Myths and Narratives

So for this blog, I don’t really know what I’m suppose to be writing about. Therefore, for now I am going to consider the questions of Mr. Dominguez. =)

I guess for me, I believe the function of myths and narratives are to play as the foundation of certain societies. They are the building blocks for certain societies where the culture and belief is based on what myths/narratives the ancestors of the past have created. In the past, without myths or narratives there would be no common ground of beliefs for the members of the society. Also, I think that myths/narratives were created to control the society in a way. Myths/narratives allow the ancestors of the past to teach the same morals and beliefs through each generation of the future. It keeps the teachings of that group the same through the years with few changes. “And at the same time [myths/narratives] legitimize the society in which they are told. The teller of the myth does not have to prove, like a scientist...” (24). This comment in a way supports what I was saying about myths and narratives and how they are just there to serve as a base of knowledge or control, without any proof behind them.

One example of a type of narrative is a grand narrative. Grand narratives are explained as, “big stories, stories of mythic proportions that claim to be able to account for, explain and subordinate all lesser, little, local narratives” (29). This type of myth can have a tremendous effect on a society. With grand narratives comes less myths in total and eventually instead of believing in several local myths; a society will follow the philosophy of one general myth. This means that with grand narratives, the minority discourses will be greatly influenced and not in a positive direction. As time goes by, the number of minority discourses will decrease only to have one large mythic story that is able to account for mostly everything. That's why there's people like the mythbusters who try to tone down the numbers of myths ot there by proving them wrong or right.

Anyway, I’m about done now because if I try to write anymore I would just be babbling on about nothing(like now). So peace out AP Lit!! =]]

Ridiculous New World Instead....

From the beginning Brave New World was such a confusing book for me to read, but after reading the first few chapters several times I finally understand what it was saying. So far I think that the society described in the novel is a horrible and awful place to live. How can it be humane to control every aspect of the development of a human being? From the class stature to their physical aspect, ever little detail of an individual is being customized in this so-called, Conditioning Centre.

I think that it is a terrible how the children are being molded from such an early age. They aren’t allowed to become an individual or stand out from the others one bit. From an early age of only eight months, these toddlers are being taught to hold hatred against books and flowers, “now we proceed to rub in the lesson with a mild electric shock” (21). The Director would later on add, “…after two hundred repetitions of the same or similar lesson would be wedded indissoluble” (22). How can a group a people stand by and watch while a group of toddlers are being electrocuted just because they touched a book? It’s like this future society not only prohibits individualism, but apparently no one has any emotion at all.

However, it wasn’t all of the children who were being treated this way. The treatment was directed only towards a class of people. From the very beginning the babies are fertilized in groups according to Alphas, Betas, Gammas, Deltas, and Epsilons. Therefore, according to the standard of each category, the kids are to be brought up a certain way, For example, the betas are to listen to tapes during their sleep saying, “Alpha children wear grey. They work much harder then we do, because they’re so frightfully clever. I’m a Beta because I don’t work so hard. And then we are much better than the Gammas and the Deltas, etc, etc…” (27). These kids are being taught to discriminate against classes and to only be proud of their social standard.

So, the question is do we consider these modifications of the world an improvement to our world today? Personally, I think its more like a downturn to what the world is like today. Why would it be an improvement, if the mere mention of the words “father” and “mother” bring upon giggles and snickers from already grown boys. It is amazing how in the society describe in the novel, these two fairly common words for us are considered something of horrible meaning (like the f-bomb for us). I guess the only improvement I see in the story so far is the technology that I am seeing being used.

Anyway, time to wrap it up now. Even though I have so much more to say, I’m afraid this blog might just go on forever. Therefore, I guess the only comment I still have to make is how confusing it was for me to get through chapter 3. with all the point of view shifts I had to label which ones went together in my book. Hopefully for me, the book begins to get a little easier to read. However, at this moment I still really like the book even though it’s a little weird and difficult to understand sometimes. Anyway, peace for now 6th period and I’m looking forward to commenting on all the other blogs. xD

History?

So last week in AP Lit the class had a very interesting discussion on religion and history. It wasn't until then I really began to think about history and how it affects people today. At first, I thought that history was all about facts and not opinions, but I didn't realize that is has a lot to do with opinion. Depending on who is the person recording the history there are always several points of views to certain subjects and events. As for the religion part, I don't believe that there should be any additions of religion (christianity) to history. Not all citizens of the United States are Christian so how can it be possible that "America's founding principles are biblical." Futhermore, if the reasons for adding a more Christian view to history was to better history for the learners, why are key individuals of history being voted to be deleted from history alltogether? (ie) Anne Hutchinson. Also, if the religious views of Christianity is so important to the events from the past,why aren't the religous views of other religions just as important in making history what it is today?

Anyway, back to the dialogue in class, during the conversation we had as a class I realized that a lot of what we were talking about had to deal with the recent book our class has read, 1984. In this novel, the history mattered a lot to The Party. The Party was determined to change history according to how it would benefit the group. They believed "who controls the past, controls the future: who controls the present, controls the past." Therefore, as long as they were able to manipulate history in a way that the citizens of Oceanic would believe in' then they would have controls of the citizens themselves. The image to above, actually is a good example of how important power is to the Party. It is a good resemblance of the quote said above about how control is almost key to Big Brother and The Party. It shows how as long as The Party was able to control what their citizens were thinking about and believing in, they were able to control them.

I guess in the end, all I can say is that whether it was twenty years ago or twenty years into the future, the information recorded as history is very important to those who are learning it. If history was to be written in a biased opinion or through certain religious influences, it will dramatically affect those who are learning it. The students will grow up to have a narrow-minded view of life and they would probably be very easily influenced into believing in something that contradicts what they have learned since childhood. Anyway, I guess I'm done blogging for now so until next time my sixth period classmates.