Rationale

My written task, as some of you may notice, is a magazine article. The reason of why I chose to follow this structure is simple: it gave me freedom enogh to express myself, but also allowed me to do things that I wouldn’t be able to do with another format. It allowed me to decide by myself the order in which I wanted to state my ideas, I mean; I wasn’t obligated to follow a specific pattern in order (chronological order or something similar). At the same time, because it was an article, I needed to add concrete facts. This helped me, I believe, in the development of ideas, because at the moment I was writing about history, I was also comparing it with what we see on the novel “Fatelessness”. The language I used, of course, was formal. By using a formal language, what you say sounds more truthful, and so the reader gets more convinced with what you write. The use of historical facts, mixed with a sorrowful and melancholic tone are components of the work that I added, in order to create interest on the reader about the holocaust consequences. The end of this article is somehow open, so the reader can continue researching about these consequences, and state their own opinions. 

Holocaust: Terrifying truth

On today’s article, we are going to talk about something that shocked the world during the 40’s, and still does: the Second World War, but more specifically, the holocaust. This, taking as a point of reference, a novel by Imre Kertez, called “Fatelessness”. Even though this novel is an invented story, we can appreciate that certain things between this one and what historically speaking happened are amusingly related. Consequences of the Nazi ideology, within the suffering this way of thinking brought to Jewish people are few of themes presented in the novel. This is basically what the following text will be about.

Watching images of the “Auschwitz” concentration camp is something very sorrowful, and also hard to believe. The first thing that comes to your mind when you do this is: Who would be able to do something like this? What is even more impressing is that actually not a small amount of people survived to this extreme confinement. Such as our fiction character, Georg, who survived to this unfair imprisonment. Although this encouraging fact, the whole period of the holocaust is, unfortunately, one of the most remarkable cases of genocide. But, how did this happened? The answer to this question can be found in history, just a few years ago.

When Adolf Hitler rose to power, minorities, such as the Jewish community, thought the worst. Everybody knew Hitler’s ideology of racism and anti-Semitism because of his book, “Mein kampf” (my struggle). This book, with autobiographical content, was published in 1925, in order to express his thoughts and conclusions. After invading Poland years later, in 1939, the war was unleashed, and within, Hitler’s plan about minorities. He ruled that every Jewish was suppose to wear a yellow star. He also dictated that Jewish, and gypsies, between others, should live from now on, on some class of semi-detached houses, that were built on special places, away from what Nazi called ”normal society”.  These places were Jews were supposed to live without basics conditions and small spaces were called “ghettos”. We can appreciate in the book I already mentioned, that Georg actually lives in a ghetto. The lack of space is evidenced in some passages of the book, in which he meets and shares a lot with his neighbours. The Nazi regime continued acting under this ideology of racism, and this is appreciable on events such as the “night of the broken glass”, in which Nazi forces destroyed Jewish shops, because they didn’t wanted them to participate on the Nazi economy. But the most important event was the declaration of “the final solution”. This was, sending as much Jewish as possible to concentration camps with only one purpose: massive extermination of people. One of the most remembered camps that where created with this end was the Auschwitz concentration camp, already mentioned at the beginning. People who unfairly was designated to being killed at a concentration camp like this one, should suffer a painful dead, inside a gas chamber. “Fatelessness” actually shows us the obligated evict to this camps, over the Jewish community. First, we appreciate Georg’s father departure, and after a few chapters, Georg’s departure. We can take a brief description of what the concentration camp he arrived was like: “They led us into a maze of gray buildings, ever farther inward, before we suddenly debouched onto a huge open space strewn with white gravel- some sort of barracks parade ground, as I saw it”.

