In an struggling economy, people tend to focus more on what really drives their motives. Eventually, they tend to see past their wants and put their needs in a realistic perspective. Our capitalistic society has a knack for feeding our needs just enough to keep us hungry for more. Exposing us through commercial, magazine ads, sporting events, and even videogames; we are constantly bombarded by messages telling us to buy. But where has this gotten us? American society has been conditioned to focus more on the now, losing the ability to plan for a few years worth of monthly payments.

Does our personal involvemet in the world of technology play a major role on our unawareness? It can be debated that technology has aided us in our attempt to expose ourselves to as much information as possible. While on the other hand, an argument can be made that it blinds us, turning us into zombies. We do so much to preserve the life of our technological advances, doing whatever we can to keep the batteries charged.

Are we in control of our technology, or have we become so dependent on it that it is now in control of us, forcing us to continue it's evolution? If this is so, is it possible that one day we will be overrun by technology, possibly being slave to it, fighting for our emancipation? We have created things to make our lives easier and more sufficient, helping us with day to day tasks in hopes achieving greater success. Machines and other forms of technology have replaced workers in factories and mills, completing tasks at a quicker and more efficient rate than humans. Is it so far fetched that one day machines can replace a majority of physical tasks humans are asked to perform? It is incredibly hard to foretell such a future, but it is not impossible to imagine such a fate.

The question that Dana faced in the story of Kindred is one of the most difficult questions anyone could ever face. Was she selfish in killing Rufuse, leaving the slaves on the plantation to look fate in the eyes? Those eyes had to be nothing short of cold, un-wanting, and unfamiliar. Look at what was staring Dana in the face though, a life she was not born into, and an ideology she had no input in. After all, she was born free; allowed to make the decisions that she wanted to, because she was human. The difference between the two relationships lies within who allowed the two different perspectives to become evident. Society controlled the outcome of the slaves in the antebellum south, while there was a supernatural element involved in Dana's slavery, yet they both were intermingled.

Fear must be the underlying issue here, what else could allow for one human to treat another like dirt. Fear causes many of us to do irrational things. It causes us to undermine one another, throw each other under a bus, and abandoned our philosophies. It de-evolutionizes us to a creature not worth mentioning.

Slowly, as a human race, we have realized our faults. We have set up precautions to protect ourselves from that which can cause the most harm to ourselves. Sadly that is us. From a League of Nations to a United Nations, we have established a safeguard from ourselves. The ultimate goal is to exhale as a whole, erase the nations, the league, and the states, and just be united.

Maybe we can eventually all exhale as one soon.

Experiencing the Past Through Another's Eyes

There is absolutely no way that I will ever know exactly what it is like to live in the shoes of someone else. I will never know what it is like to be someone of another race, gender, or creed; however, I can attempt to gain a level of perspective into the lives of people different from me, although never completely. Within the novel, Kindred, Octavia E. Butler does just that, though she puts a little twist on it. She doesn't just attempt to show me what life is like for a black woman, but exposes me to the naked truth of the lives of black women in slavery during the first half on the 1800's within the borders of the slave state of Maryland.

The author creates a slave narrative, presenting it from a personal perspective that makes you experience the stings of the whip and the cries of the oppressed as if you were there. It's almost as if the author actually lived through the antebellum south. I feel that the way the author presents the story is so touching because she does it in a unique way using qualities of science fiction and fantasy, mixed in with the components of a slave narrative. You see, the author uses the idea of time travel to take a black woman living in California during the 1970's and throws her directly into the heart of oppression, living a life in which the outcome is not controlled by you, but by the authority and fear of the 'masters'. It is because we are allowed to experience what is going on within the story through the life of a woman who has never been enslaved, do we get such a shocking point of view.

Of course, the slave narratives of people such as Fredrick Douglas have the incredible ability to touch us, and allow us to see how horrible and inhumane slavery is, but the story of Kindred, brings us closer to the idea from the eyes of an almost contemporary perspective. On top of that, Kindred shows us a point of view rarely seen within slave narratives, and that is the female perspective. Just thinking about the things that African Americans were forced to go through during slavery, and not only then, fills me with a burning anger.

There are aspects of meta-fiction found within the book, primarily coming from the fact that the author of the story is a writer, writing a story about another writer experiencing slavery. I think it is also significant to note that Butler performed a bit of 'method writing' by visiting an actual plantation and doing her own research. Just another reason why Butler has the ability to present such powerful feelings through an issue that has stained the history of the United States.

