Literature Analysis #2

1. The main plot in Kafka on the Shore revolves around a boy who runs away from home in order to feel free and find his long lost sister and mother. While this happens two other stories take place, one about a man who speaks to cats and one about a teacher. Kafka takes a bus to a city in order to find a new life. On the bus he meets a woman who he is attracted to and starts a conversation with her. He asks her about his sister but is not given the response he was hoping to hear. Once reaching the city he enters a library where he befriends the person at the front desk. He tells her about his intentions and she says he could stay at a small shack up the mountains not far from where he is now. After a while of staying there he is allowed to stay at the library's guest room. Here he encounters the owner of the library who is a woman. He befriends her and starts somewhat of an attraction with her. On the first night there he witnesses a ghost an tells the library attendant about it. The books ends up with Kafka having a sexual relationship with the library owner but also the girl he met on the bus who is later revealed to be his long lost sister.  The story involving the man who speaks with cats is about him looking for a cat throughout the the story. He later finds out that cats around the neighborhood are being kidnapped and killed in order to be used for a ritual. This all ties in with Kafka in the end.

2. The main theme to this is love and human nature. The author Haruki Miramaki really explores the human nature throughout the story like sexuality, isolation, violence, and imagination. Love also plays a key point through out the story.

3. The authors tone is serious. He does shift into a happy tone in occasion but he usually stays on a serious tone to create an atmosphere to the reader.

4. 5 literary elements the author uses on the book include dialect. The dialect really demonstrates the characters intentions but also their emotions. Another technique he uses is imagery, he uses this by creating a surrealistic yet realistic environment for the reader. Another technique is tone. The tone creates the setting of mood the book is meant to be read and comprehended in. Another technique includes diction. The words he chose allowed certain sentences to flow clearly to be taken into thought rather if it was choppy.

Tools That Change the Way We Think

The use of all the new technology has made me think in a new perspective like maybe it is a good thing only if the people know how to control it but if people use it excessively it might end up affecting them negatively.

Technology has given me an upper hand in education in the sense that if I don't know a word I am capable to look it up and come up with an answer in seconds unlike when using a dictionary, it can take up to two minutes just to find the definitions of a word. The new technology does not really affect my concentration since it doesn't really captivate my attention.

The difference between previous generations and modern day generations is that people now a days depend on technology to teach them how to survive, how to think, how make it in life. They have no basic instinct and are dependent on technology for most of their problems. This is not true for all generations but it is for a couple of people. Now older generations relied on their instincts, their knowledge, their thoughts to help them survive in life when things came to a pause.

There is a positive side to the new technology, but once again it depends if the audience know how to even out the usage of technology. It allows us to be informed about life outside our county and country. We are even informed about outer space. So I guess in a way technology is a step forward with society

In Search of

   After watching the video posted up on the blog, it made me realize that even though it may seem that we are in charge of what we look for, in reality we are far from in charge of the internet. The thing is that there exist filter bubbles on certain search engines like Google, bing, and yahoo. Something else that caught my attention was the fact that everything we look up is sent somewhere and is added into an equation that determines what we would like to search when in reality we are searching for something on the opposite end of the spectrum. After learning this I decided to redo my research on who was Shakespeare, but this time taking into consideration what I learned from the video. I went to a search engine that does not have the Miss Cleo effect thus not giving me random searches but searches I specified fort. I went to duckduckgo.com for example. Another thing I did was put parentheses around my search words to make it specific. Once this was done all my searches didn't give me random websites about furniture or music but rather history sites and even PBS.com.

Notes on Hamlet

Since we began reading Hamlet my thoughts have remained then same due to the fact that I have read it before but some things have popped up at me that I didn't notice before like Gildenstern and Rosencrantz working against Hamlet even though they are friends. Since the ghost apeared at midnight I tend to feel this dark atmosphere around the whole play. Some things I also begin to comprehend as we entered deep analyses of certain fragments or snippets from the play, one example being Hamlet's famous "To Be or not To Be..." soliloquy. this really helped me understand Hamlet's thought process along with how everything ties in at the end.

Who Was Shakespeare

After some searching I came to the conclusion I've always had about Shakespear. Shakespeare was a writer whose themes and topics usually revolved around upper-class hierarchy which raises some very thoughtful questions. How did Shakespeare know so much about the royal lifestyle if he himself was but a peasant. This led people to the conclusion that maybe the writer behind various Shakespearean plays was a actually of royal descent, in this case Edward de Vere. In the end I conclude that Shakespeare was the writer behind many plays.
Search engines used included Google, Bing, and Duck Duck Go. Websites used include PBS and wikipedia.

To Facebook or Not to Facebook

My first impressions on facebook was that it was a very simple and generic social website. It didn't really leave an impression on me. The benefits of it include that people could meet other people to socialize and to catch up with current events. Some of the risk involve children getting kidnapped, privacy getting intruded, and people targeting kids with advertising. After reading the article and discussing in class I learned that maybe security and privacy should have a limit and is not important to facebook nor society. Also it helps donate money and it actually gathers society together to share common interest and thoughts.

(Don't) Be Hamlet

Hamlet seems to face various dilemmas when it comes to making a decision concerning murder and suicide. He demonstrates this throughout his well known soliloquy. He discusses death, his hard life, and other subjects.

For Hamlet I would have to say to not murder anyone nor lean tirades the thought of suicide. Hamlet, in the soliloquy, discusses death and what may await him after death. I would have to say that he try to cope with the dilemas he faces each day. "To be, or not to be," as stated by Hamlet demonstrates or advices the reader he is trying to make up his mind. Hamlet should think about maybe talking out his problems to his friends see their opinion.

"Must give us pause. There's the respect that makes calamity of so long life, for who would bear the whips and scorns of time." Hamlet is correct that maybe with a pause of thought will make him think clearer and allow him to make his mind up since life is very hard. Hamlet should maybe dig more into his choices instead of anaylizing the two black and white choices. Mostly I believe Hamlet should just cope with his problems and not drag death into it.

This is basically what I believe my opinion or advice would be to Hamlet. The main and repetitive advice would be to cope with the problems. Sounds harsh, but I believe death would bring guilt that may worsten his life a bit more.