Compost: The Modern Prometheus(Intertextual Writing Assignment 2)

Mary Shelly’s novel, Frankenstein, the inter-textual reference to Prometheus surfaces an idea that the novel encompasses: knowledge is suffering.  This sly sub title, The Modern Prometheus, highlights the commonalities between Victor and Prometheus. Both characters begin their stories as individuals with a drive to create man, or recreate man, to the best of his abilities. After the creation, each man faults in his own way that can be referred to as “sin”. Now ironically “chained” by the work that initially was deemed good, the two creators endure the suffering that they never imagined would accompany such an invention. Unfortunately, their knowledge is their own demise in the end.

Hollywood Vs. the Author

How many times has a movie taken a book’s title, only to alter the written plot?  The main events have a certain order when written in order to produce a final outcome at the end of a novel; however, the directors and screen writers that ask to make a production of the novel do not seem to stick to this order.  Instead they cut  out events, small scenes, and other tid-bits that, when missing, seem to alter the story in one way or  another.  Even if this is only noticed by those who read the book before its Hollywood debut, the way in which story’s are handled in Hollywood can totally rip the novel’s plot-line apart.  Mary Shelly’s novel Frankenstein is a prime example of Hollywood’s manipulation of a story.

The large, slow, muscular green monsters that one finds on television, in old movies, and in comic strips all are named Frankenstein.  But the fact of the matter is they are mislabeled; Shelly’s title for her novel has nothing to do with the monster itself.  This is one such misconception that can be accredited to Hollywood.  If an individual did not have the privilege to read Shelly’s Frankenstein in school, then one would never know that the movie they are watching that claims to be a spin off the novel, really is quite a tall tale. Not only did the novel create a sensitive creature and not some human-eating zombie, but more importantly the name that these green monsters are given do not apply to them at all. Frankenstein is not the monster, he is the monster’s creator. And to think all this time Hollywood has been confusing the masses for ages. The idea that the monster is the evil one who from the moment of creation is a programmed killer is a lie. In Shelly’s novel, it is the lack of care and communication that Frankenstein, the creator not the monster, gives to his experiment that is the evil. Meaning, that because of how the creator treats his creation leads to the destruction of the monster. Hollywood argues the freakish being created is titled Frankenstein because he appears more monster like, but Shelly’s more detailed story allows the reader to feel for the creature and see that it is the creator himself that is the insensitive monster.

Autobiographical Wreading Assignment 1

First came the ABCs, followed by practicing writing her letters to form words on paper, never mind the proper use of them yet. With words came sentence structure that in turn was followed by the ability to organize ideas in a comprehendible manner. Breaking down these words allowed Katie to read books and eventually write about these books, all the while also presenting her with a way to think on her own. If only her thoughts were what those teachers were looking for.

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The ability for an individual to think on his or her own is something I believe many people take for granted, not only everyday, but also in academic settings. The creativity of the mind is so important and by definition academia should be a place to strengthen our thoughts and excite our minds with new information to build upon. But then the question arises in my mind as to the point of teaching us everything that should be known about such and such, if we, as the students, are not encouraged to form our own opinions on the topic. Why must there always be a right and a wrong, especially when it almost always seems that the right is the instructor’s thoughts and the wrong is always my own? It is understandable for this to be acceptable in history, perhaps, where a fact is a fact, but what about in my English classes? Asking a class to read a novel and come prepared to discuss the main ideas is only as productive as defined by the teacher of the course. My reading and writing experiences in high school sent me to college believing that my English courses would merely go downhill from then on; however, the blindfold of rigid structure and narrow-mindedness was removed after my first class in English 101 which changed my views on the significance of both reading and writing for the better.

Unfortunately I have had my fair share of English teacher’s who insisted that what I see was not exactly correct because it was not what they themselves saw in the selected section. It has lead me to question why they even appear interested in my ideas if they intend to turn around with the ideas they have concocted concerning a novel that has been taught during that semester for the past however many years. It is because of experiences through out my high school career that I seem to approach writing almost cringing. This feeling results from receiving papers in which I received a lower grade simply because my ideas did not correlate with the ideas of the teacher. Overall, the papers had our thesis composed for us and if not the choices presented to write about encompassed the thoughts discussed in class concerning the novel from the teacher’s perspective.

