Project Proposal (Revised)

1. The experience that I wanted to cover was the experience that many women must have felt during the 1960s after discovering that their babies were born deformed as an effect of the drug thalidomide. It was used mainly as a painkiller which was especially appealing to pregnant women going through morning sickness. However, the drug had unsuspecting birth defects on babies born to women who took the drug while pregnant. Some examples being multiple appendages. Later on they discovered that it was actually an enantiomer (mirror image) of the drug that was causing the side effects.

I was hoping to focus on the consequences of this drug can have on the family dynamic. What would it have felt like to be a first time mother, only to discover that your first born child was born with a birth defect? Since the younger generation is more apt to try new things, I felt that a young couple would probably be willing to try a new drug.

2. The general public thought it was terrible that this drug was affecting unborn children. The effects in the US were minimal compared to those in Europe because the FDA stepped in to stop the distribution in US.  (Source:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thalidomide)

3. My sister and I have a large age difference between us, 16 years. My sister could be what you call a “miracle baby” since my mother had her at a much older age than most other mothers. The risk of having a child with a birth defect increases with age. So one of the main concerns was to make sure that the baby was healthy. Given the statistics, it was nothing short of a miracle that my sister was born completely healthy. It could have easily been a different situation. What if it had been? What would be different about my family life?

Some difficulty that might arise while doing the project is probably trying to visualize the experience from a standpoint when they didn’t know much about the effects of drugs, unlike today.

4. For some reason this drug always stuck in my mind ever since I encountered it in my AP Biology class in high school. It was a small paragraph about how this drug had affected many pregnant women. It’s amazing how a science article is so direct, emotionless, detached. These women were oblivious to the side effects and so were the scientists. It makes me think of the consequences that our actions can have even when we don’t expect them to, almost like the Butterfly Effect. However at the time, it only made me think about science: how when they made the drug it was a racemic mixture, how the drug failed because a mirror image has different effects, and vaguely how some couples today chose to abort their babies after finding out there is a genetic defect. The last one made me wonder about how that would feel. Even if I believe that all life is precious, if I were in the position of a parent who knew that they were going to have defective baby, how would I feel? It’s easy to say that you would make one decision or another, but implementing it when in that situation is entirely different.

5. Like the means by which I read about this experience, mostly all articles or historical evidence is mainly very direct and detached. They simply state what the drug is, what had gone wrong, and how many women and babies were affected. The historical aspect is missing the feelings involved. It’s missing how the mothers must have felt when they discovered defected children or the guilt that the scientists must have felt knowing they were responsible. We obviously assume that these families were shocked, but maybe they felt disgusted or hateful. I feel like its important to resonate this into writing because its possible that something similar could happen again since history does have a way of repeating itself.

6. I really enjoyed Morrison’s use of sensory descriptions to convey feeling. Since my experience too is about feeling, I feel that this technique would most exemplify the task. The task would probably require 3 minimum and a maximum of 5 narratives to convey the experience.

7. Interface-wise I was think of an analogy of a plant growing. You spend months nourishing this plant, only to find it dying slowly because you over watered it. You had all the right intentions, but things were not meant to go along as planned. As with expressive figures, I feel like finding out that one’s baby is not what they expected it to be is like the breaking of glass: something beautiful and fragile, yet when it shatters gives the most frightening sound.

Project Proposal

1. I was thinking of taking the experience of the Rwandan genocide which occurred in 1994. This was mainly between the Hutus and the Tutsis. Basically this was an issue of racism where the Hutus were determined to wipe out all the Tutsis population in Rwanda. What drove such hostility was the class divisions that were inadvertently created by European colonists.

2. This issue was widely covered by the media and the dominant understanding was that there has to be some way to stop it. (source: http://www.ppu.org.uk/genocide/g_rwanda.html).

(Professor Hink, does this question deal with how people felt about the issue or how to deal with it?)

3. In all honesty, I do not know very much about this issue, but when I tried to think of an event that happened in the parameters the two events that happened to have the most impact on me were the Holocaust and this. Both of which dealt with genocide, but I felt that everyone else would want to do the Holocaust so I strayed from that. I remember watching a documentary for one of my classes which is what really prompted me to chose this as my experience.

4. The main media examples that pop out was the documentary that I watched (which I can’t remember at the moment, but with some research I could possibly find) and the film Hotel Rwanda.

5. I think the main blindspot is that it would be difficult to have an account that would be unbiased. I think it would impossible to see the situation without having one opinion or another. The important part to remember is that this event happened and hopefully that it will not happen again. It would be impossible to express what it felt like to be in the middle of genocide, to watch watch as people that you care about are murdered ruthlessly not for what they did, but who they were. For the project, there would be major difficulty finding first hand accounts of the events.

