Author Archives: sharielibreros

Dec. 7th

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ANNOUNCEMENTS-

  • Homework #1: Watch the first two episodes of The Handmaid’s Tail Hulu series by Tuesday, Dec. 12th 
    • NOTE
      • You must’ve already have read the novel. 
      • Be sure to take notes as you watch and if you want to mention a scene in class to discuss a scene, write the episode number as well as the minute/seconds of where the scene is at.
      • Think of the adaptation. Don’t just make a list of differences. Describe how these differences change the narrative or how these new choices/changes effect the story and characters as a whole?
      • (Optional) Extra Credit of this due Monday December 11th– You can write your notes and thoughts on the blog. 
  • Homework #2 due Tuesday December 12th– Make a “Two-Part title; Separated by a colon” 
    • EXAMPLE: ______;_______
  • Essay #2 due Thursday Dec. 14th 
  • Extra Credit blog based on your experience of the City Tech Science Fiction Symposium due by Sunday Dec. 10th

 

Writing Tips~! 

  • Vocabulary- Transition: the process or a period of changing from one state or condition to another.
    • NOTE– Using a transition in almost every topic question is key yo answering those question
  • You can look up more on transitions at: https://writingcenter.unc.edu/tips-and-tools/transitions
  • Using transitional words can help validate your argument. Such as “First, Second, However, Alternately…”  

 

HISTORICAL NOTES- 

Jezebels- Starting at Section XII pg 199 

  • Gentlemen’s club where the Commander goes to
  • Going here requires costumes/certain attires. An illegal fashion for a Handmaid to wear.
  • The outfit Offred wears (pg 231) ; more exposing compared to her usual attire; skanty
  • The commander, he’s excited to take Offred to Jezebel’s as if they were attending some kind of part. Though Offred feels exposed with this type of clothing, she get’s a hard time applying the make up due to the fact she hadn’t done it in so long. She feels like she’s in someone else’s skin, unable to recognize herself.
    • Her emotions seemed all over the place, she’s confused yet feels preserved freedom.
  • The atmosphere- speakeasy, illicit, and nostalgic. (a longing to the past that Offred can’t seem to let go) [Paragraph 4, pg 234]
  • This chapter, while it teased freedom for Offred, it begins and ends with Offred being reminded of her ownership to the Commander.

 

Moira– reintroduced at 238

  • Moira was the symbol of strength and freedom to Offred.
    • But her description now, this is not the same Moira Offred had looked up to, she is now performing an identity that she hates. She’s wearing an odd articular of clothing and high heals, which is something Offred remembers
    • Moira’s story is told second hand to the narrator and to us, the reader.
    • Her strong character that we were lead to believe is now broken down to be frightened and weakened.
  • The Narrator’s final comment of this “new” Moira, wanting to shape this ending into an ending that fits to her liking an ending that feels right to her. This returns to the narrators META story righting.

 

The Risk for Relationships

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As I mentioned in my previous post, Offred’s relationship with the Commander continued to evolve and grow into something no one in Gilead believed to be possible. For not even the Commander himself, who knew very well the rules of the Handmaid rituals, was unable to resist his need for companionship. Since Chapter X and onwards, his actions towards Offred shifted from a cold man only using Offred’s body as a tool/vessel to repopulate Gilead, to a desperate man using searching for Offred’s affection in order to fill his need for human contact.

By (211) Offred becomes completely aware of the Commander’s need for intimacy. She remembers how he wants her to “kiss him goodnight, as if I meant it.” (209) Although while The Commander is demanding for some form of a relationship between him and his Handmaid, at that point he is using Offred as a tool for his own personal gain much like how he uses her tool to for population. He has become clear that for The Commander, there might be something more important to him than simply repopulating and sexual desire. “… sex was too easy. Anyone could just buy it… Men were turning off on sex, even.” For him, Offred fills a much larger more vital roll than just baring children or obeying to his pleasure. In the end sex is just an action and all meaning of it will be lost to both the men and women.

