Language and Literature

Looking back at my paper 1, there were a few targets I had. One of my biggest ones was to explore more of the conventions of the text. I struggled to do this on the cartoon mainly because I was not too familiar with many of the techniques and was more so trying to to use techniques that I was familiar with. However, I mentioned this anyway in my texts and made it clear when I was referring to certain main techniques of the text.

Something else I wanted to work on was my nuance. Both nuance of interpretation and also various potential audiences. I managed to do the audience variation in both texts by highlighting a primary and a secondary audience. I think though I showed different interpretations, that I only ever did it vary randomly and needed to be more consistent with it.

Something I did not think about was perhaps evaluating the effectiveness of various parts of the text. For example, I could have expanded on how useful the text was at the front of the first text to illustrate the issue. I think I simply need to look at what I have stated the purpose to be and to what extent the text aligns with that.

Overall, I think I need to be more succinct as well because I spend too much time expanding in certain ideas when there is perhaps a way for me to be more precise with what I am trying to say. This will also just give me more time to focus on some ideas that I want to go deeper into. I also feel like with this extra time I could plan more because that was something I struggled with and had to start writing ASAP.

Overall, I think this exam allowed me to see where I could have improved on my time management. Also I feel like in the exam itself I developed new strategies of how to merge techniques and share evidence to avoid repeating quotes.

My targets:

• Nuance of interpretation
• Being precise and succinct
• Using textual conventions

Human Acts & Handmaid’s Tale

I think something I find as a huge linking point between the two is the idea of representation, how fiction can truly represent reality. Perhaps this idea is obvious in Human Acts which on its own is based off of real life events meaning the fiction was based off of real events, however in the Handmaid’s tale although the representation of misogyny is evidently drastic, the values held by certain characters seem to reflect what we are seeing in society now. That idea that one author is showing us what the world is and the other is representing what the world could be gives us a spectrum of how our actions and choices now will have an effect on our society in the future. I especially think it is interesting to look at the representation of the characters. Although in both stories the main characters are in harsh environments, none are portrayed to be damsels in distress. Even in Human Acts, where many characters have been tortured and hurt, we are shown their bravery and courage and made to feel proud of their choices rather than simply feeling pity. Offred is also not the typical oppressed woman that complains about the discrimination she faces, rather we get to see her critical thinking and intelligent nature as she persists in Gilead.

How do literary texts help our understanding of non literary texts?

One of the biggest ideas that I think I have gained greater appreciation for is that of who’s perspective a message is told from. In literary texts, we learn so much about how the narrative perspective influences the story. We have seen unreliable narrators such as Kathy in NLMG and various narrative perspectives in Human Acts and how these affect the way the story is told. Similarly in non literary texts such as movies, cartoons and anything visual, who’s perspective we see the situation from makes such a different to what we see and how we interpret it as readers. We could be a third party that sees a situation, or some authors give us a character’s perspective to understand the scenario better. This is something I found very interesting my exploration of cartoons in my HL essay, how we as an audience are strategically made to see a situation from someone’s POV.

More importantly, I’ve learnt the idea that the author’s intent can be so varying. With all the discussions we have done in class I have seen the unique ways that people have been able to receive an author’s work. That is something I learnt so much in my EE too where I had to research how academic experts may have interpreted the same text as me in a vary different manner. I really enjoy how both Lit and Non Lit texts have so much scope to be analysed and come to different conclusions. The literary technique of connotation has shown me how changing one specific word can make such a difference to meaning, the way in which changing the eye line composition or framing in a Non Lit text can completely change the message and intent.

Having started the novel Human Acts today I have a few key take aways, most of which are emotional in essence. The first is even coming to terms with the fact that an uprising happened in South Korea that most of the world is oblivious to. The way in which the government censored the truth and did not allow local journalists to educate their citizens about the truth appals me.

Another thing I found particularly interesting is how we compared the sadness in Human Acts to that of Handmaid’s Tale. I mentioned how in Handmaid’s Tale the sadness seemed to be more of frustration because we could see the progressive nature of Offred and Mayday, which meant we knew that there was hope. However with Human Acts, we are left with an empty feeling in our gut knowing that even the characters succumbed to their situation.

