Joseph Conrad's Style

The writing style makes unique each belle lettre and it changes according to the experience, point of view and literary taste of the author.  Every novel or literary work has its own essence to express their ideas over one theme by presenting different syntactical structure, word choice, organizing figures, among others.  For example, Jules Verne likes to write in third person and uses technical and formal language. The characters of his stories normally have a journey where they discover new knowledge and the sentences are short and concise. Joseph Conrad has his own style that can be seen since the beginning of The Heart of Darkness, like his narrative structure, the word choice, etc. 

The narrative strategies followed by Conrad in The Heart of Darkness, like his narrative structure and the word choice, gives the novel a unique ideology frame and relation with the audience. The story has a first person narrator making an approach to the reader and giving a sense of continuousness in the thoughts of the principal character. The use of foreshadowing leads to a numerous thought about a theme, generating a series of questions about the human nature and believes. “They were conquerors, and for that you want only brute force –nothing to boast of, when you have it since your strength is just an accident arising from the weakness of others.” ( 7) Conrad’s narrative strategy gives arise to ideas where the reader question the fairness of the conquest and the lack of morality that these wars has. By using a first person narrator, Conrad, generates an individual thought relating with each individual’s experiences and with the society rules.

The authors have different way to approach their audience and generate a critical thinking, using their own writing style. Joseph Conrad writes in first person and uses foreshadowing to reach his goal. Although he has other elements, like metafiction and description, these two elements are the more significance in his writing. Through these two elements he leads to a serial of ideas about the society and the human nature.

“Life is not a song, sweetling. Someday you may learn that, to your sorrow.” (George R.R Martin, A Game of Thrones)  The romanticism, a cultural movement that emerged from a social and ideological crisis in the XIX century, was an era where the loneliness, the individualism, the introspection, among others, was represented. Edgar Allan Poe’s stories are considered part from this movement not only by the themes but by the tone, the feelings and the point of view towards humanity.  Through the reading, it can be seen some characteristics that reflects the shift in ideas made by the romantics with the description, the attitude of the characters inter alia. 

Evasion is a resource used by romantics to escape from reality and the ideals or values of their era, leaking towards another period of time like the Middle Age. The stories of Edgar Allan Poe occur in a different era, for example the ambience of Hop- Frog happened during the Middle Age.  Through Poe’s writing the values and the ideals are criticized, the characters represent the good and the evil and the loss of values. The king and the court members, Hop- Frog’s characters, are described as grotesque and their attitudes show the lack of authenticity of the human being and of morality. “ "Drink, I say!" shouted the monster, "or by the fiends-" “ (Hop-Frog).  Because the romanticism was born in a social crisis, most of the authors showed the fake moral that the society had.

The writing of Edgar Allan Poe has many elements from the Romanticism.  The tone, the themes, the evasion and the feelings represented in Poe’s stories are elements that this movement exalted. It is often seen the loneliness, the evasion or the individuality in Poe. ““We of the craft are all crazy.” (Lorde Byron)

Margaret Atwood

I have been reading a postmodernist author, Margaret Atwood. The stories of Margaret Atwood are funny and in some ways she criticizes society and politics. I liked her style of writing because it is not very difficult to understand and her critiques are original, funny and sarcastic. For example in her work Tour de France, she tells the adventures she lived in her trip to Europe and with well known stories she shows the images that Americans have of the European and vice versa.

While reading Margaret Atwood, we can see some characteristic of postmodernism. One of these characteristics is that they combine different styles of known artist and combine it with their own ideas. Intertextuality is another element used in postmodernist work, where the author takes elements from another story. It very common in the postmodernist work that the characters of the story known that they are characters and that they belong to a story for example in the anime Excel Saga.

Satire III

Satire III, written by John Donne, develops many topics that involve different aspects of society and religion. One of the topics that is more interesting than the others is the critic that the author makes to de English government, the English society and the religion. John Donne says that the government only sees for their own benefits and that it can use religion to disguise their real purpose, so the citizen agree to fight for them. The poem makes the reader understand the manipulation that is made to the population with the conflict between Great Britain and Spain.

John Donne with Satire III let the audience know more about him and the historical and cultural situation. The poem shows all the feelings and the internal conflicts that John Donne suffered because of the imposition of a new protestant religion. He starts to question what true religion, where God really is and the roll of the clergy. Satire III is a way to express all the emotions and cunfusion that he is suffering, it is not easy to see how the goverment of your country preasures an individual so he changes his convictions. 

