quiz

Hanks uses personification to project human characteristics onto his obviously nonliving volleyball in Castaway. The volleyball acts as Hanks’ familiar after the crash and offers solace and support to him while he endures hardship after hardship. He talks to it, and though it never actually speaks back to him, it helps him think of ways to help himself. Once Hanks has left on his dangerous magical flight from the island, a whale acts as a sort of supernatural aid. It wakes him after a horrible storm and later wakes him so that he can flag down a passing freight ship, which can act as his rescuer from without. Without the whale to wake him after the storm, he never could have seen Wilson for the last time as he floated beyond his reach. Also without the whale’s help to show Hanks’ the presence of a passing boat so that he might attract its attention, there’s no way of knowing if it might just pass right by him.

magic flight bloggage

For some reason, when I thought about a magic flight example just now, the first thing that came to my mind was Gone in 60 Seconds with Nicholas Cage. The part of Cage’s piston-driven mission that I’m applying to the monomyth’s magic flight is when he climbs into his “unicorn” Fastback Mustang and flees from police. The absolute most applicable scene in particular during his flight is when police think they’ve trapped Memphis (Cage’s character) on a traffic-blocked bridge. However, to continue his mission to save his younger brother, Memphis cruises up a tow-truck ramp in the Mustang at some ungodly speed and flies over the traffic block, successfully leaving police in his dust. Memphis is then able to continue his delivery of the very last heist car and stop his brother from being killed.

 

magic flight

 

Growing to again see home’s bliss;

Our empty house and rooms;

Our cats;

Quietly, patiently waiting.

Wondering if they’re lonely.

Betrayed?

 

The drive home goes much more quickly

Than the long drive before.

Wond’ring;

Will Johnstown seem more beautiful-

Or less since we’re bliss-spoiled?

Bye beach.

Class Group Notes

In Class Group NOTES

Feminism in Frankenstein:

Author trying to be equally creative as men. Writing completely from the imagination. Frankenstein may be female representation of man in general. Ugly, zombie-like. Man as monster. Female author. Addresses stereotypes of women; females portrayed as weak

 

The Refusal of the Return:

Hero becomes content with and connected to current environment. Returning appears like a laborious task of questionable worth. Perhaps the refusal of the return is the exact same idea as refusal of the call. Also, the “call” to return may be thought of as more than just slightly analogous to the beginning of another (new) journey in itself; after all, the journey is cyclic such that as one ends another begins.

Feminist Literature:

 Written with female perspective in mind. Made to criticize and condemn traditional perspectives. Written in manner different from typical male writing- often lacking traditional “chapter” divisions. Writings may be in form of phonetically accurate vernacular instead of appropriately spelled language- once again, to offer something different.

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Siddhartha and Vasudeva both reach similar enlightenment because they both find their answers through the river. And at the same time siddhartha’s is also different from Vasudeva’s enlightenment because Siddhartha first learns all about the banes of materialistic living. Govinda also comes upon the same enlightenment when he seeks the wise enlightened ferryman which turns out to be his old friend Siddhartha. However, his enlightenment is slightly different since he takes on his boon through the form of kissing Siddhartha on the forehead. Gotama’s enlightenment is different since it follows Buddhism and the eightfold path, embracing all, nirvana.

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limen

Limen is the point at which one “stands” mentally and/or physically where a stage or journey ends or is eclipsed by a new adventure/journey. It can be thought of as akin to reaching the first crest on a roller coaster; a hell of a ride awaits just fractions of a second into your future.

 

In the Odyssey, Odysseus stumbles upon limen each time he prepares to embark on another trip or when his attempts at finding his way home are thwarted or delayed by god, goddess, or creature.

 

 In Watership Down, an example of a conscious threshold that the rabbits reach is when Hazel and several loyal friends head off towards Efrafa on their doe-retrieval mission. Holly accompanies them “as far as the end of the wood” and then detaches from the group to go back to their safe home, leaving Hazel’s squad to their dangerous mission. At this point, as they continued south with their frightening militaristic Efrafan destination settled in their mind, each began to realize all the dangers that would almost certainly be encountered at some point.

 

In The Matrix an example of limen is the point in the movie at which Neo is given the option of choosing either the red pill or the blue pill. As neo downs the red pill he is choosing to take that step into “wonderland… [to see] …how deep the rabbit-hole goes.”

Blog entry # 6 Supernatural Aid

       After some time of considering when I might have experienced supernatural aid, I remembered a time when I was fifteen years old and came close to putting myself in the hospital. Years ago, a friend of mine, Scott, and I frequently spent summer weekends hitting trails in Johnstown and Marienville, PA on dirt bikes. Most often, however, we would simply enter the woods behind my house in Johnstown and do a “Top-of-the-World” ride. It took a few hours and brought us to a strip-mined perch near Seward that offered a hell of a view (hence “top of the world”). Since we knew the trails so well, it was all too easy to go faster than we probably should have. One day, I was leading the way on an earlier (and kinder) portion of a TOTW ride (a spot we usually raced but luckily not this time), and, rounding a gentle bend at 50-60mph, something told me to slow down so I laid off the gas. An instant later I saw that laying off the gas wasn’t going to do it since there was a fallen hemlock completely crossing the trail. With less than 30 yards between me and the tree, I locked up my back tire and started into a sideways slide toward the tree. Though I wasn’t able to completely stop, I did slow down enough that the impact only left me with scratches, a couple bruised ribs, and some anger at nature. I’m still not sure why I thought I should slow down at that spot on that day after so many rides through there. If something didn’t make me think to slow down I know that ride would’ve ended a lot worse.

       This makes me think about Fiver’s hunch of impending doom on the Threarah’s warren. Though he had no reason to firmly believe that his feeling of uneasiness regarding the warren’s future should be anything to act upon, he took action anyway. Sure enough, humans later killed off nearly every last rabbit that remained. He didn’t know why he wanted and needed to get out, but he left anyway and later found that his decision saved the lives of those who accompanied him.

       In The Odyssey there are constant references to supernatural aid. One such reference was when Odysseus sets sail from Calypso’s island, is caught in a great squall formed by Poseidon, then receives a charm (a veil in this case) against drowning from the goddess Leucothea after he falls in the drink.

 

       A cinematic representation of supernatural aid can be found in the movie Boondock Saints.During a great lightning storm the two brothers simultaneously experience the same dream about justice and the moral wrongdoing that takes place by watching crime take place and taking no action to stop it. This gives the brothers reason to believe that God was sending a message that they should take it upon themselves to begin ridding their city of mafia and mob trash who always manage to evade prosecution.

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The woods represent the journey into the “dark world.” This is like the darkness found in the warren where snares were set nearby. There’s an ominous feeling found there, which is known to contain various dangers of varying magnitude.

Jack has uncontrolled desires such as when he decides to go up the beanstalk to the land of giants solely on the basis of a bet that he wouldn’t go back up and steal a golden harp. Result of this was that the giant comes down stalk and starts hurting people in the world of “small” (normal size) people. Goldilocks loved sweets and is easily tempted to stray from the path. This results in problems with granny.

My favorite song was the “into the woods” theme. It has literally been stuck in my head all weekend and it’s kind of pissing me off. I liked it though because, besides being catchy, it also had inputs from each individual journey that the several “separate” fairy tailers were setting out on. Like “into the woods” “-to go to the festival,” “-to grandma’s house we go,” and those on the separate journeys chimed in to sing their lines that declared their journey.