Always Blaming Others: Uncle Vanya act III

Act III of Uncle Vanya is the most important part of the story. The feelings that had been repressed since the beginning of the play are now shown with no limit and with no secrets. Vanya has a big fight with the professor in which he says that his life has been ruined spent because of him. Vanyas resentment caused a huge dispute in the house, to the point that the professor has decided to leave. Vanya is so envious towards the professor mostly because he is husband to Yelena the woman Vanya loves that he tries shooting him, this is where the story totally changes.

“You have destroyed my life! I have not lived! Thanks to you, I have ruined and wasted the best years of my life."

Before Vanya shoots the professor there are a lot of repressed feelings but in a way are shown passively, when Vanya shoots and tries to commit murder we can see that what he felt towards his life and towards the professor have exploded and he can’t hold them anymore. Why does Vanya just sit and wait doing nothing if there are so many things to do? Why does he blame it on the professor?

Elena and Sonya were not the best friends at the beginning of the play, but once they talk and drink they end their disputes. Sonya develops a lot of trust in Elena to the point of telling her she loves Astrov and she asks her to talk to him. Astrov doesn’t love Sonya and is asked never to come back to the farm for jut seeing him harms Sonya. Love is a common theme in this play but it´s not the kind of love in which everybody is happy and with the person they love. Everybody suffers because of love in the play.

Astrov the doctor states a problem that is still common in humanity. Due to technology´s evolution, nature is being put aside and destroyed. In his charts he explains how the forests, animal species and other natural resources have been destroyed by the coming of men. He shows how fifty years before the coming of men, the forests were thick and the animals abundant while in the present most animals are extinct and there are only small patches of forests throughout the country. This is a common problem today and is a major cause for global warming.

An unhappy wasted life: Uncle Vanya Act II

In this act the love stories that began to build up previously are explained and many other love confusion begins to appear. The Doctor Astrov is in love with the nurse for he has known her for a very long time, Vanya is in love with Elena the wife of the professor and Sonya likes the doctor. All this takes us to the conclusion that nobody is happy for nobody is with the person they love.

Elena the professor’s wife says that he doesn’t love him and that she married him for a love that she thought she felt but she really didn’t. She also says even though we already had imagined this that she is not happy.

Sonya: "Tell me honestly as friends... are you happy?"
Elena: "No" (Pg193)

This is the way that Chekhov describes most of his characters, no character in the play is happy. Everybody lives for the professor and everything they do is oriented to helping him. The lives of the characters changed a lot since the arrival of the professor and this may be a reason for their unhappiness. Humans adapt to a way of life and are happy with the life they have, if you change their way of life they will be unhappy for they are not used to a new way of life. Vanya was used to having lunch and dinner at certain hours and now he has to wait for the professor to eat in order to have lunch. Changes as small as this will affect a person, but what affects characters mostly in the play is the lack of true love.

The professor s the cause for everyone’s unhappiness, his wife Elena lives to serve him and has spent her life beside him without really loving him. Elena and Sonya, the professor’s young daughter, hate each other until the end of this act when influenced by alcohol they talk to one another and end up as friends. The doctor has caused Uncle Vanya to leave his work and have a boring lonely life.

“I am haunted by the thought that my life has been hopelessly wasted.” (Pg 183)

Vanya in this sentence describes his life after the professor’s arrival; he has realized that his life could’ve been much better. Did the professor only arrive to ruin people’s life even though he doesn’t realize it?

Fruitless, senseless life: Uncle Vanya Act I

Life is a constant search for meaning and happiness. Anton Chekov in this play explains the total opposite through the beliefs of most of his characters. Astrov for example is a doctor that travels around helping patients. He dislikes life and everybody that surrounds him. This is very ironical for he helps those that are sick not to lose a life that he thinks is totally fruitless. Astrov the doctor is the only one that doesn’t appreciate life, Uncle Vanya or Voinitsky is also tired of the life he has. He is bored and in love of an impossible woman.

Love has also started to build up interestingly in the play, not only the impossible love that Vanya built up towards Elena the professors wife but the vision of love that Chekhov shows us through characters such as Telyegin:

My wife ran away with the man she loved the day after our wedding, the reason being my unprepossessing appearance. (Pg 169)

There is no true love in the story, nobody is happy with the life thy have but don’t blame themselves. the relationships between characters are also very aggressive and the unhappiness is reflected when they talk to one another.

Voinitsky: "Oh yes! An enlightened personality who never enlightened anybody.... you couldn’t have made a ore venomous joke." (Pg 171)

There is a lot of tension between the characters and the pessimism towards life is present in most of their speeches. Many people find pleasure in work, pleasure in being busy but others find the pleasure in not doing anything, sitting around doing nothing. Uncle Vanya has not done anything since the arrival of the professor and is totally bored of this. His life feels senseless for he does nothing and he doesn’t have the woman he loves.

Chekov through the doctor also talks about a common problem for humans, deforestation, the doctor is a forest and nature lover and through him we can see a sense of awareness. The doctor relates the forests to life for he says that: "if you’re lost in a dark forest and see a light you will run for this light no matter what comes in your way." In life if you have real big problem and find a solution to it you will do anything you can to make this solution possible.

