Blog 2

            Tennyson’s poem addresses a man who has traveled the world and accumulated such a mass of experiences that there remains little for him to do on this Earth.  He writes that Odysseus is, “a part of all that [he has] met,” meaning that his greatness rests in the diversity he has come into contact with.  From his duties as king of Ithaca to his success in the Trojan War to his great journey home, Odysseus is surely made of a great many pieces.  Tennyson describes the journey of life as an arch: “Yet all experience is an arch wherethro’ / Gleams that untravell’d world whose margin fades / For eve and forever when I move.”  Describing life’s journey as an arch places importance in continuously traveling and taking in new experiences.  Previously Odysseus was able to travel continuously through the arch of life, but as his experience accumulates his ability to pass through wanes, and the arch becomes a wall that blocks the purpose of his life. 

Many view Odysseus as a hero for the great number of miles he has put on his car of life, but Odysseus sees this pessimistically.  He would much rather start fresh and new than, “to make an end / To rust unburnish’d.”  Odysseus begins to lose purpose in his life as it comes to a close, and as that wanes the will to live does too.  As his purpose fades, he begins to blend into nature, as a body decays in the ground where it is buried.  He relates himself to nature several times at the end of the poem, “thunder and the sunshine…you and I are old,” and, “Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are.”  It comes time for Odysseus to end his life in this world and move onto the afterlife.  Only here can he continue his quest: “Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will / To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.”

Close Read of "Ulysses"

The poem “Ulysses,” by Tennyson, appeals to its reader through the use of a dramatic monologue, the personification of nature, similes, metaphors, and even plot. However, the main intrigue of this poem is the irresolute message received through Tennyson’s unsteady use of iambic pentameter.

The irony of Ulysseus’ situation is that he spent ten years trying to make his way home to Ithaca, and upon returning all he longs for is adventure and travel. This is exemplified through Ulysseus’ periodic breaks in meter. Ulysseus speaks in iambic pentameter for most of the poem but in lines 19-21 when he says “yet all experience is an arch wherethro’ gleams that untravell’d world whose margin fades for ever and forever when I move,” he uses a spondee. These stressed syllables next to each other dramatically slow down the movement of the poem. He also uses a spondee when he says “there lies the port…there gloom the dark, broad seas” and “moved earth and heaven, that which we are…made weak by time and fate.” The breaks in meter contribute to a more profound conclusion about the poem, which is that when he is speaking about travel and adventures, he gets lost in his own thoughts. The poem's movement slows down because these breaks in meter lead him to have a deeper reflection upon his life and allow him time to try to gather his indecisive thoughts. The parts where he does speak in iambic pentameter seem to be resolute thoughts. He acknowledges that he is old and despite this he wants to keep traveling even if his exploration eventually kills him. This is exemplified by Ulysseus’ last spondee in line 69, which gives him a few last fleeting moments to determine that the rest of his life he will “strive, seek, find” but not “yield.” 

Blog #2

Close read the following poem. Make three observations. Then, use these observations to make one arguable and provable claim about the poem. 

"Ulysses"

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

It little profits that an idle king,

By this still hearth, among these barren crags,

Match'd with an aged wife, I mete and dole

Unequal laws unto a savage race,

That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.

I cannot rest from travel: I will drink

Life to the lees: All times I have enjoy'd

Greatly, have suffer'd greatly, both with those

That loved me, and alone, on shore, and when

Thro' scudding drifts the rainy Hyades

Vext the dim sea: I am become a name;

For always roaming with a hungry heart

Much have I seen and known; cities of men

And manners, climates, councils, governments,

Myself not least, but honour'd of them all;

And drunk delight of battle with my peers,

Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy.

I am a part of all that I have met;

Yet all experience is an arch wherethro'

Gleams that untravell'd world whose margin fades

For ever and forever when I move.

How dull it is to pause, to make an end,

To rust unburnish'd, not to shine in use!

As tho' to breathe were life! Life piled on life

Were all too little, and of one to me

Little remains: but every hour is saved

From that eternal silence, something more,

A bringer of new things; and vile it were

For some three suns to store and hoard myself,

And this gray spirit yearning in desire

To follow knowledge like a sinking star,

Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.

This is my son, mine own Telemachus,

To whom I leave the sceptre and the isle,—

Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfil

This labour, by slow prudence to make mild

A rugged people, and thro' soft degrees

Subdue them to the useful and the good.

Most blameless is he, centred in the sphere

Of common duties, decent not to fail

In offices of tenderness, and pay

Meet adoration to my household gods,

When I am gone. He works his work, I mine.

