htank oyu

 Acknowledgements:

Lots to thank..

• My car is barely alive and is long overdue for maintenance in many ways.  Somehow still gets me   around.
• All my teachers were people I felt like I learned from, in some way or another, even if I didn't like them.  
• As an aside, AP Lit completely changed my perception of English classes, I genuinely enjoyed every part of it and looked forward to it.   I hated Lang so much its inexpressible, and I know the classes are different, but there's also a difference in how they're taught, and its easy to tell.  I actually loved Lit and reading new things and then writing about them, Mrs. Feldkamp has genuinely changed the way I look at things.   Back when she told the story of how she connected Siddartha to her own life, leading up to her eventually being a teacher, showing how literature can be something completely impactful outside of text - it felt like such a profound full circle moment that I really haven't had any teacher ever describe.  Its the kind of thing I won't really forget. 
• My phone gets me through life
• My family pushed me hard, but it paid off - and if it didn't, they would still be at my side.
• I found the right barber sophomore year 🙏 .  He got me right.
• My friends are always there for me, even if we are all doing our own thing, I know I have people in my corner.  I may not see some of them as often in the future, but they'll always be around for me as I am for them.   
• I used to be the nerdiest of my friends, they didn't watch the same stuff as me, or read the things I did (this might be why i like AP Lit), but in high school, I met a new friend, Clark, and for the first time I met someone more into movies, shows, and fiction in general than I am myself  I used to rarely talk about and keep all my thoughts about the things I've seen in my head, but now thats different.  We talk about that stuff all the time and it opened my eyes to other things I never would have watched.   Finding People who like the same things I do, made me appreciate those things even more.  -  That’s only one example, but my friends have brought me things I never could have had, even people i’m just acquainted with too!
• James, Mahesh, Eric, and Thankith made AP Lit extremely fun, those guys were the best - during projects we had fun just messing around and eventually getting our stuff done.   Even if we spent the first 3 hours looking at cars on craigslist (that camaro was a scam for sure.)
• My ceiling fan in my room provides the white noise that lets me sleep 
• Every loss i’ve taken because i thing i’ve only been better because of that 
• Cross country and Track for literally changing my life
• When I think about one most impactful thing it has to be this one - so much so that I can't describe it briefly enough.   People used to tell me it did that, especially XC since I didn't do it freshman or sophomore year and people tried to convince me, and I didn't believe them.  I was wrong.  So wrong. 
• Myself - for making it through it all
• Thanks to "Waiting for Godot" for being so boring that I won't find anything else boring ever again
• Every experience ive ever had - good, bad, terrible, amazing - thats made me where I am now, and I know that I'm barely a fraction of the way there.

i drive a 2012 chevy malibu, not a DeLorean

    Sometimes, and i know im not the only one, I get caught up with how things could have been different or changed.  Whether its a mistake or some neutral decision, was the other option better?  Whether its with school, sports, relationships, family, I always feel like there's always a nagging desire to turn back time and see if I could've done it better.  Could i have made my high school experience better just by doing a few things differently? 

    Time travel would be handy.

    or would it?

    Depends on how it works.  

    If its like Terminator or Looper, It wouldn't matter, I would just go back in time and set into motion events that were meant to happen in the reality I already live in.  The "Bootstrap paradox" stems from this.  At that point I don't truly have free will, as I am a prisoner to my future and whether I mess up or don't, isn't exactly my own choice.  

Seeing the future would have a similar effect.

    A time loop like Groundhog Day or Edge of Tomorrow seems like it would just suck.  If it takes as many tries to figure out the way to succeed as it did for Tom Cruise's character to figure out how to beat the aliens, then I don't think I'm meant to succeed.  I mean life does seem pretty repetitive, but that's all and well going to change.   Also Emily Blunt's character, who fell in love with him (in one day?) completely forgets the events (because they didn't happen) so he saved the world but he couldn't have it all.  

    If it's like the Marvel Universe (think Avengers: Endgame for a well known example), I would be creating a separate timeline by changing events.  So there will still be a version of me who "screwed up" as opposed to the me that didn't.  