A simple but lonely life

A simple Heart by Gustave Flaubert is the story of a maid called Felicite that worked for Madame Aubain as a maid. She is a very sad and lonely person. She has never find real lasting love in her life and has no children. Throughout the story we can see Felicite love people and animals around her. But each of them, the ones she loves the most always end up dead.

Victor her Nephew and son to her sister was one of the persons Felicite loved the most. He was hired as a sailor and again this can be a way to show how people will just walk away or be dragged away even when the people that love them most will stay behind. Felicite is condemned to be alone and loveless. As Victor, the daughter of Madame Aulbain that she loved most Virginia was terribly ill and far away. She eventually died. Felicite tried to protect and be with those she loved, she would go every day to see Virginia when she was ill and far away. People normally do many things for love mostly when this love comes from a mother. Felicite felt a mother like love towards Virginia and when she died it was as if the meaning of her life had just passed away.

"For two, Felicite never left the corpse." (PG 13)

Felicite then received a parrot and called it Loulou. She loved this parrot so much, she saw it as a religious symbol. She lived for that parrot and would treat it as if it was his son. “Loulou, in her isolation, was almost a son, a lover.” (p. 14). This parrot is the most important symbol in the book, this parrot symbolizes the ignorance of Felicite, for she saw him as a religious symbol. When the parrot died, she had him stuffed and kept him in her room. She had several items in her room that reminded her to her past. She had clothes from Virginia, a gift Victor had given her and other similar items that will keep her sadness and misery with her forever.

Flaubert portrays a very superficial vision of life for there is no deep feeling in the story. Felicites life is rushed through in a couple of pages and everything happens so quickly that she doesn’t even realize how much she has lost.

Candide: chapters 1-5 A perfect Philosophy

In the beginning of this book, Candide is introduced to us but most importantly, he’s love towards Lady Cunégonde. Candide is kicked out of his house because of his love toward this lady and here is where he’s journey begins. Candide is totally poor until he reaches a tavern in which a person sees him and because of his height gives him money an food. "We´ll pay your share, and what’s more we shall not allow a man like you to go short on money." (PG 23). This is totally absurd, how come people just give away their money to Candide just because of his height?

Voltaire Mocks a lot of different aspects of life and society in this book, he starts up mocking the incredible riches that nobles had a long time ago. He describes Lady Cunégondes castle as the best place in "Westphalia" because "it has a door and a number of windows". Riches back in that time were counted imprecise metals such as gold. Around chapter four, Candide finds his old teacher and the best philosopher in Westphalia called Pangloss in the floor totally ruined and in the verge of death. How come the wisest of all the people in Westphalia is in such a state?

Candide seems to find people who help him everywhere he goes, after the first encounter with the men in the tavern who paid for his meal and gave him money; he finds an Anabaptist that helped him and Pangloss. This Anabaptist sailed away with them in a voyage in which their ship was attacked and everybody survived except for the Anabaptist who drowned to death. What is Candide future, will he find a new life or will he fight for his love?

The Crying of Lot 49: Was there really a mistery?

This last chapter of The Crying of Lot 49 was the total opposite to what I expected. The whole mystery about the tristero and W.A.S.T.E was really no mystery and the whole idea of a conspiracy was not present at all. There are many angles by which you can approach this novel but the whole idea of the trystero is not what it’s all about.

In this last chapter Oedipa is able to find the meaning of trystero which is many things: from the underground mail service (Waste) to the symbol of the silenced horn. This whole mystery doesn´t help her at all in her job as executor and there was really no mystery to Pierces life. Other than this there are many other important events in this chapter that show the satirical content of the novel.

Pynchon makes fun of the church saying: "what’s in the Vatican?" Asked Oedipa "a pornographic couriers tragedy"(Pg 125). He links the church with sexual themes when the members of the church have sex prohibited. The fact that he talks about a tragedy that is being held in the most important religious site of the world is very satiric. The tragedy itself is very strange for there is a lot of sex in it that doesn’t match the real text of the play.

The Crying of Lot 49: The world goes mad

Chapter five of this book is the longest and most confusing chapter of all. The beginning of the chapter is very strange but near the middle it gets very interesting. This is where the story gets more complicated and very strange events start to happen.

In one of this very interescting sections Pynchon talks about love as a very damaging addiction:

"The pin Im wearing means I´m a member of the IA. That´s Inamoraty Anonymous. An Inamorato is somebody in love. Thats the worst addiction of all." (Page 91)

The fact that tere is an association such as the AA (Alcoholics Anonymous) to prevent people from falling in love is very interesting because the fact that someone is in love is normally seen as soething good and poetic. Everyone has fallen in love some time and there are many different ways that people might react to the feeling, but to the point of makingit an addiction is a very extreme case.The fact that these group of people have an enterprise against falling in love is very strange. I had never thought about love in a way in which it would be harmfull and addicting.

The way that this group of people supossedly help people is also very interesting, there is a phone nnumber, to which they call in order to get asistance.

"Nobody Knows anybody else´s name;just the number in case it gets so bad you cant handle it alone. We´re Isolates, Arnold. Meetings would destroy the whole point of it." (Page 91)

The fact that a such impersonal way of helping each other is apllied regarding to such a supossedly delicate theme is very contradicting. The fact that you cant handle your love alone as itsays on the beggining of the quote is also important, because normally people would meditate on their love alone and think about what they should do by themselves. Most of th times beingin love isvery private and personal.

