The Imperial Catastrophe

    Joseph Conrad shows how Imperialism destroyed the African continent during the 1890’s. His famous novel The Heart of Darkness clearly reveals Conrad’s criticism towards this massive colonization that happened during the last half of the century.  The biggest colonies where owned by the reign of queen Victoria of England. To illustrate the reader, the author gave two main facts that will help the reader to understand his point of view. The first one, how England made the colonists look like heroes and missionaries and secondly, how they use this excuse to destroy the African people.

      As an illustration, the reader may take into consideration the Victorian age, in which England recovered from a horrible crisis that had left it in a horrible state. With the money taken out of the colonies, the country quickly recovered and Queen Victoria and the explorers, where recognized as heroes. To explain, the author clearly shows how this honor was inside the mind of our main character Marlow states that  “And indeed nothing is easier for a man who has, as the phrase goes, ‘followed the sea’ with reverence and affection, than to evoke the great spirit of the past upon the lower reaches of the Thames.” (Conrad, 6) In other words, the reader can see how Marlow was trapped inside this illusion of being a savior to the people of the Black Continent.

      Afterward, Marlow discovers the truth about this “explorers”. After the colonization, all the resources that the African people had became part of the wealth of the European empires. It is here when Conrad shows the reader how Marlow, after seeing what’s really happening inside the continent, thinks about this colonizers and the job he is doing. He clearly shows how conquers “want only brute force--nothing to boast of, when you have it, since your strength is just an accident arising from the weakness of others.” (Conrad, 13) For this purpose, the reader quickly understands that Conrad wants to clearly differentiate a Colonist with a Conquers.

      The Heart of Darkness is a book that shows hoe imperialism may look like something good for both countries involved, but it is really a bloody and cruel Conquer for power and strength, that is why Conrad shows the reader the importance of the liberation of these colonies for the well being of the entire world.

The Black and White Oxymoron

Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad uses an Oxymoron between White and Black to demonstrate Conrad’s critics towards these two denominations. The author pairs up these two colors to make the differentiation that worldwide society gives to Africa and the rest of the world. To develop this thesis, it is important that the reader takes into consideration two important factors. The first one, the “why” people relates Africa to this dark color and the second one, related to Europe’s presence in Africa.

Although racism may be part of this mistake, the metonym between black and Africa has nothing to do with the fact that this continent is mainly composed of dark-colored people. This denomination has to do with the security, health and social issues this continent had. To illustrate, the reader can take into consideration events such as the Rwanda genocide or the Blood Diamonds. Specifically, the reader can take Congo’s problems such as the vast number of refugees in this area, the unimaginable health problem and the obvious poverty issue. These are the main reasons why Congo is denominated inside the book as the “Heart of Darkness” which really signifies the center of the black continent.

Congo’s government and people are not the only ones to be blamed because of its economical, political and social problems. Conrad takes the reader to the context in which this book was written. During the last decade of the 1800s, Europe had conquered many countries around the world. This new empire caused many problems inside continents such as Africa. Certainly, the reader can see some of the problems caused by imperialism inside the book; for instance, when Marlow starts mocking the way he was “hindering you fellows in your work and invading your homes, just as though I had got a heavenly mission to civilize you.” (Conrad, 16) It is here where Conrad makes his criticism about how Europe’s presence in Africa was not a mission to help Africa but on the contrary, a nightmare for the people in this country.

It is with this analysis that the reader can understand Conrad’s criticism inside this wonderful novel. It is important to recognize that dividing the world into the dark and the bright is just making our world a worst place to live and a horrible place to see.

Gabriela 

THE CHERRY IRONY

The Cherry Orchard by Anton Chekhov, contains multiple examples of dramatic irony and it's effects inside the plot of the story. Specifically, dramatic irony is defined as the "irony that is inherent in speeches or a situation of a drama and is understood by the audience but not grasped by the characters in the play." (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/dramatic+irony). The reader can detect this kind of Irony inside Chekhov's play when he uses scene directions such as "puts a candy on his mouth" (Chekhov, 351) to create a dramatic irony inside the phrase "Gayev: (puts a candy into his mouth) they've said I've eaten up my entire fortune in candies...(Laughs)" (Chekhov, 351).

With this in mind, Chekhov forces the reader to take special attention to the scene directions, because they make a simple phrase a complete example of a literary device such as dramatic Irony. Indeed, the reader has to take into consideration the fact that this little details may change the whole meaning of the story and the criticism this one implies. For instance in the example above, we see how Chekhov uses dramatic Irony to show how people know they are in an economic crisis, still, they unconsciously throw they're money away in vague things such as candy.

In conclusion, we can say that The Cherry Orchard is a clear example of dramatic Irony that in plays such as this one can be seen in small things such as the stage directions. This two things make Chekhov a great writer that forces the reader to look beyond the lines and the story.