There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail:

There gloom the dark, broad seas. My mariners,

Souls that have toil'd, and wrought, and thought with me—

That ever with a frolic welcome took

The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed

Free hearts, free foreheads—you and I are old;

Old age hath yet his honour and his toil;

Death closes all: but something ere the end,

Some work of noble note, may yet be done,

Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.

The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks:

The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep

Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends,

'T is not too late to seek a newer world.

Push off, and sitting well in order smite

The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds

To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths

Of all the western stars, until I die.

It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:

It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,

And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.

Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'

We are not now that strength which in old days

Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;

One equal temper of heroic hearts,

Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will

To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

Efforts through False and Fake

               I have always been able to recognize my sister’s eyes. Psychologists and philosophers have spoken for centuries, if not millennia, about the bonds between children and their mothers and fathers, but siblings are too often overlooked. Clara would come into my room with a chalkboard and notebook in hand to teach me how to read before I started pre-school, a diary for my most intimate secrets when I turned twelve and keys for me to drive when I turned of age, and each time her eyes would shine like melted chocolate, smooth and rich. They had been one of my first sights, and even when the lights were all off and I was half asleep, I could recognize those eyes as she snuck back into the house from a late night through my bedroom window.

                Imagine my surprise when I sat with my mother at merely five years old, sifting through photos, and on glossy photo paper I saw not one, but two sets of those eyes stare back at me. One pair was set in the face of a little girl with dark skin that had been kissed by the sun maybe once too often in a single summer, and the second was a strange man’s that could have been just as old as my parents as far as my child’s mind could tell. I recognized his nose that hinted at Arab roots, the way his eyebrows curved sharply upwards then gently sloped down, and I recognized those double-take inducing eyes, but I did not recognize his face. As my mother gently explained to me, I realized that this man was not a complete stranger at all, that he had once belonged in my loving sister’s life, and that my sister was actually this man’s daughter and not my own father’s. At a young age it is hard to understand the concept of divorce, and my young mind could not recognize those eyes for quite a while after those realizations hit me.

                Such an event causes a person to look inward. Of the many features that could be pointed out, I hear most often of the wild, Italian hair I was gifted by my immigrant grandfather, and the olive Mediterranean skin  from him and the Portuguese settlers on my mother’s part that came to South America back in the 1500s. However, explanations are useless. When I mention that I am Brazilian I see false realizations dawn on people as they assume I am Hispanic, although Brazil is a Lusitanic country. I could go on for hours explaining that ‘hispanic’ is not even an ethnicity at all, and that the dark-skinned, thick-nosed South Americans they see immigrate to this country are results from the mixture of Iberian settlers and Native Americans indigenous to the tropical sections of the continent, but most do not care. A fair attempt could be made at explaining that our indigenous have stick straight hair and, in Brazil, fine straight noses which I inherited from a Native grandmother, but most would not process the information. Rather, people stay true to false realizations and fake recognitions, for both require an effort that most cannot be bothered with. 

Blog Post 1

Recognition is a more surface-level discovery.  It is mental, scientific, and observational.  Recognizing is the process of seeing someone or something again, and banking it into knowledge.  Recognition is a near-immediate statement or added certainty or a new discovery.  In my opinion, recognition is less profound than realization.  Realization is more of a process.  It might combine several recognitions to form a greater realization.  Realization has roots in the word real, and it denotes an effort to taking ideas or thoughts and implementing them into one’s reality.  Realizations are the epiphanies, the climaxes, and conclusions in life or in stories.  

Recognition and realization are shown at different points throughout the novel 1984.  Initially, there are a serious of recognitions by the protagonist, in which he becomes aware of the tight grip Big Brother has on his daily life.  When the greatest moment of the book is reached is during his more significant realization at the end, when he has no feeling but love for Big Brother, and he has lost control.  This is a realization, and is only built by the series of earlier recognitions.  In the movie, A Beautiful Mind, the schizophrenic Dr. Nash becomes painfully aware of the difference between recognition and realization.  Leading a fake life in his mind, he recognizes certain things that point towards his false reality, but it is only when he pieces together the components of his recognitions that he reaches the ultimate realization of his situation, and begins to understand his life.

Love and Batman

I recognize the smells of garlic and kimchi, my mother's distinct scent, and the salty yet grassy breeze wafting through the wide-open window. And it takes me less than a second to realize I'm home.

     Recognition and realization are sisters – much like my sister and I, in fact. They are related but nothing alike. The only things they have in common, really, are their roots.

     I find the concept of love to be a perfect way to show the difference between recognition and realization. In Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, Elizabeth Bennett is spunky, courageous, witty, intelligent and well spoken. In her heated relationship with Darcy, she spent a majority of her time "recognizing" her attraction to him in an attempt to analyze what it meant that she was so drawn to such a prideful and dislikeable man. But she never fully "realized" her love and desire to be with him until much later. In other words, she acknowledged the feelings she felt, but she was never fully aware of them. In the same way, anyone can point out facts and concrete knowledge, but not be able to discover the truth of it until later. 

