World Text Analysis Essay

What does a credit card offer you? On average you will receive between twenty and thirty credit card offers each year promising “free” money, points, and the freedom to buy what you want when you want. This sounds like a pretty good deal if you are a college student with a life time of debt, I mean spending, potential. What might be a good question to ask however, is if you have to give them anything in return, any freedoms, any dreams. In the movie Slumdog Millionaire, Maman’s orphanage is used to show how globalization offers a higher standard of living at the high cost of personal freedoms.

The issue of globalization is a multifaceted one that needs to be defined. Globalization according to the Merriam-Webster dictionary is, “the act or process of globalizing : the state of being globalized; especially :the development of an increasingly integrated global economy marked especially by free trade, free flow of capital, and the tapping of cheaper foreign labor markets.” What this practically means is that the free market economy is incorporated by as many countries as possible and all the resources are added to the global market. Additionally, since some markets are going to be able to provide different resources for different prices they will, at least temporarily, go down as you purchase from that market that produces that product more cheaply. A great description of globalization is given in the essay Globalization and the Contemporary Development of Marxist Philosophy saying, “Simply speaking, globalization is a geographical concept, and it means global integration…but what is it that pushes and drives globalization? It is mainly capital. Globalization, above all, is the global and unitary operation of capital” (Kang Ouyang 645). Therefore, to be successful in this globalized market you must work to gain capital. To have status, you must have “things”, with all the vagueness that the word implies. It might be argued there is nothing wrong with wanting “things”, yet what cost do those come with. One might ask if this world view has negative implications and what would those look like?

Maman’s orphanage is a superb visual example of what globalization both offers and costs to those who embrace its precepts. Salim, Jamal, and Latika are on their own once their parents are killed. They have entered a globalized world and the must now provide for themselves. They are living in the trash dumps of the city with very little to eat. Mamon comes in the “orphanage” truck signifying security and safety. He then entices them and lulls them into security by giving them Coca-Cola. Coca-Cola’s was well known for being one of the first companies to truly achieve a globalized product. What these boys in this scene are being lured with this nothing less than the promised better life of globalization, in a bottle. When they arrive they are fed well and given much more food and toys than they had before they came to the orphanage.

This is the way it is with globalization. It promises the items of the nations of the world. It even promises lower rates for products of just about anything one could want. Yet, what does it do to the common worker and your home industries? They are able to get more things for cheaper, as long as they have a job. The catch at the orphanage in the movie is to be blinded and work for them, and so too the worker in the globalized world is left “blind”. They are totally dependant upon the system and its success, being placed where they are needed, if they are needed. Security in particular is sacrificed. The literal blindness in the film, of the children singers is translated into a figurative blindness of the future. This is talked about by Catarina Kinnvall when she writes, “The abstract character of modern society, with its implicit anonymity and alienation, has made the lives of more individuals migratory, ever-changing, and mobile as they are uprooted from their original social milieu” (Catarina Kinnvall 744). Once you accept the system and comply with its values and workings you are bound by its rules. If Jamal and Salim had been blinded they would no longer have been able to travel India and life as they saw fit. They would have had the rest of their lives dictated for them. And Jamal would have lived the remainder of his days separated from Latika, unable to pursue his love because of his bondage. While this seems extreme, this is a very real out come of enslaving oneself to the globalized way of life with all its expensive benefits. This part of the movie acts as a visual microcosm to the greater whole of the globalized worldview and its lesson of the sacrifice inherent in globalization is one that is important to us today.

Globalization offers a higher standard of living at the high cost of freedoms as is evidenced by Maman’s orphanage in the movie Slumdog Millionaire. Globalization itself can be defined as the spread of the free market system and a dependence on capital. It can then been seen in the film that Maman’s orphanage functions just like globalization as it offers increased food and items, yet ones very vision is reliant upon the system, and the people who are running the system, for guidance. This portion of the movie was a great visual mediation of an individual event that could be applied in many places around the world. Always remember that when you enter upon a financial commitment to ask yourself if you are truly getting something that adds to the vision you have for your life. Otherwise, it is simply going to keep you from it. So, when you receive that next credit card offer and the word free is staring you straight in the eyes. Tear it up and smile, for now you are truly free to live and dream.

