Contemporary

Contemporary arts are those that mixes and intertwines all the art forms existed before. First, there is the Rationalists, spread just when the Enlightenment was sweeping across Europe. This form of art is focusing entirely on details and logic or science. Novels revolve around scientific discoveries. Then, the romanticism came along. It brought more sentimental feelings to audiences. Those works usually involve a hero, character that goes to jungle or something like that. A sub branch of ideas known as transcendentalism appears. This idea states that everything is of divinity. Then Civil War came along. The huge tragedy forces everyone to realize the harsh reality.  Artists and writers develop works on daily events and refuse to go anything beyond it. No feelings do they insert into their works. Later, people rejected the cliche ideas and developed the modernism, which is fresh and new and beyond the scope of anything made before. Later, post modernism came along to extend the scope further. After that, comes to our newest idea, contemporary.

Reflect on Your Project

Our project is a success, at least in my eyes tho. Like all other groups, we kind of procrastinated. The APs and everything slows us down, but on that saturday, we managed to get all written work and many pictures printed out. We send it all to Danny, who is pretty much the dictator of our group, but thanks to him that things worked out quite smoothly. On several occasions, we have some arguments that Tim called us kid fights but, things eventually does settle. Danny also went out for us and got us materials needed the next day. We spent the entire sunday afternoon on the bulletin board. After seeing James, Alyson and Judy posted theirs, we decide to dominate and take over rest of the bulletin. I did pretty much the entire design of our project including the rose. However, big credits should be given to Tim for his awesome pictures and his baby fetish.   Danny have great ideas with the glow sticks. However, the blue ones didn't came out as expected, much to our disappointment.  Some funny stuff happened, like when Tim tried to break and light up a glowstick, he spilled the liquid, which I thought it was saliva,  into my eye. We also got yelled at Carol for staying. Nevertheless, we finished it as the first one, the best one, and the only group WITHOUT GIRLS!!!! BOYS DOMINATION!!! Huge thanks to Danny and Tim, both who worked their best to make this project such a great success.

A Horror Story

A Rose for Emily is a horror story. A horror story is a piece of work that involves excessive suspense and sometimes even morbid themes such as murder, supernatural haunting, and death. Scary stories are those that simply projects vivid imagery of something morbid, like monsters or the moment the character is about to get killed. Although usually horror stories share similar themes, the actual attribute of those two kinds of story is in truth, fundamentally very different. Horror stories doesn't aim to project vivid imagery but they wish to create suspense and cause a psychological impact on the readers. The very goals are different. In movies, however, both kinds are pretty much coexisting. Those scary/horror movies suggests a scary morbid image (scary novel attribute) and usually involves long and strong sense of suspense(horror novel attribute)  through music most of the time. Other stories usually provokes similar themes with different ways. Many horror stories apply innovative ways of introducing suspense, including vivid description of an epiphany kind of moment, suggest a list of things that all share something morbid in common. The later is the one applied into A Rose for Emily, Homer's disappearance, the purchase of rat poison and the unbearable odor from the house all suggest something unpleasant.

Homer's End

I believe I watched too much The Simpsons that I have placed the image of Homer with THE Homer. He has all kinds of crazy things happened to him, so I am not surprised at how things went for him. The suspense gave us a sense of misfortune. When I heard of the rat poison,  I knew somebody is going to be killed. The missing of Homer contributes to the intense omen. Her fear of missing the chance to have a relationship with Homer motivates her to kill him with poison. The real creepy part revealed in the end is that she embraces the dead body even when she is old. She want to enjoy the company lifelong. That obsession gives me goosebumps. How would you ever want to love a dead man? That is ridiculously insane. Honestly, Homer is a pretty sad character. He is great man yet he is killed in such a despicable way. He has been poisoned with RAT poison!!!. RAT!!! HOW SAD. Unrequited love can be mold into epics like Romeo and Juliet, but can also be made into sad murder like A Rose For Emily.

Nobel Speech

Faulkner, during his Nobel Prize awarding speech, mentioned that young writers should work on topics that is "the old universal truths…love and honor and pity and pride and compassion and sacrifice.” That makes absolute perfect sense. Although these six themes are cliche, great works and lasting arts are only created with those topics. In the ultimate awesome Shakespearian novel, "Romeo and Juliet", covered all 6 of them. The love between Romeo and Juliet, the honor of the families, the pity of their death, the pride in their love, the compassion towards each other, and the sacrifice they made for their family. All those can also be seen faintly in "A Rose for Emily". Love with Homer, Pride of his father, Pity of Emily's misfortune, Honor of her family, Compassion toward Homer, and Sacrifice of her everything to him. It is evident that Faulkner is consistent in his ideas along the entire way in his literature career.

Eccentric or Crazy?

In "A Rose for Emily", the weird girl we read about is crazy.  We refer to people that's not acting normal but holds high position or attain great wealth as eccentric out of respect. However, since Emily is no longer a aristocratic girl, she doesn't deserve that respect. Honestly, why would anyone sleep with a dead man...especially when he is poisoned by one himself/herself? The obsession with Homer simply show that she is crazy. As story progress ( in chronological way), town folks only take Emily as a crazier and crazier person as things are revealed. She refuse to acknowledge her father is dead. She ignore all laws (wonder why didn't she get sent to prison). And then she bought poison, adding to her eccentricity already known to others. Finally, after she die, the revelation of her murder of Homer makes she a crazy person. Yes, rich people deserve more respect. They are more educated, and they contribute more to the society, thus should be better respected than serfs that barely changes anything in the community. However,  when one loses that status, such privilege should no longer apply. They will not be worthy of be denoted with extra respect from local folks.