6. Some techniques which I felt could be used to convey the feeling are analogy from Crying of Lot 49, the usage of cultural traditions or other forms or storytelling to convey the current story as used in Ceremony, and using the indirect effect of an experience as seen in Slaughterhouse Five through flashbacks and nonlinear narration. To fully convey a message I would say that  three would be the minimum and five the max.

8. For something so traumatic as this, I feel like the best interface would be an image. A collection of works of art that visually express the trauma of genocide. When I think of inner turmoil, I automatically revert back to the painting The Scream by Edward Munch. I also think of movies because even though we know that we are not part of the film, there are some movies out there where we feel that we can connect with the characters. Although imagined, the movie is able to illicit emotions in real life.

Blog Post

When I was in first grade, a boy in my class told me I was “stupid and wouldn’t amount to anything” and that I “couldn’t even add 99 plus 99.” (I cried pretty hard after that being that I was six.) Being young, I never took school too seriously, but in subsequent years I tried very hard to get straight A’s which I succeeded in doing until college. I also developed a love of math. In high school I took as many math problems as I could. Although I liked science too, there was something comforting about an equation. It was so definitive, it followed a strict set of rules, and I got a sense of accomplishment every time I finished a problem correctly. I’ve always liked the sense of being either right or wrong. If I ever got a problem wrong, I liked being able to look back on my work and try again no matter how long it took.

Being six years old, I also loved the show Sailor Moon. I sang along with the theme song and I used to pretend I was on the show too. I looked up to her because although she seemed like a normal girl, she was something more than that. (She was actually a princess from the moon who’s goal was to save the people of earth…or something along those lines). She had a purpose: to fight evil and save people. I respected that and wanted to do something, I wanted to be somebody. Although no one knew her identity, it didn’t make all the people she saved or the things she did any less significant.

I never quite thought about these times as having much effect on my present, but when I look back on it, it makes sense. More than just being a pharmacist in 9-5 job, I actually want to work in a lab to help make medications or just research current diseases. Having that initial exposure to rejection hurt, but it prompted me to do better in school and my admiration for Sailor Moon can be linked to my choice in a career that isn’t in the spotlight helping others, but working in a lab. The six year old me wanted to be somebody. Maybe no quite someone famous because I believed early on that fame wasn’t what I was after, I was and always will be after the satisfaction of knowing that I can help someone else.

Extra Credit Response

The end of The Crying of Lot 49 is more of an ending than a conclusion. I think the lack of a typical “conclusion” is used to demonstrate that there is no definitive conclusion. Although the material presence of something is long gone, there still resonates a memory of that something. For example, the cemetery that once housed the dandelions is gone, but that doesn’t stop the dandelions from remembering it fondly or sadly. As long as we keep something in our memory, we preserve its existence. It is forgetting that truly destroys things. The various narratives of the novel are more than just meaningless. They prove the point that there are various avenues that one can take. It’s almost like Pynchon is trying to tell the reader “Look, there are various avenues to take, what determines which ones are viable and which ones will not work?”

Another interesting point to consider is that Pynchon uses real life information and weaves it into his narrative. The parts about the second law of thermodynamics is something that lies directly in the realm of science and he juxtaposes this idea with Maxwell’s demon, something that relies more so on the psychological realm, we could even venture to say that this would be defined by belief. Maxwell’s demon deals with the power of “feelings.” Pynchon’s reasoning for associating two seemingly discordant ideas is to demonstrate that even two different ideas can somehow be connected with each other to convey and idea or experience.

The consequences of all these techniques is to provide an enhanced experience for the reader. For example, a reader who is more prone to understanding things in a scientific sense can more easily understand an experience if it is set in a scientific scene. Not only does this manner help the reader view the overall experience, but by comparing the scientific to an aesthetic mode, the author can also succeed in showing the reader a metaphor to help understand the aesthetic aspect as well.

The overall lesson that can be taken from Pynchon is that conveying an experience is complex, like a web or network. Like the intricacies of spider web, each thread of the web can stand alone but does not compare to the overall picture of a complete spider web. So does the technique that Pynchon reveals. To convey an experience, one must put all the aspects of that experience on the table. There are limitless possibilities, but without at least having the choice of all these possibilities, one cannot fully understand the experience. We ourselves filter information all the time, but what exactly determines what is necessary and what is just junk? Pynchon uses everything, junk and all. The most extreme possibilities are still on the table. Oedipa considers only four different possibilities, but in reality there are endless other explanations. Although these explanations may be incredibly different from each other they are still connected to each other. This is ultimately Pynchon’s goal throughout the novel, to demonstrate that no matter how different two ideas may be, there will always be something that networks them together. It is this networking that can help readers to experience the experience.

