Reflection Letter
I came into the English 091 thinking that it would be an easy A because well I thought I was pretty good at writing but boy was I wrong. I mean that in a good way, throughout this class I expanded my knowledge and I learned a lot more about what it takes to write a good essay or a good journal. What I thought I knew well I didn’t really know and I take that as a positive because I was able to better my writing skills for my own good and for future classes. It is a long list to what I learned in this class and to tell you the truth in the beginning of the course when Professor Barnhart told the class we were going to be writing a lot I thought to myself damn this is going to be a long and boring class, I was completely wrong. I found myself getting fascinated with what we were reading and writing. The way I have grown throughout this class is that I learned to read like a writer. I learned how to properly take notes as I am reading a book to help me go back to a certain page in the book so that I would be able to remember it and write about it on an assignment. Professor Barnhart taught me how to expand my thinking he taught me that there is more than one solution to the problem. When we would break down scenes from The Road he would always like to think outside the box, and at first I thought he was going too far but then I began to do the same and it was so damn interesting to see where your thoughts can take you. I learned to really expand my thinking when I am reading and that helped me write my essay one The Road it made writing it way easier because there were really no limits to what I wanted to write because he let us express ourselves and the thoughts about the book through our essays. One challenge that I overcame was that I was able to expand my writing skills, I learned how to properly structure an essay paragraph by paragraph, I learned to use bigger word on my essays and I also learned how to properly correlate my thesis to the rest of my essay. I went from thinking that I knew a lot about writing to knowing a little about writing but I can say that I am coming out of this class knowing that I learned a lot more about writing. Although I have learned a lot from this class I feel like I still have way more to learn because there is no limit to knowledge you can learn something new every day. I feel like I still need to work on my note taking skills when I am reading a book, my annotating. I also feel like I still need a little more work on my essays like how to get all my paragraphs to fix in with my thesis even though I have learned to do it a little better I feel like I can do it much better. I feel like I can expand my vocabulary more then I already have. There is a lot more to learn and the way I will better myself as a reader, writer, and thinker would be to keep going to school, writing more essays, reading more books because I hardly ever read and when I come across a word I do not understand I should stop being lazy and bring out a dictionary. This class altered the way I think about “texts” because it taught me to overthink things when I am reading something. Like the work we would do when breaking down a certain scene in The Road. I found it pretty cool to see the thought my class mates had and what the professor had to say. Something big I learned throughout this course was Popular Culture. I really never heard of it before I got to the class and never knew what it was and what I learned from it was pretty startling. I learned what there is in popular culture and how the media expresses certain icons it is just amazing how we went through certain advertisements that I have seen before but I never seemed to notice what these ads were really selling. These advertisements were not only selling a product but a lifestyle as well. This class did not only help me with my literature skills but with life in general. When we read those 3 speeches about those scholars I really took to mind what they were saying and I used it in life. I learned to hear people out and help those who need help I learned not to be greedy and that there is more to life then the bull shit they put on the internet or on the T.V. and for that I am grateful; I am grateful of what I learned in this class and that I was able to complete this course without giving up. To all of my classmates and the people reading this I hope all of you have a great summer and it was an honor to go on this literary trip with all of you.
Essay 3:
The Road
A monster is defined as a creature that scares people and humanity is defined as the human kind your average person that does not look like a monster. In “The Road” there are many examples in which the father shows his humanity but also brings out the monster within on many occasions. It happens when certain events trigger him to bring it out. I believe everyone has a monster inside them but it only comes out in certain occasions. Some people might bring out the monster within them when someone gets them mad or a loved one needs defending or maybe they always have their monsters out because they are just evil people. I think something that can release the monster within a person and make them forget about humanity is if something tragic would happen in their lives, some sort of catastrophic event. An event like the one that happened in The Road by Cormac McCarthy, that they are living in a post-apocalyptic world where most of humanity has lost its sanity and has let the monster within them out. In McCarthy’s The Road there are many examples of the distinction between humanity and what is considered to be a monster. The difference between a monster and a human is that a monster is usually defined as some sort of creature that induces fear that the human usually fears and runs away from. A human usually represents a more kind presence that doesn’t really scare it’s actually the opposite they actually help people and do not cause fear unlike a monster who is there to just traumatize you. I think when trying to distinguish humanity and a monster you are basically distinguishing good and evil, what causes fear and what doesn’t. That is something that is shown all throughout The Road.
A good example of what is human in The Road would be the little boy and his father; they are two people just trying to do everything they can to survive and within that they are also trying to keep their sanity and not turn into the monsters that everyone else has. The boy is always asking these questions that you average person should be able to answer but he is so innocent that he does not know half the things he is experiencing. Another thing that would distinguish them from the monster would be that they have faith to survive and haven’t given up on the fact that there are other good people out there as well as there are bad people.
The first serious encounter the boy and the father have with a monster would probably be with the truck people. The scene starts off with them walking down the road, this road is described as really dark, with ash, smoke everywhere and it is really cold too, most days it is either raining or snowing. Well they are going down the dark road and decide to eat and rest at a spot, they fall asleep. Then the man wakes up because he heard something. “Something woke him. He turned on his side and lay listening. He raised his head slowly, the pistol in his hand. He looked down at the boy and when he looked back toward the road the first of them coming into view. God, he said.” (pg.60). He wakes up because he heard the noise of the truck coming down the road, some type of diesel truck. Their first instinct is to hide because they know they can’t trust anyone. They have seen people rob and kill just to survive so they know it is a necessity to hid from everyone mostly a bid group. So he wakes up the boy and tells him to start running they find this ditch to hide in and they just hear the truck men.
