Brave New World #2

1. In the eyes of the government, what does a good citizen consist of?
Throughout reading Brave New World, you understand that there are many ideas of what the good characteristics of a citizen are in this society. I would say that someone who is consistently happy is the perfect idea of a great citizen. The goal of a utopia is to promote happiness and coercion among the people involved in the society. If happiness and equality is already promoted within the government, then the idea of a perfect person is someone who’s happy and eager to go along with the government. This also includes someone who’s perfectly conditioned to do what the government wishes, never rebelling against anything, which includes taking soma. All of this shows the main goal of the government, as shown, "And that," put in the Director sententiously, "that is the secret of happiness and virtue-liking what you've got to do. All conditioning aims at that: making people like their inescapable social destiny.""
2. Why do they let people go out on the reservation?
I would assume that the reason they let the people go out on the reservation is that it reinforces the happiness that the government has created for them. They only let the very smart, top Alphas go out there, and it's a matter of ethos. If these people go out and see the savages on the reservation, they're going to know that they were grateful for the life that was created for them in their utopia. If the most credible come back and tell the rest of the people and castes how bad of a place it was, they're just going to believe them. Also, the government allows them to go out on the reservation not only to let them look at how happy they really are, but to reinforce the power to the government and encourage more support than before.
3. Why does the story put such a great emphasis on sex and the relationships?
I believe that the author really wanted to show the differences between cultures. Like discussed in the novel, there was confusion as to what sex really meant: was it to reproduce, enjoy, or just have? It's something that doesn't just die down, it's a constant motif throughout the book. I think that the author included all of this discussion and debate to show his own views. Many cultures don't have the same values on sex as American society, especially at the time written, and his views were supposed to help enlighten others about other perspectives.

Othering

1-3: The overall tone of all three parts is death-like. Many words create this tone, such as dark, gloomy, trembled, tragic, formidable silence, dusk, grotesque, quivered, and deathlike.
4: The tone is of someone who's scared. The tone doesn't change a whole lot. I think the narrator does this to show the contrast between the two cultures.
Benefits of othering: Sometimes these companies manufacture these ideas of the others so their trades/exports suffer and the manufacturing company looks better.

Emic Perspectives

1. The emic perspective is a realistic point of view from the inside of the culture. Its benefits are knowing the real information and ways the culture does it. The etic perspective is the 'outisder' perspective, where there's no way in to the actual culture. There may be parts of information that the researcher learns, but this may not actually be true to the culture. Its benefits are being able to compare it to other cultures and the differences/similarities. I would say that emic is better because it's a way into the culture and the truth.
2. These rules exist so there's a way to determine that a piece of writing is an ethnography and to be able to to compare different ethnographies.

"Rain on the Scarecrow" by John Mellencamp

1. This song is about abuse within a family. There used to be someone for him, but now he doesn't have anyone or anything. There's no hope for the son; there's blood on the plow. The boy is stuck, like a scarecrow in the rain.
2. Abuse in families is a conflict of this song.
3. Mellencamp used the rainy scarecrow to symbolize physical and/or sexual abuse and a person that can't escape the problem.
4. There weren't many specific connotations and word choices that made the song what it was. But 'blood' was a word that showed pain and hurt in someone.
5. I think the author of the song is on the side that feels like there's no hope after abuse and that a person who's suffered from this past can't rise above it. We see the author more on the side of the abuser and the one abused.

Claims about George Orwell

1. Orwell fears that if there isn't a strong community of organized people with opposing opinions, we will eventually have a totalitarian government.
2. Orwell opposed totalitarianism and communism.

Brave New World #1

The people of this society are certainly not choosing their own pathways in their lives, however, it's not a distopia. Everything in their society is controlled and conditioned in an orderly manner. Each social class is determined at 'hatching', where they're told all their lives that this is what was meant to be and there's no reason for them to ever argue with what they're told. The people of this society believe that they were made this way for a reason and there's nothing they can do about it. Also, they've been so conditioned over their lives since they were tiny children that the ways they know are the only ways they'll ever know and it's been justified in their minds ever since. For example, Betas have expressions that are known to them and that they keep with them for the rest of their lives, "Alpha children wear grey. They work much harder than we do, because they're so frightfully clever. I'm awfully glad I'm a Beta, because I don't work so hard. And then we are much better than the Gammas and Deltas. Gammas are stupid. They all wear green, and Delta children wear khaki. Oh no, I don't want to play with Delta children. And Epsilons are still worse. They're too stupid to be able to read or write. Besides they wear black, which is such a beastly color. I'm so glad I'm a Beta."  I would assume from reading this so far that it's a utopia. Everyone in their own caste is equal, and everyone is happy, which is the main goal of a perfect utopia.

1984 #3

I would say that by the end of the story, Big Brother has won. O'Brien's ultimate goal was to get Winston to leave Julia behind and give up the resistance, and that's exactly what he did. We, as the audience, can assume that Big Brother's main goal is to receive support and conformity from the people of Oceania. Because at the end of the story, Winston learned to love and support him, Big Brother has won, which wasn't what was expected or wanted by the readers, which is clearly supported through, "But it was all right, everything was all right, the struggle was finished. He had won the victory over himself. He loved Big Brother." I think that at the end of the novel, Winston simply just lives his life as anyone else did at the time. I believe that he went along with whatever the Party told him to, just like any other citizen. Or maybe, Winston's rebellions were to influence others later on down the line, as quoted from Chapter

Love Language

1. She was deaf.
2. The girl was deaf and the guy wasn't. It would be hard for them to have a strong relationship because she would never be able to hear him. She's grown up adapting to this culture and it's a conflict between hearing and not hearing.
3. She can't hear and he can.
4. This could be an internal conflic with the man because he couldn't know whether to go forth with this relationship.
5. The conflict wasn't really resolved because she's still deaf, but we could see in the video that they were communicating through writing.

This Land is Your Land

**I was absent this day and am making up the work.

I believe that Guthrie's message is somewhat of an individualist one. It may sound like a positive, patriotic song, but if you look into the lyrics, you realize that it's an individualist ideal. He's saying 'you and me', but he wants to leave the land that he lives in. He wonders why 'his people' are all standing in line for welfare and why they're all hungry. He doesn't want to believe that his country of freedom and great opportunities is actually giving its people these bad things. In the song, he's pretty anti-government as he protests the way his country is going.