老陳的blog~

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.

If it were not for the promote of Boswell, Johnson would not went on the grand tour with Boswell and composed Journey to the Western Isles of Scotland. boswell's social tact and Johnson's vigor and couriosity made the tour the great success.

I believe through the tour, Boswell observed more characteristics of Johnson thus the trip must helped him writing the biography of Johnson.

Through this tour, Johnson acquired different and exciting ecperiences before the last years of his life. After many years of hard working, Johnson deserved this trip as the last present he gave to himself.

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.

white represents Chris because he was innocent and pure in the story.

 black, the color for Da Yong, here symbols wildness and dangerous.

The essay also mentioned brown, the combination of red, black and white. Brown represent the mother earth greatfulness (this part I didn't quite understand)

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" 

such ideal of his is seldom be seen in other famous writers of English literature. Most of them write to convey their own ideal, which are more like to  talk readers into their view of point.

Samuel Johnson's achivement include the first English Dictionary ever existed in the world. He finished this incredible mission in seven years all by himself and his six assistants while French finished theirs in forty years with forty academicians. He had also found the series of perioddical essays, Rambler and Idler. after he reveived the pension from the king, he finished his edition of Shakeapeare and his last important work, the Lives of the Poets.

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.

The old times seems totally different from now. Barely did an individual get engaged while he or she is still an infant, not even to mention marry someone according one's parents' wishes. If Fusang is a woman of the modern world, she only have to sign the divorce paper to Ah Ding then she can be free forever.

However, Fusang's love with Chris would still be forbbiden even in today's modern world. The only problem is that Chris is still under aged; judged by today's morality, a young adolescent  as Chris is too immature to be involved in a relationship with a woman who is over 20. And Fusang would be regarded shameful and repeled from the society.

Afterall , not too many people can accept the ideal that an under age adolecence marry a woman who is a lot older than him.

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).

A modest proposal is another satiric prose of Swift's; I remember reading it while I was a freshman. The idea of eating children as delicacy is horrible when I first read it. But as soon as you becomes use to the idea , the prose was actually a very goos work worth reading.  it uses lot of metaphors in the story and make it more fun to read.

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.

the other interpretation is that the sea represent the gap between Mulberry and Peach, and the bird is Mulberry was trying to catch up with peach. 

I never give a second thought to the story, it was just another ordinary story for me without any special meaning. And it was until yesterday that I found that my mind is narrowed and out of imagination when I heard others' interpretation; thank you for those who gave me such idea and inspiration of the story. 

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.

 we also mention some plots of Gulliver's travels, it is such a pity that we rush through it since we were ran out of time (like we always do

I hope we will learn more about Guillver's Travels in the next class.

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.

If one day the pressure of reality becomes unbearable, what would I do? would I choose to stay in this situation or escape to somewhere else, let other people(other personalities) stand out and speak for this body?

I think I would disappear for a while let another personality take control. Reality is hard, one would need some time and quiet space to think some more. Not saying I will go schizophrenic once I encounter difficulty in reality, no body wants to break down easily and become insane, just take it as one of many options.

The point is that one cannot give up and let another personality dominate the body forever, ot it would be like a sort of death, another way of dying. Killing your soul, hand in your life to someone else.

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.

sounds like some soap series one usually see on TV,right?

It was pretty dramatic and full of imaginary, I'm very imprssed by the author. It must took him great effort to finish such work!

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?  

The teacher at life education told us that if one choose to suicide as the way to end his or her life, one's soul will repeat the last moment before the death, just like an endless circle. Trapping in the painful death again and again is outcome of ending one's life unnaturally.

so what's caused Ona to die in this way? something so unbearable that one would rather descend in the endless torture?

The author leave this mistery to all of us, could it be solve then ? 

Today in English Literature we've done lots of things; we calculated our grades so far, decided things needs be improved in our final exam, reschedual the date of the final exam (oh now I probabaly have to take the composition, spanish and English finals in the same week, crap!) 

I though it was interesting to see one of the classmates gave his opinion on the questions in our midterm XD, it was more like an debate between professor and him during the class. But I do think there are something need to be improved in the exams; for instance, the coverage of the whole exam was huge. It was a blessing for us to read everything in the text, not even to mention memorizing some details. Narrow down the coverage more and give more concise direction of the exam would help students in preparing the finals.

As for the work of John Miltion, I only learned about author's life and some of his life experiences. He was really bright that his blind was not enough to stop him form the writing of his great works. His life was inspiring, his continuous creation made him one of the great wirter of the time.

I barely learn a thing from the text of his work today. The teaching was confusing to me; wondering why should we learn the English poem in Chinese translation, besides, the translation sometimes doesn't make sense (maybe that's because I didn't understand at all) All I could say is that everythining in the PPT today didn't have me understand the poem and I thought that the class was really bored!! 

I was happy that 泊蓉 shared her little advanture to Japan with us in the class. Of course I think it was brave to go abroad right before the midtern week, maybe it was a good oppotunity to go away and take a short break from the stressful atmosphere here.

However, the pictures of geisha I saw  were pretty different from what I imagine, the geishas in reality are not so perfect and elegance as those in the movie; they seem more lively when posing for tourists even with the "YA" guesture. Wonder what''s really behind their white faces, wouldn't it be nice if I can speak japanese and to have undertsand their life style more.

Or maybe the movie was made too delicate that it only exist in peopel's imaginary the ancient Japan.