Though despite this need for relationships and affection being strictly against the rules, this is something The Commander is willing to risk not only his life but Offred’s life.

Compassion in the stranges of places

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Focusing into the relationship between Offred and The Commander, it would seem that the Commander is putting down his walls in order to have Offred approach him. With the actions he makes and with he even speaks to Offred, there is a slight different to him compared to the other commanders. His actions even surprising Offred, defeating her expectations.

Going to to Offred’s expectations about The Commander, in comparison to her pass experiences with other commanders, when she is summoned she will expect she is called for some “kinky” request, something foul from the other man. Instead he asks her to play “Scrabble”. “As if we were an old married couple, or two children, seemed kinky in the extreme, a violation in its own way.” (Chapter 25 PG. 155 PP 4) She isn’t being used the way she was intended to be used. Is The Commander just using her as entertainment instead? Maybe, but he isn’t treating her as some tool like the other maids or even the wife. She’s being treated as a human, a companion to simply pass the time with. Though he still shows signs of speaking to Offred as a child or some low intellectual woman, (how he would renoince words for her in Scrabble or dangle the magazine in front of her, knowing very well she wants it) in comparison to the others, it seems he acknowledge her humanity.

His human compassion (even if it’s minor compassion) towards Offred by giving her a taboo item, his magazine, something Offred would consider to be the man’s prized possession. He seems to understand how bored she might be during her times alone, it could even be as a token of gratitude or appreciation from him for all she is doing.

His reasoning soon show that he is a man that is simply lonely. Much like Offred he feels a certain hunger of companionship, already it is not as great as Offred’s need, The Commander feels astray from his wife and that she just doesn’t understand him.

“She wouldn’t understand. Anyway, she won’t talk to me anymore. We don’t seem to have much in common, these days.” – The Commander, Part X Chapter 25 PG 158 PP. 6

Both he and Offred are mkre alike than we think, they understand eachother on one thing, the sheer loniless and hunger for companionship. While in Offred’s case she seems to accept any kind of human contact, just as long as she is involved with others and is acknowledged of her existence. Ad for The Commander he seems to want specifically a woman to keep him company, a woman to look at and speak to about his own interests. Possibly to remind himself of how she used to speak to his own wife before she  bgan to distance herself from him. For that loniless, he seeks out the attention of his Handmaid in hopes for her to fill out this void.

Class notes 10/19

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Important dates

 

Homework: Finish parts 7-9 by Monday night

 

Narrative Structure:

Point of view containing of 1st and omniscient 3rd  P.O.V

-Omniscient 3rd  P.O.V: Observing the narrator is able to know the character’s past as well as their thoughts, helping the reader understand the character(s) even more.

Setting:

Toronto. BUT there are different variations of Toronto. Such as Toronto of the past, before the Georgia Flu and Toronto after the Flu. As well as more specifically in Toronto before the Flu, Elgin Theater.

Characters before the Flu in this setting:

Jeevan- A Central character in the beginning. Readers see the first few seconds of the pandemic through his eyes.

Kirsten- as a child, around 8-years-old. She witnessed Arthur’s death which traumatized her and keeps reminding her of the day of the outbreak.

Toronto in the past- way back when Jeevan was a paparazzi; he interviewed Arthur.

-Then moves to the post-flu Toronto

Chapter 34 pg 186 58th day Jeevan is with his brother Frank (who is paralyzed from the waist down) until Frank “goes away”.

-Jeevan then meets up with travelers by a river to join them until Part 5 pg 194 when Jeevan tries not to go crazy as he continues on his own.

 

Jeevan in other settings

-Before the Georgia Flu

  1. Whe he was a Paparazzi, he takes a picture of Miranda before her divorce w/ Arthur
  2. His interview w/ Arthur 7 years ago (before Arthur leaves Elizabeth for Colton)
  3. Elgen theater (moments before flu)
  4. With Frank (after flu)
  5. Now walking alone (after flu)

Conflicts within characters:

  1. Human v. Nature (Humanity v. Flu)
  2. Human v. Human (prophet/cult v. The Symphony)
  3. purposeless/signifigance of living (human v. self in pg 163)
  4. People wanting to go against the profit
  5. loss; trying to remember (Kirsten’s struggle mostly)
  6. Arthur’s personal relationship w/ others.

