This week in class we watched a TED talk video (Dan Ariely, top left) that spoke about illusions and related them to tragedy in a comical form, analyzed a new poem, "Barbie Doll", and read the story of Antigone by Sophocles (middle left). I found the TED talk video extremely interesting. I totally agree with what the speaker, Dan Ariely, was saying about how our choices are not always 100% our own though they may seem as if they are at the time they are made. There are so many small factors that influence us to make certain decisions, and it's crazy how influential something so small can truly be. Antigone truly stressed the topic of tragedy. I find it extremely tragic not only because of the predicament Antigone finds herself in, but also because of the theme of family and how dysfunctional Antigone's family (middle left) is. It is tragic that Antigone is caught between honoring her ruler and honoring her dead brother, but it is even more tragic that she feels as if she must choose between family. The end of the story somewhat reminded me of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. At the end of both stories, both of the lovers die in tragic ways. Antigone commits suicide in the cave before she can be punished, but what is truly sad about it is that she was going to be freed. Out of anger and sadness, Haemon attempts to kill his father, Creon, over the death of Antigone, and upon failing he kills himself. This is similar to Romeo and Juliet because Romeo kills himself upon the discovery of Juliet's seemingly lifeless body. The true tragedy is found when Juliet awakens from her "sleep" and finds Romeo dead. It is sad because Juliet was not dead, and they would have actually been able to be together. The end results in both of their deaths after Juliet commits suicide. |
The poem we read this week, "Barbie Doll" by Margie Piercy, was really intriguing to me. The authors comparison between natural things as well as materialistic things, "Her good nature wore out / like a fan belt.", emphasized her shift from who she truly was to a completely different looking person, and the eventual break down she underwent. When the speaker talked about her lying in her "casket displayed on satin" (right bottom) and how those who looked at her thought "Doesn't she look pretty?", I found it to be quite sarcastic. At the beginning of the poem the speaker clearly states "a classmate said: / You have a great big nose and fat legs." using the singular term: classmate. I think this is to emphasize that the words of one individual can affect the thoughts and actions of someone else to a very great extent. After this statement, the speaker tends to use the word "everyone" to speak about her new looks and what people thought of the old her in comparison to the new her. I found this to be intentionally sarcastic in order to stress the fact that what one person thought of her did not correlate with what everyone thinks, and that changing your face, body, and lifestyle to become essentially a materialistic "barbie doll" (top right) is not always the answer..especially when it is due to the thoughts of someone who is irrelevant to your own happiness. |