems to follow the write in terms of the old universal truths that he portrays the truth of love, pride, compassion and perhaps some sort of sacrifice that involve in some eccentric actions. In my opinion, the world today, there is no stuff that is not in the field of universal truths. Everything in the world is revolved around these basic truths. Even things such as the nuclear bomb involves with love, pride, compassion and sacrifice. Nuclear bomb is used for to sacrifice millions of lives to prevent billions of life from death and the continuation of war. Nothing in literature is averted from the old universal truths. Although poetries today seem to convey not such a clear universal truth, everything in the end is still connected to it. Everything in life or I should say big important things that motivate people are connected to the universal truth. People live to find truth such as love, to achieve pride, have compassion for others and sacrifice things for a greater goal. 

Eccentric or Crazy

In “A Rose for Emily,” Ms. Emily seems to be out of situation and still is living in the past for a long time. She seems not to understand the way things work such as the fact that she needs to pay tax or just in fact that she pretends not understand in order to avoid dealing with things she finds unpleasant and probably annoying. When rich people act this way, we often called them as eccentric. However if a person with a lower rank, we will often refer to their action as crazy. In my opinion, I found Miss Emily to be a bit crazy with some sort of psychological diseases. In the story, she keeps on repeating the phase “I don’t pay no taxes in Jefferson” She refuses to get help from the community and refuses to understand the fact that she is no longer rich with a high social status. Although people respect her, people pity her as fallen nobility who is still delusional that she is still the once respected woman. I think it is unfair when people from different social castes to receive different treatment. Everyone should be equal that no one should have any more privilege than any other.