A second important part of this chapter is Oedipas meeting with doctor Hilarius, Oedipa has just spent a heavy night in San Francisco in which the symbol ifthe tryatero has appeared a number of times and she thinks shes starting to become obssesed and even crazy about it. When she gets to Hilarious office she realizes he has gone crazy.

"What´s happening?" Oedipa said. "He´s gone crazy. I tried to talk to the police,but he took a chair andsmashed the switch board with it." (Page 108)

Oedipas psichiatrist doctor Hilarious has gone crazy, this is ery ironic for he is supossed to helpthose that are becoming crazy or are crazy allready. also the fat that one of his assistants stayed becaue "He might need somebody" (page 108) is very ironic because he is the one that is supossed to be there when others need somebody. Thats exactly the reason why Oedipa whent to him that night, because she needed somebody to talk to and somebody who knew if she was becoming crazy.

Pynchon also talks about how people become crazy and start shooting at others, like the many examples of kids that have gone crazy and started shooting at schools or universities.

"Well hes shot at half a dozen people," replied nurse Blamm, leading Oedipa down a corridor to her office." (Page 108)

Doctor Hilarius thinks hes being followed, so he shoots at anyone he sees, he doesnt care if it is a patient or even the police. He is in a state of paranoia, where he thinks that everyone is against him. In this same scene Pynchon makes fun of the ridiculous amount of stupid questions that policemen do when invesstigatingor dealing with any sort of situation and how the media is always inside the most dangerous places.

"Who are you, lady". She told him. "how do you spell that first name?" He also took down her adress, age, phone number, next of kin, husands occupation, for the news media" (page 111)

Pynchon shows how the cops cooperate with the media in order to get as most information as possible to the people, when most of the times what we see is cops fighting of reporters that are triying to find out what happened. In this case its totally different: "Tv folks would like to get soe footage through the window. Could you keep him occupied?" (Page 112) The cops give media priority and instead of triying to get this crazy man to stop shooting, they whant to have some records and show the people through media what he is doing.

The Crying of Lot 49: "Waste" a series of coincidenses

This chapter is the shortest in the novel but not because of this is less important, it has a lot of important events and coincidences that I am sure will help Oedipa find out what this private mail is all about.

In this fourth chapter of The crying of Lot 49 Oedipa follows a lot of clues regarding "waste", the private mil that arrives at the Scoope. First she gets lost in an engineer’s office and finds a young man with some papers that have the symbol of "waste" in them. This young man tells her about a machine that is extremely interesting for it can only be used by those that are sensitive. As soon as Oedipa mentions "waste" the boy refuses to keep on talking.

She then sees a very old man lying in bed, he is 91 years old and talks to her about a story his grandfather talked about in which he takes out a ring that has the symbol of "waste" in it, again being a total coincidence. "My grandfather cut this from the finger of one of them he killed. Can you imagine a 91 year old so brutal?" Oedipa stared. The device on the ring was once again the WASTE symbol." (Page 74) Not only did she find the symbol again but realized that it came since long time ago when the Americans were still fighting the indians, this could give he a lead on where to look for the symbols significance. The first time Oedipa saw this symbol was in the female’s bathroom in the scoop. What is the authors point on showing such a mystery around this mail? Will this be the key for Oedipas findings?

This chapter cleared a lot of doubt I had on the novel mostly towards its main theme. I think Oedipa is not only looking for the meaning of the Tristeros, but she is looking for a very big conspiracy around the mail and the many other companies. What will Oedipa find?

The Crying Of Lot 49: First Clues

In chapter three of The Crying of Lot 49 Oedipa the main character stats finding answers or clues to the will of his former boyfriend. The chapter’s most important part describes a play that might be a representation of some acts that Pierce did while he was alive. The play is called the courier´s tragedy, and in this play a couple of people find some bones in the bottom f a lake. This same act had been done by Pierce who had found bones that where supposedly from Italians in the bottom of a lake. This maybe a clue for Oedipa or it might be a way for Pynchon to show the importance of this event in Pierces life.

This chapter is where she starts having revelations in relationship to her task as executor: "As if (as she´d guessed that first minute in San Narciso) there were revelation in progress all around her" (page 31) her trip to San Narciso was key to her research.

This chapter also mentions a possible meaning to the title for when she is looking at Pierce´s collection of stamps she thinks about them: "About to be broken into lots, on route to any number of new masters?" (Page 32) What could the meaning of the title be?? Is it related to the stamps or to the lots that "Mucho" Maas used to work in?

Not only in chapter three but throughout the novel I have seen that Mucho and Oedipa don´t have a good relationship which is confirmed in this chapter when Pynchon says: "Like all their inabilities to communicate, this too had a virtuos motive." (Page 33) Not only this but Oedipa betrayed Mucho with Metzelger, something I would never expect because of the very uncomfortable relationship they both had.