This is the beginning of the real story. The presence of death, but more important, the struggle for survival. The consequences of this way of thinking were horrible: six million people were killed by the Nazi regime. Jewish people were lead to the main yard of the camp, for the first selection, where they separated Jews on two groups: the “useful” ones, and the rest. This last group, formed by women, children and older people, were sent to the “showers”, the name that guards gave to the gas chambers. This people died, hoping to have some water after an exhausting journey. The other ten percent who were selected, was sent to heavy work, after being marked with a number. This people (after a few months) were at the point of starvation, because of the poor conditions they were exposed at. This lead a lot of prisoners to death during work, or to commit suicide. When war was about to finish, and the German empire was falling down, authorities from the third Reich in charge of concentration camps forced prisoners that left to walk to nowhere, with the only objective of killing everyone left. This, to erase as much as possible evidences of massive murder, or genocide. Even though all this horrible events, people survived, maybe because of their will, or because of their strength, but under my point of view, it is the will for living. 

Chapter three: quotes

1-"he turned toward the gendarmes, ordering them, in a bellow that filled the entire square, to take the whole Jewish rabble off..." This, once again, shows us that the threat given by the ones who believed were better that Jewish, was awful. They, practically, were treated like trash.

2-"It said that we were to make our way to the higher authority". Under my point of view, this shows the belief of superiority from part of the Nazi regime. This event happened when they were moving Jews to concentration camps.

3-"we went on for a while longer, after which everything happened very quickly, unexpectedly..." As I apreciate, this quote  talks about how fast everything happened: They didn't even realised that they were being opressed by the Nazi forces.

7 pillars of Jewish life

Hanukkah , also known as the Festival of Lights, is an eight-day Jewish holiday commemorating the rededication of theHoly Temple (the Second Temple) in Jerusalem at the time of the Maccabean Revolt of the 2nd century BCE. Hanukkah is observed for eight nights and days, starting on the 25th day of Kislev according to the Hebrew calendar, which may occur at any time from late November to late December in the Gregorian calendar. Mezuzah is a piece of parchment (often contained in a decorative case) inscribed with specified Hebrew verses from the Torah (Deuteronomy 6:4-9 and 11:13-21). These verses comprise the Jewish prayer "Shema Yisrael", beginning with the phrase: "Hear, O Israel, the LORD our God, the LORD is One"

A mezuzah is affixed to the doorframe in Jewish homes to fulfill the mitzvah (Biblical commandment) to inscribe the words of the Shema "on the doorposts of your house"

Tefillin, also called phylacteries are a set of small black leather boxes containing scrolls of parchment inscribed with verses from the Torah, which are worn by observant Jews during weekday morning prayers. Although "tefillin" is technically the plural form (the singular being "tefillah"), it is loosely used as a singular as well. The hand-tefillin, or shel yad, is placed on the upper arm, and the strap wrapped around the arm, hand and fingers; while the head-tefillin, or shel rosh, is placed above the forehead. 

A shofar is an instrument made from the horn of a ram or other kosher animal. It was used in ancient Israel to announce the New Moon (Rosh Chodesh) and call people together. It was also blown on Rosh Hashanah, marking the beginning of the New Year, signifying both need to wake up to the call to repentance, and in connection with the portion read on the second day of Rosh Hashanah, the Binding of Isaac (Genesis, chapter 22) in which Abraham sacrifices a ram in place of his son, Isaac.

Kosher foods are those that conform to the regulations of kashrut (Jewish dietary law). Food that may be consumed according to halakha (Jewish law) is termed kosher in English, from the Ashkenazi pronunciation of the Hebrew term kashér , meaning "fit" (in this context, fit for consumption). Food that is not in accordance with Jewish law is called treif.

In Judaism, tzedakah refers to the religious obligation to do what is right and just, which Judaism emphasises are important parts of living a spiritual life. Maimonides says that, while the second highest form of tzedakah is to anonymously give donations to unknown recipients, the highest form is to give a gift, loan, or partnership that will result in the recipient supporting himself instead of living upon others. Unlike philanthropy or charity, which are completely voluntary, tzedakah is seen as a religious obligation, which must be performed regardless of financial standing, and must even be performed by poor people. Tzedakah is considered to be one of the three main acts that can annul a less than favorable heavenly decree.

Sabbath or a sabbath is generally a weekly day of rest or time of worship observed in Abrahamic religions and other practices. Many viewpoints and definitions have arisen over the millennia. The term has been used to describe a similar weekly observance in any of several other traditions; the new moon; any of seven annual festivals in Judaism and some Christian traditions; any of eight annual pagan festivals (usually "sabbat"); an annual secular holiday; and a year of rest in religious or secular usage, originally every seventh year.