They give these truck people some type of scary description. “Some of them wearing canister masks. One in a biohazard suit. Stained and filthy. Slouching along with clubs in their hands’ lengths of pipe.” (pg.60). The author gives them a description that tries to scare the audience saying that they are wearing masks and holding pipes to probably use as a weapon. What is underneath those masks, monsters? It’s like if those masks make them monsters, it makes them scarier and hides who they are. The man doesn’t trust anyone anymore so his quick instinct was to hide. He is so traumatized that he had his pistol in his hand and he didn’t even remember he took it out his belt. “He had the pistol in his hand, he couldn’t even remember taking it from his belt.” (pg.62) His instincts are so strong that he didn’t even know he was taking out the pistol that’s how scary this chaotic world is that he can’t trust anyone so his first instinct is to take out a gun that he might eventually use to kill someone. After one of the truck men walks towards their way, the man points the gun to his head. That’s when you see that the man begins to release a little bit of the monster out because he feels threatened by this group of men wearing masks and holding weapons. The man begins to have a conversation with the truck man and the truck man tries to convince the man to go back with his group but the father new that it would be some type of trap. The truck man keeps looking at the boy and like I said in the beginning that someone’s monster comes out when they are defending a loved one. “Why are you looking at him? I can look where I want to. No you can’t. If you look at him again I’ll shoot you.” (65) this truck man keeps looking at the boy and the father all defensive he begins to let his monster out because he would never let anyone hurt his boy let alone stare at him so he threatens the truck man and tells him to stop staring at his son.
As the scene goes on the father threatens the truck man to start walking so that they can go farther and he would just let him go so that they can get a head start but the truck man refuses and responds by dropping his belt. He drops his belt and grabs his knife, even though he was a big guy he moved really fast and in a matter of seconds he got in between the boy and the father. The man dove for the boy and rolled up and when he got to a still position he had the knife to the boy’s throat. “He dove and grabbed the boy and rolled and came up holding him against his chest with the knife at his throat.” (66). The father would not let anything happen to his son so he reacted. “The man had already dropped to the ground and he swung with him and leveled the pistol and fired from a two-handed position balanced on both knees from a distance of six feet. The man fell back instantly and lay with blood bubbling from the hole in his forehead.” (65) the man warned the truck man that if he kept looking at him he would killed him and he ended up threatening his son because he wanted to escape from them so he needed leverage, so with no mercy he let his monster out and he shot him because he was threatening his loved one his baby cub. The boy all scared after seeing what happened that he went into shock basically, the father grabbed the boy and began to run because it would be a matter of seconds that the other truck men would come to where they were at.
The truck man expresses his monster through the use of masks and holding weapons things that would make people feel threaten like the boy and the father felt. He tries to play off being a human but the father doesn’t not believe him for one second. So the truck man finally lets his true self out by grabbing the boy and threating him with a knife to his throat. The father could not let that happen he was trying to keep his humanity the most he could but he had to let his monster out. He let his monster out and he shot the truck man because he had to protect his loved one, his son, his only reason to stay alive, his only idea of faith. Without his son he is nothing so he killed the man that was threatening his everything, his beloved son. The truck people were just some really horrible people on top of the truck man threatening his son the boy and the father later go back to the location where it all happened. They go back to the scene to find the man they killed to be all gutted and disfigured, the other truck people gutted the man and ate him, let that sink in your head for a bit and that comes to show you that they were real cruel people. It shows you that the man had a reason to let his monster out because he had to defend himself and his son from the horrible monsters he had to bring out the monster to defeat the monster.
Another scene in which the father brings out the monster with in is when he is dealing with the thief that stole the things they had in the cart. In this certain scene the father just completely brings out the monster with in him. He begins to act like everyone else not as severe as them but still shows no mercy towards the guy. The guy returns everything he stole and yet the father still decided to punish him because he stole from them. After the man returns their things the father tells him to take his clothes off and the boy didn’t like what he was doing and he told him to stop but he didn’t listen. The father takes away his clothes and leaves him naked to fend for himself but later you see the human in him return because the little boy tells him what he did was wrong. The father reevaluates what he did and he ends up putting back the clothes in the middle of the road so that the man can grab it.
In this world that the boy and the father go through you can see somewhat of a clear distinction between human and monster. You can see that the father was really trying to be human by giving the truck man a chance to walk down a mile and he would let him got but instead he threaten the man’s son. So the fathers reaction was to stop being human and let his monster out to kill the monsters trying to hurt his son. The world that the father and the son live in is hard for them to distinguish good from evil, human from monster but in this certain scene he saw the monster within that man so he killed him in order to protect his son. Honestly the man had no other choice mostly in the horrible world they live in, it was either let your only hope of survival get killed or save your hope of survival, who know what would have happened to his son if he didn’t react quick and shot the man. This certain scene stood out to me the most because I saw a clear description of humanity and monster. The other scene just completely showed the monster he had showing no mercy for the man by taking away all his clothes even though he gave back what he stole, in a way I can kind of understand the father and why he would do that but he went too far.
Essay 2:
The Media’s Identity
The media expresses certain identities for people in which they show people that they should look a certain way to fit into this idea of a good looking society. The show people how they are supposed to look in today’s society instead of shoeing the imperfect people that makes up the world’s population. They show this concept of beauty in which not a lot of people can live up to. They use these model type of people, like for the males they use the guys that have good hair and nice slim bodies. The ideal guys that women usually go for, the ones with the six packs and the good physique. This expresses an identity of an alpha male a heterosexual male model the type of guy that every guy looks up to.
A good example of what an alpha male is would be found in the AXE commercials and how they express these alpha males by making all the women chase after them. It makes them stand out it makes other males want to be like those guys. As they use these alpha males they make them spray on the AXE body spray and that is how they grab the audience attention and that’s what helps them sell their products. These expectations makes people feel imperfect it makes people want to change to fit into this society. Another good example of this alpha male would be found in some car commercial in particular a SCION car commercial in which this good looking guy is described as epic for having the cute girl and the nice car. All things most males desire but don’t have.