Response 6 Part II

In Eric Roe’s narrative, I intuit a sense of comical desperation in Oedipa’s character. It seems that fate or destiny is driving her away from the direction in which she wants to go and every turn seems to lead simply to a “dead end.” Eric accomplishes this sense of desperation by the use of exclamation marks to aptly demonstrate Oedipa’s frustration. Like Pynchon’s use of question marks to urge the reader to become more curious, the use of exclamation marks can help enliven a sentence and provide emphasis for a particular subject. Eric’s analysis of how one would go about finding the answers to a question is through conversations and interviews with other characters. This interaction is important because it is the main mode by which Oedipa receives her information. I felt that the narrative was portrayed in a more comical manner because although Oedipa is frustrated, the use of phrases like “Oh my!” make the situation more light hearted than grave. Rather than seeing the situation as one of life of death, I feel more that the author portrayed as a situation that the reader could almost laugh at. I thought it was also very interesting to add the part about the Beatles which would be historically correct for that time and Oedipa’s comment that “they can really write.” This statement being comical for someone of this age knowing the contributions of the Beatles. Overall, I found the narrative to be light hearted and enjoyable. This Oedipa treats this situation more like an adventure than a quest.

Response 6

Oedipa sat on the edge of her bed at Echo Courts sipping a glass of wine and lost in thought. Swirling the wine gently in the glass, she made a mental list of everything that she knew, or at least thought she knew. Metzger had said that the Pierce held 51% of the filter process of Beaconsfield Cigarettes. Therefore he had to have known where these bones were taken from. After all, it was not like Pierce to make an investment in something he did not know everything about. The only overt connection between the bones and the word “Trystero” was Pierce. Was Pierce trying to leave her a message? Did he name her co-executor because he had wanted her to figure something out?

It was all so overwhelming. Oedipa put the glass down and laid down slowly. What if the bones had nothing to do with anything? They could easily be just a mere coincidence. She had no proof of anything, just a feeling and a feeling was not evidence. Oedipa thought of just going home, leave everything to Metzger and go back to her day to day life with Mucho. But every time she thought this, a voice in her head urged her to go on. She could not rest until she satiated this urge to uncover the truth. It felt like there was a higher power dangling the truth in front of her like piece of bacon to a dog. With every clue she could smell the truth coming closer together.

Sitting alone at The Scope, Oedipa hoped to find more clues. She felt that a clue, no matter how minute would eventually lead to a great discovery. At least this was her hope. After scanning the room for a familiar face, she resigned to staring at the table. It felt like a crossword puzzle. Finding the answers to some clues was much more difficult than others. Sometimes finding some answers helped to find others like the down and across grid of a crossword puzzle. But there were still those other spaces that refused to be filled with other clues. These spaces were stubborn and would only be answered explicitly from their clues. Disgruntled, Oedipa glared down at the table, from the corner of her eye she saw something stuck to it. Someone had left a stamp on the table, small and square. Carefully, she peeled the stamp away and held it in her hand. Perhaps this was the answer to another space.

The next day she went to see Cohen to appraise the stamp and tell her anything that might help in her search for more answers.

“By the looks of it, it seems pretty standard. Certainly not anything of particular value except maybe 6 cents.” Cohen said staring at the stamp.

“Well I just wanted to know if there was anything peculiar about it. I really have no intention of selling it. Any information would help though.” Oedipa replied. “Maybe something similar between this stamp and the ones in Invararity’s collection?”

“It might take me some time, but I’ll certainly give you a call if I find anything.”

Oedipa wondered out of Cohen’s office full of apprehension. What if this was all her own imagination? The sun shone brightly on the street, lighting each corner and ally. For a moment everything was clear. How long would this feeling last?

The Crying of Lot 49

The novel so far is interesting, yet so intricate. My first observation while reading it was the narrative voice which although is third person, there is are definitely some first person characteristics to it. The narrator is able to see the thoughts of the characters almost as if he is a part of their own thoughts. In class, we also discussed how questions call people to action. The narrative discourse of the novel supports this idea because there are many questions that the author explicitly poses throughout the text. Perhaps this is Pynchon’s way of trying to engage and dare the reader to find out what happens next in Oedipa’s search for the truth.

To me the name “Oedipa” evoked more of an image of blindness. Like Oedipus who became blind after gauging his own eyes out, Oedipa is also blind to the truth particularly anything having to do with Pierce. Another interesting point that I noticed is the lack of emotion on Oedipa’s part. Someone who she previously had a romantic relationship with just died and she didn’t seem sad at all. Also when she had the affair with Metzger, she had no guilt or remorse for cheating on her husband Mucho. Overall, it just seems like Oedipa is emotionally dead. The novel is interesting so far, hopefully this will carry on throughout the novel.