    Traveling to the future seems inconsequential, but also pointless for fixing mistakes.  Unless its like the German show DARK, in which the future also affects the present.  But that world is terrible, depressing, filled with incest, and just overall not a great time - so i hope if time travel does exist it doesn't end up like that.  

    The ideal situation is like Back to the Future, a simple version where what you change in the past changes the future.  But you have to be careful, sure i could fix my problems, but I could also erase my existence (leading to the "Grandfather Paradox").  A small change could cause big ripples in any direction.

Sure I can wish certain things could have gone differently but they went this way for a reason.  If my dad

or mom had the power to fix a mistake or change an important decision after the fact - maybe I would never have existed!  

    Well the point is that time travel won't fix my problems.  In all the aforementioned stories, time travel actually creates more, other, difficult decisions - and there is still conflict and consequences and growth from those things for the characters (otherwise what kind of story would it be?)  Marty has to make sure his parents still get together; simply going back in time doesn't ensure that all the Infinity Stones are in possession; and what would you do if the only solution to fix the world was to get rid of the time travel you have (Dark and Edge of Tomorrow)?   

    A simple solution to problems never truly exists - because if you think it does it opens other problems up, but everything leads you to become who you are.  Siddartha couldn't have found enlightenment without gambling everything away.  Santiago couldn't have found his treasure without having a thief steal his money from the start.  If they were able to go back and fix those mistakes - what would they become?

    Its pointless to focus on if it could be better or worse - it just is!  I'm not Marty McFly, i'm a senior in high school living in the present with a lot of good things going for him, and i turned out that way through the way high school, and life, went.  I've learned that i just have to live with that - even though sometimes that belief can get swayed.   Regret is natural but not worse than potentially ending the world via the butterfly effect and you eating an orange in 2022 causes mass nuclear detonation that ends the world 2 years later.

10 years of books

1. V for Vendetta

A graphic novel by Alan Moore, who made Watchmen, which is one of my favorite things I've read.  Im honestly suprised i havent even read it yet - as a I find graphic novels/comic books easier to start so maybe I'll read this earlier on if i want to get into the groove of reading.  The book centers on an anarchist rebel in a dystopian society where a totalitarian regime rules.  The premise leads me to believe that Moore could tackle these ideas just as well as he did before.

 2. The Count of Monte Cristo 

  I know the story through movies and retelling, but i have never read the actual book.  It’s one of those books that people tend to reference when a story beat for some other form of media goes one way, and i although i understand it I don’t know if i can truly a appreciate.  From the author of the The Three Musketeers, this is a classic revenge/redemption story that I tend to enjoy and I must read. 

3. Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy

Another book that I feel like is mind blowing that I haven’t read yet.  Sci-if is my favorite genre (and it isn’t even close), but it has a comedic twist that apparently satirizes the genre and focuses on the humor rather than the Sci-fi setting itself but ends up being more profound and thought provoking.  That description itself sounds like this book would be a major hit or miss for me but I have to try it at least, and who knows, maybe I’ll end up reading all of the books in the series.  

4. World War Z

I've watched the movie and played the game that are both based off of it, and have heard they are nothing like it.  I've also heard its the quintessential zombie apocalypse novel, split into various stories through the form of interviews.  I like dystopic stories - and zombies are cool too, so I gotta read it.  

5.  Dune 

Yeah I’ll admit the movies have severely influenced the decision for this to be on the list.  But i always had the urge to read the grand influential series of books that inspired countless Science fiction and space opera type stories.  I love things like Star Wars, why should I not read the novel that paved the way for it, even though I just recently delved into the story?

6. Hyperion

Well known for its world building, the first book in the series is something I’ve had my eye on.  It began as various stories the author told to his students verbally, and then became compiled into an intricate world of different plot lines that weave together.  It is complicated and all over the place, but it sounds so interesting - a book about seven individuals traveling to a mysterious planet.

