NRJ #2: Cloning

For this journal I am going to choose the subject of cloning and what it meant to the novel. The entire basis of the novel revolves around the highly controversial idea of human cloning. Even though the actual concept of cloning is not mentioned until the end of the novel, when Kathy and Tommy go to seek their deferral, we are aware of its presence very early. The idea is alluded to many times in the early parts of the story with strange word usage such as "donors" or "carers" and by other parts of the plot such as the absence of any parents at Hailsham and the odd things the children learn. The secret is finally revealed in chapter seven when Miss Lucy reveals who the children really are and the meaning behind their existence by stating; "You'll become adults, then before you're old... you'll start to donate your vital organs" (81). From this point on, the idea and concept behind human cloning is in the back of every readers mind and plays a major part in how we interpret the actions of the characters for the rest of the book. The idea is not brought up often in the actual context of the story, but its presence is always there. It silently dictates how many of the events will play on later in the book.

Ishiguro was probably not writing this book with the intention of causing a debate over the ethics and morales of human cloning. Cloning is not a focal point by any means within the story, except for it brining the eventual end to their lives. Ishiguro wanted his readers to focus on the other aspects of life that are talked about much more in the story, but ultimately are based around the fact they are clones. The actual idea of human cloning is highly controversial, and for this exact reason. Clones are essentially exact copies of normal human beings, which is proven by their actions and emotions throughout the story. Yet besides this, they do not posses any rights and they are killed in order to maintain the health of the rest of the population. This unfair ideal is brought up at the end of the story during the conversation between Kathy and Tommy and Madame and Miss Emily. We learn about how Hailsham and the other schools were attempting to end this unfair treatment, but failed due to people regaining fear over a genetically superior group of humans. This may be Ishiguro's way of giving his input on the notion of cloning, but this remains the only real stated area of discussion over the ideals of this theme anywhere in the novel.

NRJ #1: Art and Creativity

I chose the theme of art and creativity because I feel that it plays an important role in the way the children are brought up, especially in the early parts of the story. The children are never told exactly why they do so much art in their early years. We only find out later in the story that it was an attempt to prove that the clones had soles and were more than just a source for organs for the rest of society. But the children never learn this and instead just assume that this is part of their daily lives and that creativity is a very important aspect of who they are. Towards the beginning of the book, Kathy confronts Tommy about his newly changed attitude and when Tommy replies that he was told by Miss Lucy that “if I didn't want to be creative... that was perfectly alright." (Ishiguro 23) Kathy takes this as a complete lie. She doesn't see how it is possible to be okay to not be creative. Creativity is so far implanted in the minds of the children at Hailsham that it has become a part of their daily lives and is basically considered a necessity. Tommy was previously out casted by the other boys for his below average ability at creating art (and because of his tantrums). Being creative was more than just a way of life at Hailsham, it was nearly a necessity for the children to survive the rigorous social climate of the school.

Ishiguro was very obvious about the children's need for art in their daily lives. This does not make very much sense until we learn the true meaning behind Hailsham, and the entire plot, at the end of the novel. We suddenly realize the much deeper meaning that Ishiguro was implementing. The children's art was meant to prove that they were truly human beings, the same as everyone else in society, and not just slabs of flesh that contained organs to be harvested from. The art they were making could have potentially saved their lives by proving that they were actually intelligent and thoughtful. The entire goal of Hailsham was to get society to understand this through the children's art and to hopefully change public opinion on the entire subject of harvesting organs from clones. When Miss Lucy mentioned to Tommy that he didn't have to be creative, I believe she was alluding to the fact that their efforts at Hailsham were failing. That the art the children were creating were not persuading anything from the public. And so she knew that no matter what Tommy did with his creative side, he would eventually be a donor and would die like all of the other clones.

This theme can easily mean many different things to different people. From my understanding though, Ishiguro was suggesting, among many other things throughout the plot, that our society is losing grasp on its creative side. Due to the fact that all of the hard efforts of the children to create various forms of art fell through and failed, Ishiguro suggest that our society is so unmoved by creativity that it cannot even save the lives of the children who drew them. Despite the obvious creativity and intellectual ability the children possess, the greedy society fails to see this ability and instead only sees what they want from the clones. Ishiguro is suggesting that if our society still valued art and creativity like it once did, then these children and the lives of future clones could be saved.