Inventory

In Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five, the aesthetic technique utilized to describe the experience was usage of memory of lack of it. Billy Pilgrim’s problem of being “unstuck in time” and his “experience” in an alternate world are all Vonnegut’s way of expressing the experience. It is through the aftereffects of Pilgrim’s post war experiences that allow the reader to understand what exactly he has gone through. Similarly, Morrison’s usage of detailed language and appeal to the senses conveys the experiences in Jazz. By creating a novel that is lyrically similar to a song, Morrison appeals to the senses. Even if we cannot fully understand the meaning of the lyrics for a song, by listening to its melody we can get the gist of the feelings. Silko uses myths and stories to convey the feelings of an experience. It is like supporting an idea by providing a simile. Since stories are an important part of Laguna culture, they also become an important part of Tayo’s life and experience of recovering from the war and finding a sense of himself.

I feel that out of these three techniques, the most useful for our purposes would be Silko’s usage of myths and stories to convey the feeling of the experience. Although the circumstances and perspectives may be different, there are a plethora of stories in the world that are similar to a particular experience. Perhaps we could create something that would assimilate all these stories together to create an entirely new experience.

Response 5

Although there are many stories that span the entire length of the novel, the myth that seemed to dominate was the journey of Fly and Hummingbird. This myth first occurs in the narrative about Tayo going to somewhere to eat and seeing an old man swatting flies which goes to a flashback of his childhood where he was trying to kill the flies. Josiah then intervenes and tells Tayo about the importance of the flies in their history. In Tayo’s life, Josiah is representative of the traditions and culture of the Laguna people.  These stories are more than just stories, they are a part of their lives. I feel that by including the myths into the narrative, Silko is emphasizing the importance of storytelling in Native American culture. It feels like the myths help emphasize Tayo’s experience because associating an experience with something else makes it more tangible.

The reason why I think that this particular myth spans the entire novel is because it reflects Tayo’s own journey. Fly and Hummingbird go on a journey for the good of humanity. Similarly, Tayo is on a journey to save himself and complete the “story.” This could also be why Silko incorporates the myths throughout the novel because every experience is essentially a story. This myth also has a heavy connection to nature. Even though Fly and Hummingbird are not affected by the strife affecting man, they pity man and decide to help. The message seems to be that if you respect nature, nature will help too. These myths serve as the interface between Tayo’s real life and the story world life of Laguna culture.

In Jazz, the mode of narration emphasized the effects on the senses through descriptions which focus mainly on the the reader’s senses. Like Morrison, Silko tries to engage the reader into the narrative through use of an interface. Instead of using the senses like Morrison, Silko appeals more to the sense of history and tradition in the form of the stories passed down through Laguna culture. I think that everyone can relate to the need to find one’s heritage. I feel that is a natural part of human nature to try to figure out one’s past because by doing so, one can be more connected with their future.

Tayo is an example of this. Trying to use the conventional white culture’s hospitals and medications and alcohol did not help Tayo to get better. The only real cure for Tayo was to become more in touch with his heritage, responsibility and culture. With the help of Betonie, and Ts’ch Tayo was able to realize his true path and finally found something to be motivated about. The narration in the last few chapters is also different. Rather than describing the pain of war and the spiral into depression, Silko shifts into a narrative rich in descriptions of nature and Laguna culture. The narrative becomes enriched with more Laguna myths as the story progresses showing indirectly that Tayo himself is becoming more involved with these myths as well.

Overall, the myths are more than just aesthetic decorations to the novel. They give the novel, the breath of life and culture of the Laguna people. It shows that this is a culture that relies on its stories to describe life.

 

Ceremony

After reading the novel, I feel that it has added a new dimension to the definition of experience. No matter how an experience can be written out or conveyed, it is still different for everyone. For both the person who experienced it and the person reading about the experience. Not only do we differ in the way that we experience things, but we also differ in the way we interpret other experiences. A classroom can all be reading the same novel and yet see it in a different light. Although there may have been another post war soldier who could have gone through a similar situation as Tayo, there could never be an exact replica of his particular experience. What’s even more interesting is that we could experience an events with the same exact circumstances and still not have the same results or feelings going through them. An experience is unique both in the circumstances that surround it as well as the reaction to the experience. Essentially there is no way to crystallize an experience. Written in literature or art makes it a new experience all together. And although we can try to see things through Tayo eyes, there is no way for us to truly understand the feeling.