Fatelessness: Chapter 2

• Author: Imre Kertesz
• Genre: Historical novel
• Setting: Budapest
• Historical context: Nazi regime, the holocaust.
• I believe the author wrote this piece to show us how was the moment Gerog was living without his father, and also to show Gerog's change from being a boy to a grown up.
• What the author wants to show us is that there is nothing bad in being different.

• Protagonist(s): Georg Koves
• Antagonist(s): Nazi Regime 
• Static Characters: Mr Sütó
• Dynamic Characters: Georg

• The author use specific literary devices on this chapter: an allusion, with the story of "the prince and the pauper"; a flashback, when he tells us how was his experience when he kissed Annemarie.
• The tone of the author is something like matter-of-fact, or straight-forward.
• This piece is told in first erson, because it is Georg the one who is telling the story. As I said before, we just need to read the first line to notice this: "I didn't go to school today".
• Some internal conflicts could be that he is changing from being a kid to an adult; confusing feelings about Annemarie.
• Some external conflicts could be his continuous struggle against his mother, or the fact that he is now being obligated to work.

Few literary terms

Alliteration: repetition of the same sound in a sequence of words.
Allusion: a brief reference to something specific.
climax: the point in the plot that creates the greatest intensity.
dennotation: dictionary definition of a word.
gothic: use of mysterious or old elements in literature.
hero: a character whose actions are inspiring.
hyperbole: boldy exaggerated statement.
setting: time and place of the story.
tone: the writer's attitude toward the story.
similie: direct comparison between two objects
personification: human attributes are given yo a non-human object.
Mood:general atmosphere created by the author's words

.....between others!

If you want to know more: http://www.uncp.edu/home/canada/work/allam/general/glossary.htm

Fatelessness: Chapter 1!

Some analysis questions:

1. What characters are introduced in this chapter?
2. Choose two characters and select a quote to describe them physically or psychologically.
3. What is the narrative technique? Provide evidence
4. Describe the setting of this chapter

Answers:

1-Some characters introduced on this chapter are, of course the main character, Georg Koves, a 15 year old Jewish boy; Georg's Father, Stepmother and Mother; Mr. Suto, a friend and buisness partner of Georg's father; Uncles of Georg, including uncle Lajos; Annemarie, his neighbour.

2-Mr.Suto: "Yellowish, red light-spots were dancing like busting pustules all over his round, brownish-skinned features, with the pencil moustache and the tiny gap between his two broad, white front teeth."

Georg: "Being a big boy, now in my fifteen year..." 

3-At the beginning of the book we notice two things: it is writen in present tense, and also that it is a direct naration. an example of this is the first line:"I didn't go to school today". What we apreciate is that It is a first person narration, because is the main character the one who is talking to the reader. As we said, it is a direct narration, and also we notice a direct speech, I mean, the characters speek directly throughout the story. 

4- The story takes place in Hungary, but more specific, in Budapest. The Nazi forces are moving Jews to labor camps, And the ones from this community who are not going must wear a yellow star.

Some useful tips: Narrative techniques





On this post, I will give you a list of some useful narrative techniques that you can use when you are writting any piece of literary work.

Point of view : the one who tells the story. This means, the narrator of the story. It can be first, second or third person.

Narration : this is, who is the narrator speaking to. It can be direct, frame, or indirect narration.

Speech : How do the narrator and the characters of a story speak. This means, how the dialogue of characters is presented through the narrator. It can be direct, reported or free-indirect.

Tense : When did the events of a story happen or take place. This means, the specific time when events happened. The same as time, it can be past, present, or future.

Apart from this basic narrative techniques, we have some "optional" resources when writing a piece of work, such as the following ones:

Flashback: it is a moment of the story when you go back in time to tell an specific event. Most of the authors use this as a memorie of a character in the story.

Foreshadowing: it is when the author gives the reader clues or signs about what will happen. This clues can be obvious or subtle.