7. Catch 22

A book about a Captain of an American bombardier stationed on an island and attempting stay alive.  It is dark and satirical and confronts the meaning of war.   It also coined such a popular term of the same name, so I want to read the origin of that term and understand it as Heller implemented it in his book. 

8.  Slaughterhouse Five 

The author, Kurt Vonneget, served in the Army and was a prisoner of war in Dresden during the bombings of the city in WWII.  In this novel he inserts his own experience into the fictional character of Billy Pilgrim which serves the purpose of his anti-war message, and supposedly there is a science fiction element to the historical fiction novel which sounds like an interesting melding of genres.

9.  Crime and Punishment

I have heard so much about this book, which follows a character who commits justifies committing a crime by musing that he could do great things if he isn’t poor anymore, but he struggles with his morality after the crime.  I know it is a difficult read, and I’m kind of averse to reading it, but with that premise it presents a setting in which I’ll be forced to confront some universal truths about human nature - so i dont know if I should read it now or later, but I eventually decided upon later in the ten years.   

10. Ender’s Game

Back when I read this book for the first time, it became my favorite for a while.   Despite the controversy around some of the author’s questionable views, I found the premise of this story really entertaining.  The main character is a kid who ends up leading a war effort in space against an alien species, but some of the themes in the book hit me harder than i expected.  When i read it i expected something fun and i was pleasantly surprised.  I am interested to see if my enjoyment of this book will hold up later in life.

toilet knowns no grace

     I  (admittedly) don't really go out of my way to read poems, so any that impact me i happen across through other sources.  One of which is "The View from Halfway Down" by Alison Tafel, for the show Bojack Horseman.  (my rendition of the poems style is at the end of the post)

"

The weak breeze whispers nothing

The water screams sublime

His feet shift, teeter-totter

Deep breath, stand back, it’s time

Toes untouch the overpass

Soon he’s water bound

Eyes locked shut but peek to see

The view from halfway down

A little wind, a summer sun

A river rich and regal

A flood of fond endorphins

Brings a calm that knows no equal

You’re flying now

You see things much more clear than from the ground

It’s all okay, it would be

Were you not now halfway down

Thrash to break from gravity

What now could slow the drop

All I’d give for toes to touch

The safety back at top

But this is it, the deed is done

Silence drowns the sound

Before I leaped I should’ve seen

The view from halfway down

I really should’ve thought about

The view from halfway down

I wish I could’ve known about

The view from halfway down 

"

The poem's message is simple, it is about the regret of someone committing suicide in the middle of the act.  The poem slowly deconstructs the persons thoughts in the split second time that they fall - detailing their regret in a terrifying way.  It begins in third person, detached from the person, as the calm and tranquility almost seems inviting.  Then, it shifts to the first person, and the point of view becomes chaotic in that timeframe as instinct and fear kick in.  In a way it tries to warn against acting in such a way by convincing the audience that regret will be inevitable, as from a detached sense it may seem right, but survival is in the instinct and fear cannot be avoided.  It is a very blunt poem, it's meaning is obvious and not hidden beneath layers.   Reading it is one thing, but this poem made me realize how much they can fit into larger contexts and be so much more impactful.  The way it was presented in the show was harrowing.

      DONT MOVE ON IF YOU NEVER WATCHED THE SHOW, IF YOU DONT CARE/HAVE WATCHED    PLEASE CONTINUE. (its one of my favorite shows so if you havent watched it dont read and put it on your list)

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

SPOILER SECTION--

    The episode begins in a psychedelic dream state of the main character at a dinner party with passed away friends and his father - taking the form of a race horse that commited suicide by jumping off of a bridge - performs this poem.  Bojack faces the inevitability of death, facing all the people in his life who have died.  As his mental palace keeps collapsing, the audience slowly realizes that Bojack himself is in such a situation as he is drowning in his pool in real life.  This episode of the show blew my mind and is still one of my favorites in all of TV, and the poem is a huge part of why - that scene still sticks in my head.  I think poetry is immensely impactful in larger contexts, especially when its theme or message tackles something presently relevant.  

