College English · Pahomov/Rhymer · C Band Public Feed
In the Time of the Butterflies - The End
So It Goes Podcast (Book Club Meeting 3)
Matthew, Deja, Katie, Zahira, Leah
The 10 Minute Extension
Alex, Kaitlyn, Sofia, and Tylier
David & David Podcast #3: Author's Intent
Podcast 3: Brendan Hall & Barnes, Sean Johnson, Justin Stewart
So It Goes Podcast (Book Club Meeting 2)
Matthew, Deja, Katie, Zahira, Leah
https://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/battle-of-dresden
The article was about the bombing that occurred in Dresden, Germany during World War II. It does a really good job of explaining the context in which the attack happened. It also has a section dedicated to talking about the aftermath of the bombing. Throughout the book, the author and the main character mention the bombing in Dresden many times. Ultimately, Dresden is where the main character finds himself imprisoned at Slaughterhouse Five, and he winds up surviving the attack. This directly correlates to the New Historicist lens because Kurt Vonnegut survived the Dresden bombing as a prisoner of war. Likely, he included the Dresden bombing in his book as a way to interpret the traumatic event that happened to him.
The article was about how the concentration camps worked as mentioned in the title. Starting off with these two French women mentioning the large trucks filled with dead bodies. It scarred them, saying that “If one day someone makes a film they must film this scene. This night. This moment.” Later on in the article, it mentioned that there was a child's room. That room was for women who were going into the camps pregnant, they were forced to be apart from their baby, that baby would then be placed into the room to starve to death or eaten alive by rats. The camps were grotesque and powerful for those not in the camps. It shows Hitler's rule over the people. It provides more insight into the novel and the lens chosen due to the fact that the prison camps are mentioned a bit within the books. Mentioned in the beginning and when readers were told Billy had gotten captured pretty young. Kurt Vonnegut was also captured pretty young by the Germans after he was drafted into the war.
The Children's Crusade was known as a movement where 20000 child soldiers who were assigned to fight when there was a greater chance of losing the war than winning with many survivors. Many of these children made it back home but a majority of them ended up captured and being sold into slavery. this was a fight fought in 1212 c.e, but it has relevance when speaking of our book " Slaughterhouse Five" where many of our characters have fought in the second world war. Billy who is one of our main characters is captured as he is fighting. He and those he fighting are only 16 to 18. Still children in our time.
Pols, Hans, and Stephanie Oak., "WAR & Military Mental Health." AM J Public Health. (2007). PMC: U.S. National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health. Web. 7 Jan 2019.
This article was an informative position article of sorts written by two U.S. government doctors researching WWII PTSD, especially during the 20th century. It mainly spoke of how psychiatrists during this era treated the soldiers before deployment and after discharge. This article felt that the treatments available now were inadequate for treating war inflicted PTSD on the before, during, and after the war. This article provided more insight into my novel and lens because the book itself is mainly about veteran suffering from PTSD and how his life was affected by it in a very roundabout way. Nevertheless, this book creates some inside on the historical background on how WWII soldiers were being treated during that time.
In the Time of the Butterflies Podcast #2
LeÓn, Concepción De. “In Praise of Julia Alvarez.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 20 June 2018, www.nytimes.com/2018/06/20/books/in-praise-of-julia-alvarez.html.
This article is about a family to leave the DR to escape Rafael Trujillo. The article speaks about how the sisters were considered revolutionary heroes who had opposed the fought against Trujillo. It talked about how the rules were strict for the girls on the Island, and how the DR were worried that they were going to lose their girls to America. I guess this goes into the idea of possession. How the men wanted to keep the women to themselves for their own personal desires.
Nwanevu, Osita. “In the First Forty-Eight Hours of the New Congress, a Mixed Triumph for Nancy Pelosi.” The New Yorker, The New Yorker, 6 Jan. 2019, www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/in-the-first-forty-eight-hours-of-the-new-congress-a-mixed-triumph-for-nancy-pelosi.
This article was about Nancy Pelosi to be the first women speaker in the house of representatives and the people that were voting for her. This made a huge impact because women never get as much recognition and able to hold that much power and its sad in our society and country as a whole and she represents females in today's society. But they are basically saying that she is a great person and women and a mother of 5 kids. This is connected to our book because the women at the time didn't hold such spaces either and the dictator Trujillo had relationships with any women he wanted and killed anyone who spoke of him badly.
