Laura's Blog

This passage depicts elements of the tragic hero archetype within the protagonist of Said Mahran. It reveals his feelings towards his betrayers whilst in the act of satisfying his desire for revenge, which creates a psychotic mood. In doing so, the passage characterizes the protagonist further. The tragic hero archetype is reflected through the portrayal of Said's hamartia and pride. His tragic flaw is his inability to adapt to change. He felt betrayed by Ilish, and how his wife left him to marry Ilish. This change included losing his daughter to rejection. Said's tragic flaw lead his mind to become saturated with the thought of revenge, and his focus changed from being on his daughter to purely getting revenge on his betrayers. This ultimately lead to his downfall as he became so obsessed with revenge that murder made him a wanted man, then he was eventually found and killed. Another aspect of the tragic hero is pride, which is clearly noticeable in Said. In this passage, ...

Stream of consciousness refers to a character's conscious thoughts -- memories, feelings, random associations. Without this technique, the text would consist of only unexplained actions. Mahfouz uses this narrative technique in The Thief and The Dogs in order to inform the audience of deeper meaning. This meaning can be in terms of characterization, style, and the author's context of production. Mahfouz uses stream of consciousness in order to replicate the protagonist's interior characteristics. For example, throughout the novel, the audience is shown through Said' stream of consciousness how he feels obligated towards fatherly responsibilities. In chapter one, Said is seen to have interior rage towards his betrayers. Yet his thoughts are continuously interrupted by the thought of his daughter, “And Sana? What about Sana?” This change of thought depicts Said as a caring father who feels the responsibility to care for his daughter. The stream of consciousness technique...

There are both benefits and drawbacks within the study of translated literature. The beauty of translated literature is that a whole new abundance of stories and information is opened up to us. We are allowed the opportunity to access what we once did not have access to. Rather than making assumptions about a particular context based on what we have seen in the news and magazines, we can now read book by authors who live in these contexts, and whose lives may be reflected within the literature. So, we are no longer being educated on political issues in the news, we are learning about the actual lifestyle of a context. We can learn about the values and attitudes of a culture, gain multicultural understandings, and through reading texts in translation we can become to be aware of how meaning can change through translation. However, there are some challenges and negative aspects to reading texts in translation. So much of a text could be misunderstood or misinterpreted. For example the m...

The article I chose to analyze is "Christmas Music Is Actually Bad For you, So Please Turn It Down", by Spencer Hicks, published on 'Crave' on November 21st 2017. The humorous article briefly describes the negative impact Christmas music can have on a person. However, instead of stating the facts of this claim, the majority of the article is spend discussing the negativity of Christmas music itself. This shows that the author is biased towards this issue, as he clearly has a personal opinion towards Christmas -- he dislikes it. We know this because even though all music could be bad for you if you listen too loud, the author is only arguing this for Christmas music. In creating this bias, the author implies the ideology that everyone who listens to Christmas music listens to it too loud, and that it is going to create stress and anxiety. This, however, is not always a true fact, and this article is based on the authors personal opinion and perspective. After an analy...

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B8Q0PD0jXHg1UEZDaDJOZDYycEU/view?usp=sharing

'This Is Water' by David Foster Wallace explains how to turn your way of thinking away from your default setting. He explains that everyone has a default setting -- the way we react to a situation by only thinking about how it impacts ourselves. We should change our way of thinking by considering what everyone else might be going through. The idea is that we are learning what water is. If we are fish, we are surrounded by water. The water is what is happening around us, but we do not really know what the water is until we learn how to think in a different way. This teaching is applicable to the writing of Alice Munro. Her stories are based around the development of a character and realizations they experience in their lives. Considering that her stories follow a protagonist, we are given an insight to much of what the protagonist is feeling and thinking. In the stories, the protagonist would be considered the centre of the universe. Wallace discusses that we all see ourselves ...