Levels of Reading Development

Before this semester, my goal when reading would be to retain as much information as I could. I thought that was what a person does when they read, and that was how they grew in intellect. I may be right or wrong to any level of degree, but I feel now that there is more to reading than just memorization and simply learning something. I never thought about the text as relating to anything really until this semester. I realize now that there is more to a text than simply reading into what you see on the surface, there is a deeper underlying meaning that requires effort on the part of the reader to discover.
When I would look at a literary work, I would decide if I either enjoyed it or not. It was as simple as that. For me it all depended on the writer. Where they able to relate to me somehow? Could I see myself as the main character in their story? I would never ask myself complex questions about what was involved beyond the page. I just focused on what I saw; the words. It is because of those reasons that I feel that I was at the reading stage of text-self before this semester. The text was just merely a story, and it was supposed to make sense. That is how I understood reading ever since I was little; I would see spot, turn the page, and then I would see spot run. It was just that simple. I think that is partially why I was so upset with Lost in the Funhouse by John Barth. It made absolutely no sense to me when I was reading it, and after reflecting on the work in class, it still made no sense to me. However, after the reflection, I was better able to understand what the author was trying to accomplish within the text. I made the assumption that he was talking about growth, not only as a young boy within the story, but also the growth of the story itself. Reflecting on it even further, I feel that it also successfully represented my growth as a reader; for just as I read the story of the boy maturing and developing through the ‘funhouse’, I too was growing and maturing as a reader.
Currently, I feel that I am between stages of reading development. I see characteristics of both text-self, as well as text-world within in my reading. For instance, when I read Paul Auster’s, City of Glass, I looked beyond the text and saw the psychological meaning that I felt the author was trying to convey, expressing my ability of text-world recognition. In my mind, I realized that Auster was attempting to reveal the message that possibly everything we know has the potential to be false. This topic echoed a challenging philosophical argument that has left many great minds in a state of wonder. When I look at my reflection of this, I cannot help but think that I had a deep insight on the text, which required me to search beyond what was merely lying on the page.
However, at times I got frustrated with the book and just wanted it to make sense, not looking for possible reasons why it did not come to a logical conclusion. I would look at the work as whether or not it was interesting, dreaming up extravagant possible endings. I still sometimes wondered how much more interesting would it have been if the map revealed Stillman was purposefully spelling out ‘BABEL’ through his path. Although, I do believe that leaving it up to the audience to decide whether or not the word ‘BABEL’ was actually spelled out was an ingenious way to spark the question of what really is real. I led myself to the assumption that everything would eventually come together, and I guess in a way it did, just not the way I expecting it to.
I feel though that there is evidence showing that I lean more so towards one stage of reading development than another. Take for instance my reflections on Jonathen Lethem’s novel, You Don’t Love Me Yet. If I were to read the literary work from a text-self perspective, I would conclude that Lethem writes an interesting story that holds my attention, bringing to life modern concepts of trendiness and vogue. Obviously, I do see that in the writing, but if I had read this book before the current semester, I feel that is all I would be left with. Granted, classroom discussions deserve most, if not all, of the credit for my development, but it is because of those discussions that I am aware of the battle over an original idea within the story.
I could be looking at this all wrong, and actually be at a different stage of development, but I whole-heartedly feel that my assessment is correct. However, I should point out that I do feel that I carry some characteristics of the text-other text stage as well. Those qualities are just not as outstanding as the qualities I notice through the other two stages, especially regarding the material discussed in class. On the other hand, this is the stage that I associate my extracurricular-literary activities with. Not only literary, but other mediums as well, most notably film. When I watch a movie, I tend to relate it to other movies of the same genre. After my comparison, I determine if the related films accomplished the same goals, and if they did, I then begin to create assumptions. I attempt to determine what it was that made both films equally successful, looking later at what made the films in question different at the same time.
I have done this hundreds of times, but let me use the example of the movies Snatch and Pulp Fiction. Both movies follow the story of a handful of characters, not always in chronological order. They each have underlying tones of pop culture, which at times can be difficult to detect without further inspection. What are these two films attempting to accomplish though? Besides them both being entertaining and comical, it is hard for me to analyze them from the text-world perspective. Possibly this could be because I view a movie as a source of passive entertainment. I might be able to cure this by simply putting more effort into looking at the underlying tones, not just in literary texts, but in film as well. This of course could also be applied to other forms of media such as music and art.
In order for me to more fully understand the uses of the stages of reading development, I feel that I need to create an awareness of the different levels themselves. At times it is easier to do, especially if I feel that the text is incredibly interesting. Regardless of the interest level, I need to expand past the first stage of development and focus on the other two stages. For me to do that I simply have to read beyond the text, looking for the underlying meaning planted by the author, either intentionally or not. Not only do I have to acknowledge the different levels, but I also have to put in an effort to utilize them fully. I do feel that I am already building on a healthy progression of reading development, although there is always room for improvement.

To the Victor goes the Graphic Novel

There are two sides to every story. I guess what really counts is which opinion is actually published. This thought arrives to me after reading the first volume of the book Maus by Art Spiegelman. In the story, a son records an account of what happened during World War II according to his father who survived the holocaust. This book was an easy read, keeping me interested from beginning to end. I think that a part of that is due to the fact that it is a first person account of what happened to someone involved in the thick of things at there worst. You can feel the emotions and strife as Vladek, the main character, attempts to keep his family safe from any harm.

At the same time though, I can't help but ask; what was everyone else going through during that time? Did the Germans fear for their lives, just as the persecuted Jewish population did? What about the Polish, what was going through their minds as the Germans took control of their nation? In Maus, the reader only gets the perspective of one person, leaving the reader to wonder what would have happened had the Germans won the war? Would we be reading a story about a first person account from the perspective of a young man fighting in the German army during World War II? Thankfully we will never know what would have happened had the Germans won, we can only speculate that the story would involve fear, anxiety, and hatred. Those emotions would be directed toward a different group of people, with a different bias. That just goes to show that it is the victors that write the history books, or in this case graphic novels.