The music theme continues through this chapter too but it starts up in a very funny satiric way: The bartender said:

"Come on around Saturdays, starting midnight we have your Sinewave Session, that´s a live get-together, fellas come in just to jam from all over the state, San Jose, Santa Barbara, San Diego-" "Live?" Metzger said, "Electronic music, live?"
"They put it on the tape, here, live, fella." (Page 34)

This is a very funny satire for the modern music that is done in computers and in which there is no true art. There is no use of instruments or vocals which are the bases and the most important things of music. In the rest of the chapter we can see those songs that have been present in the whole novel that have a very shallow meaning or no meaning at all.

A new character shows up in this chapter called Mike fallopian, he talks about the most stupid and pointless organization I have ever read about, called the Peter Pinguid Society. This society talks about what they think was the first combat between Americans and Russians in a naval attack in which absolutely no body or even a ship was damaged and that nobody ever knew about. This could be a mock against all those organizations that have started developing around the most awkward and strange people. This reminded me of a documental I saw in the discovery channel about a group of people that live with rats and worship them. They have a temple and a religion based on rats.

Another strange character appears called Di Presso, he is running away from a man that seems very dangerous known as Tony Jaguar. After he runs away in a boat with Oedipa and Metzger they figure out that the person he is running from is actually his client and he is running from him because he wants to borrow some money. What is the point of this character? This same character, Manny di Presso is suing Inverarity because he didn’t pay some bones belonging to American soldiers of WWII and which bones were used to decorate scuba equipment. As Juan Mauricio said in is blog: Is this a Mock to the suing in the United States, where people sue each other or companies for the most absurd things?

The Crying of Lot 49: Trip to San Narciso

In this chapter Oedipa travels to San Narciso, a city close to L.A which obviously is San Francisco. She travels there in order to see some books and records that Pierce had left behind and to meet with Metzelger an interesting character that is the coexecutor.

In this Chapter Pynchon uses a lot of songs in his writing. This songs show the reader the way Pynchon sees that humans, more likely those who live in San Francisco see life in a very shallow way. The songs have some weird phrases and artists. One song is done by a group called the paranoids which sing a song of total loneliness. The songs are not the only thing that shows the use of music in this chapter, In page 30 Pynchon says:

"At the end his suffering eyes filled the screen, the sound of incoming water grew deafening, up swelled the strange 30´s movie music with the massive sax action, in faded the legend THE END."

He uses music to explain the suffering in this Hollywood movie. I definitely see the use of music as a characteristic of this chapter and maybe will continue through the book.

In this chapter we can also see how Oedipa dislikes Metzger even though she spends most of the chapter with him.

"She watched him fill her glass growing more anti-Metzger as the level rose." (Page 21)

She will have to spend a lot of time with him, because he is the lawyer that will help her with the will, will this hate reflects on some actions ahead or will it affect the will itself? The book is starting to create a lot of intrigue and feelings that could affect its outcome.

The Crying of Lot 49: Oedipa the executor

This first chapter of the book took me a lot of time to read, the writing is very hard to follow. Not only the sentences are organized in a strange way but there seems to be information shot at the reader about many topics in disorder. In the beginning of this first chapter Pynchon describes the main character, Oedipa Maas. She has been named to execute the will of her former boyfriend Pierce Inverarity.

This book is full of interesting topics, just looking at the characters names is very interesting. Oedipa resembles Oedipus, from Greek mythology. Oedipus was a boy who was abandoned by his family but faith said that he would kill his father, without knowing he was his father, and that he would marry his mother. After all this he would punish himself by taking out his eyes. How will Oedipa resemble this? will she have a similar destiny?

"Mucho" Maas is also a very interesting character; he is totally obsessed with used cars and works as a DJ. "Mucho" is Oedipas husband. I think this character will be very important in the chapters to come. "Mucho" is a kind of non-social character, he is not understood by others and seems to have a life with lack of friendship. “Mucho” Maas´s name means “Much More” in Spanish, This could mean that either this character is much more than it seems or that he has way too much things going on in his head. "Mucho" is a person that can be defeated easily.

"Mucho Maas, home, bounded through the screen door. "Today was another defeat," he began. (page 3)

Mucho just accepts the fact that he was defeated, and his says, today was just another defeat, which means he has had a number of defeats from day to day. Maybe these defeats happen in his different jobs or even with his relationship with Oedipa.

This first chapter has left me with a lot of doubts about this book and the chapters to come. What will happen to Oedipa and the other characters? This book is a satire that mocks modern world and human society, each page is full of meaning and because of this it´s very hard to follow.

The Wasteland: What have we done

The first stanza of section III i very strong for it compares clearly how the rivers have been damaged and contaminated through time:

"The river bears no empty bottles, sandwich papers,
Silk handkerchiefs, cardboard boxes, cigarette ends
Or other testimony of summer nights. The nymphs are departed." (lines 177-179)

This is how rivers are now a day’s full of garbage and wastes the people just lay around and this kills thousands of animal and plant species. In these beginning stanzas, the feeling of death and destruction is present due to the change that mostly human beings are causing on earth. Due to pollution and lack of care everything has been abandoned in the city of Thames and all that can be heard now is the rats dragging their bellys in the river banks. Not even hope is left only vast destruction and death.

In line 202 Eliot changes his language again "Et, O ces voix d'enfants, chantant dans la coupole!" Why does he continually change his language this way? What does he want to show?

