In discussion about James Boswell and Samuel Johnson , I found the two of them makes a complementary couple.
Boswell was younger than Johnson; although their goal and aim of writing targeted at different field( Johnson's achievements at the dictionary and periodical essays while Boswell dedicated himself to writing the biographies of great people) they still become colse friends.
We go through an essay in the class which symbolizes the characters with three color- red, black and white. This is quiet an unique idea to use colors imply to different characters.
red is the color of Fusang for her clothes are constantly reddish.
we spend a entire hour watching the movie "Gulliver's Travels" in the class. Too bad that I had to go promote for English Drama or I would love to stay for the entire film and to see the Houyhnhnms and yahoos in the movie.
Samuel Johnson is a brilliant poet and talker, I admire his purpose of writing " to see life as it is"
The lost daughter of happiness is a story about a Chinese prostitute, Fusang, who was kidnapped from her in-laws from China to San Francisco, struggles to face the cruel reality in a foreign country. There she meets a white boy names Chris, who is crazed about her exotic face and manner; another man in her life is Ah Ding, a strong and tough gangster who often changes his name after he had committed crimes. Fusang decided to marry Ah Ding in the end when she found out that he is the man she was originally engaged to at China.
Today's class we learned Gulliver's Travels. I remember reading it when I was little, but I couln'e remember the context clearly somehow(maybe it was because I was very young when I read the story) so it was like listening to the whole story again.
of course I didn't know Galliver's Travels was a satirical story about human flaws; In fact I didn't even remember Gulliver hates his yahoo family and turn his love to the two hourse he bought. (that's kinda funny~) another new word to learn: misanthropy (which means general dislike of human beings).
I found everybody's thought interesting, though some of the classmates didn't present anything because they didn't do their work. still, I found pleasure from other's present and also see the different version of interpretations about the story in the epilogue.
one opinion is that the sea reprsent the patriarchal power Mulberry/Peach was trying to resist, and the bird is Peach who trying to fight back by carrying pebbles to the sea.
Both the works of John Milton, Lysidas is a verse bewail a friend who drown while Pradise Lost is a prose about the rvenge of Satan and the exile of human form Eden.
among there two works, I like Paradise lost better. Lycidas used too many references and it is sort of complicated to understand, one must know the stories of all the references to gain a total understand of this work. Maybe that showed our igornance compared with Miltion's great knowledge.
would you split yourself into half when facing an unbearable reality?
I started to think about this question after we finished reading the story in our class.
paradise lost is a great work by John Milton. Before we studied it, the writing class teacher has mentioned it many times in his class about this epic work. I was glad that finally we are going to study it, this work might be the more interesting interature work I have ever learn.
paradise lost is about the lost of Sadan and Adam and Eve from heaven,how Sadan lead his army(mostly other fallen angels) striking for the God and Heaven. And that's the reason God sends his son (the christ)to earth to help human being against the dark force.
In today's class, I learn lots of background of Bone, including the author, the china town of San francisco and there even were information of a interview between the author and a journalist discussing the concept of the book. (what people can find in the Internet is incredible!!)
I was particular interesting about the reason Ona chose to suicide. The book didn't give reader the answer of this question, maybe the author thinks it was clear enough in the book. was it the identity of chinese immigrant ? The pressure from Mah? why didn't Ona try to look for help while she had boyfriend and sister around her?
