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[01 Apr 2009|12:01pm] |
Memento Essay
The persona of Leonard Shelby is one characterized primarily by his use and understanding of language. Leonard, through his use of polaroids and tattoos on his body, uses language to anchor him to a reality inhabited by those not affected like he was after his injury. Unable to make new memories for himself, he instead catalogs his goals and knowledge on his body and in photos, which lead him down a path that he builds each day, even inventing the persona of Sammy Jenkins to convince himself of his goals. Through these actions, he is inextricably linked to Wittengenstein’s ideas about language and his choices in how he uses language to fuel himself and his life, which create his personality.
Leonard Shelby, after being hit on the head while trying to stop his wife from being murdered, cannot form new memories, and in essence has a short term memory. This leaves Leonard with the question of how he must organize his life. Leonard uses language to organize his thoughts in such a way that will give him just enough information to go on to the next step in his quest, but not to fully understand and organize his life. Wittgenstein was a linguistic philosopher who believed that without language, we are essentially incomplete beings. Through language and our knowledge of it, Wittgenstein says, we become whole beings. Ultimately, language is what completes us and enable us to have complex, organized and conceptual thoughts. Without language, Leonard is an incomplete being. However, Leonard is different in the way that he uses language to complete himself and form his personality.
Wittgenstein believed that language can complete us and help us, but that it also leaves room for us to deceive ourselves in believing that only ourselves and our individual introspection about ourselves can define our experience and our personality. This, Wittgenstein might say, is Leonard’s fatal flaw in organizing his existence as a complete being. Leonard does not take into account anyone else’s perspective about himself. Because Leonard is in a situation where he can easily be taken advantage of, he forms a shield. For example, on his polaroids, he only lets himself believe his own writing. This puts his ultimate trust in his own use of language, which proves detrimental to his actions. By isolating himself from other’s perceptions of him, he becomes self-destructive. His tattoos are hidden, and tattooed all over his body. These tattoos never leave him, so his quest never leaves him. Because these tattoos stay on his body, he can never erase the desire to go after the murderer of his wife, even after he is dead. Leonard’ condition is not that his brain cannot form long-term memories, it is instead how he chooses to live his life afterward in regard to language.
Typically, Leonard Shelby becomes a creature of repetitious and self-perpetuating language which is unalterable by outside sources. By isolating himself to this practice, he, instead of becoming a user of language, becomes a victim of language. Ultimately, Leonard traps himself in his own fly-bottle of language which he cannot escape due to the walls he has built through his polaroids and through his tattoos. Wittgenstein might say that Leonard has built his own organization of language based solely off of his own understandings, which are incomplete without a collective perception. Inevitably, Leonard is left alone to his own murderous devices as he digs himself into a deeper and deeper whole of his own imagination.
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[03 Sep 2008|12:22am] |
Literary Device #3
Act 2
1. Soliloquy -a dramatic monologue that represents a series of unspoken reflections
2. "If a man were porter of hell-gate, he should have old turning the key." (Lines 1-3, Page 61)
3. Macbeth and Lady Macbeth have murdered the king and it is early morning when Macduff knocks at the castle's gate to meet with the king. The Porter is standing, talking to himself, making jokes about if he were the porter of hell's gate and what characters he would meet. He speaks only to himself in a comic-relief sort of way, stalling the story-line and adding to the suspense of the moment. He is having inward reflections out loud so that all the audience may here. This soliloquy is important to the story because it makes reference to "sinners" who are entering hell and the judgement of these sinners, as one judges those in the story. Each soliloquy in the play is relevant because it discloses information which, otherwise could have no outlet.
Literary Device #1
Act 3
1. Tone - style or manner of expression in speaking or writing
2. "O, treachery! Fly, good Fleance, fly, fly, fly! Thou mayst revenge - O slave!" (Lines 25-26, Page 97)
3. In the previous scene Macbeth convinces the murderers of why Banquo deserves death. Then the murderers go to kill Fleance and Banquo so that the three witches' prophecies will prove false. In this scene Banquo is killed but Fleance escapes. The tone of this scene is incredibly suspenseful as the murderers wait to kill the two. The tone is dark and foreboding as Banquo and Fleance draw nearer to the hiding spot of the assassins (haha, shakespeare made up that word). The scene is set by the expression of the the dialogue and how ominous the scene starts and ends. The tone of this scene is important to the play because it draws the audience's attention and keeps them on their toes and rapt. It also hints the audience and readers for what is to come, this keeps throughout the play a flow of flucuating tones from scene to scene which balance eachother out and give the audience a great mix of tones; from dark, to comic, to romantic.