DRJ #4 Hamlet, Act 4

I felt like this act of the play was very action packed and was full of detail. We learn a lot about what is truly happening in the plot and in some of the characters minds. I felt like Shakespeare used this act as a way of unraveling what was really happening in the play and detailing it all to us. I found this the most entertaining act to read through so far.

I really felt like Ophelia played an important part in this act. Upon hearing of her father's death she seemingly goes completely mad, a common trend in this play. I felt that she was used for multiple reasons by Shakespeare. The first reason I found for her strange action was that she, similar to Hamlet, had experienced one too many tragedies and could no longer take all of the pain and stress they were causing her. I think this similarity to Hamlet is a way of reiterating the message Shakespeare is trying to convey. Ophelia eventually starts to incorporate flowers into her madness, with each flower representing something different. She hands these flowers out to various characters throughout this act. The flowers that really got my attention were the ones she gave to Claudius and Gertrude. She gives a flower representing adultery to Gertrude and a flower representing repentance to Claudius, which is a way of describing, through her madness, how she truly feels about these characters. I also felt that when we learn about her drowning, from the details we are given it sounds more like a suicide then a tragic accident.

I felt that the theme of suicide was pretty important towards the end of this act. Up until this point in the play there have been quite a few deaths, but none from suicide. When we learn about Ophelia's death from Gertrude she describes it in a way that makes us think that it was an accident. But once we start to think about the events that happened, especially the lack of any kind of fight to stay afloat once she fell in the water, it seems apparent that Ophelia had simply lost the will to live. I believe that she may have not intended to fall in the water, but once in she simply had no reason to fight to get out. I think that Shakespeare intended this death not to symbolize suicide, but to represent the loss of hope. Ophelia loses more than just her father and her lover, but loses hope in the people around her. With all of the questionable events happening around her, I  don't think that she wanted to live in a world full of murder and adultery, and chose death over life.

DRJ #3 Hamlet, Act 3

My initial thought on this act was that Hamlet had crossed the point of no return, or the threshold of the plot. During this act we find out that Claudius is truly guilty of the crime through Hamlet's clever use of setting up the scene in the play. Up until this point we are lead on to believe that Hamlet's father was murdered through the ghost of Hamlet's father himself. Hamlet has doubts that this ghost is truly what it says it is, and starts to suspect that it was truly a demon. But by the end of the chapter we know that everything is actually what it seemed to be and Hamlet can move further on his path for revenge.

I am going to focus on Claudius for this act. We learn a lot about Claudius in during this act. We also get to see him on his own and away from other characters during the third scene. During this scene we get to witness a confession admitting he is guilty as he prays. When he is not around other people, Claudius seems to be a lot more mellow. He doesn't have the toughness that he portrays in the other scenes. He also seems to be very sad deep down inside. He mentions that he regrets killing his brother and that he doubts he can ever be forgiven for what he has done. One thing that I found very interesting about his praying scene is that he not only admits to his wrong doings, but he also unknowingly saves his own life. When Hamlet walks by his door and sees Claudius alone and praying he gets the idea to kill Claudius right then. Hamlet ends up walking away though because he wants to kill Claudius while he is in the act of doing something that is bad or evil, and not while he prays. Claudius is the main reason behind this entire story. Without him there is no murder and no plot for revenge. He is as important a character as Hamlet is.

One theme that I felt played an important part during this act was guilt. Guilt is exactly what Claudius is feeling after he watches the scene in the play depicting him killing his brother. One thing that I am left wondering is whether Claudius feels guilty about the murder before watching the play. We never get a chance to observe Claudius on his own before this act. Every time we do see Claudius up until this point he never has any sense of remorse about him. He usually seems upbeat and full of energy. But now he is guilty about what he has done. Unbeknown to him, this guilt he feels ends up saving his life as Hamlet decides not to kill him while he prays. This seems to be more then just a coincidence and may signal the beginning of a personality change in Claudius due to his guilt.