The expectations put on society by the media make people go through drastic measurements to fit into this society of perfect people, the people that everyone wants to be. Drastic measurements such as getting plastic surgery and loading there face with makeup just to fit in because they want to look like the people that the media shows. They put on this fake image that is not them these fake expectation that the media put on people through commercials and advertisements. Commercials like the ones AXE makes with the women chasing the good looking alpha males. Like one certain AXE commercial, it starts off with women popping out of everywhere in this forest and they are running towards the alpha male; the guy with the nice hair, cool beard, the slim body and the nice physique. All of those women from not just one ethnicity but many different ones chasing after this man, this alpha male that everyone wants to be and then to top it off he has the AXE body spray in his hand and he is spraying it all over himself while these women chase after him. The commercial ends with the words “Spray More Get More, The AXE Effect”, like if it wasn’t enough with using the alpha male they use their product with the words that can have many different meanings to it. The advertisement suggests if you spray on this product on top of looking like this alpha male then you to will get more women, a lot of women like the guy in this commercial and that is what grabs the audience what grabs the consumer and the buyer. These types of commercial are shown in T.V. on an day to day basis and these commercial might look like just another product being sold but in reality it is not only selling the product it is selling a lifestyle. A lifestyle of fake expectations that the majority of people cannot live up to. Day by day males are looking to change themselves to fit into this idea of an alpha male. They start doing physical changes to be this idea of an alpha male and they want to do it fast so that they can get the billions of women too.
In Patricia McLaughlin’s essay “Venus Envy” she claims that, “Men are having plastic surgery to get rid of their love handles and tighten their eye bags and beef up their chins and flatten their bellies and even (major wince) bulk up their penises” (McLaughlin 168) This comes to show that these commercial and advertisements are effecting people lives by making them do these changes that can cause physical harm to themselves and when the changes they have done aren’t enough they add more until they can fit the image the media displays. This can affect these people both mentally and physically. It makes them put on a fake coat, and to those who cannot live to those expectations are viewed as ugly and some even go to as far as killing themselves because they don’t fit into this good looking society. I knew a girl that went to my high school and I would remember people calling her ugly and saying that she wasn’t perfect, so she started to wear a lot of makeup and people kept making fun of her and I would always see her get sad. This girl was so depressed and was done with all the insults that a year later she committed suicide. Just because she couldn’t fit in with the pretty girls why can’t beauty be describe as what is within someone not what is out. All these popular culture icons strongly influences the lives of those who are not like them, a fake expectation in a corrupt view of a society.
These popular culture icons are not just in one commercial telling people how to live but in commercial everywhere from body sprays to sports cars. It is fascinating how a company tries to sell a product and most people without analyzing the commercial just see another company just trying to sell another product. If you took the time to clearly look at a commercial and you would be able see that they are selling you a lifestyle as well. Like this certain Scion commercial that starts off like your typical car commercial with a car driving down the road to what seems to be at a high speed. It’s a nice sports car a Scion Frs in red, then it shows 3 people looking at the car and what seems to be their friends coming out of it with fire in the background and white birds flying and the 2 people that came out were just another example of popular culture icons. Just to model type of people and the funny thing is that their friends kind of looked like the opposite like if they were representing the people that don’t have that car or don’t look like them. The friends looked up to them like if they were something amazing. The male that came out of the car had the same identity as the one from the AXE commercial. A guy with nice hair, seemed pretty fit and had a nice scruffy beard and of course right next to him was a gorgeous women. In this commercial the guy goes to his shocked friends and says he forgot his phone so he goes back to his car and again the fire goes off and this time in big letters the word “EPIC”. What that word means is that if you look like this guy and you have the girl he has then you too will be “EPIC” and not just some boring non alpha male individual that doesn’t have the gorgeous girl or that nice sports car. The three friends played a big part in this because the friends looked at the couple like they wanted to be them. One guy stood out the most because he looked like the opposite a black, skinny, nerdy guy that didn’t have the cute girl or the nice sports guy. He looked like the type of guy that was willing to do anything to be just like his alpha male friends. The people that are willing to do these changes feel like how they look like now is holding them back from their potential because they don’t look like these alpha males. Like Dan Harden with his essay “My New Nose” he claims “Psychologically, my nose had become the emblem for all that held me back, and I had to deal with it.” (Harden 183) Harden felt that his imperfect nose was holding him back that he couldn’t be his true self. Even with a wife and kids he still felt like he wasn’t perfect because in society and alpha male is someone with a good looking nose and he didn’t have that so he decided to change that but in reality he was just lying to himself so that he can fit into the good looking society like how the media portrays it.
These popular culture icons are basically shoved into our faces every day without most people knowing because most people just see and advertisement. Most people don’t see how these advertisement reflects on them. Take the time to actually view these advertisements and reflect how they affect ordinary lives. Like back in the days everyone used to use AXE because they believed if they bought the product then maybe they will look like that model guy and have all the gorgeous women chasing them as well but then people realized that it was just a fake pitch like the changes they wanted to do to themselves it wasn’t really them. The media just feeds people these fake expectations and when certain people don’t live up to them then they are viewed as imperfect and not good so they shut themselves down and that’s when the problems come in and words can hurt people.
A solution for the identity crisis that effects the majority of the world’s population would be to simply just stop listening to the T.V., stop trying to live up to these expectations that aren’t you be your own person. The problem in today’s society is that people look up to these celebrities but when in reality if most of these celebrities didn’t have all the fame and hype then they would be nothing. An example would be Kim Kardashian she is given so much hype it is ridiculous when she has no talent, she is not an actor or some sort of politician. All she did to get famous was make a porno whit someone famous and BOOM! She blew up and became famous, now the majority of women want to be her by making a bunch of changes to themselves and buying her products and stuff. If that porn video was never released she wouldn’t be anyone and the Kardashians would just be another family living there lives. So I think the solution to these problems is to just stop listening to the T.V. stop trying to be a Kardashian and just live your life. At the end you are your own person and they are there’s, they still will be famous and you’re going to become bankrupt for trying to be like them and honestly you are just asking for a boat load of depression. Yes, I understand that maybe you want to look good for you but honestly think to yourself and if you really want to change because you want to then go on ahead and do what makes you happy but if you know that you just want to look good to impress other people just because the media displays this image then don’t do it. You’re perfect the way you are. Just if the world began to see everyone for what they have on the inside and not the outside then we would live in a more peaceful world. Then there wouldn’t be people calling other people ugly and making them go into depression. I honestly think there would be less suicides and less violence because people are being there true selves and not some fake image.