Something I find quite interesting is the various book covers for Human Acts. There is one of a bird sitting on a skeletal rib cage, the idea of someone’s spirit as a bird sitting on the hollow of their body. Another is that of legs that are open at the top with no body attached to it, almost symbolising the many that fell yet are not even identified, no owner to the path tread by the nameless legs.

For The Higher Level Essay, I am quite keen to look at a cartoonist called Angel Boligan. He was born in 1965 in Havana, Cuba. He started off his artistic career working as an editor, illustrator and cartoonist for El Universal. He does cartoons in a very humorous style and is known for the unique way in which he draws humans in his illustrations. He has had over 120 mentions and awards at various cartoon competitions and contests. Although he is most known for his artwork regarding our relationship with the environment, I am actually most curious to explore how he portrays the way in which technology has changed aspects of society. Whether that be how we show love and appreciation or even how our thoughts and opinions are formed by social media sites, Angel through his work asks us to consider the many ways in which we are impacted by technology and perhaps not always for the better. Below are some pieces I am considering to look at:

My Global Issue: For my individual oral I will be looking at how governments and people in power sometimes fail to protect the interests of the citizens who elected them into power in the first place. I will be looking at works done by Bob Dylan and Ed Wexler, both of whom happen to be American and criticise the American government. That being said, this issue is one we see in so many countries above and beyond the United States.

Making a personal connection to this issue, I see it so prominently in India. The ruling party the BJP, works in the best interest of the Hindu’s in the country. Although it is important to play to the views of the Hindus because they are the majority religion in India, some of their policies are leaving other religious groups vulnerable. For example, the Citizenship Amendment Bill which basically allows for citizenship to be granted to anyone with documentation basically excludes Muslin Indians. Many of them find themselves having to prove their identity as an Indian even though they’ve lived there for generations.

In regards to my authors, Dylan lived through the era of the world wars. He rose to fame post the second world war and Vietnam war and many of his songs draw inspiration from those events. Wexler tends to look more at the current state of politics in America. I shall be exploring the criticisms of the US government during these periods of times.

World War II and Vietnam War: Dylan puts a lot of emphasis on his hatred for America’s motivations in participating in these wars in the first place. A lot of the State’s involvement had to do with fear of ideology and xenophobia when it boiled down to it. America was afraid of communism and German ideals spreading, as if it loved in some social utopia itself. In his song “Talking John Birch Society”, Dylan makes a huge mockery of those who fear the communist without half of a clue what they fear at all.

Then, he moves onto calling out the horrendous actions of the government. The text I have chosen to analyse, “Masters of War” is a commentary of the government using its citizens as leverage points. No child in Vietnam was doing an ounce worth of damage to someone in the United States, yet the citizens were forced to fight the war. He dedicates a whole song, “Only a Pawn in their game” to exploring this issue. Civilians constantly found themselves caught in the crossfire of an issue they did not care about. This can be seen as how America dropped Nuclear bombs on Japan in response to their government, killing thousands innocent civilians in the process.

Trump Administration: Wexler, focusing on a different period of American politics, focuses a lot of his work of the dishonesty and misconduct of the judicial system. Trump runs a campaign the promotes mainly conservative values and beliefs, which of course it is acceptable to hold, but seeing as America has become the icon of freedom and expression, it is much like forcing a failing ideology on its population. For example, the law to ban abortion in several states received severe backlash locally and globally. For a country that came so far in terms of its respect and treatment of women, many people saw that political move by Trump as several steps back in time.

Trump has also made his stance on immigrants and immigration very clear. Not only does he support very close minded ideals, he has also been called out as a racist several times. Even during our current situation with the pandemic, as an international conference the United States tried to coin the virus as “Wuhan Virus”, which was obviously shut down by many countries. He has been exposed for the treatment that Mexican’s face at the borders, with people dying in those conditions. This issue of migration goes all the way back to his first days, making the promise of a wall being built between him and Mexico.

Today’s Practice: I think from my practice today I have finalised my plan for my IO. I realised that my biggest issue is being succinct and making connection to real events. For example when referencing Trump’s selfish ventures, I realised I need to do more research into his company and how they have profited from his election. Apart from that honestly I was very happy with my practice today 🙂