Roberson, Blythe. “Disney Princes Reimagined as Feminist Allies.” The New Yorker, The New Yorker, 9 Nov. 2017, www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/11/20/disney-princes-reimagined-as-feminist-allies
This article went over different Disney movies and the common theme that the storyline is revolved around a male character. In a way, this relates to my novel since each of the characters have a love interest and the main conflicts are regarding those relationships. Something that the author of this article tried to accomplish is switching the place of the princes of the movies into making them feminists. This is where they tackle the typical male ideology and instead are imagined to say things that are the opposite of the typical stereotypes. This brings up the question of how the plot of the story would be if the male characters were feminists since the characters of ¨In the Time of the Butterflies¨ have that mindset of women doing domestic roles and being there for physical appearance. Something that the book does is show the rebellious side from these women whether it is fighting for their political beliefs, it shows that women do have power. In a sense, both of these writings have a similar goal to tackle the stereotypes that are placed upon women.
Schulman, Michael. “The 2018 Golden Globes: Oprah Leads a Decisive Feminist Takeover.” The New Yorker, The New Yorker, 17 Apr. 2018, www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/the-2018-golden-globes-oprah-leads-a-decisive-feminist-takeover.
This article was about the female presence at the 2018 Golden Globes. A lot of the women wore black and a #MeToo pin to show their solidarity with the victims of sexual violence. I associated the solidarity in this movement to the solidarity shown in our novel. Through the feminist lens, I saw that a lot of the men in the story look down on the women for speaking up for themselves and how they believe the country should be run. It was as if a woman was not smart enough to give her opinion on government or Trujillo. But it seems like the women feel stronger when they have people to stand with them and go against the higher power.
Tunzelmann, Alex von. “Reel History | In the Time of the Butterflies: Feisty but It Doesn't Really Fly.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 18 Mar. 2010, www.theguardian.com/film/2010/mar/18/reel-history-salma-hayek.
The lens that we chose to focus our book, In the Time of the Butterflies, was the feminist lens. The main point of this article was writing what happens throughout the whole movie, while bringing up how it relates to the book. There is also a part where she explains the final scene that may have triggered Trujillo's response/attitude towards the Mirabal family. There's also a part brought up that explains that the movie chose to portray Minerva as more sassy and less upfront than she really was in the actual novel. This provides more insight to our novel and literary lens because it seems that the producer thought it'd be more appealing to make Minerva seem less outspoken in the film. It was a creative decision to make her seem like since Trujillo is chasing after her, instead of rejecting her and her saying that she doesn't believe in his political views, she just reacts in a "feminine" way by smacking him. The movie should've shown how much of an activist she really was and how she wants to make a change.
Illiterate Babies #2: Brendan Hall & Barnes, Sean Johnson, Justin Stewart
Brendan Hall
1. Marxist lens
2. Old man and the sea
3. “The Politics of Bojack Horseman.” The Political Science Club, 11 Sept. 2017, thepoliticalscienceclub.com/politics-of-bojack-horseman/.
4. The article described how the Netflix series, Bojack Horseman, was able to show how wealthy people can struggle with an existential crisis. Their wealth typically plays apart in Bojack's questioning his existance due to having extreme amounts of material possessions and still feeling worthless. This relates to the marxist lens because that point of view questions whether or not humans are worth what they are able to make materialistically. Bojack Horseman's character illustrates how damaging a luxurious lifestyle can be due to his status giving him acess to afford his drug/alcohol addiction. Santiago and the old man are a direct contrast to Bojack's characterization which is why I thought it would be important to discuss. While Bojack has the ability to anything he wants he never feels fully fufilled, which leads to his depression. On the other hand Santiago and the old man are lower class, but more mentally stable due to their shared interest of fishing.