DRJ #2 Hamlet, Act 2

In this act we get a more broad scope of what is happening in the story then we did in act 1. In the first act we really only learn about Hamlet and how he is feeling and acting. Most of the scenes in the first act revolve around Hamlet and include him at some part. Act 2 deviates from this trend. We now can get a sense of what other characters are feeling and how they are acting without Hamlet in the scene. I felt this gives us more incite into the story and helps us to understand other characters besides just Hamlet.

I felt that we got a good idea of who Polonius was during this act. During the first scene Polonius is telling his servant to spy on his son, Laertes. It appears that Polonius is trying to be nosy with his son, maybe a little too overprotective. But I personally think that he is simply being a concerned parent. He wants to make sure that his son is staying out of trouble and being safe. Later on in the act Polonius apologizes to his daughter, Ophelia for instructing her too stop flirting with Hamlet. He realizes that he made a mistake by telling her this, and he thinks that this is the cause of Hamlet's sudden madness. I do not believe that this is what caused Hamlet to go mad, but I believe it's what pushed him over the edge. Hamlet was already upset about the death of his father, the marriage of his mom and uncle, and by adding in his sudden romantic problems the depression and anger just took him over. Polonius does not know about these other problems though and is determined to fix Hamlet's craziness based solely on his romantic troubles.

Madness seems to be a reoccurring theme in this act. Hamlet is most certainly going a little crazy with all of the troubles he has recently ran into and people are starting to notice. Gertrude and Claudius are concerned about what is happening to Hamlet and decide to bring in his close friends Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. They want to use his friends to try and flush out the meaning behind Hamlet's strange behavior. Hamlet is able to pick up on this plan though fairly easily and does not reveal much to them. Polonius also attempts to figure out what is wrong with Hamlet, but he fails completely and Hamlet ends up making a fool of him. We, as readers, know that something is wrong with him though. This becomes apparent when Hamlet tells the actors to perform part of a play, pushing one actor so far that he starts to become very emotional and cry. I found the actors to be very ironic. Instead of bringing joy and happiness to Hamlet, which was why they were there in the first place, the actors only further Hamlet's madness. Hamlet even decides to use them as a way of figuring out of Claudius truly murdered his father or not.

DRJ #1 Hamlet, Act 1

Hamlet acts very much like his age, which is described as being in his late teens. The first person the comes to my mind who is similar to Hamlet is myself. I can understand being frustrated with your parents just like how Hamlet is with his mom during the first act. Hamlet, following the information he is given by the ghost, immediately decides to seek revenge without thinking things through. Another trait that is common for boys at this age. The story of revenge is very common in movies and books these days. One that comes to mind is the last book i the Harry Potter series where Harry is trying to seek revenge on a more powerful figure, Voldemort. A very similar situation to Hamlet seeking revenge on the new king.

Hamlets mother and the current queen of Denmark, Gertrude, is a somewhat difficult character to learn much about at this point. So far the only details given about her are from Hamlet and the one scene where she is having a conversation with her son. We do know that Hamlet does not think very highly of his mother. He is disgusted at the fact that she would marry his uncle, her former husband's brother. He also hates the fact that they got married so quickly, mentioning that the food that was eaten during the funeral of his father was used for the wedding of his mother and uncle. During the dialogue between Hamlet and Gertrude we get a slightly better understanding of Gertrude's character. We learn that she cares a lot about her son and that she wants him to get over his sadness of his father's death. This also gives us an idea that she did not care much about her late husband, as she is telling him to move on from the death and that he needs to grow up. She does not seem very supportive of Hamlet and appears to care more about her new husband. Gertrude is used in the plot to help us better realize how crooked of a man the king is and to help us better understand the unhappiness and rage that Hamlet has.

