Sunday, April 23, 2017

PICTIONARY


PICTIONARY

(Robinson Crusoe)



Mast: It is the central Stick made by a unique trunk of wood which carry the sails.

Sail: It’s a piece of fabric use to propel the Ship taking advantage of the wind.

Anchor: It’s a mobile object that allows the ship to fix in the sea without being worried about the tide.

Rudder: It’s a mechanism that allows to control the course of the ship.

Deck: The deck are all the fields in the ship extended horizontally.

Hull: It is the frame or external structure of a ship.

Cannon: The cannons are the weapons used in a ship to fight against other, cannons shot big balls of iron by using gunpowder.

Forecastle: refers to the upper deck of a sailing ship.

Cabin: Where the sailors sleep.

Hold: The hold is the place where the sailors used to put.

Rope: Was a tool to tie the sails.

Stern: The stern is the back or aft-most part of a ship.


MADE BY:
LAURA TOBAR
ANLLY OSORIO
PABLO MIRANDA
LEIDY GOMEZ



Tuesday, April 18, 2017

JANE EYRE FROM A PSYCHOANALYTIC PERSPECTIVE

A GLANCE TO THE INTERIOR CONSTRUCTION OF JANE EYRE

It is evident that the classic novel Jane Eyre, written by Charlotte Brontë, and the movie with the same name, directed by Cary Joji Fukunaga, brings to the light a lot of features related with the life of a young lady that may represents the role of any other woman in the last century and even in the current one. I would say that this is the improved version of Cinderella, which leaves behind the fairy tales and its prince, and yield to a more sophisticated and dramatic story that offers a perspective closer to reality. Taking into account Sigmund Freud´s theory regarding psychoanalytic criticism in the novel Jane Eyre, it is conceivable to remark the aspects of the unconscious and the constitution of personality (Id, Ego and Superego) of Jane’s role along the narrative.

Freud details the idea that all the actions that people tend to perform in life is motivated by certain internal power that belongs to the unconscious. In this sequence, Jane Eyre had a lot of thoughts, feelings, and events that had experienced and that came from her childhood. Since her first years of life she became a parentless child, passing to live with her aunt - who gave her mistreatment and humiliations – she started to subsist facing adversities that in certain way generated several changes inside her. All those events began to put on her unconscious the bravery and strength enough to struggle with all the kind of treatments she received during her infancy. All the incidents she experienced made of her a strong woman and encouraged her to fight for a kind of freedom and dignity to reach the person´s model that she would be later on.

From another point of view but linked to this last idea, Freud states some aspects that are part of people’s personality, which are the Id, the Ego, and the Superego. These latest ones are considered by Freud as a whole iceberg in the sense that some aspects are shown to the external world whereas some others are hidden and incapable to be seen (MacLeod, 2016). In this angle it is possible to compare these three items with the moment in which Jane realizes that she fell in love with Mr. Rochester but their union cannot be done.

The Id is the pleasure principle, totally unconscious, and is in charge of containing the forbidden desires or what an individual really wants. In this case, Jane’s Id attracts her to stay with Mr. Rochester at home even knowing that he was already married, at any rate she loved him. However, the Superego convinced her about the respect she must to have with herself and the relevance of the personal values that she had been constructing along the years, considering that the Superego is conscious and is in charge of being the “angel of the shoulder” and containing the society´s norms and guilt feelings. Finally, the ego is defined as the reality principle and the one in charge of making a connection between the Id and the Superego. That is why Jane’s ego at last decides to go away from Mr. Rochester’s to another place not with the aim to forget her lover, but to return later when things were appropriate and safe.

In conclusion, if we think about the significant characteristics hidden inside Jane Eyre novel regarding her personality and her performance in the story, and if we use the kind of glasses that allow us to see as Sigmund Freud proposal since a psychoanalytic standpoint, it is important to say that Jane Eyre behaviors are created based on certain patterns of personality model that had place on her conscious and unconscious, which in turn permitted her to surpass the frustration and the solitude and scorn feeling of her childhood; and to develop a very high level of self-esteem and liberty.