     Beyond the emotional level, recognition and realization can also have different contexts, especially when it involves the past. The ending of Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight Rises culminates into the “realization” of the Batman’s ultimate aspirations and goals. This signifies fulfillment of what he wished to achieve in the beginning, which was to protect Gotham. This is different from other parts of the movie, when Batman merely recognized what he had to fix, but only because they were familiar to him and because his past followed him like a shadow. Realization came when he let go of memories, ties, and fears that were holding him back.

            Ultimately, recognition is important. But it’s an important first step, and life doesn’t stop there. It’s up to the individual to come into realization, which is the next and most important step.

Recognition and realization are intimately related, states of changed awareness which suggest heightened states of knowledge. Recognition is an awareness or acknowledgement of something. It occurs in a single and sharp moment. If you recognize something you are merely accepting, or noticing it as a fact without an inner grasp of the matter. Realization, however, is a deep understanding of something that one knows to be true, an understanding that is the result of a process. When you realize something, it is like the final piece of a jigsaw puzzle has clicked into place. Essentially, realization is the feeling of everything coming together  in a moment of understanding.

In the Odyssey, when Odysseus finally returns home he is met by the old servant Eurycleia. At first she is unaware of his identity. She has several moments of recognition; she notices his feet, his face and his voice. Finally, when she recognizes the scar that Odysseus sustained from the wild boar, she realizes that the wanderer is in fact her beloved master Odysseus. This realization is the culmination of the sequence of recognitions; all the moments that hint at Odysseus' identity are brought together when Eurycleia notices his scar.

F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, if considered from the narrator Nick Carraway's point of view, is one long process of realization. Nick begins with the prejudice that Gatsby is perhaps a leading symbol of the shallow culture of 1920s New York City. This changes as Nick witnesses Gatsby's true hopes and fears and his doomed love for Daisy. He comes to perceive Gatsby as perhaps the one genuine man in his social circle, and when Gatsby dies  Nick knows there is nothing left for him in West Egg.

In a story, recognition is a moment that suggests a spring forward in the dramatic action. Realization is an epiphany that suggests change in a character.

Recognition and Realization

            To say that “realization” and “recognition” are interchangeable would be untrue. However, to say that they are unrelated would also be untrue. As the base of the word “recognition” would suggest, recognition is a repeat of cognitive (thought) processes as it relates to identifying objects, people, places and ideas that have been previously acknowledged. For someone to recognize is to call to mind a knowledge that has already been acquired. On the other hand, to realize is to create a knowledge that – for the person doing the “realizing” – is new and previously unaccounted for. And yet the two are not mutually exclusive. To realize almost always requires some degree of recognition. Édouard Manet’s controversial painting, Olympia, often requires of its viewers some form recognition before it can be realized and understood what taboo topic is actually being portrayed. The piece, which shows a naked woman reclining on an ottoman, first appears to be a traditional nude painting, glorifying the female form. Those trained in art history however recognize the similarity between this painting and Titian’s Venus of Urbino… a Renaissance painting that (not coincidentally) depicts the same topic in a much more overt capacity. This recognition sparks the realization that Manet’s work actually portrays prostitute, a truth that is much harder to arrive at without the precedent provided by Titian. On the other hand, realization can also come free of recognition. In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, Nick Carraway realizes through his encounters with Long Island’s wealthiest that the true sense of rugged individualism and innovation that is labeled as the “American Dream” has been undermined by the shallow and petty pursuits of the city’s affluent.

Blog Response #1: Realization and Recognition

Often in today's fast-paced world we often speak without thinking - failing to notice and admire the complex design that makes up our language. This can range from the identification of prepositions to the mere distinction between words.  “Realization” and “recognize” are two such words, and while they may be used interchangeably in society, they do not mean the same things but are words that describe varying degrees of a similar process. Recognition is the use of prior experience and knowledge - one can look to the root “cognition” - to identify facts. Whereas realization is something greater - an attempt to accept an idea or conceptualize it’s meaning which often incites action. 

The application of  these words to situations in both literature and the modern arts is very different as well. Sophocles' tragedy, Oedipus the King, for instance. The climax of the play occurs when Oedipus realizes his father is the man he killed in a fit of rage and that is wife is his mother. After this realization Oedipus is consumed with grief and eventually blinds himself, an acceptance of truth and full knowledge which then leads to an action. It is quite different from - yet also similar to - his recognition earlier in the play of the story of how the old king was killed - for it was his own story of his journey to Thebes. 