Essay 1:
Obstacles of My Life
I’ve been through events in my life that have changed my life completely, events that made the people around me look at me differently and not a good type of different events that I am not to proud of and I don’t really like to go into detail because its personal. Have you ever been through a life changing event in your life that made you completely change who you are. If you have I know how you feel because I have been through things that can change a person’s life forever. It changed my life and now I am not the same person and a lot of people have told me I’ve changed, some people like it and some people don’t. The people that don’t like the change in me seem to be the ones closest to me like my mom. I think what I’ve done has hurt my mom a lot and me being so self-centered at the time I didn’t really regard anyone’s feeling let alone my mom’s. I was too stuck on doing what I want amongst other things. I think that is a part of going through your own social literacy event. Going through your own social literacy event to me means that you’ve been through something in your life in which you didn’t really regard the people around, that every one’s feelings were irrelavent except your own. After that certain event happened you learned that you were too self-centered that you didn’t pay attention to the people who were getting hurt.
The social literacy event that I went through took place during my High School years, part of my junior year but it mainly happened my senior year. I went to Sylmar High School and it is criticized as a bad school with like drugs going around and gangs, things like that. Although some of these accusations are true it’s not that bad of a school and I am proud to have graduated from there. As I was growing up I was always told not to do drugs, not to drink, not to do that, not to do this, etc. you get it. Then came high school and I was introduced to a world that I didn’t know about a world that in a way made me corrupt.
During my sophomore year I tried certain things and you know in life its ok to experiment with new things but there is certain limits. Limits that I over stepped, limits that completely changed me for good and bad. I kept doing certain things that honestly I knew were bad but I didn’t stop and keep in mind that I was going through my high school years stressed about life and the problems that came with it. Problems like school work, dumb things like girls, and well at the time my mom was getting sick a lot and that worried me the most. I thought I found an alternative to soothe the pain I was in and that was my mistake. Through this journey I met certain people like people that would get into trouble and do drugs and I learned a lot but I was also judged a lot by my actions and I honestly didn’t care. In school I would get in trouble and I was just judged as another statistic people looked at me and right away judged me to be just another drop out just another trouble maker that will go nowhere. Although I was doing the things I was doing I still kept my grades and what was important on check. With these new people I was meeting came new discoveries, and I went into business with these people even though I knew what I was doing was wrong, but the hunger for money was just too much. I was also so ignorant and I was just being a dumb self-centered juvenile and all I cared about was just me and doing what I want. I hung around with the wrong people and that didn’t make anything better.
I went into business with certain people and I thought I was unstoppable I did what I wanted without putting in mind the consequences all I cared about was making money and the love people were giving me for who I was and what was I was doing. Then came a turning point in this whole story. It was just another day and I was with these people I called “friends” and just doing stupid shit and we got pulled over by the cops and I got a ticket. The came confessing to my parents that I got a ticket and well I got in trouble and then came all the problems and my whole world flipped. Those consequences that I didn’t put to mind happened my mom saw the bigger picture and she did everything she could to find out what I was into. She made me take test and then part of the truth came out and she even hired people to keep an eye on me. Being a dumb teen I was still doing business even though I got caught and this was also during the time we were moving from my old house to my new house in Acton. The people she hired showed her pictures and that’s when she started going through my room and found small things that made her see me as a different person it put her in tears and being so self-centered I was just concentrated on doing me and making money I didn’t put in mind what it was doing to my mom and dad. My mom saw that I wasn’t the same kid she raised that same innocent kid that would run to his mom when he was scared at night or when he was having problems at school. Then came argument behind argument with my parents and I didn’t stop. Then my mom found bigger thing in my room and then that just completely broke her and she reacted with her emotions and filed a police report on me. I went from doing my school work and just living a teen life to almost ending up in jail. People kept telling me that I was going to end up dead or in prison. It almost happened but I think the only thing that stopped my mom was that I was still doing well in school and she had a cop friend that kind of convinced her to think about what she was going to do to my life. More damage than I have already done I paid the people I went into business and I had to get out for my own good. I was still being a dumb ass and I didn’t want to get out of it but I had to do it for my mom. I was stuck in my bad habits for a while but I tried to better my life. My mom saw that I was still being ignorant that she told me something that she was hiding. She basically told me it was my fault that certain things were happening. After all this happened I think the karma kicked in and bad stuff started happening and well I learned from my mistakes What my mom told me what was happening that made me realize that I fucked up bad and that the consequences of life hit me hard. That was my social literacy I went through something in my life in which I was just caring about my feelings and not the feeling of those around me.
My story has somewhat of a relation to the speeches because to me it seems like they all talk about being less self-centered. They talk about how you should keep in mind the feelings of others because you’re not the only one in this world. Some of them even say that you should be nice in this life if you want nice things to happen to you which is basically the concept of karma. But I think not listening to karma is what teaches you about life it what helps you mature it puts you through a learning experience where you can learn a lot. I do agree with the concept of being less self-centered and you should keep in mind the feelings of others not just the people around you but also the people you don’t know because a couple of nice words can go a long way. Even though I went through a lot of shit I don’t regret any of it because it made me learn a lot and it matured me a lot and made me a better man. It made me realize what was important and to keep in mind the feelings of other people. That is why I can relate to these speeches because they all have some sort of self-reflection in them that the speaker keeps talking about it and it amazes me how it is similar to my life and what I have been through.
