CHALLENGES!

Well, at this point, our class has gotten better in essays and more so in benchmarks. However, we still have some weaknesses in certain areas that we need to improve during this 5 week-period before the exam. Briefly, I would say that my weakness right now is understanding poetry and what ideas are being posed in it. I certainly have trouble in poems that use lots of complicated diction and especially, the form of writing. With this, I tend to misinterpret the overall message of the poem and write whatever I feel from the poem. I don't know if I can actually work with interpreting poems in a correct manner, hopefully there is a method for this. Also, I would say that vocabulary is another problem that we are currently facing (the benchmark today). Some words I did not know and some words I'm a bit skeptical about. Other than Fatima's suggestion of improving our memorization of terms by having multiple choice questions for the  sponge, we should do the regular routine of bringing in a poem, but this time, we should bring in a poem that covers a term and allow our classmates to identify it within the poem. Its different from Fatima's idea because we can focus on more than one term rather than having a passage that probably only covers one or two terms. We can't have a passage that contains a bunch of terms in it, that's just a massacre.

Beloved vs Film Adaptation

           The film adaptation of the novel, “Beloved,” struck me with a surprise like no other film adaptation for any novel I’ve seen. The 1998 film of “Beloved” was on point on every single scene and it captured every main point of the novel. The novel had explicit dialogues of every main character for readers to know the characters themselves and also their feelings inside. However, the film covered every main character and their personality by the actions that they’ve done in certain scenes. This film adaptation of Beloved is flawless to the point that there’s yet to have no difference from the novel.  The film was carefully created exactly like the content of the novel and it successfully avoided the confusion of the flashback and present unlike the novel.

          What was more appealing to the eyes were the structure of the film and how the director thoroughly and creatively constructed the background of major scenes. For example, the appearance of Beloved near the stream was fantastic, such that she wore all black, her creepy voice, and all the insects that crawled around her. This film adaptation had exactly every scene in the novel that can be summarized by the film with vivid imagery and as well as background effects.  The scene when Paul D enters 124 and a red light flashes upon his face was hilarious, in a way that made him frightened by the house that was haunted by Sethe’s baby daughter. This scene foreshadowed how Sethe had killed her daughter when Paul D was just about to see Sethe in the shed holding her dead baby.

          However, there was a lack of information about the character’s past for both Paul D and Sethe. In the film, Paul D did not mention about his past when he was imprisoned in Alfred, Georgia that led him lock his tobacco tin box. No one knew what Paul D had gone through those past eighteen years being separated from Sethe or anyone from Sweet Home.  There should’ve been a scene in which Paul D would remember or have a flashback of his life in those years when he had trouble sleeping, the scene before Beloved seduced Paul D in the cold house. Another awkward thing in the film was how Sethe did not have a reaction to Beloved’s pregnancy, but only Denver knew because of the noise Paul D was making in the cold house with Beloved. What made all the characters become abnormal was how Beloved had the power to possess Paul D, Sethe, and partially Denver. Denver was the only one who had the power to be immune to Beloved because what Denver desired was to have someone beside so that she can have fun with or take care of. Furthermore, Denver was conscious about the things that were happening around her, that’s why she was the one who seek help from other people at the end of the novel and film.

         All and all, the film and the novel were great and I was really amazed of how the film had every important scene in the novel and was well-displayed.  As an overall, the actors and actresses were pretty awesome, especially Beloved and how she displayed a newborn baby in a woman’s body. The ending of the novel when Beloved vanished into the air when Sethe left her was a perfect scene, a better one than the novel. The reason is because the novel left readers blank without telling readers who or what was Beloved. The film made a clear point that Beloved was the baby ghost in a woman’s body and was vanished forever because Sethe could finally leave her forever and that Sethe had faced her fear of the schoolteacher made her attack the schoolteacher, not being afraid of the schoolteacher like before when she killed her baby daughter. I really liked the novel and the film as a whole because it gave great points of slavery and what drives a mother into killing her own child in order to defend them from slavery.

The Debate 2

          I've got to say that this debate was more organized than the previous debate we've had in class so far. Maybe because of the sufficient time, less people in a group, or the topic at hand was more appealing than the one before. Anyways, the debate today was fantastic. Each team did well in developing their arguments and rebuttals and coming up with ideas around the definition of prejudice. What was funny about our debate today was the shift from color/race into politics. However, I would say Team 2 (Prejudice is a problem in our society today) won the debate because we came up with more examples of how prejudice is effecting our society. Team 1 had mentioned statistics. 

         Statistics can't determine if a set of data is true or false because that deals with probability. It’s like saying statistics shows 78% of blacks are in jail would mean that all blacks have negative characteristics and we should all not trust them. Another thing was about Angelina Jolie in "Salt." She was chosen because the director might want to show how a feminine is punished and mistreated rather than Tom Cruise, a man that can take bruises. All and all, I believe Team 2 won the debate some points that Team 1 had tried to argue could also be defined as being prejudice and may cause debates like the one we had today in class. Prejudice is still a problem in our society because without it, people will view things the same as everyone else. Prejudice caused our world to suffer because if a majority of a population believes in one negative perspective then power is derived from those people that will cause havoc and destruction in the world. That is how we have war conflicts going on right now.