In the movie The Vow the protagonist, Paige, who has suffered from amnesia, recognizes a former friend who had an affair with her father. Her past experience with the woman allowed her to recognize her, and she later realized that the affair was the reason she stopped communicating with her family. Following this realization she leaves her family once more to live on her own. Again recognition, allowed a realization, which then incited an action. 

Recognizing Realizations

Recognition is the identification of a single past knowledge or experience. Recognition does not have to be dramatic, for we recognize people, places, and things everyday without surprise. Realization, however, is a collection of recognitions that is usually characterized by what I like to call, “the wow factor.” A realization comes at the crossroads of many past recognitions.

The chronology of recognizing and realizing presents itself in nearly every detective story. Consider the series Monk. Detective Monk enters a crime scene and fills his memory with facts and images that may prove helpful in the future.  As he investigates the crime, Monk recognizes people, items, and irregularities that lead him closer to the truth.  Once all the right pieces fall into place, Monk realizes who committed the crime in a moment of epiphany as he dramatically says, “Here’s what happened.”

Impressionist art follows this same pattern. At first the viewer recognizes colors, then perhaps some shapes begin to emerge.  It is not until all of the individual pieces are recognized that the viewer can realize what the image is as a whole. Consider the painting Soleil Levant by Claude Monet (http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/monet/first/impression/impression.jpg). First the viewer recognizes the sun from its shape and color, then the boats and people inside them. Finally after some time, the viewer can fully understand that they are looking at the sun rising over a marina. Keep in mind that the only reason the viewer is able to understand the images in the painting is because he/she has seen them in past experience, as both recognizing and realizing rely on this.  But what is really interesting is that once the big picture is realized, the mind begins to recognize other pieces in the painting that it may not have previously noticed. 

Recognition vs Realization

In the process of coming to an understanding, an audience and the characters of a story begin at a point of near ignorance, begin to recognize details, then put them together to come to a realization. In storytelling, whether through film, literature, or other media, the audience is often presented with one of two different perspectives through which to recognize and realize: first person or omniscient. In first-person, the audience realizes things in tandem with the characters, while from an omniscient perspective they are presented with the gift of dramatic irony. In film editing, this dichotomy is described as suspense versus surprise; suspense occurs when the audience sees omnisciently and recognizes before the characters do, while surprise occurs when an audience and the characters realize something at the same time.

Joseph Conrad builds elements of both suspense and surprise in Heart of Darkness, as Marlow traverses the Congo River, knowing that his goal is to get to Mr. Kurtz, but without realizing why until he arrives. Other characters on the way foreshadow the ultimate fact that he is there to kill Kurtz, but he, as well as most readers, do not realize it until Marlow does, at the climax of the story.

Carlos Fuentes also blurs the line between suspense and surprise in the eerie Aura, presenting a wholly new perspective by directly addressing the reader as “you” in command form. The main character, Felipe, as he becomes intoxicated by the airless enclosure of a dying old woman’s home and falls for her illusion of youth and beauty in the form of the beautiful Aura. Everything is revealed to the audience as it is revealed to the character, in the purest way possible, and as Felipe gets dragged further into the dying widow’s twisted obsessions, so does the audience.

At its essence, recognition is intuitive, fed by hints, foreshadowing, and gut instinct. Realization is a step beyond, through a slower and more linear process, into full understanding and comprehension.

Blog Post #1

To recognize is to understand something that has previously been understood. To realize is to piece together previously recognized objects or ideas into a brand new concept or understanding. Realization cannot occur without recognition.

In the television series “Mad Men”, Peggy Olson, begins working at the advertising agency Sterling-Cooper as a secretary. She is viewed solely as a woman, capable of fulfilling the recognized role of a woman in the work place. She is expected be a tool for the men of the office rather than a peer. Not only is this the way that Peggy’s fellow office workers recognize her, but it is also the way she recognizes herself. She accepts society’s previously established understanding of her.  However, as the series continues, Peggy slowly realizes her own worth. She pieces together the weaknesses she often recognizes in the men of the office and sees that they are not inherently better than her. When she realizes that being a woman does not affect her potential, she forces the rest of the office to realize it too.

            In the film “Amélie”, Amélie prides herself in her ability to recognize faults in people’s lives without ever addressing the faults in her own. After a series of events, Amélie finds some torn up, photo-booth pictures of the same, forlorn looking man. Amélie recognizes that, much like her, he is able to influence others indirectly (through his pictures), yet he does not seem to exist in his own right. When Amélie tracks the man down, she learns that he is the maintenance man for the booths and that his photos are simply maintenance checks. This meeting forces Amélie to realize that what she might recognize as a “ghost” (including herself) can actually exist as a real, independent person in society.