Works Cited

Catarina Kinnvall. “Globalization and Religious Nationalism: Self, Identity, and the Search for Ontological Security.” Political Psychology Vol. 25, No. 5 (2004): 744. 9 Feb. 2010.

Kang Ouyang, Yumei Liu, Lingling Zhu. “Globalization and the Contemporary Development of Marxist Philosophy: Precondition, Problem Domain and Research Outline.” Frontiers of Philosophy in China Vol. 1, No. 4 (2006): 645. Web. 9 Feb. 2010.

Slumdog Millionaire. Dir. Danny Boyle. Fox Searchlight Pictures and Warner Bros. Pictures, 2008. DVD.

Anyone Hungry?

We are in trouble. Do we have a solution to all the hungry and starving around the world? Quite possibly yet you would never hear about it, because it so far has not been proven profitable to fix. That is what I was thinking about since last week in class. We live in a world that is focused on profit and gain. From my world view of Christianity I was challenged to see how things aught to be and just what my faith has to say about all this. One thing that I personally found interesting is that the inital and purposeful use of the tithe in the early Church was for the ministers, missionaries, hungry, and widows.

The "tithe" is the giving of the first ten percent of your wages to the church for these four purposes. I was thinking about the idea that this goes directly against the very capitalist nature that we have developed within ourselves. Could it be that this is a mechanism to fend off one of the greatest ills of capitalism, greed? Besides the religious meanings, could it be that this is an act used to break Christians out of the habit of greed? It would make sense to me seeing as less than ten percent of a churches members actually tithe according to studies. Greed is a truly powerful evil given room to roam in our system, and I believe that this is the reason Christians today find it so hard to give. Yet, in giving to church or other venues, is there not possibly a leeching of the illness from our system?

A Presentation of Meaning

Added (11 December 2010)

Our presentation focused on the creation and explication of the media's as a means of relating all media's and their respective goals, uses, dangers, and advantages.

If we are going to be attempting to train our students to have the proper skills so as to use media, we need to train them on how media effects us all. By looking at all the different medias at different times and then showing that elements like music, language, speakers tone of voice, colors, setting, movement, lighting, and speakers gestures we can teach students about how to convey the most meaning in media and share the most meaning through media.

The end project would be the most exciting part of the class as student would create a movie in which they bring together all the elements of media that they have learned and with their own unique twists. I imagine that they could even focus on any part of any media they so desired if there was enough meaning behind it. Like a focused shot on a painting that they felt had meaning to the words that were being spoken in the background. I have really enjoyed the awareness that I have received from this book and hope to share such knowledge with those who I teach.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/11/arts/design/11turner.html

This is an interesting New York Times article that has to do with unique types of art. Might be something that the students could embark upon achieving.

Media Education

I am an English Literature Major. As such I have been often in the pool where I am encouraging my siblings and those around me to read more instead of watch television or play video games.

What I do really agree with is that there is a "special literacy" for media that people talk about and are expected to know. I was up at Standford with a friend and did not understand half the jokes and conversations. Later my friend showed me an assortment of around 6 YouTube videos that made sense of all those jokes. Therefore this is a very real "literacy" to me.

I am actually really struggling with this book because it makes sense, but I think I do have more of the mind set that classical literature is more nourishing to the mind.

I am looking forward to the end of this book and hearing how this literacy education should work out according to the author.

Tech Presentations

I was really impressed by the numerous presentations that we witnessed last week. This really got me thinking even after my groups presentation was over about the use of technology within the class room. For my group, the use of Google's Document Presentation application was amazing. You could drag and drop pictures and YouTube videos directly into the frames and even the copy, paste, and editing functions were flawless. It was the first time that I had really spent this much time creating a power point of this scope and I actually can say that I had fun doing it. I felt it was a piece of artwork.

