Thinking Outside of the Box

Plato uses a cave to symbolize the limitation to knowledge and the prisoners being chained and forced to look at the cave wall. On the other hand, Sartre used an empty room, placing three people in Hell. Both short stories are putting people in to a test. Plato tests the ignorance in prisoners and Sartre tests the Inez, Garcin, and Estelle in an empty room together.

The irony in “No Exit” is shown through the characters’ conversation. In the beginning, Estelle, Inez, and Garcin questioned each other who the “torturer” was. As the story develops, the audience reveals the three character’s weaknesses. Garcin is tortured by Estelle because he is called a coward. Estelle is tortured by Garcin because she wants his love, but he doesn’t give it to her. Finally, Inez tries to seduce Estelle by asking her to be her mirror, yet Estelle rejects Inez. The irony in the allegory is the cave  itself, the cave is supposed to teach the prisoners about knowledge yet they are shackled and forced to face the wall of the cave. In the “Allegory of the Cave,” it seems like they are in Hell at first, but they have a good life afterwards. In “No Exit,” it’s the opposite, Estelle, Inez, and Garcin all had good lives before, but end up all in Hell.

The characters are all flawed in both stories, in the “Allegory of the Cave,” the prisoners are ignorant and believe that there is no life outside the cave. Their knowledge is very limited which is a flaw, because their lives have revolved around the organisms that pass through the cave. In “No Exit,” Garcin ran away from the country and mistreated his wife by sleeping with other women. Estelle cheated on her husband then drowned her baby, which lead up to her husband killing himself. Inez seduced a man’s wife and kills the husband of her lover. The characters in “No Exit” are flawed because they all ran away from their problems, but running away from their problems led them to eternal Hell.

The “Allegory of the Cave,” the moral of the cave is for the prisoners to have enlightenment with knowledge when they leave the cave. The prisoners come to a realization when they are released in outside of the cave. Their knowledge becomes beyond the limitation. The allegory in “No Exit” is that the setting of the place may not be Hell, but the people around you can make it Hell. 

Questions on "No Exit"

1. Think about the place you have chosen as your hell. Does it look ordinary and bourgeois, like Sartre's drawing room, or is it equipped with literal instruments of torture like Dante's Inferno? Can the mind be in hell in a beautiful place? Is there a way to find peace in a hellish physical environment? Enter Sartre's space more fully and imagine how it would feel to live there endlessly, night and day:

-          I believe my hell would be ordinary and plain. Well, I would prefer hell to be bourgeois like Sartre’s room rather than torture like Dante’s Inferno. I think anywhere can be hell, an endless everlasting garden to a pitch black room. The only way to find peace is to sleep, or knock out. Other than that, I would probably day dream to make things better than it seems. If I was in Sartre’s space, I think I would be better off because it seems similar to an asylum than hell. Some people say being in an asylum is hell, but anything is better than being beaten or tortured.

2. Could hell be described as too much of anything without a break? Are variety, moderation and balance instruments we use to keep us from boiling in any inferno of excess?

-          Hell is anywhere that is a sense of prison, isolation, and asylum. Sartre’s hell is a different version from most versions. It’s a simple drawing room. The characters in the story do not realize they are in hell, because the images we have of hell is the like Dante’s inferno. Torture devices and flames are what represent hell in our minds.

3. How does Sartre create a sense of place through dialogue? Can you imagine what it feels like to stay awake all the time with the lights on with no hope of leaving a specific place? How does GARCIN react to this hell? How could you twist your daily activities around so that everyday habits become hell? Is there a pattern of circumstances that reinforces the experience of hell?

-          Sartre creates indirect characterizations in the dialogue for the audience to understand the emotions and personality through what the characters have to say. I can imagine to stay awake, I honestly like the light than the dark. There’s no hope, but at least I can still think about all my memories in the past. Garcin doesn’t really realize he is in hell until he confesses his sins. I will find something to do every day. Talking to people is a good time killer. I think Garcin, Estelle, and Inez is lucky to have each other, although they fight. Since, you are in hell, there’s a freedom of not doing anything forever. You may be bored on some days, but other days might be interesting in hell. 