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

My (shorter) rendition (and happier):

The weak odor smells unreal 

The flavor must be sublime 

His saliva drools with appeal

Open wide, it's time

to eat the Taco Bell.

.......

But that is all, my stomach is full

crumbs drown my face

Before I ate I should've predicted

my toilet knowing no grace

I really should've thought about 

my toilet knowing no grace

I wish I could've known about 

my toilet knowing no grace

I (don't) hate poetry. Poetry hates me. We are a big happy family.

     I like poetry, but I don't love it.  I feel like if I had to rank every form of work - there would be many things above poetry: movies, books, shows, short stories, songs, etc.   However, I can appreciate art and poetry is definitely an art.   And I am going to contradict myself here, but you really can't compare different works (even though I just did).  

    The lyrical, rhythmic nature of poems that can be read aloud or silently creates an art form unlike any other.  I have read many emotionally impactful poems and loved them but there is something about them that does grind my gears and I wasn't able to pick it out until Pooja brought something up.  She mentioned how she likes those 2 line poems that appear on TikTok every once in a while.  

Wow so profound.  Yes this is the stuff Pooja likes... I am not judging!!  Its an art and i actually have seen some really creative poems like these, but it makes me realize what I dont like about poems.   It's so easy to make them bad.  

Poem's with their rules, or lack of, and their immense symbolism and rhythm and meter, are difficult to create, but also easy to do in the sense that they are short.  If any person decides to write a couple lines, they have a poem! and it could be really bad.  Trying to be artful and creative in a really stupid (subjective) way, to the point that it becomes corny.   But in that case they actually end up being ironically funny, so maybe their worth lies there?   Maybe it is okay because there will always be someone who appreciates your art, like Pooja.   Maybe an understanding of even the most boring and subjectively "bad" forms of art is something we need to appreciate.  Maybe Pooja knows something I don't.

english hokey pokey

     The greatest thing that shifted in me this semester as a reader and writer is noticing and making connections between works: intertextuality.   I already love making pop culture references, in real life and in writing essays or projects (just look through my blogs), but it went to another level after this class.  Intertextuality was one of the first things we talked about in the class - about how every story has some general structure to it, a quest of sorts.  This sort of validated my experiences because I always loved noticing parallelism across stories and then bringing that to fiction that is more akin to an English class, like Oedipus or The Death of a Salesman, became natural to me. 

    The idea that all works build off of previous ones is so profound to me, we first came across that idea in How to Read Lit Like a Professor,  and it has stuck with me ever since.   TDAS came so far after Oedipus, but as tragedies they share much in common, without the latter, Willy Loman's story would never have existed.  Nevertheless, these stories are different but you can piece together influences and straight up references, something I have done before, but in a very different light.  Now I consider the time period and the historical context of when and where a story is written.  All that stuff matters and it feels like in this class I am forced to notice it.  Even in essay prompts, if iI write to answer the prompt, I may use several sources to argue it - or even if I only use one, I think about another work that could have been used as well!

    I think every piece we have consumed in this class has impacted me, albeit to different extents, but together I feel like the more I read or watch, the more these links of intertextuality are being made and the more I am noticing them, and the side effects of that are nice since I can understand the message a new story far easier!

Redeadtion

      Redemption arcs are satisfying.  Watching a character at rock bottom slowly work their way back up onto a moral high ground, is one of the most entertaining character developments that can occur.  

     In a tragedy, redemption is few and far between.  The story ends at rock bottom rather than giving the character a chance to recover.  A prevalent way for this to occur is by death.  Othello kills himself at the end of Othello, and Willy Loman kills himself at the end of The Death of a Salesman.   Does death act as a punishment for the tragic hero, or as an absolution from their sins?  Is it a redeeming act for these two characters, for example, to kill themselves after everything they’ve done?  I think it’s none of these.  Death simply acts as a way to provide defined closure to a character arc on a downturn, there is no open-ended nature to it - just a consequence of the tragic events in the story.   It usually removes redemption as an option, which has no place in a traditional tragedy, depending on how it’s defined, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that redemption can’t be possible for certain tragic heroes.