BIBLIOGRAPHY

McLeod, S. A. (2016). Id, Ego and Superego. Retrieved from www.simplypsychology.org/psyche.html






Friday, March 17, 2017

TOM SAWYER: THE IMAGE OF CHILDHOOD

HOW GOOD IS TO BE A CHILD



     In the story of Tom Sawyer, children are presented as a true interepretation of what they really are. Children are described with the same typical behaviors that a child could have some years ago when smart phones were not yet part of our lives , and staying with friends to live new experiences was the only thing available to do. Throughout this story, children are described as adventurous, sociable, brave, carefree, careless, enthusiastic, energetic, mischievous, intelligent, but indisputably happy; all those features that are part of a healthful childhood that most of people used to live. It makes me remember a small part of my childhood.

     When I was like 8 years old, I remember I had the typical kind of friends that children, borned in the latest years of the 1900s, could have. One day, I was outside of my house playing with my friends. Due to the street was being repaired, there were several tubes made of cement wide enough to have inside  a child of that age and to allow him/her sit down inside it for being pushed by the others. The first person to enter was the biggest girl between us, she was higher and fatter than us. All of us started to push the tube in order to make it crash with the others and push it back again.

     When my turn arrived, I entered to the tube, I sat down on it, so I could see the big holes that were in each side of myself. Immediately, when my friends started pulling the tube, this one crashed into the others so strongly that it broke into two pieces and one of them fell down perfectly over my back. The weight of the tube was all over me in such a way that my face was touching my knees and I could not breath. Then, my friends take the big peace from me and, with the little energy I had and without saying a word,  I stood up and went to my house. I am sure I was not so afraid for the hit, but for the reprimand I could receive from my mother. However, everything was good and I survived without problem.


     This kind of stories maybe are not told anymore, our generation of children live in a society pretty different that if a book were created to tell their stories, they would change in several aspects. Nevertheless, the book The Adventures of Tom Sawyer brings to the present the model of childhood that took place some generations before and that brought joy to the ones who lived it.




Tuesday, February 28, 2017

THE FASCINATING WORLD OF WORDS AND ITS ATTEMPT TO DEFINE LITERATURE

“Había una vez… la necesidad de contar. Desde los inicios mismos de la humanidad, el hombre ha sentido el poderoso impulso de contar sus historias, sus deseos y sus miedos. Primero lo ha hecho a través de relatos orales y dibujos en las paredes de las cavernas, luego lo narró en tablillas de arcilla y en papiros. La invención de la imprenta (1450) y del papel “industrial” facilitaron la producción y circulación de todas esas historias. Pero no todo lo que se escribe es literatura.
Definir la literatura es un trabajo principalmente histórico: depende de la época en que se hace esa definición y de la cultura que la formula.”

Colombino - Madeleine (2014)

Words, unquestionably, are a way to transport messages in written or spoken senses. Words have an incalculable power: they can create or they can destroy, they can give life or they can bring death, they can add or they can diminish, they can condemn or they can release. Words simply allow, through a mysterious and invisible power, to transmit messages with and without limitations from an individual’s to another’s imagination; giving way to the language and simultaneously to the communication.

To define literature is not a simple task, indeed, sometimes describing concepts tend to be complicated; since it exists the possibility of dearth of words to make clearer certain concepts and thoughts. However, the vast world of language offer us doubtlessly the leeway to communicate, in one way or another, enough ideas to convey what we desire to say. Therefore, with the ambition to draw with more precise words the meaning of literature, I dare to give - based on some authorities of the literature field and their interpretations - a closer definition of what literature actually is.

To begin, literature may be defined as “writings in which expression and form, in connection with ideas of permanent and universal interest, are characteristic or essential features, as poetry, novels, history, biography, and essays.” (Word Reference Dictionary). Nevertheless, literature may also be defined by dividing it into two categories, as it is stated by Mayer (1997):

“If we assume that a definition of literature should be, in many important ways, like definitions of other words in the language, we will perhaps find a more fruitful approach to the term. Here I will first present two different approaches to definition—the criterial approach and the prototype approach—and then suggest some features of a prototypical literary work.”