Our presentation aside I then began to think of other ideas and applications for media and technology in teaching a story. I thought of how cool it might have been if we had actually acted one of the stories out, without words. The only sounds and conversations coming from the computer and media that was being used. This was intriguing to me and I thought further that one would be able to set the mood for say, the storm in Shakespeare's "King Lear" by having the screen flash with lightning and the room be dark. Example:

This to me was a really innovative and creative way of incorporating technology without actually needing to memorize lines or even really be an actor, yet still share a story in a fun, visual, and compelling way.

Does it only work on the weak minded?

Added (11 December 2010)

Media production

One of the great dangers of any media is that it teaches. Even if the author does not intend such an outcome the user of that media is receiving something. I think it is safe to say that there are many negative messages that can and are spread through all the medias. What was very impressive about this book "Media Education" by David Buckingham is that he aptly addresses that there are many motivators and forces behind a media that need to be addressed and taught about. Our students today are walking into a media mine field and they need to be equipped with the proper knowledge to be able to decipher through it. Buckingham mentions that looking at media production means looking at: technologies, professional practices, the industry, connections between media, regulation, circulation and distribution, and access and participation. This is of the utmost importance in my opinion because it is only after we have taught students these practices that they can begin to see the dangers, if any, that the messages of the media provide. Be it form of paper, airwaves, or light, these messages come from someone and with a purpose, even if that purpose is simply to enjoy.

Buckingham, David. Media Education. Malden, MA: Polity Press, 2003. Print. Pg. 53-70.

Why Mythology?

What is it that makes mythology one of the most interesting realms for the modern day storyteller?

Whether it be comics or Teen fiction books like the Percy Jackson Olympian Series. There is a influx of mythological stories that are being retold and the public are eating them up.

There are a few factors, I believe, that make mythology so appealing. Firstly, there is a mist that surrounds the stories that give writers and readers freedom to use thier imagination. Also, there there is a validity that time seems to have given to the stories so even though as a reader I am thinking this is a fiction and using my imagination I also am really wanting this to be real, and its not "so" farfetched. Finally, Mythology has an enchantment that is rooted in the touching of the mortal and the divine. It is a interesting look that is very vogue to question these divine figures through fun or terrible stories.

These are some thoughts and I would love to hear yours!

He's a TRICKSTER!

Anyone that really knows me will tell you that I absolutely love games. Board games, card games, sports, etc. I play them all. What I love is the strategy involved. My mind is actively at work to win the game and be creative about it. If I employ a trick, it is within the rules of the game. When I first read the trickster stories that I going through with my group I really did not think that I had anything in common with the characters I was reading about. They were often so morally depraved and they took from the rich and poor alike to achieve their own selfish needs. Trying to look at their tricks the way I utilize them I realized that the full extent of their trickery knows no bounds, because their rules are survival, pride, and pleasure. These conditions must be met for them to be fulfilled even be it dangerous, unlikely, foolish, or immoral. I have tried but I cannot pity them. I can understand them. They truly do ring the all to familiar bells of selfishness and pride within man. There is one trickster that particularly intrigues me.

Though not always tricksters, for the most part, are skilled at their art. Employing a number of strategies and ruses. The most skilled at this is Loki. He is the trickster that I most connect with because he is the one that ,usually, employs the most intricate schemes and strategies. It is because his motivation is not food, or survival, but power. Looking at this from a class struggle position he is possibly the least relateable to the common man. Yet, it is his difference that excites interest. His hunger for power and domination are unique among tricksters, his human nature is all to familiar among man.

Original Poems

I really want any and all thoughts you have about these poems. I had such a fun time writing them and hope that you will have as much fun reading them!

Jonathan Polus

Ushers of Jubilee

Out rush the ushers, sea about their knees.

Swirling, twirling, gleaming, beaming; singing songs of jubilee.

Receding light creates a sight, innocent and free.

Summer-bright shadows dancing on the sea.

Train behind them follows, hearts a-mirth with hope.

Into freedom straight they plunge, birthed anew in love.

One-by-one they leave behind old waters, death, and fears.

Ushers romp about the surf, splashing joy shed tears.