Literary Device #2
Act 3
1. Motif - a usually recurring salient thematic element (as in the arts); especially : a dominant idea or central theme
2. "Thou canst not say I did it. Never shake thy gory locks at me." (Lines 61-62, Page 103)
3. Previously, Banquo has been murdered by Macbeth's hitmen, yet Fleance has fleed. Macbeth sits with Lady Macbeth at his first feast as king among Lords while hallucinating the ghost of the murdered Banquo. The Lords think he is crazy. The motif of this scene is one of deteriorating mental stability in the face of performing hideous acts. Macbeth, as he experiences deterioration of moral character also becomes more and more insane, just as Lady Macbeth does by the end of the story until she dies. This motif is important to the play because it marks those who have wronged others as not being entirely sane, or as the act the cause of later insanity. The motif repeats itself throughout the play as Macbeth goes further and further into his quest for power.
Literary Device #3
Act 3
1. Style - a distinctive manner of expression (as in writing or speech).
“Saucy and overbold, how did you dare, to traffic and trade with Macbeth.” (Lines 3-4, Page 111)
In this short scene, Hecate speaks with the three witches about their prophecies and meetings with Macbeth. The witch speaks poetically about how the witches affect Macbeth and how Hecate wants to deal with Macbeth’s fate personally. This scene is an example of a writing style that Shakespeare uses to convey a certain type of imagery and tone. The style is of prose and poetic, although dark. The style is one of ryhmning verses. Shakespeare’s style of writing defines who he is as a playwright and has given him fame and appreciation from all over the world. His style is defined by metaphoric occurences and recurring themes that establish certain thematic points that he wishes the audience to recognize.
Literary Device #1
Act 4
Conceit - A fanciful poetic image, especially an elaborate or exaggerated comparison.
“Why in that rawness left you wife and child, Those precious motives, those strong knots of love?” (Lines 33-34, Page 141)
In this scene Malcolm is questioning Macduff for leaving his wife and child behind to search him out so that they can return to Scotland and take back the throne of Duncan in the name of balance. They wish to overthrow Macbeth’s tyranny. This line uses fanciful imagery to convey the bonds of love. Malcolm is talking about the ties to one’s family, and he uses metaphors which use imagery to make his point that love is powerful and special. This type of imagery is helpful to making a scene much more elaborate and descriptive. It adds a type of language that draws one into their own imagination. It is relevant to Shakespeare’s writing style because of his grande use of imagery and descriptive language to help the audience feel the dialogue coming alive.
Literary Device #2
Act 4
Hyperbole - A figure of speech in which exaggeration is used for emphasis or effect.
“Not in the legions Of horrid hell can come a devil more damned In evils to top Macbeth.” (Lines 67-68, Page 143)
In this scene Macduff is talking about how much he hates Macbeth as the tyrant he is. He is expressing his allegiance to Malcolm as he tries to join him in returning to Scotland to regain the throne. The line depicts an image of Macbeth as the worst demon in hell, which is quite an exaggeration, but gets Macduff’s point across. The hyperbole serves to define Macbeth as the worst tyrant he can be, and the usage of dramatic terminology achieves this goal. Hyperbole increases the descriptive elements of the play and creates a setting that is very theatrical.
Literary Device #3
Act 4
Archetype - An ideal example of a type; quintessence
“I shall do so, But I must also feel it as a man.” (Lines 260-261, Page 155)
In this scene, Macduff and Macbeth speak about Macduff’s allegiance, Macbeth’s tyranny and the death of Macduff’s wife and child. In the scene, Macduff is informed of the murder and grieves. The line shown above shows Macduff as an archetypal hero of the play, as he “feels” the pain as a man. He is depicted as having emotion, the will to seek truth and balance and the drive to regain the true owner of the throne. This character plays a part in the play that has been played many times over in Shakespeare’s plays, that of the tragic hero. This part is one that has certain characteristics and can be replicated by a myriad of different storylines and situations.
Literary Device #1
Act 5
Rhythm - The pattern or flow of sound created by the arrangement of stressed and unstressed syllables in accentual verse or of long and short syllables in quantitative verse.
