Tragedy #3

Journal #3: Consider which characters are at fault for the events that are unfolding and why? Is there a character without blame?  Why or why not? Is there a character who should carry more of the blame?  Do any of the characters take responsibility? 
I think Gregers is responsible for all of the events that are unfolding because he is the main instigator. When he insists on entering their home he does it willingly, because he knows that he is going to "open Hjalmar's eyes". the whole story ends when he finally accomplishes this. He has lonely conversations with each of he characters except Gina. When he has these conversations he always asks questions and plants little seeds in order to tell them the truth. Gregers has put the truth into Hjalmar's life and has ruined it doing so. Also, Gregers is the one that told Hedvig what she needs to do so Hjalmar can forgive her.
I think Hjalmar and Hedvig are the ones without the blame because they are the ones that seem to be affected with the truth coming out. Hedvig is faced with death because of the truth Gregers put upon their family. And Hjalmar loses everything that is important to him and therefore these two only face what is being put upon them by the real character that hold the blame, Gregers.
I think Gregers should carry more of the blame because he is the motivation to all of the tension that is created in the house. He also is the one that motivates Hedvig to kill the wild duck. Everything seemed bliss before Gregers came in.

Tragedy #2

How does Ibsen use the motif of decay, disease, illness, etc and to what effect?  Use at least three quotes in the defense of you claim. 
I think Ibsen uses the motif of decay, illness, and disease to show the deterioration of humanity and what we are becoming. Relling says " All right, I'll tell you, Mrs.Ekdal. He's suffering from an acute case of moralistic fever"(178). He is talking about Gregers and how he doesn't have any morals and therefore he can't find a true meaning and purpose in his life. He uses the moralistic disease to show that is lacking a quality of humanity and instead is becoming sick because of this. Hjalmar says while talking to Gregers "Gina didn't stay long here in the house; there was so much confusion- your mother's sickness and all"(125). I feel like the sickness that she had was the same perception that she passed down to Gregers which is now why he is "sick". It shows the deterioration of humanity because Gregers was given this perception that was a "sickness" that does not allow him to see his purpose in life. Also Hedvig's blindness is considered a sickness " Oh, you can well imagine, we haven't the heart to tell her. She suspects nothing. She's carefree, gay, and singing like a tiny bird, she's fluttering into life's eternal night" (148).Hedvig's sickness shows the deterioration of humanity because who she is changes because of her disadvantage and people treat her differently. Like Gregers she is giving this "disease" through a parent and it shows how their morals are being corrupted and are becoming different because of their adopted perception.

The Wild Duck #1

Option 2: Examine how characters perceive themselves or others.  Who has false conceptions of him/herself?  Who has misconceptions of others?  Who recognizes the facades created by other characters?  Does the character embrace the facade, ignore it, or confront it?
I believe that Gregers has misconceptions of himself. Mostly because he questions his purpose in life and what he has to live for. He sees Hjalmar as a man that has found his purpose in life and knows what he has to life towards. I feel that Gregers now realizes that he does not have any true purpose in life and therefore seeks to questions what he is doing with his life and turns to Hjalmar to do this. Gregers wants to have a definite purpose but instead he has many instead. He says that he wants to be a clever dog, but then at the same time he says he wants to open Hjalmar's eyes. Gregers seems to have a misconception on who he is as an individual.


I think Gina has misconceptions of others because she always seems to be hiding something and therefore interprets things in a negative way. She is trying to hide the truth from others and she thinks they're always on top of her. When in fact they meant another thing. This idea of not meaning what you meant is what Gina interprets as a person's misconception.


I think Relling does embrace Greger's facade and does recognize it. He shows this by questioning him at times and making it hard for Gregers to answer. He questions Greger's purpose in life and brings back memories that Relling has of him. He believes that Greger's facade he is putting on is that he may seem confident on the outside but is morally deteriorated and can't find his purpose in life. He acknowledges that Gregers isn't who he is and warns everyone else on his observations. 

1984 #3

Motif- Throughout 1984 there is a motif of endlessness prevalent throughout each section and is shown in many different ways. In the beginning it is shown through the opening and closing of doors, drawers, etc. Also when Orwell uses "to and fro" indicated the motif of endlessness. "There is no difference between night and day in this place. I do not see how one can calculate time."(231). In the last third of the book Orwell uses the motif of endlessness through not knowing what time it is. Through not being able to keep track of the time of day it creates a sense of endlessness. Through this motif I think Orwell is saying that once one succumbs to a totalitarian type of control and get rid of the past, there is no way of knowing because we have giving into the their version of the truth and everything is suddenly unknown and it becomes endless.

Setting- I think that the confinement of many of the places that Winston goes to reveals a theme throughout the book. Wherever Winston goes it is always in a room or in a confined setting. " A bench, or shelf, just wide enough to sit on ran around the wall, broken only by the door and, at the end opposite the door, a lavatory pan with no wooden seat. " (225). When Winston is brought to the Ministry of Love he still encounters the confinement of the room that he is forced to live in. The confinement symbolizes the extent to which the Party has over you and wants to keep you ignorant by only giving you a limited amount of space.

Language- There is a change in syntax once they convince Winston that the truth lies within the Party. " Winston shrank back upon his bed. Whatever he said, the swift answer crushed him like a bludgeon." (206). He gives up hope since they have forced him to accept their truth and not his. The syntax has changed from a lot of detailed and hopeful text to a more simple and lifeless text which gives the effect of giving up hope.