A greater meaning and what it means to survive

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After reading Parts 4 through 6 from Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel, the sudden jumps from the past of when before the Georgia Flu began and after is an excellent way for us to get to know the character’s before the epidemic began, to me it feels like the past and future are completely different worlds despite it being the same “world”.

The actions, people, events, and even certain items, not matter how simple or insignificant it can be, in this story are presented for a reason, as later at some point within the story it will return with either a deeper meaning or with a grand significance. People such as Jeevan who was presented within the first Part of the story, only to never be seen again until Part 5, where we can witness how he is surviving after the destruction of the world.

Another example of this. “It was strange, she kept thinking, that the prophet’s dog had the same name as the dog  in her comic books…” (120) The name of the dog is Luli. As of yet the story hasn’t stated the deeper significance as to why the prophet’s dog has this name, but there is a connection and it is clear that the name of the prophet’s dog is confusing to Kirsten. There is a great chance this connection will deepen the next time Kirsten runs in to the prophet.

As I mentioned earlier of the post, we have the return of Jeevan, though our second encounter of him is taken place in the past, approximately “seven years before the end of the world…” (7). Through out this second half we gain a glimpse into Jeevan’s life, he was someone who was unhappy with his career at the time, “Jeevan had been working as a paparazzo for some years and had made a passable living at it, but he was sick to death of stalking celebrities from behind sidewalk planters and lying in wait in parked cars….” (169) He wished for more in life until he encountered Arthur and finally got the big break he was looking for.

In comes the storm

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(Hello professor this is my post for There will come soft rains respond, due to when open lab crashed and I wasn’t able to upload my initial response.)

Much like how our own alarms ring in a gentle voice to awake us at the start of our day; only the lonely house’s voice echoed across the halls with each passing hour. Upon reaching the first few paragraphs, the narrator reveals the house to have a built in A.I that is able to control every square inch of the house based on the schedule. (Bradbury page 1) But after the first few schedules, there still wasn’t any response from anyone within the house. At eight-thirty the eggs were shriveled and the toast was like stone. (Bradbury page 1 paragraph 11). It has already been over an hour since the first alarm, the warm fresh breakfast still remained untouched. This house was empty, yet despite it being empty, the house is still running it’s daily schedule as it is meant to do.

We might believe, maybe who ever was in the house must’ve not heard the house’s voice calls, but as stated in Page 1 Paragraph 5, Eight-one, tick-tock, eight-one o’clock, off to school, off to work, run, run, eight-one! But no 
doors slammed, no carpets took the soft tread of rubber heels. It was raining outside. The weather box on 
the front door sang quietly: “Rain, rain, go away; rubbers, raincoats for today…” And the rain tapped on 
the empty house, echoing. Not a single presence of life of any kind within the house. Just the sheer loneliness that now resides within the home.

The narrator managed to create the painful lonliness and emptiness within a house that is not able to move, the only company being of a slowly dying stray dog, (Bradbury Page 2, last sentence) but even then the canine was there for mere minutes before the silence returned.

While this house is not able to move, the narrator provides us with some information of how this house is “still standing”, within the once “beautiful” city of Allendale, California,  The house stood alone in a city of rubble and
ashes. This was the one house left standing. At night the ruined city gave off a radioactive glow which 
could be seen for miles. (Bradbury Page 1 paragraph 3). Even showing signs that this house has even been previously burnt. Running down the charred west side where the house had been burned evenly free of its white paint. The entire west face of the house was black, save for five places. (Bradbury Page 2 Paragraph 2).