The N word

Many awesome literature have been banned or edited in order to lessen the offense by some racial discriminating languages used such as the N word. Although I am not a literature guy, I find it offensive for governments and publishers to edit those arts in order to fit their standard. If those racial activists can not take it, might as well as not purchase it. Art is not created to please everyone. You can't say such art used too much red (bloody) lets ban this artist. Its just not how the way we treat art. In fact, I find it absurd for anyone to take insults from books. Those books were created to picture the time in the story. Sorry, but the sad fact is that not everyone back in those days know about equality and talk in such great manner that those people who are complaining do. Such ideas of banning works that contains the n word is ridiculous. By editing, not only the work of the author is no longer kept to its completeness, but also the description and projection of the era is no longer complete. To sum up, no literature should be banned or edited because of its racial contents and those who find it offensive should just suck it up and be a man/woman.

Retreat

In the story "A Rose for Emily" by William Faulkner, the main character decides to leave the society. People retreat from society to gain inner peace. Thats why there are mission retreats and stuff. The world itself is chaotic. It is known to be chaotic to provide so much little wonders, happy and sad alike, to people. after experiencing extreme events such as winning the lottery, losing a close friend and other stuff, we need peace.  People will withdraw themselves to rest and then continue on. Without these peaceful moments, one may be too pressure like an over- stretched spring, ending up crazy or some sort. This is only normal to retreat oneself from the society. However, it will deteriorate if one indulge in it too much. This became something addicting, some sort of drug. And thats where normality ends and problems begin. These people will soon become recluses or other crazy people, such as serial killers. In the end, this is a pleasure that should be used once in a while. Overdose and Underdose makes one....different, the good or bad will not be for me to decide.

Free Write

I don't know is this just me but it seems like the world is getting more and more rigid as we develop. The very introduction of civilization begin human's limitation. The realistic goals of making money throws us into a box and limit us. Many teachers, governments encourage students to pursue something that really interests them, and yet, those adults create a world that forces us to work for things we don't truly desire. I have a friend who wants to be artists but he have to get a second major simply to make sure stable income. Another guy is really interested in history and literature but those won't support his living. The world adults create builds became a cage for the unlimited potential of kids. Yes, creative people sometimes take chances and succeed. But how many people are discouraged because of the risk? How many attempted and failed, ending up starving in the streets?  For any discerning eye, this world is corrupted. Sentimentality is been stripped from many people because its unrealistic to have them in the 'adult' world. Parents pressure kids to pursue stuff that may not lay in the best interest of kids. Sometimes, I wonder if Western parents are the same as those strict binding Asian parents, who believe they are always right and will make the best choice of their kids. The fact that we have to get into good college, get into good company, earn good salary, live, and die in a coffin became a routine procedure now. In conclusion, our world is corrupted.

I Hate Poetry

I hate poetry. As simple as the phrase may seem, the abundance of reasons why I hate it is, to a degree, scary. To mention why I hate poetry, I have to trace all the way back to when I was a kid. I used to love poetry, back when I was still a kid. I allow imagination to run wild and allow my thoughts project themselves onto my paper, with vivid description and clip arts. Though it may not be the greatest deepest and most awesome poem ever written, it surely portrays my feelings and thoughts well. Now, you might wonder, why would I hate it when I loved it so much? Its like a break up, a divorce. It came as fast as lighting and as shocking as ...umm..earthquake? Anyway, since elementary, my English teacher hates me, or at least, hates whatever I wrote. The rigid regulations for poems discourages me. When I grow up, I realize why. I am just too good at poetry and my English teachers were just jealous. The interaction between poets and readers just never seem sufficient. One idea may be important to the poet but rather trivial to most readers. The randomness, longness (and sometimes shortness), deepness(find those meanings trivial) simply doesn't interest me. As an un-sentimal person anyone may know, the attempt to appeal to my emotions just won't work. The more I try to embrace poem, the more I feel betrayed. In the end, as many of you may know: I HATE POEM.

Horror

What do we pour so stories are scary? Readers are bored so they need something more.  Something abstract yet something so real. Something unusual, more like obscene.  What do we want? Blood and gore. We want opened chest and spilled guts mess. We crave for those just by impulse. This is where vivid imagery comes in. The details of such disgusting scenes excite us.

There is something interesting about us. We want to know, and crave to know. The absence of knowledge or the introduction of incomprehensible objects tend to arouse fear, tension and hatred. In literature, the art in manipulating this fear is known as suspense. Suspense make people suspect, and speculate what's going to happen. The insecurity of this kind is the fear we see in literature.

Humans are different from wild animals for many reasons. Among them, there is imagination that entertains us, educates us, and fill our life with more meaningful abstractions. Imagination works really well when constrained, but when its unleashed, it goes wild. To base imagination out of something we do not know entirely can be catastrophic to our mental peace. Fear of the unknown projects what we are scared the most. Such speculation is how horror movies, stories, music work.