Hi all,
A belated reminder that blog group 5 is slated to post by 5 pm today. Post using any of the Connect/Clue/Create categories. Looking forward to finishing At the Mountains of Madness tomorrow. Please bring your copy of Dr. Moreau as well.
Professor Kwong
“They have lived under the sea a good deal,building fantastic cities and fighting terrific battles with nameless adversaries by means of intricate devices employing unknown principles of energy. Evidently their scientific and mechanical knowledge far supassed man’s today, though they made use of its more widespread and elaborate forms only when obligated to. Some of the sculptures suggested that they had passed through a stage of mechanised life on other planets, but haf receded upon finding its effects emotionally unsatisfying.”
when looking back at our class discussion we started to wonder how far advance were these beings at one point. We knew that they had created their own city and by the way that it was described it seemed to be very well made. It also seemed to be far advance than what man knew how to do till today. In this snapshot we see that the Old Ones have been on earth for a long time at lot longer than what dyer thinks. We also start to see that the Old Ones had lived under water and has also built cities down there too. Dyer also talks about how it seemed that the Old Ones had used their abilities when only needed. This could also mean that they did not use distruction, they rather used their knowledge for building more on their society. And because of there advance knowledge it looked like they had lived in other planets before coming to earth. At the ending of the snapshot it says “ finding its effects emotionally unsatisfying” which makes me think that although the old ones have traveled and built many cities in different places one spot was never enough so they had to keep moving and building more.
As I walked towards the building which only continued to overwhelm me in size in which the architecture blew me away. As I entered the building, I noticed the Labyrinthine complexity structure the building had. The contours and proportions of the building seemed off to me but I dismissed it for a moment to marvel at the beautiful geometric symmetry some of the murals and sculptures contained. I have never seen anything like this, nor has any human ever capable of replicating what I was seeing. As I approached the light-debris filled echo chambers, both me and Danforth eyes gravitated towards the five-point we have been seeing. We started realizing that the connection to religion wasn’t the reasoning but something we didn’t want to believe. Upon inspecting the carvings, we realized the time frame in which the monstrous dead city lived in which man’s ancestors were merely primitive archaic mammals. It only meant one thing as both the thought left us frozen in time. We knew what we concluded would be hard to be taken seriously even with photographs that can only capture only an essence of what we encountered. We were not alone and I realized what must be stopped… the invasion of the Antarctic…..
The above monologue of Dyer simple shows his thought process as he is discovering the building and its insides which give him and his partner an insight to the date of the carvings of the sculpture and the city itself. The realization of the five-point not being associated with religion or any culture ideas leads him to believe in the far-fetched belief he shared of the aliens living long before the humans and how they functioned and lived as a society with the governmental and hunting process.
Hi all,
Excellent work yesterday on the topic of ruined cities. As you keep reading “At the Mountains of Madness” (parts VI-IX, 117-131) pay attention to the (rather complicated) history that Dyer learns about the beings who populated this ancient city. Keep your notes from last class (as well as your alien diagrams!) on hand. What sort of parallels is Lovecraft drawing between human society and that of the aliens? As usual, keep an eye out for other elements that we’ve singled out: point of view, style, setting.
For homework, blog group 4 is expected to post by 5 pm Sunday. As usual, you can post a create, connect or clue post that looks at/deals with a particular snapshot from our readings for Monday. Use our notes from class to discuss the broader themes present in your snapshot, and keep practicing incorporating direct quotes and literary elements into your interpretation.
Best,
Professor Kwong
In both stories the narrator had a sense of fear of the places their were at, in chapter 9 of the island of Dr. Moruea when Prendick left the enclosure to wonder the island everything went wrong when he saw the die rabbit and then saw the beast monster. After that was when he was fearing for his life and try to get back to the enclosure but he kept getting lost. when he got to the forest he started seeing things in the forest like beast people chanting a ritual. It didn’t look the same when it got darker he ended up seeing shadow like fingers and more. Then he was getting chase by one of the beast people and his imagination was going wild he didn’t know what going to happen to him when he finally got back to the enclosure he did not know what he had saw was real or not and when he ask Montgomery he did not tell Prendick anything about the monster. It was the same way with at the mountain of madness on page 103 when the men couldn’t get in contact with Lake they left there camp to find out what had happened as the there were heading to the camp the narrator stated that he started to see mirages of thing. Their imagination was going wild as it got darker the more they were heading closer to the camp the more the mirages grew. once they got to the camp they saw all the men dead and the dogs too and also the sleds gone. The didn’t know what to say and they keep all the crazy details to themselves and didn’t tell the Arkham. Also Danforth saw something but didn’t tell anyone because he didn’t know what he saw was real or not. So you can see the connection of both stories because the narrator were try to enjoy themselves at the place of the unknown, Prendick was try to not be afraid of the island and accepted it because he found the island to be beautiful and amazing something he never seen before but when he saw those things that I previously stated he was afraid of being on the island and wanted to leave. At mountain of madness the men were so proud and happy of there great discovery in the Arctic but once they saw what happened and they couldn’t find out how they this happened to their men they just wanted to get out.
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