I came into the English 091 thinking that it would be an easy A because well I thought I was pretty good at writing but boy was I wrong. I mean that in a good way, throughout this class I expanded my knowledge and I learned a lot more about what it takes to write a good essay or a good journal. What I thought I knew well I didn’t really know and I take that as a positive because I was able to better my writing skills for my own good and for future classes. It is a long list to what I learned in this class and to tell you the truth in the beginning of the course when Professor Barnhart told the class we were going to be writing a lot I thought to myself damn this is going to be a long and boring class, I was completely wrong. I found myself getting fascinated with what we were reading and writing. The way I have grown throughout this class is that I learned to read like a writer. I learned how to properly take notes as I am reading a book to help me go back to a certain page in the book so that I would be able to remember it and write about it on an assignment. Professor Barnhart taught me how to expand my thinking he taught me that there is more than one solution to the problem. When we would break down scenes from The Road he would always like to think outside the box, and at first I thought he was going too far but then I began to do the same and it was so damn interesting to see where your thoughts can take you. I learned to really expand my thinking when I am reading and that helped me write my essay one The Road it made writing it way easier because there were really no limits to what I wanted to write because he let us express ourselves and the thoughts about the book through our essays. One challenge that I overcame was that I was able to expand my writing skills, I learned how to properly structure an essay paragraph by paragraph, I learned to use bigger word on my essays and I also learned how to properly correlate my thesis to the rest of my essay. I went from thinking that I knew a lot about writing to knowing a little about writing but I can say that I am coming out of this class knowing that I learned a lot more about writing. Although I have learned a lot from this class I feel like I still have way more to learn because there is no limit to knowledge you can learn something new every day. I feel like I still need to work on my note taking skills when I am reading a book, my annotating. I also feel like I still need a little more work on my essays like how to get all my paragraphs to fix in with my thesis even though I have learned to do it a little better I feel like I can do it much better. I feel like I can expand my vocabulary more then I already have. There is a lot more to learn and the way I will better myself as a reader, writer, and thinker would be to keep going to school, writing more essays, reading more books because I hardly ever read and when I come across a word I do not understand I should stop being lazy and bring out a dictionary. This class altered the way I think about “texts” because it taught me to overthink things when I am reading something. Like the work we would do when breaking down a certain scene in The Road. I found it pretty cool to see the thought my class mates had and what the professor had to say. Something big I learned throughout this course was Popular Culture. I really never heard of it before I got to the class and never knew what it was and what I learned from it was pretty startling. I learned what there is in popular culture and how the media expresses certain icons it is just amazing how we went through certain advertisements that I have seen before but I never seemed to notice what these ads were really selling. These advertisements were not only selling a product but a lifestyle as well. This class did not only help me with my literature skills but with life in general. When we read those 3 speeches about those scholars I really took to mind what they were saying and I used it in life. I learned to hear people out and help those who need help I learned not to be greedy and that there is more to life then the bull shit they put on the internet or on the T.V. and for that I am grateful; I am grateful of what I learned in this class and that I was able to complete this course without giving up. To all of my classmates and the people reading this I hope all of you have a great summer and it was an honor to go on this literary trip with all of you.
Essay 3:
The Road
A monster is defined as a creature that scares people and humanity is defined as the human kind your average person that does not look like a monster. In “The Road” there are many examples in which the father shows his humanity but also brings out the monster within on many occasions. It happens when certain events trigger him to bring it out. I believe everyone has a monster inside them but it only comes out in certain occasions. Some people might bring out the monster within them when someone gets them mad or a loved one needs defending or maybe they always have their monsters out because they are just evil people. I think something that can release the monster within a person and make them forget about humanity is if something tragic would happen in their lives, some sort of catastrophic event. An event like the one that happened in The Road by Cormac McCarthy, that they are living in a post-apocalyptic world where most of humanity has lost its sanity and has let the monster within them out. In McCarthy’s The Road there are many examples of the distinction between humanity and what is considered to be a monster. The difference between a monster and a human is that a monster is usually defined as some sort of creature that induces fear that the human usually fears and runs away from. A human usually represents a more kind presence that doesn’t really scare it’s actually the opposite they actually help people and do not cause fear unlike a monster who is there to just traumatize you. I think when trying to distinguish humanity and a monster you are basically distinguishing good and evil, what causes fear and what doesn’t. That is something that is shown all throughout The Road.
A good example of what is human in The Road would be the little boy and his father; they are two people just trying to do everything they can to survive and within that they are also trying to keep their sanity and not turn into the monsters that everyone else has. The boy is always asking these questions that you average person should be able to answer but he is so innocent that he does not know half the things he is experiencing. Another thing that would distinguish them from the monster would be that they have faith to survive and haven’t given up on the fact that there are other good people out there as well as there are bad people.
The first serious encounter the boy and the father have with a monster would probably be with the truck people. The scene starts off with them walking down the road, this road is described as really dark, with ash, smoke everywhere and it is really cold too, most days it is either raining or snowing. Well they are going down the dark road and decide to eat and rest at a spot, they fall asleep. Then the man wakes up because he heard something. “Something woke him. He turned on his side and lay listening. He raised his head slowly, the pistol in his hand. He looked down at the boy and when he looked back toward the road the first of them coming into view. God, he said.” (pg.60). He wakes up because he heard the noise of the truck coming down the road, some type of diesel truck. Their first instinct is to hide because they know they can’t trust anyone. They have seen people rob and kill just to survive so they know it is a necessity to hid from everyone mostly a bid group. So he wakes up the boy and tells him to start running they find this ditch to hide in and they just hear the truck men.