The rigid structure presented by the high school I attended seemed to put me on a track that continuously passed by the same scenery. Of course my thoughts were my own, but they formed around the thoughts of my teachers; the papers were composed in the same format and manner with no healthy dose of change to the format or leeway concerning the idea of right and wrong perceptions. Unlike Graff’s idea to use templates as a starting point for each writer’s creative mind to work off of, English teachers from my past have given me a not only the thesis for my papers, but also the ideas that I should elaborate on, if I wanted to receive a good grade (Graff, XV). For this reason writing a paper is not such an attractive activity to me. I have no interest in taking someone else’s ideas, whether it is a teacher’s or a peer’s, and insisting that I also feel that way concerning the current subject. If that were the case then why do I have a mind of my own? I do not believe everyone should listen to what I have to say during every intellectual discussion; the point I am trying to prove is that I, as an individual, have my own ideas.

I desire to sit in a class where we have intellectual discussions and read the books that my mind can get lost in. It is the thought of tearing a novel apart, down to the same concepts that have been taught to all the classes before me, that lessens the significance of reading in my mind. I completely agree with Birkerts’ belief that books are not the distraction in our lives, rather they are what engage us and can become a private and solitary place for the mind (Birkerts). Reading should be something enjoyable that allows our minds to travel to another place in time. Discussions in class about the current reading assignment is something else I enjoy as long as the conversation doesn’t carry into the supposed right and wrong perceptions. Although I enjoy reading and sharing my perception of what I have read, I can’t stand sitting through the proclaimed “correct” observations of the teacher while my thoughts are looked at as insignificant. Unless otherwise stated by the author, I believe a book discussion is open-ended because anything can be inferred with support from the text.

So I entered college with the fear that every class would increase in difficulty by three or four notches and because of this I would end up hating reading and writing even more. In actuality I have come to realize quite the opposite. New ways of presenting my ideas actually allow me to elaborate on my own thoughts in my own way. I embraced the free form of college writing with open arms and read the assignments knowing that I would be able to branch off from any point in the specific chapter and voice my own thoughts. The excitement of being able to get creative with my thoughts also sparked my interest in reading the books assigned in class. Hayles’ argument that “the medium constructs the work and the work constructs the medium,” proves that the method used for expressing ideas and the ideas themselves work together to create the overall picture; which method is used only varies the display of the ideas, not the understanding of them (Hayles, 6). Therefore blogging is just as significant of a response to a novel’s main points, as would be writing an essay. Compared the rigidity of my high school English classes, I have already gained, in the first few weeks of college, the excitement for reading and writing that I didn’t quite know I had all because of the open-mindedness that the college English class presents.

Although I have had a good amount of what turned out to be discouragement, my opinions only grew stronger under the pressure to think similarly to the mainstream. Writing, once a grueling task, has assumed a new role in college as my ideas are allowed to blossom. Reading, once a tedious nit picking of pages, also has assumed a new role; now each book assigned seems to catch my interest. Maybe it is because I know I can think how I so choose about it, but I also think it is because I know that I will not be lectured, rather class the next day will host an intellectual conversation. It is a relief to learn that there are others out there that understand the importance of individual thought, because the mind is something that I strongly believe should never be taken for granted.

Keep it Out of the Classroom

Do I really consider the judges on America’s Next Top Model to have some sort of “hidden intellectualism” because of their knowledge concerning how to be a model? No, I definitely do not. Contrary to Graff’s belief that so called “street smarts” should be regarded as an “intelligence” that could be applied to “academic work, I believe that the knowledge of the social world is one thing, and the knowledge of the academic world is another (page 142).