O Democracy

Jury, Jury on the wall, who’s the fairest of them all?

The people answer tongue in cheek that he is, he is, lord of the hall.

Our Judge is worried not a bit,

He knows the outcome shall acquit.

Decision of the people wide,

When votes were cast and outcome lied.

He makes decisions from his throne,

Millions voted. “WHAT OF THEM!?” Their fate I, decide.

Lost is the voice of whole generations,

Hung upon ropes of our court, and back door litigation.

Vying for futures of young and old,

Mobilize, fundraise, then do what your told!

Citizens fight for beliefs and this nation,

Then king from his throne makes his proclamation.

What is the point of trying at all,

If lord, judge, the king has his way in the hall?

A Poem and its Meaning

Thinking about poetry this week I was reminded of this poem that I had done two years ago. This is a piece of Riddled Poetry as I like to call it. It was my attempt to write about something that I had seen but really make it a difficult riddle as well. We were talking a lot last week about how poetry and its meaning is so subjective. I think this was evidenced most to me now looking back on it, when I think of this poem. Riddles by their nature have a specific answer to them. Poems on the other hand are known for their ability to have a multiplicity of meaning. I had a specific thing in mind as the answer to this riddle yet when others read my poem they had answers that were so convincing that I was tempted a few times to change my "answer"! Now, I wanted to share this with anyone that happens to come by and see what your answers are. I am sure that I will be just as surprised when I hear your answers.

Just wanted to hear your thoughts and answers.

A Fall to Life

As violence forms my outer being,
Life is captured in my womb.
Twisting, churning, ever clinging,
What gives me life will be my tomb.
I babble on in search of meaning,
The gift I give will till death fume.
As life whirls by solace springing,
A world around me comes to bloom.
In death I ask to all yet breathing,
Whom am I and I am whom?

The Number 1 Killer of People Today: Death

So read the news flash,

The lilith on the screen.

She smiles at me calling out,

My Dow Jones countdown: come, with, me.

Her eyes become the world,

smooth words our magic carpet.

The journey set, my haven left,

tour de désespoir begun.

China, France, England, Rome,

Kenya, Poland, U, S, A.

Heartless, Hopeless, Homeless,

...

This poem began in our class room workshop. In my four years at California State University Northridge I have not actually had a class where I was asked to write creatively in the moment. It was actually enjoyable, although I will say that I realized I have to have a topic that I am passionate about. I started out thinking about our title and the idea of death. It was not at all interesting and I did not know what to do with it. It was only when I was able to relate the issue to something that was more ethereal and fictional that I began to enjoy myself. The ability to relate the topic to the politics that I had been mauling over all day, and then frame the story in the world of fantasy fiction with a Lilith and Magic Carpet made it interesting. Poetry here we come.

A Wonderous Poem

Din Din Din!

The author C.S. Lewis commenting on the writings of Rudyard Kipling once said, “Our author gives us no rest: we are bombarded with felicities till they deafen us. There is no elbow room or leisureness. The fault of which I am here accusing Kipling is one which only a great artist could commit” (Quotable Lewis 363). Reading the poem “Gunga Din” by Rudyard Kipling the word bombarded describes exactly the way I felt. I was bombarded by the words, bombarded by emotions, bombarded by the most poignant of images. This was different from the romantic poetry that had come before. It created an image that was not complete through excessive words but that gave a vivid image through word choice and a focus on “the thing”. This was much more attune to the values of the modernist movement that came soon after. Though Kipling’s poem “Gunga Din” is considered a romantic poem of the Victorian Age it is actually in line with the standards of the Modernist literary movement on a stylistic level.