According to Mayer, the criterial approach refers to the criteria or standard that all texts must join to be able to classify as truly literature. On the other hand, the prototype approach makes reference to the prototype or model that texts must have in common to be literary work. In these order of ideas, Mayer proposes some features that catalogue a text as a prototypical literary work, which requires to be “(1) written texts; (2) marked by careful use of language… such as creative metaphors, well-turned phrases, elegant syntax, rhyme, alliteration, and meter; (3) are in a literary genre (poetry, prose, fiction, or drama); (4) are read aesthetically…”

Alternatively, in order to differentiate literature in comparison with other kind of texts, King (2015) shows the distinctions between mass Communication, Text and Literature. King explains that mass communication refers to the moment in which “allows the creator to communicate with lots of people over a long period of time (Writing a book, making a movie, recording a song, publishing a blog, publishing a magazine, making a TV show, making a commercial)”. Additionally, he explicates that text may be defined as “an individual example of mass communication. (A movie, a TV episode, a book, an issue of a magazine or newspaper, an advertisement, a song, an album).” And last but not least, he indicates that literature is “a type of a text that has some qualifications in order to be literature.” He says that the first and the simplest requirement is that the text must be written down as a book, and also that must be considered to be really good by people who have lots of experience reading books and thinking closely about them.”

Nonetheless, I distinctly remember one of the lectures of our current course of English Literature in which the whole class was in agreement that literature is not only books, but also songs, music and other types of art. To reinforce that, Krystal (2014) states that “ Apparently, “literary means not only what is written but what is voiced, what is expressed, what is invented, in whatever form” — in which case maps, sermons, comic strips, cartoons, speeches, photographs, movies, war memorials, and music all huddle beneath the literary umbrella. Books continue to matter, of course, but not in the way that earlier generations took for granted.” It means that literature has not limitations; it is a wide portfolio that includes more than just books.

To sum up, even though defining some concepts may be an intricate job, words are a powerful resource that permits to give meaning to any conception. Literature is not an exception; in spite of its complexity it is possible to say that literature is an ensemble of language products that reflects beauty and for the same reason it is enough worthy to be called literature.



REFERENCES

Colombino, L. y Madeleine, P. (2014) Taller de Narrativa (page 10) https://issuu.com/liacolombino/docs/columbia_-_narrativa-_teor__a_-_mat

Mayer Jim, What is Literature? A Definition Based on Prototypes (pages 1, 2, 3) https://arts-sciences.und.edu/summer-institute-of-linguistics/work-papers/_files/docs/1997-meyer.pdf

King, M. [Matt King] (2015, September 11) What is Literature? [Archivo de video]. Recuperado de https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KEpqmTPZfLA
 Krystal, A. (2014) What Is Literature? In defense of the canon. Harper’s Magazine http://harpers.org/archive/2014/03/what-is-literature/



BIBLIOGRAPHY





Friday, February 10, 2017

I Fun Home - A Family Tragicomic

Fun Home:

 A Family Tragicomic


The text “Fun Home - A family Tragicomic”, written by Alison Bechdel, is definitely a crucial proof that shows that a big work of literature is possible to see it captured in different kind of texts, even comics. This text, specially, allows conceiving several aspects that are pretty common in the real life; and during the first two chapters it is developed very curious items that make this work even more striking, such as: death, suicide, sexual orientation, family life, and father’s role inside the family.


Focusing on father’s role inside the family, it has been a very complex job that demands certain attitudes that grade a father as a bad one or a good one. In the book, page 22, Alison noticeably shows her estimation about her father’s role making inquiry if he was a good father; and it is very likely to believe that her answered was based on either the sexual orientation of him or the exaggerated behaviors towards them and his obsessions regarding cleanness and home’s ornamentation. However, these same behaviors lead me to reflect, since a personal way, whether he really was a bad father, because: does someone have to be a heterosexual man to be a good father? Surely, his relationships with teenagers were not justifiable; but my point is that even heterosexual people have their own mistakes, imperfections and weaknesses. It is just our duty as simple “human beings” that we are, to search our best version of ourselves and to minimize our evil or sinful part.



Anlly Gabriela Osorio Sánchez


Fun Home