They give these truck people some type of scary description. “Some of them wearing canister masks. One in a biohazard suit. Stained and filthy. Slouching along with clubs in their hands’ lengths of pipe.” (pg.60). The author gives them a description that tries to scare the audience saying that they are wearing masks and holding pipes to probably use as a weapon. What is underneath those masks, monsters? It’s like if those masks make them monsters, it makes them scarier and hides who they are. The man doesn’t trust anyone anymore so his quick instinct was to hide. He is so traumatized that he had his pistol in his hand and he didn’t even remember he took it out his belt. “He had the pistol in his hand, he couldn’t even remember taking it from his belt.” (pg.62) His instincts are so strong that he didn’t even know he was taking out the pistol that’s how scary this chaotic world is that he can’t trust anyone so his first instinct is to take out a gun that he might eventually use to kill someone. After one of the truck men walks towards their way, the man points the gun to his head. That’s when you see that the man begins to release a little bit of the monster out because he feels threatened by this group of men wearing masks and holding weapons. The man begins to have a conversation with the truck man and the truck man tries to convince the man to go back with his group but the father new that it would be some type of trap. The truck man keeps looking at the boy and like I said in the beginning that someone’s monster comes out when they are defending a loved one. “Why are you looking at him? I can look where I want to. No you can’t. If you look at him again I’ll shoot you.” (65) this truck man keeps looking at the boy and the father all defensive he begins to let his monster out because he would never let anyone hurt his boy let alone stare at him so he threatens the truck man and tells him to stop staring at his son.
As the scene goes on the father threatens the truck man to start walking so that they can go farther and he would just let him go so that they can get a head start but the truck man refuses and responds by dropping his belt. He drops his belt and grabs his knife, even though he was a big guy he moved really fast and in a matter of seconds he got in between the boy and the father. The man dove for the boy and rolled up and when he got to a still position he had the knife to the boy’s throat. “He dove and grabbed the boy and rolled and came up holding him against his chest with the knife at his throat.” (66). The father would not let anything happen to his son so he reacted. “The man had already dropped to the ground and he swung with him and leveled the pistol and fired from a two-handed position balanced on both knees from a distance of six feet. The man fell back instantly and lay with blood bubbling from the hole in his forehead.” (65) the man warned the truck man that if he kept looking at him he would killed him and he ended up threatening his son because he wanted to escape from them so he needed leverage, so with no mercy he let his monster out and he shot him because he was threatening his loved one his baby cub. The boy all scared after seeing what happened that he went into shock basically, the father grabbed the boy and began to run because it would be a matter of seconds that the other truck men would come to where they were at.
The truck man expresses his monster through the use of masks and holding weapons things that would make people feel threaten like the boy and the father felt. He tries to play off being a human but the father doesn’t not believe him for one second. So the truck man finally lets his true self out by grabbing the boy and threating him with a knife to his throat. The father could not let that happen he was trying to keep his humanity the most he could but he had to let his monster out. He let his monster out and he shot the truck man because he had to protect his loved one, his son, his only reason to stay alive, his only idea of faith. Without his son he is nothing so he killed the man that was threatening his everything, his beloved son. The truck people were just some really horrible people on top of the truck man threatening his son the boy and the father later go back to the location where it all happened. They go back to the scene to find the man they killed to be all gutted and disfigured, the other truck people gutted the man and ate him, let that sink in your head for a bit and that comes to show you that they were real cruel people. It shows you that the man had a reason to let his monster out because he had to defend himself and his son from the horrible monsters he had to bring out the monster to defeat the monster.
Another scene in which the father brings out the monster with in is when he is dealing with the thief that stole the things they had in the cart. In this certain scene the father just completely brings out the monster with in him. He begins to act like everyone else not as severe as them but still shows no mercy towards the guy. The guy returns everything he stole and yet the father still decided to punish him because he stole from them. After the man returns their things the father tells him to take his clothes off and the boy didn’t like what he was doing and he told him to stop but he didn’t listen. The father takes away his clothes and leaves him naked to fend for himself but later you see the human in him return because the little boy tells him what he did was wrong. The father reevaluates what he did and he ends up putting back the clothes in the middle of the road so that the man can grab it.
In this world that the boy and the father go through you can see somewhat of a clear distinction between human and monster. You can see that the father was really trying to be human by giving the truck man a chance to walk down a mile and he would let him got but instead he threaten the man’s son. So the fathers reaction was to stop being human and let his monster out to kill the monsters trying to hurt his son. The world that the father and the son live in is hard for them to distinguish good from evil, human from monster but in this certain scene he saw the monster within that man so he killed him in order to protect his son. Honestly the man had no other choice mostly in the horrible world they live in, it was either let your only hope of survival get killed or save your hope of survival, who know what would have happened to his son if he didn’t react quick and shot the man. This certain scene stood out to me the most because I saw a clear description of humanity and monster. The other scene just completely showed the monster he had showing no mercy for the man by taking away all his clothes even though he gave back what he stole, in a way I can kind of understand the father and why he would do that but he went too far.
Essay 2:
The Media’s Identity
The media expresses certain identities for people in which they show people that they should look a certain way to fit into this idea of a good looking society. The show people how they are supposed to look in today’s society instead of shoeing the imperfect people that makes up the world’s population. They show this concept of beauty in which not a lot of people can live up to. They use these model type of people, like for the males they use the guys that have good hair and nice slim bodies. The ideal guys that women usually go for, the ones with the six packs and the good physique. This expresses an identity of an alpha male a heterosexual male model the type of guy that every guy looks up to.
A good example of what an alpha male is would be found in the AXE commercials and how they express these alpha males by making all the women chase after them. It makes them stand out it makes other males want to be like those guys. As they use these alpha males they make them spray on the AXE body spray and that is how they grab the audience attention and that’s what helps them sell their products. These expectations makes people feel imperfect it makes people want to change to fit into this society. Another good example of this alpha male would be found in some car commercial in particular a SCION car commercial in which this good looking guy is described as epic for having the cute girl and the nice car. All things most males desire but don’t have.