Third-person omniscient: it is the same than a third person narrative voice, but with the difference that with an omniscient voice the narrator is able to tell character thoughts and ideas.

Dual Narrative: it presents us the story but with different point of views, and is commonly used to give the reader more details about something specific from the story.

Related stories: Anne Frank!

Annelies "Anne" Marie Frank was born in 12 of June of 1929, and died in early March of 1945. She was one of the most discussed Jewish victims of the Holocaust. Her diary has been the basis for several plays and films. Born in the city of Frankfurt am Main in Weimar Germany, she lived most of her life in or near Amsterdam, in the Netherlands. Born a German national, Frank lost her citizenship in 1941 when Nazi Germany passed the anti-Semitic Nuremberg Laws. She gained international fame posthumously after her diary was published. It documents her experiences hiding during the German occupation of the Netherlands in World War II.

The Frank family moved from Germany to Amsterdam in 1933, the year the Nazis gained control over Germany. By the beginning of 1940, they were trapped in Amsterdam by the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands. As persecutions of the Jewish population increased in July 1942, the family went into hiding in the hidden rooms of Anne's father, Otto Frank's, office building. After two years, the group was betrayed and transported to concentration camps. Anne Frank and her sister, Margot, were eventually transferred to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, where they both died of typhus in March 1945.

Otto Frank, the only survivor of the family, returned to Amsterdam after the war to find that Anne's diary had been saved, and his efforts led to its publication in 1947. It was translated from its original Dutch and first published in English in 1952 as The Diary of a Young Girl. It has since been translated into many languages. The diary, which was given to Anne on her 13th birthday, chronicles her life from 12 June 1942 until 1 August 1944. Her diary is one of the most popular symbols of the holocaust, because it is a clear evidence of what this period did to Jews.

Imre Kertez: interview analysis

Since we are now starting with the novel "Fatelessness" by Imre kertez, it would be proper to listen and analyse an interview of him. The video is the following one:

The questions are the following ones: 

1. Before the interview, the presenter visits a monument to the Holocaust created by the American artist Peter Eiserman. Considering the shapes, architecture and general design, in what ways do you think he represents the reality in the concentration camps?

2. Which is the paradox the presenter mentions regarding Imre Kertész and the place where he lives?

3. Refer to antisemitism before and after Auschwitz according to Kertész.

4. In what way do reminders of the past in historical books make us "much richer"?

5. Which metaphor does Imre use to exemplify the effect of FATELESSNESS on its readers?

Answers:

1- It makes you feel vulnerable, and for me, it makes you feel trapped, because it is like a maze.

2-He mentions that he is now living in Germany, the country that once tried to kill him. The paradox comes when he also tells us that Imre feels free in Germany, even more than on Hungary.

3-Antisemitism before the holocaust was basically just words, they didn't know how it would be to act, following their ideals. There is some people now on days, antisemites, that want what happened during the holocaust; this is the antisemitism of the days we are living.

4-It means that we already know, or will know, about what happened, so, supposedly, we won't do it again. It somehow prepare us for what we may face in the future.

5-Not knowing about the holocaust is like a box on our souls, that, one day, will be released, and it will start doing what already happened.

Holocaust

Image analysis: Holocaust

On this post, I will be giving to you my own and personal analysis of a picture I chose, which I chose.

 

Observation:

On the image, we see a sad men, wearin old and spoiled clothes, and looking through a fence, with dead people behind.

Inferences:

Jewish pople on concentration camps, during the Wolrd War II, and torture and confinment on this prisions. Death turns into an everyday image, within the impossibility of scaping.

Questions

What is the meaning of the fence and the corpses in the image? What does the artist wants to tell us with this symbols?

Mood of the image

Sadness, hoplessness; freedom is impossible. There is no way of scaping an unfair death. The fence represents hopelessness, because it is avoiding you to get what must be yours: your freedom. The corpses mean the presence of death, as an inevitable end.

Already known information

The holocaust was one of the most sorrowful and horrible periods in mankind, because of the antisemitism that ended on series of murders, or genocides, developed by the nazi regime, under command of Adolf Hitler.

