I am fairly happy with the direction that my life is headed in at this point. I have challenged myself academically, and it is paying off for my future. My biggest goal for how I want to live my life in the future is to experience as much of life as possible. At it's most basic level, I think this is truly the American Dream. Most of what people do in pursuit of "The American Dream" is so that they can do what makes them happy when it really matters. Everybody in the world wants to be happy, so they create goals to help them achieve this. The pursuit of happiness is even explicitly mentioned in the Declaration of Independence, alongside life and liberty as the three core principles of America. Since both life and liberty are guaranteed in America, most people devote their time to the third principle, the pursuit of happiness. Gatsby spends lavish amounts of money in an attempt to get Daisy to notice him so that he can truly be happy, which shows that people have little regard for monetary wealth or material goods in their pursuit of happiness.
People do not only seek their own happiness though. There are organizations and people all over the world that are fighting for other people to be happy. This is true altruism, which is working for other people's happiness without regard to your own. People do not volunteer for their own physical benefit, but to help others find the happiness that everyone wants. Not everyone who does charity work enjoys their time doing this work, but by helping other people become happier, volunteers get a level of satisfaction and contentment that makes them feel happier as well.
I believe that true wealth is the freedom to do what you want without restriction. This is why even though Gatsby is extraordinarily rich, I would not consider him wealthy, because he does not have the freedom to do what he really wants, which is to be with Daisy. The only character in The Great Gatsby that I would consider wealthy is Tom Buchanan. Tom can and does do whatever he wants, although he is not a good person about it. For most of the novel, Tom faces no repercussions for his actions due to both his social status and his vast riches. Anyone who is truly unhappy cannot be wealthy, because that is what I believe wealth really is.
This reminds me of a quote "And when Alexander saw the breadth of his empire, he wept, for there were no more worlds to conquer." Alexander the Great had devoted most of his life to doing what made him happy, expanding his empire and defeating his enemies, but when he was finished he was sad because he could no longer do what made him happy. This relates to the constitution and the "pursuit of happiness" because they portray happiness more as a journey, rather than a destination. Throughout life, people's idea of what happiness is for them can change, but almost every decision in a person's life is based on what they think will provide them with the most happiness in the long run, which is truly "The American Dream" .
Sunday, March 15, 2015
Sunday, March 8, 2015
Nothing Really Mattress(?): Kafka, Camus, and Importance of Translations
Diction - each translation provides a different description of Gregor Samsa's transformation; a gigantic insect, a giant bug, an enormous bug, and a monstrous vermin. Each of these serves to create a different image in the reader's mind.
Syntax - Each of the sentences is laid out differently the way it is read. Three of the four sentences start out by identifying Gregor Samsa as the character, showing the most important part of the sentence, while the final sentence begins with describing the setting, "one morning". The length of the sentences influences how they appear to the reader as well, some sentences are shorter than others, which makes them have a different impact on the reader, such as the shortest sentence is the most direct, and has more of a hostile tone than longer sentences.
Imagery/Details - Each translation highlights different details in order to create different imagery for the reader. The translations use different words to describe the dreams that Gregor had, like uneasy, troubled, or agitated. By tweaking the description of either Gregor or his actions, the different translations slightly alter the percieved personality of the character.
Structure - The first translation is focused on the actions taking place;"As Gregor Samsa awoke...", "he found himself...", which makes the passage less sedentary and more active. The second translation is the shortest and most direct, which changes the author's tone from the other translations. The third translation creates an atmosphere that the rest of the story will follow. This translation is about setting the stage, rather than explaining a character or describing actions. The fourth translation is the most detailed and has the most imagery. This translation is about creating an image in the reader's mind, and make them visualize the text.
Each of the different translations adds a different context to the message and alters the reader's interpretation slightly. The diction of each passage focuses on different elements of literature, and this in turn shifts the reader's focus. By focusing on verbs, a translation makes the passage seem like an account of events, whereas by focusing on adjectives and descriptors the passage seems more like a vivid description of a scene. Punctuation also varies between each of the translations. By including more commas, the fourth translation forces the reader to take more time while reading and appreciate the details more, rather than the second translation which includes no commas and is much more straightforward and direct.
The first and third translations are the most effective in my opinion. Both the second and the fourth translations alter a key detail of the text, which drastically changes the passage. The second translation changes the main character's name from Gregor to Gregory and removes most of the details as well, which strips the passage of its tone and makes it much more bland. The fourth translation says that Gregor transforms into "a monstrous vermin" rather than a bug or insect as the other translations say. This alters the reader's mental image of the text, since the most commonly associated animal with the word vermin is a rat, not an insect. I think the first translation is the most effective, because it has more emphasis on the actions than any other translation, which engages the reader by being active, instead of a passive description of a man in bed.
The variety between all of these translations of a single line highlights the greatest difficulty in analyzing translated texts. Whomever translated the text inadvertently added some of their own perspective and interpretation, which affects how the reader reacts to the passages. This was only a single line, but the amount of differences between them shows that an entire story translated by two different people can have wildly different end products, despite being based on the same original text, because of the interpreter's personal choices in how they present the words.
Syntax - Each of the sentences is laid out differently the way it is read. Three of the four sentences start out by identifying Gregor Samsa as the character, showing the most important part of the sentence, while the final sentence begins with describing the setting, "one morning". The length of the sentences influences how they appear to the reader as well, some sentences are shorter than others, which makes them have a different impact on the reader, such as the shortest sentence is the most direct, and has more of a hostile tone than longer sentences.
Imagery/Details - Each translation highlights different details in order to create different imagery for the reader. The translations use different words to describe the dreams that Gregor had, like uneasy, troubled, or agitated. By tweaking the description of either Gregor or his actions, the different translations slightly alter the percieved personality of the character.
Structure - The first translation is focused on the actions taking place;"As Gregor Samsa awoke...", "he found himself...", which makes the passage less sedentary and more active. The second translation is the shortest and most direct, which changes the author's tone from the other translations. The third translation creates an atmosphere that the rest of the story will follow. This translation is about setting the stage, rather than explaining a character or describing actions. The fourth translation is the most detailed and has the most imagery. This translation is about creating an image in the reader's mind, and make them visualize the text.
Each of the different translations adds a different context to the message and alters the reader's interpretation slightly. The diction of each passage focuses on different elements of literature, and this in turn shifts the reader's focus. By focusing on verbs, a translation makes the passage seem like an account of events, whereas by focusing on adjectives and descriptors the passage seems more like a vivid description of a scene. Punctuation also varies between each of the translations. By including more commas, the fourth translation forces the reader to take more time while reading and appreciate the details more, rather than the second translation which includes no commas and is much more straightforward and direct.
The first and third translations are the most effective in my opinion. Both the second and the fourth translations alter a key detail of the text, which drastically changes the passage. The second translation changes the main character's name from Gregor to Gregory and removes most of the details as well, which strips the passage of its tone and makes it much more bland. The fourth translation says that Gregor transforms into "a monstrous vermin" rather than a bug or insect as the other translations say. This alters the reader's mental image of the text, since the most commonly associated animal with the word vermin is a rat, not an insect. I think the first translation is the most effective, because it has more emphasis on the actions than any other translation, which engages the reader by being active, instead of a passive description of a man in bed.
The variety between all of these translations of a single line highlights the greatest difficulty in analyzing translated texts. Whomever translated the text inadvertently added some of their own perspective and interpretation, which affects how the reader reacts to the passages. This was only a single line, but the amount of differences between them shows that an entire story translated by two different people can have wildly different end products, despite being based on the same original text, because of the interpreter's personal choices in how they present the words.
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