    A tragedy, according to Britannia, is a “branch of drama” that tackles the “terrible events encountered or caused by heroic individual”.  Aristotle defined “moral ambiguity” as the true core of a tragedy, and Shakespeare loosely followed that train of thought in his Elizabethan tragedies.  Othello is both somewhat understandable and reprehensible as his actions drive his downfall and bring other characters down with him - and this stands precisely true for our perception of Willy Loman in modern tragedy.  We feel bad for these characters, but cannot admit that it isn’t their fault.  Both are tragic heroes with fatal flaws in a plot-driven story that grants some knowledge to the audience (a lesson).   Tragedy is impactful to the audience by ending at the lowest of lows, and death is one of the best ways for that to occur.  Can redemption even truly fit in here? 

    Redemption is the “act, process, or instance of serving to offset or compensate for a defect” (Merriam-Webster).  In terms of character development, it serves as a way for a character to make amends for past mistakes or wrongdoings and become more virtuous, perhaps through some heroic acts. It appears that on the surface, redemption can certainly occur in a tragic story.  A character with a reprehensible fatal flaw that ends up being his wrongdoing, is still likable, pitied, and rooted for - it's not out of the question for a character to turn it around - unless they die of course.

                                                                            dead    

In fact, death is a way for tragedies to completely remove redemption as a possibility, marking the finality of a character.   It’s hard to imagine that Othello would keep being so gullible, and not want to make amends with those he hurt, like Cassio, after he realized he was manipulated into hurting himself and others.  But since he dies, that is not up to speculation.  So to find redemption in a tragedy, we may have to remove death as a factor.

Liang mentions how, unlike Shakespearean tragedies, Classical Chinese tragedies end differently.  “Shakespeare usually depicts a noble person's final calamity resulting from his own defect in personality; most of the heroes in classical Chinese tragedies are common people with a perfect moral quality, who suffer a lot to defend justice and end up with a good result”. In fact they seem fundamentally very different, besides the suffering.  In fact no matter how twisted or unique the word “tragedy” may get, suffering to invoke pity or any strong reaction from the audience seems to be. common along cultural and time barriers. The problem is that the “perfect moral quality” removes redemption as an option too.  In this tragedy, the characters are already good, there is nothing to redeem.  Unfortunately removing death does not completely guarantee the possibility of redemption.

There is no room for redemption in a tragic story as defined by certain classical writers and authors. Still, in present popular culture, it is easier to find a character that fits the strain of a “tragic hero” yet still finds a sort of redemption that goes against that traditional idea of a tragedy.   Common examples of redemption that people consider in modern pop culture include characters like Darth Vader, Arthur Morgan, or Prince Zuko.  

             SPOILERS FOR EACH OF THE ABOVE CHARACTERS AHEAD!!!

Anakin Skywalker’s turn to the dark side is tragic.  Manipulated to hate those who raised him, accidentally killing his loved one, being forced to fight his master and best friend who defeated and mutilated him: all of this resulted in him becoming the iconic villain clad in black armor.   In fact, the entire prequel trilogy of Star Wars has the makings of a tragedy: The Jedi Order’s ignorance and arrogance allowed for their downfall and the very soldiers and friends they fought alongside for years turned on them inexplicably, killing almost all of them. However, the lack of death for a few of the main characters prevents this story from ending (or the fact that the original trilogy already existed). Unlike how Othello or Willy died at the end of the tragedy,  Anakin, his newborn children, Obi-wan, Yoda, and more are all still alive.  There is still the possibility for redemption for Vader and for the world.   I mean, Episode IV is quite literally called “A New Hope."  Although in the end Vaser isn’t redeemed in the eyes of the world, still technically a mass murderer.  He is redeemed in the eyes of his son, saving him and many more with just one act.  

Tragic heroes like Vader are perfect for redemption arcs, because they have shown some redeeming qualities, have been good before, or have foreshadowed their better side in some way.  If Shakespeare decided to add a redemption arc, it would be for Othello, not for Iago, who is a pure villain who has shown no good - in which case a redemption would be somewhat unsatisfying.   

