two topics

1. post 9/11

Cayce’s experience with 9/11 shows indifference when she was there in New York and became fear when realizing her father went missing after he got out of the Mayflower. This indifference could mostly be the shock that has not processed the explosions of the plane that crashes in the world trade center. There were chaos on that day so would be traumatic seeing it on television causing Cayce’s fear of seeing news on television. Toward the world the social commentary is viewed in two ways, remorse for the dead and revenge for the dead. This changed the Americans view of America: it was not save anymore; though it never was. Americans became more suspicious of each other because they feared terrorism. Americans felt the first impact of invasion from outsiders besides pearl harbor. For Cayce, her mother sends her messages via e-mail about voice recorders that are supposably her dead father’s voice trying to communicate with them. Her mother believes that the dead till everything. Post-9/11 and Cayce’s father missing could be a key point in the plot, must read more to prove that.

2. depictions of gender

For Hubertus he has the cowboy hat and a smile that is like Tom Cruise with many teeth. Seeing Hubertus in Cayce’s point of view shows that Hubertus is handsome and a man, because of his demanding and imposing character. While for Cayce, she is genderless when she wears her CPUs. There are many characters that differ with Cayce’s appearance, and they are all more feminine and imposing. These depictions of gender are accurate because a person never knows what is behind a handsome smile or why William Gibson make all the women attractive besides Cayce. We could speculate that Cayce is just a normal lady while the readers compare her with the other women that are introduced for example, Damien’s new girlfriend, Hubertus’ travel agent, Keiko/Judy. It shows that the men are more dominant and that the women are more sexually attractive distracting the main point of the story. Also the different appearances in men is seen through Taki, Damien, and Boone Chu.

What would Tobe think?

In William Faulkner’s short novel “A Rose for Emily”, the themes were seen through the events that Emily and the town’s people went through. Some themes were isolation (physically and mentally) and the reality of life. The themes would not change if for example the narrative went towards Tobe’s point of view. Tobe would still see that Emily is isolated and does not know the distinction between reality and fantasy. Though there would be big changes; like the towns people opinion, not know what Tobe is thinking so that is a big change, and the gossip that arise in town. There are changes that the audience will not notice like how Tobe sees Emily which is different from the town’s people. Also the hidden secrets in Emily’s house would be seen because Toby works there and sees everything.

            Isolation is the main theme in “A Rose for Emily”, because in any narrative the audience could tell that Emily is isolated and enclosed in her house. The other theme: reality of life also shows that the short story is intermixed with false identities and truths. For one, the villagers did not know that Homer was killed (dead) until after Emily’s funeral. This reality of life is exaggerated because of the gossip of the town’s people that the audience hears in the original narrative, but in Tobe’s narrative this would be limited. In Tobe’s narrative the audience would know about Homer’s outcome of going in Emily’s house. The audience will also be limited in the story itself, because in the original the audience gets the entire story by the town’s gossip, but in Tobe’s narrative the story itself would be limited too as he does not communicate.

Anti or Pro Technology

From the poem, All Watched Over By Machines of Loving Grace, Richard Brautigan’s tone seems to be sarcastic with the way he used the parenthesis after he writes “I like to think” (beginning of every stanza); not only that, though he is writing about “harmony” between nature and technology, that is not what he is really meaning. He’s anti-technology tone shows the message that during the 1960s technology was booming and he wrote his poem to show an exaggeration of the possible outcome of technology and nature.

In the last two lines of the first stanza, the simile makes a comparison of mammals and computers to “pure water touching clear sky”. To say the least, this, in reality, is not possible. By this, he is saying technology and nature could not coexist. During the 1960s, the cold war happened, so this poem could also be a message that he did not like that technology will overpower nature or his paranoid schizophrenia is acting up again.

Though it could be anti-technology, the parenthesis could also mean his positive opinion that technology should co-exist with nature. In the line “I like to think/ (it has to be!)/ of a cybernetic ecology…” (Lines 17-19) He implies that he would want the technology—machines—to do all the work for him. He ends his poem with “all watched over by machines of loving grace”, this has a double meaning that, yes, he does want technology, but the queer ending does not show that.

Throughout his poem he implies more toward the anti-technology tone because his familiar words of “brothers and sisters” and the last sentence sets out a statement that translated states: Do we want to be watched over by machines? This sounds queer and creepy. Though at first he says freedom he really means imprisonment, because in my opinion, the machinery has all control and we do not i.e. no freedom. Brautigan’s poem is confusing because the reader believes that he believes this but actually believes the other side or the other way around or both. Taking the poem in reality, the deer and the computer could not happen, since one, deer are afraid of human beings, second, then why would they be comfortable being next to a computer. Another thing, technology was barely booming, so all of this poem should not be seen during this time period where technology is most if not all in control of human beings. Rereading this poem, gives a new message: Brautigan is warning the human beings that technology will control the humans and nature.