The modernist movement had three tenants according to Ezra Pound that guided the way their poetry was to function and be written. Those tenants were, “1. Direct treatment of the ‘thing’ whether subjective or objective. 2. To use absolutely no word that does not contribute to the presentation. 3. As regarding rhythm: to compose in the sequence of musical phrase, not in sequence of the metronome” (Pound). Rudyard Kipling was alive during the founding of this movement and had preceded them in his writing “Gunga Din” by only twenty or thirty years. This poem shows that that in regards to these literary elements Kipling displayed similar values. Talking about Pound’s diction and reasons behind his word choice we are given a history by Donald Lyons saying, “he writes with laconic sobriety and decorum self-contained freeverse lines informed by Greek patterns--is here miraculously supple and delicate. In lines like "When we set out, the willows were drooping with spring,/ We come back in the snow," we see technique at the service of something significant” (Donald 4).

Looking firstly at the second point regarding using no needless words Kipling was an avid believer. He said in advising Augusta Tweddell by letter, “Read the Bible ... and see how much can be said in how few words." "There is any amount of loose slipshod English in the world and its influence has affected my style incurably, but do you avoid it” (Park 3). Kipling does not do himself justice. He would revise and revise until all the words that were in the poem were to the right point. This is evidenced in lines 68-73 from “Gunga Din”,

'E carried me away

To where a dooli lay,

An' a bullet come an' drilled the beggar clean.

'E put me safe inside,

An' just before 'e died:

"I 'ope you liked your drink," sez Gunga Din (Kipling).

In these lines the reader is given words that excite the imagination to create an image of this situation. You are not fed all the smells and sounds and feelings of the moment. In fact the words chosen are extremely impersonal and unfeeling. No, you are simply presented an image of this “water boy” and the image of duty and nobility that he is as he dies.

There is then the other two points by Ezra Pound regarding “direct treatment of the thing” and its musical sound not meter. Clara Park wrote in her essay “How Kipling Taught Me to Write” tells of what she loved about Kipling,

“I was left to the irresponsible pleasures of pure language, its pricks and tremors and rumbles and runs and full stops. And yet it wasn't wholly pure. It wasn't music. It was words, hung together by something more than their several rhythms; mysterious sounds offering even a child glimpses beyond sound, into meaning. None of Kipling's contemporaries, seemingly, could be more remote from him than James Joyce. And yet they are uncommonly alike--for it is not at all common, even for writers with weak eyesight, to experience the world through sound” (Park 5)

She was taken by the words that came together not just for the sound of the thing but for something that goes beyond sounds and rhythm, meaning. As a reader she was looking into “the thing” rather than just a circumstance or story. This is what the Modernists were trying to ultimately accomplish themselves. They were trying to more beyond the look, meter, and rhythm of the thing and get to the image and the meaning. I do not think it is coincidental that Park mentions James Joyce in as being related to this tradition. Joyce was a famous author within the Modernist movement whose works such as “Ulysses” and “The Dubliners” both show this story form reliance on meaning and image over story and lyrical beauty.

Rudyard Kipling exemplified Modernist literary elements in his writings and acted as a bridge between the romantic and modern schools. He was found to have abided by the modernist call for precise word choice. He was also one that dealt with the issue and the “thing” at hand while emphasizing the musical nature and of a word instead of its metronomic qualities. Rudyard Kipling was a man filling in a very difficult gap of poetic history and on that did so with a public appeal that is a testament to his professionalism and richness of imagery. Readers have since returned to battle again and again seeking to lose themselves in the roar of Gunga din, din, din!

Works Cited

Kipling, Rudyard. "Gunga Din" 100 Best Loved Poems. Ed. Philip Smith. New York: Dover Publications, 1995. 76-78. Print.

Lyons, Donald. “A Major Minor: Ezra Pound’s Poetry”. New Criterion. Volume 17, Issue 10. 1999. Web.

Martindale, Wayne, and Jerry Root, eds. The Quotable Lewis. Carol Stream, Il: Tyndale House Publishers, 1990. Print.

Park, Clara. “How Kipling Taught Me to Write”. The American Scholar. Volume 4 Issue 72. Autumn 2003. Pg. 5 Web.

Pound, Ezra. “A Retrospect.” Heath Anthology of American Literature: Volume D. Ed. Paul Lauter. Boston, MA: Cengage Learning, 2010. 1402-1403. Print.

O! Whitman.

Added (10 December 2010)

I Never Realized...