Nearing the end of this short story, the house continues it’s scheduled routine, whether or not the residents are within, it continues as commanded. From what I mentioned in the previous paragraph, the narrator clearly indicates that the house has previously been on fire, due to one of routines which involves a fire lighting a cigar that is waiting to be picked up at eight o’ clock.  A new routine was made ever since the disappearance of the residence, where each night the house must put out the blazing fire. (Bradbury page 5). Again the narrator perfectly reminds us the painful emptiness, the lack of any real human, no emotion, just a single electronic voice on a wall (page 7).

Reality and Fantasy mixed into One Mind

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It’s normal for some to say they see or hear something only for it to simply be their imagination, never to see those things again. Though is it as normal for someone to see and even hear things more than once? To the point that the things they hear leaves them awake at night, convinced they are not alone even when no one else believes them due to the fact others can’t see or even experience what goes on within the mindset of that person. Charlotte Perkins Gilm’s The Yellow Wallpaper gives us a glimpse to what exactly it’s like to see the same things these people do.

The woman in this story appears to have this exact problem.  From the very beginning of the story we know this is a first person point of view, as we read we will have a chance to see into her mind, what exactly tortures to the point she is constantly paranoid and what contributes to her “nervousness depression”.  It is clear to us that this woman suffers of schizophrenia, describing the “strange, provoking, formless sort of figure” by the yellow wallpaper. These hallucinations she sees creeping on the wall design she detests so much plague her mind as she fights to secure her grip on reality. It’s mentioned that not only this woman’s husband is a medical physician but so is her brother, yet neither men believes she is ill in any way, saying she needs nothing more but fresh air, exercise and a quiet place to stay in, which resulted the woman staying in a nursery, where her condition only grows worse.

The description of the setting touches upon almost each of the five senses, having us envision  the breath taking home the woman now stays, yet for the protagonist, despite the beautiful scenery of the house, she can feel the eerie atmosphere emitting from the house which she cannot explain. With each passing day, the pressure and stress she feels within this house only grows as she feels this presence within the home and sees the figures plastered against the dreaded wall all to the point she slowly looses her sanity.

Now while her husband, John, does not believe she contains any serious condition, his concern only grows through out the story as he sees his wife worsen, going through drastic measures where he isolates his wife, preventing her from writing as it’s clear this woman is writing in secret, as well with preventing her to walk outside or even see other people. He is constantly reminding her that she is in control of her own mind, how she must pay no mind, clearly indicating that is not as  simple as he believes this is. With the condition she has, not matter how hard she tries, she cannot simply pay no mind to the images she sees as for tricks of the mind are just as real as her husband before her.

But much like many other patients who have been diagnose with schizophrenia soon begins to question the world around her, question the people around her, doubting their love for her as well as doubting her trust for her husband and believes that there could be a chance he wants her trapped. Even after she had found the “answer” of the walls, we see her final descent  into madness, now questioning her own reality.

Puertoricaness Response

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Upon reading the short story, Puertoricaness by Aurora Levins Morales, it was a story that deeply hit me close to home.

We witness out protagonist now within the United States and how she is split between this home and the home she had once lived in but she to leave behind. After years of being away from home, she had no choice but to keep the other half of herself locked away. How the narrator mentions how something as simple of a roaster crowing at 6 in the morning, which would make anyone else in that town of Oakland groan in dismay, while it makes our protagonist awake something deep within her; a part of her that has been as sleep for much too long. Then bit by bit this other half slowly emerged to make herself known. She begins to let out bits of her accent, making her tone of speech distinctive to a Puerto Rican’s.  ‘Unable to speak the word which will surely come out in the wrong language.’ At this point she is no longer able to find her other half, bit and pieces of it try to make their way out as she began to become indulged in nostolgia as she misses her home.

This is an example of how the pressure of American life forced her to hide the best qualities of her, something our protagonist should be proud of; her culture, her heritage, these things that help shape this half of her.