Cultural Influences- "And it was probable that people changed somewhat after twenty years in a forced-labor camp." (228). During this era the concentration camps and the purges were forced labor camps that many people had to endure and like in this book they would have "somewhat [have] changed after twenty years in a forced-labor camp.

1984 #2

Motif-The motif of censorship and being mindless of what is going on in one's society is starting to take a different turn in the second third of the novel. In the first part of the novel it is obvious that most citizens are mindlessly living their lives under the censorship that is all around them. In the second third of the book, Winston meets Julia and they start to hope that a conspiracy exists and their ideas start to go away from what is  accepted in their society. "When once you were in the grip of the Party, what you felt or did not feel, what you did or refrained from doing ,made literally no difference. Whatever happened you vanished, and neither you nor  your actions were ever heard of again"(165). Under all of the censorship, the citizens are molded into what the Party wants them to believe and after that there is no escaping. Orwell is trying to say that the only thing that we may have control over in this life is our own mind. If nothing is left after that, then you are not yourself and are living a mindless life. As long as you don't let the Party influence in any ways in order to control your mind, you will always know the truth. The truth is the only thing that we can hold onto and the only way that this can be achieved is to have control of our own mind. Once the Party fills your mind with lies then you are "vanished", which can represent your identity and who you are being taken away.

Setting- A change in setting in the second third of the novel was the natural scene where Julia and Winston escape to meet for a while. They want to go to a place where they won't be seen and therefore go to someplace that has many trees. In this setting, Julia and Winston feel like they have a sense of freedom and they can do as they please. They get comfortable with each other because of the openess of the environment. " He stopped thinking and merely felt. The girl's waist in the bend of his arm was soft and warm. He pulled her round so that they were breast to breast; her body seemed to melt into his"(125). When both are under the surveillance of the Party they would not have the freedom nor the bravery to get close to one another but since there is no sense of confinement they are able to do as they please. "The room was a world, a pocket of the past where extinct animals could walk"(150). When Julia and Winston are under the surveillance of the Party, it is often described as having a sense of confinement and something you can not escape. The room became their world.

Language-  The syntax throughout most of the novel and is very thorough and descriptive. It creates an intense feel as you read through the novel. When Orwell describes the antique shop he uses words that implies that Winston is in amusement of the past and history that was never told. ".. but the interior if the glass itself. There was such depth of it, and yet it was almost as transparent as air. It was as though the surface of the glass had been the arch of the sky."(147). As Orwell describes the glass paperweight, he says it with a sense of hope and awe. Winston is intrigued by the fact that a piece of history can be taken to the present and he appreciates it. But when he talks about the Party he describes it as something very dark and ruined. " He remembered better the rackety, uneasy circumstances of the time: the periodical panics about air raids and the sheltering in Tube stations, the piles of rubble everywhere, the unintelligible proclamations posted at street corners, the gangs of youths in shirts all the same color...." (160-161). Orwell uses words such as "rackety", "piles of rubble", and "uneasy" to show the reader the  

1984 #1

Dystopian Journal #1: How do the motifs, setting, and language contribute to our understanding of the society. Address each area separately and in depth.
Motifs- The biggest motif that I noticed was "censorship". Oceania lives in a censored society; absolutely everything is filtered through the government. The citizens of Oceania are all under surveillance through the telescreen that are scattered through the whole city. They wake up to the telescreens telling them what to do and when. Children go to school to become Spies and grow up believing that there was no past. Thoughtcrime is censorship of the mind and independent thoughts. It is almost impossible to think of an idea against the Party and not get vanished. Also, the Party erased all records of the past. Therefore they create what was the past. All the citizens of Oceania are only supposed to know what the Party wants them to know. "And the Records Department, after all, was itself only a single branch of the Ministry of Truth, whose primary job was not to reconstruct the past but to supply the citizens of Oceanis with newspapers, films, textbooks, telescreen programs, plays, novels-with every coneivable kind of information, instruction, or entertainment, from a statue to a slogan, from a lyric poem to a biological treatise, and from a child's spelling book to a Newspeak dictionary." (43)
Setting- The setting of Oceania is very confined and constrined to what the Party wants you to believe. A lot of the imagery in the book is dark and rotten. The houses are deteriorating and breaking apart because of the bombing. This contributes to our understanding of the novel because it shows how the environment that Oceania is living in is very dark and depressed. It also contributes to the characters and how they feel and the society as whole because it is shows how they are living in a depressed environment.  "Down in the street little eddies of wind were whirling dust and torn paper into spirals, and though the sun was shining and the sky a harsh blue, there seemed to be no color in anything except the posters that were plastered everywhere." (2)
Language- The narrator speaks indifferently of Oceania therefore the tone is very lonely and dark. The language contributes to our understanding of the society by showing who and who isn't in favor of the party. For example Mr.Parson brags about his kids and seems intrigued to be a part of the Party as well as Syme. But Winston is indifferent of Big Brother and Oceania's society at times. At other times he wants to revolt and this is shown through the language and what type of words they use. Winston- " But he did not do so, however, because he knew that it was useless. Whether he wrote DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER, or whether he refrained from writing it, made no difference" (19) Syme- " By 2050- earlier, probably - all real knowledge of Oldspeak will have disappeared. The whole literature of the past will have been destroyed."(53)