Rhetoric throughout Animal Farm is largely apparent, especially with its allusion to Soviet Russia. Throughout the novel, characters such as Old Major unify the masses of animals to ideas through the usage of various rhetorical methods and tools. Old Major, representing the historical figure Karl Marx and Vladimir Lenin, creates the images and movements towards the animal's eventual rebellion through pathos rhetoric. This is a technique utilized by many leaders to trigger the emotions of the masses to bring a personal connection to them and the subject at hand. Old Major successfully makes himself seem as a part of the masses through this technique, even bringing a song sung in his youth that furthered unified the animals and rung throughout generations, up to the end of the novel. Napoleon's rhetorical standpoint lies in intimidation. He brings the animals to points of fear through his dogs and warnings, forcing all to abide by his choices even when not correct. His character, symbolizing the iron rule of Stalin and other strong rulers of human history, proves his rule through trickery and manipulation, bringing fears of Snowball's repeated and supposed antics throughout the farm in order to bring its downfall. Taking these uses of rhetoric to mind, we are left with a question to be reflected on and ultimately, remain conflicted on its answer: Can the use of rhetoric be seen as a manipulative force, one that is unjustly utilized to manipulate masses to a conclusion?

Throughout the later half of the third quarter and fourth quarter, our class read the allegorical novel Animal Farm by George Orwell. The book tells the story of a farm in Europe in which the animals coordinate an overthrow against the farmer and establish their own "equal" society. This story, through a mask of innocence and careful planning, holds an allegory for the establishment and ideology behind Marxism and the Soviet Union in which the workforce overthrows the established government and creates their own communist Soviet Union. Characters such as Napoleon and Snowball portray various political figures throughout the Cold War and Soviet Union era, including Stalin, Lenin, Gorbachev, Marx, and groups or institutions such as established religion and the masses of followers. The portrayal of characters and the events of this era through the story in planned in a way that sarcastically puts the communist regime in a good light, even persuading some readers that the animals were right to overthrow the farmers in order to establish their equal society. The satirical and planned format of the story brings many to confusion on the validity of the figures in Soviet Russia and their ideology behind supporting the communist regime. It also brings a strong question to light: How does the knowledge of an individual's perspective of communist ideology change your opinion of the regime's ideology and validity as a whole?

Throughout the past three weeks, our class analyzed the first act of Shakespeare's MacBeth. The play is very interesting, following a warrior and thane to the king of Scotland as he is faced with the decision of murder as a means of fulfilling a given destiny to the right to ascend as king. Following the reading, we were assigned a task of summarizing the first act to be 10% of the original size while maintaining the overall themes, plot, and literary dynamics of the piece. An update will be made on this post in the next following days with the link containing the summary created by my group. As a way of tying the last few weeks together, we were given a project in which we studied and presented a poster that was based on any assassination in history. I decided to base my project on the death of King Duncan on which Macbeth was inspired by. King Duncan fell to his death in the middle of an invasion that he led against the land of Macbeth, with details on his death being clouded and unknown. I feel that the assignments given throughout these past weeks blend well with each other and work greatly in enforcing the overall theme that was established.

Lord of the Flies

In English class, we have begun and have gotten well into the novel Lord of the Flies by William Golding. The novel revolves around a group of kids who are stranded on what appears to be an island post world war one, left to survive on their own as they formulate a form of society which slowly dwindles into madness. The characters each have their own trait, Piggy being the cautious and constantly worried character, Jack being the impulsive character with little thought of consequences, and Ralph being the balance and reason of the two. These characters correlate perfectly to the balance of superego,ego, and id, the three characteristics that make a person's personality. Each represent one of these traits, explaining their exaggerated nature at times.
     Symbolism proves itself to play a very strong role in conveying meaning and plot to this novel, as it is found in nearly every paragraph. From the forest, to shadows, to the characters and plot themselves, this novel is shown constantly to throw symbols with deeper meanings at all levels of understanding. This leads the novel to be perceived in a vast multitude of fashions, with some seeing basic symbols in a story of stranded boys and others finding a possible deeper meaning of human nature itself and the tendencies and darkness that shrouds society itself. This piece of literature has become a great favorite of mine and I look forward to reading deeper into this novel and enjoying what it has to offer.

So far this week, I've gotten very interested in a book titled Night. It is a semi-fictional autobiography of a Jewish survivor of the Holocaust. The tragedies he faced and sufferings witnessed are greatly impacting and bring important questions to the table while exposing many to the first person view of the events occuring in Europe at the time.
Psychological/physical abuse, the degradation of an individual's sanity, and the horrific acts displayed by concentration camps and SS soldiers are all included in this novel and show a very important aspect of the war. I highly recommend this novel, as it is very interesting to witness the quickly changing events and scenarios that are, for the most part, nonfiction.

It's Been a While

Late Night Posting Again

     Really need to start working on getting into this whole thing rather than having it slip my mind. Especially with constant reminders, I shouldn't be forgetting. But oh well, we digress.

Back to normal subjects

     Continuing with 61 Hours I believe I made a correct decision in leaving the shortly enjoyed The Shining. Though very well planned and executed with a genius style that complimented it's dark and suspenseful aura, I couldn't keep myself as interested as the story seemed to become a bit more predictable, possibly arising from the fact that this is the story that started many trends and clichés for the horror genre, furthered brought into popularity with Stanley Kubrick's theatrical adaption of the novel. Genius as it may be for it's time and even up to now, I could not persuade myself to continue with interest as all events occurring in the novel kept occurring in a pattern I had seen in many other novels using The Shining as a basis for their work. With 61 Hours I found that what I had read previously had not matched at all to what I had been reading. Everything caught my attention: confusion, genius usage of plot elements, great use of connecting events and characters that otherwise never could have interacted in the slightest bit. My old post describes the lawyer as the main focal point of the story but delving further into the story led to me discovering a second main character. One that may even be of a higher level of importance than the lawyer. His name is supplied to us and we know much more of him, leading to the possibility that the lawyer may just be a connecting character, one that simply creates events, such as the bus accident, while still maintaining an interesting personality, voice, and story through his interactions with other minor characters. I look forward to later events and hope I get as attached to this story as I believe I will.

Super Late-Night Posts: 61 Hours

Sorry
This blog post was meant to be sent a whole lot earlier on today (or technically yesterday as it is 12:40 am at the time I type this up). I decided to run a quick update to get Windows 10 on my laptop and while I should've expected a long wait time, I still was a bit surprised to find myself waiting as long as I did. Well hopefully from here on out, posts will be more regular as I plan to blog more than once a week (cross your fingers).

Anyways
Back to the reflections. I began a new book earlier on called 61 Hours. The genre this time switches from the suspenseful, horror filled books of Stephen King to the action packed thriller that is 61 Hours. The narration and stylistic choices that are used in what I have covered so far (which is not much but enough to understand a bit of the author's style) really bring in the feelings being conveyed, some of which are harder to distinguish from others. Feelings of confusion, the tiny bit of excitement for what awaits you on the next page, and the smallest comments or small grins you can't help but have escape as you begin to read gives the reader a sense of immersion. At the first few pages, I had already had myself hooked on our main character and his story, a character simply named The Lawyer. A mysteriously vague title to be given, so simple, just as the rest of the important contents of the story. Entire large one hour long conversations are skipped to keep suspense going, silence is seen in the character's first interactions, and little is explained to us in order to keep that feeling of mysteriousness that surrounds our character. The Lawyer, a character that at first, seems so simple, so empty of character, that you can't help but feel your own personality project from his actions. As for future pages in the book, I expect his character to build up more as the story fleshes out and the mysterious aura surrounding our character begins to fade.