In his essay “Hidden Intellectualism” Graff stresses that familiarity with topics such as fashion, cars, sports, video games, and television could be used in the academic world to entice students to dig deeper into more thorough topics such as “Shakespeare” (page 143).  As a student, I don’t agree; I attend school to learn about the academic subjects that I can’t find in my teen magazines. As I mentioned in the beginning of this post, the world of style and the industry of modeling has no intellectual dimension to it. These and other “street smarts”, as Graff calls them, should remain outside of the classroom in the less complex social realm (page 142). Although I do agree that a paper on fashion would be not only entertaining, but also easy since I would not necessarily mind writing it, I do not think that writing such a paper would really benefit me. I love going to school, even though waking up for classes may be a bit brutal on some mornings, I love learning and that is what drives me to get to class everyday day. If I knew that in English class our assignment would be to analyze the art of dating I, personally, would be a bit annoyed. I have a goal to read all of the classics and I hope that English classes continue to keep Orwell, Shakespeare, and Emerson on their syllabi.

To conclude, although the knowledge the social world, at times, seems to force-feed us can be used in an academic setting, I believe that it should remain something to merely fill a conversation with until a more intellectual topic arises. The academic world has enough subjects of its own to fully educate students; there is no need to try to add “street smarts” into the mix (142). “Hidden Intellectualism” presents ideas that could incorporate knowledge found in the social world with the intellectualism of the academic world, but I don’t see the need to get them tangled. What would an English class be without the authors who created their own categories of literature?  Without analyzing a true novel? Personally, it wouldn’t be an English class to me and for this reason I don’t believe nonacademic topics like fashion or sports should be incorporated into classroom learning.

The Lost Draft

The irony that currently connects my life to Birkerts’ collection of arguments is striking, and seemingly humorous . As I sat here this morning collecting my thoughts on the first chapter of The Gutenberg Elegies I believed that I had come up with a valid grouping of supporting evidence to reveal Birkerts as an old fashioned, yet rightful concerned, individual on the topic of technology. Being one of the youngsters that was born into the age of the cell phone, Birkerts idea of a lost time seemed unreal to me. I could not fully relate to his fear of our world continuously “absorbing incremental change” and thus altering the “fundamental rhythms” that past generations have relied upon (page 22). As technology quickened the pace of life, everything changed. What Birkerts and his generation knew and assumed before no longer felt right; this change has lead this post-technological generation to lose their sense of familiarity with the world around them (page 20). Birkerts states that “we are imprisoned in a momentum that is not of our own making,” reinforcing that the generations from a slower time feel taken aback and are on guard against the technological age (page 20). Yet as I text on my way to the laundry room I can’t help but wonder how those who think as Birkerts does do not feel more connected to their past as well as to the present due to all of the inventions of the recent decade. Individuals who have grown up as I have will more than likely see things the same way; technology is part of our lives, without it we could not function as efficiently as possible. This is to say that we use technology as not exactly a crunch, but more or less as a tool that allows us to always be on top of things. It is here, where technology is suppose to assist me in my daily tasks, that the irony sets in and allows me to see things in Birkerts’ eyes. As I stated at the beginning of this assignment, I had all my thoughts arranged and supported, and thinking I am done with work for the day I hit publish on this posting page only to receive a rude awakening by a pop-up announcing my connection had failed to load the page. Because I had not drafted my essay in Microsoft Word or, probably Birkerts’ choice, on paper, my hard work was lost. Gone forever were the sentences I had formed and I could not wish them back; the post box was blank and my mind was frozen in shock. I had relied on my laptop to help me succeed and instead I had brainstormed for an hour with nothing to show for it. Just as I relied on the computer to grant me the feeling of relief through the completion of my work, Birkerts is expressing his reliance on literature to provide a source of identification to himself in this first essay. To Birkerts books are tools that create a deeper insight into the memories he may have or into the past his wishes to be more connected to.  He says that “literature holds meaning not as a content that can be abstracted and summarized, but as an experience,” (page 32). Although not every one of these experiences will be positive ones, I am more than certain that I will enjoy these experiences more than I did my own experience of dealing with my lost work this afternoon. Birkerts may be an old-fashioned man from a generation of past times, fearful of the mess that technology is rushing the present into, but he does have a valid point. What will it take for current generations to slow down? How much information will be lost before the desire for a connection to something familiar will overtake the desire to be efficient? He has me hoping that it will be before all of the drafts of life from the time before our own lives is gone.