Weekly Post #3 (Third term)

During the last weeks, in english a classes with teacher Wilhelm, we have been reading short stories. What I like about this stories is exactly that characteristic, they are short. Some stories are tedious because they are long but they don't give anything new, instead these stories go directly to the point without giving more than the necessary details. Another thing that I like is that even though these stories are short the author has the amazing ability to finish them. I think that the worst part of writing is finishing your story because it is just as killing all what you've created. Although, they have written a short story they finish it in an almost perfect way without ruining the whole work. 

Weekly Post #2 (Third term)

This week we've seen the archetypes proposed by Joseph Campbell and also the 17 stages of his monomyth. As this week's assignment my classmates and I have to apply this concepts to our life.

Archetypes

• Hero: I don't consider me the hero but since I am the one telling the story from my perspective I can fulfill it by being the protagonist.
• Mentor: I haven't learned from an specific person, everything I've learn is a compilation of all the people which surrounds me and also from my environment, but, if I had to choose an specific person to fulfill this archetype, it would be my dad the one. Even I haven't learned particularly anything from him (talking about how to do certain stuff), he is the one who taught me most of my values and principles with the ones I have lived.
• Threshold guardian: Since this archetype represents a character which protects the Special world  and its secrets from me, I don't think there is such thing, but, by the archetype's characteristics it could be fulfilled by God, but I'm not sure of believing in him and his existence.
• Herald: This archetype is represented in certain way by my mom. She is always asking the best of me and telling me about new challenges and new objectives I could accomplish. She also encourages to "keep going forward".
• Trickster and shapeshifter: This two archetypes fit perfectly to my sister. Most of the times, she tries to put my mom in a position in which she would be against me, but whenever she needs something from me, she would treat me in a different way, trying to gain my trust and therefore, obtain whatever she needs from me.
• Shadow: Even though I love my brother and I think he is one of the things that encourages me the most, I think he also fits into this archetype. This is because he representes some of the things I have always wanted but I've never been able to reach.

The hero's journey

Weekly Post #1 (Third Term)

All along last this we wrote an essay inspired by a song. In order to choose the song, we needed to be identified our "inner us" with the song.

During this activity I could see exemplified very easily the way feelings reflect immediately the way a story is written. Most of my classmates works were inspired by their deep and unknown feelings, feelings that are hard to be expressed talking, that's why instead, they are expressed in our stories. 

First, we chose the song, keeping in mind that it had to be instrumental (no lyrics) and that it had to be a song with the one we could easily identify ourselves. Then, we just started writing with no limits or any barriers that could limit ourselves, we just letted the ballpoint pen roll.

As I probably already said a couple of times before, literature is very often influenced by the feelings of its author or by the events happening in the environment in which the story is being written. Just as this, our stories were directly influenced by our emotions and feelings produced while writing, which most of the time abound our mind and take over our motor capabilities, writing without something enough capable of stopping us. 

Weekly Post #3 (Second Term)

While reading Faust, I now can say some faults and virtues of Mephistopheles, Faust and Margaret.

• Mephistopheles:
• He is Faust's antagonist. As a master of disguise, he appears always in the play as someone else. He is the reason for Faust being attracted to Margaret.
• In my opinion, Mephistopheles controls and manipulate Faust in his own ways, for his selfish ends.

• Margaret:
• She is completely the counter part of Faust, she is the foil of Faust. Faust is attracted by this part different from what he is and represents.
• She represents all the ethic code of humanity. Her pureness is symbolic to the rules of religion, which most of the humans are terribly attached to.   

• Faust: 
• He is ambitious, he seeks more and more power and is always in seek of more knowledge, but he is also empty from "the inside". His corruptness caused by knowledge, made him not care about filling that hollow space. 
• Somehow, from my point of view, I can see some relation between Faust and humankind. Just as Faust, mankind is always seeking more power, men are ambitious and selfish, only caring about their aims, and only giving others importance, if he would get something in exchange.

Weekly Post #2 (Second Term)

Now, I've find out, that Faust isn't as hard as it seems at first, you just have to hang on to its main idea.

Up to now, I've seen some themes such as critics from a point of view from "above" to mankind. Some of them are related to corruption, evilness and hate.

One motif (a theme that is repeated various times through story) is the deep desire of Faust to own the Spirit's higher knowledge.

Weekly Post #1 (Second Term)

Since formalism is literary criticism which helps analyze structure and certain other features of literature, it helps to analyze Faust and the way it is written. By analyzing its structure it is much easier to understand it because now we have more of a clue on how it is composed and why is it composed like that, this causes a better comprehension of the text.

Currently, I don't really like Faust because in a certain way I don't feel like I'm fully understanding it. This also relates to what I like about it that is that since I'm not fully understanding it, a curiosity towards the book develops in me.