Poetry

Even after the class discussions I don’t like poetry that much. What the class discussions did though, it that they made me learn to appreciate all the theory that poetry involves. Poetry is different for every type of author, each putting their own style to it. The way the author expresses their feelings through their poetry has a unique result in the mind of each reader and this is why I especially respect poetry. The literary devices used by the poet give a double meaning and therefore also a vivid image in which in a single word you can understand more than was meant. 

Macbeth and Throne of Blood

Semiotics is a difficult branch of linguistic, not only because of the terms but because of the signification a word has according to the cultural, historical and social context. The semiotic analysis can be apply to many different things and not only in the word or group of words. It can also be use in photographs, propaganda, videos, films, ect... For example in an announcement you can analyze the connotative meaning of the words and images used, and how this changes according to the culture or geographical place. The semiotics help understand the meaning and the cultural context of any work. You need to have a different perspective of the things to understand them completely. So the semiotic analysis is not as difficult as it seems to seem, if you understand the basses it can be very useful to comprehend the whole context of one work.

In the movie of Kurosawa, The Throne of Blood, has many aspects of the Japanese culture and the elements used to create the ambiance are very good. One of the things that are seen in the film are the ideologies of the Japanese culture like the honor, loyalty and the military aspects. At the beginning and through the story, it can be seen the wahoo used at an ancient time by the Japanese soldiers, like the arch and samurai sword. The costumes of the samurais and in the daily life were shown in the film and whichever were the elements to identified the ranks.

The film also teaches something's that are not discuss in William Shakespeare's play, Macbeth. For example one thing that is learn from the movie is the importance of Lady Macbeth. Probably if she cannot convince her husband to kill Duncan in order to have the complete control, there wouldn't be a story. Kurosawa also explains the inevitable thirst of ambition of the human being, something that in the play of Macbeth is not mention so deeply. He explains this behavior of the human being by making Lady.... tell to her husband so he betray his lord by killing him. Another thing explain in the movie is the importance of the witch. In the Japanese it is clearly seen the evilness of some spirits and how the people in general are afraid of them or have a rancor with them. In the film there is only one witch that is that tell the prophecy, through the story it is seen how the witches is consider an evil spirit that only looks for the human destruction, and that is probably the reason why Shakespeare decided to put a witch as the teller of the destruction of Macbeth and also why the dialog between the three witches and Hacate to destroy Macbeth life and have fun with him.

In conclusion the author explain many of the meaning and cultural aspects seen in Macbeth through the images, character's dialog and their emotions.

Throne of Blood

Kurosawa’s film, Throne of Blood, have similarities with the play of William Shakespeare, Macbeth. The film is based on the play so most of the events that happen in the film also occur on Shakespeare’s play. Both of them begin in the same point; there is a war and the principal character is the hero winning the war. At the end of the final battle the principal character with his main comrade are travelling when they meet the witch (in difference of the play, in the film only appears one witch but they are three in the Shakespeare’s work), and she recites the prophecy that the main characters and his comrade do not believe. The event that makes them trust on the witch’s prophecy is that the first part, that the main character will become the ruler, become true. So far of the part seen of the movie, in both, play and film, the wife of the main character is the one who convince her husband to act, but they convince him in a different way. Lady Macbeth convinces her husband, Macbeth, to kill Duncan by putting his maleness in doubt. In the other hand Asaji-dono convinces her husband by telling him that Miki can betray him causing his destruction, she say that he has to choose between waiting his own destruction or kill his lord. The film shows more the Japanese culture’s idea of loyalty and honor. Kurosawa emphasized more certain aspects that Shakespeare did not; the main reason of these is because of the Japanese culture. For example in the film the values that are most emphasize are the honor and the loyalty towards the lord, but in Macbeth that values are irrelevant. The Japanese culture have these feeling of pleasure by been loyal to their lord and honoring him, the best example to see the importance of the honor and loyalty in the Japanese culture is the legend of the 47 Ronin. The story tells how 47 Ronin (a samurai that lost his daimyo, or feudal lord) revenge their daimyo because he was force to commit seppuku (the ritual of suicide, it is dying with honor in the Japanese culture) by a crime that he did not committed.