Allegory of the Cave Sonnet

Chained prisoners forced to look on the wall of the cave
Lights flicker as living creatures pass through the dark
To look only at the wall as if they are in their grave.
The prisoners were to only see the shadows the fire spark

The ignorance in the minds of the slaves 
The unknown about the outside world or reality
They are bound to be forever in the caves 
Narrow minded men who Plato pity

One prisoner let out into the open fields
The shadows are no longer projected on the wall
A newly discovered world revealed
Where green trees and leaves fall

The new aspects of knowledge discovered 
Freedom is granted, the enlighten prisoners are no longer anchored 

A Brain with 6 Legs

Brenna, Allyson, Rachel, Melissa, Becky, and I are working together on The Great Expectations. We are probably going to use Facebook to connect with each other. We have divided up the categories to give each individual a job to do. For example, I look for difficult vocabulary then post it on to the Facebook page, where then we can post it directly to our blogs.

Plato's Allegory of Cave

1.     1.   According to Socrates, what does the Allegory of the Cave represent?

            - The "Allegory of the Cave" represents the imaginations we create in our minds. The people in the cave are taught to believe the things we see with our eyes. Socrates uses the people who are chained be unable to see the real animal passing by. The fire projects the shadows of the creatures, using our imaginative minds, we create our own names, characterizations, and etc from what we know.

2. What are the key elements in the imagery used in the allegory?

- The cave represents prisoners who are innocent, the shadows are the imagination and false realities, the sunlight represents the intellectual world and reality, the prisoner who walked out the cave represents the philosophers like Plato.

3. What are some things the allegory suggests about the process of enlightenment or education?

                -  The education and enlightenment are learned from the images we are given. The images set our imaginations to a reality. Plato believes people are enlightened by education, for example, in the cave, every time an unknown specie came up and projected on to the wall of the cave, the prisoners were enlightened.

4. What do the imagery of "shackles" and the "cave" suggest about the perspective of the cave dwellers or prisoners?

                -   The cave is represented by the world of imagination. Since they are so limited with their knowledge, the cave dwells on the prisoners from being educated. The “shackles” represents the prisoners limitation and inescapable from the darkness and flickering lights.

5. In society today or in your own life, what sorts of things shackle the mind?

                - In society today, I believe shackles are for people who have done the wrong things, committing sins, etc. Everyday people try and do the right things, innocent people get involved with people who should be prisoners. People in shackles are meant to suffer.

6. Compare the perspective of the freed prisoner with the cave prisoners?

                -   The freed prisoner has an emotional state of being able to see what’s real and what wasn’t. The images we create in our minds are different from reality. The freed prisoner was able to taste, touch, and ultimately see the reality.

7. According to the allegory, lack of clarity or intellectual confusion can occur in two distinct ways or contexts. What are they?

                - The prisoners that were restricted to only the views of what the shadows confusion and lack of clarity happens in two distinct ways which were that they were unable to express the shadows in to words because they didn’t understand what it was, and the confusion was how the shadow expressed on the wall of the cave.

8. According to the allegory, how do cave prisoners get free? What does this suggest about intellectual freedom?

                - The prisoners were let go in to the real world, it’s basically an intellectual freedom because they were in the cave seeing shadows but when the prisoners were released, they were able to actually see what they saw on to the shadows.                 

9. The allegory presupposes that there is a distinction between appearances and reality. Do you agree? Why or why not?

                - Yes, there is a huge difference between appearances and reality because it may seem like something is real, such as a dream but in reality it may seem like that was real. In the cave, the prisoners were able to only see shadows, no color, texture, or anything. It’s difficult to wrap around a concept with only an imaginations and nothing else.

10. If Socrates is incorrect in his assumption that there is a distinction between reality and appearances, what are the two alternative metaphysical assumptions?

                - People will only believe what they see because that’s the only knowledge they have, and people would have extremely narrow and boring minds because a shadow doesn’t give you much information. 

We Hang Together

• Strategic Alliance- referred specifically to governance structures involving an imcomplete contract between separate firms, in which each partner has limited control. 
• Business today, interdependence as important.
• Strategic alliance refers to the sorts of collaborative relationships and endeavors. 
• Leaders can no longer adopt strategies that  are based off of self interest. Nor, a one size fits all approach. 
• The ability to work with others is MORE fundamental than alliances because we depend on others. 
• To achieve independence, sacrifices of teamwork and belonging to someone greater than oneself. 
• Collaboration allows us to be dependent on other's knowledge

Kill two assignments with one blogpost. 

Mindmaps... 

I'm not sure if they are the best idea, it may make sense to the creator or creators, but confusing from a person on the outside. I may be wrong, it wouldn't hurt to try. 