The expectations put on society by the media make people go through drastic measurements to fit into this society of perfect people, the people that everyone wants to be. Drastic measurements such as getting plastic surgery and loading there face with makeup just to fit in because they want to look like the people that the media shows. They put on this fake image that is not them these fake expectation that the media put on people through commercials and advertisements. Commercials like the ones AXE makes with the women chasing the good looking alpha males. Like one certain AXE commercial, it starts off with women popping out of everywhere in this forest and they are running towards the alpha male; the guy with the nice hair, cool beard, the slim body and the nice physique. All of those women from not just one ethnicity but many different ones chasing after this man, this alpha male that everyone wants to be and then to top it off he has the AXE body spray in his hand and he is spraying it all over himself while these women chase after him. The commercial ends with the words “Spray More Get More, The AXE Effect”, like if it wasn’t enough with using the alpha male they use their product with the words that can have many different meanings to it. The advertisement suggests if you spray on this product on top of looking like this alpha male then you to will get more women, a lot of women like the guy in this commercial and that is what grabs the audience what grabs the consumer and the buyer. These types of commercial are shown in T.V. on an day to day basis and these commercial might look like just another product being sold but in reality it is not only selling the product it is selling a lifestyle. A lifestyle of fake expectations that the majority of people cannot live up to. Day by day males are looking to change themselves to fit into this idea of an alpha male. They start doing physical changes to be this idea of an alpha male and they want to do it fast so that they can get the billions of women too.
In Patricia McLaughlin’s essay “Venus Envy” she claims that, “Men are having plastic surgery to get rid of their love handles and tighten their eye bags and beef up their chins and flatten their bellies and even (major wince) bulk up their penises” (McLaughlin 168) This comes to show that these commercial and advertisements are effecting people lives by making them do these changes that can cause physical harm to themselves and when the changes they have done aren’t enough they add more until they can fit the image the media displays. This can affect these people both mentally and physically. It makes them put on a fake coat, and to those who cannot live to those expectations are viewed as ugly and some even go to as far as killing themselves because they don’t fit into this good looking society. I knew a girl that went to my high school and I would remember people calling her ugly and saying that she wasn’t perfect, so she started to wear a lot of makeup and people kept making fun of her and I would always see her get sad. This girl was so depressed and was done with all the insults that a year later she committed suicide. Just because she couldn’t fit in with the pretty girls why can’t beauty be describe as what is within someone not what is out. All these popular culture icons strongly influences the lives of those who are not like them, a fake expectation in a corrupt view of a society.
These popular culture icons are not just in one commercial telling people how to live but in commercial everywhere from body sprays to sports cars. It is fascinating how a company tries to sell a product and most people without analyzing the commercial just see another company just trying to sell another product. If you took the time to clearly look at a commercial and you would be able see that they are selling you a lifestyle as well. Like this certain Scion commercial that starts off like your typical car commercial with a car driving down the road to what seems to be at a high speed. It’s a nice sports car a Scion Frs in red, then it shows 3 people looking at the car and what seems to be their friends coming out of it with fire in the background and white birds flying and the 2 people that came out were just another example of popular culture icons. Just to model type of people and the funny thing is that their friends kind of looked like the opposite like if they were representing the people that don’t have that car or don’t look like them. The friends looked up to them like if they were something amazing. The male that came out of the car had the same identity as the one from the AXE commercial. A guy with nice hair, seemed pretty fit and had a nice scruffy beard and of course right next to him was a gorgeous women. In this commercial the guy goes to his shocked friends and says he forgot his phone so he goes back to his car and again the fire goes off and this time in big letters the word “EPIC”. What that word means is that if you look like this guy and you have the girl he has then you too will be “EPIC” and not just some boring non alpha male individual that doesn’t have the gorgeous girl or that nice sports car. The three friends played a big part in this because the friends looked at the couple like they wanted to be them. One guy stood out the most because he looked like the opposite a black, skinny, nerdy guy that didn’t have the cute girl or the nice sports guy. He looked like the type of guy that was willing to do anything to be just like his alpha male friends. The people that are willing to do these changes feel like how they look like now is holding them back from their potential because they don’t look like these alpha males. Like Dan Harden with his essay “My New Nose” he claims “Psychologically, my nose had become the emblem for all that held me back, and I had to deal with it.” (Harden 183) Harden felt that his imperfect nose was holding him back that he couldn’t be his true self. Even with a wife and kids he still felt like he wasn’t perfect because in society and alpha male is someone with a good looking nose and he didn’t have that so he decided to change that but in reality he was just lying to himself so that he can fit into the good looking society like how the media portrays it.
These popular culture icons are basically shoved into our faces every day without most people knowing because most people just see and advertisement. Most people don’t see how these advertisement reflects on them. Take the time to actually view these advertisements and reflect how they affect ordinary lives. Like back in the days everyone used to use AXE because they believed if they bought the product then maybe they will look like that model guy and have all the gorgeous women chasing them as well but then people realized that it was just a fake pitch like the changes they wanted to do to themselves it wasn’t really them. The media just feeds people these fake expectations and when certain people don’t live up to them then they are viewed as imperfect and not good so they shut themselves down and that’s when the problems come in and words can hurt people.
A solution for the identity crisis that effects the majority of the world’s population would be to simply just stop listening to the T.V., stop trying to live up to these expectations that aren’t you be your own person. The problem in today’s society is that people look up to these celebrities but when in reality if most of these celebrities didn’t have all the fame and hype then they would be nothing. An example would be Kim Kardashian she is given so much hype it is ridiculous when she has no talent, she is not an actor or some sort of politician. All she did to get famous was make a porno whit someone famous and BOOM! She blew up and became famous, now the majority of women want to be her by making a bunch of changes to themselves and buying her products and stuff. If that porn video was never released she wouldn’t be anyone and the Kardashians would just be another family living there lives. So I think the solution to these problems is to just stop listening to the T.V. stop trying to be a Kardashian and just live your life. At the end you are your own person and they are there’s, they still will be famous and you’re going to become bankrupt for trying to be like them and honestly you are just asking for a boat load of depression. Yes, I understand that maybe you want to look good for you but honestly think to yourself and if you really want to change because you want to then go on ahead and do what makes you happy but if you know that you just want to look good to impress other people just because the media displays this image then don’t do it. You’re perfect the way you are. Just if the world began to see everyone for what they have on the inside and not the outside then we would live in a more peaceful world. Then there wouldn’t be people calling other people ugly and making them go into depression. I honestly think there would be less suicides and less violence because people are being there true selves and not some fake image.