“Who, then, shall blame His pestered senses to recoil and start When all that is within him does condemn Itself for being there?” (Lines 26-29, Page 167)
In this scene the rebel Scot army are speaking of their plans for meeting in the woods and attacking Macbeth. They are all discussing their plans in almost the same rhythm. The lines represent the rhythm that he uses. Shakespeare uses a certain type of rhythm that is very specific to his writing style and it is creates an almost musical type of poetic dialogue.
Literary Device #2
Act 5
Imagery - A set of mental pictures or images.
“But for certain He cannot buckle his distempered cause Within the belt of rule.” (Line 15-18, Page 167)
In this scene the rebel Scot army are speaking of their plans for meeting in the woods and attacking Macbeth. This line demonstrates the usage of imagery which conjures metaphoric images
A purifying or figurative cleansing of the emotions, especially pity and fear, described by Aristotle as an effect of tragic drama on its audience.
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[11 Jun 2008|09:17am] |
Gina Giommi
4514 Vesper Ave
Sherman Oaks, CA
(818) 450-4643
Email: supernifty@hotmail.com
Desired Position:
-Working in an environment that promotes a healthy diet and a vegan incentive.
-Working and interacting with people, interacting with customers.
Qualifications:
-Enthusiastic, cooperative, friendly, hard-working and social.
-I have experience cooking with vegan foods because I am vegan.
Education:
•Grover Cleveland High School, Reseda, CA
Humanities CORE Magnet
-Courses include: Literature, Social Sciences
•Los Angeles Pierce College, Woodland Hills, CA
Concurrent enrollment program
-Civil Rights and The Law course
Professional Experience:
•H3 Publications, Valencia, CA 06/07 - 01/08
~Graphic Design
Creating and editing graphics within page layouts to lend artistic merit
to the magazine.
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[09 Jun 2008|09:41am] |
Haro, Cathy
Giommi, Gina
Espinoza, Amy
Boden, Micki
Period 2, Group 9
Confusión-Una Novela
Plot:
Amy está embarrazada con un bebé y no sabe de quién es, porque ha estado engañado a su esposo. Nadie sabe quien es el papá del bebe es.
Script:
*Gina y Amy están hablando de su engaño a Cathy.*
Amy: Tengo que esconder mi embarazo.
Gina: ¡Sabes bien qué es mi bebé! ¡Yo lo quiero ver crecer!
Amy: No, no sé de quién es.
Gina: ¿Por qué no dejas a Cathy? Nos vamos lejos y tenemos al bebe juntos. Estaremos bien y felices.
Amy: ¿Pero y Cathy? ¡Va a estar enojada y me matará! ¿Si la dejo me va a matar y ¿que va a pasar con Micki?
Gina: ¡No me importa! ¡Te amo! Podemos creer que es de nosotros.
Amy: Pero…Cathy…yo…
*Cathy entrá*
Cathy: ¿Qué es esto? ¿Qué pasa? ¡Qué!
Gina: ¿Amy?
Amy: ¡No es lo que tu piensas!
Gina: ¡Cathy, te robé tu chica!
Cathy: ¿Comó que me robaste mi chica? ¡No entiendo lo que está pasando aquí!
Amy: Yo ya no te amo, Cathy. Yo amo a Gina.
Cathy: ¿Qué? ¡¿Pero por que?! ¿Qué hice?
Amy: Yo amo a Gina y estoy embarazada
Cathy: ¡Pero no puede ser! ¡¿Cuánto tiempo me has estado engeñando?! ¡¡DIME!!
Amy: ¡Eso ya no importa! Yo ya no quiero estar contigo. He decidido estar con Gina y voy a tener este bebé. Nos vamos ir a vivir juntos.
Gina: Vamos, Amy.
Cathy: ¡No te puedes ir!
Gina: ¡La tienes que dejar ir! ¡No quiere estar contigo, entiéndelo!
Amy: No me puedes hacer quedarme.
Cathy: ¡Si puedo soy tu esposa y me tienes que hacer caso!
Gina: ¡Amy, vámonos…Cathy está loca!
*Cathy le pega a Gina*
Gina: ¡Qué te pasa!
*Micki entrá*
Micki: Paren de pelear todos! No pueden estar peleando así.
Cathy: ¿Qué…y tú, quién eres?
Micki: Yo la hija de Gina y Amy.
