Brave New World #2

Questions-
What will happen if the World State runs out of soma (specifically to Lenina)?
Why doesn't John want to be with Lenina?
What is the point of having orgy-porgys instead of privatized sex?


Aswers-


1. Lenina is extremely dependent on soma to get her through her days, as the reader can see when she exclaims repeatedly "Oh, how I wish I had my soma!" (125). She will never face a problem; instead, she will just drown it out with soma. Her addiction to the drug could prove costly if the World State were to ever run out of ingredients or plainly stop making soma. I believe that if this happens Lenina will enter withdrawal, problems will build up on her and she won't be able to handle the pressure. Because of these consequences Lenina's mind won't even be able to consider what is past conditioning anymore; thus, John will stop to love her and their relationship will end. 


2. John refuses to have Lenina because of the lack of intellectual ability she posses. Although she sometimes shows moments of being able to push past conditioning it is apparent to John and the reader that she will never be able to live the way John wants to live with someone whom he loves. 


3. Even love represents a threat to stability founded on uniformity. Because of this the dystopian society has created shameless orgies, "orgy-porgies." These allow for people to have their satisfaction without becoming emotionally attached to any one of their lovers. Through this, no emotions are conjured about or between the people. Because of the acts shamelessness and false anonymity, the participants only feel satisfaction which is exactly what they are supposed to achieve. This is reminded to the reader as Lenina reminds Bernard that "when the individual feels, the community reels," (94).

Brave New World #1

In Brave New World, there is no actual equality. Instead people have just been tricked into thinking they are equal with people in their class. However, they have created conformity because they have made all of the different classes wear their own color. The society also has this idea of "stability" which is forced upon the people by abolishing their differences with the caste system being the only exception. For example, it gets rid of  difference in religion. Individual rights are primarily based on what caste you exist in. Because of the characteristics I would describe this society as a dystopia; however, it is not as menacing as the one in 1984.

Love Language

1. That she is ignoring him and being rude. Also, I assumed she couldn't speak English.
2.Yes, the conflict comes between people who are deaf and people who aren't deaf. The conflict is difference in and speaking ability of language.
3.The external conflict is between the man and the woman. Their conflict is communication.
4. The internal conflict is that the woman is embarrassed about being deaf.
5.I was resolved by the mans willingness to go on with her because genuinely liked her.

"This Land is Your Land"

1. Guthrie's message is collectivist because he emphasizes "for you and me," which implies multiple persons or a group.
2. This song is pro-government because its message flows with that of collectivism.

1984 in-class blog

1. George Orwell, for one thing, is not a communist and whole heartedly disagrees with everything that communism stands for.
2. One thing that George Orwell probably fears, based on my reading, would be a society that has a supreme ruler and no other forms of authority besides military authority.

East vs. West

1. The West thinks that the East is made up of anonymous masses and that everyone in the East acts out of instinct and not rationalized decision.
2. It means that Westerners don't see them as being similar to themselves in the sense of cognitive function.
3. According to Westerners, the actions of people in the East are determined by emotion not by rationale. They also believe that the emotions which they act on are caused by instinct.
4. It unifies Westerners as being part of the ingroup. A common enemy benefits Westerners because it unifies them.
5.Yes, this view of the East still exists. For well educated people like you and I, the view is not as prominent, but many Americans consumed in their own culture do not understand how they can function in a different one.

Ethnography

1. The benefit of being on the outside looking in is that you are unbiased. The benefit, however, of examining your own culture is that you biases will balance out and you can understand what is wrong with your culture and try to fix it. Between the two the former perspective is best because you have no predispositions.

2.These rules exist because an ethnography couldn't exist without them. An ethnography without these rules would be like a utopian society; it cannot exist because the laws and rules that allow society, or in this case an ethnography, to function are have been broken and ignored.

1984 #3

I think that Big Brother has won. Until Winston willingly forced himself to believe that his memories of his mother and sister were false I didn't believe it. However, after reading that passage it became clear that Big Brother had defiantly won. After seeing how the Party demolished Winston's movement I don't think that there would be a way to bring down the One State. The reason being is that they One State has an ear and an eye on everything and everyone, so if someone, like Winston, even got the notion that the Party was bad then they could shut it down before that person could convince others. At the end of the novel I think that Winston realizes that he has been beaten and because of this realization he understands that nothing he does will matter, so now he has no reason to fight what is being given to him.

The Egg

1. Before he married he was kind and cheery. Afterwards he became incommunicable and dull. This change was caused by mothers ambition and his unwillingness toward leaving being a farmhand.

2. The narrator hates chickens and eggs because of the dysfunctional childhood they caused him.The grotesques symbolize unwanted change; while, the commonly occurring deaths symbolize lack of joy and generally hard times.

3. They are his most prized possessions and symbolize his changing, complex, and irregular personality. Joe Kane decided that father was "mildly insane but harmless," (8) because of his obsession with these birds.

4. This means the egg has beaten him. It has disruptively changed him for the worse because they so drastically ruined his childhood.