 

In Avatar: The Last Airbender, Zuko’s redemption is seen from a mile away.  He is introduced as a villain with honor, only trailing the Avatar to capture him and restore his standing with the Fire Nation, who banished him.  Throughout his journey he takes refuge within the people who feel the oppression of his very nation he seeks to rejoin, and has his views shaken.  His well-mannered uncle accompanies him and also influences his evolution.   As a character, he is paralleled with Aang, the main character, and overall a change in heart is foreshadowed.  Not every character is fit for a redemption arc.  If Zuko stayed by his father, the leader of the nation, he would have ended up like his sister - cold-blooded, and psychopathic.  However, the combination of certain personality traits and the right experiences and influences changed him for the better.  Othello had positive qualities that were highlighted early on, but someone like Iago, a pure villain like Fire Lord Ozai, has no real place for redemption as the story stands.  For redemption to be satisfying, it must make sense, and tragic heroes tend to have “good” qualities besides their fatal flaws that they can cling to, to restore themselves.   Redemption is easily a possibility from a character development standpoint for tragic characters.

                      Eventually taking the throne as Fire Lord and working to change the world for                     

                                       the better.... sounds like redemption to me.  

However, Avatar is not a tragedy.  Zuko doesn’t die at the end of this story.  And although Vader dies and his initial downfall is tragic, his later actions completely save the galaxy and are hard to describe as tragic.  They are simply characters with tragic backstories or lives that went down the wrong path and redeemed themselves, which feels like a step down from what we are looking for.

Maybe we can find the story we are looking for in a unique narrative piece of media - a video game. In Red Dead Redemption 2 (yes it's literally in the name), Arthur Morgan is an outlaw and a member of the Van der Linde gang during the decline of the Wild West era. Participating in many crimes and death, he was not a good man, but he was honest.   After contracting tuberculosis, he was given a deadline for his life, which was a catalyst for change, even though doubts about his way of life and allegiances were being questioned constantly.   Through the narrative vessel of a video game, the player has the option to keep Arthur as someone cold and aggressive - dying brutally - or as someone empathetic and selfless - dying peacefully after helping his friend’s family escape the gang’s downfall.  No matter how you look at it, the story is tragic in almost every way.  Arthur is a member of the gang, and they are the reason for their own downfall. However, he can slowly redeem himself as he helps the community and understands the way to truly live, as he slowly dies. A tragic hero dies a tragic death as his friends lose trust in him and he has to find what’s important in the world.  This is, in my eyes, a tragedy with death and redemption.  It has it all.  Would someone like Shakespeare consider this to be a tragedy? 

    No matter the answer to that question.  We have found that “tragedy” has many different connotations.  Me dropping my phone is tragic.  Willy Loman’s suicide is also tragic.  Even in a literary sense, tragedy is different for different cultures and eras, but when considering a tragedy that must end in death, redemption is removed as an option. For one that doesn’t end in death, it seems to, paradoxically, also be removed as an option.   A middle ground is certainly possible, but for the classic stories, a simple death or success is just impactful enough without the recovery a redemption may provide.  Sometimes just the purely negative events and emotions are what the writer wants to convey through catharsis and audience reaction.

      The very friend Arthur saves (John) eventually succumbs to the cycle of revenge himself...

    

                                                                            .....................

                                                                        Works Cited

Liang, Junqing. "On Tragic Heroes: A Comparative Study of Hamlet and the Orphan of Chao." Theory and Practice in Language Studies, vol. 5, no. 10, Oct. 2015, p. 2076+. Gale Literature Resource Center, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A446734731/LitRC?u=lom_macombtgps&sid=bookmark-LitRC&xid=10e3a0cd. Accessed 21 Dec. 2023.

"Redemption." Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/redemption. Accessed 10 Jan. 2024.

Sewall, Richard B. and Conversi, Leonard W.. "tragedy." Encyclopedia Britannica, 20 Nov. 2023, https://www.britannica.com/art/tragedy-literature. Accessed 20 December 2023.