He mentions the Greek Tiresias who could see the future but say nothing and do nothing to change it. This character is the most ironic character I’ve heard about, for he could see the future but was blind and couldn’t change it in any way, so his blessing became his curse, for he knew every tragedy that was to come but couldn’t evade it. This is in a way what happens to the world, people know they are ruining it but they still don’t care and continue to pollute and damage the world. In a way we know the future but can’t prevent it because of peoples lack of care.

Section IV is very short but only by looking at its title you can see that it continues with the grief and death, Phlebas was killed in the sea which is supposedly calmed but at the same time symbolizes death and vastness. Phlebas bones are being taken with the seas currents so he has died in the water.

"A current under sea
Picked his bones in whispers. As he rose and fell
He passed the stages of his age and youth
Entering the whirlpool." (lines 315-318)

The Wasteland: Sadness and Grief

Section II of The Wasteland refers a lot to many different feelings such as rage, angriness or loneliness. The first example of sadness in this two sections comes in the first stanza of section II:

"In which sad light a carvèd dolphin swam." (line 96)
"Filled all the desert with inviolable voice
And still she cried, and still the world pursues" (lines 101-102)

This lines make a lot of connections to sadness and a feeling of grief, even though the character has a lot of jewelry, perfumes and even a burnished throne, she is sad and grief’s. In the next fragment of the poem she seems out of tone like if she had stopped living and devoted herself to nothingness. She starts asking questions that have nothing to do with what is happening and asking for people to think and reason. I don’t quite get the meaning of these stanzas in the poem or what the author meant with them:

"'My nerves are bad to-night. Yes, bad. Stay with me.
'Speak to me. Why do you never speak? Speak.
'What are you thinking of? What thinking? What?
'I never know what you are thinking. Think.'" (lines 111-114)

Line 126 ends up with the most shocking of all questions the one that made me feel more grief and sadness it says: "'Are you alive, or not? Is there nothing in your head?'" (line 126)
Once I read this lines I felt as if the character had lost the will to live, the sense of his life and his reason to be. Is the main character confused? Has she lost her mind?

In the end of the second section, there is a lot of repetition in the conversation between the two women, why is "Hurry up its time" repeated so many times?? She says goodnight to all her children then leaves.

The Wasteland: Hopeless destruction

The Wasteland by T.S. Eliot is an extremely dense poem which describes life in a very critical way. In this first section I get a feeling of hopelessness. The amount of unexpected things that society does that end up causing a negative effect and can bring environmental reactions you can’t control. In this first section there is a clear example of something unexpected:

"And here is the one-eyed merchant, and this card,
Which is blank, is something he carries on his back,
Which I am forbidden to see. I do not find
The Hanged Man . Fear death by water."

"Tell her I bring the horoscope myself:
One must be so careful these days." (Section 1 lines51-60)

The idea of the Horoscope is very unpredictable and shows the lack of control humans have over life or death, or over the forces of nature and the order of things. The idea that you get a blank card as in nothingness, the lack of something or just something you have, but either don’t know you do or is out of your control. You can’t control nature but you can leave it unaltered, in order for it to have its own natural order.

The first stanza is very interesting because it talks about death in a time of supposed rebirth:

"April is the cruelest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain." (Section 1 lines 1 to 4)

April marks the beginning of spring and the end of the lifeless winter. As in Inferno by Dante, winter and cold are the cruelest of punishments. There is also a contrast between life and death in which Lilacs are born from a dead land. This idea reminds me to the Phoenix a mythological creature that dies and is born again from its ashes. This happens after winter to all living creatures.

Something I found odd about this poem was that the author changes language in the middle of the text

"Frisch weht der Wind

Der Heimat zu.

Mein Irisch Kind,

Wo weilest du?" (Section 1 lines 31-34)

What kind of reaction does the author expect from this type of writing, what is the feeling he wants to create?

Epictetus 16-30

The biggest idea I found on most of this sections of the Epictetus handbook was that things don’t have to be seen as they are, but you should interpret them as better fits the situation you are in. Also I think it’s very strange the way the author sees lie. "For this is your business, to act well the character assigned you; to choose it is another's." (1) the idea that what you are you have to be and you simply have to act that way no matter what, is very different from my perspective. To me you become what you work for and you get a reward in life for what you do. not like Epictetus says that life is just an act.

Epictetus sates a very interesting idea that I really liked in section twenty when he says that: "When, therefore, anyone provokes you, be assured that it is your own opinion which provokes you."(1) I liked the way he says that you should not listen to insults people tell you because it’s just the way you feel about them that makes you mad. There is no real insult if you don’t interpret it as such. What was Epictetus style of life? Why did he develop such ideas?

Epictetus view of the family is the most interesting thing so far. the way he thinks children should be totally devoted to their father and he says if you have a bad father not all people can have good fathers. This is really interesting because he views family in a very different way as we do and like he said in the previous sections if you are not too fond of a family member you won’t care on loosing it.