*Todos soprendidos*
Gina: Te dije que te quedaras callada hasta que yo y Amy hagamos resuelto esto y podamos amarnos.
Cathy: ¡¿Amy…¿qué es esto?! ¡Me has decepcionado!
Amy: Cathy…¡perdóname!
Micki: ¡No! ¡Tengo que hablar! ¡Me tienen que oír! Yo soy su hija y mis papás se quieren mucho. Nunca los he visto que no están felices. Cathy, yo sé que te duele que mis papás se aman. Mi mamá ya no te ama Cathy.
*Cathy cae al suelo*
Cathy: ¡No, esto no puede ser!
Amy: Perdónamw, Cathy pero no puedo estar contigo, yo amo a Gina!
Gina: ¡Te robé tu esposa! ¡Es mía!
Micki: ¡Vamos, ya hay que ironos!
Cathy: ¡Esperen! ¡Amy, estás embarazada! ¿De quién es el bebé, es mío o es de Gina?
Amy: Yo…¡yo no sé!
*Fin de escena*
*Escena en el consultorio del doctor. (Micki hace el papel de la doctora)*
Dr.: Tengo los resultados del examen de paternidad, Amy.
Amy: ¡Estoy tan nerviosa!
*Cathy, Gina, Amy esperan*
Dr: El papá es…Cathy.
*Todos sorprendidos*
Amy: ¡Ay díos mío!
Cathy: ¡Es mi bebé! ¡Nuestro bebé! Te tienes que quedar conmigo y ser su madre a mi lado.
Amy: No…yo…
Gina: Yo lo puedo reconocer. Podrá ser nuestro hijo…
Cathy: Podemos ser felices…
Amy: Yo…
*Para ser continuada*
¡¡FIN!!
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| methay-ha-stas. |
[21 Sep 2006|09:04pm] |
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tonight i wondered about all the people in my neighborhood. i took a walk in the cold and watched everyone going along with their business. but, i guess there are more secrets within a street. like the small congregation of crows that watch with beady black eyes and scatter when i come near. or the numerous cats sitting staring at me from lamplighter eyes like cold moons. one particular man walked around and around his block in a bright blue jumpsuit and i stopped to watch for awhile.
i discovered a pomegranite tree. well, two of them in other people's yards. i plan to revisit when they have ripened and steal them away to eat the bloody pulp and seeds. i love pomegranites because after eating them i look like a crazed psychopathic killer on a rampage, tearing bodies open and eating out their organs. blood all over my cheeks. // i pretended i was hansel and gretel and i left a trail of hot pink rosepetals. there is something satisfying about ripping apart a beautiful rose and scattering it's limbs about.
i dislike the joggers in their shorts and ponytails. they don't stop to smell the flowers, pick up an intricate twig or look at anybody else. but, i suppose it's just a thing and i shouldn't be critical. life should be taken slow in widely spaced intervals like medicine.
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love is a red balloon that fills up and up and up with air and it stretches and stretches and sometimes it POPS but if it doesn't it gets so big that it lifts up and floats off into the sky above everyone else.
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| another day. |
[19 Sep 2006|08:10pm] |
I can already feel myself getting lazy. in the beginning of the school year i take alot of time to get dressed and look good but, i've crossed over into the fuck it mentality. its orange striped shirts and pants for me, folks. it's so cool that most likely no one will read this. i guess.
sometimes i look up into the sky and think about what it's like to be so small. little itty bitty person in a big big sky floating around. how many feet do you have to go up before you disappear like a free balloon?
i want to be alice in wonderland so i can have an adventure underground with rabbits and cards. talking cards.
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[25 Sep 2005|01:42am] |
The Young Ninja Trainee
By Kasey Rubenstein and Gina Giommi
One day in a quiet village, there lived a young ninja trainee.
He was a young man of mystique, valor. Honor above all, he said.
He was known for his ability to disguise his appearance, as well as his thoughts and feelings.
So when the first female ninja was introduced to the Ninja Training Dojo, it seems as though he had not a care about her whereabouts.
Until one day, when a vicious creature from beyond their village attacked the inexperienced woman, and the young man came to her rescue.
After stabbing the beast through the heart, he turned to the woman. Her long beautiful hair was hidden beneath her Ninja armor, her sun-kissed skin covered in ash, hidden.
She looked as if she were about to thank the young man, when suddenly, the beast rose up from its apparent death.