Hamlet Remix

A Poetic Inquiry

My big question is about the unfairness in life. We often come across people who are gifted and wonder why were not given the same talent. The sonnet I found by Dr. John Celes, related with my big question because the sonnet talks about the unfairness in life and everywhere we go. The sonnet explains that whether in Heaven or Hell, unfairness will be within a person side to side.

Sonnet: Unfairness

Unfairness lives in every heart and mind;
Unfairness thrives in every earthling’s home;
Unfairness comes from siblings too, I find;
Earthlings are like uneven teeth of comb.

Unfairness occurs ev’n amidst most beasts;
Unfairness is seen ’midst the leaves of trees
Unfairness stays whenev’r the devil feasts,
And with the Apocalypse, it will cease.

Unfairness stems from world that’s within me;
Have I been fair to God who made me man?
Unfairness fills the world ’round me truly,
But it was man who did its sparks much fan!

Unfairness came with our first parents’ sin;
God’s Judgment fair will ultimately win.

6-8-2001 

Dr John Celes

Hamlet Remix.

My version of the Hamlet remix is to make a timeline of the play with pictures or representations of the scenes. For example: the beginning when the guards see the ghost of the king. I would put this photo as a representation of King Hamlet's ghost. I am planning to use modern photos to make it a little more comical, yet cover all the details in Hamlet. :)



 This photo will obviously represent the ghost of King Hamlet.

Hamlet Essay

In Shakespeare’s Hamlet, a young prince is devastated by the fact his father has died and his mother married his uncle, Claudius, who killed Hamlet’s father. With his only motive, revenge, Hamlet struggles with his emotional and physical state and in conclusion many of unrelated characters die. His soliloquies represent his beliefs and feelings, yet he has trouble using those emotions to avenge his uncle. The method of performance utterance and self-overhearing involved throughout the play, Hamlet, is a way to relate to the growth in being of the title character and develop an understanding for why he does or doesn’t follow through in his decisions. “This above all: to thine own self be true, And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man.” This quote shows that Hamlet is true to himself, he will do what he has started, which slightly contradicts the Performative Utterance article. Bloom and Austin were able to analyze Hamlet’s reactions and found a realization for Hamlet unable to communicate his emotions which results in a change of character and plot.

Hamlet’s attitude towards different characters is different from each other. For example, King Claudius and Queen Gertrude believe that Hamlet is unsettled by the death of his father, but Hamlet makes them believe that so his plan won’t be discovered. “Come, come, you answer with an idle tongue.” He confesses to his mother about the death of her husband, but she realizes that Hamlet is speaking badly of his uncle. The performance utterance article says that Hamlet is unable to express his feelings in to action, which is true. Hamlet uses a mental game to make everyone believe that Hamlet is either extremely upset or going crazy. The characters are portrayed by Hamlet’s thoughts, because he shows his real anger to only certain amount of people.  

The plot is controlled and swayed by Hamlet’s decision on his revenge.  If Hamlet was able to express and confess his love for Ophelia, instead of lying and acting as if they don’t, Ophelia could have lived. He was supposed to get revenge for his father, but Hamlet involved everyone around him. He killed Polonius with his own hand, which leads to Laertes to kill Hamlet. The hatred for Hamlet by Ophelia and Polonius’ family is because Hamlet’s actions of toying with Ophelia’s feeling which leads her to her death. Also, Hamlet involved his mother by serving a poisonous tea to King Claudius, his father (the ghost) specifically asked Hamlet not to have his mother involved, but Hamlet’s temper got Queen Gertrude killed. “Till that her garments, heavy with their drink, Pull'd the poor wretch from her melodious lay, to muddy death.”

Hamlet’s manipulative attitude to kill King Claudius has led many other conflicts in the way. I don’t believe that Hamlet was exactly confused or unable to express his feelings, but the evidence in the text shows that many times it would have been better if Hamlet mentioned something. The character itself shows a complex knowledge with the communication with the ghost. The performative utterance believes that Hamlet showed a difficulty in decision making, “William Shakespeare's Hamlet (1600) has often been described as a play about a man who could not make up his mind.”  I disagree, because Hamlet has achieved his goal of killing Claudius, he never had second thoughts. Also, his soliloquy about suicide just shows that he was thinking about it, but it didn’t mean he had a difficult decision between living and suicide.