Citation

1. http://classics.mit.edu/Epictetus/epicench.html (its another translation of the handbook)

Epictetus 1-15

The handbook of Epictetus is an explanation for how life’s events happen. For Epictetus everything is meant to happen and we have no control over anything just as in Slaughter-House Five. The Trafalmadorians way of thinking can be based in this thinking. I like this a lot even though I don’t agree with many of the things it says. "Do not stretch your desire toward it, but wait until it comes to you." (Pg 15) The idea that you have to wait for things to happen and know that it will happen eventually I don’t agree with. You have to fight for the things you want in order to get them, nothing in life is free.

I dislike the idea that everything is already planned and can’t be altered because in my opinion you should mold your future and fight for the things you want. I don’t agree with the idea of not becoming fond of your objects and family because they are just like any other. The writing states that if you don’t get too fond of a ceramic vase, you won’t care if it breaks and if you kiss both your child and your wife you won’t care if one of them dies. Loosing close family members will always hurt no matter who it is and losing such a close member such as a wife or a child would be extremely devastating.

A sentence I thought was very interesting was: “Don't demand that things happen as you wish, but wish that they happen as they do happen, and you will go on well.” (1) This makes me think because we are constantly wishing for things to happen the way we want them to and when they don’t happen this way we get disappointed but if we just accepted things the way they are, we would live a less expecting life. Did Epictetus apply all this ideas to his common life?

Gulliver´s travels

In Gulliver’s travels, Jonathan Swift invents a journey of a human to lands that have never been seen before. Gulliver ends up in the land of houyhnhnms a race that has control over Yahoos which Gulliver finds out are humans. The houyhnhnms are horses that have a very civilized peaceful group. In this writing Swift makes fun of humanity, the way governments are run. In the period of time when this book was written England had control over Ireland and this angered the people living there.

This book has a very similar idea to Slaughter-House Five in the way that it makes fun of things very common to society such as wars. The comparison in this book made me think about the way in which a lot of important people run the world while millions are there to work their way up, and many don’t have the opportunity to do this. Those in power have proven throughout history that you can move great amount of people to get someone’s wishes. The best example of this was the pharaohs in Egypt and the building of the pyramids.

Slaughter-HouseFive Chapters 9-10

In these last chapters of the novel many interesting things happen, but they are written in a way that you feel them as if they were very common things. One interesting thing was the way Billy’s wife Valencia died, she was driving to the hospital where he was and she was slammed by a Mercedes. Vonnegut writes a very interesting line "Nobody was hurt, thank God, because both drivers were wearing seat belts, thank God, thank God."(Pg 182) He repeats thank God three times like in Inferno where everything that is very religious is written three times and the whole book is written in tercets. This is interesting because Vonnegut is not a religious man and he uses very religious terms and ideas. The way Valencia died is also very interesting, her car had lot the exhaust system and when she got to the hospital where Billy was the doctors found her totally overcome by carbon monoxide. "Poor Valencia was unconscious, overcome by carbon monoxide."(Pg 183) This is a very funny way to die as if Vonnegut was playing with her death to make the reader laugh. Vonnegut shows her death and Derby’s death very different to all other deaths in the book. Billy shows no sadness when Valencia dies, he doesn’t even show sadness when he sees that he is going to get killed.

Vonnegut shows very clearly his lack of faith in cristian religion close to the end of the book. He narrates how Jesus and his father do a job for the roman soldiers in which they create an object used to cause death and suffering. “It was a cross to be used in the execution of a rebel rouser. Jesus and his father had built it. They were glad to have the work. And the rabble-rouser was executed on it. So it goes.” (Pg 202) In this quote we see how not only Jesus created an artifact destined to kill but he was glad to do it and it didn’t hurt that a man had just been killed because of this.

The ending of the book was very normal and calm, nothing different from the rest of the book. Nothing exciting happened. Vonnegut could have done this to show the reader that the end of the book is just one more thing, which is meant to happen. A very extravagant ending could have reduced the importance of other events in the book and change the effect on the reader.

This book is related to Gulliver’s travels in the way that it makes fun of things humanity has created. In Slaughter-House Five Vonnegut makes fun of war and death, while in Gulliver´s travels Jonathan Swift makes fun of humanity and government.

Slaughter-House Five chapters 7-8

In chapter seven Billy starts in an aircraft accident, which he knew would already happen and that he knew he was not going to die at. Billy and the co-pilot are the only ones who survive the crash. It is very interesting, the way in which throughout the novel Billy survives many situations in which he could have died. He survived the war, the bombing in Dresden and the airplane crash. He also survived getting kicked at punched and banged all over like a toy. Throughout the novel we see, how the author shows extremely shocking moments as the most normal things that could happen, maybe this is to show the Tralfamador way of thinking in which everything is meant to happen and every happy moment will live forever.


The thing I like most about this book is the way that the author sees and plays with death. Every time he mentions death he ends the paragraph with "as it goes" as I have said in my previous blogs, but there is a very interesting character for which he shows a lot of pity in death and sees his death as a very sad happening. This character is Edgar Derby. In this book, we can see how Billy has a lot of pity for Edgar or as he calls him "poor old Edgar Derby". "Poor old Derby, the doomed high school teacher, lumbered to his feet for what was probably the finest moment in his life." (pg 164) Why is this why is his death different to all the other characters and living creatures that have died? This may be because Billy saw him as a father in the war, because he was the oldest and most experienced one in his group.