Gabriela

A Comedy to Go Please

What's Stand up Comedy? It is not only a guy standing up for 2 hours talking about the fun part of life. It is actually a way of art that goes far beyond this century, it started on the club's on the USA, that where called the comedy club's. It continued expanding, more clubs where engaged in the business and TV started producing this shows. During the 1990's this art faced death when they where so famous and pretty much everywhere that comedians started resigning and viewers started to think of it as a normal thing. This was saved by the alternative type of stand up comedy which instead of a guy telling jokes, it became a monologue or a one person performance on stage. 

Acting a comedy such as the Cherry Orchard is just and inventive way to put more performers on the already known stand up comedy. It is not only one guy acting his jokes but many people falling into them and adding content. For example we can see how people will laugh with scenes such as this one, in which two actors make people laugh. 

In this scene we see how the characters use a common thing such as menopause to make people laugh about themselves which is the true meaning of a comedy.

In the Cherry Orchard, we see how Chekhov uses something simple as a marriage, a rent and a apparently crazy women to make the readers laugh at the situations this people where living through. It is true that it can be sad to sell your childhood memory to pay a bill, but when Chekhov plays with the emotions of the situation and says things such as "Now I am at peace, I am at peace" (Chekhov 343) he makes people think about how terrible situation can bring fun to your life, like when you are on a stand up comedy and laugh about the performance this guy or lady does.

Acting a comedy is a new way in which stand up comedy reflects to our society that each day is looking for more ways to entertain on the expenses of our sadness. 

Gabriela

"CHERRY RIDE" THE MOVIE

EDITED DIRECTED AND PRODUCED BY GABRIELA ARROYO
STARTING ALL MY DEAR FRIENDS
ENJOY!!!!!!!

Is It a New Meaning?

The article by the New York Times has made a revelation about the real life Huckleberry Finn. Although Twain shows him as a white kid, researches have seen that his way of speaking matches the one of a St. Pittsburgh black boy. The author of this article considers that this new discovery makes an impact towards the message Twain wants to transmit with his 1884 novel. 

Huck is the son of the St. Pittsburgh drunk. Thus, he has lived a life of insecurity and mistreating. His father goes missing every now and then. After Twain's first novel, The adventures of Tom Sawyer, Huck is adopted by Widow Douglas who has an attempt to civilize and teach him the values of their society. Quotes such as "But I reckon I got to light out for the territory ahead of the rest, because Aunt Sally she’s going to adopt me and sivilize me, and I can’t stand it. I been there before." ( Twain, 233) show how Huck is uneducated and aware of societies misunderstandings, misleading and contradictions about what it's true values are.

I think this discovery will make the novel to gain more meaning and it's main theme about Racism to have more impact. During this whole adventure, Huck learned that Jim was not like society said he would be. Jim was actually he same as he was, he was not as horrible and dumb as Mrs.  Douglas told him he would be. Huck learned that Black and white are the same and should be treated the same, with Huck being based on a real Black boy Mr. Twain is simply reinforcing his idea.

In conclusion, we can see how Twain is sending a message to its future readers, saying that our values should be based on equality between races and that we must not contradict ourselves like his society did, that we must see each other as equals and that racism must not be a part of modern society.

Gabriela

Stereotypes As a hidden Critisism

Black-face minstrelsy, clearly shows the relationship between a Minstrel show and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn's character Jim, which plays the role of "Minstrel Darky" in the King and Duke's  presentation. It shows this relationship as a stereotype, when while reading essays about Minstrel shows, the author started thinking about Jim as this character.

Minstrel shows where born in the 1830's when working class white men started mocking the Black slave's way to dance and sing. It became famous when our author Mark Twain said how he remember ed the "old time nigger show" (Twain). With this statement it also became Respectable and it started to be used as a way of entertainment for land owners. At the beginning white people would put make up on and act as Black people, it then started being actual Afro-American people until they where not permitted to be on stage after the civil war. This didn't stop them because they would act as white's playing as slaves. 

I think the author of this essay is wrong, because first of all as already said, minstrel shows where a way to mock the slave's way of life, singing and dancing forms.  Furthermore, It was a way to entertain and humiliate the Afro-American people in the United States after the civil war. It even included black people for some time which acted on this shows that mocked their own people. If it was a stereotype then minstrel shows would be an ignorant type of entertainment in which only white people would participate. On the contrary, minstrel shows are scenes in which they mock the way in which they see the slave's sing and dance, and during a certain time period even black people where part of this mocking. 

Twain used the minstrel shows to show the reader the way Afro-American traditions where seen at those times. An example of this, is when the Duke and the King used the character "Minstrel Darky" as part of their show. Slavery was not only the heavy work on the plantations but also the own entertainment form of the land owners.

In conclusion we can see how Twain uses minstrel shows to show how Black people where mocked by society. Secondly, it is a mistake to show it as a stereotype, because it is a way that even the black people make fun of slave's traditions. Finally we can see that although minstrel shows where respectable, they where a manifestation of how landowners mistreated and humiliated black people.

Gabriela