This Quote Got Me Thinking, possible eye opener on society

Those who merely know about things, or only think they know, live in a state of self-conditioned and culturally conditioned somnambulism.  Those who understand given reality as it presents itself, moment by moment, are wide awake.

-Aldous Huxley, Knowledge & Understanding (1952)

Today’s lecture, this image, as well as the quote above really got me thinking about our society and if you combine them all I feel like it give off the current state of our society but with a majority being on the lowest stack unable to aspire to grander things. Both these pieces of art gave me the idea that the mass majority only learns to know trivial information for the sake of fitting in and not out of the necessity of understanding their own respective universe such as the people on the first stack of books blinded by what society wants them to see. The people who are awake lie on the second stack of books and see a morbid picture of society of what it actually is and become petrified from that point on, no longer trying to be the trailblazer of their universe but rather suffer in self-pity for being placed in such a world. (This second stack I believe many of my peers to be on and have been sidetracked by this morbid picture, no longer wishing to move forward.) The people who are on the 3^rd stack aren’t awake but rather dreamers who see this reality and toss it aside and tread onward with aspirations of making their universe as well as others improved by great lengths. This being the pinnacle for education in which they are able to see past the painted picture and morbid reality of society and onward to greater horizons. 

Aldous Huxley

Aldous Huxley seems to me to be a trailblazer of his time, seeing an imminent future at his door steps, in which he felt the necessity to write about this desolate totalitarian society in the hopes for the next generation to learn from it and prevent this scenario. This is most likely the case but he could have also wrote about this in the idea in that it was inevitable such is science fiction before it turns into cold factual reality. 

Isaac Asimov Interview

Vocab List #5

parallelism - Parallelism is the use of components in a sentence that are grammatically the same; or similar in their construction, sound, meaning or meter

parody - imitation of a writer, artist, or a genre for a comical effect

pathos - stirs up emotions of pity, sympathy and sorrow

pedantry - describes words, phrases, or tone that is overly scholarly or academic

personification - figure of speech in which the author presents/describes concepts, animals, or inanimate objects by endowing them with human qualities

plot - the sequence of events in a story

poignant - arousing deep emotion, touching

point of view - the perspective at which a story is told

postmodernism - a late 20th-century movement characterized by broad skepticism, subjectivism, or relativism;

prose - a form of language that has no formal metrical structure

protagonist - the main or of the main characters in a story

pun - a play on words

purpose - the reason an author creates a piece of work, intends to persuade/inform/entertain/explain his or her ides

realism - attempts to represent familiar things as they are

refrain - a verse, a line, a set, or a group of some lines that appears at the end of stanza, or appears where a poem divides into different sections

requiem - chant, hymn, dirge or musical service for the dead

resolution - the part of a story where the problem or climax is resolved

restatement - to state again in a new form for emphasis

rhetoric - the art of using language effectively

rhetorical question - asked just for effect or to lay emphasis on some point discussed when no real answer is expected

rising action - the part of the story leading up to the climax

romanticism - emphasized emotion over reason

satire - exposes and criticizes foolishness and corruption of an individual or a society by using humor, irony, exaggeration or ridicule; it is meant

scansion -  is the act of determining and (usually) graphically representing the metrical character of a line of verse.

setting - the place and time the story takes place in

Vocab List #4

interior monologue - exhibits the thoughts passing through the minds of the protagonists

inversion -  the normal order of words is reversed in order to achieve a particular effect of emphasis or meter

juxtaposition - the fact of two things being seen or placed close together with contrasting effect

lyric - expressing the writer’s emotions, usually briefly and in stanzas or recognized forms.

magic(al) realism - incorporates fantastic or mythical elements into otherwise realistic fiction

metaphor (extended, controlling, & mixed)

Extended -  comparison between two unlike things that continues throughout a series of sentences in a paragraph or lines in a poem

Controlling - metaphor that dominates or organizes an entire poem

Mixed - the use in the same expression of two or more metaphors that are incongruous or illogical when combined,

metonymy - a figure of speech consisting of the use of the name of one thing for that of another of which it is an attribute or with which it is associated

modernism - literary movement prominent after WWI

monologue - a long speech given by a character

mood - what an audience perceives in emotion from a literary work

motif - idea that is constantly presented throughout a work

myth - a traditional story that includes supernatural beings or events

narrative - a report of related events presented to the listeners or readers in words arranged in a logical sequence

narrator - the subject who narrates the story

naturalism - literary movement of extreme realism, it sought to depict everyday reality

novelette/novella - A novella is a written, fictional, prose narrative normally longer than a short story but shorter than a novel

omniscient point of view - A narrator who knows everything about all the characters

onomatopoeia - the formation of a word from a sound associated with what is named

oxymoron - a figure of speech in which apparently contradictory terms appear in conjunction

pacing - the rhythm and speed in which the story is told by the author

parable - a simple story used to illustrate a moral or spiritual lesson

paradox - a statement that apparently contradicts itself but is often true

Master Piece Update

Lately while going through the motions of school life I have finally found a clear cut topic for my master piece, at least if you can say its clear cut, its up to you to decide. Essentially i'm doing my master piece on science of the forgotten world, since we all live in western society where numerical data rules us all, we've forgotten all about power such as Chi or energy as its put and its purposes and methods in which ill research more. The second topic will be the possibility of astral projection which I want to scientifically prove through an experiment i'm designing. more details will ensue, when I spend more time with these topics.

Whats The Story

Vocab List #3

Exposition: beginning of a story that sets forth facts, ideas, and/or characters, in a detailed explanation.

Expressionism: movement in art, literature, and music consisting of unrealistic   representation of an inner idea or feeling(s).

Fable: a short, simple story, usually with animals as characters, designed to teach a moral truth.

 Fallacy: from Latin word “to deceive”, a false or misleading notion, belief, or argument; any kind of erroneous reasoning that makes arguments unsound.

 Falling Action: part of the narrative or drama after the climax.

 Figurative Language: apt and imaginative language characterized by figures of speech (such as metaphor and simile).

Flashback: a narrative device that flashes back to prior events.

 Foil: a person or thing that, by contrast, makes another seem better or more prominent.

 Folk Tale: story passed on by word of mouth.

 Foreshadowing: in fiction and drama, a device to prepare the reader for the outcome of the action; “planning” to make the outcome convincing, though not to give it away.

 Free Verse: verse without conventional metrical pattern, with irregular pattern or no rhyme.

Genre: a category or class of artistic endeavor having a particular form, technique, or content.

 Gothic Tale: a style in literature characterized by gloomy settings, violent or grotesque action, and a mood of decay, degeneration, and decadence.

 Hyperbole: an exaggerated statement often used as a figure of speech or to prove a point.

 Imagery: figures of speech or vivid description, conveying images through any of the senses.

 Implication: a meaning or understanding that is to be arrive at by the reader but that is not fully and explicitly stated by the author.

Incongruity: the deliberate joining of opposites or of elements that are not appropriate to each other.

Inference: a judgement or conclusion based on evidence presented; the forming of an opinion which possesses some degree of probability according to facts already available.

Irony: a contrast or incongruity between what is said and what is meant, or what is expected to happen and what actually happens, or what is thought to be happening and what is actually happening.