This two chapters explains Billy’s and his companions role in Dresden, how they had to work in a malt syrup factory, and how Billy and the others kept spoons hidden all over the factory in order to eat all day. I see this as a way of making fun of wars because prisoners of war are treated well and given jobs in which they can eat candy. " he stuck the lollipop into poor old Derby´s gaping mouth. A moment passed, and then Derby burst into tears." (Pg 161) Billy had develop a very interesting care for Derby and he doesn´t show this only in the way he sees his death as a tragedy but also in some situations like this one in which he saw him out the window and risked getting caught to give him some syrup. Why is Derby so important to Billy?

Slaughter-House Five Chapter 6

This is a very interesting chapter; Billy starts of in the hospital at WWII the day he will leave to Dresden. A very interesting story comes from one of the strangest characters in the book Paul Lazzaro. Paul says he ones killed a dog in a horrible way because it attacked him and that there is nothing sweeter than revenge. This story made me have a very strange feeling which was then proved right when Billy having jumped in time a couple if times comes to the moment of his death, one of the most interesting parts of the whole book. "At that moment, Billy´s high forehead is in the cross hairs of a high-powered laser gun. It is aimed at him from the darkened press box. In the next moment, Billy Pilgrim is dead. So it goes."(Pg 143) Billy knew he was going to be shot but did nothing because he had learned like Trafalmadorians that death was just another moment. It is very interesting that he is killed with such a futuristic weapon given the time he was killed (1976) because this way Vonnegut shows how he thinks that weapons and technology is developing very rapidly.

In the end of this chapter the Slaughter-House is finally mentioned, for its the place where Billy and the other American soldiers will stay in Dresden. It was first a killing place for all animals destined to be made into food, but all the animals had been eaten at war. Billy is made to memorize the name of the place in German in case he gets lost, which is very interesting because it means that even though they are prisoners they are going to be able to walk freely around town. In Dresden everybody expected to see Americans as very big strong man that could kill hundreds in battle, but when the Americans come out of the boxcar as they were very skinny badly fed and harmless. The interesting thing is the image that the U.S. army had to other nations that thought that it was almost undefeatable. "Still- they were expected to earn obedience and respect from tall, cocky, murderous infantrymen who had just come from all the killing at the front." (Pg 149) this shows the respect that others have towards the U.S. army.

This is the chapter in the book in which there is less jumping in time, Billy only jumps around one or two times. This could have been done in order to give some specific events such as his death or the arriving to the Slaughter-House more importance and for them to stand out to the reader.

Slaughter-House Five Chapter 5 Pgs 119-135

In this chapter Billy jumps a lot in time to 3 different moments: His stay in Tralfamador, His life in 1968 and WWII. In the end of chapter five we continue to see a lot of examples of death ending up in "so it goes." which is something I have pointed out in most of my blogs and have seen in all the chapters of this book. "Billy asked them a little about themselves, learned that the boy’s father had been killed in Vietnam- in the famous five-day battle for hill 875 near Dakto. So it goes." (Pgs 134-135) Vonnegut shows no pity towards those who lose a close member of the family, maybe because of the way that he through Billy’s eyes sees death just as a moment. The person is still alive in thousands of happy moments.

The author of the book comes into the story as one of the characters, which is very interesting to my point of view. It’s something I had never seen before. “An American near Billy wailed that he had excreted everything but his brains. Moments later he said, "There they go, there they go." He meant his brains. That was I. That was me. That was the author of this book." (pg 125) I had never read a novel in which the author mentioned himself in the writing, which was the reason why it seemed so strange.

When Billy is a prisoner of war it reminds me of a game I play that is called Dungeons and Dragons because even though the game is played in a very different time and context, I had a mission/quest, in which I started of prisoner from a previous battle and had to escape. Billy’s situation was in a way very similar because he lacked good food, he had no good equipment and he was very hurt in his whole body, this was the same with my game´s character only that I had no help from others like Billy did from the Englishmen. It’s very strange how these two very different things come to link in my mind but it’s very nice that the author has this ability to make you think on many different things.

Slaughter-House Five Chapter 5 (87-119)

In this chapter Billy starts with the English soldiers that were also imprisoned but apparently having no problems and better off that most other people in the world. Due to the lack of a medic Billy is examined by an important officer. Billy’s body is totally broken which is explained in the constant kicking and punching he has received. "The English man touched him exploratorily here and there, filled with pity.”My God- what have they done to you, lad? This isn’t a man. It’s a broken kite." (Pg 97)

Billy then starts the part of this chapter I liked the most, his voyage to Tralfamador, this is vey interesting for Trafalmadorians are very different from humans. You can see the way they show no interest or worry in any bad event that will in any way lead to harm and destruction, but since they can become unstuck on time they focus on good moments. They don’t care about death and destruction and do nothing to stop it even though they have the power to do it. "How- how does the universe end?" said Billy."We blow it up, experimenting for new fuels for our flying saucers." (Pg 117)

From Vonnegut’s interview my perspective changed in a dramatic way, for i realized he is not religious and therefore the examples I used in previous blogs of religion are not because of the author thinking that religion is good but maybe attacking it in a way. Vonnegut also talks about the war in this interview and says that he has been a prisoner of war which makes me think about the moments that Billy has lived in the book and those that Vonnegut could have possibly lived. I liked the way that he describes Billy being displayed in a zoo and how he is shown to be in a way inferior to Trafalmadorians and how he doesn’t show care for his state and for his life in any way.

