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Man made wonder

A place I visited that made a lasting impression on me was the holocaust museum in Miami. I went on this field trip in high school in 11th grade and how it gave me an impression on humanity and it’s ugly past. The giant hand with the millions of Jewish men, women, and children looking and climbing it gave me a feeling of empathy and gave me time to reflect. A race being nearly erased throughout history and appreciation in a sense of realizing that I live in the modern era and wasn’t there to witness the worlds ugly past. It’s also given me a measurement of how far people have gone from the 1930’s to modern times. I’ve learned more about it through a Literature class and to see in in live action gave me mental notes that I tend to remember watching in the film and it was a nightmare but gave me more insight to how awful it was. Seeing the faces of the people who were killed and possibly even more who were unknown left me wondering. This museum/memorial gave me a lasting impression.

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The Holocaust/Night and Fog

The holocaust Was a nightmare to think about because the millions of Jewish people that lost their lives because of things out of their control. The fact that Hitler and his regime committed essentially genocide was disgusting. Millions of Jewish people lost close family and friends and it’s gut wrenching to think about. The ones who did survive and live to tell it live in painful agony and have PTSD have to remember the restless nights, famine, emotional and physical abuse. Watching the film “Night and Fog” gave me a visual aspect of how horrific, disturbing, helpless, and depressing it was. The experiments done of human being as if they were lab rats was horrifying to look at. Freezing people to determine when the heart stops beating, burning skin amongst other things was incredibly disturbing. What ultimately had me look looking and feeling uncomfortable was the dead bodies being piled on top of one another in a mass grave with such a lack of respect as well as having other oppressed, famine looking Jewish men and women carrying the dead to their mass graves just made me feel uncomfortable and sad.

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The Red Wheelbarrow

The Red Wheelbarrow is interesting from the perspective of a Doctor but is maybe insightful. It has given me a perspective on how the doctor maybe sees life. He’s a doctor who deals with children and must tell good or bad news. The Wheelbarrow could represent a child’s toy and how he copes with a sign of confirmed disaster from the doctor. The child is innocent and represents the white chicken which represents purity.

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The Lady with the Dog

“When the Christmas holiday came, he packed his things, telling his wife he had to go to Petersburg in the interests of a certain young man, and set off for the town of S. To what end? He hardly knew himself. He only knew that he must see Anna Sergeyevna, must speak to her, arrange a meeting, if possible.” The line “He hardly knew himself” was an indication of where this guys head was at and what the whole story would deeply end up truly being about. I listened to that line and thought to myself he’s having a midlife crisis and chasing a younger woman half his age when he has a family. I viewed this and saw that this was truly a reason for all the women he’s been attracted to other than his wife for some time.

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Cultivate Our Garden

This meaning of what Cultivating our garden from Candide means to cure boredom. Pangloss talks about the state of mankind in the garden of Eden and describes how man was once in control of everything. He also mentions that Adam and Eve had control of their desitinies and couldn’t really achieve it. Instead of just living in their stress free bliss and happiness they deny that and suffer for it. However, it was interesting yet confusing because it makes me wonder whether Pangloss is right about “the best of possible worlds.” The lifestyle the characters have have shown that it’s not necessarily true. In some ways Candide line implies to not worry or think about it and ignorance is bliss.

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Candide

The story of candide had its moments of being very amusing with him getting kicked out of the castle on his butt for kissing Cunégonde and it honestly reminded me of a teenage boy being caught kissing the neighbors daughter and the father finding out. I thought for Candide and Cunégonde it was their first time discovering what sex and love could mean. It was also ridiculous how Candide father wasn’t good enough for his mother because of him not being able to trace his first generations of lineage. In chapter 2, he is kicked out of the castle and get recruited into a local army after being nearly beheaded and in chapter 3 gets into a war and is taken into a dark place, witnessing such gore and violence and wanders into another town and gets questioned for his religious belief and uses a philosophical quote from Dr. Pangloss about cause and effect and disgustingly later on in the story the ministers wife dumps human waste on candid. That was was the lowest point I could think candid was in until he met a Anabaptist named James and offers him clothes and a meal and a job. Candid getting dumped on literally at his lowest point has given him hope and faith in the world. In chapter 4, he finds his old mentor as a dying homeless man who tells Candide everything that happened once he was kicked out of the castle. Candide love for Cunégonde suddenly had no realistic chance because her family was killed and she was unfortunately raped and eventually killed. Candide was heartbroken and upset. Pangloss tells how he became sick by sleeping with a woman who had Syphilis from her past and eventually got treated for it through help of Anabaptist James and Candide. Things still take a dive for the worst because months later James, Candide and Pangloss get caught in a nasty storm and sadly Anabaptist James sacrifices his life for another and miraculously Pangloss and Candide survive with Pangloss talking about his philosophies and ends up on Lisbon. They arrive during a earthquake and appearently have ridiculous religious complications. Authorities decide to kill Pangloss and a man for marrying his godmother and two other men because they are Jewish which is very antisemite and beat Candide for being Pangloss’s disciple and suddenly he begins to lose faith again when a old woman approached him and tells him to follow her. The story has me laughing in the beginning and in the middle had a dark story and in the end I felt kind of sad for Candide and his journey far away from a home that doesn’t exist anymore.

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Half a Day

The story of “Half a Day” by Naguib Mahfouz taught me about how short and fast life can be. This story starts off as a boy on his first day of school but ends as an old man being helped across the street. The way he described his new friendships and love interests on just the first day of school seemed odd, like it’s something most people would have to take time developing. I found it somewhat funny and interesting that at first, he found school as a punishment but would then look at his home and it wasn’t “paradise” to him anymore. Reading it again told me he wasn’t just talking about his first day of school but the memories of growing up in school. The story is short the same way the authors implies life to be. This story left me “woke” in understanding that I should embrace life and live in the moment because in a blink of an eye everything changes.