Love and family seem to play a pretty big role in the theme of the first act. Most of the main characters we are introduced to so far are family member. Claudius the king, Gertrude the queen, and Hamlet the prince and the nephew to Claudius. Hamlet does not consider Claudius to be his father though, as he still remains very loyal to his father. Hamlet also harbors a deep hate for Claudius, even before hearing that he killed his father, because of how he has married his mother. Family matters are often very complicated in a plot-line and the story of Hamlet is no different. Love also comes into question during the first act, centering around Gertrude. We get a clear sense that Gertrude loves Hamlet very much, but we also get a sense that she loves Claudius even more. This is very strange based on the fact that she was in "love" with Hamlets real father just months beforehand. We are left wondering if Gertrude actually loves anyone for real, or if she is faking this love in order to keep her title of queen. We also do not get a clear sense on Hamlet's love. We would assume that Hamlet loves his mother, but he mentions multiple times about how weak she was and how quickly she jumped into bed with his uncle. This suggest that Hamlet's love for her was torn, if not fading away.

Chopin Support for Thesis Activity

  Example of Thesis #2:

Chopin uses a variety of contrasting words of life and death in order to show us not what is physically happening to the main character, but what is emotionally happening to her. Chopin makes it clear to us that Mrs. Mallard was not fully alive while her husband was around, detailing to us that she was noticing the outside world and the beauty that it held for what must have been the first time in a long time. Irony becomes very present at the end of the story when Mrs. Mallard physically dies, but she is also now emotionally alive and free.

Example of Thesis #3:

Chopin makes a clear point to us about her feelings of society and marriage. Her descriptions of how Mrs. Mallard feels when she learns about her husbands death are at first what we would typically imagine, with intense grief and mourning. Her feelings soon change to realizing what she now has to look forward to with her life and her new freedom. She is implying that marriage is a sort of jail, keeping people back from experiencing the true freedoms and pleasures that life has to offer. Chopin also hints to us that the marriage may have been an abusive one due to the relief that Mrs. Mallard feels after her husbands death, which hints at a larger problem seen in marriages back then and today.

Walker Extra Credit

his peace.

He kisses her and that was that. She was his for now on. They would ride away from this swamp land over night and be back to the civilization of Chicago. He hears the horns of cars passing by and the barks of neighborhood dogs and he returns to the present. He looks at his new wife and feels an immense relief pass over him. He had missed his own wedding by hiding in a place deep in his mind. He was relieved about this though. He was too nervous to pay attention to what was happening. But she was his now. And her child was his now. And he would support them both. All three living in Chicago, as a family.

Hemingway Extra Credit

Being alienated from the people that you love and have grown up with would be a terrible experience. You would feel like you have no where to turn for support. Being supported and having people listen and care about your thoughts and feelings is important for any human being to have. If I was being ignored by my family and friends I would have a tough time coping with even the slightest of problems. Small problems piled upon small problems can very quickly lead into big problems. The change in the relationship between me and my family and friends could have been caused by an extended period of time spent away from home as well as a disagreement in why I was gone, such as going away to a war that is not publicly supported (such as the Vietnam War). If I was ever alienated like this I would feel a great amount of depression. Also, I would have the feeling that nobody wants you around, which is very tough to deal with. I would probably turn to a counselor or someone who understood the situation I was in from a similar experience that they had.

SSRJ#4: Carver

My initial reaction to this piece was one of confusion. I realized that there was a ton of symbolism in the story but it was not apparent to me in my first read through. I had to read this story again to start picking up on a lot of the minor details that really mean more then we are lead to believe. I liked how Carver packs a lot of details and meaning in this story, despite how short it is. My parents are divorced so I understand the unfortunate nature of a couple breaking up and getting into fights.

I felt that the use of symbolism was very extent in this story. Everything from the weather to the words used by the couple can easily be interpreted as meaning something else. The gloomy weather stands for the unfortunate scene we are about to read about. It can also stand for how Carver feels about the entire subject of divorce, hence he is setting a tone for the story. The action of the mother putting down the picture stands for her letting go of the relationship. She is describes as picking up the picture and examining it, maybe having second thoughts about the separation between the two. She then puts down the picture frame, face down, as a way of representing the end of the relationship and the family as a whole. The fight between the couple over the baby can be interpreted as the unfortunate act of violence that commonly goes hand-in-hand with divorce and the break up of families. This may be a way for Carver to express what happened in his family during his childhood.

Being that this short story was full of symbolism, the interpretations of the events can vary dramatically. My question is what did other people interpret the baby as being in the story? Did the baby stand for something more then just a part of the plot or was it Carver's way of expressing something much deeper?