Men writing as women and women writing as men

The totle might sound sort of confusing, but is actually very simple. What I will talk about on this post is about men writing stories about female character, and the same but otherwise with female authors. Some male authors have famously succeeded, such as Gustave Flaubert in “Madame Bovary” and “Anna Karenina”, by Leon Tostoi.
The same happens with female authors, with novels such as George Eliot’s Daniel Deronda, Mary Shelley’s Victor Frankenstein and Edith Wharton’s Ethan Frome.

I believe that this style of writing brings more complications than benefits. Eventhough you are able to experience, and to change the way of thinking of your characters, I think that to write as the opposite gender means a problem because of the way different genders think: while the men is more superficial, the women is more interested in emotions and feelings. This is why I believe that most authors prefer to write as what they are.

On the movie, there is a particular, and under my point of view very well produced, scene, where we see french and british soldiers on a beach, and between them, is Robbie, who was fighting for the British army. This images are part of what we know as the "Dunkirk evacuation". But, what is this about?

The Dunkirk evacuation, commonly known as the Miracle of Dunkirk, code-named Operation Dynamo by the British, was the evacuation of allied soldiers from the beaches and harbour of Dunkirk, France, between 27 May and the early hours of 4 June 1940, because the British, French, and Belgian troops were cut off by the German army during the Battle of Dunkirk in the Second World War. The evacuation was ordered on 26 May. In a speech to the House of Commons, Winston Churchill called the events in France "a colossal military disaster", saying that "the whole root and core and brain of the British Army" had been stranded at Dunkirk and seemed about to perish or be captured. In his We shall fight on the beaches speech on 4 June, he hailed their rescue as a "miracle of deliverance".


From 28-31 May 1940, an event known as the Siege of Lille involved the remaining 40,000 men of the once-formidable French First Army in a delaying action against seven German divisions, including three armoured divisions, which were attempting to cut off and destroy the Allied armies at Dunkirk. According to Churchill, "These Frenchmen, under the gallant leadership of General Molinié, had for four critical days contained no less than seven German divisions which otherwise could have joined in the assaults on the Dunkirk perimeter. This was a splendid contribution to the escape of their more fortunate comrades of the BEF".

On the first day, only 7,011 men were evacuated, but by the ninth day, a total of 338,226 soldiers (198,229 British and 139,997 French) had been rescued by the hastily assembled fleet of 850 boats. Many of the troops were able to embark from the harbour's protective mole onto 42 British destroyers and other large ships, while others had to wade from the beaches toward the ships, waiting for hours to board, shoulder-deep in water. Others were ferried from the beaches to the larger ships, and thousands were carried back to Britain by the famous "little ships of Dunkirk", a flotilla of around 700 merchant marine boats, fishing boats, pleasure craft and Royal National Lifeboat Institution lifeboats—the smallest of which was the 14 ft 7 in (4.45 m) fishing boat Tamzine, now in the Imperial War Museum—whose civilian crews were called into service for the emergency. The "miracle of the little ships" remains a prominent folk memory in Britain.

Atonement: dunkirk evacuation!

Atonement: some analysis questions!

Following Jane Austen's novels, we are now on Ian McEwan's "Atonement". After watching some short clips from the film, I will now answer (as usual) some questions analysing characters and themes of these deep love strory.

1. What sort of social and cultural setting does the Tallis House create? What emotions and impulses are being acted upon or repressed by its inhabitants?


2. A passion for order, a lively imagination, and a desire for attention seem to be Briony's strongest traits. In what ways is she still a child? Is her narcissism - her inability to see things from any point of view but her own - unusual in a thirteen-year-old?


3. Why does Briony stick to her "version of the story" with such unwavering commitment? Does she act entirely in error in a situation she is not old enough to understand, or does she act, in part, on an impulse of malice, revenge, or self-importance?


4. As she grows older, Briony develops the empathy to realise what she has done to Cecilia and Robbie. How and why do you think she does this?