How much I truly enjoyed Walt Whitman's poetry. When we were reading this poem I a gained a newfound respect for the ability of poetry to be so smooth and rhythmic.

We had brought of a lot of terms about poetry to the table that class. What moved me the most about Whitman's Elegy "O Capitan, My Captain!" was the shear sincerity. It is difficult to sound sincere when you are using complex words and yet it is hard to make it sound beautiful and meaningful without them often times. That is what I believe made this poem so powerful.

That and the metaphor of Abraham Lincoln being the Captain of a ship called America. He would have gone down with the ship trying to save it, instead he saved everyone else besides himself.

Thank you Mr. Walt Whitman for your poem.

To Be Honest

If I were to be honest with you I would tell you that although I am enjoying every class and extracurricular activity I have this semester, I am spread thin. What has been hitting me is that there are so many people, like myself last semester, who are taking things easy and fittering their days away. I began to question whether or not I should have taken as much on my plate as I have. However, in the presence of all the added work I was challenged to do even more. What I really noticed was that I had a desire to continue writing a number of stories I had started, yet now I was filling even more of that "free" time on my calendar.

It was in this moment that the poem, "The Road Not Taken" by Robert Frost was really an encouragement. Reading the words,

"Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

and sorry I could not travel both,

And be one traveler long I stood,

And looked down one as far as I could,

To were it bent in the under growth...

I took the one less traveled by

And that has made all the difference."1

I know that although I may look down that road filled with free time, board games, and fantasy fiction, I am going to enjoy my road and accomplish much that is rewarding. Thinking along this train of thought I got a laugh at a Youtube video by Pomplamoose someone showed me. It also was an encouragement to the work I was setting myself too.

These artists used their music to show the importance of spending our time wisely in dreaming and creating. Their own video and word creativity is wonderful. I hope you enjoyed the video and are motivated to tackle those ideas and dreams that you might have put on hold. Life truly gets dull when we stop dreaming.

Jonathan Polus

1 Frost, Robert. "The Road Not Taken" 100 Best Loved Poems. Ed. Philip Smith. New York: Dover Publications, 1995. 84. Print.

Let us not be Hasty

To begin what I hope will be a truly exciting and productive journey for all of us allow me introduce myself. I am Jonathan Polus, a English Literature Major at Cal State University Northridge, and someone who has a passion to teach and mentor young adults. The ability to nourish and foster a love of learning and an interest in the books and words I love is something that truly excites me.

It is in my nature is not to do anything quickly, but think through and process all that is before me before making a decision. I am truly an Ent in the fashion of J.R.R. Tolkien's ancient tree giants that never make a decision hastily and rarely appreciate change. Likewise, change is not one of my favorite vocabulary words. As I mulled over media technology and its relationship to teaching I found myself with a few overarching reservations, one which I will share.

I sincerity fear the loss of interpersonal relationships and mentor ship within the educational system. My teachers and my parents are the reason I have pursued and dedicated myself to a life of scholarship and education. My one experience with an online class at Cal State University Northridge was not something that I wish to repeat. There were no anecdotes, no spontaneous theorizing, no striking and sharpening of personal belief and theory. I fear that if teaching is given wholly to technology we will lose the life, emotion, and enthusiasm in the subjects as quickly as we lose it in the students themselves. This rather apocalyptic reservation aside I have experienced some wonderful benefits of technology in the realm of education.

One such aid came while attempting to understand Shakespeare and the intricacy of his many plays. What benefited me the most were the BBC theatrical enactments of the plays. These, often word for word, enactments allowed me to follow along highlighting in my book noting the truly important stage and set element of the plays. This media resource was invaluable to me and my understanding of the text. I have recommended every teacher I know who teaches Shakespeare to at least incorporate clips of the performed plays along side or outside their regular lectures.

Though I am hesitant by nature, I truly am excited to learn and utilize more of these media teaching techniques. As tools, they will no doubt be invaluable in the field I am soon to enter and with the bright young adults I will have the honor of teaching.

Jonathan Polus

Welcome to 495!

Welcome to 495!