Weekly post #5

So far this semester in English Literature class, I have learned many different things, most of them related to writing and its improvement.

I have improved the way I write by using new words and increasing the amount of words in my vocabulary. I have also learned how a well structured paragraph should be and put it into practice not only for this class assignments but I've also used it for other classes. I've tried to look after things that I should do and the ones that I should not do while writing

I hope to learn more about how I should write and how to avoid making common and uncommon mistakes. I also look forward to expand my knowledge and having a more stable opinion to worldwide literature.

Weekly post #4

During this term, my perspective towards literature has changed totally, for example, I did not consider Naruto as literature eve though I liked it. I did not use to consider popular literature as literature, but I have learned that even this kind of literature can leave you great knowledge as long as you study the culture from where you're reading, the author's life, the context in which the work has been created and many other attributes important to fully understand literature. I pretend to read more but know considering this attributes in order to enhance the understanding, interpretation and enjoyment of the reading.

Weekly post #3

While reading Naruto, I have been able to found some "themes" in the story, I can mention some among these such as friendship and the constant satisfaction of gaining more and more power. 

By analyzing this themes I can see that the author encourages to be ambitious, but not like in a bad way but instead, to be ambitious in being each day better persons, better human beings, not so frightened by our own actions and instead, being certain of our own. Also, at the same time, sometimes as I read, I found courage to be each time a better person, but not as if I was selfish, but instead being a better person in the pursuit of a common benefit. 

Naruto also shows us a different perspective of human nature. While reading, we can found in some parts in which the author describes our "inner us" as a part of us which is divided by two; our evil part and our good part. However, power isn't represented by how big each of this divisions are but instead of how good can we control each of them. 

Weekly Post #2

We can analyze culture by reading its literature. This is because literature most of the time reflects how the culture of their author is, their customs, principles and ways of living. Also, according to my opinion, popular literature is legitimate to study in a literature class, because, popular literature is directed to most of the people without having to know special terms or having certain education. Besides this, since popular literature is not directed to any group of people in specific, as I said before, this kind of writings contain many elements influenced by the society such as, it's dialogue types, manners of speaking,  some customs, traditions and beliefs.
In Naruto we can identify certain elements like the ones mentioned before. First of all, we can find the action of having a nosebleed when a character gets sexually excited. This is a visual euphemism for describing a sexual disturbance of a person or character instead of drawing a "boner".
We can also find different food types that reflects a little bit of japanese culture just as ramen, that is basically noodle soup but it may have beef, chicken, egg or many other complements.
This is a really limited list of examples, but it helps us give ouselves an idea of how can the literature influence different cultural aspects of the author, or country.

Activity 3 - Essay

One of the most serious problems that concerns worldwide literature is the alteration that the works suffer through a translation process, this is because most of the times the sentence's sense changes when these are translated as a consequence, this has important effects in the message's sense, even though most of the times it doesn't cause major changes in the understanding of the storyline. This fenomenom is also present in works related to different genres of art and daily human duty. It is well known that in film dubbings most of the time because of cultural and social situations, the message transmited it's not the same as if it was in its original language. It is also true, that as I said before, this doesn't causes much of an effect to the original plots but it does affect to the secondary plot and the connotation sense that some of the words have in its original language and they lose in an almost inevitable way in its dubbing or translation process. 

Weekly post #1 - First week

During the first week of having literature class I've found it quite interesting because of some aspects that I like about it.

When teacher Wilhelm told us we were going to read Naruto, I liked it because it's a manga and anime that I like especially because of all the battle and the attitude of most characters trying to surpass themselves. 

What I liked even more about it is that the teacher didn't just told us to read, like in my last English class, but instead, we discuss what we read and our different points of view. 

Personally I found the class quite interesting and definitely not boring. I also feel enthusiastic because of the excitement that causes the fact of reading new books and new storys. 

Activity 2 - Naruto

By what I've read so far I can see that Naruto is a kid that even though most of the people in the Hidden Village of the Leaf think he's nothing more but a stupid, hyperactive, trouble-maker kid. They just don't understand the what it feels like having to get home tired and realize there isn't a hot meal ready for you. 

People just tend to criticize without seeing deeper into the core. They just don't realize that if it wasn't because of Naruto and the sacrifice of the fourth hokage, the Kyūbi would have destroyed even more of the village and kill even more people or even in the worst case, he would be still free.

Anyways, I think Naruto would be acknowledged, because he works very hard to be a decent ninja, and struggles even more so that the people that often criticize him can change their point of view towards him.n

Activity 1

Reading is very important in life because of all the good consequences this makes, such as increasing your vocabulary and decreasing the amount of grammar and spelling errors. 

A disadvantage and what I don't like of reading a good book is that you may get too hooked to it  when you don't have enough time to read it.

What I like about reading is that if you find the correct book it literally teleports you to the setting the author describes.