Essay 1:
Obstacles of My Life
I’ve been through events in my life that have changed my life completely, events that made the people around me look at me differently and not a good type of different events that I am not to proud of and I don’t really like to go into detail because its personal. Have you ever been through a life changing event in your life that made you completely change who you are. If you have I know how you feel because I have been through things that can change a person’s life forever. It changed my life and now I am not the same person and a lot of people have told me I’ve changed, some people like it and some people don’t. The people that don’t like the change in me seem to be the ones closest to me like my mom. I think what I’ve done has hurt my mom a lot and me being so self-centered at the time I didn’t really regard anyone’s feeling let alone my mom’s. I was too stuck on doing what I want amongst other things. I think that is a part of going through your own social literacy event. Going through your own social literacy event to me means that you’ve been through something in your life in which you didn’t really regard the people around, that every one’s feelings were irrelavent except your own. After that certain event happened you learned that you were too self-centered that you didn’t pay attention to the people who were getting hurt.
The social literacy event that I went through took place during my High School years, part of my junior year but it mainly happened my senior year. I went to Sylmar High School and it is criticized as a bad school with like drugs going around and gangs, things like that. Although some of these accusations are true it’s not that bad of a school and I am proud to have graduated from there. As I was growing up I was always told not to do drugs, not to drink, not to do that, not to do this, etc. you get it. Then came high school and I was introduced to a world that I didn’t know about a world that in a way made me corrupt.
During my sophomore year I tried certain things and you know in life its ok to experiment with new things but there is certain limits. Limits that I over stepped, limits that completely changed me for good and bad. I kept doing certain things that honestly I knew were bad but I didn’t stop and keep in mind that I was going through my high school years stressed about life and the problems that came with it. Problems like school work, dumb things like girls, and well at the time my mom was getting sick a lot and that worried me the most. I thought I found an alternative to soothe the pain I was in and that was my mistake. Through this journey I met certain people like people that would get into trouble and do drugs and I learned a lot but I was also judged a lot by my actions and I honestly didn’t care. In school I would get in trouble and I was just judged as another statistic people looked at me and right away judged me to be just another drop out just another trouble maker that will go nowhere. Although I was doing the things I was doing I still kept my grades and what was important on check. With these new people I was meeting came new discoveries, and I went into business with these people even though I knew what I was doing was wrong, but the hunger for money was just too much. I was also so ignorant and I was just being a dumb self-centered juvenile and all I cared about was just me and doing what I want. I hung around with the wrong people and that didn’t make anything better.
I went into business with certain people and I thought I was unstoppable I did what I wanted without putting in mind the consequences all I cared about was making money and the love people were giving me for who I was and what was I was doing. Then came a turning point in this whole story. It was just another day and I was with these people I called “friends” and just doing stupid shit and we got pulled over by the cops and I got a ticket. The came confessing to my parents that I got a ticket and well I got in trouble and then came all the problems and my whole world flipped. Those consequences that I didn’t put to mind happened my mom saw the bigger picture and she did everything she could to find out what I was into. She made me take test and then part of the truth came out and she even hired people to keep an eye on me. Being a dumb teen I was still doing business even though I got caught and this was also during the time we were moving from my old house to my new house in Acton. The people she hired showed her pictures and that’s when she started going through my room and found small things that made her see me as a different person it put her in tears and being so self-centered I was just concentrated on doing me and making money I didn’t put in mind what it was doing to my mom and dad. My mom saw that I wasn’t the same kid she raised that same innocent kid that would run to his mom when he was scared at night or when he was having problems at school. Then came argument behind argument with my parents and I didn’t stop. Then my mom found bigger thing in my room and then that just completely broke her and she reacted with her emotions and filed a police report on me. I went from doing my school work and just living a teen life to almost ending up in jail. People kept telling me that I was going to end up dead or in prison. It almost happened but I think the only thing that stopped my mom was that I was still doing well in school and she had a cop friend that kind of convinced her to think about what she was going to do to my life. More damage than I have already done I paid the people I went into business and I had to get out for my own good. I was still being a dumb ass and I didn’t want to get out of it but I had to do it for my mom. I was stuck in my bad habits for a while but I tried to better my life. My mom saw that I was still being ignorant that she told me something that she was hiding. She basically told me it was my fault that certain things were happening. After all this happened I think the karma kicked in and bad stuff started happening and well I learned from my mistakes What my mom told me what was happening that made me realize that I fucked up bad and that the consequences of life hit me hard. That was my social literacy I went through something in my life in which I was just caring about my feelings and not the feeling of those around me.
My story has somewhat of a relation to the speeches because to me it seems like they all talk about being less self-centered. They talk about how you should keep in mind the feelings of others because you’re not the only one in this world. Some of them even say that you should be nice in this life if you want nice things to happen to you which is basically the concept of karma. But I think not listening to karma is what teaches you about life it what helps you mature it puts you through a learning experience where you can learn a lot. I do agree with the concept of being less self-centered and you should keep in mind the feelings of others not just the people around you but also the people you don’t know because a couple of nice words can go a long way. Even though I went through a lot of shit I don’t regret any of it because it made me learn a lot and it matured me a lot and made me a better man. It made me realize what was important and to keep in mind the feelings of other people. That is why I can relate to these speeches because they all have some sort of self-reflection in them that the speaker keeps talking about it and it amazes me how it is similar to my life and what I have been through.