Brendan Barnes
1. Your lens for Podcast #2: Marxist Lens
2. Your Novel: The Old Man and the Sea
3. Your selected companion article, in MLA format: Hurst, Alexander. “The Ugly, Illiberal, Anti-Semitic Heart of the Yellow Vest Movement.” The New Republic, 7 Jan. 2019, newrepublic.com/article/
4. This article was about the yellow vest movement. It started off by talking about how a comedian named Dieudonné, sold the yellow vest on his website and they had “Chant des Partisans,” on them. Then people then formed groups and they all had the yellow vest,
Sean Johnson
1. Your lens for Podcast #2:
Marxist
2. Your Novel:
The Old Man and the Sea
3. Your selected companion article, in MLA format:
“Sweden Has a 70% Tax Rate and It's Just Fine.” Jacobin, jacobinmag.com/2019/01/ocasio-
4. 100 words explaining what this article was about, and why it provides additional insight into both your novel and the selected literary lens. (Your write-up can include one direct quote from the article.)
This report is just a general idea of what marxism is and how it affects people as well as how they react to this. In this situation the U.S. is attempting to enact a 70% tax for the rich, people with much wealth are reported to be " freaking out". This shows their attachment to their money, though there is evidence in places like Sweden that these taxes are highly beneficial and are not as bad as they may have seemed.
Justin
Marxist Lens
- The Old man and the Sea
- “I Will Always Stand up Against Injustice”
- This article is basically a summary of an interview that a reporter named Franziska Tschinderle and they were interviewing a guy named Max Zirngast who spend 3 months in a turkish prison. He then talks about his experience in prison. He talked about how he was Isolated from the other prisoners and he said when he gets out, he wants to get his life back together. This relates to "The old man and the sea because Santiago once was considered the best fisherman in town until he went 84 days without catching a fish. He wants to get his life back together by catching the biggest fish of them all.
The Fishermen Podcast #2
Carroll, Aaron E. “When Children Lose Siblings, They Face an Increased Risk of Death.” The
New York Times. 31 July, 2017. Web. 7 Jan, 2019. <https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/3
1/upshot/when-children-lose-siblings-they-face-an-increased-risk-of-death.html>
This source, an article published to the New York Times, discusses the repercussions of a child losing their sibling to death. After talking about the increased death rate, it goes on to talk about the child’s ability to understand the event and the family’s reaction. The information will be useful for us, and other readers, to comprehend the reactions the different family members will have in, The Fisherman. The narrator, Ben, is a member of the family and is personally affected by this event, this will be apparent in his presentation of his thoughts and the events. The New Historicist lens directly questions the interpretation and presentation of the literature, making a deeper understanding of Ben’s perspective vital to analyse and discuss the book.
Igbokwe, Joe. “June 12 1993: A Historical Necessity For Nigeria.” Sahara Reporters, Sahara
Reporters, Inc., 10 June 2013,
saharareporters.com/2013/06/10/june-12-1993-historical-necessity-nigeria-joe-igbokwe.
This source serves as an informal opinion piece from a controversial current day Nigerian politician of the All Progressive Congress party. He attempts to embody the Nigerian sentiment on the June 12th 1993 election by bashing its annulment. He digs into the previous military dictatorship with strongly worded remarks, “Bashiru Tofa… has no sense of history, he remembers nothing and hears nothing, but the world knows about June 12 1993 presidential elections... the crisis, the pains, the agonies, the tears, the killings, the deaths, the chains of events that followed the annulments of that election, and the price Nigeria has paid for this mistake for 20 years”. This connects directly to the trauma that the boys suffered in the text during the election uprising and under the dictatorship of the military leader Bashiru Tofa. This also contextualizes Nigeria in the present day where Chigozie Obioma is writing, which is still in turmoil due to these events. Additionally, the source is semi-unreliable and largely opinionated, representing the perpetuation of the political disparity on this issue and emphasizing its impact.
Willens, Michele. “Sibling Rivalry: The Grown-Up Version.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 14 June 2016, well.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/06/14/sibling-rivalry-the-grown-up-version/.
This article covers siblings rivalries and discusses about how they stem from a place of unresolved issues and a lack of discussion between siblings. It discusses what these issues look like within the household. I found that this related to The Fishermen by Chigozie Obioma because the two brothers, Boja and Ikenna, are in a very heated rivalry with each other. Looking through the New Historicist lens, the reader can see that sibling rivalries are found in many cultures and can often stem from favoritism coming from the parents.
ENG4-004
- Term
- 2018-19: 1st Semester