We see how this young immigrant slowly alienate herself of what she truly was in order to live within this new American society. And while it shows she gained new North American qualities that had also played a crucial part on shaping her identity, but it had sadly over showed her original form. But we then see how she finally let’s out this other half, yet she finds balance with these two traits despite them being polar opposites, but it is these traits that create who she is, her Puerto Rican blood along with the experiences she gained in America. And she wears this Puertoricaness as a proud badge for all others to see.

My mother was once an immigrant from Colombia, and everyday she would mention of the wide endless pastures by the farm, the healthy animals she helped raised, and the simple yet pure life she lived where everyone new each other, neighbors behaved as brothers. The delicious food and beautiful language. But after she had arrived to America, she had no choice but to hide that all, all that build who my mother is. And while even now she laments her beautiful home, she uses her experiences in America that lead her to the life she has now, but reached a point where there was no need to keep away the Colombian farmgirl. Instead my mother gained the best if both worlds and believed there is no shame to be a Colombian in Nother America.

This story can be an experience in which countless immigrants have had, many like my mother, like the students within City Tech, like a large portion of people here in North America. But the protagonist had learned to never forget where your home is, the people you’ve met, and your heritage, to love your origin even when you move away to a new home. Those traits are both sides of the same coin.

English 2001: Intro. to Literature

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Good day everyone~! My name is Sharie Libreros.  I am currently eighteen years-old but in September 15th I will be nineteen. Currently I am studying Liberal Arts and Arts but my main goal is to attempt to transfer to an art college in order to study and major in Animation as well with gaining a degree in Storyboarding. I am currently taking this course because I wish to improve both my writing and my story telling skills, especially with my dream to become an animator, especially with storyboarding.

I suppose now is the time to explain a little more about me?
I tend to spend my free time drawing as it is my passion, most of all I enjoy drawing cartoons, little characters that come to my mind, I hope to one day create my own animations to display as well with working along side many other skillful animators.
During my other spare time I tend to play video games, I mostly enjoy games that are more story based, but I still find enjoyment in most genres whether or not they have a story, just as long as they’re fun. It’s hard for me to choose my favorite game of all time but my top three are definitely, Mother 3 (Earthbound series), Megaman 1 & 2, Pokémon Gold and Silver, Super Mario World, Super Smash Bros. (all of them but mostly the 64)

I absolutely adore movies. Since I was a child, I always watched films, due to the fact we didn’t have much cable. I suppose that’s where my love for films began. I try to keep an open mind and find joy in all genre of film. There’s just a form of magic to films that is so hard to capture in any other form. One of my favorite directors of all time is Stanley Kubrick, he simply reaches that form of perfection and style that is impossible to replicate. Now while I cannot say I have a “favorite” film as there will always be another movie that will take my breath away. And I only hope to see even more, both old and new, to open my eyes and even use as sources of inspiration.

My favorite animal of all time are birds, the thought of flight, floating along side the clouds felt so abstract and intriguing to me. Not only that but birds are so beautiful and adorable that once you achieve their trust, you will unlock an unbreakable bond you won’t be able to receive from any other animal. My current bird is a Painted Green Cheek Conure,  recently she had turned 8 years old, although she was shy, I have her to give me the same love I have given to her. And I hope many of you try to see the same within birds.

 

I do enjoy post-apocalyptic stories as the situation just captures me, but I adore thrillers and crime stories as well. Graphic novels of course give me inspiration.   Developing  and creating characters were what I believe is my strong suit. Though with my writing I do believe my grammar and organization for building a story. I do home that within this course I can see how exactly structured and well executed these stories are made so I may learn some tricks. 1989 by George Orwells and Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury holding such memorable characters, the most human and realistic characters that not is always portrayed as the stereotypical “hero” and the choices they make are based on what they personally believe to be the right decisions whether it benefits themselves or others.
Last semester for my English Com II class, I had to use Openlab, though it was mostly used to see assignments or news from my professor. Though this is the first time I am ever using OpenLab to create a blog or even write messages.

I truly hope to learn more and make new companions, so I can learn and grow as a story teller. I greatly look foreword to the next few months together and try to get to know you all! 😀