Answers:

1- We can clearly apreciate from what we see on the film that the well known as "Tallis house" is a huge country-side house, where people who live there are a wealthy family, part of the higher society. Under this circumstances we see the impossible love between Robbie and Cecilia, because of social differences.

2- She is in almost all aspects still  child. The best example of this is the lively imagination, as mentioned on the question. She actually creates stories about what she sees, because, under my point of view, she prefers not to believe in what reality shows her; she prefers to create her own versions of reality, and that is why she is such a good writer. Is in here where her naecissism takes places, because of what I just explained: she prefers her story, her own reality.

3- I believe that she sticks to her version because, as I said before, she doesn't like what reality shows, and, in this case, the love between Cecilia and Robbie. She was jealous, because she wasn't the centre of attention any more. This si the same thing that happens to children when they have a younger sister; it is a very childish behaviour. Maybe she did this because she thought that what she was doing was correct, this as the result of a mixture between imagination and reality.

4-Everybody grows up. This is what happened to Briony, who, now being a grown up, realises that what she had done practicaly destroyed Robbie and Cecilia's life together. She is no longer a narcissist, so she is now open to new ideas and point of views. She accpets reality as it is.

Jane Austen and women's emancipation

What this post will be about is basically some questions, about the already mentioned novel "Pride and prejudice", but more specifically, its relation with women's emancipation, as said in the title. The questions are the following ones:

1. What degrees of emancipation and/or conservative reinforcement of 18th-Century family values does Elizabeth Bennet's marriage to Mr. Darcy support?

2. What attitudes to marriage does 'Pride and Prejudice' convey? What other options did Elizabeth Bennet have?
3. How does the introduction made by Vivien Jones affect your reading and approach to the novel?
4. How could the social circumstances and contexts of 'Pride and Prejudice' apply to different cultures and contexts today?
Answers:
1-Emancipation in this case is showed by Elizabeth's attitude 
over this marriage. He wanted to live her life as a free person, just like men did.
2-As we already have been studying, women in that time where supossed to marry "their best choice", or in other words, a man who would be able to give her a wealthy life. The idea of the author is to show the opposite, that women can stand by themselves, with no need of an arranged marriage. Basically because it is written under a feminist point of view.

3- It tells you what the novel is about, the context, the themes that are covered, and somehow, it also shows you that what you are about to read is written under a feminist point of view.

4- As I mentioned it on a post before, everybody can feel identified with the problems that characters from the novel must encourage, because these ones are related with emotions and feelings that belong to humans.

Pride an prejudice: Questions related to context

Throughout this classes, we have been spending our time in watching trailers of different versions of Jane Austen's "Pride and prejudice", what I think it has been quite productive. This, because this novel is deeply related with the context, both of production and reception. That is why I am answering the following questions related with this:

1. Why do you think "Pride and Prejudice" continues to be a referent for modern tales? 

2. What do you think is the effect that these different authors (film directors, producers, modern writers) want to achieve in today's audiences?

3. If you had to choose one of the previous versions to analyse, which would be the one and why?

Answers:

1- Because it doesn't envolve themes specifically from that times, but more themes that are related with the human itself; human being's emotions and feeligns are not from a specific period of time, or as I said before, context.

2- I believe that author or producers want to make the audiece feel identify with the characters and their problems, becuse, as I said before, those are human's problems. I also believe that they would like the audiebce to take as an example some specific characters, because thew show a value that is worthy to be followed.

3- I thing it would be interesting to analyse the last and less classic novel, "Pride and prejudice and zombies", because it will implie the struggle for survival, a problem that mankind encourages everyday. Also, I believe that it would be more entertaining than the original one.

Writing techniques: PEE

When your plan is to explain or demostrate a thought of yours, the best way of doing this is usin the P.E.E structure or method. This technique is based on writing your point, then your evidence, and finishing with your explanation. Moreless, this is how it goes:

Point: it is your idea, your basic thought.
Evidence: it is the proof that you got, the backup that is going to defend your point.
Explanation: as the name of this step says, here you must explain your evidence, why you chose it, what is the relation between this one and your point, etc.

Once you are using P.E.E structure, you thoughts and ideas will be more clearly stated and also more convincing!