It grabbed the young man within it's clawed, scaly hands and squeezed him, crushing his ribs. The Ninja woman's eyes glittered.
There was a flash of light and when it passed, only scraps of the monster's flesh could be found where it once held the mighty ninja trainee. He spoke, softly yet sternly to the young woman, "What took you so long?"
A sharingan flew towards his chest, but, he merely caught it before it reached his flesh. She turned to face him, a dark fire burning in her eyes.
"I'm sorry," he said calmly, "Did I do something to offend you? I meant absolutely no harm by jumping in front of monster about to kill you." She turned the other way again, apparently not swayed by his obviously ineffective speech.
He pushed back his silvery white hair and applied pressure to his wounded ribcage while she stalled for time, running through the possiblities in her mind. Had he completely forgotten her? She turned to face him for the last time and unsheithed a long, smooth blade beneath her heavy coat.
As she struck down seemingly upon his head, she found her blade instead trapped in a large log that had appeared in his place. "You're wrong," he said, "It's you who has forgotten me."
Standing directly behind her, his arm wound forcefully around her neck, holding her in place, his breath tickling the nape of her neck. He drew a dagger from within his shirt and pressed the shimmering point against the small of her back. "Tell me, what was I to do without you when you escaped. You were bounty. I was a hunter."
The woman kept to her usual routine of keeping quiet around him. Chances were, he could see what she was thinking anyway. That was his secret power-- hide your thoughts from others, and they can't tell that you're thinking what they're thinking. His technique was a complicated one, but she knew the only way to counter it.
His face stoic and expressionless, he pressed the sharpened dagger harder into her peach-like skin, drawing black, inky blood. Her eyes widened with blooming pain like a rose opening to the summer sky and her wings tore out of her back, unfurling into him, sending him flying backwards. Grey wings, shining and dripping with her blood stretched out from her, large and powerful. A crimson tear slid down her cheek, leaving a shimmering path through the encrusted ash and dust.
She needn't speak. He knew what she was there for as well as she did. Revenge was the only thing that remained on her mind.
Inside him was a tornado of hatred, lust, corruption... perhaps, love. And he pushed it all back, tried to sustain the one he was now, the man he wanted to be, unfeeling cold. His heart fought against his chest. She peered over her shoulder, past the wings that divided them and into his eyes. What was he to her? Did he love her? She asked with her eyes.
The answers to all of her questions were hidden under the shell that was the trainee's special talent. It seemed she would have to weaken him first. She struck quickly, from her fingers she shot black vines which entangled her opponent, draining his energy away.
The twisted, thorny vines made their way through his sheltered mind, growing up the thick walls guarding his deepest thoughts. He opened his mouth to scream and fell harshly against the ground. She stood slowly, inky, bloody footprints left where her feet touched the ground as she walked towards him. He looked up, into her eyes, through the pain and the hatred, the black vines tangled around his arms and legs, binding him. She beat her grey wings slowly, and her eyes bored into his own.
"You don't understand. . ." he said, "There's more to it than you think. . ." He screamed. She smiled as she imagined the other horrible tortures she would have no trouble performing on him. "You don't remember. . . you don't want to remember. . ." He collapsed into a heap on the cold hard ground.
His eyes were full of pain, suffering, internal chaos... and she felt unsatisfied. She didn't want to see him in pain, didn't want to cause him pain. She didn't understand what he wanted from her any longer. Was she just a mere bounty, a demon to be slain? She lifted a sword of white crystal, conjured from the energy of her passion above his body and held it there, just as ready to plunge it into him as she had always been.
There he lay, defenseless, unable to muster a final technique to save his life. . . or so she thought. As she plunged he knife down into his soft body, it transformed, once again, into a large log. The trainee had barely escaped, bloody and tired, before she realized her mistake. Once again she was upon him, her vengeance and anger not hindered by second thoughts.
He looked her directly in the face as she charged him and whispered, barely audibly, "I love you." She held the blade, white hot in her hands as she ran towards him, her wings spread... and he too, spread his wings, white and ragged from his back. Her eyes widened with an utter suprise, so sudden and fierce that she drew a sharp breath. As she pierced his heart with the fiery blade, she looked into his eyes, a crazed sort of intense love glowing within his. And he pressed his lips to hers, fleeting and powerful as his soul escaped his body, he fell into her. Dead in her arms, the sword pushed through his chest.
Like her, he never saw it coming.
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