Slaughter-House Five Chapter 4

In this chapter the observations that I have seen in the rest of the book are continued in many different ways. The most common one and the one that is clearer is the "So it goes". Every time death is mentioned it ends up with "So it goes". That is the authors way to show that death is but another thing to come that is totally inevitable and that comes to all no matter what kind of living thing it is. It is not only seen every time a human being dies but every time any kind of living thing dies. "The Americans´ clothes were meanwhile passing through poison gas. Body lies and bacteria and fleas were dying by the billions. So it goes."(Pg. 84)

The other thing that has continued to show in the novel was the presence of religious features such as Adam an Eve that show how the author compares the war with religion. "Everybody turned into a baby, and all humanity, conspired biologically to produce two perfect people named Adam and Eve, he supposed."(Pg 75)

In this chapter Billy continues to travel in time and goes back to the moment where he was kidnapped by aliens whose point of view of time and place is very different to that of humans and is very interesting for they don’t question anything but they feel it as if it was just something that is supposed to be.

The most interesting passage in this part of the book for my opinion is when Vonnegut describes a movie of the war but as if it was being showed from back to front, and so everything happens backwards. The rifles suck the bullets and the soldiers are haled instead of wounded.

Slaughter-House Five Chapter 3

In this chapter Billy Pilgrim doesn´t jump around in time as much but stays a lot of time in the present and most time in WWII. It is very clear the cruelty of the war in which a sick major is not treated and is left to death and in which all prisoners of war are stuffed into a train for two days. In the book the sense of misery and death is seen as a simple common thing that is meant to happen and that will not change even if one tries to evade it.

The narrator sees death as a common happening thing that is inevitable and will happen to all no matter when or how. This thinking is proved by the lines in which a dead occurs and ends in “as it goes”. The death that shocked me the most for the show of lack of importance in the novel was the one of Wild Bob as described in the following sentences. “There were just six live colonels- and one dead one. The Germans carried the corpse out. The corpse was Wild Bob. So it goes.” (Pg 69)

Also the amount of symbolic presence made me think on a lot of different things. For example the presence of Adam and Eve that are very religous symbols being present in a pair of boots that are made for war and the massive killing of people. And the fact that this are very important for their owner and cause an effect on Billy for he says. "They were so innocent, so vulnerable, so eager to behave decently. Billy Pilgrim loved them." (Pg 53)

Slaughter-house five Chapter 2

In this chapter Billy explains the way he was kidnapped by aliens and taken to another planet. He says he was displayed naked in a zoo and that he learned how to become unstuck in time. He goes back and forth in time between his present life as an optometrist and his past in World War II. This moments are very important for the book because its where he began having this breaks in time. "Billy Pilgrim had stopped in the forest. He was leaning against a tree with his eyes closed. His head was tilted back and his nostrils were flaring. He was like a poet in the

Parthenon. This was when Billy first came unstuck in time." (pg 43) This kind of relates to the way in which you remember important things you have lived and many times regret what you have done. In this chapter Billy is pushed around by others because he is very weak and in a sense has no feeling of time or presence because he is constantly changing of time period. Billy is very vulnerable because he is only half conscious of what is happening and even though he is in the middle of a war he has no weapons.

All the way throughout the novel Billy is jumping in time staying only for very short moments on each time frame. Billy can have a fragile state of mind for believing in some strange things, like Trafalmadorians, but more than this I think it is a symbolic thing that we will possibly discover throughout the rest of the novel.

Answers Questions First HW

A. What is the diffrence between a blog and a book?

A blog is a site where people can comment on many different subjects of interest, it’s used to link the information you have and want to share to that of many others, who have information on the same topic they want to share. A blog has the advantage to be an only online source where hyperlinks can be placed to take readers to other pages of interest to the author or that have information on the blogs topic. A book in the other hand is a printed writing in which the information has to be complete in order to give the reader the knowledge he is looking for.

B. How have blogs changed recently?
The blogs have changed a lot in the past years, in the beginning the blogs were used to post important information but then they became a way for people to communicate with others and share their thoughts in a specific topic. The word blog comes from the word “web log” which was shortened to the actual “blog” in 1999, when Peter Merholz separated the word into “We Blog”. There are about 15 million active blogs today that cover almost any topic anyone would like to look for.

C. Why migt you read a blog?

I might read a blog to find information about a specific topic I like or to find the opinion of others in pieces of literature or any other type of topic I like. In blogs anyone can post their opinion without having to worry for others point of view.

D. Is there a reason to dubt the objectivity of a blog? Why? Why not?

A blog is a free writing in which all pople can say anything they want. Most of the writings in a blog are opinions, which many times are biased depending on the writters preference or point of view. Most blogs arevery profesional and deliver a well writen opinion of the topic to all blog readers.

E. If you kept your own blog, what would you title it?

I would title my own blog depending to the topic that is to be discussed in the blog, but I would leave the title open to fit the different ideas that can be discussed or can emerg during the discussions that are taken place by the "bloggers".